His lips were pursed, a scowl on his face—of concentration, irritation, frustration—she wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem like he was struggling with the music. There was no hesitation, no trips or pauses or bad notes that her uneducated ear could detect. Sara let her knees fall apart, onto the couch, because it seemed like they needed to be open. Everything ached and desired and she inched her skirt up past her knees, feeling hot and aroused. Gabriel wasn’t going to touch her, she knew that. He was playing the piano, and he needed to do that. She really knew he needed to do that, for his sake.
But she couldn’t just lie there, alone, wanting him so desperately that she could feel the dampness in her panties, feel the tug and pull for sexual fulfillment in her womb. It was just impossible. And while her fingers weren’t his, she could touch, so he could play, and they could both have what they wanted.
It made perfect sense to her in his dark apartment, the absinthe convincing her that all her ideas were amazing ones, while Gabriel’s music danced around her, an expression of his giving in, his freedom, his creative joy. His sensuality. Sara slid her hands along her inner thighs, sighing. Not the same at all, but it still felt good, especially when she brushed the back of her thumb over her panties.
Gabriel made a sound, and she glanced over at him. He still played, but his eyes weren’t on the keys. They were on her, and they were burning. He had seen her touch herself, could see her white panties, that was obvious. He looked a little shocked, but mostly, he looked like he liked it. Sara moistened her lips and his eyes narrowed. Oh, yeah. He liked it.
So she turned away, looking up at the ceiling, and touched her chest with one hand, squeezing and rubbing her nipple, while she stroked across the front of her panties with her other hand. It felt so good that she sat half up and yanked off her tank top, dropping it to the floor so she could feel her skin, reach inside her bra and free her br**sts, cupping with both hands. Maybe she was drunk, because it seemed perfectly natural, and she didn’t hesitate. It felt amazingly good, heady and voyeuristic, to know he was watching her, wanting her. Instead of being angry that he wouldn’t take, she felt the power of that tease, the heightened titillation of knowing that everything she did could both bring pleasure to herself and acute arousal to him.
She pulled her skirt up all the way to the waist and slipped her hand inside her panties. The warmth heated her skin and she lay still for a second, just feeling the anticipation, feeling the heat of Gabriel’s eyes on her, feeling the cool breeze from the air conditioner propped in the window a few feet away tickling over her bare stomach and thighs. Even though she knew nothing about music at all, particularly classical music, she could hear and feel what the piece Gabriel was playing was intended to convey. It was passionate, wild, no longer anger, but not melancholy either. It was a song of seduction, a challenge to continue, to ignore convention and propriety and embrace pleasure.
Closing her eyes, she stroked inside her panties, rushing along her clitoris and into the moistness of her body. The first touch tripped off intense need, and she moved more urgently, stroking in and out, her breathing turning into a low pant, her back arching, her heels digging into the couch cushion. She wanted to ask him to help her, to come over, to replace her finger with his, but she couldn’t speak, couldn’t make the words come out loud and be heard over the music. Couldn’t spoil the moment, the pleasure, the feeling that in a way, he was the one touching her. It was his finger, his music, his creation, the swirling rise of ecstasy in her body the result of him, all him.
And when she came, when her inner muscles convulsed around her finger, it was him she came for, and the image of his fingers deep inside her. That way, he could play, fill the room with the sound of his music, at the same time she could shatter in pleasure, her hips lifting up in the air, body tensing everywhere as she rode it out.
She wasn’t sure if she made any sound, but she felt the moans, heard them echoing in her head, the tight pulses settling down as she relaxed her legs, her back. Prying her eyes open, she swallowed hard. Wow. She had never been so aggressive before, so frantic in pushing herself to completion. That had been hot and exciting and unexpected, and she wanted more. She was sitting up, ready to strip completely, yank off her bra, ditch her skirt, go in for a second time, longer and deeper, up on her knees, when she saw Gabriel.
He was watching her, and she couldn’t read his expression. It was tight and he had stopped playing.
Then he said, “Get over here.”
“What?” Sara reached for her glass, emptying the last few drops, her mouth dry, throat sore and hoarse. She wasn’t sure what he was saying exactly, if he intended to yank her bra back over her ni**les, lecture her, or f**k her.
“I said, get over here. Right now.”
Hoping it was the latter, Sara stood up and walked over to him, letting her skirt fall down over her thighs on its own, her body still moist and slick with want, her br**sts still spilling over the top of her bra. She pushed her hair back off her head and went to him, enjoying that walk, enjoying the way his eyes watched her, the way his fingers stayed tight, poised over the keys, but not playing. His hair fell over one eye and he shook it off by jerking his head.
She went up to him, right to the bench, and slid in front of him until she touched his arm with her thigh. “Yes?”
Gabriel moved his arm until he was surrounding her, holding her, enclosing her. Then he shocked her, literally yanked the air right out of her, by gripping her waist and lifting her up, clear off the floor, and slamming her ass down onto the keys. Her back collided with the top of the piano, and she teetered, unbalanced, startled by the angry vibration of a dozen keys hitting at the same time, and by his unexpected action, her toes struggling to touch the floor and keep her from falling over in a tangled heap. “What are you . . .”
Then she lost her thought, her words careening into a cry of shock and ecstasy as he yanked her skirt up, shoved her panties to the side, and bent over, plunging his tongue inside her. “Oh, holy shit.” Reaching left and right, slapping her hands around for something to hold on to, anything, Sara felt the force of his tongue in every inch of her body. She instantly had a mini-orgasm, an aftershock of the one before, and a reaction to his aggressive behavior.
It was so intense, so sensitive, her clitoris tight and hard, the pleasure almost painful, that she tried to retreat, tried to back up. But the piano ground into her, held her in place, held his tongue deep inside her, and she glanced down, finally dropping her hands to his shoulders for help in keeping her upright. His hair fell forward, covering his face from her view, and those silken strands, in their curious variety of colors, caught the light, looking ethereal, preternatural, surreal like the moment itself, the sensation of his moist tongue sliding along her hot flesh too real, too intense, for anything else to feel normal. It all seemed glossy and shiny, strange and crisp, like she was inside a painting, like the wall behind him was a canvas that could shift at any moment, like the only thing that she could trust in as being real was the feel of his shoulders beneath her fingers, the smell of his cologne, the hard press of the piano in her back, and the touch of his mouth on her desperate, overstimulated, agonized body.