But either she was too drunk to realize his intent, or she was choosing to ignore it, because she said, “Play the piano for me. Right now.”
“No, damn it,” he said in frustration.
“You have a choice. You can play the piano or you can kiss me.”
Oh, yeah. She was drunk. He knew she would have never said that otherwise. Yet, it was clear she meant it. She was tossing down her cards and leaning across the coffee table, palms on the flat surface. She was going to kiss him, and he wasn’t going to be able to resist.
“Fine. I’ll play the f**king piano,” he said angrily, dropping his own cards onto the table and standing up, quickly, before she could touch him. Anything to keep her away from him.
“It wouldn’t hurt, you know,” she said. “You might even like it. A kiss, that is.”
Was she even serious? Gabriel stood with his feet apart, erection throbbing. “That’s not the problem. I know I would like it. But there are issues. I can’t.”
Before she could respond, argue, breathe on him, he moved across the room and flipped the piano lid open. The instrument was probably grossly out of tune and he was completely out of practice, but if she wanted to hear sour off-key notes, more power to her.
“What do you want me to play?” he asked, sitting down in total irritation. He didn’t want to do this, but he was already cracking his knuckles, relaxing his shoulders, giving in, feeling the pull of the keys.
“Whatever you want to play. Whatever you have music for.”
What he wanted to play was something dark, something frustrated, to express his feelings. Something yearning and intense. “I don’t need sheet music.” Once he learned a song, he always played from memory. It was all still there, he was sure of it. His fingers remembered, even if he no longer heard it. So he tested the scales, getting the feel of the instrument. He closed his eyes, letting his fingers guide him, sighing at the unexpected pleasure the first strains of Chopin’s Ballade in G Minor gave him.
Maybe he had missed it after all.
The music swelled in his soul, and he let it flow from his fingers, the rhythm of 6/4 suggesting an underlying waltz, a tender poignancy that was perfect for his mood, for the unexpected longing that arose from the feel of the keys beneath his fingers. For music, for beauty, for Sara.
Gabriel found his confidence as the ballade increased in musical intensity, swelling into one of Chopin’s spectacular embellishments of eighteenth notes against solid quarter-note chords, a flourish that pleased him. With two-note slurs, the music pushed forward, yearning, a keening cry that was perfect for his mood, echoing the frustration he felt, the anguish, the growing hope and desire that was being ground into the dirt by the unrelenting reality of murder. Crushed by his sins, his demon status, the bounds of his punishment.
In the music he could allow himself freedom, an abandonment, and he swept into the breathless speed of arpeggios fearlessly and without hesitation, understanding the ballade’s intent, feeling it. He was lonely, and there was a lovely woman who desired him, both physically and intellectually, and he couldn’t have her. He couldn’t touch her. Even when he craved her body, her mind, her heart, he couldn’t have her.
So instead of pouring himself into her, he poured himself into the music, the passion increasing, the notes feverish and frightening, unexpected outbursts of emotion before it slowed down again, shifting from fast and angry to melancholy, resignation. Gabriel was resigned.
And he suspected so was Sara.
He glanced over at her, realizing that she had been quiet since he had started playing.
Gabriel’s fingers paused when he saw her. Bloody hell. She had reclined onto the sofa on her back, knees up in the air, eyes closed, and her chest was rising and falling rapidly, her thumb brushing over the taut nipple beneath her tank top. Her lips were open in sensual abandonment, like a woman being stroked and aroused and loved by a man’s hand.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, a tiny moan of disappointment that lacerated his control and sent his fingers tripping sensually over the keys the way he wanted to touch Sara.
God, he wanted to touch her.
He stroked the piano instead and hoped his control would hold.
Sara lay back on the couch and let her eyes flutter closed. She didn’t feel drunk, not in the way she was used to. Wine made her giggly, mixed drinks made her stumbling, shit-faced drunk, and beer made everything seem extra loud. This wasn’t like any of those. She felt alert, wide awake, completely in control. Everything felt sharp and focused and real, and everything seemed so much more logical than it had before. She was feeling prosaic about her mother’s death, dissecting the path of her mother’s life, and seeing how like Anne Donovan, when a woman flirted with danger, drugs, alcohol, stripping, prostitution, her risk of harm increased. It didn’t mean she deserved it, but it meant simply that her odds of tragedy were greater. Sara could see that. She thought it sucked, but she could see it.
And she could see that coming to New Orleans had been a brilliant idea. It truly had. She was facing the past, the present, the future. She actually felt confident that when the book was finished, she could go back to work. Move forward.
Gabriel’s piano playing was beautiful, the strains of the music flowing around her, over her, in her. It rose and fell, a desperate, frustrated piece that reminded her of the man himself. He was locked inside himself, an introvert. Yet what was in there was passionate, creative, demanding, sexual. He wanted her, she was sure of that. She could see that in his eyes, hear it in his music.
Never in her entire life had she wanted a man to fill her body as rabidly as she did right at that moment. Lying there, her body ached for him, every inch tingling and aware and raw, wanting that touch, that brush, that push, that possession.
It didn’t occur to her that she wasn’t alone and maybe it wasn’t the time or place to touch her ni**les. She just accidentally brushed one, and it felt good, right, so she did it again. If he wouldn’t, she could. There was no harm in that, and maybe it would ease the ache.
When he paused for a moment, she asked him not to stop, and he continued, the notes harder again, louder. Sara looked over at Gabriel, watched his profile from her angle, studied his fingers moving. He had elegant, gorgeous fingers, long and tapered, strong and masculine, commanding in their control of the music, but artistic. Fingers that brought beauty and pleasure.
Fingers that she wanted on her. As she stared at him, watched in awe the quickness of his playing, the confidence, the grace of those long fingers, she imagined what it would feel like to take one into her mouth, to suck it to the tip, pull the entire length into her mouth. To have it pluck at the tightness of her nipple, slide smoothly down her abdomen. To slip into the heat of her body, his length giving her the satisfaction of depth, his elegance the pleasure of skilled stroking.