Free Finding Her Rhythm (Backstage Pass Series) by Dani Wade

stairs. “I didn’t do it to be nice. I didn’t do it because I had to or I owed her anything. I did it because I didn’t want my children to know their mother was a whore.”
    This time he met her fully, crowding in until the space between them became nonexistent . Close enough for her to smell the musky scent of him. “I did it so the world wouldn’t know what she put us through.” Close enough for his heat to sink under her skin. “So I do know, Taylor. I know what it’s like to have secrets. My own secrets have kept me from writing since Claudie died. Just give me a chance.”
    She wanted to believe. So much. “I’m afraid.”
    “ Why?”
    “ Because I was stupid,” she sobbed. “I trusted the wrong person, and ended up hurting what’s left of my family.” Granny. Stephen.
    “ What about you?”
    “ That doesn’t matter.”
    “ Doesn’t it?” He advanced as she retreated until her back met the wall. Only then did he touch her, his palm resting heavy against the crook of her neck. His thumb pressing lightly against her quickening pulse. “Doesn’t your hurt matter just as much, Taylor?”
    She shouldn’t speak, should keep the words inside. Still she felt her mouth move as if his touch compelled her. “If you wanted to know where I was going, Michael, all you had to do was ask.” She could have told him a lot. Just not…everything.
    He leaned fa rther into her, imprinting his body onto hers. His heat was a living thing as he pressed close against her. Through his T-shirt and lounge pants it reached out to her, along with the magnificent erection now pressing against her stomach. “I want to know where you’re going, what you’re doing, who you’re talking to. I want to know a lot more than you are willing to give.”
    He was right. She wasn’t ready to tell him everything. It was too humiliating. Too raw. She wanted to forget it all and revel in the nerves Michael set alight in the pit of her stomach.
    “ Who was he, Taylor? This man who made you afraid?”
    “ I didn’t say it was a man.”
    “ You didn’t have to. I can see it every time you stiffen up, even when your eyes show how much you want me. I can hear it every time your mouth says no, even though your eyes tell me yes.”
    Oh God. When would the hell stop so she could experience a little taste of heaven?
    The tension pulled between them like t he string of a bow, so taut it could break at any minute. What if one of them got hurt? Michael. McKayla. Matthew.
    He leaned down, descending inch by slow inch. An approach she wanted to welcome but didn’t know how. At the last minute she jerked back, letting her raw emotions lead her rather than her desires.
    She didn’t dare tilt her face up lest she melt into him without thought to the consequences. Still she found herself whispering, “Some nights, I just wish I could forget it all.”
    “ Is that what you really need?” he asked.
    “ I need…” She swallowed, squeezing her eyes closed. She wasn’t really sure what she needed. “I don’t know.”
    That dark side of him, tempting her to surrender to his control, to his demands, called like a siren song luring her back to the depths of pain she’d barely escaped from the last time.
    She couldn’t trust that song again.
    As if he could read her mind through the tension invading her body, he spoke against her ear. “I’ll never force you to do anything you don’t want to, Taylor.”
    Then his heat was gone. He walked past her to the hallway but looked back over his shoulder. “Know that the choice is yours.”
    Then he disappeared from view , leaving her with the cold reality of her solitary existence.
     
    * * *
     
    “So, is this the test? Or just an attempt to send Taylor screaming in terror?”
    Michael turned a baleful look on his brother, who innocently picked up a stalk of celery and dipped it in cheese dip before lifting it to his smiling lips.
    Reprimanding Daniel would get him nowhere.
    Nor would it shut