Hard Focus (BAE Book 1)

by Vic Tyler

  “Oh, my god, I can’t believe it is you!”

  “What are you doing here? Are you going to play with us again?”

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?”

  Benji raised his eyebrow at me. Seeing the excited smiles on familiar, welcoming faces warmed my heart with swelling adoration as I explained that I was working with Benji and didn’t even know I was coming until the morning.

  “If it isn’t Michele Lennox,” a voice boomed from the wings of the stage.

  My heart thumped in a gradually rising tempo. Hearing that voice stiffened my back. I turned around to see Jorge Espinoza beaming and walking towards me. He was a tall, slightly round man with a handsome, tanned face and more salt than pepper in his hair than I last remembered. The music director, once a mentor, an old family friend. The one person I hoped I wouldn’t see.

  “Mr. Espinoza,” I said, giving a wry smile and nodding my spinning head.

  “Never thought I’d see you back here, Michele,” he said, wrapping me in a big hug.

  I would’ve laughed when I saw Benji’s alarmed face, but it just didn’t seem funny right now.

  “How long has it been?”

  “A couple years,” I said, awkwardly patting his back. “Nice to see you in good health.”

  “You too. I thought you’d be in a hospital somewhere since you weren’t playing anymore,” his loud laugh echoed in the big hall. He turned to Benji. “Did you know who exactly you had working under you? A celebrity! Hah! The cello genius Michele Lennox — the child of Peter Lennox and Michele Deveraux. A child prodigy polished and refined.”

  Mr. Espinoza solemnly shook his head. “Youngest cello player in the Philharmonic, straight out of Juilliard. Who could’ve imagined you’d quit? No one thought it was even possible. It’s a downright shame what you’re depriving from the music world.”

  My stomach twisted like it was being wrung in the hands of a distressed old lady. The acquaintances who greeted me earlier shifted uncomfortably, edging their way back to the stage.

  “Excuse me,” Benji’s voice had a dangerous, threatening edge. “If you could collect your members so we can continue the rehearsal. We’d like to keep to the schedule.”

  “Right, right,” Mr. Espinoza said brightly. “Well, pick up the cello and come back, Michele. That’s what your parents would’ve wanted.”

  Mr. Espinoza tapped his chest solemnly. The dismal expression suddenly aged and weathered his face. He sighed, clapping his hand onto my shoulder and squeezing. Then he strode away, barking at the members who still weren’t in their seats.

  “Are you alright?” Benji said softly so only I could hear him. I nodded, feeling my eyes swell with hot tears. He placed his hand on the shoulder Mr. Espinoza touched and gave his own small squeeze, rubbing his thumb against the bare skin above my collar.

  Benji worked quickly, finishing after the beginning of the third movement of their first song. We packed up quickly and met with one of the managers to give a quick farewell and let them know when to expect the prints.

  Benji grabbed my hand, and we left the building, the sound of Shostakovich’s 5th symphony fanfaring our departure.

  We didn’t speak, even after Benji hailed down a cab. My head was swimming with turbulent emotions and thoughts when it was suddenly broken by a soft caress on my hand.

  Benj looked at me, his eyes worriedly searching mine, and his large palm cupped my face. I leaned into it, closing my eyes and focusing on feeling his warm thumb brush my cheek.

  “I ran away.” My voice sounded small and broken.

  “You don’t have to explain anything,” Benji said, pulling me into his chest.

  “The cello was all I knew. I grew up with the cello in one hand, my bow in the other.”

  Day in, day out. Lessons, practice, performances, classes, orchestra, school, college, career. I never thought about whether it was what I really wanted. It was just as part of me as any of my limbs.

  “Then I started to question whether my entire life was going to be like that. All the great things expected of me. Drawn out for me. Planned to the tee. No one in their right mind would turn it down.”

  My ragged breathing slowed as I slowly inhaled, Benji’s cedar, oaky smell filling my lungs. I felt Benji’s heartbeat thumping against mine as they both slowly started beating in sync, his hand stroking my hair.

  “But there was one time I tried. I called my parents and argued with them. It was all moving too fast. I wasn’t ready to play for the Philharmonic. They didn’t get it. They tried convincing me to stay,” my voice started breaking. A hot tear streaked down my cheek.

  “They were driving out to see me when someone ran them off the road. They died because I was being impulsive and emotional. Because I was being selfish. The last thing I told them was to leave me alone, that I didn’t want them interfering in my life anymore.”

  The tears flooded down. I clutched onto Benji tightly as though he was the only thing grounding me to reality.

  “After all that, I couldn’t quit the Philharmonic. How could I? It was the last thing I had left of my parents,” I gasped. “And then Mr. Espinoza at the funeral — he told me it was a shame that my parents would never be able to see me on the stage they put me on. When I asked him what he meant, he said that they made sure I was able to get to where I was — Juilliard, the New York Philharmonic, every competition, every performance. They weren’t mine.”

  The car started closing in on me, the air too thick to breathe in.

  “It made me nauseous to think that everything I had accomplished wasn’t because I achieved it. That it was served to me on a silver platter. That I didn’t deserve any of it. And then I couldn’t play anymore. I couldn’t even touch the cello without throwing up. I quit everything.”

  Everything I repressed and pushed down came bursting to the surface. The feelings of guilt and sorrow, the grief and agony and anger poured out of me. Benji held me until I stopped crying, and the cab driver silently handed back a box of tissues.

  Oh, god, why now? As the tears ceased and I regained my breath, I realized I broke down in the middle of a workday. This was humiliating. And there were still clients to meet later in the day, and this was all so unprofessional.

  I apologized to Benji and the cab driver, grabbing my compact as I tried to hide my puffy, red, tear-streaked face behind layers of powder. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Benji pull up his phone and scroll it, slightly faced away from me. We sat silently, and I stewed in the mess of my emotions, regretting that I had shown him such a vulnerable side of me.

  When we arrived at the studio, I walked in and heard the lock clicking. I turned around to see Benji flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED.

  “What are you doing?” I said, frowning.

  “Playing hooky.” He shrugged.

  “We can’t,” I started. “We’re so behind because of the weekend, and the concept meeting for the Elle photo shoot is today and —”

  Benji’s interrupted me with a deep and powerful kiss, his tongue gently comforting mine.

  “Canceled everything already,” he murmured. “I even apologized, can you believe it?”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Benji said, pressing his mouth boldly into mine while pulling my body into his.

  His emerald green eyes intensely scouring mine. Oh, no, my tear stricken face probably looked swollen. I averted my eyes and tried to duck my head down, but he gently lifted my chin.

  “I’m not very good with words,” he admitted.

  “Obviously,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  I still couldn’t help the small smile blooming on my face.

  “But I’ve seen you work for the past three months,” Benji said, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I could hardly believe you were only an assistant for a year when you started. And I can’t believe that something you dedicated your entire life to could be anything less than extraordinary.”

  He kissed my forehead.

&
nbsp; “Sure, your parents gave you a lot, but you’re the one who made the most out of it. If they had any pride in what they do, they would’ve wanted you to earn your position, and I think they believed in you.”

  Benji let go of me to cup his hands on my face and looked deeply into my eyes. “You deserved all your achievements. They were all rightfully yours. And now you deserve to let go of your regrets and dream about something different. You deserve your own forgiveness. You deserve happiness.”

  A tear rolled down my cheek, and he lightly licked it then kissed me, the salty drop coating our lips.

  “I’m not very good at words,” he said. “So let me comfort you in the way I can.”

  “Do tears turn you on?” I laughed.

  Benji smiled, his face gentle and soft.

  “It’s great lube.”

  “Gandalf fucking shoots lightning out.”

  “I’m just saying, Dumbledore probably has a lot more spells and knowledge under his belt.”

  “It doesn’t matter how much he knows if he’s going to get fried and chopped into pieces.”

  “Hey, if they’re fighting long-distance, Dumbledore just needs to swish and flick Gandalf’s ass out of there.”

  Benji invited me back to his apartment, so we picked up some movies, Chinese takeout, and several pints of gelato (wow, no wonder he brought me here the first time. I told him that was sneaky and he smirked at me).

  We had just finished “The Two Towers” of our Lord of the Rings marathon and argued about who’d win in a fight: Gandalf or Dumbledore. Benji insisted he was right after he got the last word before reducing me to moans while he practiced speaking Sindarin between my legs. And I was standing firm that the argument was put on hold since he was trying to distract me.

  “Shut up, just admit you’re wrong,” Benji said, shoving a spoon full of pistachio gelato into my mouth.

  A smug feeling of satisfaction filled me. He totally converted to pistachio gelato. I dove under the blankets to give his penis a gelato coating, and he yelped.

  “Never,” I said, popping back up and planting a deep kiss into him.

  Benji’s lips were warm, tinged with cold sweetness. His eyes lazily opened when I pulled away, the dark jade orbs speckled with gold glints of light. He still took my breath away, and I loved when he was this close to me — mine to admire and gaze at, mine for the moment.

  Benji smiled, relaxed and innocent, boyishly charming. He didn’t seem like the Devil Photographer now. It was a side of him that no one else saw, a part of him that I monopolized.

  Even if it was unfair, I didn’t care. I wanted him all to myself. I wanted to be the only one who knew those shy smiles, the way he nuzzled my hair when he was starting to fall asleep, the deep, rumbling laughter that rose and echoed from the depths of his chest.

  Seeing his face wrenched my heart. I couldn’t control my feelings for him anymore. And when he did things like take the day off because I broke down after leaving David Geffen, I found myself wishing he wouldn’t. It seemed almost cruel for him to spoil me. I was becoming happy at the cost of my own sanity.

  “Have you learned any more of the ukulele?” I murmured.

  “No, my teacher’s been slacking,” Benji said, nibbling my neck. “She’s way more interested in sucking me off than teaching me anything.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to teach you to resist temptation.”

  “Well, she’s doing a shit job because I can’t resist her.”

  He pulled me onto his lap, his fingers grazing lightly over the swollen lips of my pussy. My spine tingled, and my skin woke, shuddering in anticipation. I thought about protesting when he slipped a finger inside of me, and any thoughts of stopping him disappeared.

  “Seems like she can’t resist me either,” Benji growled, thrusting his fingers in and out. He groaned as he leaned his head on my shoulder. “How are you this wet all the time?”

  “How are you so hard all the time?” I moaned as his fingers curled inside of me, rubbing my G-spot.

  “Touché.”

  His fingers slipped out, and the thick velvety head of his engorged cock rubbed against the opening of my slit.

  I instinctively moved down to swallow his tip into my hole, my body remembering — craving — the feeling of his penis filling me.

  “Whoa, whoa,” he panted, his voice husky and his breathing ragged. “Need to get a condom.”

  I let out an impatient whimper as I lifted myself off him, and he grabbed the little packet. He covered himself and sat back up, jerking me forcefully back onto his lap.

  “Now you can satisfy your greedy little cunt.” Benji smirked.

  I pouted. “Excuse you. I don’t need —”

  He reached up and bit my pursed lip. The pain sent a shock through my body, exciting all my nerves, and I melted against him. He rubbed his cock against my opening again.

  “Don’t lie,” he murmured, as I rubbed myself on his tip, whimpering.

  His green eyes shimmered brightly in the light, but his enlarged pupils made his eyes smolder hazily with lust.

  “Ride me.”

  I moaned as I slid down his long cock, feeling my sore lips stretch comfortably around his erect sex. But my insides ached wantingly every time I came up. He made me full and complete in a way that no man ever had before. Like I wanted him inside of me all the time.

  Benji watched intently, his breathing rough as he drank in the sight of my dripping pussy devouring his manhood.

  His hands softly caressed and massaged my body — from my breasts to the small of my back to my waist and then thighs. His touch left a fiery tingle on my skin, only overpowered by the friction of his throbbing erection buried deep inside me.

  My hips slurped up and down his thick shaft, my lower lips greedily deepthroating him.

  Each time I sat, his base firmly kissing my entrance, his head plunged towards my womb entrance. I just wanted to feel his hot, sticky juices explode inside me.

  He reached up and rolled my nipples between his fingers. He tugged sharply on them, jerking me towards him.

  My mouth fell onto his, and his tongue plunged into my mouth, penetrating just as deeply as his penis inside me. He greedily swallowed all my moans with eagerness.

  He pinched my nipples harder, and I cried out, grinding my clit into him. His manhood throbbed violently against all my walls. He squeezed my breasts tightly, filling his hands.

  Suddenly he slapped my ass, the swift movement jiggling my cheeks deeply into my own sex.

  He growled as he dug his fingers into my ass and furiously pumped my pussy on his cock. So fucking hard and long and thick, his arousal assaulted me deeply in my core. His spear violently impaling my sheath, over and over.

  Each time my clit slammed into his groin, a shock ran up my spine and my mind blanked, sending a new splash of my juices down to soak every inch of his lap. His balls were round and full, slapping against my ass as my pussy choked on his cock.

  He pumped my hips faster, and he grunted and panted, his voice guttural and carnal, eager for his own release. The wave of my orgasm threatened to crash into me.

  “I’m going to cum,” I gasped, feeling the cloud of my climax rolling up in me.

  Benji flipped me onto my back and pushed my knees over his shoulders. He pummeled his cock deep into me, his thick head punching my G-spot over and over again. I screamed as my climax crashed into me and rose into another orgasm and another.

  Right at my last orgasm, Benji shoved himself fully into me, our skins practically fused, and his penis pulsed as it spurt ropes of come. He collapsed on me and then rolled to the side, drawing me in to his chest.

  “See,” he whispered, nuzzling my hair. “That’s how Dumbledore would get fucked over by Gandalf.”

  In the morning, I slowly came to. My throat was parched, but I couldn’t move, my back pinned to Benji’s chest. His long, muscular arm draped around my waist, leaning heavily and securely against my stomach. His slow, deep breaths tickled
my hair, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  I cupped my hand over his, lightly stroking it. He squeezed me closer, pushing his swollen morning wood between my thighs. I was surprised by the heat that ignited inside me again. I came so many times already, plowed in my mouth and pussy so many times last night, and I still couldn’t understand the desire that was still pooling in my vagina.

  I basked in the moment for a few minutes before slowly moving Benji’s arm away. I slipped out to use the bathroom and grab a bottle of water from the kitchen. His apartment was huge but sparsely furnished, like no one was actually living there. It was like a model apartment that realtors used to show the property in the building.