The Arrangement

by Jennifer Hartley

  “But I wanted to,” Lena said firmly. She smirked. “And I was right. Your man couldn’t keep his hands off you.”

  Your man. My man. My husband. Eric.

  At Sasha’s blush, Lena chuckled and kissed her on the cheek. “Goodnight dear. It was wonderful tonight. And you are just smashing in the suit.” She nodded. “You should wear more of this style. It suits you. But maybe something in blue, next time.” She whispered conspiratorially. “I wager there’s no getting your beast off you when you’re in blue.”

  “Lena!” Sasha protested, blushing heavily. Lena’s titter followed her to the door.

  She went to her apartment, flicking the lights on. It smelled a little musty. It must be more than a month since she was last here. The trial had battered her mentally and emotionally. For the first time in her life, she was not practicing her usual hours with the cello - or practicing at all. It wasn’t the lack of urgency, but she couldn’t summon enough strength to even think of practicing.

  The discipline was ingrained in her bones but the events - the assault, the trial - crushed her soul. Marrying Eric was the one moment of peace in this storm.

  He married her to give her the necessary power and money to beat Carl Kane. That was always clear. They had not been intimate since the honeymoon and then . . . last night.

  And today. Several times.

  But more than the sex, of course, was how relentless Eric was. Never leaving her side. Urging her to fight. Picking up pieces of herself and putting her back together. Trusting her about Tallulah. Sharing with her the thoughts he never put into words before.

  And in the midst of this mess, Sasha had given him her heart. She couldn’t tell when it happened. Much of their relationship, she was still unsure about. But she was learning, day by day, how it was to be with Eric Cohen. He was a complicated man with serious baggage. Instead of running away, she had planted herself firmly at his side.

  She opened her cello case. It was a new instrument. A wedding gift, according to Eric, although he presented it to her weeks following that day. It was a commissioned instrument like the one Daniel gave her, but better. She had grown a few inches since the day her father presented her the old blue cello.

  The cello from Eric was also blue. The body was longer and broader, so it was easier to hold it. The strings have been placed in such a way that her long fingers didn’t feel crowded or had to squish. She had not tried playing with it yet.

  She pulled it out of the case.

  It didn’t feel like a betrayal, although she cast an apologetic look to the other cello case. It still hurt every time she saw the damage to the instrument. It was all she had of her father, and Carl Kane destroyed it.

  Sasha took her bow from its case. Then she sat down on the loveseat, spread her legs. She cradled the cello between them. From memory, she started playing Twice Shy.

  She lost herself in the music. She stroked the bow across the strings, lingering on notes, striking them, drawing them out. The pads of her fingers pressed hard on the strings, tautening them as the bow slid across. The cello gently vibrated between her legs; at that moment, it was alive, warm from her body.

  Halfway through the piece, she heard her phone ringing. She was slow to stop because she didn’t hear it immediately. When the full blast of the sound hit her, she left the cello leaning against the sofa. She picked up the phone.

  “Don’t get mad. I’m not being a controlling husband here,” Eric said as soon as she answered. She had to stifle her laugh. “But are you on your way back?”

  “Sorry. I was playing,” she glanced at the cello. “I’ll pack up.”

  “No, don’t.”

  She froze. “Uh, why?”

  “I’ll come there if that’s alright. We can spend the night. I don’t want to interrupt your practice.”

  “You don’t have to. I can go home. I only have to get the cello, call a cab - ”

  “Love.” She almost purred at his voice calling her that. She blushed. “Keep practicing. I’ll be there shortly.”

  She hung up. She kicked off her heels, groaning in pleasure at the relief spreading across her feet.

  Eric would take twenty minutes, so she used the time to wash the makeup from her face and shower. She still kept clothes, among them her favorite sleeping attire: a white t-shirt with a unicorn and gray baggy pajamas. She put water in the kettle to boil for when Eric arrived. Maybe they could have tea.

  She had just finished Twice Shy when she heard the door opening. The smile Eric was wearing made her warm. She set her cello aside and welcomed him.

  He tasted of the wine from dinner. She turned away, blushing at her own eagerness. But Eric continued to shower her face with kisses. She could believe she was beautiful.

  “You’ll still play, right?” Eric asked, tucking her hair behind her ears and prompting her to look at him. “I love listening to you.”

  “You don’t want tea?” She asked, gesturing at the kettle.

  Eric gestured at the bag he was carrying. “I thought I’d draw you.”

  Sasha laughed and looked down at her clothes. “In my pajamas?”

  He put his hands on her waist and kissed her gently. “It could work.”

  “No way, Eric. It’s embarrassing! Go draw a vase or something.”

  “I think people would be curious to know what Mrs. Cohen wears to bed,” Eric teased, playing with the bottom of her t-shirt. “I predict a huge interest in unicorn prints.”

  “Shut up. I’ve had these forever. I love them.”

  She started to pull away when Eric shook his head. “Why? What is it?” She asked.

  In what was becoming a favorite way of answering, he took her by the chin and kissed her. Her lips parted shyly, letting him slide his tongue between them. Then he set her away from him.

  “Right.” An unsteady hand smoothed his hair. “Well, that’s it for now.”

  Sasha frowned, confused. But Eric was already turning away and getting things from his bag. She shrugged and went back to her cello.

  Eric sat in the kitchen area, pulling out a chair to sit on. He arranged his supplies neatly. As Sasha took the cello between her legs, she listened to him sharpening his charcoal.

  She ran through some exercises first, playing short pieces. Her body moved with the tempo, like sharp waves crashing toward the shore, pulling back only to come swooping in again. Sweat poured down her nape; it made her arms gleam like marble. Her legs tensed as they tightened around the cello.

  Done, she rested her head against the instrument to catch a breath. She closed her eyes, hugging the cello.

  As her breathing slowed and the sweat on her back dried, she straightened up and poised her fingers over the pegs firmly but gently. She relaxed the grip of her legs and positioned the cello. Then she guided it slowly across the strings. Her fingers were quick and efficient, moving up and down the fingerboard, applying different pressures on the strings as she played.

  When playing the cello, it was so easy to forget time and the rest of the world. This time, she had heightened sense of awareness: the back of her t-shirt still cool from her sweat, the curve of the cello’s body digging against the inside of her knee, the musty scent of the apartment. From the reflection on the window, she saw Eric glancing at her and then at the paper he was sketching on.

  He was drawing her again.

  She blushed and concentrated on playing Twice Shy.

  She gave it her all. Twice Shy was a difficult, emotional piece because of the story it was based on. She tapped into her pain from the loss of her father, the wrecked cello, of the swift, cruel judgment of the world in the days following the assault. Tears pooled in her eyes as she remembered them.

  But she remembered Eric too.

  She remembered the first time she saw him outside of the van with Zachary and the dog Honey. When he told her that he dreamed of her. His look of pure astonishment when she started undressing, right after she warned him about mocking her. The feel of his lips under her
own when they fucked for the first time. Eric inside her. Too wonderful, too perfect for words.

  As the tempo slowed down, she gentled her playing. Half-strokes, half-touches, slides to coax only the softest, gentlest notes. She dragged them out, delaying the end of the musical piece. When she stroked the bow across the strings a final time, it was followed by deafening silence.

  Her legs were shaking as she stood up. She had had to grip the cello else it would slip from her fingers.

  Then she heard a chair scrape. With a gulp, she turned and saw Eric standing up. He was looking at her.

  He walked around the table and went to her. Sasha, still clutching at the cello, fumbled with the buckles and snaps of its case. It was difficult because her hands were shaking.

  Then Eric was standing beside her. A hand slipping under her t-shirt to caress her stomach. Lips on her nape. She sighed, and he whispered against her skin, “You make it so hard to look away from you when you’re playing.”

  As he spoke, his hands cupped her breasts. Fingers lightly pinched her nipples. Her body arched sharply against his chest.

  “You’re compelling to watch. ” he went on, his hands busily stroking her body and setting her aflame.

  He turned her around, catching her by the nape to pull her down to kiss her fully on the mouth. As she kissed him back and ran her palms up and down his chest, he yanked her pajamas down. Her face and body were a palette of reds and pinks, every shade of it getting deeper when Eric dropped to his knees to follow the fall of her pants. He took her by the ankle, freeing her from the fabric.

  Fingers clamped around the fleshy curve of her buttocks as Eric leaned in to kiss her pussy, as he would her mouth. Soft, licking kisses parted the warm, aching folds. Lips tugged at the petal-soft skin of her labia, his tongue sweeping idly up and down the inner curves. A whimper broke out of her tight throat as his kisses deepened, got hungrier. Her legs were beginning to weaken with every swipe of his tongue, every suction of his lip. Eric draped one of her legs over his shoulder, opening her. She felt forefinger and thumb sweep open the moistening slit of her pussy, and then his lips were there, pulling eagerly at her swollen clit.

  She gripped him by the hair. “Eric.”

  “I want to play you,” he growled, releasing her clit with a pop.

  She looked at him, confused. Eric smirked and got up to sit on the sofa.

  He pulled her down on his lap but facing away from him. He pulled off her t-shirt. For the first time, Sasha realized that she was completely nude while he had yet to shed one stitch of clothing. Before she could voice this out, his hands were on her breasts, squeezing and kneading. She didn’t see him smile when her own hands covered his, pressing them harder on the small mounds. He rewarded her with a kiss on the shoulder, up and down the side of freckled neck.

  As he played with her nipples and drew hisses and grunts from her, he spread his legs. This had her legs opening too. She shuddered as she felt a slight draft teasing the widened folds of her pussy. His t-shirt felt rough against her back, the denim of his pants a harsh tease under the backs of her thighs. Against her buttocks was the insistent thrust of his cock. She didn’t know what he was going to do to her. But one thing she was sure about: she wasn’t going to refuse.

  Sasha was squirming on his lap, unintentionally torturing him. Eric buried a groan in her shoulder and lowered his hand to her heated cluster of curls. She was dripping. The insides of her thighs were wet. He petted her pussy before two fingers plunged in.

  She quickly clenched around them, hissing. “Eric.”

  He pinched her nipple. It got her wetter. He pushed a tongue in her ear. She poured.

  “Let me play you, pretty,” he whispered.

  God, she thought, realizing what he meant. She nodded and relaxed. Their groans were rough as Eric sank those two fingers completely in her, flattening his palm against her pussy.

  Then he started fucking her with them.

  Sasha went wild. She cried out and writhed in his arms, torn between shock and desperation for more. Eric had her turn her head to him, coaxing her soft lips to open and let his tongue inside. As he rammed his tongue down her throat and muffled her moans, his hands got to work. Plucking at her nipples. Plunging in and out of her pussy in furious, deep strokes. Those fingers twirled inside her before fucking her hard again. This time Sasha managed to tear away from his kisses to shriek.

  She was skittish and wouldn’t remain still. She was fucking strong. But he could be stronger, and this time he was. Gripping her against his body and taking more kisses from her mouth. Spreading the lips of her pussy wider with fingers to fuck her harder. It was too much. Sasha never knew it could get this intense. That this kind of feeling ever existed. It was terrifying because she felt herself about to shatter any moment now. But it was exhilarating too because Eric was here. He was the only man she would allow to do this to her. It will be only this good with him.

  With a scream, she came, tightening around his fingers. Her entire body tensed, the muscles in her thighs shaking as her orgasm swept through her like a tidal wave. Then she softened, sinking against Eric’s chest, on his thighs. Whisper - soft kisses danced around her face and neck. She sighed contentedly as he pulled out his fingers.

  Sasha couldn’t remember how she made it to the bed. She couldn’t remember when Eric removed his clothes. But she was there, and he was her golden beast in her arms again, overwhelming her with kisses and hands, his cock. Her eyes closed in pleasure when his lips wrapped around nipples. She murmured his name as he licked his way down her stomach before stopping at her pussy. She was wanton and desperate for the feel of him inside her again as she spread her legs. Eric groaned her name, and then he was inside her.

  They usually fucked roughly, both of them chasing that feeling. This urgency was still present with every stroke of his cock inside her. He was still rough. She still loved every moment of it. But now it was interspersed with kisses, searching gazes, gentle caresses. When her hand raised to touch his cheek, Eric held it there. He continued to thrust into her as he pressed kisses on her palm, her wrist, sucked the tip of her middle finger. Then he was lying completely over her, pulling her in his moss eyes.

  She came with a soft gasp this time, arching against him and her head falling back against the pillow. He kisses her along the jaw, down her throat, until she picked up her head. She took his face in her hands, watching him as he grunted and tensed. His eyes closed and again, her name fell from his lips. She pulled his head down to her chest, and he embraced her.

  They slept in each other’s arms. For the first time after so long, Sasha found peace in her sleep.

  At one point during the night, her eyes opened. It was dark, but she could see the outline of Eric’s nose, his jaw. Her hand was on his chest. It was so familiar that it felt as if both their bodies were an extension of one another’s. His warm body heat belonged to her and soaked into her skin as if it had rightfully been hers all along. Her eyes traced his features in the dark. The light was too low for her to see him clearly, but her brain filled in the blanks with familiar expanses of precious and so dearly loved skin, flesh, and bone.

  There was nothing she could have said – no words she could have uttered – to say how that moment felt and how much it meant. But maybe there was.

  “I love you, Eric,” she said simply before closing her eyes.

  She didn’t know that he was wide awake at the time.

  Three

  Two months later

  In thirty minutes, Sasha would be home. Eric put his sketchpad, pencils, and charcoal in the satchel and got up from the bench. Home was ten blocks away. His heart was racing - it always did whenever the time for his wife’s arrival approached. Yet he didn’t rush and swung by his favorite patisserie to pick up some chocolate éclairs.

  Sasha had been accepted in the music division of the Chartane. Because she attended the same school for one term, some of the courses she had before were credited. And adviser oversaw her
progress in the program.

  She had chosen Twice Shy as her audition piece. With all the publicity surrounding the trial, plus her marriage to Eric, she was pressured to do well. No one pressed her, but she took it upon herself to put out a performance that was nothing short of excellent. The result of the audition was advanced placement in courses such as Ear Training and Composition.

  Being a student at the Chartane was hard work. On top of classes, students were also encouraged to take advantage of practice rooms. Sasha had classes until six, and then she practiced for an hour and a half before going home.

  The days following Sasha’s return to school were hard for Eric. He was so used to having her around that the loft felt empty and lonely without her. Sasha was worried at first about her practice distracting Eric. He liked quiet when he was working, true, but he loved hearing her play. They usually went out for lunch then took their time walking back home. Then Eric would draw her until sunset.

  Afterward, they fucked.

  He was driven by the insatiable need to be with her and to erase all the cruelty and violations visited upon her body. To know love, how it was to be cherished - these were things he wanted Sasha to know in his arms.

  Sasha was also a stimulating woman in many ways. Yes, she was still shy, and this was a huge part of her appeal, as well as her intelligence and insightfulness. They had lively debates and conversations covering every subject under the sun. Her blue eyes would widen, narrow, darken, sparkle, flutter. Depending on how much she got into a subject, her blush covered the entire spectrum of pinks and reds as well as yet - unnamed - shades. Now, the topic of sex - this was when Eric witnessed her several times flushing heavily. And he enjoyed way too much following her arguments with non-sequitur inquiries about the state of her nipples or pussy, an eager hand delving under her clothes.

  But it was when talking about music that he got to see her blossom. Her blue eyes shone as she talked about her favorite composers, her love for hard metal music. She knew all the bands in the genre. It was a turn-on seeing Sasha so excited about something that really interested her. For the first time in his life, Eric was learning how it felt to be with a woman. A woman who was his partner in unexpected ways.