Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 190: Kiss me_Part 2

Rohan began another piece immediately he snapped out of his memories, this one slow and sonorous. He kept his head half-bent, his handsome face still as he focused on the keys. His thigh moved as he worked the pedal, his entire body playing the music, and Belle watched him.

She recognized the piece, it was called Remember When, and she had heard it played in opera, and Eve’s piano tutor had always played this. It was a sorrowful concerto that made one weak in the knees and emotional.

The tutor had tried to teach her once when Belle had come into the piano room in the past, but she had been a mediocre player, her hands too work-worn and stiff to learn the skill. The tutor had been haughty and mocking of her, but at least she’d never beaten her for not getting a key right.

Rohan’s large fingers skimmed the keyboard, and slow notes filled the room, the sound rich and round. He seemed to play the tone from within his very soul, and the strains of it called too vividly to Belle’s own soul.

She remembered sitting in a corner, trying to keep track of the keys taught to her sister so she could also learn it—and how her sister would come forward and close the door on her face to shut out the lesson, and told her that their father said she must not be included in the lesson.

This same music had been playing in the piano room while she felt lonely that day, crying in the corner.

A tear rolled swiftly down her cheek at the lonely memory but she quickly wiped it off. She put a quick hand on Rohan’s, and the piece stumbled to a halt.

"You don’t like it?" he queried, his brows pulled together in question. He was playing it for her.

"I do, only, could you play something a little happier?" she remarked with a small smile and a sniff of her nose.

Rohan’s gaze skimmed past her like a beam of sunlight before settling on the shimmer of her wet lashes. While still seated and she standing before him, he reached up, his fingers brushing softly against her cheek as he wiped away the tears.

"You’re getting emotional by the tone," he murmured, letting his fingers linger just a moment longer on her flushed skin. Her cheek took on a delicate hint of pink under his touch, and only then did he slowly bring his hand down.

"I don’t know whether a piece is happy or sad," he said, voice deep and threaded with quiet tenderness. "I just know how to play the notes. Tell me, my love... which one do you want me to play for you?"

Belle’s throat squeezed. She was still finding it hard to believe he was in front of her—it felt like she was in a dream, and she might wake up to find that he was still in that dead state. If she wasn’t careful, she’d start blubbering all over him. She hadn’t hugged him enough. She hadn’t been held in his arms enough.

And just his little action of wiping her tears now brought back good memories of his touch.

She whirled to the music cabinet and dug through sheets until she found something that made her smile.

"How about this?" She brought it back to the piano and spread the music across the stand. "I used to love this music."

Rohan looked at the paper and then back at his wife and said, "As much as I would love to play this to you, I can’t read music. I can only play what I hear."

Belle, who had leaned over him to look at the paper without thinking, and now the rosette at her bosom was level with his nose, looked at him. "Really? You can’t read music?"

Rohan studied the rosette and the white flesh of her breasts, which he noticed did not quite fill the front of her dress like he remembered it used to. She had lost weight. He needed to make sure she regained it—and if possible, more.

"I have to hear it. Play it through for me first," he whispered.

He shifted slightly, giving her about six inches of space on the bench to sit beside him.

Belle sat down, her heart hammering. He wasn’t about to move, and his body was like a solid wall. This close, she felt the hard muscle of his biceps, the length of his thigh against hers. She missed those feelings so much she fought the urge to lean her head against his strong bicep.

She wasn’t good at playing, but then she still gave it a try.

His dark eyes glittered behind thick lashes as he half-turned his head to watch her.

Belle drew a breath. She stretched her arm across his abdomen to reach the lower notes, clumsily played through the intro, and then sang in a shaky voice:

"I found you in the quiet, where the world forgot to breathe,

A whisper in the stillness, pulling every part of me..."

Rohan studied Belle’s nimble fingers as they tripped across the keyboard. Her nails were small and rounded, neatly trimmed, her only adornment a gold ring on the little finger of her left hand. A ring he had brought for her along with jewelries in Nightbrook.

Her soothing alto flowed over him, almost making him want to close his eyes—but he didn’t, and instead tried to understand the words she sang.

"...Your eyes were made of longing, your touch was carved from grace,

And time stood still around us, like the world had lost its place..."

The blue rosette at her bosom rose and fell as she sang, and her elbow slid across his robe as she reached up and down the keyboard. Light blue silk of her nightdress flowed across her lap. One gold curl fell across her cheek as she sang.

He watched it bounce against her skin, watched her mouth pronouncing the lovely words. He wanted to take the curl between his fingers and pull it straight, just like he had the first time he met her as a little girl. He had always found her curly blonde hair beautiful and fascinating.

Though she looked more slender than he remembered and her face much smaller and her hazel eyes much bigger, she was still the most beautiful and brave woman he’d ever had the luck to be with. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

What can I do to make myself worthy of a woman like you? he thought to himself as her song flowed around him, consuming him. Having his heart back did not only come with emotions—it came with the strong, intense feeling of fear of loss, the fear of feeling unworthy and undeserving of the love she had for him.

He had never bothered so much about feeling undeserving, as he never cared about what came of his actions. All he knew was that she was his, and whether she liked it or not, he was going to keep her. However, things were changing. He was feeling more intensely than he wanted to feel—or than he remembered feeling before his heart was removed.

At last, the tune lilted upward with her voice,

"I will be the place where your heart rests,"

A few tinkling chords, and that was the end of the song.

Belle smiled at him, out of breath. "I haven’t practiced in a while."

Rohan laid his fingers on the keys where Belle’s had been.

"Does the song mean a lot to you?" he asked, as he could tell she had sung it with her heart in it.

She bobbed her head. "I first heard it in the theater. Have you been to a theater before?" she asked him.

He shook his head. "Don’t like noise, so I never went even when I had the chance."

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