Midnight Heat (Black Phoenix Book 2) (17 page)

The instruments called to her. Black, blue, electric, acoustic. There were so many of them. Some old and battle scarred, others more beautiful than she could have imagined. Her eyes didn’t know where to land, there was so much to see.

She peeked into the open door and was startled to learn they had more than just a few weights and benches lying about, they literally had a gym. Not the type that school kids bounced basketballs in, the type most people paid an exorbitant amount of money to join. “No wonder you’re so fit.”

“Performing night after night for an hour and half a pop is more tasking than it looks.” He closed the door and moved to one on the other side of the lounge.

Rebecca stuck her head in. “It’s a closet?” With another door just across from it.

“Not exactly.” She followed him into the space, really just a tiny closet void of anything other than paint. “Soundproof rooms technically don’t exist,” he explained. “All rooms, walls, ceilings, floors, let sound through; it just depends on the volume and frequency of the sound.”

“So, the little closet?”

“Is actually an air-lock. It’s all about airtight construction. Putting it simply, where air goes, sound goes.” He opened the next door and they stepped into the studio.

Walls somewhere between gray and purple gave way to a soaring wood ceiling. A ceiling that wasn’t flat, as you would expect, but a congregation of angles and shapes creating a pattern that reminded her of looking through a kaleidoscope. It was beautiful. Truly a work of art.

A second drum set sat on her left, with even more guitars in stands. On her right was a wall with, surprise, more doors and a large window. A microphone and music stand centered before the window.

“The first door is the isolation booth—”

“Which is used for what, exactly?”

“Mostly vocals. It’s pretty much a smaller version of the one you’re standing in. The room with the window is the control room.”

Curious, Rebecca peeked in the window. “What is all of that?”

Dominic shrugged. “A bunch of things, really. Mixing consoles, monitors, a multitrack recorder, digital audio workstation—”

Only getting about half of that, she held up her hand to stop the flow of words. “I only understand bits and pieces of that,” she admitted, looking around. “Let me guess, the door at the end is another air-lock?”

“That’s a closet actually.” She gave him an
are you kidding me
look and he chuckled. “Honest. The one next to it is the air lock.”

“So, if no room is actually sound proof and it’s all about the flow of air, then wouldn’t this ceiling be like a giant megaphone tunneling the sound to the floor above?”

When he didn’t reply, she turned her attention away from the gorgeous ceiling and settled it on the gorgeous man smiling at her. “What? You’re looking at me like I said something utterly ridiculous.”

“No, I’m looking at you like you said something utterly charming.”

“Whatever,” she said, her cheeks warming.

“I’m serious. Are you actually interested in this or are you humoring me?”

“It’s really very interesting.”

He looked at her a moment before responding. “The ceiling is all about acoustics.”

“Balancing absorption and reflection to provide a favorable acoustical environment, got it.”

Dominic blinked.

“What?”

He shook his head. “The flow of air is controlled via—”

“Air-locks.”

“Yes. Also with sound isolating walls, ceilings and floors which affect the amount of sound able to travel through.”

“Floors? How do you get sound isolating floors?”

“The one you’re standing on is a floating floor with sand between the concrete pad and the flooring.”

“No kidding?” She hadn’t lied; it was all really very interesting. Oh, it made sense if she thought about it, but up until today she hadn’t. She understood sound waves and the human ear. But directing or interrupting the flow of those waves, especially when related to his career was very, “Fascinating.”

Rebecca walked back through the air-lock and into the lounge, where she tipped her head up and checked out the ceiling. It didn’t look anything like the artfully crafted wood ceiling of the studio. Not that the room didn’t have its own appeal. The photos and artwork, album covers and tour memorabilia that covered the walls were just as intriguing.

A framed and matted magazine article drew her attention and she crossed the room, discovering it was a biography of sorts—an outline of the band from their formative years through the tragic death of their drummer, Danny Treybourne, ten years ago and their subsequent break up.

Rebecca turned her head and met Dominic’s gaze. She pointed at the article. “Is this for real? The part about you having never played a note before joining the band?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Yeah.”

“That’s incredible. How old were you? The first time you ever picked up a bass?”

“I don’t remember.”

“How do you not remember the first time you picked up a bass?” She certainly remembered the first time she saved a life. You didn’t forget moments like that.

“I remember the first time I picked up a bass, Becca. Just not my exact age.”

She stared at him, silently. Waiting for him to crack, to explain a statement she knew couldn’t possibly be true. The first time he’d ever picked up a bass would have been life-changing. That wasn’t something you forgot.

When he said nothing, she waited some more, finally breaking and calling him on his bluff. “Bullshit.”

Chapter Fifteen

The last thing Dominic wanted to do was have this conversation with Rebecca. He never had this conversation. Not with interviewers, the other members of the band. Not with anyone. Talking about that time in his life would be equivalent to exposing a festering wound that never healed, then handing the person a knife to add another.

No. No way. Not going to happen.

He looked at her and had no idea what to say. No bleedin’ clue how to get her off this topic and onto one that didn’t require revisiting a place he tried very hard never to go. She didn’t want to hear about his childhood. That he’d been raised by his grandmother, a sweet woman who on more than one occasion had gone without in order to provide for him. That he went commando, something she’d once confessed to finding sexy, not based on comfort, but because food had been of greater importance than underpants.

Dom didn’t care to see the look of pity she would surely have if he admitted he’d been a loner, not by choice, but circumstance. Kids didn’t want to be friends with the poor kid, the one whose clothes were always a bit too big, a bit too small, or a bit too ratty. It was far more fun to make that kid the butt of jokes and ridicule.

“Dom,” she said with terrifying gentleness.

Well shit, there it was. Compassion. She knew there was something behind his silence and had already softened to it. “Like I said, I don’t remember.”

The soft look vanished beneath a mask of frustration.

He let out a long, slow breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

She shifted away from the article, then wandered over to the wall of sales certificates, more commonly referred to as gold records. Hung in chronological order from their first album,
Awakenin
g, through
Ascension
and ending at
Immortal
. Three albums, three levels of success. The sales numbers and awards themselves didn’t seem to hold her attention, which shifted to the album art and corresponding official group photo. At each photo she would stop, lean closer, then run her finger over his image.

And each time, he felt it like a physical touch.

Every.

Single.

Time.

She turned to the wall opposite and once again he found himself letting out a long breath. This wall was safer territory. Much safer.

“Those are Isabeau’s.” Her awards, platinum and double platinum discs, for each of her four albums.

“She told me she used to play, but I never made the connection.” She tapped one of the awards. “I have this one.”

He did his best to keep his voice neutral so she wouldn’t pick up on his inner turmoil. “Most everything she owned was lost in a fire. Those were at her father’s place along with her piano. She tried to lock them away in a closet when she moved here, but Noah wouldn’t have any of it.”

“Why would she want to lock these away?”

The same reason he didn’t like talking about his past. “Bad memories, I suppose.”

“Hmmm.” She kept moving, circling the room, finally stopping in front of the collection of guitars. “Which is yours?”

There were a few of his there, but the one he preferred was, “On your left.”

“This one? It’s beautiful.” She settled her hand on the headstock, trailed it over the tuning pegs and down the strings. She dipped the tips of her fingers into the cutaway not once, but twice before circling the neck and sliding back up.

Dominic shuddered, his mind conjuring images of her stroking something other than his bass.

“I thought basses only had four strings?”

He had to clear his throat to speak. “Traditionally yes, but you can get them with five, six, or more. It all depends on the range required, mode of playing, or just personal preference. That one is my favorite.”

“Because of the number of strings or the instrument itself?”

“Both. The small string spacing makes it a bit difficult to slap, but the neck is incredibly fast, and the tones I can crank out of it are bloody spectacular.”

She locked her gaze with his and gave him the ghost of a smile. Then slid her hand back down the neck, easing the tip of her finger between the strings and teasing the fretboard.

Christ. She was driving him crazy
. He’d much rather experience her touch on his skin, the tips of her fingers slipping along the length of his erection.

There was only a few feet separating them and Dominic closed it. He covered her hand with his.

She rolled her eyes. “Are you one of
those
guys?”

“What guys?”

“The ones who get all over protective about their possessions. Especially their cars.”

“It’s not my car you’re stroking, Rebecca.” No, it was
him
. Literally and figuratively.

The instrument beneath their hands is what made him who he was. Saved him from poverty, a miserable childhood, and a lonely existence. Maybe not that exact instrument, but one like it. It woke him up to the skill he could have never imagined he had—a natural ability to create music and make people happy. It took him away. Made him forget.

It was an extension of himself. A part of him that no one,
no one
, was allowed to touch. Yet here she was. She’d picked up his guitar much like she’d picked him up. Without hesitation.

Dom stared at her, his heart pounding hard and fast in his chest as he was struck with the realization that she’d touched more than his bass. She’d touched a place deep inside him, filling a void he’d spent years pretending didn’t exist.

She met his gaze and he became lost in her eyes. She was so damn beautiful. He scooped up a chunk of her hair were it lay like fire across her shoulder, then handed her the proverbial knife.

“I was thirteen.”

She didn’t ask what he was referring to. She didn’t have to. “The first time you picked up a bass.”

“Danny and Noah were fifteen.” Liking the feel of her hair between his fingers, he scooped up more. “I think they felt sorry for me. I was a scrawny, sickly kid with the worst case of hero worship ever. Desperate for just a taste of what they had, I followed them everywhere.”

She was trembling as she whispered, “What did they have that was so special?”

He opened his hand and watched the strands sift through his fingers. “Each other.” Becca looked up at him, a war of emotions on her face. When she didn’t ask any more questions about his childhood, he breathed a sigh of relief.

She took his hand in hers and lifted it to her mouth, pressing a kiss against callouses on the ends of his fingers, the pad of his thumb. Then she lowered it from her lips and repeated the action with her fingertips. “Did you know that you play in your sleep?”

“Play what?”

She laughed and it went a long way to clear the cobweb of memories from his mind. “The bass.”

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t know?” She turned so that her back was to his front, spooning while standing. “Every night you tap out a beat on my hip.” She slipped her fingers between his and pressed against her stomach. Tipping her head back to look up at him, she used her own to thump his thumb in a stilted rhythm.

He took over for her, adjusting the beat to match the song they’d been working on all week.

“Mmmm, just like that,” she hummed.

“Every night?” He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling the incredible scent of her. It was surprisingly arousing holding her so intimately among the collections of his life.

“I have to assume so as you’ve never
not
done it when I’ve been with you.”

“Interesting.” But not nearly as interesting as the shift in her breathing.

“Dominic, when we were together before?”

Still tapping along to the tune in his head, he slid their joined hands down her stomach. He knew it was the right thing to do when her breathing hitched. “Yeah?”

“Who did you play with?”

“Besides you? No one.”

She chuckled, then sucked in a breath as his hand slid even lower, the tips of his fingers dipping into the top of her jeans.

“I mean musically. Black Phoenix was…”

“Black Phoenix was what?” he whispered against her temple.

She gripped his wrist. “I’m trying to have a conversation and you’re seducing me.”

“So, it’s working?” he asked, rocking his hips against her. Hers responded in kind before she stepped out of his arms with a groan. “I can’t help it,” he said, running his gaze the length of her. All the way to her toes and back up, stopping to admire the way her shirt hugged her pebbled nipples. “I can’t control myself around you. You’re the one who pressed yourself against me.”