A Dance for Him (33 page)

I’ve never tried to initiate anything with a guy, never even done anything with any guy, I’d make a terrible seductress. And it would be awful if he pulled back and rejected me, or tried to laugh it off - I’d just about die of shame and embarrassment.

Everything says to me that he’s interested, but on the other hand what do I know about these things?

Dear God, all he would have to do is give the order and I would do whatever he wanted of me.
Anything
. That’s just the sort of effect he has on me.

He’s now squeezing my hand as well, and my knees are wobbly, I’m staring up at him like a deer in headlights, with equal parts arousal and fear, fear that he’ll misunderstand me, fear that he’ll understand me. Fear, perhaps, that if he understands me, he’ll think I’m weird or way too forward.

Calm down Evie or you’ll look like an absolute idiot in front of him. Ugh, I have no idea how I’m even going to be able to play anything for him when my heart is beating the way it is …

His smile widens slightly, but he lets go of my hand almost immediately after.

Obviously he couldn’t have held it forever, but I already miss the electricity of his touch …

“Well, why don’t you play the rest of the sonata for me today? Or did you bring something else?”

“T-the rest of the sonata is fine,” I stammer meekly, totter over to the Steinway, and sit down.

It’s good to be sitting down, I feel better already. Well, better as in more collected, not so flustered, as I contemplate the eighty-eight keys to which I’ve devoted my life so far. I feel slightly steadier, at least until I realise that I’ve just basically agreed to start with the scherzo - really not the best opener, it’s so fast-moving, and I can’t afford to make the slightest mistake.

Under normal circumstances I don’t like slipping up as it is, but in front of this gorgeous, brilliant man? It would be awful.

I want to impress him so much, I don’t want him to think I’m some stupid bimbo with delusions of grandeur. His attention is so galvanising, so incredibly addictive - I can’t imagine going back to where I was before I met him, to that grey anodyne blankness that I’ve become too used to over the years.

I’ve never experienced anything like what I’m experiencing now. It’s terrifying, exhilarating, I feel like my life has gone from black and white to full color, all in the course of twenty-four hours.

But that’s enough, I’ve got to start now. Breathe, Evie, breathe. Look at him, get his nod authorising you to begin, and then go on, begin …

CHAPTER FIVE

Look at her fingers flying all over the keyboard. And I do actually mean that, as in:
look at her fingers, Renzo
, because if I don’t, I’ll look elsewhere, at her less innocent parts, and then my thoughts will go in a direction that won’t be very conducive to a lesson, and I do owe her a lesson, after all.

What happens
after
the lesson is another story altogether, of course …

I mean, look at that getup. Yesterday she showed up all modest and unassuming, in a dress that was maybe slightly provocative, but still definitely within the bounds of decency, and today - today! - she’s like this little sexpot, showing off every asset she’s got.

She must know that every time she breathes I can’t help but wonder if the knot holding her top together will finally come loose, liberating those pretty tits and unveiling those saucy nipples that have been teasing me since yesterday. It’s a thought that makes it impossible to concentrate, to think of anything else. Except maybe about those long shapely legs of hers. Those shorts are cut so high that I rather fancy I can see a bit of ass, and what wouldn’t I give to run a hand up the inside of those provocatively bared thighs …

I almost wish she would actually play something badly so I could have something to focus on that wasn’t her sweet body. But no such luck - after the scherzo, which was fantastic, she gives me a slightly tentative look, and I nod at her to continue, so that she launches into the slow movement.

And again, it’s ridiculously beautiful.

She’s an extraordinary pianist, such beauty of tone, such softness of touch, such understanding of phrasing. So melancholic, with all those high notes left lingering tenderly in the air as they dissolve into nothingness.

I don’t know why Maurizio thinks I have all that much to teach her, I feel like there is only one thing I could teach her, and it isn’t how to play. Well, not how to play the
piano
, at any rate.

There are other things starting with the letter P that I’d be quite happy teaching her how to play ...

I almost don’t know if it’s her playing or her lovely face and body that is driving me crazy. I want her desperately, sure, and it’s not like I’ve never wanted anyone desperately before, but it’s never been with quite this intensity.

Of course, there’s something about her that I find particularly intriguing. The playing, obviously. The musicality. The obvious intelligence. But there’s also that fascinating, contradictory mixture of almost virginal timidity and provocativeness, and that hint of melancholy in her eyes.

A beautiful enigma.

I wonder what her backstory is. Poor little rich girl? She has a vaguely patrician manner about her, and she’s almost certainly not a scholarship case like I was back then - that bag she’s carrying her scores in is tasteful, discreet, elegant, definitely not cheap, and yet at the same time she carries it with a sort of nonchalance, not like a prized object she’s saved up for.

To which I’d almost say
too bad
, considering the last time I got involved with one of these rich girls. Another American - an odd coincidence - though it’s true that she wasn’t a musician, or even particularly fond of music. She just happened to be living near the conservatory when I was a student there, and I had a gig playing background music at a couple of her parents’ cocktail parties.

It didn’t end well, to say the least - there was a marriage that lasted all of an hour, followed by a prompt annulment. It seems I wasn’t good enough for her daddy, and she picked her trust fund over me.

Of course that was a long time ago, long before I became who I am - I was twenty and she was a year younger. We were young and stupid, or at least
I
was, I was actually in love, with all the enthusiasm of youth and naïveté.

I didn’t even get a lay out of it, because she wouldn’t do anything more than kiss me unless we got married first, and then once we signed the papers she insisted we could announce it to her parents, that they would come round once they heard we were married.

Brilliant, just
brilliant
.

When we got back to her parents’ and announced we’d just come back from city hall, her father said he needed to talk to her in his study, and twenty minutes later she came out all teary and said she would have to request an annulment, because otherwise they would cut her off financially.

It didn’t matter that I swore up and down that I’d take good care of her and make sure we could live well, that my career was just about to take off, that she could trust me to be successful for her, if not on my own account.

I never saw her again after that. Half a year later I heard she got knocked up by some rich older guy and married
him
not long after.

So much for wanting to save herself for marriage! …

Suffice it to say that ever since then
I’ve never bothered with anyone who wanted me to
wait
, not that that happens very often these days, ha!

I don’t expect I’ll have to wait too long with this one either, thank heavens. It’s quite obvious she’s hot to trot. When she finished the third movement she looked at me so very bashfully, her eyes huge with submission and desire, then turned red, squirming in her seat slightly, when I smiled and nodded at her to go on to the last movement.

It’s the strangest contrast, the way she goes between playing with absolute assurance, and the sweet, vulnerable expression on her face as she looks at me, as though supplicating me for approval - approval that she’d have gotten anyway without having to ask for it.

In some ways, it really is rather touching, and for some reason it makes me want to take care of her, and I don’t mean just in the sense of fucking her silly.

Although of course I (and my straining cock!) would like to do
that
as well …

But I don’t want to get sentimental.

She’s young and beautiful, and a talent to be reckoned with. I wouldn’t dream of hurting her, but I’ve got to protect myself as well and not get all starry-eyed. Chances are we’ll have a hot summer fling, I’ll teach her a thing or two about sex and pleasure in the process, and then we’ll both move on amicably, me to my old haunts, she to a no doubt brilliant career. Maybe we’ll cross paths every now and then when we’re on tour, and have a little private party for old times’ sake. Or maybe not.

Who knows.

Because she’s got me in quite the turmoil here as it is, even as she’s playing the last movement with the utmost nobility and understanding of tonal contrast, almost exactly the way I’ve always heard it in my own head.

My brain says to me that she’s a delightful, intelligent young woman, one with whom I could actually talk and be understood on a certain level. My body just wants to pin her down, part those long exquisite legs, and fuck her sweet little pussy till she screams my name in ecstasy …

And then there’s my heart, which I didn’t think really existed any more, and it’s telling me I’d love nothing more than to protect her and make her happy.

At the rate I’m going, if I don’t fuck her tonight and get it out of my system once and for all, I swear I’m going to fall in love, goddammit …

CHAPTER SIX

Thank heavens I managed to get through it! I had to try so hard not to think about him while playing. Well, except maybe during the slow movement.

He’d given me such a heated look when I glanced at him to see if I should continue that I just couldn’t get the expression in his eyes out of my mind - nor did I want to.

Because it was oddly inspiring, it made everything sound more
radiant
, somehow …

He’s now still sitting in his chair, still fixing me with that piercing gaze, making a few comments in that velvety, authoritative baritone of his. It’s terrible, I can hardly figure out what he’s saying, let alone absorb his remarks, all I can make out are bits and pieces while I stare dumbly into those darkly blazing eyes, scarcely able to think of anything else but how beautiful they are, pausing only to look occasionally at those sculpted lips, wondering if he’s staring at me like that because he’s interested, wondering if today I might possibly get away with kissing him, maybe, just maybe.

I can’t get out of my mind the idea that this must be how animal prey are transfixed by their predators before the latter swoop in for the kill. It’s like he’s turned my brain to mush. With any luck he won’t think that I’m a complete idiot.

Fortunately he seems happy with my playing at least. He’s repeated about three or four times now that I play beautifully, beaming at me all the while.