Moments melted from seconds to minutes until it felt as if it all bled together in one never-ending cycle of time.

I'd kissed women before.

Some were insignificant while I was half-drunk in a club out of my mind.

Others were staged and only for show thanks to my manager.

Only one other moment ever really meant something, but it hadn't worked out for us. Timing and all that. I was only sixteen back then, and hadn't catapulted into fame yet.

We were young, but I knew the feeling in my chest.

And I'd tried to chase it down ever since.

It was like these collections of moments came to a spinning halt and none of them mattered anymore as Ivy pulled away from me in half shock and embarrassment as we both realized that we'd been caught making out on my best friend's couch.

It wasn't like I'd planned to run my fingers all over her skin, to tug her onto my lap and decorate her skin with my lips like I'd wanted to do for so long.

But the flush on her pale skin and the desire that had blown her pupils so wide I could barely see the green in them were tell-tale signs she wasn't planning on this either...or planning on enjoying herself as much as she had.

"Um—I'm just gonna..."

"Yeah..."

Ivy pulled her thick cardigan back up around her shoulders while her cheeks remained the color of a ripe tomato.

I couldn't help but smile as she ran out of the room like there was fire nipping at her heels.

***

"I don't really like that line, though. It doesn't match with the tone of the rest of the song. Everything else is soft and sweet up until this point."

"Exactly. This is the shift in the song. Love isn't always all soft and sweet, and this is the passionate aspect of the story. I don't think you can have love without passion, or passion without love."

Ivy's cheeks blossomed with the most beautiful shade of pink as she explained her vision for the song we were currently working on, but she was dealing more with the lyrics while I played around with a few chords on my guitar.

There was a pair of tortoise-shell wide rimmed glasses perched on the tip of her button nose and I couldn't help but picture her as a librarian or teacher as she wore them.

The lyrics were detailing a new love affair and I couldn't help but think back to the moment we'd just shared together in Corbin's sitting room only two hours earlier.

Hey eyes kept darting over to mine, and I had to clench my fists in order to make the decision to sit far away from her in the studio.

"Can I butt in? I think you should start the song off with more passionate lyrics, that way it doesn't come out of nowhere."

"Yeah but sometimes that doesn't happen that way in real life, though. Sometimes, it just comes out of nowhere and hits you in the face."

Ivy didn't look at me as I spoke, but she did pull her bottom lip into her mouth as she chewed on it thoughtfully.

I still tasted her on my tongue.

And I would do it again before the day was through if I got what I wanted.

"Alright, alright. I'm just the producer. I'll leave the songwriting up to the two of you."

After Corbin had found the two of us in a precarious position earlier, he hadn't said a word, but the little hints he'd continuously dropped had been sufficient enough to make Ivy more than a little uncomfortable, but she hadn't said anything and neither had I.

Once Stella and Jackie had left only minutes after we'd returned to the studio room, it was like nothing had been disturbed. Like Stella had never even been there.

Like Ivy had never wavered in her decision to put out the single.

"Okay, you guys take a break and listen to the final cut that's going out at midnight."

Ivy turned her attention to Corbin with fidgeting fingers and wide saucer eyes.

The music that began blasting through the speakers of the room filled up my ears with magic and I didn't have to glance at Ivy to know she felt the exact same way.

I soaked up her lilting voice that harmonized with mine, the notes crisp and clear and everything I'd ever wanted in a single.

If it did as well in the charts as it had on social media, it was headed to the top.

The song's success on mainstream social sites was part of the reason the release was being so rushed, to make money off the originally produced sound instead of the bootlegged copies taken from my concert.

When the song ended and Ivy turned to me with a blooming smile on her face, I knew it was the start of something that felt right in my gut.

I didn't know whether it was a partnership with her or something bigger, but with her on my tracks and writing lyrics with me, I knew there was no way I could fail.

I needed her more than she needed me, but that had always been the case.

I had needed her lyrics, her originality, her unique take on metaphors and rhyme schemes that twisted the imagination until a story could be told through the lens of bittersweet memories and cathartic devotion.

She was the solution and somehow my muse, even though I had hardly written a single word by myself. It was just easier when she was there in front of me.

Easier to smile, easier to laugh, easier to breathe.

In the short time I'd known her, she'd made my life so easy, yet so complicated at the same time.

I'd have once thought that allowing myself to feel these things for her was a mistake, and that getting too close for her was a bad idea.

Now, the only mistake would be if I ever let her slip away.

Her smile grew, all bright white teeth and palpable joy, her still puffed-up lips stretching wide as my own caught between my cheeks.

It wasn't long before we called it a night, but I caught Ivy's elbow as I saw her pull up a ride-share app.

"Do you have class tomorrow? I was thinking we could have our own drop party back at my place."

A glimmer of mischief flickered in her jade green eyes.

"Well, I don't have class anymore."

***

Kade Hendrix was contributing to my school-skipping delinquencies.

It wasn't my fault my roommate hated me at the moment, my best friend who'd been my main protector on campus probably would let me be fed to the wolves if it kept his girlfriend happy, and my arch nemesis was probably going to murder me when he learned of the investigation I hoped would still happen against him through the school.

Okay, maybe some of it was my fault, but you can't help what you feel...or, in this case, don't feel anymore but used to.

But as the conversation with Con replayed over and over in my head, I realized that it didn't matter one bit.

She wouldn't ever believe me.

I would forever be the betrayer who was in love with her boyfriend, and I wasn't sure there was anything more that I could do to change that.

"So, have you heard anything more from CSS since...everything?"

Kade jarred me back to reality as he spoke, and soon his car beeped as he unlocked it from afar.

It was a new model of a modest brand, not something you'd expect to see someone like Kade driving, but it kept up the disguise, I guessed, considering he was dressed so casually and inconspicuously.

"No, actually. They haven't called or emailed, which I thought was kind of weird, but they're probably mad at the contract I signed with you since it cut them out of the deal completely. I think they were expecting some kind of cut of profits with every song one of their signed artists got onto the radio. Now, they have no leg to stand on since I technically went behind them, but my dad's lawyers looked through all my paperwork, so I didn't actually break any rules in their contract, either. Just...a loophole. I don't think they're happy with me."

"I wouldn't imagine they'd be happy either. Brand new artist gets signed and immediately goes behind their backs?"

We arrive to his car and he opened the front passenger door for me.

In truth, when Kade had asked me to come over to his place to have a 'drop party' for the single, I hadn't hesitated in answering yes. There was no way I wanted to go back to the dorms and face Constance again, or have to sit through an entire day of classes constantly looking over my shoulder for the wolf in wait.

I wondered if I could ask Kade if I could borrow one of his body guards, and then immediately rolled my eyes internally at myself.

I didn't need a body guard.

I needed a fucking hit-man if I wanted someone to actually deal with Caleb.

But that wasn't necessarily doable, or appropriate in normal life.

Not that I lived a normal life, being the daughter of an almost-influential politician and a songwriter for a pop-star.

"Oh well. What's done is done, I just have to hope they don't drop me after we're done with the album."

I went to climb inside the car but he held his hand on the door, keeping me from sliding in.

"Right. After the album."

His voice came out sounding all wrong, like he'd swallowed water down the wrong pipe.

Like he couldn't cough out the hesitancy in swimming in his eyes.

His hand slipped down from the frame of the door and I brushed by him slightly to drop into the car, but not before my body made contact with his and every place his torso met mine sent off alarms ringing through my chest.

My fingers twitched in my lap once I was seated, so I sat on them to keep them still.

Once the door was shut and Kade turned the car on, the hum of the engine and the soft notes of a new song on Top 100 were the only sounds audible in the car aside from my thick breaths that kept getting stuck in the back of my throat.

My mind wouldn't stop conjuring those images of what Kade had done to me in Corbin's sitting room.

The way his hands wandered wherever they desired, so sure and confident and unwavering, the way he'd asked permission but yet already seemed to know the answer before I could even respond...

The blistering heat that raced up my spine and settled down low in the pit of my stomach where I'd ground myself against him as I perched on his lap like something had taken control of me, an uncontrollable, insatiable need swirling in my veins.

"What are your plans, after?"

"I don't know yet. I guess finish my degree if I can get through the next two years. Hope that CSS can send my music off to enough artists that I'll be set up in my career long enough to break through the scene. Publish a book of poetry or two. Win some awards. Show the stuck-up chauvinists in the poetry world that their insufferable bullshit isn't groundbreaking but actually just vomit on paper. Something like that. You?"

Kade's laughter was contagious as it filled the confined cabin of the car.

On the center console, his hand lay upwards, so close to me and yet so far away. I was still sitting on my hands.

For some reason, I didn't trust them not to reach out and encircle around his fingers the moment I released them.

He was something that was more than hard to resist. He was more than inviting and alluring.

With his dark hair and dark eyes, towering height and captivating features, he was downright enchanting.

And when he looked over at me with a half smirk on the corner of his mouth, I melted into the seat beneath me.

"Yeah, me too. Can't wait to stick it to the misogynists. They're the worst."

And then we were laughing and my hand was swatting him on the arm like I'd known him my entire life.

His eyes glistened in the after-light of the passing cars.

We were in stop-and-go traffic but my body had never been speeding faster.

There weren't any safety nets to catch you when you sped off an unfinished bridge, and that was exactly what falling for Kade Hendrix felt like.

***

"Wine?"

"Yes, please."

The penthouse suite in the too-expensive hotel had hardly changed a bit since the last time I'd been invited in, although that time had been under much different circumstances.

My ankle hadn't throbbed since the day after Kade had initially stolen my song that I'd intended to sell to someone.

Of course, the goal had been someone popular, but I never imagined someone as affluential as Kade would've ever heard it, let alone want it for himself. And now, here we were.

"Where's Hollin tonight? I usually see him creeping in the background somewhere."

"I might've told him to make himself scarce tonight."

Suddenly Kade was in front of me with two wine glasses held upside down by the stem in one hand and a very expensive looking bottle of wine in the other.

"How much does this wine cost? Because I have a feeling it might be more than my entire tuition."

"You...might be right about that one. It was a gift from someone, but I can't remember who."

"Can I guess?"

He chuckled as he handed me my glass and poured me a clumsy glass of deep red wine with the already opened bottle, the veins in his large hands popping out as he managed to do it with only one hand.

"I think it was a gift from Greek royalty. Am I right?"

"You think Greek royalty sends B-list celebrities expensive wine? No, try again."

"Hmmm. Rihanna? Oh, and you're not a B-list celebrity, by the way."

"I wish I had even spoken to Rihanna just once in my life, let alone been given a gift by her. But, no, that one's even less likely than the royalty one. One more try? If you get it right, you win a prize."

"Ooh, a prize. Okay, let me think for a minute."

Kade sank down next to me on the plush white couch that would suffer if one of us were to spill our wine.

"What do I get if I win?"

The scent of peppermint and his expensive cologne filled up my nose and my heart kicked in my chest like there was an angry horse in there stomping its hooves.

"It's a surprise."

The lustful spark from earlier in the day was back in Kade's eyes, and I couldn't help but remember the feel of his lips as they glided over mine, the hitch in my breath as he tugged me closer, the gasps of want falling past my lips as he—

"Well? Any guesses?"

"I—uh, sorry. Was it...Stella Stein?"

I couldn't disguise the thinly veiled disgust in my tone. I wasn't even sure where the disdain for the singer had come from, but it was indisputable how I felt about her.

"Wow."

"What?"

"How'd you guess?"

We'd drifted closer and closer to each other, but still we weren't touching.

My trembling fingers lifted the wine glass to my lips tentatively and the sweet bitterness of the wine washed over my tongue like blood from a wound.

"I didn't actually guess right, you just let me win."

There was a devious glint in Kade's eyes that was illuminated by the blinding white of the penthouse's overhead lighting.

A strand of obsidian hair fell forward onto his forehead and into his midnight eyes.

The only sounds in the penthouse were the rushing of blood in my ears and my own breathing.

"Maybe, maybe not. Either way, you still get a surprise."

"And what is my surprise then? I should get to know what it is, you know, since I won?"

"What do you want your surprise to be?"

I hid behind the glass of wine in my hand while I took another sip and allowed my mind to catch up with what was actually happening.

"What am I allowed to ask for?"

"Whatever you want."

His answer was instantaneous. Immediate. Borderline desperate, almost, like there was something that had become unhinged in him between us earlier and this was his attempt to put it back together.

"Hmm...there's always the easy route: money. Or maybe some kind of luxury car. A brick of solid gold—"

"You realize I'm a musician and not a king, right?"

"Or there's always the hard route: information."

"Information?"

Kade leaned forward and placed his glass of wine on the glass table in front of the white loveseat we were perched too closely on.

I kept sipping my wine until the ball of stress in the back of my head loosened and a fire bloomed in my stomach.

I was vaguely aware of the fact that we were angled beside each other and I'd slung my left arm over the arm of the couch while he'd done the same, but he hadn't made a move to touch me.

Yet.

"What do you want to know?"

"Why don't we play a game?"

"And that's what you want? To play a game?"

"Maybe."

"I get to ask you three questions and you choose which one you answer."

"Okay, I can agree to that."

Suddenly there was no more wine left in my glass. I reached over to place it on the table and when I came back to my spot, Kade was suddenly closer, as close as he'd been when we'd kissed.

It was almost as if we'd never broken apart, like Corbin had never interrupted us.

Like we hadn't spent hours crafting another song, and he'd driven me half an hour into town back to his hotel room.

"So, what are your questions?"

They weren't hard to think of, but the problem was finding the courage to ask them in the first place.

"What...is your favorite color? What is your favorite song you've ever written and..."

Why me? Why did you want my song so badly? Why keep me on as your songwriter? Why—

"And why my song?"

I didn't have to add anything after the question, he knew what I meant.

"Well, I think you just wasted your turn. My favorite color is green, my favorite song I've ever written is the very first one that got me on the charts, 'blessings', and it was your song because every other song couldn't compare to yours, no matter how many I listened to, none of them had half the quality of yours. Your lyrics, the production, the instrumentals...it was perfect in every way I could imagine."

His eyes didn't leave mine once while speaking to me. They were the deep abyss of eternity and I was free falling doing somersaults in the air head over feet, uncontrollable in my descent even knowing there was nothing to catch me when I reached the bottom.

"I...I think you missed the point of the game. You were only supposed to answer one."

"Oh, right. Guess I forgot the rules to the game. I was distracted."

His line of sight was directly on my lips.

I was seconds away from jumping out of my seat and straddling his hips when his phone buzzed.

After fishing it out of his pocket and reading the