Chapter Sixteen
Gwen didn’t know what to do with her hands. She usually had a champagne glass when talking to strangers at the Plaza, something for her fingers to wrap around.
But the moment she’d arrived she had been accosted by every sort of person, all clamoring to know more about Fugue No. 1, now accompanied. The problem was that she knew nothing about Fugue No. 1 except for the notes on the page. She couldn’t very well just tell people she had had no idea it existed until sixteen bars before her entrance.
“And how long have you been working with Xander Thorne?” a kind old lady squeaked. She was a huge donor. Gwen needed to tread carefully.
“We…Well, we only started…”—what was the word?— “collaborating this season.”
“Oh, lovely! And will we see more collaborations in upcoming concerts?”
Gwen blinked at her, the tight smile held firmly on her face. She needed a drink.
“Absolutely, you will.” Nathan appeared next to her, stepping forward with a grin and a handshake. “Aren’t they spectacular? The Pops are absolutely going to be featuring this partnership in the future.”
Gwen blinked up at him and glanced over at Xander, who was speaking to a different set of donors a few feet away with an uncomfortable grin on his face. They hadn’t had a moment alone together since the bathroom at intermission, but she’d felt his eyes on her.
Nathan was still talking them up, suddenly calling out, “Xander! Apologies, Brian, can I borrow him?” A moment of irritation flashed over Xander’s features before he strolled over to them. “Xander, Dorothy was just asking if you and Gwen will be collaborating on arrangements in the future.”
“I sure hope so,” his voice rumbled from behind her.
A champagne glass was finally pressed into her fingers, and she almost kissed him for it. Xander extended his arm to hug the older woman, pressing kisses to her cheeks. Gwen blushed, thinking inappropriate things about those lips even as they landed on the other side of a wrinkled face.
“Will you tell Dorothy more about what’s coming up for you and Gwen?” Nathan said, his marketing face on and ready to go.
Gwen gulped down her champagne like it was water.
“Oh, I would love to, but Gwen and I need to speak to Barry before he cuts out. Besides, I think Dorothy would much rather hear it from you, Nate.” Xander slapped him on the back, hard enough to jar Nathan’s drink.
He steered her away without so much as a goodbye, and Gwen said, “Who’s Barry?”
“No idea. Let’s go find one.”
They were caught in several more webs that evening. Always together. Always with his hand resting lightly on her back. Like kissing him had broken a boundary, and now his hands were free to roam. A hand at her elbow to guide her. His lips against her ear as he named the person approaching them next. A whisper of fingers on her hip.
She let him do most of the talking, since he said the most riveting things:
“Gwen helped me write the cello part, so it’s only fair that I include her in the progression.”
“Miss Jackson truly inspired the piece.”
“I knew from the moment I heard her play that I needed to make music with her.”
Gwen was dizzy. His thumb was brushing patterns on her back.
I want to see you. And fuck you. And play music with you.
Maybe a dam had broken within her as well, because suddenly she couldn’t remember why any of those things couldn’t happen—right—now.
She tossed back her glass of champagne and said to the reporter he was chatting with, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we need to get going. Xander and I have an early recording session in the morning.”
Xander looked down at her, and the reporter lifted his brows. “Recording! Are you recording the song you played this evening?”
“Yes,” Gwen said. “We have to make some edits tonight… bang a few things out.”
She felt Xander go completely still next to her.
The older man wished them luck, and before they’d finished their goodbyes, she was leading them past a beaming Mei to the coat check, where the musicians were invited to check their instruments instead of returning to the Carnegie lockers after the party. Squeaky in hand, she dragged him to the curb to flag a cab.
She slid onto the seat, and it seemed he was still trying to figure out if he was joining her in the cab when she gave the driver the cross streets of his apartment building. He folded himself into the car stiffly, and they didn’t look at each other once during the drive.
They stood next to each other on the elevator up. Same positions as the last time they’d shared this elevator. And Gwen for some ungodly reason thought about Ronnie Schultz and Kevin Peters, her only other sexual partners. Neither of them had texted her later. How quick and unpleasant it had been.
But she knew this was going to be far from unpleasant. Xander already knew how to touch her. She shivered as she remembered that the only orgasm she’d ever had with another person had been on the eighth floor of this apartment building. The elevator dinged.
He held the door open for her, like last time, only now she knew which way to go. The keys turned in the lock, and he stepped aside to let her go in first. She went straight into the kitchen area and waited for him to lock up behind them. The Stradivarius case rested in the entryway.
She couldn’t meet his gaze. He stood across the kitchen island from her, and she looked compulsively at all of his appliances.
“Let’s go to your studio,” she said. She turned on her heel and moved confidently into the only room she’d become familiar with in this apartment.
She carried Squeaky with her and held him close as Xander brought his Stradivarius over to its home in the corner. She examined the instruments on the wall, like she’d never seen them before. Her fingers drifted over Ruby.
She turned to him. “You kept the recording.”
He stared at her from next to the window. He nodded.
“Why?”
A blush rose on his jaw, and he looked away from her and said, “It was…stunning. It was artistry. I didn’t want to lose it.”
She didn’t understand how that was true. She’d been… distracted.
“Let’s hear it.”
He blinked at her. Something darkened in his eyes before he moved to his computer screens. He shook the mouse, and the screen popped up with the violin music for Fugue No. 1. He clicked his way through his music program and said, “I cut it down. So, there’s a version with only the last take.”
She pressed her lips together, and she could maybe see the tops of his ears burning red. He shrugged off his tuxedo jacket, laying it across the back of his desk chair. He clicked play, and Gwen held her violin case in front of her like a shield.
The rumble of the electric cello started up the arpeggios. Gwen had forgotten how different Ruby’s tones were from his Stradivarius.
She stared at the floor, trying to listen for what it was he thought was so fascinating, and trying not to recall where his hands had been at this point. She sailed into the smooth section, breathing into the rhythms and slowing the tempo.
It sounded all right. Nothing truly remarkable. She still thought the more impressive thing was the composition.
The recording reached the fingerpicking section, and she swallowed, knowing for certain that this was the moment his hand had slipped into her leggings. She chanced a glance at him and found him staring at her, eyes dark.
She bit her lip and looked away.
There was something hauntingly beautiful about it, she would concede. Her intonation was better than she’d thought, and there was a type of movement—something that couldn’t always be accomplished while playing with other people. She made choices about vibrato and rallentandos that affected the mood of the piece.
The quick build to the end. And the tonic.
Gwen looked to him. He sat in his desk chair, leaning forward on his knees with his eyes closed. Listening. Feeling. And then:
“Will you really record with me?” His eyes opened, looking to her. “In a real studio? The arrangement we played tonight?”
He looked at her like his entire being hinged on her answer. And even though they were in his apartment, even though he had always been the one to pursue her, even though he already knew she was here to…bang it out, Gwen knew she held all the cards here.
And there was one thing that she desperately wanted. More than him.
“Yes,” she said. “On one condition.”
He looked at her, bracing for something treacherous.
She stepped toward him. “Will you play the violin part for me? Here. Now.”
He sat very still. And she waited.
“I don’t play violin anymore.”
Like an answer you memorize. Like reciting your address when you’re lost.
She lifted her brows at him. “Are your violin fingers broken?” She smiled. “Is your shoulder injured? Can’t support the weight?”
He didn’t smile back at her.
She pressed on. “You wrote the violin part.” She nodded over his shoulder at the sheet music on the screen. “You must have—”
“I wrote it in the program. Electronically.”
She stared at him. “So you haven’t played the violin since—”
“In seven years.”
Around the time he’d dropped out of Juilliard, then.
Gwen watched him. He was tense. Like someone had just asked him to swim with sharks. She moved toward the chair he’d sat her in to play the cello and turned it to face him. When she gestured for him to sit, he rose slowly out of the computer chair and walked to her. She opened her case and extended Squeaky to him.
“I can use my electric,” he said, looking over to the wall where Victor was hung.
“No, that’s all right.” She handed him the bow. “I want to hear this on acoustic.”
He took the instrument from her and sat, looking a bit lost. She started the track of her playing the electric cello and sat in his computer chair, turning to watch him.
He waited for sixteen measures, holding her violin delicately, like he could break it if he wasn’t careful. She leaned forward on her knees, like he would do to listen to her.
He lifted the violin to under his chin. His lips pressed together. And then he put the bow to the strings.
The sailing melody, catching the tail end of the arpeggios.
He frowned at something, but Gwen thought it was perfect.
He was perfect.
Harmonizing with her recording. Even though she was on electric, and he was on acoustic, there was something right about it.
Almost like Xander Thorne and Alex Fitzgerald had decided to play together.
He pressed through the quarter-note rhythm. And his eyes slid closed, his body humming with the melody. The way he moved. Flowed. Exactly like he’d tried to teach her with his chest against her back and his thighs tight against hers.
She felt as if she were watching him through a fogged glass. Something hazy in the background. Something fighting to come forward. He was Alex Fitzgerald again. Playing the Chaconne. Asking for channel subscribers with crooked teeth. She felt her breath catch.
She’d found him again.
His eyes closed, squeezing over the arpeggios and fluttering through the smoother sections. Remarkable. With her too-small violin in his huge hands, his fingers still found their way over the strings, dainty as ever, nimble as he’d been years ago.
The ending. She watched as his lips trembled with the vibrato of the strings.
She dragged in a breath and felt her lungs trembling with him. The bow lifted from the strings. The sound ceased.
Gwen stood as he kept his eyes closed, listening to something she couldn’t hear. Her hands dropped onto his shoulders, and her mouth pressed to his. He gasped against her lips, and she slid her fingers into his hair, whispering, “Alex.”
His arms reached up for her waist, circling her, the violin and bow still in his hands. And his body surged forward to her, pressing up and opening his lips.
She sighed into his mouth, air coming quickly and leaving just as fast. Gwen slid onto his lap, sitting on his thighs and draping her arms over his shoulders.
He moaned as his tongue slipped into her mouth, dancing and searching and urging her on. Gwen pushed against him, her chest against his and her lips never leaving his.
Alex Fitzgerald wanted her. And he was beautiful.
She heard him place the violin and bow down as delicately as possible, and she smiled, waiting for him to touch her, to paw at her and rip her clothes and—
There were only light fingers on her hips, even as his teeth nipped at her bottom lip. Small touches to her outer thighs, even as she scooted forward, opening her legs to press them further together. Fingers curled into her dress and clutched, even as she moaned into his mouth and rolled her hips and pressed her tongue to his.
He panted against her lips as she pulled back to look at him. Eyes blown dark. Pink staining his cheeks. He stared into her eyes, waiting for some cue from her.
She nodded, jerking her head. “Please.”
His hands were up her thighs, dragging her dress, pulling it up past her waist, tugging it over her head and off. She gasped at the sudden chill before his lips dropped to her chest and one hand covered her breast, the other falling back to her hip, thumb rubbing over her skin.
She listened to her own choking breath as his lips and tongue attacked her chest, spinning down until he sucked at her breast through her thin bra.
“Oh, my—”
The hand on her hip slid over her lace underwear, thumb pressing to her clit easily. The other hand pinched at her nipple.
She gasped, throat closing as her eyes rolled back.
He groaned with her lace-covered nipple in his mouth.
She felt like she was drowning, trying to suck in air against the current. Her hips rocked against the fingers at her clit, and he worked her bra down under her breasts.
His lips were all over her, sucking and licking and blowing hot air whenever he stopped to breathe.
“I…I need…” she stammered, pulling sharp air into her body.
His hand pushed under her lace panties, thumb pressing quick and consistent circles on her clit.
She felt it tightening inside of her, faster than it had ever come on before, and her hips tensed as his teeth grazed her breast, growling against her skin.
She panted for air, and as his thumb brushed firmly against her clit, she dragged him back from her chest, dipping her head to kiss him. Her hips jumped. Her throat whined. Her fingers tugged. And her lips parted for him.
She fractured as he breathed into her, “Gwen.” A cry burst from her lungs, her eyes squeezed tight, and her hips jerked several sharp movements against his.
She fluttered down, drifting like a feather, and whispered his name—his true name—across his lips, before nuzzling her mouth to him again.
He kissed her, soft and easy, and when he moved his hands from her core and breast and back to her hips, she could feel him, hard and restrained in his tuxedo pants.
Her hands slid down from his shoulders, brushing over his chest and stomach, down to his button and zipper. He sucked in a shaky breath and then dropped his forehead against her neck. She ran her fingers across the outline of him, soft strokes sweeping over his zipper. She felt him twitch. When she flipped open his button, he muttered, “Fuck” into her neck.
And then he was standing, taking her with him and holding her legs around his waist as he stepped over her violin case and walked her out of the room.
She heaved for air when he directed them to his bedroom.
He pressed her back into a wall and pushed his hips into her, pinning her. He swallowed and dipped his head, pressing their mouths together, his hands holding her face still as he delved into her, twisting his tongue to hers and suffocating her with his breath. Just as she started to struggle for air he pulled away, gasping, and turned his mouth on her neck.
“I’ve never wanted someone like this,” he hissed into her skin. He rolled his hips to hers, and she felt him twitch against her core. His hands slid down, gliding over her ribs and twining around her waist. One hand was splayed across her lower back, while the other had slipped down to hold her hip. “It’s never been like this.”
Gwen closed her eyes, nodding against his temple. “Yes,” she whispered. “For me too.”
“Fuck, you smell so good.”
Which was funny, because she thought she smelled like hairspray and Dial soap tonight.
She smiled until he said, “…smelled like this that day, too.” He licked a long stroke up her neck. “Couldn’t even walk into my studio after without smelling you.”
His hips snapped against hers, pressing up into her. Gwen gasped. And for the first time she realized that Ronnie Schultz and Kevin Peters were boys. And Alex was…well, certainly not.
He ground into her again, and she bit her lip, holding back a moan. The hand wrapped around her back slithered down to join his other in holding her hips. It felt like he could encompass her entire waist with his hands.
Her fingers shook as she tried to pull open the buttons at his collar. His hips ground against her, pushing himself as close as possible. His lips were licking her clavicle.
Pulling back to look at her, his eyes danced over her face, lips twitching for words he could no longer articulate. There was something hungry in his eyes that had her spinning as she pulled his mouth to hers again. He moaned into her, and she drank him down.
He hauled her off the wall, spinning them into his bedroom. A lamp flicked on, and she looked around the tidy room before her body fell through the air and landed on his mattress.
His eyes devoured her as he started unbuttoning his shirt. She sat up and unsnapped her bra, slipping it down her shoulders. He stared at her breasts while shrugging off his tuxedo shirt.
And Gwen thought of the poster she’d taken down from her apartment. And the push-up competition. And the magazine cover with his arms exposed. And the Henley shirts.
All the times when she had fantasized about this man. And suddenly things were very real as his fingers moved to finish the job she’d started on unzipping him. Gwen’s heart was so loud in her chest. She took calming breaths as his pants dropped, just his boxer briefs on now. His thighs were muscular, and…yeah, her imagination had held out on her.
She pulled her eyes from where his fingertips were slipping under his waistband and followed the pillar of his body, past his heaving ribs to his lips, tongue dipping out to wet them.
He slipped his underwear down his thighs, and she barely had two seconds to take him in before he knelt, grabbing her calves and dragging her down the mattress.
She gasped. And looked at the ceiling, biting her lip to keep from squeaking.
His hands spread across her thighs. She felt him kiss the inside of her knee. Her leg twitched. He was going to put his mouth on her.
“Gwen?”
Oh, god. Don’t talk to me—just do it.
“Gwen.” He kissed her thigh, and her hips tensed. “Is this okay?”
His voice was like melted chocolate over her skin. She shivered.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” she whispered politely, like he’d asked to borrow a pencil. “No one’s ever…so…Yeah, go ahead. If you want.”
She kept her eyes on the ceiling—on Xander Thorne’s ceiling—as his palms smoothed down her thighs. His lips started a path from the back of her knee, traveling up. She could feel his breath on her center—and then he kissed the inside of her other thigh, traveling back down to her other knee.
He did that four times, his tongue licking at her skin on one of the journeys, his lips sucking on another. Gwen twisted her hips against the bed, one arm thrown over her face, one tearing at his comforter.
His teeth now. Small grazes against her skin, and when he reached the top of her right thigh, transferring over to her left, she hooked her leg over his shoulder and groaned, “Just fucking…” She growled.
She swore she could feel him smile against her thigh. And then his mouth landed against her, over her underwear—probably drenched by now.
She arched, her heel digging into his back, and cursed into the crook of her elbow.
His hot breath was against her. His tongue ran a path along the lace, and she cried low. “Alex, please…”
He bent her legs up, straight into the air. His hands rolled her panties around her backside and up, over her knees, off her feet, then flung them into a corner of the room, and she gasped when he held her like that and licked at her.
She reached out for him, for something to hold onto, and only had his hands on her thighs to grab. She finally looked down her body as he let her legs fall open, his face and hair appearing between her legs just as he licked through her again.
Gwen had never felt anything like it. It was—
He looked up at her.
Her legs trembled. And his fingers threaded through hers. Another long, slow swipe of his tongue through her, ending on her clit, and Gwen had to lean her head back and stare at his ceiling again.
It was…a lot.
He kissed her, sucking at her. His hands squeezed hers as his tongue passed through her opening again, and he groaned into her.
The rumbling shook her, and she hooked her legs across his shoulders again, her toes curling.
He kissed her clit. Light touches with his lips. And then firmer. And then his mouth opened. And when he sucked at her she arched her spine, and before she knew it she was coming, squeezing his hands, pressing her heels into his shoulders, pushing her hips up against his mouth.
Her legs jerked, and her throat caught on a cry. And he kept sucking at her, her clit throbbing between his lips. She might have whimpered his name. It was hard to tell.
A flood of peace flowed through her, dripping across her veins and spinning songs in her ear.
Alex continued to pass his tongue across her. He released her hands and folded his arms around her thighs, clutching her hips close to him.
Gwen looked down and found him kissing her with slow, soft sucking lips, his tongue drifting through her entrance like he didn’t want to waste a drop.
And something burned in her again. Like picking up in the middle of the Fugue, at the fingerpicking section.
His eyes snapped up to hers, and he watched her face as he dipped down to her clit again.
“Alex,” she mumbled. “You don’t have to—”
His tongue pushed against her, and the song blared in her blood.
She threw her head back, fingers scrambling for the covers. She moaned as he kissed the skin above her clit, before diving back down to her.
Her legs tensed, and her thighs threatened to close, but his arms held her down, held her open for him.
She looked down at him again, pulling up to her elbows. She could see more of his bare body like this. She bit her lip as his rib cage pulled against the skin on his back.
His eyes still on her, he began sucking at her again. Harder.
“Oh, god…”
Her fingers dove into his hair, and a rhythm in her pulse promised something beautiful.
She watched his face as she gasped and squealed, as he brought her closer and closer to the coda. So much more intense this time. Like someone had turned on the surround sound.
Her hips jumped against his mouth, and she pulled at his hair. His hand slithered from her thigh, pushing through her, and pressing one finger inside of her.
Her jaw dropped open on a hissed moan, and then his mouth latched on to her, sucking, licking. She locked on his eyes as her hips twisted and her spine curled, and her voice called for him. He pushed another finger into her, and then they curved, beckoning her to him.
She yelled out, almost a scream, calling for him as his lips abused her clit and his fingers spread her wide, pressing against places inside of her she’d only read about.
Her fingers tugged at his hair, and he hummed something against her core.
She fell back to the mattress, boneless. And he kissed her thighs again, sliding his fingers from her.
His mouth traveled across her hip bones, up her belly, bouncing over each rib, soft licks to both nipples, before hovering over her.
He tried to hold himself up, but she could still feel him hard against her thigh.
She reached a shaking hand up, pushing his damp hair away from his face, and leaned up to kiss him, tasting herself. He reached down and pushed her thighs open, positioning himself against her. He reached for his drawer, grabbing for a condom and pulling it on.
She was ready to lie there and let him do things to her. She smiled up at him and nodded when his eyes asked if it was okay to continue.
He pressed himself slowly inside.
And if she thought she was just going to lie back and enjoy, she was appallingly wrong.
She hadn’t gotten a good look at him before he’d dropped to his knees. But she really should have guessed from the size of him, the width of those shoulders.
Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, and he said, “Okay?”
She thought coming twice—three times—would have made her ready for this. But she still felt so tight, so unprepared for the feeling of him taking up all the room inside of her like this.
“Gwen?”
She let her eyes flutter open. He was hovering over her, his hair falling to curtain his face. His eyes were intent, waiting for her. She knew she could tell him it was over and it would be. But she didn’t want it to be over. She wanted it to begin.
She nodded. “Yes, please don’t stop.”
He pushed in further, and she threw her head back. He dropped kisses onto her neck until he was fully inside. He lowered himself to rest on top of her on his elbows, and she squeezed her eyes closed when he started to move. So slow. Dragging through her.
He was breathing into her hair like he’d run a marathon. Sweat rolled down his neck, and his hair was damp.
She strained upward to kiss him, slow and sweet. Her arms wound around his shoulders, pressing their chests together. And when he started to slide into her again, she concentrated on the music inside of her.
Aggravated arpeggios and triplets.
He breathed against her lips, hips pushing shallow movements into her.
A slow legato, like falling water.
She lifted her knee to his waist, and when he slid in deeper, it was better than before. He looked into her eyes to make sure, and she nodded. He picked up his pace, holding her leg to his hip, and it was unlike anything. She had no idea he could be this deep inside of her.
His hand slid between them, a slow pulse on her clit. The fingerpicking, like raindrops, she’d thought. Gwen turned her head to kiss his neck.
He pulled himself up, kneeling between her thighs, and ran his hands across her body, one thumb always circling her clit. She liked the view.
She stared into his eyes as he thrust into her. His hand was on her waist, pulling her into him. And Gwen felt the melody burning in her again as his thumb tumbled over her swollen clit once more.
The storm. The agitation.
Her walls fluttered suddenly. And Alex’s hips stuttered, his eyes closing and his lips forming words he wouldn’t speak. She reached for him.
Arpeggios and dancing voices.
He folded himself over onto her, and as his lips found hers, the angle changed, and suddenly it was very good. Her lips parted on a sigh, and he ran his mouth over hers.
A quick build to the end.
She looked into his eyes as he pressed their foreheads together.
Her legs locked around his hips, and her hands wound into his hair, and her chest arched into his. He kissed her as he pressed firmly on her clit, his pace increasing and his tongue sloppy in her mouth.
Gwen groaned, a quick burst of pleasure as her walls held him, a climax so delicate that she could hardly decide if it existed.
He cursed into her hair, burying his face into her neck, and quickly pumped into her, his hand holding her hip down. She listened as he came, sighing and gasping, shaking breaths into her skin. It was a melody she’d endeavor to chase for the rest of her life.
Her fingers drifted down his back, following the lines of his muscles and dipping in each vertebra. He lifted his head and stared at her, breathing hard.
He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, hand cradling her cheek as he looked down at her, as though he was memorizing her face.
The tonic.
The peace.