Lucy Ellis - An Australian Surrender - Girl on a Diamond Pedestal / Untouched by His Diamonds / A Question Of Marriage

And once she was there, sitting behind the piano, she commanded every eye in the room to watch her.

She put her hands on the piano and he swore he felt her fingertips on his body. Long, elegant fingers caressing the keys, easy to imagine them on his skin. She started playing a piece he recognized, one he’d heard in department stores many times. Something from one of her old albums, he assumed. But actually hearing it in person, watching her perform it, was a totally new experience.

It was so fluid. Smooth. Pure perfection.

And he felt as if it was only for him. Not for anyone else in the room. His chest tightened, breathing became a little harder as arousal assaulted him, flooded him.

Each note was a caress, the flow and rhythm of the song like making love, hard and fast then slow and sweet. Everything he wanted to do with her, everything he dreamed of, put out in the open, forcing him to confront it.

She lifted her head and looked into the crowd, looked at him. Her eyes locked with his as she continued to play, her entire body moving with the effort she put into playing, every part of her involved in her performance.

She would move like that in bed. Perfection. With passion, with all of herself.

He tightened his jaw, and the strain on his muscles was a welcome distraction from the desire that was pounding through him. The last thing he needed was for some photog to snap a picture of him sporting a hard-on over his fiancée’s performance.

Of course, it would lend authenticity to the whole thing.

He frowned. He didn’t like thinking of it that way. Didn’t want to bring the agreement into this, because this was real. His desire for her felt more real than anything in his recent memory. His past affairs had all gone hazy thanks to the passage of time, but he truly didn’t think he’d ever been so aroused by a woman who was more than a hundred feet away.

He wasn’t the only one enthralled by her. Everyone was mesmerized, savoring every note, existing for the next. Captive audience didn’t even begin to describe it.

She had brought everyone in to her for a moment, let them all feel what was inside her. And, as the last note faded in the ballroom, the emotion lingered. At least it lingered in him. Everyone around him was applauding and he found that he couldn’t. He wanted more. To hear more. To feel more.

But he couldn’t have more. He wouldn’t. Only this small indulgence. This window into her, into himself.

“She’s amazing.” This came from Jacques. The Frenchman was watching Noelle, his dark eyes shining, his mouth curved into a smile. Ethan wanted to hit him.

Unexpected and a little bit cavemanish. And yet, he was unrepentant.

“And she’s mine,” Ethan said, walking away from Sylvie and Jacques, weaving through the crowd and up to the stage, just in time to take Noelle’s hand as she descended the steps.

“Was it okay?” she asked.

“Amazing.” He bent his head and kissed her. Just part of the show. A necessary act that had no place lighting his body on fire.

When they parted, he was still having trouble breathing, his body tight with need.

“Amazing,” she whispered.

“Let’s hope this party ends soon,” he said, his voice rough. Because he needed distance. He needed to send her back to her suite and he needed to get home to a very cold shower.

Walking away was the only option. But for the first time, he wondered if he had the strength to do it.

The kiss at the party had changed something. Or maybe it wasn’t the kiss, maybe it was the performance. Or maybe it was both. Either way, the moment Ethan’s lips had touched hers Noelle had made a decision.

She was going to have Ethan Grey. For a night, a few weeks, whatever, she was going to have what she wanted. With him.

Tonight she’d played. For her. And for everyone else. Without permission. And it had been amazing. The best feeling she could remember ever having on stage. It made her want more. Not just from Ethan, but from life. Why look ahead to the day she would get the house, shutting out everything else on the way? There was too much living to do between now and then.

She’d spent her whole life with tunnel vision. Play the piano. Be famous. Be brilliant. Everything else shut down and ignored.

But since meeting Ethan she’d discovered other things. Data entry and desire and a day at the beach. And she wanted more of that. Tonight, she was determined to have it.

Ethan stopped at the door of the hotel room. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait.” Good or bad, it was out of her mouth now. All she could do was commit and go forward. Or change the subject. Tell him he had lint on his coat? No. This wasn’t the time to lose her nerve, or to worry about what he might think. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t be scared forever. And she wouldn’t be scared now.

His eyes were nearly black in the shadow of the hall. “That might not be the best idea.”

“I want to … play for you. The song I started in Australia. I want you to hear it.”

He hesitated, his hands curled into fists, a muscle in his jaw shifting.

“Ethan …”

He took one step into the room. The tense lines in his body, the pronounced tendons in the backs of his hands, were proof of just how tightly he was hanging on to his control and told her that he knew what she was really asking.

And that by coming in, he hadn’t committed to saying yes.

The risk of rejection was high. A little bit scary. But a lot worth it. Because Ethan did want her. And it was their connection, one that had nothing to do with the two of them but everything to do with their parents, that held him back. Maybe it should hold her back too. But she had never felt like her mother’s actions, away from the cloistered life of music, had included her in any way.

She felt separate from their parents’ history, separate in a way Ethan couldn’t because of how it had affected his family. But maybe if he saw her, if he knew that she was nothing like her mother. Maybe then he would want to want her.

Ethan walked to the couch, his eyes trained on her as he worked the knot on his black silk tie. Her senses felt heightened. She could hear the slide of fabric over fabric as he tugged at it, could feel her heartbeat through her entire body. She could taste something in the air between them. Foreign and exciting. Tantalizing.

Maybe he had committed to her unspoken question. If it was even a question. It felt more like a command.

She moved to the piano, trying to imagine that there was a crowd, trying hard to hold on to her nerve. That crowd back at the party had been much easier to deal with. Even then she had felt Ethan watching her, had been compelled to turn and look at him. But it was easier to do with so many other people there. An audience of one was always much harder to perform for.

Because the more people there were, the more they blurred into an indistinguishable mass. When there were fewer of them, it suddenly became personal.

But rather than shutting Ethan out, she thought of just how he made her feel. She took a deep breath, put her hands on the keys and started playing. Slowly at first. She thought about ice cream and the beach. Ethan’s hands on her body. His lips on hers. She didn’t think about the future or about anything other than the immediate feelings Ethan gave her.

Lust, excitement. Happiness.

She shut everything out, everything except Ethan, and she played. Played for herself, to imprint the memories of what they’d shared inside her, to put it out there, the way some people would write in a diary. She wrote it into the song.

One she would be able to play whenever she wanted. Whenever she missed Ethan after all of this was done. Something to bring back the memories, clear and sharp, of what it had been like to be with him.