In Harmony (36 page)

Connor put me carefully down on the edge of the bed and I thought for a moment that that was his plan—to push away the fear with sex. But he crouched down in front of me, staring into my eyes, and I realized he was matching his breathing to mine, leading me to safety.

When I was calm, the embarrassment settled in. Together with a kind of tiredness, as I accepted my fate. I’d been crazy to even try to fight it. I should have given up as soon as Dan broke his arm, and I could have avoided all the stress and heartache of the last few months.

And then you’d never have gotten together with Connor,
a little voice reminded me.

“Sorry,” I told him.

“It’s fine. But do you get them a lot—the panic attacks?”

“Only a few times before.” I thought back to Boston. “Usually when….” I sighed. “Usually when I have to talk to a lot of people. That’s why I don’t do presentations.”

He nodded. And then he said, “You have to.”

“I can’t.”

“If you don’t, you won’t graduate.”

“I can’t,” and this time I said it differently. Not belligerent or angry or hysterical, just…sad. Because the one thing I knew was that my fear was immutable.

He nodded. “Yes you can.” And he kissed me. Not a kiss of passion, meant to distract me. A heartfelt, warm kiss of love that took me by surprise and filled me with strength. He believed in me, just as I’d believed in him. However scared I was, I had to try to live up to that faith, just as he’d lived up to mine.

I let out a long sigh, closing my eyes. When I opened them again, I looked into his eyes. “How?” I asked levelly.

***

He took me to a tiny bar and bought me a beer. “Now,” he told me. “Close your eyes, and tell me what goes through your head when you’re about to do one of these things.”

I didn’t understand why he’d hauled me out of the apartment. Couldn’t we have done this there? “Umm…that everyone’s going to laugh at me?” I tried.

“Okay. Go on.”

“That they’re going to heckle and shout stuff out and ask me stuff I can’t answer.”

“Okay.”

“That I’ll forget what to say and just dry up.”

“Open your eyes.”

I did. He was leaning back in his chair, sipping his beer. “Do you know what all those fears are called?”

“Terrifying?”

“Normal.”

I looked at him doubtfully. “If everyone gets them, no one would ever do a presentation, or a speech, or anything.”

“The only difference between you and everyone else is that you’re a control freak.”

“
Thanks.”

He looked at me seriously. “Think of it as a play. The audience are there to play a part too. You’re trying to control them and you can’t. Forget about them laughing or heckling. You play
your
part and trust them to play theirs. If they’re nice, you’ll be fine. If they’re not nice,
they’ll
look like arseholes, not you.” He took a long slug of beer. “That leaves forgetting your lines, for which we have a napkin.” He took a napkin from the bar and pulled out a pen, then thrust both into my hand. “Choose a piece of music.”

“Tchaikovsky’s
Romeo and Juliet,”
I said.

“Why should someone listen to it?”

“It’s incredible—it tells an entire Shakespearian tragedy without words.”

“So write down the parts of the story it describes.”

I did, stripping it down to the five key moments.

“It can’t be that easy,” I said, staring at the napkin.

“Finish your beer,” he told me, “and let’s find out.”

***

Next door, I discovered why he’d brought me out into the city. It was an upmarket coffee shop with an open mike night. People were doing poetry, songs, and little opinion pieces about life and love and society. If a presentation about
Romeo and Juliet
would go down well anywhere outside of Fenbrook, it was there.

That didn’t stop me being terrified, of course.

“
No,”
I told Connor, as soon as I figured out his plan.

“She’s next,” Connor told the organizer, ignoring me completely.

“
Connor!”

He turned to me, looked deep into my eyes, and kissed me, silencing any further protest. Again, I felt that warm glow of strength seeping through me, pushing back the fear.

“What did we learn?” he asked as he pulled back.

“Play my part. Use the napkin,” I recited.

And then he was pushing me to the front and leaning in front of the mike. “Karen Montfort on…Tchaikovsky’s
Romeo and Juliet!”
he announced. There was some polite applause, thirty or so heads turned to gaze at me and…I was on.

Someone whacked a bass drum and I nearly yelled at them to shut up. Then I realized it was my heart.

Say something!

But I couldn’t think of anything to say. The silence grew and grew.

Say anything!

There was a guy at the front with steel-rimmed glasses and an overcoat, cuddled up to a girl with frizzy hair. They looked non-threatening. “
YOU!”
I yelled into the mike, stabbing out a finger towards him. He flinched. “You…need to listen to
Romeo and Juliet
.”

There was some good-natured laughter, and it became easier to breathe. I read the first word on the napkin, and started to talk. The first few sentences were like wading through oatmeal, but as I kept speaking and the world didn’t end, I started to loosen up. It was terrifying, but it was at least ninety percent less terrifying than I expected it to be. When some newcomers blundered into the coffee shop halfway through, I froze for a second.
Just play your part,
I remembered. I started speaking again, and they shuffled to their seats apologetically.

By the time I reached my fourth point, I was in full flow. By the final one, I almost didn’t want it to end. As I moved away from the mike, there was a smattering of friendly applause.

I staggered over to Connor and almost fell against him in relief, burying my face in his chest. “Don’t
ever
do that to me again,” I told him.

“But it worked. You did well. Do the same thing tomorrow: instant A.”

I didn’t know about that. But it did feel like maybe I’d actually be able to speak.

“We should celebrate,” Connor told me. “Do you want to go for a drink?”

I drew back and looked up at him, this man who’d cured my fear—or at least made it manageable. He was doing
that
smile again, his eyes twinkling. I felt my heart boom in my chest again, and not from fear this time.

“No,” I told him. “I’ve got a better idea.”

***

We were kissing as we climbed the stairs to his apartment, struggling with each other’s clothes even as we opened the door. My sweatshirt went over my head and I stripped off his jacket. His hands smoothed over my skin beneath my vest top, and mine traced the hard muscles of his abs under his t-shirt. We only broke the kiss to strip more clothes off, and then we were falling onto the bed, rolling over and over, my bra-clad breasts mashing against his bare pecs, denim-wrapped legs scissored together. Our mouths were wet and panting, hungry for each other.

We rolled so that I was on top, and I reached down between us and unbuckled his belt, then eased his jeans down. Maybe it was because I didn’t have the virgin thing hanging over me anymore, maybe it was the adrenaline of having conquered my fear, or maybe it was just the feel of him under my hands, but I was more turned on than I’d ever been. There was a hot ache between my thighs, a need to be
filled.

“This is new.” He grinned up at me, surprised but amused at my sudden hunger and I felt myself grinning back. All the sex in my fantasies had always been so…
serious.
Passionate, yes, but po-faced. I hadn’t ever considered that it could be
fun.

I pulled down his jockey shorts and his cock sprang out, thickly erect. I grasped it with one hand, enjoying the feel of its heat, and stroked it a few times as I leant forward and kissed him long and deep, my tongue licking his the way I planned to lick his cock. He got my meaning and growled low in his throat.

I smoothed my hands over his chest as I kissed him, sweeping them along the contours of his pecs, rubbing over his nipples. I discovered that he seemed almost as sensitive there as I was, and leaned down to enclose one with my mouth. I tried giving it an experimental nibble with the edges of my teeth and his back arched off the bed in response. I was on my hands and knees above him, my ass in the air, and he gave it a slap. It was just a playful swat, really, especially through my jeans, and I giggled. But there was something deep inside me that did a little flip-flop at the sensation. Something that awoke and sent a whole new current surging straight to my groin, one I’d never felt before. I thought of Clarissa and her games with Neil.
Something to explore later,
I decided with a little thrill of excitement. We had all the time in the world and there were a
lot
of things I wanted to try.

I left his nipple gleaming wetly and moved down to his cock. Sliding my mouth down over the head, I closed my eyes, my mind going dreamy as I started to suck, my hand starting a slow rhythm on his shaft. I had more time, now, to concentrate on the sensations. The taste of him, salty and male on my tongue. The heat of him, throbbing against my palm. I felt his hands unbuttoning my own jeans, and between us we managed to strip them down off my legs while I sucked him, my panties sliding down along with them.

I hollowed my cheeks, my tongue sliding around and around the straining, swollen head of him, relishing every moan of pleasure I drew from him. As I stroked him with one hand, the other slipped down between his legs, cupping his balls. I let them roll over my fingers, marveling at them. Something connected in my brain, the thought of all that male seed locked up inside him, waiting to gush out. Waiting to…I gulped, words like
fertile
suddenly filling my head. The thought of that part of it, of the primal nature of it, hadn’t really sunk in until then, and when it did a ripple of something between fear and arousal went through me. Not that I wanted to get pregnant—
obviously.
But the idea of it….

I felt his hand between my legs, then, nudging my thighs apart a little and then cupping my sex, fingertips parting me and finding me already wet. His thumb circled my clit while two broad fingers slid over me and then—
God!—
into me. He started to move them and his speed guided me as I sucked and stroked him, both of us building to a frenzy. I knew I had to stop before he came, but part of me almost didn’t want to.

He gently lifted my head with his free hand, his chest rising and falling beautifully as he panted, and started to roll us over.

“No,” I told him. “I want to go on top.”

He blinked and then grinned again. “You really are different tonight.”

I flushed. “I have a lot of catching up to do.” I reached back behind me and unclipped my bra, ready to shed the last bit of my clothing but feeling that flutter of nerves again. He’d already seen my breasts, but—

I took it off, looking into his eyes the whole time, and saw that delighted gleam in them when my breasts were freed. He put both hands on them, his warm palms just grazing my nipples, and I closed my eyes and shuddered, a wave of heat rippling down between my legs. He started to circle his hands, lifting each breast just a little each time, and I felt my nipples stiffen at his touch.

He pulled out a condom and rolled it on, and I swung a knee over him. We gazed at each other for a second, and I must have looked nervous because he nodded at me minutely.

I lowered myself down onto him. God…it was so different, being in control. I could let his straining cock just tease my folds, brushing the heat of him against me again and again before letting it slowly part me. My thighs tensed as I settled lower, the head spreading me wide, my breath coming in tight little pants. Every millimeter brought new ripples of electricity as his cock slid deeper, stretched me wider. I sank down and down…until at last he was completely buried in me. I knelt there for a moment, just staring down into his eyes, enjoying the feel of him there.

And then, planting my hands on those deliciously full, hard pecs, I started to fuck him. Slowly at first, drawing him from me inch by exquisite inch, and then faster, until I was almost falling onto him with each downward stroke. His hands slid under my ass, lifting me higher, until I was riding him fast and hard, gasping for breath, tight and silken around that plunging hardness. He pressed against my breasts, encouraging me to lean back—I tried it and
OhMyGod!
Suddenly he was stroking against a whole new spot, and I put my hands behind me, supporting myself there, my breasts straining up towards the ceiling as I felt the orgasm rise inside me. I came like that, quick and almost violent, left breathless from the suddenness of it. Then he coaxed me forward, so that I was leaning over him, and we kissed, gasping into each other’s mouths as our groins slapped and thrust. He pushed my hair back from my ear and whispered: