aTRACKion

Chapter Seventeen

"Okay...you ready?" I nervously breathe out, eyeing Doug sat so closely beside me on my hotel bed.

His brown eyes are now attractively so wide and so cutely curious. "I sure am." Is his keen and delighted reply as he encouragingly rubs my knee with his hand.

Nervously, I open up my laptop and with extremely shaky fingers, I find his song. When the atmospheric intro starts, I sit back with an overwhelmed breath and let Doug listen to my vocals that are literally about to start. I am a chaotic maelstrom of emotions—fear, excitement, shyness, pride—all of them silently filling me with doubt, hope and expectation. A lot is riding on this song. If Doug doesn't like it, everything that I've emotionally invested in him and his song, will simply turn to dust. My heart, my soul, my professional experience—has all been poured into Hear The Chant. And while Doug listens, I patiently watch the profile of his face.

I watch his dark lashes blink slowly with concentration.

I watch his jaw tighten and relax with the same concentration.

I watch how his brows rise along with my vocals.

How lines on his forehead handsomely form while he thinks.

I even notice the smile that seems to be intertwined with my breathy tones and my captivating chants.

I watch it all, because his opinion matters to me.

He matters to me.

When my voice eventually comes to a powerful ending, fading out behind the beautifully produced outro by Doug himself, my heart begins beating fast and panicky in my chest. I just hope he loves it as much as I love singing it. Still watching him, I anxiously and quietly soon ask. "What do you think?"

Inhaling a long and strong breath, Doug slowly turns to me. In his eyes, sit small and glistening tears. Tears that teeter on his thick and dark lower eyelashes. "You've blown me away, Frankie." His voice is quaking a little, quaking to the point that he just needs a moment to calmly clear his throat before carrying on. "You have given that track its heartbeat. You have given it life." Reaching for one of my hands, he holds it and nervously fiddles around with my fingers. "When I hear you sing, you do something to me in here." With his other hand, he is fisting where his heart is. "You, you really do something to me in here." His fist thuds against his chest once again. "I wouldn't change a thing with the track...and I wouldn't change a thing about you."

I've never been spoken to in such a beautiful way.

I've never been looked at in such an adoring way.

Now completely drawn into the longing stare that Doug still has so tenderly on me, I feel myself falling into it. Falling into him.

"You really do love it?" My question slips out so quiet, so quietly disbelieving.

Cupping both of my cheeks between his soft palms, Doug proudly smiles. "I really do love it. It's perfect."

Some may say that I should have a cautionary cushion for my heart, to protect me for when I truly do fall for Doug DiCarto, but I think it's a little too late; I feel it already happening. Yet somehow, I don't want that cautionary cushion. I want to feel the fall. I want to feel the hardness of it.

Experiences are what shape us. They teach us little or a lot. They help us grow or they starve who we are. No matter how big or small, experiences give us insight and wisdom.

Being with Doug, is an experience I want to remember.

Every moment, I want to breathe it in and just let it settle within me.

All that we do together, is slowly shaping me. He has become the fertiliser to my feelings. He is the rain to my soul.

Now stroking his handsome face with my own hands, I smile back at him. "There's so much more to you than first meets the eye, isn't there, Doug DiCarto?"

"And there's more to you than my heart can withstand, Frankie Fenner." Is his quick and sweet response.

"Meaning?" My brows inquisitively rise with the smug curl of my lips.

Doug's voice is quiet yet steady. "Meaning, you drive me nuts. Nuts in a good way. I'm thinking about you all the time. My heart has only ever been full of music, now it's full of music and you. That's something I've never felt before. You're in here." He taps his right temple. "And you're in here." He then quickly taps his heart again. "And I like it, Frankie." Both of his hands are possessively back on my soft cheeks. "I want to know everything about you. Every little thing. I want to know how you feel, how you think...how you taste." His mouth yearningly starts pressing onto mine, sensuously slipping his tongue slowly inside as he desperately pulls me against the heat of his body. Doug has kissed me before, but this kiss is deliciously different. His mouth is taking sole charge. My lips submit first, then my body quickly follows. A kiss like this is dangerously addictive. I know I'll never recover from this kind of kiss. My aroused body is weakening my mind. Weakening my will. I want Doug. I want him like nothing I have ever wanted before.

"Do you have some protection?" A little out of breath, I whisper into his slightly parted and impatient lips.

With his powerfully persuasive and sexy body, he carefully pushes me back down onto the softness of the bed. "I have protection." Is what he deeply and daringly tells me with a gorgeously small grin.

This is where Doug and I want to truly make each other a part of each other's lives. This is where the real collaboration begins.

This is where our connection shall deepen.

And where our passion will soar.

**Video above is the very sexy track: WHETHAN & DUA LIPA - HIGH**