“Who was your father?” she asked quietly.
His eyes met hers, his expression haunted.
“That’s all public record.”
Kyra covered David’s fist with her hand. He clenched it so tightly his knuckles were alabaster white.
“Why are you talking about this now?” she asked, and knew even if she never wrote a word, he had to talk. Twenty-one years was a long time to keep something like this inside.
“I came to London this week to meet with some people. They think the last of my father’s associates died in prison last month. If it’s true, then it doesn’t matter who knows.”
That didn’t exactly answer the question, but they could return to it. Kyra sat back against the wooden bench for support. She could guess the end of this story hadn’t been pretty for his mother. Even if she hadn’t committed murder, the woman had known too much. It seemed more than a little insensitive to press the question right now. Chances were she could find out what she needed to know in the Times archives.
“And you’ve never told any of this to anyone before?”
“Günter knows, out of necessity, but he’s ex MI5.”
“You didn’t tell Jessica?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Because you were afraid if she leaked it they would come after her as retribution? Like they came after your mother?” she asked, going out on a limb.
The look he gave her was so full of pain it caught her breath.
He flexed his jaw and she heard him swallow down the lump in his throat. His voice, when he finally managed to speak, was hoarse with emotion. “If I had gotten to him first, she wouldn’t have had to do it. She’d still be alive.”
She knew she should say something reassuring about him being twelve, about it not being his responsibility, but she knew it wouldn’t help. His pain went too deep for logic to smooth away. At least right now. So she just held his hand and let him talk.
He’d testified. Told them everything he’d observed, even the things he didn’t understand. The counselor they sent him to had bought him his first guitar. He learned to play his first song while holed up in a safe house. There had been a relocation to Scotland, time spent in a prestigious boys school with the government footing the bill.
At eighteen they gave him the option of taking an annuity or going to university. He’d taken the annuity and cut his first demo, hoping the privileged story the government had leaked of his early life held up under the microscope when he started performing in London’s bars and clubs.
With a little luck and the help of a contact he’d kept from his younger years, the men who he’d helped put in jail never made a connection between David Tallis and the boy, Jeremy Ainsley.
His improbable rags-to-riches story took on a surreal quality. He’d had to be focused and driven in order to survive. It was either that or sink into the oblivion drugs and other risky behaviors could provide. She was glad he’d chosen the former and rejected the latter early on.
“Why the name David Tallis?”
He looked away and she sensed more than saw his smile.
“David was the name the crown gave me. I changed from Smith to Tallis when I was eighteen.”
“That’s right. I read that somewhere. So, why Tallis?”
“Thomas Tallis was a Tudor court composer renowned for his originality.”
Kyra chuckled at the self-conscious wryness in his tone. “You are an original, I’ll give you that.”
She caught the cynical edge to his smile even in the darkness.
“So, would you say it was more Jessica or your childhood that influenced your hatred for the press?”
The question appeared to startle him, and he looked straight at her, the moonlight turning his eyes silver against the midnight shadows along his brow.
“I’d been ducking them for so long, terrified that at any moment some nosy well-connected person was going to put two and two together. I don’t know. I think Jessica gave me a good excuse to give in to that fear.”
“Do you still love her?”
They both knew that question was as much for her as for the readers.
He sighed and shook his head. “No. I love the memory of what we were together when we first met, but that was a lifetime ago.”
“You mentioned that it’s likely all your father’s known associates are dead.”
He nodded.
“So, why bring this up now? Why not continue as you have been?”
“Because I’d still be worried someone would get their hands on the story and tell it in a way that was hurtful or damaging. It’s not fun to open the paper and see lies and insinuations that you can’t defend against. If I tell the story first, then people will be shocked by my version and not someone else’s.”
He had a point.
“So, would it be safe to say you have a phobia of the press?”
The muscle in his jaw worked before he answered. She was poking a little too close, but he wouldn’t make her back off. Not yet.
“Yes.”
“Do you think that will go away?”
“If I force myself to face it, I believe I can conquer it. Maybe not completely, but this is a start.”
“I think the term psychologists use is ‘desensitization’.”
“Yes.”
“So, what about the Tallis persona? Is it real? Are you going to give it up and create something new?”
“Who I am isn’t going away just because people know about my past,” he said. “I’m the sum of many different experiences, including the fame. While it can be inconvenient, it allows me to make a very good living doing something I’ve always loved.”
“You don’t think people will feel like they need to get to know you all over again?”
“Fame isn’t real. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Glamour. Anyone who’s close to me already knows the parts that are vital to who I am. Anyone who isn’t? Well, I’m sure they’ll assume all sorts of things that will become the stuff of urban legends.”
The statement might have come off as narcissistic if she didn’t know him better, but she guessed that only served to underscore his point. She was silent for a long moment, during which he took a container of chocolate-covered strawberries from her bag and refilled her champagne glass.
When he was finished he turned to her with a look that said Can we finish this now?
She reached down and snapped off the recorder, and he visibly relaxed.
“You okay?” she asked.
He breathed deeply and nodded.
The question that had been nagging at her from the start of the interview popped out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Why tell me?”
He examined the tempered smoothness of the chocolate in the moonlight. “Is it so difficult to figure out?”
She shrugged.
He met her eyes and bit into a strawberry, capturing the juice with his tongue in a way that made her stomach flip. Taking a sip of champagne he reached out to trace the bitten berry’s pulpy sweetness along her mouth until she opened for him.
When she tried to bite it, he pulled back and waited for her to stick out her tongue. He teased the tip of her taste buds with its tartness and then moved it to the side of her mouth, where she tasted the chocolate’s sweetness. Only then did he give her the entire confection. As she chewed, the flavors melded to create a richer, more complex taste experience.
His mouth found hers and their tongues mingled, the tin-like fruitiness of the champagne combining with the earthy sweetness of chocolate and strawberry. Without his having said a thing, she understood he wanted to share his complexities with her.
She moaned into his mouth, wanting more than his kisses, wondering how good of a barrier the yew hedge could provide from passersby on the bright night. Reaching her hand up under the edge of his sweater, she skimmed her palm over his six-pack up to the ridge of his pectorals where she could feel his hammering heart.
“You’re killing me,
” he said.
“Still planning on payback?” she teased, reminding him of their earlier interlude in the hotel.
“I hear it’s a bitch.” His tone held a dark warning.
Quirking a smile at him, she looked up from lowered lashes. “Promise?”
He fisted the waistband of her jeans and tugged, tilting her off balance into his chest. Still gripping her jeans, he pulled her up with him as he stood.
Kyra’s stomach did a little flip. He was going to take her any way he wanted, and she was going to let him. The low wall around the reflecting pool suited whatever purpose he had in mind, and he pulled her along as he backed up and sat down. He was backlit by the moon, his face in shadow as he unfastened her jeans and pushed them to her ankles.
She stepped out of them, noting the cool breeze as it caressed her ass and tickled her pussy, curling her scent around them both.
David breathed in deep and turned her back to him so that he could pull her down into his lap.
“Spread your legs.”
She did as he commanded, splaying her thighs to either side of his own. The wide position separated the lips of her sex in a wanton display that had her blushing against the darkness.
His hands skimmed her thighs with feather touches, and she arched her back when his fingers teased just shy of her folds. Skimming upward, he found her zipper and pulled down with aching slowness to separate the garment in suggestive imitation of her vulnerable position.
He tossed her jacket on the ground before exploring under her sweater. He hadn’t packed a bra for her. When his hands met with the bare skin of her breasts, he gripped her flesh in a reflexive, kneading motion that had Kyra humming her approval.
Letting her head drop back against his shoulder, she inhaled the heated musk of his scent, rolling her face into his neck and giving a little nip just below his ear.
“Vixen,” he murmured, and divested her of any remaining advantage when he pulled her sweater over her head, leaving her naked to his mercy.
The heat of him against her back, and the trail of his fingers along her skin, warmed her until she didn’t register the coolness of the night. She might have remembered she was naked in the middle of Kensington Park, but if she had any thought of leaving, he squashed it when he looped his calves around her ankles to hold her open.
He pushed her hair to the side, exposing the back of her neck to his tongue and teeth. Sharp sucking nips followed the length of her tendon, the heat of his breath warming the moisture his tongue left behind. Kyra arched her head to the side, inviting him to explore the flesh further, and he devoured her with long, quenching pulls that were sure to leave their mark.
His hands rested lightly on her thighs as his mouth made love to her neck. She wriggled a little, trying to give him a hint of where his hands could go, but he behaved as if he didn’t feel a thing, even when the motion nestled his cock tightly against the cleft of her ass.
Taking matters into her own hands, literally, she smirked and delved two fingers into her juices. Absorbed as he was with a sensitive spot along her shoulder blade, he didn’t notice until it was too late. By that time, she had her fingers against his lips where he couldn’t help but notice how wet she was for him.
The result wasn’t quite the victory she expected. He groaned and licked her fingers clean in one deep suckle, then, with a lightning motion, grasped both her wrists in one hand at the base of her back. His other hand poised above her pussy and Kyra surged upward with her hips.
“Please.”
His laugh was low and dark.
“No.”
She whimpered.
“I warned you,” he reminded her.
The first slap of his hand against her pussy had her senses sparking with lust, even as her mind skittered to discover a retreat from the sensually punishing blow. He rained a staccato volley of spanks upon her swollen flesh, making her hips jerk with his rhythm.
Her pleading cries sounded in the dark, bouncing off the water behind them and swirling into the night.
“We both know you can come from this, Kyra. Come for me. Now.” The whispered growl vibrated in her ear and sent her over the edge into oblivion.
When she had come down to earth just enough to be able to comprehend him, he let go of her wrists, and instructed her to clasp her hands on her waist.
“Hmm,” she whimpered, wondering what new torture he’d devised for her traitorous body.
“Don’t move your hands,” he warned, dipping both of his index fingers into her pussy at the same time to delve into the wetness there. The moisture found a new home when he swirled the digits around her nipples. The slick wetness eased the friction of his calloused fingers as he swirled them around her areola.
“David,” she pleaded.
He flicked both of her nipples simultaneously, and she cried out. Not staying to soothe the erotic sting, he snaked one forearm around her waist to hold her tight while his right hand reached toward her apex.
When she tried to surge forward into his hand, his arm held her prisoner. With his index finger he traced the outline of her pussy lips, rolling and pinching them in a gentle massage as he circled, touching everywhere and everything except the button of her clit.
First two fingers, then three, delved into the honey pot of her sex, spooning and smoothing the moisture around her labia until she was as soaking outside as inside. She tried to close her legs against him when he moved lower, moistening the bud of her anus with her juices.
“No,” she whispered, and felt him smile into her hair.
“Not tonight,” he agreed, and continued to tantalize her with his gentle invasion.
As he stroked her there, he slid his thumb up between her lush folds to find her clit. With little circling motions, he surrounded her nub, moving inexorably closer each time he breached her back entrance with his seesawing digit, until the two sensations became inextricably linked.
By the time his thumb flicked up and over her clit, she was primed to go off. Muscles and nerves sparked to awareness, clenching with spasms that shook the foundations of her being. On the last crest of the wave, he withdrew his finger and pinched her clit, sending her body into an arching cataclysm that had her shrieking into the night.
Breath coming in little sobs, she trembled in David’s arms, circling slowly down from her high like a dervish-trapped paper.
“You can put your hands down,” he whispered, catching the tears of sexual exhaustion from her cheek with the tip of his tongue.
She blew out a shaky laugh. She hadn’t even realized she’d still had them on her waist.
“What about you?” she asked, nestling herself suggestively against his erection.
“I’ll live,” he said. “I just want to hold you right now.”
Did he know she was exhausted from the attention he’d lavished on her? Was he trying to spare her? Perhaps, but there was something in his tone—a lingering vulnerability that told her he needed to keep his personal passion under wraps a little longer.
He pulled her closer, wrapping her in the cradle of his arms to keep her warm. While he’d revealed what had shaped him, she’d known the tender man he was before he’d said a word. His whole being was a rich symphony of notes that left her wondering what surprises the next stanza with him would bring.
Chapter Eleven
The Starbucks in SoHo could have been a Starbucks in London, or anywhere. Only the distinctive yellow cabs winding their way down Spring Street gave Kyra a sense of place in Manhattan. The disorientation would go away with a good night’s rest, but jetlagged as she had been for the past three days, she still couldn’t sleep. A rattling hum vibrated beneath her feet. The sensation of the subway train passing beneath usually went unnoticed, but today it mirrored her nerves, agitating her further.
When Kyra thought back on the rest of the week in London with David her senses swirled with the scent of rain and musk, the feeling of hard thighs, flesh against flesh, and the sound of slapping bodies,
his harsh breathing in her ear. The memories cut into the story as she wrote, tangling with objectivity like rumpled bed linens around lovers’ limbs.
At home, she’d transcribed their interview, picking up on every rustle, every change in intonation that she’d been too distracted to notice at the time. Yesterday, working from points she’d listed on paper, she’d used her laptop to construct the story, making changes on the screen and highlighting areas she could explore further.
Today, ensconced in the café with a cup of hazelnut coffee and a pear tartlet, she whiled away the afternoon alternately fussing with the opening slant and daydreaming about the tantalizing fullness of David’s lips. For the most part her work was finished, and all that remained was to show it to him. Just the thought sent her mind into a blind panic. What if he hated it? What if after he saw it he hated her?
She forced herself to breathe deeply and scrolled through her words once more. She had to think about this objectively. Somehow. The finished story was about two thousand words. If he didn’t cut much, it would be a hefty cover piece that would run well into the back pages. Just in case he pulled the plug after he saw the finished product, she had thrown together a shorter article on his music, merely hinting that the public would be pleasantly surprised by the new artistic direction he was taking.
The impersonal version had been fairly easy to write. As she’d worked on the real deal, however, she had stumbled over her words in a way she hadn’t done since she’d been in journalism school. Attempting to marry his present with his past had felt like flailing around in the dark. Really, what she needed was to talk to someone who knew him back then. Then she might know if she’d gotten it right.
Logging into one of the investigative databases she paid to have access to, she scrolled through information about his parents’ deaths. One tidbit had a link to a London Times article with a picture of the family taken several years before the incident.
In the picture were David’s mother, a pretty blonde with sad eyes, his father, whose round features and large nose reminded her nothing of his son, David, who even then had a guarded magnetism, and a young girl named Jennifer. His sister.
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