It took him ten minutes. A record, he believed since every second of those ten minutes filled him with bursting agitation. Glancing down the hallway Liz had retreated towards, a tick in his jaw, eyes refocusing on a single spot before him as his mind wandered to the myriad possibilities as to why she was rejecting him.
And that was exactly what it had been. A rejection. And he knew it shouldn’t hurt him past the shallow wound in his pride, but it did. It hurt. A lot.
Again, he looked down the hallway, half hoping to see her walking towards him. With an apology on her lips? No, that would be too much to ask. He figured that Liz didn’t do apologies. She would only smile in that slow, seductive way that set his loins on fire and evaporated every sane thought in his head. That would be enough for him.
But she didn’t show. And he sat there for ten minutes before he shot out of his seat, not able to do wait any longer.
Chatter buzzed throughout the bus, loud laughter blazing through the vehicle at intervals. He passed by Marcus, all by his lonesome trying to make what Michael had asked for happen. Michael noticed when he glanced up to watch him pass and was happy he didn’t say anything to hold him back. His manager just silently watched him go by, no doubt ascertaining that he was going to seek Liz. Marcus had always been intuitive.
The curtain was closed. Michael hesitated outside it, not sure how to approach. Suddenly, he felt nervous, like he was about to do his first performance at boarding school all over again. The constantly flexing hand, the tiny butterflies. He hadn’t felt this way in years, and the object of his anxiousness likely sat unbothered on the other side.
“Liz?” he asked softly, touching the curtain. “Liz, you in there?”
There was no response for two long seconds before he heard a dry, “Come in.”
Trying in vain to contain his eagerness, Michael opened the curtain and climbed inside. She was, to his surprise, on the bed, the laptop sitting squarely on her lap and a pillow stacked behind her back.
“The desk isn’t comfortable?” he asked, jerking his chin towards the small desk at the back of the bus. Michael had written many pieces at that desk whenever inspiration struck him in the middle of the night.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking back at her laptop. “I didn’t try it. I wanted to sit on the bed.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She didn’t spare him another glance. He fidgeted, hating himself for being so awkward. Michael was never awkward.
He opened his mouth to speak but Liz beat him to it. “Is there something you want?”
He blinked at that, and took a step back at the chill in her voice. “Something’s wrong.”
“I’m sure Marcus should be able to help you with that.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. He moved closer, and closer until he was sitting close to her on the bed. “Something’s bothering you.”
Those piercing green eyes looked up at him. “You don’t know me.”
“Excuse me?”
Her eyes returned to her laptop screen. “You don’t know me. So you wouldn’t know if something is bothering me or not. I’m actually quite fine.”
“No, you’re not,” he insisted. “You weren’t like this before.”
“Why? Because before I was all over you?”
He nearly answered that—before he realized it was a trap. Michael clamped his mouth shut when Liz put aside her laptop and settled those beautiful yet unnerving eyes on him once again. “We came to an agreement. Is that why you’re here? Because you want sex?”
“Of course not! How could you even assume that?”
“Because why else would you be bothering me like this? You’re horny, aren’t you? Well, you’re just going to have to deal with that yourself because I don’t have the time, nor am I in the mood.”
Michael would have been angry. He felt a shadow of it rise in him, blazing in the back of his head. But his main concern was the overwhelming worry that came over him as she resumed her earlier position. And fear. Was it because of Melody? Was that the reason she was acting like this? Did she hear them talking last night?
“Liz…” He moved closer on the bed, sitting at her side.
“You can go now,” she said dismissively.
Michael grabbed her hand, stopping her from typing. She looked sharply at him. “If there’s something you’d really like to tell me, why don’t you just say it and—”
Marcus popped his head in, cutting Michael’s words off. “You’re needed out here,” he said. He wasn’t at all embarrassed at disrupting them. He only cocked his head outside. “Urgently.”
“Marcus, I’m in the middle of something…”
“No.” It was Liz. She had overcome her shock, now easing her hand out of his. Those eyes flared. “Go. You have a show to do in a few hours, remember?”
He did. And that should be his focus. Not this woman, who clearly didn’t want anything to do with him.
That didn’t make getting to his feet any easier. “We’ll talk about this later,” he told her, and he knew she detected the thread of steel in his voice, because she watched him up until the moment he closed the curtain behind him.
We’ll talk about this later.
Who did he think he was? He couldn’t give her orders like that. Liz was the one who gave orders, she was the one in control. Not this man who had barely known her for a week. He didn’t have the right to make demands, especially since Liz didn’t take demands from anyone unless that person was signing her paycheck. And even Harold knew not to push her buttons too much.
Michael clearly didn’t know her as well as he thought he did, because Liz didn’t take kindly to being spoken to like that. She’d made it clear that she was done talking about the topic. Yet, he still pressed. Even when he was leaving, he pushed, making it clear it wasn’t over. Well, it was over. It was over because Liz said it was.
Since breakfast, she hadn’t managed to do any work. She’d put the laptop before her, but her fingers merely hovered over the keys as her mind drifted back and forth on all things that had happened to her last night. The things that haunted her into the morning.
Michael’s performance and the way she had reacted to it.
Melody.
Hunter.
Hunter deserved her attention. She should be doing something about it, preventing him from making an appearance again. Or worse, from doing something dangerous. With that terrifying glint in his eye, it wasn’t impossible. But she wasn’t doing anything. She wasn’t masterminding the perfect way to bring him down. She wasn’t preparing herself for when he was bound to show up again. She was thinking about Michael, and she hated it.
Michael and his orchestra. Michael and Melody. Back and forth, back and forth until she thought it would drive her up the wall in anger, or worse, out of her goddamn mind. It was one thing, after getting a taste of him, to want him in a way she’d never wanted anyone before. He was a beautiful lover, a lover that gave and gave, took a little, then gave some more. That, she told herself, was normal.
But it was something else entirely when the thoughts of him had nothing to do with the bedroom, and were dreamy reflections upon his smile instead. Or his loud, contagious laugh. Or the little comments he constantly made that had Liz laughing way too easily.
And she was thinking about the anger in his voice when he had spoken to Melody. The passion in his movements as he led his orchestra. Questions stacked, each upon the other.
Why was he so angry with Melody? What did she do to turn the eternally joyful man into… that? Why didn’t he say anything about it to her?
…Why did she expect him to?
When he visited her bunk, Liz had been thoroughly fed up with herself. It was a struggle not to shoot him with a scathing glare when he entered, and even more of a struggle to hold back the same glare when he left. How dare he? No one spoke to Elizabeth Harley like that.
Never mind the fact that his commanding tone had made her traitorous insides tighten. After seeing him like that, she only wanted him more.
He thought they would be resuming this later? He could try. Once she said she was done with something, she was done. Michael could stew for all she cared.
But thirteen hours on the same bus with him was going to make that difficult. Liz wouldn’t be able to escape him. Soon, he’d be finished with whatever urgent business Marcus had called him away for, and he’d be right back here pestering her with questions she didn’t feel like answering. There was no escaping it, not here at least.
So, she did something she wasn’t proud of.
She forced herself take a nap like a coward. Liz heard when Michael called her name through the curtain, peeking inside when he got no answer. She wasn’t proud of the mixture of satisfaction and disappointment that panged her chest when he left quietly.