26. The Pianist
The Pianist
The next time he comes to me, I am in the bath after dinner, soaking away the weary ache in my limbs, submerged except for my face and my knees, totally weightless. I get that feeling again, that there are eyes on me.
And when I open mine, there he’s standing, at the foot of the tub. White mask staring at me, the deep brown eyes behind hooded with want.
I’m not sure where he comes from, how he gets into each room like he is a ghost, appearing from seemingly nowhere. Stunned, I stare back at him for a moment.
And then he’s getting in the tub, clothes and all, kneeling between my legs. Water goes sloshing over the side.
“Bastien, it’s not night—”
He grabs my face with one hand roughly, and his lips are on me, lifting the mask just enough to free his mouth.
The glimpse of even this much of his face has me frozen in shock.
He shoves his tongue past my lips, fighting with my own, tasting of something sweet.
Instantly devouring me, his mouth moves against mine with a sort of frenzy so addictive I give it right back.
And then he’s shoving my head under water, just past the surface, his mouth still attached to mine, kissing me in the water, kissing me as he knows my air is running out, kissing me while holding my life in his hands.
A bright burst of panic squeezes my chest, and I clutch at his arms, his shirt, trying to wriggle out from under him, but he has me pinned between his body and the porcelain of the tub, biting at my lip with sharp teeth, water rushing into my mouth, my lungs beginning to burn with a desperate need for air.
I smack at him, thrashing, and then he’s hauling me out of the tub as I suck in oxygen, limp in his grasp. Water splatters all over the floor. My sputtering cough echoes, just as he sets me on my feet at the sink, facing the mirror. He kicks my feet apart.
“Bas—”
“I don’t feel like talking,” he says, voice low and laced with a hint of warning.
There’s a rip of fabric. One of the towels. He tears off a strip and moves toward me.
“Wait—”
I’m going to have to answer for the ruined towel, and the water all over the floor. He doesn’t seem to care, moving with impatience, giving me a look before wrapping the strip over my eyes, tying it in a tight knot at the back of my head. I'm effectively blind.
“Bastien, why—”
“Stop talking.”
I shut up, my mind reeling, my lips bruised and raw from his nipping, my heart racing at the threat of asphyxiation. I’m bare to him, completely naked. My fingers clutch at the sink’s counter top, willing myself to stay steady on my feet.
I hear movement. Feel the fluttering of his fingertips on my hips, my thighs. Before I can help it, a sigh slips past my lips.
He terrifies me so fucking much. My body responds so eagerly to him, to the rush of adrenaline and the fear and the way he takes what he wants from me. He’s using me to learn pleasure, and it feels so fucking good.
Suddenly his tongue licks up my center and I nearly buckle. It takes everything in me to stay quiet, to quell the moan surfacing at my lips. Not that anyone could really hear from the hall—I was put in this wing for quiet, after all.
He grips my hips roughly, fingers digging into my flesh, and he gives an appreciative groan after the first lick.
“It’s always better than I can anticipate.
” He does not hold back, doesn’t work at me with hesitation.
He spears me with his tongue, burying his face at my center and holding me open for him, lapping at my clit hungrily.
Each swipe of his tongue has desire building in my core.
The pressure becomes so overwhelming I want him to stop, unable to breathe.
But I know he won’t stop. I could scream and he’d keep going.
My thighs begin to shake, my skin still slick from the bath water, and he’s soaked through, too, but that doesn’t seem to bother him.
He took his mask off. I feel the brush of his nose against my ass, feel the stray curl against my skin.
It should terrify me that I don’t know him. That I haven’t seen his face. It should, and it does.
A part of me hates that I let him do this to me.
I’m not strong enough to deny myself this pleasure.
I don’t want to deny myself this. His attention feels so good, especially when he groans against me, unable to hide how much he’s enjoying himself.
One of his hands leaves my thighs, and there’s the metallic click of his belt buckle, freeing himself, if I were to guess by the way he moans again while massaging my clit with his tongue.
“I want to make you feel so good,” he says. And there’s the sound of more movement—he’s tugging on his cock, jerking himself off while he tongue-fucks me.
Unable to catch my breath, overwhelmed by the feel of him, my hips grind against his face. I gasp into my hand.
“I want to make you come,” he breathes against me. “I could lock you away deep inside this house where no one will find you. Wouldn’t you like that? Just me making you feel good. Forever.”
I should be afraid of the words—of him.
His tongue wanders, finding the other tight ring of muscles. My breath hitches in my throat at the sensation. Jason had only ever touched me there once.
Bastien pauses, maybe sensing my tension. “Can I make you feel good here, too?” Voice a low, gratified rumble.
Without another thought, I’m nodding.
And then he’s licking my ass, his tongue moving curiously over me, prodding me.
He grunts, and I imagine him below me, masturbating to his tongue inside of me, kneeling on the floor.
My thighs clench as the strange feeling becomes pleasurable, everything relaxing.
A second later he pulls away to push a finger inside of me, slowly, almost too slowly.
There’s a friction, a pain, and I tense again, lightheaded, gripping the counter so hard I think my nails will crack.
“Bas—”
I’m not sure what I’m meaning to say, just that I’m beginning to soar, I’m trembling, and he is the only thing holding me down to the ground.
There’s the sound of him spitting, lubricating himself to work another finger inside after a minute. He’s slow, methodical almost, moving at a patient pace, freezing at every sharp intake of breath, every whine that spills from my lips, only continuing on when my hips press back against him.
If he touches my clit, I’m going to come, I’m strung too tight.
“Does that feel good?” He mumbles the words against my thigh.
I nod, lips parted, every bit of sense left in my body sent straight to where he fingers me. The other two tease the entrance of my pussy, and I’m so wet, he slides in with ease.
I’m seconds away from shattering.
“Words.”
“Yes, Bastien, it feels—” My breath hitches again.
He pulls away, leaving me empty for just a moment, a moment too long. And then the soft head of his cock is pressed against my ass. “Can I take you here?” he murmurs into my ear.
No, my mind screams, even when my hips arch back towards him, even when I’ve gone this far with him, as it is.
“Please,” he whispers. “You feel so fucking good on my cock. Please let me. I want—I want to make you come. I’ll make it feel good for you, I promise. It’ll feel so fucking good.”
“Yes.”
He spits into his hand again. And then his cock presses against me, and it’s so overwhelming, the stretch. I’m burning, a flame sparking in my stomach, between my legs. He’s too fucking big. I can’t—
“Fuck,” he exhales, pressing his forehead—mask-less—against my shoulder.
His cock breaches that ring of muscles, forcing its way in slowly, parting my ass around him.
He slides in easily, and I already feel his saliva dripping down my leg, mixing with my arousal.
“No one’s done this to you, have they?” I can taste the gratification in his voice. “I’m the first.”
“Baz—I can’t—”
“Yes you can,” he groans, lips brushing my skin. “I love when you say my name. Like when you say it, it’s not a bad word.”
“I’m just—You’re so—”
“What?” He brushes my hair away from my neck, kissing the skin at my nape. “What am I?”
“Your dick is too big.” I’m panting, squirming underneath him, and it already feels like he’s as far as he can go, and yet his hips are not pressed against mine.
“You can do it,” he whispers. “Relax.”
A whimper slips from me, the most pathetic, needy sound. I think I’m going crazy. There is no relaxing when he’s sheathing himself into me like this. He’s still sliding in, until he’s not, and I’m so fucking full I feel him everywhere.
He doesn’t move, allowing me to breathe for a moment. His hips are pressed against mine. He brushes my hair out of the way, fingers wandering softly down my spine, around my waist, until he finds my clit again.
“Shh. I got you.”
He only circles it three times before I’m clenching around him again, my muscles spasming involuntarily.
I cry out, unable to hide the sound as I come around him, electricity shooting down my thighs, forcing me to grind my ass against him, my pussy fluttering around nothing, a strange dissatisfaction when I’m still so full of him, too full, the orgasm rocketing through me harder, longer.
“I could come like this,” he exhales. He palms my ass with his other hand, claiming, tilting his hips just the slightest bit, nudging himself deeper.
My orgasm rocks through me for whole minutes, and by the time my mind is clearing, he’s already fucking me, each thrust brutal and deep. I’m a mess, entirely overwhelmed, babbling his name, hands gripping at nothing along the stone counter.
He’s turned me into something inhuman.
My spine arches, the strength in my legs waning, until he has me pinned by the hips, rutting into me like we’re animals. My cum and his saliva have made a mess of me, enough that he’s sliding into my ass with ease, in and out.
Seconds later, he’s jerking against me. “How does that feel, Mallary?” He hisses through his gritted teeth, his cock is twitching, spilling into me, fingers digging so hard into my hips there will be hand-shaped bruises by the morning.
“I—It’s—” Gasping for air, I can’t form a coherent thought.
When he’s done coming, he pulls away, slipping out of me in one smooth motion. Then his fingers are there, shoving his leaking cum back into me.
I’m utterly ruined.
Spent, sated, nothing but a shell. I want to see him so badly, I absentmindedly reach for the makeshift blindfold.
He grabs my hand. “Don’t.”
“When can I see you?” My head is still foggy, too light, too calm, thinking only him, him, him.
He’s silent, and when he lets go of me, my flesh mourns the loss, knowing he’s donning his mask again. Only then does he reach for the strip of fabric at my eyes and pull it free. “You don’t need to see my face.”
It takes all my strength to hold myself up against the counter. “But why can’t I?”
He leans forward, a hand on either side of me, caging me in. “Because I don’t want you to.”
“That’s not very fair.” I glance at the smooth bow lips of the mask. I want to kiss him. I want his lips on mine, his eyes on mine, his body in mine. “Not after—this.”
“This,” he says, eyes narrowing.
“And the last two times,” I add.
He studies me, and maybe his brows furrow, but I can’t really tell. I reach for him, needing to touch him, and he almost—almost—flinches.
“Do you—do you think I’ll hate you?”
“Yes,” he says, his eyes flicking down to my lips this time. “That’s how things are here.”
“I won’t—”
“Don’t make a promise you can’t keep.” His chest still rises with deep breaths, the only evidence that he’s affected, he’s as out of breath as I am.
When we are this close, when our bodies touch, I forget everything, every warning.
In only a few short days, he’s attuned every fiber of my being to him.
I bite my lip, my fingers just barely brushing against his shirt.
“Tell me you want this,” he says, his voice so soft I almost think I imagined it. “Tell me that you want me.”
I exhale a laugh. “It’s a bit too late for that.”
He doesn’t move, and I swear I feel his thumb brush against my naked hip, a soft, tender caress so at odds with everything else. He makes me forget my fear, like he consumes it all, whetting his appetite on my desire and terror.
Everyone is afraid of the Ghost.
But the way he looks at me, his deep, dark eyes searching mine, I begin to wonder if what he said that first night, that he and I are the same, is true.
“Yes.” I clutch the fabric of his shirt. “Yes.”