It was the middle of the night. Richard sauntered out of his bedroom, dressed only in boxer shorts, assuming that Tracy and Raine, Austin and Sabrina were dead to the world. It had been a very dramatic and busy two days. As he flicked the dimmer switch he was surprised to find a face resting against the pink and green flowered couch pillows and staring at his approach.

Tracy stirred, as Richard went into the adjoining kitchen separated only by the reflecting pink counter. He poured water and stood there to drink it, then flopped onto the nearest couch to her, seeing her feet tucked up and her arms cuddled protectively around a pillow glued to her chest. Her hair was wildly tumbling all over the place, far longer than it looked when it was up, as it had always been in his presence.

"Can't sleep?" His voice was so low, she started at its reverberation so close in the silence.

"Um um." She watched the lights play across his softened features. She was wrapped in a Strawberry Shortcake Blanket and her bare feet poked out the bottom and one dangled on the floor.

Richard watched her for signs of unease, but she remained seated, relaxed. For once he wasn't drunk, drugged, sleepy or especially horny, although that status might change depending on if she were flirty or not. He was simply there, and tonight chose to share the ambivalence with this girl who intrigued him as no one else ever had.

"Where's Marie?" Her soft voice sounded like a sigh.

"Asleep. And Raine?"

"I don't sleep with him. But I assume he's asleep too." She wanted to make sure he understood they weren't sleeping together, not because she wanted to seem available to him, not at all. But because she needed him to understand her standards.

He liked that she hadn't left the room as soon as he'd entered, as he thought she might, realizing now her penchant for modesty.

"Are you two having a good time this trip?"

"Under the circumstances, I suppose so." She offered caustically, turning away slightly.

"No more headaches?"

She shook her head slowly. "We should talk about that."

"Yes, we should. But first let me ask you something, just to clarify."

"Shoot."

"Raine? How long have you been dating? You seem to be progressing fairly quickly."

Tracy felt that accelerated heartbeat much to her dismay. That was a rather personal question. She grimaced, glad for the shadows that kept her expression from his prying eyes.

"What makes you say that?"

"Oh come on, we've gone beyond the run around stage, Trace, you and me. Just answer me. You can, you know, just open up."

She pretended to shrug and drew both feet up under the blanket. "I don't know about quickly. It's just happening."

Richard grunted, and leaned back on the sofa. His eyes were glittering slits in the reflective snow scape.

She sighed. "You and Marie are good together."

"I just met her. I don't know her well enough to know if I like her or not, but yeah, it progressed rather quickly."

"Straight to your bed." Tracy quipped snidely, her judgmental side showing.

"Why do you care?" He shot back at her, leaning forward suddenly.

"Oh, I --- well, I just hope that tonight's drama didn't ruin her trip or make her upset or anything."

He snorted. "I doubt it. Intrigue and starlets go hand in hand."

She sipped her herbal tea that had now gone tepid, and tasted less than desirable. "So, she's just with you for the prestige."

"Don't act like that's a surprise to you."

Tracy waved an airy hand. "So, you give her the pleasure of your company for a few days and then just dump her back in the pits of producer world? Isn't that rather arrogant?"

She couldn't see his eyebrows rise in mockery, but she sensed that they did.

"I'm arrogant, now?" But Richard knew his arrogance masked a feeling of self-contempt.

"I don't really know you well enough to make that kind of judgement."

Richard laughed outright. "Touché!"

"If I had to guess, first impressions and all, I'd say, yeah. You're cock-sure." She rolled her hand again in the air. "But----." He waited, sensing her capitulation, and her honesty. "I do find you to be a compassionate person."

Richard sat back, one—more--- time.

Tracy breathed in the scent of intimacy between them, wondering at it with a disconnected sort of anxiety. She couldn't help comparing. With Raine, right from the start, she'd felt this incredible attraction, and then the getting to know you comradery, and now the initial blushing moments of romantic love. He was everything she wanted in a man. Good. Kind. Strong. Clean. Honorable.

But then there was this heart-throbbing gut wrenching instant recognition with Richard. With Richard when he touched her she actually heard this burning breath-taking melody she couldn't live without.

"I love--- your music."

He was completely taken aback. "Excuse me?"

They'd only played together the one time, in the studio with Julian and she'd done the unthinkable after the slap. She'd put her arms around him and played guitar over his hands.

She was nodding, as if to herself, identifying what it was about him that kept her coming back for more, even when she really had a strong connection to another guy. She startled in elastic discomfort when he closed the distance between them, leaning into her space.

She froze like a deer caught in the headlights, gulping a breath of air, as her heart did it's double beat thing, and the music she did hear with him intensified, making her not want to explain it to him.

"What music?"

Abruptly the astringent squeal of synthetic strings ceased and Tracy only heard the soft tinkling of a piano, almost background music. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to overcome the initial reaction and breathe deeply of the experience.

"I hear music when I meet certain people. Music is my life-line. It buoys me, inspires me. I hear music with you Richard Mann." There she'd said it, bared her soul to this awful, arrogant, compassionate, lovely, man.

"What kind of music? In your head?"

He was whispering now, truly interested, his dark eyes searching hers as much as they could in this insulating darkness.

"Yes. It's just simple piano music at the moment, but for you there's also another song, with the same om.... Same theme, but it's not a quiet song. It's kind of chaotic really, but it takes my pain."

He stared hard at her, trying to understand the unfathomable. Her words made his pulse race, made his insides quiver, made him feel high. And then reality crashed in. "Is this a come on?"

Stunned, Tracy's eyes widened, and she clapped her hand to her mouth to still the shock. Richard dropped to the floor and insinuated himself closer to her, touching her legs. She literally shrank into the couch as if he repulsed her.

She'd just made this huge sacrifice of her personal inner workings, something she didn't do, hadn't done, wouldn't allow. And he had essentially thrown it in her face. She started to get up--- not the traditional way--- but up and over the back of the couch. Richard's hand snaked out and pulled on the blanket she was clutching, as he pulled her back down. Tracy yanked, and he held it.

"Don't go."

"You're a bastard."

"I am, yeah, I'll admit it."

"You say the stupidest things."

"I do, I'm known for it. I'm a smart ass."

"Let go of me."

"Tracy--- I'm sorry."

"You're not sorry, you're---- disillusioned. You've given up." She was poised on the edge of the couch, ready to leave the blanket and rush the stairs. Her face was now caught in the kitchen stove light, her eyes gleaming with unshed emotion.

"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry. It's just so fantastical to me, that someone as--- as talented as you---- a genius in your field, could feel any kind of music or anything for that matter for me-- it's not real." He pulled on the blanket and she let it go, sliding off, putting the couch between them.

"Richard, I did-- I mean—I did want to know what you feel when you take my headaches away. It's such a curious thing. But right now I----." She had one leg over and one leg on the ground. He ran a hand up her ankle to her knee and held her there. Her eyes remained wary--- ready to bolt.

She wasn't completely committed to escape just yet. "I feel heat--- like tingly heat coming off you, but it doesn't stop there. It's very physical, intrinsically part of you. I feel it like a whirring inside me connecting me to you. Not musical though. And it singes me, and tears into me instantly and then honestly--- it just goes out into the ground or something."

Her eyes were round, frozen, staring. He pulled the blanket, and she grabbed it, yanking back.

"Tracy--- it's a real phenomenon. If it actually helps you-- I'm glad."

"But what is it?"

He grinned and rose up on the couch, both hands holding the blanket as he leaned up at her eye-level, kneeling across the barrier. "It's magic."

"Get out." She started to pull away and this time he let his hand travel up the blanket, up to her hand and then up her arm.

"How do you hear the music?" He whispered, smelling the hot fluid odor of her anxiety. It turned him on, he felt his own trepidation.

"The closer you are, the stronger it comes." She stayed poised to run, held immobile by the trapped blanket. His hand on her lower arm pulled against her weight.

"More intense?"

"Clearer."

"Interesting. We have this connection."

Tracy stared into those startlingly blue eyes. She needed to go to bed. Needed to get away, shouldn't be up at this hour talking to him. He was too--- burning---

Richard leaned all the way over the couch, and closed the proximity to her, taking her by both shoulders. She was cool, not warm and unexpectedly petite, even though he'd held her more than once, now in this relaxed, unpretentious atmosphere, she was somehow more herself, the real Tracy.

His palms moved up to cup the base of her skull, surround her face under her wealth of tawny golden hair. He leaned even closer reacting to the electric touch of her, taking it, letting it grow.

"You are beautiful." He whispered, not even knowing he'd said it aloud until after he'd done it. He flexed his hands in her hair, in her oversized sleep shirt, feeling her skin beneath. She tilted her head back to see his eyes, and was surprised when his lips, warm and pliant touched hers. She didn't respond, the pressure was there and then gone before she could even register it, but the music had finalized when he kissed her, of that she was certain. It no longer cascaded from one song to the next, but had blended into one glorious piece.

******