by CD Reiss
“Some people—they just want to win.”
Game player’s mentality. Everything was a game to be won or lost. Sure. Daddy always won. He always came out on top. Every argument. Every disagreement. He won. So? That was how our family had gotten rich and it was how we stayed rich.
“And you’re different? Mister wants a solo so bad he almost didn’t play the orchestra. Mister almost got into a fight at Heritage Hall. Mister rather win this relationship than be in it.”
“That’s not me.”
“No, huh? Why are you here then?”
“I’m allowed to be here.”
“Isn’t music on the ground floor?”
As if I’d given him directions to the place he’d intended to go the whole time, he walked away, out of my sight—but only for a moment. He reappeared at the end of my row with his hands in his pockets. We stood in silence twenty feet apart.
“You want to know the truth?” He took the gum from his mouth and put it in the wrapper. “The ugliest truth?”
I thought he’d already told me more truth than I could handle. “Yes.”
He put the gum in his pocket. “When I found out who you were, I was glad.” He ran his finger along the books as if the texture comforted him. “No matter what I did, you’d outshine me. I couldn’t help how I felt, but the train was off the tracks. You made me feel things. I couldn’t help myself. And I knew you’d drown me out. So finding out you were a Drazen?” He let his hand drop from the books. “Kind of a relief.”
“I don’t understand. Drown you out how?”
“My father wanted me to be a musician. I have to do that for him. I have to make him proud. I have to be the soloist, do you understand? For him.” He ran his hand through his hair. “No matter how bright I shine, you’ll always shine brighter.”
His voice tested the truth of his words. As if he couldn’t believe he felt that way, but had to say it to check.
“You realize how ridiculous that sounds?”
“Does it matter? If that’s what it is, then that’s what it is.”
“I don’t know anything about my father’s business. I just try to live my life. If it’s his fault about your dad, then… I don’t know. That’s terrible. We should talk about it. But I can’t change it. And I’m sorry it happened. Truly sorry.” I wanted to step closer to him, but the wall of unfinished business hadn’t been broken down, and I realized no matter what we did, it would stand strong.
“My mother would never accept us.”
He was challenging me. Could I cope? Did I understand what I was asking for? Suddenly, a secret history and a life without family support seemed like too much. My shoulders dropped under the weight of it.
“And I’m going to North Carolina.” It was my turn to run my fingers over the book spines.
“It’s a lot. It would be like playing oboe because you love it instead of the instrument you’re really good at. It’s not fair to you. We shouldn’t spend our lives fighting everyone. Right?”
I ran my finger down a canvas spine, feeling the texture of the gold-pressed letters. Feynman Lectures. He was working so hard to unwind us. Why fight it?
“You should go,” I said, moving to the next book, Path Integrals.
“Carrie?” He’d stepped away—out of the row and into the aisle and I hadn’t even seen it. “Do you believe any of what I just said?”
He looked down the aisle, toward what must have been the exit, then back at me.
I rubbed resin and dust off my fingers. “Do you?”
He opened his mouth to answer but closed it as if the word was offensive.
“And,” I added, dropping my hand to my side, “do you care?”
“I want to care.”
“But you don’t.”
“No. I don’t.”
He came to me in a rush, like a tightly-wound spring abruptly released. Three big steps, arms out, wrapping me in a tight embrace of renunciations and promises.
Renunciations of the world and its expectations.
Promises of something worth fighting for.
His kiss was all-encompassing. My body. My attention. A trap door opened under the tension of our denials and they disappeared into a void. From that moment on, I’d associate the cinnamon taste of his mouth with relief and release, and the roughness of his fingers on my cheek with the tension between what the hearts wants and the body can express.
“I’m sorry,” he said between kisses. “This isn’t the first time I’ve watched you. I detour through the other side of the school hoping I’ll see you. It’s like I can’t keep away. Knowing that you’re on this campus somewhere, it burns me up. I made up every reason in the book to stay away.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“I tried.” He kissed my jaw, my neck, awakening nerve endings I didn’t know I had. “I tried so hard. I needed to know it wasn’t just me. Us, being together… it’s stupid. It’s wrong. But I can’t keep away. I’m obsessed. But I can’t take you unless you understand what it means to be mine. I need to know you want it too.”
I pressed my hands to his cheeks, my soft, uncalloused palms feeling the brush of his unshaven face.
“I want it,” I said flatly so he’d know I meant it. “I don’t care what stands in our way.”
“I should know better,” he said, taking my hands away and clutching them between us. “You stand for everything I should run away from. But you do something to me. You make me want to possess you completely and I’m sorry, but that’s what it is. You’re mine. I won’t take anything less than that.”
His intensity shattered me, blowing my will to bits. The pieces of me got caught in the whirlwind of his passion and were reshaped to a fine point that went in his direction. This was what it meant to be alive. To decide things. To choose by submitting to your heart’s desire.
“Say it,” he growled in a way he never had before. “Say you’re mine alone.”
“I am yours, Gabriel.” I squeezed his hands. “Yours alone.”
He kissed me, but it was different. Without desperation or hunger. He wasn’t testing the waters. His hand held the back of my head and his mouth explored mine as if he was mapping the territory he’d claimed.
My fear disappeared. My family. All the obstacles between us. I became his. And when he gently pulled back, flicking his brown eyes across my face, I felt valued and cherished.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “I’m going to play you like an instrument.”
I ducked out of study group and drove to my apartment. Gabriel met me in the lobby, standing by a gilded mirror with his bag and his violin case. When the elevator doors closed, he dropped his things then took my hands and put them over my head, pushing me against the back wall. He didn’t kiss me.
He stared into me with heated lust. “Do you scream when you come?”
“I…” Before I could decide what to say, he pushed his hips into me. I gasped at the feel of his erection. My thoughts were a seesaw, rocking on the fulcrum of his gaze between “yes, more,” and “no, wait.”
“You will. You’ll sing like a bird.”
The elevator doors opened.
There were only two doors, and we kissed all the way to mine. I fumbled with the keys, and we fell into my apartment. He kicked the door closed behind him, pulling my shirt out of my waistband. When his hand touched my belly, I quivered so hard I had to pull away.
“Wait.”
We were panting as if we’d run a mile, standing three feet apart.
“Just wait.”
“Okay.” He said it more to himself than to me.
“I need to talk.”
“Okay.” He ran his fingers through his hair as he repeated the same word with a more definitive tone. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Just. I haven’t done this before.”
His head tilted slightly. “This?”
“This…” I waved in the space between us. “This, um…” Words failed. “Can we sit?
”
I pointed at the couch and he looked at it, then around the rest of the penthouse as if he’d fallen asleep and woken up in a strange place. I sat on the couch and put my hand on the cushion next to me. He sat on the edge of the sofa, twisted toward me. I put my hands in my lap and looked at my knees pressed together.
An eternity went by as I chose words, threw them away, chose different ones, and found I couldn’t say them. He put his hand on my back and stroked it. I knew, with that gesture, that I could say what I needed to even if it took a few tries.
“So I know I’m twenty. But…” I cleared my throat. “I’ve never. You know…”
I wished he’d interrupt me, but he didn’t.
“I’ve kissed guys before. But I never let it get very far.”
“Ah,” he said, still stroking my back.
“There was always this thing in the back of my head that they didn’t really want me. They just wanted to be seen with me. I know that seems really conceited.”
“It’s a reflection on them. Not you.”
“I don’t think it’s that way with you.”
“You have good instincts.”
“I want to.” I put a hand on his knee. “But I don’t want you to be shocked if I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He slid off the couch and kneeled in front of me, hands resting on the sides of my thighs, face turned up. “You can’t not know, because I do.”
“If you say so.”
“But we’re going to wait,” he said, cupping my chin. “You’re mine to take care of. Not mine to use.”
Wait. The wet throb between my legs cried that maybe I’d gone too far. I wanted to know if I’d scream. I wanted what he’d promised in the elevator.
“I won’t feel used.”
He smirked. “Are you sure?”
“I am sure. Totally sure.”
“But I’m not.” He leaned back, hands spread on my thighs. “I want to be your first for every bit of this. Every step. Has anyone ever given you an orgasm before?”
His frankness made me blush.
“No.” I stared at my clasped hands. “I’ve done myself.”
He laid his hands on mine and pulled them to each side, then he laid his thumbs in the crease between my thighs. “Can I be your first?”
I looked at him as his hands moved over my jeans, upward toward my center.
“Just let me be in charge,” he said. “You can trust me. I’ll stop any time you want.”
His thumbs pressed the inside seam of my pants, and my lips went slack, parting with the pleasure of it.
“Yes.”
He sucked in a breath, as if the consent itself was the sexiest thing he could hope for. He leaned into me, waiting a second before letting his lips touch mine, and when I responded, he worked our mouths together, straightening his knees until he was on the couch with me. I ran my hands over his body, tensing my fingers against the hard muscles of his chest and abdomen. He got under my bra and cupped my breast, then he stopped kissing me long enough to look at me.
“Yes,” I said.
“I love it when you say that.” He tightened two fingers on my nipple and gently twisted it. A cable of sensation went right between my legs, and I jerked with pleasure. “I love that too.”
We kissed again, and when he unbuttoned my jeans, he stopped again to make sure I was a yes, and again when he put his hand down past my underwear. I was a chorus of yesses when he got on his knees and pulled off my jeans. On my back, naked from the waist down, as he looked at me as if I were a work of art. He pushed my knees open, stopping for a second when they resisted in a force of habit.
“Yes.” I opened for him, but the routine of virginity was so strong, I blushed again.
He smiled and stretched himself next to me. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to resist you,” he said between kisses.
“So don’t.”
His hand slid between my legs, fingertips brushing the nub I’d discovered when I was twelve. “You’re so wet.” He moved his hands to my opening, and I nearly went blind when he put a single finger inside me. “You like that?”
“Yes,” I squeaked.
“Already singing.”
Running his fingers back and forth, he worked my clit, and when I thought I’d burst into a thousand pieces, he went inside me. I could stimulate myself but having someone else touch me brought the pleasure to new heights. He drew it out, getting me close, then pulling back in the most exquisite torture.
“Look at me,” he said.
I opened my eyes.
He read me, playing my body as if the sheet music was in my expression. “Say my name.”
“Gabriel.”
He flicked my clit and a new shot of pleasure ran through me. “Again.”
“Gabriel.”
“You want me to be the first man to make you come?”
“Yes. Please.”
He shifted so he could grab my wrists in his free hand and hold them over my head. I was so close to losing control in a way I’d never before that the restraint felt safe.
“Give it to me,” he whispered. “Come for me.”
Fingertips back and forth, he led me to the most hip-thrusting, powerful orgasm I’d ever had. I grunted, and just when I was taking a breath, he took his hand away.
“Sing,” he growled with a stinging slap between my legs. I gasped and he ran his fingers along my nub again.
“Oh, God!”
“Who?”
“Gab—” The next syllable was lost in a long note of pleasure that got louder as my second orgasm ripped through me.
Then, and only then, did he stop and lie down beside me, resting his hand on my belly.
“Wow.” He touched his nose to mine.
“I’m the one who should be wowed.”
“Nope. I’m wowed. You really are a little bird.”
“Only for you.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, letting his fingertips drift over my neck and down my shoulder. “I hope I always make you sing.”
Chapter 15
NEW YORK - 1995
We left Drew at the club, and Margie took me back to her place. They had an apartment with an extra bedroom on the Upper East Side. There was no talk of me staying at a hotel.
Margie tossed me the phone. “Call him. Tell him you’ll be back on Friday.”
I pushed the green button, and a dial tone came through the receiver. He’d be unhappy, to say the least. He’d say it was fine, maybe use clipped syllables to mention an event I was missing. There would be menace but not threats, and I’d be saccharine sweet for weeks after to avoid further trouble.
I hit the red button and put the phone on the coffee table. The coat was draped over the couch and the gum wrapper was in my hand, where I rolled it between my fingers like a rosary.
“He’s at a dinner,” I said.
Margie poured two glasses of scotch. “Do you want to talk about what you told me?” she asked, handing me a short glass.
“No.” I didn’t drink scotch around Peter. He thought it was unfeminine, but I loved the gentle burn as it went down my throat.
Margie and I clinked our glasses and I took a sip, relishing the warmth in my chest, growing like a drop of ink in clean water. My sister and I dropped onto the couch. She kicked her shoes off and pushed them under the coffee table.
“I’m glad I came,” I said.
“Me too.”
“How’s the job? The law firm? Do you like it?”
Margie didn’t have to work. None of us did. So she had to like it.
“The firm sucks. But the law? I love the law.”
“That sounds nice.”
“What are you doing?” she asked. “With your days? What do you do with all that time?”
Andrea had asked me the same question when I’d seen her the year before. She had a raw fascination with my boredom, as if it were a choice she could never understand.
“I have friends, people I
know. We meet for lunch. Play tennis.”
“Nails and hair once a week.”
“I plan events for Peter,” I replied defensively.
She swirled the amber liquid in her glass, then polished it off. “What about school?” She put the empty glass on the coffee table. “You said you were going back once you were settled.”
“Doesn’t seem much point.” I finished my drink, and my glass joined hers. “I mean, I’m not going to have a practice or see patients. I was just following a childish infatuation.”
“With the human mind.”
“It’s fine. If I want to know something, I can read about it.” Inwardly, I flinched, thinking of the empty shelves where my books used to be. “Do you have any more in that bottle?”
She got up and grabbed the Macallan from the sideboard, then poured two fingers’ worth in each glass. “Remember that professor you had? With the wire-rimmed glasses and the tattoos? What was his name?”
“Gannon?”
We clinked and drank.
“He believed in you. I remember you at Deirdre’s birthday party, beaming that he’d nominated you for some award.”
The burn was never as pleasant the second time, but never before had it turned to ice in my chest. I’d never told her the whole story, and I didn’t want to. I wanted her to believe I’d deserved that nomination.
“Andrea deserved it. I was happy for her.”
“But you were good.” She placed her sock feet on the edge of the table. “You loved studying and you were good. Probably still are.”
“Sure.”
“I always thought you quit because of what happened in Venice.”
My relaxation turned to a spinning weight on my heart, twisting it into a knot of tight muscle straining to beat. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t. Because it was Peter, wasn’t it?”
“He helped me,” I said. “He got me through it. He was there for me. All day and all night. If it wasn’t for him…”
I’d be alone.
I’d be broken.
I’d be a different person.
I snapped up the phone and dialed Peter’s car phone while Margie leaned back with her feet on the table.