Song of Seduction (20 page)

With obvious relish, Arie pulled one hand and then another above her head, clasping both wrists and pinning her with the weight of his body. The flesh of her breasts stretched and flattened, but her nipples remained eager, reaching toward the source of her satisfaction.

She should have been scared. Maybe ashamed. Or reluctant. Instead, Mathilda passed the mere preliminaries of arousal. She grew desperate for the feel of him, especially within the hollow of her private, demanding core.

Arie was only her second lover, but already she recognized the effective simplicity of his technique. In February, he had kissed and sucked her thighs until every facet of her awareness focused on the place he had not yet claimed. Now, he seduced her in all but the same sequence. He played and delayed, driving her to the brink of sanity with his erotic, frank talk and idle touches—until Mathilda could think of nothing but what remained.

The act itself.

The anticipation that had doused her excitement was working strong magic, thrilling her with the possibility of completion.

“Now we know what the
Hollander
likes,” he said. “Your turn, Tilda.”

“I touch myself.”

She clamped her mouth shut, but the words had already flown free. Arie’s almost comical reaction was instantaneous. Despite her mortification, she smiled at his dilated stare, his flared nostrils and the involuntary flex of his pelvis. The hard rod of his erection pressed along the flesh of her belly. The hand holding her prisoner gripped a little tighter, as if his body unconsciously feared an inevitable retreat.

Maybe that knowledge had propelled Mathilda’s honest words past her embarrassment. She loved Arie De Voss, and this excruciating, renewed initiation to their lovemaking was very necessary. She voiced the forbidden because their intimate conversation urged her on. She was having fun. Watching him melt with a few choice words gave her such an unimaginable thrill. And if those awkward words helped prove her intention to stay, then all the better.

“I became discouraged, witnessing how satisfied Jürgen was when he…”

Arie cocked an eyebrow. “…reached number ten?”

“Exactly. One night after he fell asleep, I just…continued where he stopped.”

He groaned, a strangled sound. “Tilda, you will do me damage.”

“I knew I should not have said—”

“Oh, no. Do not stop. In fact, you may require this.”

He released her right hand. A tingle of blood returned to the freed limb, accentuating the unreal sensation of Arie’s fingers entwining with hers. Together they explored her damp core. Talking proved far more difficult than doing, she realized, as practiced reflex overcame her inhibitions. She cupped her mound. Her middle finger worked of its own accord, gathering a touch of aroused liquid before deftly manipulating her most sensitive nub.

Arie’s breath became tangled and harsh. He removed his hand and raised his hips slightly, allowing her room enough to touch and surge—and permitting him an unobstructed view. He took the tip of a breast into his mouth and, after a gratifying tremor, Mathilda timed the strokes of her fingers to match the sucking, pulsing cadence of his tongue.

He raised his head and watched the play of her fingers. Whispering against her areola, he said, “Beautiful.”

“Enjoying the show?”

“You hurt me, Tilda.”

She heard him, but his enthralled expression and the compulsive grind of his hips revealed the answer too. She never would have thought herself capable of staging such an unabashed display. But his steady, enthralled gaze drove her higher. She thrived on her need to perform for him.

“What did you think about on those nights, when you touched yourself?”

“You,” she whispered.

“No.”

“Of course, I did. I remembered you from the concert, how passionate you were for your music. I imagined that passion for me.”

“
Godallemachtig,
no wonder you were so skittish.” He turned his attention to her other breast. “Afraid I will not live up to your fantasies?”

“Silly, wasn’t I?”

“A little. Flattering. And intimidating.” His teeth grazed her nipple and then tugged. “How am I doing?”

Mathilda replied with a wordless moan. The pulse of her fingers increased.

“
Goed.
Now that we revealed the details of your extensive sexual history—”

“Arie!”

“—can we go back to the biting and touching?”

“I
am
touching.”

“I see that, clever girl,” he rasped.

Parting her legs with his knees, he levered himself between her thighs. Mathilda hardly noticed his new, more aggressive embrace. She focused on the gathering tension and trembling heat emanating from the steady, rhythmic circles she dashed over and over.

When Arie pressed just the tip of his swollen glans into her welcoming body, she knew how close they were to fulfillment. Both of them. Satisfaction beckoned. Her greedy bundle of engorged nerves jumped and pulsed, demanding more—harder pressure, faster strokes, a more vigorous tempo. She acquiesced mindlessly, reaching.

With his body braced on a forearm, Arie guided taut, measured thrusts with his other hand, gentling the tip of his shaft in and out. Mathilda craved the solid strength of his body against hers. She needed the full length of his erection, plunging and demanding. She wanted only what he intentionally withheld.

The maddening anticipation—waiting and wanting—became the key, opening her to the reckless release of a shuddering, gasping climax.

Arie snatched her hand from between their hips and replaced her palm with the hard power of his shaft. Moderation and restraint disappeared. The maddening bliss of Mathilda’s orgasm throbbed and raced along her nerves as he buried himself within her slick, clenching depths and rode her to a quick, breathless finish. She returned to an awareness beyond her own pleasure just when Arie collapsed on top of her, spent and smiling.

Enjoying every instant.

He simply savored the warmth and solace of his lover’s careless, gratified hold. They had fallen asleep together, enclosed in a gentle parody of the last moments of their lovemaking. On his stomach, he stretched along Mathilda’s side with a thigh nestled between hers. She remained prostrate with one leg crooked around his lower back. Her heel nestled in the divot at the top of his buttocks. His left arm had fallen asleep beneath his torso; his right looped her waist. He assessed every limb and angle behind closed lids, marveling at the sensations of peace and softness enveloping him.

When Arie opened his eyes, darkness obscured their intimate scene. The candles had burned to waxy nubs. He wanted to look at Mathilda, to study her curves and the textures of her skin. He wished to watch her contented sleep. But because shadows refused to relinquish any hint of her appearance, he contented himself with the luscious feel of her.

Content. Did a more powerful word exist? Not in Dutch, in German or Italian, in French or Magyar, could Arie describe the sensation of awakening with Mathilda. He existed in a moment for which he had no vocabulary.
Content
would have to suffice, although the word sounded inconsequential when compared to his wonder.

Fear snaked quickly behind, poisoning his happiness. What right did he have to such bliss when he had achieved his ends through lies and theft? How could he enjoy such an evening and anticipate a lifetime of Mathilda’s love if he yet lived under the specter of his mistakes?

He needed to tell her the truth.

No, he needed to hide the truth, lest he watch his career and her regard crumble to naught.

Choices weighed on him, punishing him for a crime no one else knew he had committed.

Arie eased from atop Mathilda, pulling free of her unconscious embrace. In darkness, he awkwardly retrieved a nightshirt before exiting the bedroom. He lit a candle from embers in the woodstove and padded on bare feet to the window behind his pianoforte. On Getreidegasse below, no one stirred. An occasional nocturnal creature scurried from shadow to shadow, but otherwise the city slept in the cool comfort of a spring night.

Restless and far removed from the peace he had enjoyed only moments before, he paced the short breadth of the studio. Back and forth, the single candle flame cast distorted silhouettes of his agitation on the walls.

His muse, his lover—she had purged the terrors of her heart, freeing herself from the circumstances of her birth and mistakes inspired by fear. She slept satisfied and free of burdens. And although she had not said as much, he was certain of her love.

Arie could claim no easy certainty about his own feelings. He had fallen in love easily. No experience from his past warned him to proceed otherwise, to stand firm against her allure. She had broken through his reticence, pulling him into a place of sunshine with her music, her regard, her eyes. How could he have resisted that magic when loving her felt like breathing again? Why should he have resisted?

He understood now.

He caught sight of the parchment concealing the surface of his worktable, among which lay the composition they had created together. The motif she had dredged from her soul in those diminishing moments of grief remained at the movement’s heart. He had merely provided the structure and accompanying harmonies. The window-dressing, he thought.

They had engraved every facet of their fresh, untested love in the cryptic symbols of music, yet he could not accept her suggestion. He had worked for tedious months to prove his capacity to write his own symphony. Finally. A large portion of his character took no interest in its eventual reception or success, but he wanted to hear an orchestra perform the blasted thing. He yearned to offer a testament to the talent everyone believed he possessed.

Frustrated, as violence rose up through his limbs, Arie sagged at the piano bench. He wanted to pound and smash those taunting keys. He wanted a din to erase the melodies he had not created—and the ones for which he took credit. He wanted punishment for the lies echoing through his brain, stealing his happiness.

What would she think of him if he did not prove to be the composer she believed? What would he feel, seeing her happy confidence and unflagging admiration dim to nothingness? The sloppy, colorless decades he had lived without her stretched into an unimaginable life of regret and loneliness.

He fingered the keys in a silent performance of “Mathilda’s Movement.” He depressed each sliver of ivory to the point of feeling its hammer touch a corresponding string. No sound. No inspiration. Very little hope.

“Arie?”

Mathilda stood at his side, wrapped in the tangle of bedclothes. Candlelight burnished her bird’s nest of brown tangles. Wordlessly, he made room for her on the bench and, spineless coward that he was, he waited for her to make a move.

“I did not expect to wake up alone,” she said.

In a fair world, Mathilda Heidel would never wake up alone. She would begin each conscious moment wrapped in the loving arms of a man who deserved her.

“Come back to bed,
mein Lieber.
” She leaned closer, kissing him on the shoulder. “How you endured my abandonment through those weeks, I’ll never understand. But I love you, Arie. I promise you have nothing to fear from me anymore.”

If his heart could shatter in his chest, his would have broken upon hearing her aggrieved words. He had spent the last hour fretting about his deceptions and injustices, while her first thought upon awakening in an empty bed was to blame herself for his withdrawal.

I love you, Arie.

She had said the words. But he could not believe her.

The deepest center of his loathing had deserved the pain of her wordless rejection in February. Her desertion had been just. Appropriate. He had missed her with a vicious yearning, but never once had he blamed her for leaving. And he could not allow her to believe such a thing now. He would not have Mathilda slip into the realm of doubt that marred her past.

He took her icy hands and brought their foreheads together. To any observer, their silhouettes might have revealed two people in the midst of a furtive, tender conversation, their faces near enough to kiss.

“I cannot sleep. That is all.”

She traced her hands across his hair, a calming, civilizing gesture he had come to enjoy. “Something troubles you, I know.”

“My symphony,” he said dismissively. But he hated the rancid taste of that half-truth.

Shyly, yet with the determination he so admired, Mathilda smiled. “Then you will listen to my idea. Accept that your symphony is complete and come back to our bed.”

Our bed.

Paradise.

Arie was a weak man. He understood his weakness as thoroughly as he knew how to walk. When she grasped his hand and tugged, his worthless hesitations relented.

Pretend. Pretend until it is real.

Other than his months-old declaration of love, Arie had never said anything truer to Mathilda. He had been inventing and re-inventing his personality for more than a decade. The time required to walk from the piano bench to the bedroom proved more than adequate to remake himself once again.

For Mathilda, he was an idol. The maestro. Her lover. The truth would stay buried, no matter the cost to his peace of mind. A single night with her—and he did not trust any more than one moment at a time—would be worth the agony of his guilty conscience.

Next to his bed,
their
bed, he took her in his arms and eased the blankets from her shoulders. Fearful of revealing his turmoil, he kissed her. Repeatedly. Her warmth and passion soothed his wounds, and he drank in every sensation. He pressed his hard shaft along her stomach, kneading the rounded flesh of her rear, pulling her to his aching body.

Had he actually believed he possessed strength enough to deny such a wonder?

Tension stretched across Arie’s muscles. The urge to taste and take and demand useless promises increased his ardor. Control slipped beyond his reach. Each needy assault on her lips became more aggressive than the last. The driving need to erase his anxieties made him brutal, remaking him yet again—this time into a man of violence and desperation.

For a dozen thrilling breaths, Mathilda kept pace with his fervor. She kissed him as urgently. Her tongue and teeth endured his pitiless invasion and returned his passion in kind. Too soon, or perhaps just in time, her kiss faltered. She squirmed against the pull of his hands on her backside. Her hands formed fists on the wall of his chest, pushing him away.

She bit his lip—out of self-defense, maybe, but the severe, frantic act drove him to the brink of madness. His groin jerked against her hips, fueled by the erotic intensity of the pain and punishment he craved.

A distant, rational part of him recognized the injury he inflicted, both to Mathilda’s tender body and to her fragile trust. But wild thoughts pushed aside what remained of his honor. He wanted her beyond decency, beyond honor. She was so damned innocent, despite all she had endured. She would forgive him anything. To push her into the mattress and take his satisfaction would be easy.

Her dreadful whimper broke through the fog of need that strangled his conscience, leaving Arie mortified and ice cold within his own skin. He tasted blood in his mouth.

“Arie!”

That single cry revealed all. Her passion, her trust—her love?—had vanished.

And he realized the crime he had nearly perpetrated.

Nausea arose swift and terrible in his throat. He released Mathilda’s imprisoned arms. Faint bruises marred her skin. As quickly as she could, she struggled into the discarded blankets, her only place of refuge. Enveloped within those opaque layers, her eyes wide and horrified, she appeared much younger than her twenty-two years. Bile stained his mouth and his stomach clenched in fearful pain.

And why? Because he feared her low opinion. Because he was terrified she would leave him. His brutality brought his most appalling nightmares to life.

“What was that?” Her voice wrote a whispered poem of confusion. She eyed him as if he were a half-crazed bear in a baiting pen.

Arie stepped back to the far wall of the bedroom, away from the door. If she wanted to run…

“Forgive me.”

“No, no, I asked you a question.” She tugged the blankets more tightly around her body, a defensive gesture that belied the vigor of her inquest. “What was that? A belated punishment for my behavior this winter? Have you been waiting to subject me to this cruelty?”

“No.”

“This has to do with more than fretfulness about your symphony, yet you won’t tell me.” Her eyebrows bunched together as a sensible woman of feeling and intelligence attempted to make sense of chaos. “I have witnessed your doubt and triumph. I have seen you a cad, an outsider, a drunk. You’ve been my mentor and my…my lover. But never before have I been afraid of you.”

“Perhaps you should be,” he snapped, angry at her patience. The sooner she left, the sooner he could begin the unthinkable process of living without her. “You know little about me, but you come to me with your innocent dreams.”

“Innocent? Me?”

“Of course. Marriage to a nice doctor does not make you a woman of the world.”

Her posture stiffened at his condescension. “You think—”

“What proof have you that this was not some elaborate means of seducing you?”

Panic like that of a cornered fawn flashed in her hazel eyes. “Do you want me to doubt you, to rescind my love? Is that what you want?”

“No!” He jumped away from the wall. “I want down from this pedestal!”

“I don’t understand.”

“I am not an idol, Mathilda, your musical hero to worship from the second row.”

She flinched. Then she sneered. “Oh, that is rich, because neither am I your muse!”

“But…”

Arie faltered. She
was
his muse. She embodied his fondest ideas, at once selfish and noble. Her face, her music, her essence propelled him to the most potent creativity he had ever considered. Was that how she imagined
him?

She interrupted the disarray of his thoughts. “I am a person, the same as you. I’m capable of cruelty and mistakes, of love. I pray I am beyond the former and that my future mistakes will be few.”

As Mathilda stood, his heart stopped with a disbelieving shudder. She walked to him, still hugging the bedcovers across her torso. Coldly, she stared into his soul, mocking his attempts to hide or rationalize or deceive. He looked away, ending her silent inquest for fear she would comprehend his every untruth.

But she did not stop. She eased closer, standing within arm’s reach of where he leaned into the wall. “If you’re asking me not to love you, I cannot. I tried.”

“Mathilda, please,” he whispered. Fatigued, baffled tears threatened to fall, an occasion he had not experienced since boyhood.

“Why are you trying to frighten me?”

If he had to be cruel again, if he intended to poison their affection before it had a chance to flourish, the moment was at hand. But Mathilda’s will remained far stronger than his. When good sense should have sent her fleeing into the early dawn with nothing but fear in her veins, she reached for him. She pulled him into the safety of her mercy and held his hand.