My Soul To Keep (Soul Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

eyes with hers.
    “May I?”
    She lowers her lashes, eyes on my hand suspended and waiting for her permission.
    “May you what?”
    “Touch you here?”
    She clears her throat, but if I’m not mistaken, her voice still comes out a little breathier than moments before when she speaks.
    “Um, sure. Of course.”
    I press my hand to her stomach, and my pinky finger strokes across something resting in her bellybutton. I look at her, brows lifted to ask the silent question.
    “Belly ring.” A blush rises over the slant of her cheekbones.
    Everything about this girl turns me inside out. The muscles beneath my fingers tense at my touch. The thin cotton of her shirt is a semi-conductor, passing electric current from her skin to mine. I look up to see if she feels the same shock of sensation that I do. Even though she looks away, she can’t hide that she does.
    “So, your breathing.” Even to my ears my voice sounds deeper and heavier. I force a little cough and continue. “I always say singing is the two M’s, mental and muscular. Think about what you’re doing every time, and about using the right muscles and breathing properly. Do that until you don’t have to think about it anymore and doing it right is second nature.”
    I press gently into the muscles of her stomach and lift my eyes to her face.
    “More energy and effort and breath here.”
    I reach up and rest one finger against her throat. Her skin is like warm velvet, her pulse strong under my fingers.
    “You’re singing too much from your throat. Pull from your diaphragm. Better support, and you’ll be able to sustain your notes longer.”
    “You’re right,” she says. “I’ve been out of consistent vocal lessons for the last six months. I do some with Grady, but I mostly work for him, and my breathing has deteriorated some.”
    “Let me hear something else.” I pick out another, slightly more demanding scale. She matches the notes easily, her eyes flicking to my face for the verdict as soon as she’s done.
    “Okay, you have a great voice. Really.” I meet her eyes frankly. “But if you don’t want to be just a dancer who sings, you need to work on adding some tone and texture. You do vocal compressions?”
    “I haven’t been as consistent with them lately.”
    “Get back to it. You dance every day?”
    “Of course.” She shrugs. “It’s my job, so yeah. I dance every day.”
    “If you want singing to be your job, make sure you’re doing vocal compressions every day too. Add some flavor. Something that’ll set you apart from every other girl after the mic. Give me one more scale. Focus on the breathing.”
    She closes her eyes, and the muscles in her stomach tighten under my hand. Her tone, which really is beautiful, sounds stronger. The final note, she holds longer. She hears the difference like I do, and a smile lights her face up.
    “It worked!”
    “You sound surprised.” My laugh blends with the notes I pick out on the piano. “I do sing for a living. Maybe you hadn’t heard?”
    She rolls her eyes and nibbles at her bottom lip.
    “I think I may have heard something about you being God’s gift to the stage.”
    “Wow.” I have to laugh at that. “Once you get started, there’s snark under that hood, huh?”
    Her sweet smile chips away some of the sarcasm.
    “I’m just saying. I’m from Georgia, not another planet. Even in my little backwoods town we know you’re one of the biggest names out there.”
    “Yeah, that just kind of happened.”
    “Things like that don’t just kind of happen for most people, you know?”
    “I’m not saying I didn’t work hard at it. I did. I just didn’t know if I’d ever perform professionally again. When I graduated from high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew it had something to do with music, of course, but not exactly what. So I taught voice here with Grady for a while before going to Full Sail for production.”
    “Are you kidding?” She grins at me. “I had