Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ANNA
I’d spent an entire day at the Don’s house as if in a drug-induced daze. Daria had spoken. I’d answered. We’d done things I couldn’t remember. The whole time, it had felt like I’d left my limbs behind with him and walked out amputated.
The melancholy in my heart only thickened the moment I walked in.
Deep notes of music floated from the living room.
Tidal emotional waves dipping high and low.
Each curve covered my skin with goosebumps.
Fingers running over keys. Instead of fleeing, I moved toward it.
It pulled me in as if I had no choice. My heartbeat fell to my toes and rose slowly, only to fall again.
And again. It was desolation, agony, defeat…
so much vexation… and nostalgia for something that could never be…
When I came to a stop in the doorway, my lungs squeezed.
In that short walk from the entrance to the living room, he’d grasped my heart.
Meddled with it. Somehow, it was never going to beat the same again.
He was a shadow in the dark. His head bent, shoulders slumped, he drew me in.
Note by note. One gripping emotion after another.
A man capable of both cruel indifference to freeze my heart and setting that same heart aflame with undeniable emotions.
So deep that when the last note struck, the heaviness of it hummed in the air.
An iron band had crept around my lungs. A sob caught in my throat.
He didn’t turn around. Even though he must have known I stood behind him. My throat had gone dry. The music echoed between us. It was in the air’s vibration. The stillness of the secrets between us. So tangible that it was a physical thing. If I reached out and touched it, I’d burn from the heat.
More than a month in that house. In all that time, I’d circled the spot with that instrument a thousand times. But never had I come close to it. Somehow, he’d pulled me in. I stood rooted to the spot, a mere three feet away from it. The devil and the angel. Both capable of shattering me.
“Play for me.” His voice was rough. The words out of his mouth soft. It wasn’t a command, but a request. Almost a plea.
One I couldn’t oblige. With a shake of my head, I stepped back. The denial was so strong that I needed a physical barrier. He didn’t allow it. Swinging his arm, he captured my wrist and tugged.
“No,” my voice broke. The abrasiveness of it overpowering the tone.
His thumb soothed the violent pulse beat in my wrist. He brought his heated gaze to my face. Then he spoke. With two words, he ripped my soul. “Por favor.”
He spoke my language instead of his. As if he knew the strength it held over me. With it, he unlocked the metal chain. It clattered to the floor like heavy armor.
He tugged. I said no, but I let him yank me to him, anyway. Let him seat me between his thighs.
Patterns of black and white swamped in front of me.
Black, white, black, white, white, black, white…
it wasn’t an instrument. It was a living, breathing thing.
Capable of making me sore, but of bringing me to my knees too.
My hands trembled. Curled into fists on his thighs that anchored me.
He gripped them in his hands. Brought them to the keys and left them there.
They should have been cold, but they burned on my skin.
I snatched my hands away. Turned and buried my face in his chest. My entire body trembled as I sobbed, “I can’t. ”
“You can.” His chest vibrated beneath my tear-soaked face.
“You must, stella.” He brought my hands to the keys again.
Held them prisoner while my insides coiled with memories.
I was face-to-face with an ex-lover. One whom I still loved, but there were too many bitter remembrances for it to be only happiness.
A sob shocked my chest. “I don’t remember. ”
Warm words pressed on my ear. Laced down my spine like heated honey. “It’s just like all the things you’ve erased.” How does he know? “Push through it. I know you can do it.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t anymore. The keys felt cold. It didn’t sink into my soul like before. We weren’t in sync. We weren’t one thing anymore. It didn’t… heat prickled down my spine. His mouth dragged down my neck. A kiss. A bite. A sweet lick.
I couldn’t breathe. He kissed me as if time itself had come to a standstill. Nipped at my skin and sucked it in. Like he’d sit for hours, days, or even months… as long as it took for me to play.
“Why?” I choked out.
“Because it’s your happiness.”
I shook my head violently. “It was.”
“It will be,” he insisted.
“How do you know?” I whispered.
“Play.” He buried his tongue behind my ear. Dipping into the hollow before sucking it in. A shiver vibrated down my neck. He scorched my skin with his next words. “Call it my last wish.”
“No.” A violent surge of acid climbed up my throat.
“Yes,” he said softly and put pressure on his hand.
My finger dipped. The abruptness of the sound brought my heartbeat to a stop.
Then it picked up. The balls of my feet touched the damper pedal.
Thighs brushing against his. The linen of my dress was abrasive against the fabric of his pants.
A rich, sustaining chord that snagged my breath.
The C major released under my finger like breathing after suffocating.
“Good girl,” he murmured, hand fisting around my dress, rolling it up, bunching it around my hips. “Now play.”
My mind went blank. Panic hummed in my chest. As if he could read my thoughts, he said, “Play your favorite piece.”
I couldn’t do it. Coldness under my fingers. Heat beneath his hovering ones. The tip of his index finger touched my clit. My hips rolled of their own will.
“Play,” he grunted.
And suddenly I did.
I fell into the music like I’d waded into water.
It rushed through me. Picked me up and carried me.
My fingers hit the notes hard. Intense. Diving into a rapid triplet melody.
And Dios mío, he snapped my thong to the side and fingered me to the beat of it.
His fingers charging up and down. Mine pecking at the sharp notes.
It was boiling water streaming into my veins.
I couldn’t stop. Neither did he. When I fell into the main melody, my top dropped to my waist. He cupped my swollen breast in his palm.
My hips rocked. Missing notes and picking them up.
It was the best and the worst composition I’d ever played.
I ached to reach the finish. I reached for my peak.
But just as I did, I fell into the middle section.
Melancholy hit, and the tone shifted with it.
The slow slide of my fingers. He let his glide away.
His grip on my breasts eased to an achingly slow swipe of my nipple.
A moan crawled up my throat. It lost itself in the notes.
A bead of sweat pooled down my back. Frustration crawled at my nerve endings.
I rocked my hips. He gripped my thighs. Time paused.
The only things moving… my fingers, his, the heat of his breath and mine.
Then finally, finally, I fell back into the main melody.
Returned to the theme and the code. His fingers sank into the rhythm.
Kept up with it flawlessly. But this time I was prepared.
Focused and dedicated. I didn’t let him hold me back.
I climbed and climbed as the notes rose in intensity.
It was leading to the dramatic slow coda, but before it, I grasped for solid ground but fell off the cliff.
Then I burst into flames, screaming out my release.
His hands clenched on my hips, yanking me back as he thrust against my back.
His growl on the curve of my neck animalistic.
Violent. Out of control. Just like his movements as he jerked and throbbed behind me.
I sagged into his arms, my head dropping to his shoulders. My breath shuddered. Behind me, his heart thundered. The scent of sex and sweat dominated the room. Underlined within it was a tension that was set to disrupt.
I couldn’t bear it. I was terrified of what it would mean. Another truth, perhaps. But achingly, I didn’t want to hear it. So I cracked the apprehension with words of my own. A truth. A memory. “I was training to play in concerts when Papá died.”
He stilled for a mere second. He placed his hand on my thigh.
It was a comfort I hadn’t sought, but it sank into my skin like velvet.
He said nothing, but somehow, I knew it wasn’t a surprise.
This man knew me better than I knew myself.
His silence, his rough thumb on my moles, it dripped into me.
Tranquilizing me. With it, a confession fell from my lips.
One I’d not dared to voice even in my sleep.
“I don’t think I want to do it anymore.” I swallowed thickly and forced the words out.
“Play in concerts.” My fingers touched the keyboard, ran a line from left to right.
“So many people… what if it’s not magic anymore? What if I let him down?”
I knew I didn’t need to tell him who I meant.
His answer confirmed it. “He would have been proud of you, anyway.” His next words changed the beat of my heart. Slowed it. Soothed it. “Sometimes surviving the loss of a loved one is an achievement in itself.”
My breath snagged. My heart dropped. I’d expected it. But it still shocked me. I felt seen. He didn’t try to fix my grief or avoid it. He listened and let me be. I turned in his arms. His gaze told me a million things. None of them I could read.
Suddenly, the suspicion I’d had from the first day wasn’t insanity anymore.
Wasn’t my doomed genes. Jumping to my feet, I fell to the ground and crawled to the back of the piano.
I exhaled sharply. Right at the edge of it, scraped with a nail, the letters A and V, carved into the wood by the hands of a ten-year-old.
I stared at it, my fingers trembling, scratching the outline of the letters as if I was nailing it, right there, right at that moment.
“I think there’s a thief under the piano.” Papá crouched down and ducked his head. “What’re you doing, mi solecita?”
He followed my nervous gaze to where I’d only begun to carve the letter A out.
He smiled. Brushed his palm against my forehead. “You don’t have to do that, mi solecita. Everything of mine is yours.”
I stared at him. “Everything?”
“Everything,” he confirmed.
I cocked my head. “What about your heart?”
“Definitely that.”
I pouted. “You won’t forget me when the new baby comes?”
He laughed. “How can I forget you, Anna? You are my sunshine. Without you, my world would be dark.”
I giggled. Crawled over and hugged him. He held me tight, then loosened his grip. “Go on. Finish it up. Can’t leave a job half done.”
The memory hummed in my heart. Vibrated in my hands.
His feet moved. He’d kept it. Preserved this special thing that lived and breathed with memories. This man was connected to my life far longer and more deeply than my understanding. He rounded the piano, ducked, and reached for my wrist.
A sob broke out of me. My chest split open right in the middle. In the gap was my bleeding heart.
His fingers soothed my pulse. His gaze too intense.
I couldn’t help it. He was the comfort I sought. My shelter on a stormy night. I crawled closer to him. “Why did you do it?”
His thumb traced my lip. “I couldn’t not do it,” his voice cracked.
“Why?” I urged.
“I’ll tell you another day.”
“Why?” I sniffled. “I deserve answers.”
His hand curled against my cheek. “You deserve all of it.” His hand slipped away. With it, he took the heat off my skin. “But I just can’t give it to you yet.” His gaze dipped to my knee. Touching his. When it came back, he gave me a promise. “Soon.”
I crawled into his arms. He picked me up.
I didn’t know when he’d become my safe place, but he had.
I snuggled into his chest. His heart thundered beneath my cheek.
I hated myself. I didn’t want to be the one to stop that beat.
I wanted to tell him I didn’t want to anymore.
I couldn’t. I wanted something else more.
But I didn’t. I was trapped. Indecision my crime.
He carried me and brought me to bed, and even though I tugged, even though I pleaded with my eyes, just like the other day, he left me behind.
But before he did, his warm words touched my eyes as he kissed my eyelids and let bitter words chill my heart.
“Play that piece at my funeral.” My breath crushed in my lungs. Then he sealed it with his next words. “Por favor.”