Chapter 7 #3
My throat tightens with tension. I’m worried he’ll be offended that I took such liberties with his work and I give a small cough before speaking.
‘I showed him your sculptures, pretending that I was your manager. He wants to see them.’ I hold up the card I’ve been given.
‘He said to call him next week to make an appointment.’
My heart hammers in my chest as I wait for his response. He’s frowning at me as if he can’t believe I’d had the nerve to do that.
‘You showed them to him without my permission?’ The fury in his voice makes me quake.
I give a tense shrug and tilt my head to one side, feeling tears of disappointment pool in my eyes. ‘I was just trying to help. Please don’t be angry with me. They’re so beautiful, Sandro. They deserve to be seen.’
He stares at me for a moment longer, then lets out a rough groan deep in his throat. ‘You make it really fucking hard for me to be angry with you when you look at me like that.’
‘So you’ll call him?’ I ask in a shaky voice.
‘I told you – I’m not ready to show them yet,’ he says tersely, taking the card from my outstretched hand and crumpling it into a ball before pocketing it.
I open my mouth to protest, but then close it again. He has to want to do this himself. As frustrated as this makes me feel, I know it’ll probably be counter-productive to push him any harder on it. The will to make it work has to come from him.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Sandro mutters. ‘We can’t stay now.’
I allow him to lead me out, feeling tension in the bunched muscles of his arm that he’s slung around me, which he drops as soon as we’re out of sight of the gallery.
We walk back to the apartment in uneasy silence, my blood pulsing hard through my body.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have interfered. But I had to.
It was a great opportunity, and I would have regretted not trying to help him later. I know I would.
He lets us in through the door and shucks off his jacket, still not saying a word to me.
‘Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have done that without asking you.’ I can hear the anxiety and a hint of resentment in my voice as I shut the door behind us. ‘But you’re so talented, Sandro, and sometimes we all need a bit of a push from the outside.’
He stares back at me, his dark brows drawn into a frown. Angry tension buzzes between us.
I want to cry.
‘Please don’t be angry,’ I whisper, barely able to get the words past my painfully constricted throat.
‘There’s so much more depth to you than you believe.
Your father and that awful teacher did you such a disservice, letting you think you’re not good enough.
That you’re not smart and sensitive and talented. Because you are. You are!’
I can see a muscle working in his jaw and watch as he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. I want to lean forward and kiss him there, nuzzle his soft warm skin, make everything okay between us again. But I don’t. Instead, I wait, my heart fluttering like a caged bird.
Then without a word he reaches out and pulls me firmly against him, lifting his hand to cup my face. His dazzling eyes stare intently into mine, flashing with frustration, hurt, then finally acceptance, and my stomach does a slow somersault.
I sense that we’re tipping over some sort of edge. Something’s changing between us. There’s a fizzing sensation in the pit of my stomach and my heartbeat thumps hard in my throat as the tension builds.
And then, suddenly, he brings his mouth crashing down onto mine and kisses me hard, his lips firm and assured. I shudder with pleasure as I feel the hot slide of his tongue penetrate my mouth.
It’s the most wonderfully intimate sensation in the world, and the most terrifying.
I sense myself falling down some sort of rabbit hole from which I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to climb back out.
All I can think about are his lips owning mine, his tongue searching out the most intimate spaces within me.
He moves against me and I lose my balance and take a stumbling step backward, feeling my back hit the wall behind me.
He pins me there, his hard body pressed firmly against mine, his arousal digging into my stomach sending great waves of need between my thighs, but there’s also something else.
Some strange buzzing sensation against my leg.
What the hell is that?
Finally we break apart, gasping for breath, our bodies pressed wantonly together.
‘Is that you vibrating or me?’ Sandro asks in a voice heavy with lust.
And I realise that it’s my phone in my bag that’s been caught between our legs.
‘I think it’s me,’ I say, automatically reaching for my phone in my flustered daze to check the screen, grateful for a moment to recover from the intensity of our kiss. A kiss that meant a lot more than it should have done.
‘Oh!’ I say, looking down at my screen, confused by what I’m seeing.
‘Who was it?’ Sandro asks in a concerned voice, glancing down at the screen too.
The name Adam Cormack is written there.
‘Why’s he calling me on a Saturday night?’ I ask dumbly into the silence.
Sandro pushes himself away from me and folds his arms in front of him. ‘It’s probably a booty call,’ he jokes, though his voice has a sharp edge to it.
‘What’s a booty call?’ I ask.
‘It means he wants you to go over to his place for a fuck,’ he says roughly, not looking at me now.
His body language is stiff, as if he’s retreating from me – from the situation – as though he’s worried he’s interrupting a private moment between Adam and me.
Which is ridiculous. It’s Sandro and I who were interrupted.
‘Well, he needs to do much more than just call me to get me to do that,’ I say lightly, feeling uncomfortable.
‘Yeah, you make him work for it,’ Sandro says. But there’s something very wrong with the way he’s acting now – as if none of this is of any consequence to him. It’s all just part of another lesson he’s giving me.
I try not to care, but my heart weighs heavily in my chest and my body yearns to be pressed up against the strength of his again.
‘I guess there’s still a lot for you to teach me,’ I say, pressing my hand against his chest, trying to rescue the previous mood. His heart beats a steady rhythm against my palm. ‘Let’s go to bed,’ I suggest, going for a teasing tone in my voice.
But, instead of smiling, Sandro lets out a grunt of disgust.
‘That’s all I am to you, isn’t it?’ His eyes are full of an indignation that shocks me. ‘Just a real-life blow-up doll to practise on and manipulate.’
‘What? No! Of course you’re not. That’s not what I meant to imply.’
He steps away from me and strides towards his bedroom, the muscles across his shoulders pulled tight with tension.
I catch up with him as he steps into the room and I lay my hand gently on his back, horrified to feel him flinch under my touch.
‘Sandro. Please don’t be angry with me.’ Hot tears begin to gather in my eyes again.
But I don’t want to cry in front of him.
I don’t want him to think I’m that emotionally weak.
He turns back to stare at me for a beat, a muscle ticking in his jaw, then a look of shame flickers across his face.
‘Shit. I don’t know what made me say that.
I’m just feeling messed up tonight.’ He wraps his arms around me in a tight hug and carries me to the bed, laying me down and joining me there.
Rolling onto his back, he reaches for me and deftly lifts my body on top of his so we’re lying chest to chest. ‘But you know how to shut me up, right?’ he murmurs darkly, skating his hands down to my hips and pulling up my dress, then urging me to shuffle up his body.
As I do this, his fingers find the sides of the lacy knickers I bought at the same time as the dress and he tugs them down my legs.
‘Sit on my face,’ he demands.
I hesitate for a moment, wondering whether I should do it or insist we talk about what just happened first. But he doesn’t seem to want to talk, and I don’t know what I’d say to make this situation better anyway.
‘Do it, Juno. I want you to smother me with your pussy,’ he urges. ‘Teach me it’s not okay to speak to you like that.’
Again, I hesitate. It’s not my style to be forceful in bed, but I know that’s something I need to work on, and I want to give him what he’s asking for.
So I shuffle further up the bed on my knees until I’m positioned right above his mouth and dip down to press myself against him.
I feel his groan of satisfaction vibrate between my legs and deep into my core, then the powerful thrust of his tongue inside me.
I cry out from the pleasure of it. It’s such a lewd, intense feeling, and I find to my surprise that I love the idea of being in control of this, knowing he’s captured beneath me, a prisoner to my whim and my body.
The feeling of power is heady and I begin to move with the rhythmic thrust of his tongue.
Sweat pools between my shoulder blades and runs down my spine as his fingers grip my hips and we move together, faster and faster, me using him purely for my own pleasure. Teaching him that I’m on top now. I’m the one in control. That he has to give me what I want.
And oh, God, I think I’m losing my mind. I want this to go on and on and on. But I also want more. I need more. His tongue alone isn’t enough. There’s still an aching void inside me that needs to be filled, to be satisfied. To connect with him.
My trance breaks as I suddenly become aware that his grip on my hips has become harder and more urgent, and I realise to my horror that he’s having trouble breathing.
I jump off him, distraught that I’ve let myself get so carried away. That I’d not noticed I was hurting him.