Drake Sisters 07 - Hidden Currents

phenomenon and looked at his masterpiece—the one thing that made sense to him when the world was al wrong. The baby grand piano was beautiful. The lines, the shiny black, the ivory keys—he’d spent a fortune on it and it had been worth every penny. Perfectly in tune, without a single blemish, it was as beautiful to him as the music it created.
    He sat on the bench and placed his fingers over the keys and everything in him that had been chaotic and wrong settled. He closed his eyes and let his fingers drift over the keys, listening to the pure notes that poured from the instrument, a perfect pitch, a melody from another place, somewhere without sadistic maniacs, without rape and torture, somewhere his mind could go and see the beauty of the world around him.
    The music al owed him to see the ocean, the waves crashing, ebbing and flowing like the earth’s lifeblood. He could feel the pulse of the earth, the hil s and mountains rising majestical y in the minor and major chords as the music flowed from him into the keys and out again into the room, fil ing it with the sound of peace, giving him a sense of peace.
    And El e, beautiful, fiery El e. He was more broken over El e than what had happened to him. He could escape his own past, he could let hatred and rage for his captors fade and die in him, but not Gratsos. He couldn’t live with the threat of Gratsos hanging over El e’s head. The way the man terrorized her, the way the man had treated her. He could live with a lot of things, but not that. He knew he would hunt Gratsos and he would kil him and he would have to come back home and face her. He couldn’t live without removing the man from the earth permanently and he wasn’t certain she could live with him once he’d done it. His heart stumbled and so did his fingers.
    He let the music carry him away from his thoughts and back to what was his world. Back to sanity and peace. El e. His fingers flew over the keys, pouring passion and fire into his concerto, seeing her in his mind with her long red hair spil ing around him like a silken, fiery waterfal . Her skin, so soft, pale in the darkness, rose petals in the candlelight, his hands moving over her body, taking her into his, shaping and memorizing every sweet curve.
    He closed his eyes and made love to her with his music, joined them in his mind without even knowing he did so. Each separate note was a stroke, a caress, a gift to her. The song was his message of love, one he could never adequately say, but this instrument could and did, the melody rising with his own passion.
    El e watched Jackson play, his head bent over the keyboard, eyes closed, body swaying as the music moved through him, out his hands and into the instrument. She stood in the doorway looking at his face. He was completely absorbed in the music, his fingers moving over the keys, his thoughts far away. He was in the shadows, with just the smal glow of candles al owing her to see his expression. She knew he had the heart of a warrior, fierce and loyal and deadly in a fight, yet looking at him now, she knew he had the soul of a poet.
    She looked around the room. It was obviously built for the acoustics and the sound was incredible. There was a gas fireplace built into the wal and the hardwood floors gleamed. Near the fireplace was a thick carpet with two deep armchairs and a smal table between them. Little else, other than candles, decorated the room. The candles gave off a soft light, but otherwise the room was veiled in shadows, just as Jackson often was.
    Jackson stole her breath with his song, with the images in his mind. The notes played over her body, teasing her senses into a leaping fire until she couldn’t take a breath without breathing him in. She ached inside with need for him, with the need to please him, to take him from that dark place inside him, to sheer bliss, to the ecstasy of his music.
    She entered the room, padding across the floor to the fireplace to light it. Flames glowed a mixture of gold and red, low, just skimming over the logs almost in time to the music flowing around her. She felt different with the music, the pulse beating through her, stealing her fears away. The lower notes resonated deep in her most feminine core, throbbing there so that the sensation traveled through her body like a molten stream of notes, teasing over her skin and tweaking her nipples into hard peaks.
    She took her time, going back