Reborn Heart of Steel

Okay, the days leading up to that big audition showcase were just completely insane.

The hallways were like this buzzing beehive of hairspray fumes and glitter everywhere you looked.

Not that I paid Brittany and her vapid minions much attention as they flitted around like manic preeners, though.

I was way too focused on my own prep to get caught up in their shallow drama for once.

Now that it was confirmed Derek Thorne himself – yeah, billionaire big shot Derek Thorne – had a personal stake in our rinky-dink high school talent show, it was like every desperate theater kid with an ounce of ambition kicked their efforts into overdrive.

This wasn’t just some lame year-end recital anymore. It was a literal once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get on that dude’s radar.

Oh, and there were also whispers that the big man himself planned to bring his hoity-toity prima donna grandmother to the show.

You know, the one who used to be this world-renowned opera singer back in the day?

Apparently Granny Thorne would be scouting the whole shebang to maybe pluck the most extraordinary talent and take them under her stuffy wing for private mentoring or some shit.

Needless to say, every sycophantic little song-and-dance nerd was practically creaming themselves at the prospect of getting discovered by musical theater royalty.

It was pretty much like the ultimate wet dream for every dweeb theater kid that still hadn’t managed to pull the costume tail out of their asscrack.

Me, though? I did my damndest not to buy into all the hype and delusional fantasies swirling around.

Don’t get me wrong, just the mere idea of getting to perform for the legendary Constance Thorne herself sent intimidated little tremors racing up my spine.

But after that last nasty run-in with Brittany and her vicious cronies, I knew I needed to keep my head down and avoid any unnecessary drama.

That’s why I stuck to lurking in the empty music room after hours to go over my stuff in private.

Even with the rest of the auditorium overrun by those fame-thirsty theater tryhards polishing their choreography and line readings, the old music room always remained this weirdly tranquil little island of peace and quiet. Least for me, anyway.

Those late golden afternoon sunbeams would stream in through the high windows as I settled onto the beat-up piano bench, just soaking in the warm silence for a few moments before lining up my lyrics.

Then I’d let my original song just freely pour out of me – a raw, aching spiritual howl of all the unspoken agony and yearning my sorry ass life had endured until that point.

Singing it always felt like this weird combination of excruciating yet cleansing.

Like I was ripping these jagged barbs of brokenness and torment straight out of my soul, but leaving behind a profound catharsis and sense of… I don’t know, rebirth or some deep shit like that.

Every time, I just sort of got lost in the whole exquisite communion, completely zoning out until the last soulful notes faded away.

“Your performances remain as transfixing as ever, I see.”

Chase’s low, syrupy voice sliced through the silence in that moment like a hot blade, causing me to actually jolt a little in shock.

My breath hitched as my head whipped around to find his tall, powerful frame silhouetted in the doorway, those green eyes glittering intently in the fading amber rays.

“Shit, I – I didn’t hear you come in at all,” I stammered out, suddenly feeling weirdly flustered and self-conscious at having been caught in such an exposed emotional state.

“My humblest apologies for the disruption,” Chase murmured in that smooth, melted caramel tone that curled deliciously in my ear.

The dude prowled into the room with that languid, predatory grace of his until he was looming over me by the piano – a towering column of quiet power and scorching intensity.

“I merely wished to convey my most reverent appreciation to you before your rightful unveiling to the world.” His voice dropped to a breathless rasp that made every fine hair along my arms prickle upright in anticipation. “You’ve no conception of the singular privilege it shall be to bear witness when that transcendent light of yours is finally revealed for all to bask in, Lucy.”

My pulse immediately kicked into a gallop as he closed those last few feet between us – an intoxicating mixture of bravado and raw vulnerability surging through me in alternating swells.

I had to actually tilt my head back fully just to maintain our smoldering eye contact as Chase crowded intimately into my personal space.

“I can only hope my modest abilities somehow measure up to such elevated expectations you seem to have for me,” I found myself murmuring back, utterly transfixed by the scorching heat and undisguised reverence blazing in those pretty emerald eyes.

The corner of Chase’s full, sensuous mouth quirked up in this sly little half-smirk as he slowly reached out, trailing the calloused tips of his fingers along the column of my throat with torturous tenderness.

I couldn’t quite stifle the tremor that shivered through me at the electrifying sweep of his touch, that delicious frisson of simmering longing blooming white-hot and insistent beneath his teasing caress.

“Such endearing humility,” he practically purred, his tone dropping into this gravelly baritone that washed over me in sultry waves. “And yet your lyrical gifts speak to an indomitable spirit, as if the two aspects exist in perfect, harmonic symbiosis within you.”

The featherlight caress trailed up along the tender curve of my jaw then, rendering me completely mute and motionless beyond feeble gasps escaping my parted lips.

Chase drank in my reactions with obvious relish, those burning emerald eyes following each spasm and tremor his glacially ponderous touch set rippling across my hypersensitized skin.

“Tell me…” That low, velvety rumble seemed to reverberate through my very bones, stoking the building ache in my core into an insistent blaze. “Does this vibrant spirit of yours only blaze so bright when surrendering to the throes of your passionate lyrical professions, I wonder?”

And then – before I could so much as suck in a breath to respond – Chase abruptly dropped down to one knee before me in a fluid, startling movement.

I damn near convulsed as he bowed his head mere inches away from where my thighs parted, his silken chestnut waves brushing along the sensitive skin of my inner legs.

“Or perhaps it merely lies in dormant reserve…” he husked, those burning emerald eyes pinning me in place like a moth transfixed to glass. “Awaiting the proper reverence to thoroughly rouse it from its smoldering slumbers?”

Holy mother of christ, was this really happening right now?

The humid ghost of Chase’s exhalations danced across the delicate lace of my undergarments as he pressed his beautifully sculpted face closer and closer.

The vivid mental image of him earnestly lathing his reverence upon the lush petals of my feminine pearl made my entire body spasm with searing arousal.

I sucked in a shuddery gasp as those smoldering eyes of Chase’s tracked upwards, burning into mine with naked reverence.

Jesus, it was like the paragon of every lurid, X-rated fantasy I’d ever secretly nursed was playing out in high-def surround sound right before my stunned gaze.

Close enough for me to trace the sharp, elegant lines of his cheekbones with trembling fingers, to get utterly drunk on the crisp, masculine scent of him enveloping me in its irresistible pull.

“I must confess… it’s become a source of endless intrigue for me, this dichotomy,” Chase rasped, and I nearly whimpered at the viscous syrup of his words dripping across that scant, charged space between us. “Determining on which fevered plane your transcendent spirit yearns to burn most brilliantly aglow, Lucy Abrams.”

Oh God. Oh my God.

I probably should’ve recoiled then.

Then he gripped my neck and smashed his lips on mine again.