Chapter 3 #2
She never stops playing. The music swells through the lounge, and I wonder if she knows how talented she truly is.
Or if she’s ever been appreciated.
I’d like to be the one to do that for her, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
“What is that?” I ask.
She twists back around, and she watches her hands as if she’s mystified that they belong to her.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s what I hear in my head right now and how I feel.
Complicated, angry, inexplicably starved, sad.
Is it wrong to want to feel nothing just for a few minutes?
Nothing but pleasure? I’ve never had that, and I’d like to try it if you’d like to try it too. ”
She’s so painfully honest that it’s humbling and terrifying.
“You could just touch me a little. Even that would be welcome. I want to feel like a woman right now, not like a thing that’s been discarded.
I want to feel like I matter, like I’m beautiful, like I’m treasured.
I get that it’s asking a lot.” Her hands pause, and her eyes sweep to mine.
“If you want to, you could just finger me or something.”
“What?” My legs nearly buckle while my dick does its best impression of a rapier, ready to redeem her honor through…well, I suppose it would be through dicking. “I’m not going to finger you!”
She sighs, tucking her hands between her knees. “If I’m being honest, that’s disappointing.”
Her coat rides up, revealing what looks like the top of a lace stocking. I don’t want to think about what she has on under there, even though, to be honest, I very much want to.
“It’s not because I don’t find you attractive or because I don’t want you. It’s because that doesn’t feel respectful.”
“Do you want to touch me?” she asks.
“Yes, but—”
“What if I told you what to do?”
My head buzzes like I’ve consumed half the damn bar. But I only had one shot. What the fuck was in it? I need to throw that bottle away. Logically, I know I can’t blame it for my lack of control, but there’s nothing logical about this.
“I’ve been reading some epic smut lately. I thought I’d like to give it a try. If you don’t, that’s okay. I’ll just go, but could I borrow your phone to call a tow truck?”
“A tow truck?” I echo.
“My car died.”
Right. She said that.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It’s just the perfect ending to a terrible night.
” She turns again and starts playing some jarring, aggressive music.
She’d be great at writing scores. I wonder if that’s what she does.
Something in the music industry? Maybe she’s a concert pianist. It’s not like I would have heard of her before.
“I could give you a ride home,” I offer.
“How about just a ride?” She watches me carefully, then giggles at my astonishment even though her cheeks are pink too.
“Why don’t you just start by coming up behind me and putting your hands on my shoulders?
You could sweep my hair back, kiss my neck, work your way forward, slowly unbutton this coat… ”
My swallow is another cannon blast in the room. I should go open that door immediately, call her a tow truck or a cab, and make sure she gets home okay. Then, I should run the bar for another few hours, close up, and go the fuck home.
But a larger part of me wants what she said she wanted.
To be desired. Seen. To feel like I matter.
She doesn’t know who I am, and that’s sweetly refreshing.
It’s like a cold shower after working out, five minutes of bliss on sore muscles and overheated skin.
It’s a tempting idea to have the world fade completely away for just a few minutes and to be able to lose yourself in another person.
The romantic in me wants it to be more than that, but then again, the romantic in me was crushed years ago.
“What else?” I force out thickly.
She sighs. “I don’t really know. I guess something that involves getting the rest of this coat undone in some fancy manner that makes us both panting hot and then, umm, the fingering and getting impaled on top of this insanely expensive and beautiful piano.
Playing it was a dream. Having the best sex of my life on top of it?
That’s a fantasy that would never get to come true otherwise. ”
Holy fuck knuckles. “The best sex of your life?”
“Don’t worry.” She actually giggles. “It’s not a very tall order. If you can actually find my clit, you’d be golden.”
She turns her head, tilting it forward and away from me. She’s not going to say anything else. She’s waiting, waiting for me to stay. To go, to touch her, to make my decision.
I can’t help stepping forward and sweeping the heavy mass of her glistening chestnut hair off her shoulder and away from her neck. The softest sound escapes her lips. I can actually see the way her pale skin pebbles with goosebumps at just the smallest gesture.
The allure of her draws me in like a fairy to that forest path I know I shouldn’t walk down because those fairies are allied with wolves, and the wolves want to devour me.
She knows this is a bad decision. She said she wanted to make one, and I’ve allowed myself to make very few.
I know she’s right, but it doesn’t feel wrong.
Especially now when she tilts her face, lengthening her neck.
I lean in and place my lips at her thrumming pulse point. She’s silk and strawberries, and my lips burn at that first sweet taste. My hands follow, ghosting over her shoulder. I can’t stop it from brushing down over her arm.
She spins around on the bench, spreading her long legs, leaning back, and undoing the first few buttons on the coat herself. It gives me a full view of the lace peeking out underneath. Scraps at the top and bottom and bare skin just below.
Is she not wearing anything under that coat except a bra, panties, and stockings?
My brain scrambles, my dick tries to fight its way out with a single punch, and my balls are ready to join in like stones in a catapult. Medieval anatomy weapons, battering ram, trebuchet. It’s all very apt.
I watch her pulse hammering at her throat, drawing me in. I fall to my knees, and she bends for me. She goes to kiss me, and I go to kiss her neck. We miss each other, grazing skin and hair.
She’s not mortified like I am. Rather, her laughter is a balm.
She’s the one who catches my hand and guides it up her thigh. It’s my pulse now that is going to rip out of my neck. Her breath catches as my fingers trail up, grazing over the edge of the lace stocking.
I know this get-up was a surprise for someone else. What really happened tonight? It was clearly more than just her car breaking down.
“This was a last-ditch attempt to save something that wasn’t worth saving.
He did me a favor, really, by doing someone else.
Multiple someone else. The relationship was never really a relationship, and it was over before it even started.
Still, it hurts, you know? And it burns, getting treated like you’re nothing. I’m just going to shut up now.”
She quickly undoes the next few buttons of her coat and then whips it open the way a flasher would.
I have trouble swallowing. My cock kicks in my pants, and my balls give a warning shudder. Her face is scarlet, but her eyes blaze with fire.
I can’t help but rake my eyes over her. She’s a goddess, utterly perfect, her pert breasts encased in a black lace pushup bra with a black silk garter riding low on her hips, just below her belly button and the indent of her abs.
The lace panties she’s rocking are so damn hot, especially next to the sheer stockings with the fancy floral black lace tops.
Her chest heaves as she watches me watching her.
I want to do this. I want to bury my face between her legs and lick her to a screaming orgasm.
I want her leaking all over this piano seat and my face as she comes, her legs clenching around my head.
I want to peel that bra away and suck on her nipples until she’s a hot mess, then spin her around and bury my cock inside her tight heat.
But more than all of that…I want it to mean something.
And I think, deep down, so does she.
I stand slowly, grasp the edges of her coat, electric heat jolting through me when our fingers brush, and draw it together. Then, I do up the buttons, one at a time. I linger on the top button, finally looking up to face the hurt and embarrassment on her face.
“I think you want it to mean something with the right someone,” I say softly, trying to soothe her wounded look.
“You’re hurting, and you want revenge, but that’s not what you deserve.
You deserve a man who looks at you like you’re the greatest treasure in the world, who tells you that you’re beautiful and that you’re his everything.
You are beautiful. You’re unbelievably talented, and you have so much passion, fire, and art in your soul.
It’s not that I don’t want this, but you deserve more.
You deserve a man who takes his time, holds you after, and can spend the night with you.
You deserve a man who never takes for granted the privilege of waking up beside you. ”
She covers her face with her hands, groaning. “For the love of shit sticks, this is far too much poetry. Why can’t I be like everyone else and just fuck him out of my system?”
“Other people might pretend, but I don’t think it works like that, even for them.”
She peeks between her fingers. “I think you’re wrong.”
“Maybe.” My cock is screaming a whole lot of what the fucks at me.
If it were driving this body and not my better judgment, it would say I’m most definitely wrong.
“Let me call you a tow truck and make you a cup of tea. Let me wait with you outside and make sure the guy is okay before you get in there with him.”
“What are you? Some kind of chastity guardian angel?”