“Okay,” he said. “You need to move your hands here…”

“Uh-huh,” she breathed.

She wasn’t looking at the keys. She didn’t care much about them. Her eyes were locked firmly on Kai.

Together, fingers interlaced, they played a nice song. It wasn’t terribly difficult, but Coral knew they were both using the piano as an excuse to just touch each other. Coral didn’t want the moment to end. If she wasn’t in such a desperate situation, she’d let down her guard and truly enjoy spending time with Kai.

“You intrigue me, Tara,” Kai finally said.

“Huh? Oh. Thanks.” She had forgotten she had told him her name was Tara. “Why is that?”

“You’re not like other women,” he said. “You’re unique. You have a real future. Normally I don’t get that feeling, but I’ve got it this time.”

“Wow,” she said. “Thanks, though we just met. I don’t know if you can accurately judge how successful I’ll be from that.”

He shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Coral turned to look at him and saw that Kai was starting to lean forward. Her heart started pounding as she felt his breath on her pale skin from her low-cut dress, and before she knew it, Kai brushed her lips with his. Their mouths grazed each other’s, making Coral follow him ever so slightly only to find that he was farther away each time. It was tantalizing and made Coral want him even more.

Enough toying around. She couldn’t stand it anymore and met his lips.

Kai pulled his hands from the piano and wrapped his broad arms around behind her. He stroked her back sensuously, causing a shiver of passion to run through her body from the motion. Kai shrugged off his coat and tossed it on the ground.

His shirt followed suit to show his firm, exposed chest beneath with a Celtic design spiraling across his torso. He looked almost godly. He came in again close, but she gently put her hands to his chest.

“Stop.”

He hesitated and looked down at her hands, like he couldn’t quite register what she was telling him.

“Okay,” he said after a moment, and he pulled back, giving her space.

Coral wasn’t planning to have sex with him, even though that was exactly what she wanted. She needed to stay focused and get him to take the pill before they started something she definitely wanted to finish.

She needed an excuse. “Let’s take it slow,” she suggested.

She hated herself every moment for stopping it, but it only worked if he passed out, and she didn’t see how she could get him to take the pill if it wasn’t now.

“I’ll go at your pace,” Kai said.

She didn’t want him to go slow. She wanted him to rip her clothes off, lay her on the piano, and fuck her.

The pill. He had to take the pill. The tricky part was trying to get him to take it.

“You know what I want?” she asked.

“What?”

“Some wine.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Red or white?”

“Red.”

As he left to retrieve their drinks, she slipped a hand into her purse and pulled out a nasty concoction in the shape of a pill that would do the trick. She had done her research and made the pill herself. She didn’t want the guy to spend hours unconscious. She hated the idea of leaving someone passed out on the floor or bed for longer than necessary. What if something happened? What if he reacted badly to the pill and no medical attention came? She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she ended up hurting him. Also, she didn’t want the guy waking up while she stole from him for the obvious reasons. Finally, she had figured it out—the perfect combination of drugs that wouldn’t have too much of an adverse effect.

She hid the pill in her hand just as Kai returned with two wine glasses.

“I think you’ll like this,” he said as he handed her a glass. “It’s a smooth Merlot with hints of currants and plum.”

The clinked their glasses together.

“Salut,” he said.

“Salut.”

Even his wine choices were amazing.

She quickly had to figure out how to get the pill in his glass.

“Will you play for you me again?” she asked while reaching for his wine glass.

As he sat back down at the piano, she quickly placed the pill in his glass and watched as it dissolved almost instantaneously. She sat down next to him, holding both glasses in her hands.

After listening to him play a short song, he stopped and reached for his wine glass.

They both drank. Coral felt her spirit fall.

Within a few minutes, his speech slowed and a glazed look came over his eyes. She could see the effects of the pill on him when he turned to look at her.

“You drugged me, didn’t you?”

Coral stood up and moved away from him. Who knows what he would do as the drug took him down? It was exceptionally fast-acting.

“I’m so, so sorry, Kai…” She looked down. “But I don’t have a choice.”

“It…” He stumbled off the piano bench, moving sluggishly. He was fighting it. “It didn’t have to be this way.”

“They were going to hurt me,” she pleaded pathetically. She didn’t expect to fall apart, but looking at Kai starting to go down hit her in the gut, hard. “Please understand.”

She caught a glimpse of something running along his forearm. She thought it was a bug at first, but it moved too quickly. Abruptly, she realized that she was looking at something seemingly liquid running along his flesh, except that she couldn’t tell exactly what it was. All Coral knew was that she wanted to get away from it.

She scrambled back, and she was so startled that she fell halfway across the grand piano.

Kai dropped to one knee. How was he still awake? He should have been knocked out cold.

They were standing by a large window, and Coral nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of something smashing against the glass: raindrops, huge and heavy.

Boom!

A bolt of lightning struck nearby. From where Coral stood, it almost looked like the lightning was also inside Kai’s eyes—inside of his aqua blue pupils like a miniature storm—as opposed to just reflecting off the window.

Coral watched from the piano as Kai groaned. No doubt about it—he could feel the sedative, and he was not going down easy. Maybe she’d given him too little? No… she’d checked before she had gone to the club.

“You’re…” he growled. “You’re making a bad decision.”

With that, the sedative finally won over and Kai slumped to the ground. His body was tense for a few seconds before he relaxed. Coral stared with stunned silence at his body.

“What,” she whispered to nobody in particular, “the hell was that?”

As quickly as it started, the storm died off. The raindrops slowed to a stop and the clouds moved away so she could see the sky.

It was done. She’d burned her bridge. Now all she had left was to rob him and get out of there before he woke up.