BorntobeWild Read Online Free

her expression of disbelief. “Everywhere I read you’re the best
keyboard and effects man in the world. Not to mention your achievements on
guitar. How can not becoming a concert pianist bother you?”
    “At one time it cost me everything.”
    Afraid at the sudden intensity in his gaze, she quickly
turned around again when the machine gurgled to a halt. She couldn’t face her
emotions from that time, not this soon, not after she’d successfully rebuilt
her life. “It cost you very little,” she said briskly. “Don’t pretend you’ve
been yearning for me for the last—what is it?—eight years.”
    He did release her then. “Didn’t you yearn for me?” He
touched his heart, fluttering his lashes in a parody of a lovelorn maiden. “I’m
devastated. Besides,” he added, reverting to normal, “it’s more like eight and
a half years.”
    She didn’t want to think about it because the truth? Yes, in
a way, she had. She hadn’t put her sex life on hold like some lovelorn medieval
princess, but she did compare every man to Riku and he usually came up wanting.
Not fair, she knew it but she couldn’t help it. The way Riku had left her
trembling after their unexpected bout of rampant fucking—she didn’t want him to
know how much he still affected her. “It happens when you’re young.”
    “We’re not exactly old yet.” He didn’t have to point that
out, damn him. She’d been painfully inexperienced, when she’d met the wildly
talented and just plain wild Riku.
    She poured three mugs of coffee, careful to ensure her hand
didn’t shake, and then moved to the small refrigerator to find the cream. Riku
watched her but didn’t change his position.
    After a swift check in the mirror, Cyn picked up two mugs
and let Riku open the door for her. He’d taken the time to drag the knitted cap
over his head, covering his distinctive hairstyle. It didn’t help to disguise
his identity, not in her sight, but he must have gotten here somehow and she’d
met him in the street with not a bodyguard in sight.
    Maddy’s blue eyes widened when she saw it. “I knew I was
right,” she said, in a voice scarcely above a whisper. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
    Cyn exchanged a sparkling glance with Riku. “It’s him all
right.”
    “Shit!” The awed way she spoke said everything about her. “Wow.
You really are something, you know?”
    Riku raised a thin, black brow and she wondered if he
plucked it or had it threaded. If she asked him he’d laugh and give her an
honest answer. She loved that about him, the way he depressed pretension in
people trying to embarrass him. He’d always done it. “We went to university
together.”
    “I never went to university,” he pointed out.
    She shrugged. “The Creed Institute, then.” Everyone knew
what it meant, in New York and worldwide. The Creed Institute only did one
thing. Classical music and it was world famous for teaching and performing it.
    Maddy gave Cyn an accusing glare before returning her
attention to Riku. “You never told me you studied music.”
    “Yeah. It didn’t work out for me.”
    She might as well have said nothing. Leaving Riku to cope
with his fan she went to help a customer deliberating over varieties of
polished agates. She could still hear them. The agate display wasn’t far enough
away.
    She felt his gaze on her, the intensity so uncomfortable she
had to force herself not to wriggle her shoulders. “You can get different
colors by applying heat.” She smiled, desperately trying to concentrate. “No,
we don’t do it, we buy the stones.”
    It didn’t stop her hearing, “She was fantastic. Amazing. The
best in her class, hell, the best in the school.”
    “So why did she give it up?” came the inevitable question
from Maddy.
    “I have no idea.”
    He didn’t, not really. She’d never told anybody. Never meant
to either. “Yes,” she said, in response to the patron’s query. “The red ranges
from palest pink to a deep garnet.” When