His hand skims up my arm, causing my breath to hitch. He adjusts my grip again, fingers lingering longer than necessary.

“Close your eyes,” he says quietly.

I hesitate.

Jase presses a lazy, barely-there kiss to my shoulder, but it’s enough to make me question if he did or didn’t. “Trust me,” he murmurs.

That’s the problem. I do.

But last time I trusted someone I was blindsided.

I let out a shaky breath and surrender as my world shrinks to the warmth of him behind me and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my back.

“Now,” he whispers, “this time just feel it.”

I strike the snare, then the hi-hat, my body falling into the pattern he set. Jase’s voice guides me through each motion, each calamity of notes that sounds nothing like his did.

Or maybe it does. I can’t tell because Jase is the master of distraction with how his lips brush against my temple as he continues to count out the beat.

For a short span of time, I finally hit the components, the pieces, the whatever the sequence is called, in the right order and it sounds kind of decent.

“Attagirl,” he says. A smile tugs at my lips as his arms tighten around me ever so slightly. “Told you I could teach you.”

I turn my head to meet his gaze. His blue eyes flicker with something dangerous. Something enticing.

Something I’ve told myself is simple flirtation from a playful man and nothing more.

But this doesn’t feel innocent. Not the way his body frames mine, not the fact that I’m sitting on his lap, and most definitely not that weird, panicky feeling in my chest.

My heartbeat stutters and my fingers go slack on the sticks.

“You’re losing your rhythm.”

“You’re distracting,” I mutter and turn my attention fully back to the sticks in my hands and the set in front of me, but my mind is racing with all the thoughts I shouldn’t be having. That I can’t be having . . . and yet they’re there anyway.

“Good. That’s just what I like to be.”

“I, uh . . . I should probably let you get back to what you were doing. I shouldn’t have interrupted your creativity.”

“Hmm,” he says but rests his chin on my shoulder instead of leaning back to let me escape.

Because it would be an escape. From the tumultuous tornado he’s just sent every nerve ending in my body into. I’ve kissed the man, I know how that wreaked havoc on my system, but this quiet, in-control, ridiculously skilled persona gives him an undeniable sex appeal.

Just when I tell myself that I know there’s nothing between us, that his flirting is innocent and simply who he is, he goes and does this and muddies the waters for me.