The lights are on in the massive front hallway when I unlock the front door, and I know Dean must be home.

Home. It’s weird to think of this place as the location where I eat my meals, brush my teeth and make my bed … but, there you have it. Over the course of the past months, Los Angeles has become just that, and sometimes I even feel myself sitting in the large bay window of my room, reflecting on just how nice the view is.

Of course, I’ll never tell my fake fiancé that.

But I’ve gotten used to my drive to work. The girls there that have become friends. The guy at the coffee shop around the corner who has my order ready every morning when I stop in.

Setting my keys down on the table in the hall that has become my place for loose change, my purse and to slide my shoes off, I walk through the house.

Strumming, the beautiful sounds of a guitar being plucked, comes from inside Dean’s den. And by den, I mean the thousand-square-foot room filled with priceless musical instruments, a giant flat screen, pool table and fully-stocked wet bar. You know, just your average man cave. Insert eye roll.

But I have to admit, he still plays as magically as he did all of those years ago. If not better, since he’s had almost a decade learning from and becoming one of the best in the business.

I haven't seen him in two weeks, not since that night in his dressing room. He left for a short tour of intimate concerts in the United Kingdom, and we have only exchanged the few awkward texts checking up on each other. Or more, he's tried to reach out and I've given him one word answers.

My brain and heart are completely messed up, and my inner-conscience has been cursing at me since I let him fuck my brains out like the world was ending. As if we were the only two people who existed in the universe, as if we were still those teenagers clinging to every moment alone.

I see him before I hear his words. That long body lounging on a low brown leather couch, the guitar laying sexually in his lap while he gently has his way with it. All of those tattoos rippling as his muscles strain and relax with each flick of the guitar pick.

My body betrays me, sensual heat licking up my spine.

Your hair on the pillow paints a picture of lust,

But our hearts tangle like sheets in love.

Candles flicker, rain comes down,

I smell nothing but you, see no one else around.

“Well, that one should be an instant hit, get ready to cash in the big bucks.” I open with a joke, not knowing his mood or how I should even approach him after all of this time away.

Part of me wants to be angry that he left without saying a word, but I also want to address everything too, and acting like a sullen teenager won’t help.

“Yeah, because that’s really why I do this,” Dean grumbles, picking up a glass of amber whiskey and taking a sip.

“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t enjoy all of this. Those screaming girls at your concerts, belting your lyrics to you.” Maybe if I bring up the concert, it will fuel a conversation forward.

I’m being passive aggressive and I know it, but I’m nervous about discussing what happened. I should be brave, but under his cerulean gaze I feel naked and vulnerable. Standing in the doorway to his den, I shift my weight uncomfortably.

Dean narrows his eyes at me, and I can feel a shift in the room. Cold, and bitterness.

"Every song is about you; don't you get that? I made one stupid fucking mistake, and that was not coming after you. The dumbest, most irresponsible thing I've ever done in my life. And it cost me everything. You were my everything, Kara ... you and the music, that was all I had. And since I lost you, lost your trust and your heart, I buried myself in the lyrics. I composed melodies to try to win you back, thinking somehow, someway, you would hear my words on the radio and come back to me. Seven years and the songs are still all about you. They're my apology, my feelings. Every ounce of love I still feel for you are in those songs, so don't mock them to me. They weren't a play for money or fame, they were my pledge to you. Don't throw that in my face."

Sweat breaks out on my skin, and nervous energy skitters down my spine. Every time he uses that four-letter word, I feel like my entire body is melting under his influence.

“Dean—”

But he cuts me off. “You once asked me if I get tired of all it, the pretending. Of course I do … I’m fucking exhausted. My bones hurt from all the of the fake. But you know what’s real? This. You and me. It always has been. Even if you refuse to acknowledge it, or push me away or pretend you don’t care … this is real. It’s always going to be you and me. You’re the one I can come home to and let all of my walls down with, you knew me before they painted me in their sheen and sold me to the masses. You loved me before all of this. And I still love you, that’s never changed. That is what my real is.”

I choke on the galloping heartbeat in my throat. “You left without saying anything, you pushed me away.”

“Because you do this!” He motions between us. “You joke or brush it off like I wasn’t inside of you, like you weren’t right there with me.”

Anger, lust, love, upset … so many emotions swirl in the air between us.

“Don’t shut me out. Don’t pretend like I don’t care. And don’t pretend like you don’t feel this, too.”

Dean sets the guitar from his lap next to his body on the couch, his entire chest bare now. Those worn, dark jeans ride low on his hips, and I swallow unsuccessfully, my throat dry looking at the body of a man, not the boy I once knew.

He stalks me, nothing rushed or animalistic about this, not like the night in his dressing room. I rub my thighs together where I stand, heat pooling low in my stomach. The way he’s looking at me, as if I’m a mirage of water in the desert, has my knees knocking together.

The minute he touches me, I jump. It doesn’t feel like his hand, and when I look down, I see he’s fingering the guitar pick he must have been playing with mere seconds ago.

And he’s running it along the skin of my arm, leaving goose bumps in its wake. Higher and higher his hand climbs, until the pick is at my throat, running along my collar bone in such a way that I’m sucking in a breath and holding it, waiting to see what he’ll do.

The pick centers on the dip in my throat, Dean uses the fingers of his other hand to tip my chin up, making me look into his eyes.

When I do, he torturously, painfully moves the dark green triangle down my skin, between my breasts, and into my shirt where it disappears.