I glide closer through the crowd and right up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. He glances around and his eyes widen, cheeks turning white. I jerk my head and snarl silently, not wanting to tip Carinna off.
He slides out and I slide back in, my hands caressing her large hips and ass, my front bumping with her backside until it’s impossible to miss that I’m hard as hell.
Her eyes open and she gasps when she sees me. “Chris? What the hell are you doing here? Is something wrong with Maddy? Oh my god! I knew I shouldn’t have left. Let’s go!” She drags me off the dance floor until I drag her to stop, my grip unwavering.
“She’s fine. I called the babysitter. I need to talk to you. Alone.”
Her eyes dart back and forth. “We don’t need to talk about anything. I’m sorry you came out here for nothing. I’m fine. You’re fine. Nothing to see here.”
“There is something to see here. I’m here. You’re here. And I fucking want to touch you so damn bad that it’s an ache in my gut.”
Her head shakes and there’s a wild look in her amber eyes. “Youcan’tsay things like that. We can’t do things like that. We have a daughter together. We can’t complicate things for her.”
“Hey, I see a familiar face out there tonight, folks. Let’s see if we can get him up here to sing something for us.”
Applause erupts around us and Carinna cringes. “This is your life. Not mine. We can’t be. We just can’t. You belong to everyone else. And I don’t think you can just love one person.”
She turns away and I drag her with me to the stage. She struggles fruitlessly in my grasp, her face turning red. “What are you doing?” she hisses.
“Come with me.” I drag her up to the stage, afraid that if I let her go, she’ll disappear somewhere and I’ll never find her. Again. This time I’m going to show her the only way I know how to that she’s the one. The woman that is my other half. My soulmate.
I step up to the microphone and tug her over to sit at a chair that was quickly tossed up here by one of the band members. I push her down, leaning over and whispering, “give me this. You owe me this chance, Carinna. You took all our chances and future happiness away all those years ago. I deserve this.”
Her face pales and she looks away, sitting stiff and silent in the seat.
I step up to the mike and will myself to do this right. “Thanks for asking me up here. I’m gonna sing you a song I wrote for a special girl that I knew a long time ago. A girl I loved. I wrote it when I left her but I never recorded it. So…this is Reckless Angel.”
I pull a guitar off an empty chair and start the chords, feeling the swell of emotion tugging at me.
“So many nights I dream of you, so many times I picture your pretty face…my reckless angel.”
“The memories hold me hostage, she holds my heart and soul in her hands and won’t let me wander”
“Don’t leave me, don’t ever stray, my reckless angel, don’t leave our love so far away.”
“I love you, my reckless angel.”
The last notes fade away and I turn to look at her when the roar of the crowd starts. The only thing I see and hear is her.
And the tears streaming down her pale cheeks as she smiles and nods to me.
“I love you too, Chris. I always have.”
I close my eyes. “Thank you, god.”