Liron's Melody (14 page)

“Are all of your marriages arranged?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s a tradition that goes back
longer than I know the history of. It’s a family’s choice whether or not they
wish to arrange a marriage for their children. Many muses marry for love and
love alone. In those cases, the ceremony is not nearly as enormous. And we do
not require a license to marry. In the simplest of ceremonies, all a couple
need do is stand before two witnesses and pledge their vow to one other. That
is considered legal and binding.”

He glanced over at her as she seemed to turn this over in her
mind and quietly sip her wine.

“You say there have never been any humans who have been able
to come to this realm before?” she finally asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I have never heard of any
personally, but that does not mean there never has been. I imagine if it is
possible for you, it could be possible for others…if the connection was strong
enough.”

“Like the connection I have with you,” she assumed, meeting
his gaze. “The one we share through your music.” At his nod, she pulled her
bottom lip between her teeth and chewed on it until he was sure she was going
to gnaw it off. “Do you think it’s possible for a human to stay in this realm?”

“I don’t see why not.” He frowned in thought, set his glass
down and rose from the chair. He went to kneel in front of her so he could look
up into her eyes. “Why the interest?” He quirked an eyebrow and offered a
playful smile. “All this talk of marriage ceremonies and humans remaining in
the muse realm…. You plan on staying awhile?” He reached up to tuck back an
errant strand of her golden hair. “Plan on making me your mate?”

He meant only to tease her, but she met his gaze boldly, with
determined focus and said, “And if I am?”

His heart tumbled over itself several times to the point that
it robbed him of his ability to draw in a breath. His eyes widened and he
stared at her, trying to gauge if she was serious or only playing with him.
When she didn’t crack a smile or start laughing, his breath came out in a
whoosh and he shook his head. “Melody, that option sounds promising, so you had
better mean it when you say things like that to me,” he murmured, paraphrasing
her words from earlier.

A warm, soft smile split her lips, and she reached out to
thread her fingers through his hair and trail them down the length of the
strands. “I mean every word I say to you,” she said. “Always.”

His heart started to beat double-time, and he closed his eyes
as he let her words fill up every dark, lonely space inside him with radiant
hope. What would it be like to be with someone who actually desired him? Who
set him on fire every time he looked at her and accepted his music into herself
like it belonged there and she craved it? Who looked at him with warmth and
affection in the depths of her eyes instead of cold apathy? He had long ago
stopped imagining that he would ever have such a thing. Could it be possible
that Melody—this amazing woman who felt him across the continuum, traveled to
his world at will, who made him hear symphonies unlike anything he had ever
experienced—could really want to give him the greatest gift in existence—her
love?

He sucked in a slow breath to calm his erratic and
overwhelming emotions and looked up at her again. “Melody, to be chosen by one
such as you to be your mate….” He shook his head and looked down, feeling
unworthy even as he felt flattered. “I would be humbled and honored.” He moved
to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her chair, taking her hand in both
of his and caressing the softness of her skin, needing to touch her, to feel
that she was real and not some deluded fantasy. “But you need to realize the
weight of that kind of commitment. Time passes slowly in this dimension. If you
were to choose to remain here with me, it would be for a very long time.” He
hated putting any sort of doubt in her mind when everything inside of his was
screaming to capitalize on what she was saying. But he cared for and respected
her too much to take advantage of her feelings just because he was lonely and
hopelessly lost to her. She needed to understand what she was saying before she
made a decision she could end up regretting.

To his surprise, she set her wine glass down and moved out of
the chair. She sat in his lap, straddling his waist and wrapping her long legs
around his hips in a way that almost caused him to spontaneously combust. He
sucked his breath in and placed his hands on her hips as she shifted her weight
in order to sit comfortably, resulting in her being even more intimately
pressed against him. “What, are you trying to kill me?” he teased, his voice
coming out gruffer than he’d ever heard himself sound.

Her satisfied giggle almost undid him, and as she wrapped her
arms around his neck and buried her delicate hands in his hair, he groaned and
let his forehead fall onto her shoulder helplessly. He was so starved for
affection, his body had no idea how to react to it, how to process the burning
ache she created within him.

“If I told you I was honestly, seriously considering it,
would you…I mean….” Her words trailed off, and he looked up to see that she had
averted her gaze to the ground. Her bold bravado had slipped; she seemed lost
and confused. She flushed and shook her head. “What am I saying?”

He smiled softly and cupped her cheek in his palm. “What
are
you saying?”

She fixed him with a sidelong glance and snorted. “I’m not
sure, but it sounded an awful lot like I was going to propose to you, didn’t
it?” Her face turned a deeper shade of crimson and he chuckled.

He pushed her hair back, exposing her neck, and he tilted her
chin sideways so he could access it with his lips. He trailed soft kisses down
her jaw and along the column of her throat, drawing a soft sigh from her. He felt
the hammering of her pulse and was delighted that he could affect her the same
way she seemed to affect him. He swirled his tongue along that pulse and smiled
at her sharp intake of breath.

“Whatever you decide, I will support you,” he whispered
between kisses. “If you wish to choose me, and remain in this world, you will
make me the happiest man in any dimension. But if you decide that you need to
return to your world, I will find a way to follow you there…and I’ll be your
dutiful stalker.” Her laughter was more musical to him than any instrument he
had ever heard. Her arms tightened around his neck, pulling him closer, and he
buried his face against her shoulder.

“Would you really do that, Liron?” she asked after a few
moments, pulling back so that she could look into his eyes. “Follow me to my
world?”

He searched her beautiful blue depths and lost himself there.
“You have brought me life again,” he murmured. “You have brought me laughter
and light. You have brought me music again. I would follow you anywhere.”

So many emotions reflected in her eyes that he couldn’t put a
label on all of them. She nestled in his arms, snuggled against him with so
much warmth and so much trust. His heart ached at the affection she showed him,
the acceptance and the
want
of him. For so long he had wondered what it
would feel like to be wanted. He had never imagined it would be so all-consuming,
so life-altering. He had never imagined that something as simple as feeling
wanted would end up being not simple at all, or that he would be ready to drop
his whole world, everything he had ever known, just to be near one woman.

But he would.

Because there was no way he could go without the song she
brought to life within him. Not now that he had heard it

A loud knocking and the incessant ringing of a bell ripped
him out of his precious moment with Melody. She lifted her head with a frown
and looked at him. “You expecting someone?” she queried.

He shook his head and his heart fell as he glanced past her
shoulder to the far side of his room. “That’s not for me, my lovely.” He
pointed over to where her home had manifested itself across his floor and
walls.

She glanced over her shoulder and her surprise was more than
apparent. She pushed herself off of his lap and into a standing position, then
went over toward the portal into her world.

“Melody? Melody, are you in there?” A distinct, feminine
voice could be heard while the bell continued to ring.

Liron arched an eyebrow. “Friend of yours?”

She looked back at him with shock etched into her features.
She pointed to the daylight streaming through her window. “How long have I been
here?”

“Melody!” The woman hollered again, as if she’d heard the
conversation. “Where are you? I haven’t heard from you in four days!”

Melody started. “Four days?” she practically screeched. “Oh
my gosh, I’m gonna get fired!” She spun and held her hands out to him, which he
immediately took. Regret washed over her features. “Liron, I have to go back
for a little bit, just to make sure everyone knows I’m okay. No one knew I was
going anywhere. They’re going to be worried. And I probably lost my job.”

He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them tenderly.
“Of course.”

She stepped closer to him and caressed the length of his
hair. “I’ll come back as soon as I can, okay?”

He smiled, even though his heart ached at the thought of her
leaving for any amount of time. “I’ll be here.”

She smiled at him and her eyes filled with warmth. “Promise?”

He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her slowly, cherishing
the petal-softness of her perfect mouth. He nuzzled his nose against hers when
he pulled away. “Always.”

“Melody!”
Ringringringringring!
Her friend was
extremely persistent.

She stepped out of his embrace and started toward the doorway
to her world. She stopped when she reached the threshold and looked back at
him. She smiled and blew him a kiss that pierced his heart. Then, she was gone.

He tried to ignore the horrible fear that, this time, she
would not be able to return to him. She had the music score, which was the key
to her ability to travel. And besides, even if she was unable to reach him,
somehow, he would find a way to get to the human world. He would not be parted
from her now that he had found her. She was his life song. And as long as she
wished it, he would move heaven and earth to be by her side.

* * * *

Melody wasted no time in heading toward the door once she was
back in her world. By the sound of it, Nikki was about to have a nervous
breakdown. And she couldn’t really blame her, in all reality. The fact that she
had actually been gone for four days was hard for her to wrap her mind around. By
her calculations, she had only been with Liron for maybe three quarters of a
day. The fact that time went so much faster in her world was something she
couldn’t quite get used to.

She opened the door, revealing Nikki looking first frantic,
then aggravated. “Melody!” she all but screamed. “Where have you been? I’ve
been worried sick!” She yanked the screen door open and barreled in without
waiting for an invitation. “I called your cell phone about a hundred times.
Where were you that you couldn’t call me—?” She stopped short as she noticed
Melody’s attire and her eyebrow rose in perplexed curiosity. “What in the world
are you wearing?”

“Uh….” She searched for words. “It’s my new hobby. Belly
dancing.”

“Belly dancing.” Nikki sounded about as convinced as a parent
who had just caught their child doing something questionable. She folded her
arms. “And this took up so much of your time that you couldn’t bother to call
back your best friend who thought you were dead somewhere?” She was back to
screaming again. “I went by your work and they said they hadn’t heard from you
either! It’s not like you to no call, no show, Mel. What is going on?”

“I went out of town.” It wasn’t really a lie. She
had
gone out of town.

Nikki blinked in bewilderment. “You went out of town? On a
whim? Where did you go?”

“To the coast,” she replied quickly, then tried to hide the
flush that crept into her cheeks at her memory of kissing Liron at the cliffs.

Nikki stared at her for several long moments, as if trying to
assess whether or not Melody had finally lost her mind. Then, she cocked her
head to the side and her eyes narrowed like she was picking up on something she
was trying to figure out. Slowly, her eyes widened and she sucked in a breath.
“Oh my gosh, you met someone.” It was a statement of fact, not a question, and
Melody’s face betrayed her by blushing worse. “You
did!
” Nikki
screeched. “You have to tell me!” She snatched Melody’s wrist and hauled her
down to sit next to her on the couch. “First, tell me why you decided to go to
the coast anyway.”

“Uh….” She didn’t want to lie to her friend, but how was she
supposed to explain that she had somehow defied the laws of physics and
traveled to another dimension? Or that the man she had met was not really a man
by human standards, but a who-knew-how-old muse whose touch made her hear and
feel music? Or that she was seriously contemplating the idea of staying in that
dimension permanently and making said muse her mate when she really hadn’t
known him for longer than a couple days? She could barely comprehend all of
that on her own. How did she expect Nikki to?

So she decided to tell the closest thing to the truth that
she could without sounding like a lunatic. “Actually, I did some research on
that music score and managed to find out where a…relative of the composer
lived. I decided to track him down on a whim.”
Close enough.

Nikki raised an eyebrow. “Like a friggin’ stalker? Dang, Mel.
Did you hide in his bushes too?”

Melody laughed and swatted her friend on the arm. “No…I
dunno. I needed to get away for awhile, you know? So I just decided to go.”

“And you found this dude?”

Melody’s cheeks turned hot again, and she wanted to smack
herself. What was she? Thirteen? “Yeah, I found him.” Her voice sounded so
breathy it was ridiculous.