Downbeat (Biting Love) (3 page)

“Paper?”

“For Zajicek’s autograph?”

“Oh,
paper
.” Her face reddened and she tugged her sweater neckline up. “Um, left it on my chair.”

“I’d like his autograph too.” Peter stuck his reed in his mouth and sucked water thoughtfully. “Maybe after rehearsal.”

“Good luck.” Doreen took another drink. “That mob’s wrapped him like a cocoon. He’ll be immobilized for months.”

Peter’s eyes widened. “Unless he takes the cocoon with him.”

I perched my glasses on my nose.

The mob was moving our way.

“
Scheiß
,” Doreen breathed. “He’s coming here. He’s coming to talk to us.”

“Not us,” Peter said.

“He’s headed straight for Rocky.”

Chapter Two

“Me?” I said. “No way. Conducting’s thirsty work. Zajicek probably just wants a drink.”

“He’s not looking at the water fountain.”

“No?” My heart palpitated. It did seem that his black gaze was sort of aimed in my direction. Like a laser is “sort of” a flashlight or a saber is a “sort of” a butter knife. “No. Oh no.”

“Oh my God, yes.” Doreen nudged me. “Here he comes. Talk to him.”

“Talk?” I squeaked. My bucket crush, once safely taped inside my locker, had somehow leaped down and was sweeping toward me like a lava flow—smoldering hot and sucking oxygen. “Like sentences? With, like, words? No way. I can’t.”

The neck of the hallway packed the approaching ring of players together, five lanes of Chicago rush hour narrowed to one. My clenched muscles relaxed. No way Zajicek would get through that diamond-tight lattice of bodies.

With a wave of his long-fingered hand he cracked the mob open and strode out.

My feet automatically backed away. As he stalked forward I shimmied back…and hit the drinking fountain. His lithe body loomed over me and his dark stare pinned me in place. I couldn’t move, not even to breathe.

“Ms. Hrbek.” Zajicek’s deep tones were as smooth as basswood honey, his words flavored with an Eastern European accent. Saying my name, he made
my
undies vibrate.

“Yes, sir?” I squeaked, trembling, anxious. He was giving me epilepsy just by talking to me. If he were here to criticize my playing I’d curl up like a pill bug and die.

The Wicked Witch swooped between us. “Maestro? Would you like some water? I’ll hold the handle.” She bumped me out of the way with one hip, like being whapped with a sand bag.

“I am not thirsty, Ms. Wagner.” Said in his dark, purring voice, Zajicek made “thirsty” sound like a bedroom word. “But thank you for asking.”

Wendy frantically fanned herself.

Zajicek returned his piercing gaze to me. “Ms. Hrbek. I understand you reside in Meiers Corners.”

His words barely filtered through the buzz in my ears. “Y-yes, sir.”

“I know Meiers Corners, Maestro,” Wendy said. “I can help with whatever you need.
Whatever
.”

“Thank you, Ms. Wagner.” Zajicek gave her a short bow, very old-world. Then he waved her aside with one hand, shifting her with personality and air pressure, and slid in so close I could feel the heat of his body and smell the exotic spice of his skin. His eyes held mine captive. “But I am sure Ms. Hrbek will be sufficient for my…needs.”

Yikes. Talk about suggestive. My skin prickled as I broke out in a sweat so hot my eyeglasses steamed up. I jerked them off and polished them again.

“What needs are those, Maestro?” Wendy cooed. Okay. We all thought it, but only Wendy had the gall to say it. She shoved in front of Zajicek, never mind that he was toe-to-toe with me. I got a gut full of elbow and a mouthful of hair.

Zajicek’s gaze drilled through the Wicked Witch as if she didn’t exist. She deflated and slunk off. He said to me, “Perhaps it would be better to discuss this later.” His voice was soft as a promise. “Alone.”

I melted into a puddle of goo. “Um, sure?”

He inclined his head, that elegant nod, spun and strode back into the rehearsal room.

The orchestra bleated and jumped to follow. In their hurry, they tangled arms, feet and instruments. Finally Dr. Vilyn pushed Wendy aside and strutted to his chair. Wendy shoved everyone else out of her way and
humphed
after. One by one the orchestra unknotted and returned to their places. I waited until everyone else was seated to find my own chair. All that hot innuendo had cooked my legs to limp noodles.

I put my glasses on. They felt like Dali watches melting onto my cheeks.

The rest of the rehearsal went by in a blur. I played okay, but only because I’d practiced enough years that the finger waggling and blowing was automatic.

At the end, Zajicek gave the orchestra another of those old-world bows. “Thank you all for a productive two hours.”

We all wondered how he made “productive” come out sounding like “sex”.

“Next week we will start with the Prokofiev Symphony No. 1. The
Classical
. Please be ready to begin promptly at 7:30. Good evening.”

Then he stiffened. In the doorway behind his shoulder, movement flickered, a woman with a cornucopia of cleavage and a roaring waterfall of black hair, as insanely gorgeous as Zajicek was handsome.

I knew her. Camille.

Owner of several drug and sex dens, she’d tried to corrupt my hometown. She aimed greedy green eyes at Zajicek, as if she were a cat and he was cream she’d like to lick up.

Deep inside me, something stirred. Something like
never
.

I shook my head, confused.

Zajicek turned to go and locked eyes with her. He nodded toward the exit, a nonverbal “meet me outside”, but his grimace said that whatever he was planning to do with her, it wasn’t a pleasure tryst.

Then he disappeared.

Not disappeared as in an athletic jump off the podium and out the door. Gone, as in “poof”. As if the orchestra was under a collective spell and when we came out of it, it was a dream.

Camille was gone too.

“Um…I did see him, right?” Peter blinked at the empty podium. “I wasn’t hallucinating Dragan Zajicek conducting us?”

Doreen took a deep breath. “No. We all saw him. And felt him.
Rowr
.” She loosened her ligature and dealt with her reed.

“Well.” Peter shook his head and started packing up his oboe. “I knew from his recordings that he’s an amazing musician. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen better conducting.”

“He does have good stick technique,” I said.

Both Peter and Doreen choked.

“Er…I meant baton technique.” That didn’t seem any better. I hid my red face by grabbing my case from under the chair.

“Coward.” Doreen disassembled her A clarinet and started swabbing it. “I wonder where he’s going to meet you.”

“Wait, what?” I jerked straight.

“Right.” Peter’s eyes widened. “He had something to discuss with you, Rocky.
Alone
.”

“Oh, I’m sure…it’s not…he took off already. He probably forgot all about it.” I thrust the cloth-covered rod into my flute and swabbed so fast I scrubbed off a layer of metal.

“He doesn’t look like the kind of man to forget anything.”

He didn’t, but he also didn’t look like the kind of man who could possibly want anything to do with dowdy Rocky Hrbek. “He probably realized he made a mistake.” I packed my flute in its case and clicked the case shut. “Whatever he wants, he’ll get Wendy to help him. Or the Meiers Corners
hausfraus
in the second violin section.”

“He does have a reputation with the ladies.” Doreen stopped swabbing to stare at the doorway and sigh.

“Mmm,” Peter said. “Not just ladies. Fast women, fast men, fast cars. He’s a bad boy, our Maestro Zajicek.”

“All of which are not me.” I slid flute case, purse and music folder into my Altiere bag, hoisted it onto my shoulder and stood. “See you guys next week.” I joined a couple of brass players headed out into the warm October night.

Now to find my car.

See-Sucks rehearsed in the Old Red Church, aka Faith Presby, located in Redfox Village, a suburb of Chicago near Naperville. While big-league symphonies practice in their own rehearsal halls and regional orchestras often anchor local performance centers, we gave performances wherever we could. One time we played at a nursing home. We did the “1812 Overture”, complete with cannons (percussion section shooting blanks into garbage cans). In our defense, none of the heart attacks in the audience were fatal.

But my car… Old Red, built in the days when people walked to service, had a tiny two-car lot. Neighborhood garages were one-car so the street was always parked up. I’d left my car five blocks away. I started forward.

The sidewalk was as old as the church, with slabs like an orthodontist’s worst “before”. I watched my feet on the uneven walkway as I navigated. At least it wasn’t winter, when I’d be skirting ice as well.

“May I accompany you, Ms. Hrbek?”

I jumped and nearly tripped. Zajicek caught my wrist to steady me. His fingers were long and slender but amazingly strong—and fiercely warm. Like iron filings to a magnet, my skin aligned instantly to him. Hot sensation juddered through me, knocking me even more off balance. I scrambled to regain my equilibrium, only to have my feet scud into one of the semi-vertical sidewalk stones. My flute bag slipped off my shoulder and nosedived into the crook of my arm, yanking me sideways. I went down.

Powerful arms wrapped around me and saved me from severe pavement burn. The arms were gentle righting me, and I stood in their comforting embrace a moment to get my breath back. A strong heart beat under my cheek. My palms pressed against warm, crisp cotton. The body under the cotton was a solid, cloth-covered cliff, so unlike my own soft limbs. I shivered.

“Are you all right, Ms. Hrbek?” Zajicek’s deep honeyed tones, tinged with amusement, came from somewhere over my head.

“Huh?” Not the snappiest of rejoinders but I was cheek-to-massive-chest with Dragan Zajicek, the posterboy I’d had the hots for half my life.

He was definitely not pasteboard now. The longer I stood there the more I felt. Every ridge of his taut abdomen, the roped muscles of his long thighs, the poke of his belt buckle; they all became alarmingly three-dimensional. His warm breath stirred my hair. Something else stirred too, at hip level…and silent laughter rippled through him.

My brain churned. The intimate way he held me made no sense, but the laughter, well, my clumsiness had lightened the room on more than one occasion.

Then Zajicek’s long fingers slid under my chin, raising my face. His brilliant eyes were shuttered by slumberous lids. I stared in bemusement as his face expanded in my vision…

His lips found mine.

Warm. Smooth. Exciting. “Some Enchanted Evening” sang through my right brain.

My left brain locked up in utter confusion. A man was kissing me.
Zajicek
was kissing me. The sum of my kissing experience was a slobbery grandmother and a few rushed awkward sexual encounters. I never really saw what the fuss was about. Until Zajicek.

I always thought kisses were simply the press of lips. His mouth didn’t
simply
anything. It rubbed, it tasted, it gently teased. Warm, velvety soft, his tongue began to explore.

I stood there in stupefied awe.

Until he murmured against my lips, “How clumsy you are, Ms. Hrbek. How very fortunate I was here to catch you.”

He thought I’d done it on purpose.

I struggled out of his embrace. He was slow letting go, his fingers firm on my arms. With a little tilt of his head, he perused me. Whatever he saw on my face made him release me with an extravagant sigh. “I beg your pardon. Apparently I misread your…desires.”

I flushed, because he hadn’t misread my “desires” at all. Just my intentions. I jerked my flute bag onto my shoulder and started determinedly toward my car, fiercely watching my feet on the uneven sidewalk. “No biggie. What did you want, Maestro?”

Long legs kept graceful pace with me. “Call me Dragan, please. Maestro is so overused.”

His first name? It implied an intimacy I couldn’t afford. “You call me Ms. Hrbek.”

“Yes, but perhaps you would allow me the familiarity of your first name as well?” His tone was coaxing.

I skewed a look at him, immediately returning my attention to the stones, although I was beginning to think Zajicek was more treacherous than my footing. “If you want. After all, you’ll be seeing us weekly for a while.”

“Perhaps you and I will be seeing a great deal more of each other, hmm?”

Yikes. My stomach flipped, my attention disintegrated and the elevated corner of a concrete slab cold-cocked my foot. I tripped and would have fallen again if not for Zajicek’s lightning reflexes. He caught me in his arms, steadying me. Senses reeling, I let him, my forebrain scolding
idiot
but my lizard brain panting and presenting its tail. Before I could completely self-combust, he brushed a thumb over my cheek and released me.

“What do you mean by that?” I croaked. Catching my flute bag to my chest, I wheeled and trotted off, fast, too fast, almost running, nearly stumbling yet again. Making a conscious effort to slow down, I cleared my throat. “Why would you see more of me than any other orchestra member?”