by Sienna Blake
“I’m going to have a shower,” I said, my voice sounding cold and distant, even as a part of me screamed that pulling away would hurt her. Even as her face fell as she gazed at me over her shoulder, her teeth scraping at her swollen bottom lip.
I strode into the bathroom, determined to have the coldest shower I could stand.
It was either pull away now or pull away later. And pulling away later would hurt her more. Best to keep things…distant and uncomplicated.
A tiny part of me wondered whether I’d have the strength to pull away later.
50
____________
Ailis
“I have something to play for you,” Danny said as I entered his apartment that night. He’d taken to leaving the door unlocked for me.
I dropped my bag by the door and walked over to where he was standing by his stereo just as music began to play through the expensive speakers positioned throughout the room.
It was a slow ballad, sexy and seductive. So much bass. It sounded like he’d added inharmonic overtones to the guitar so it sounded gritty.
His voice came out low and hushed, like he was half singing, half growling.
It was the kind of song to make love to. Or fuck someone you love to.
I heard what sounded like a low moan just loud enough through the music and tilted my head. More breathy noises came through the music. Inhales. Exhales. More low moaning.
Danny wrapped his arms around my waist and tugged me in close.
“Recognise her?” he whispered in my ear.
My mouth dropped open when I realised whose voice that was.
Mine.
My moans, my breathing. My cries.
But how…? When…?
I remembered.
“Oh my God, “I breathed, “it was recording while you were…”
It was from that night when he’d had his face in my pussy while we were in the recording studios. I’d forgotten that he’d turned the recording on earlier and just let it run.
He nodded, a hungry smirk on his face. “Caught every single sound you made. I only realised when I played it back. So damn sexy.”
I stared up at him, part horrified, part turned on. He’d slipped sounds of my pleasure into this song.
Danny must have caught the look on my face because the smirk slid right off his features.
“Hey,” he sounded so serious, his eyebrows coming down over his eyes, focused on me, “that recording of you is for me, my ears only. I would never play it for anyone else. Never. You have my word.”
I just stared at him.
“I know I’ve been a dick to you in the past, but I would never do that to you. Tell me you know that.” His voice was soft, almost like he was begging.
Did I trust him?
I shouldn’t. But I did. I trusted the Danny I knew he really was, not the bully he became for some reason.
I nodded.
He frowned. “You’re still not happy with me.”
It wasn’t just the recording of me. If he released this song…
“Are you going to put this song on your album?” I choked out.
“Planning to.”
Oh fuck. My cheeks flared red. Everyone in the world would know what I sounded like in the most intimate of moments.
His features grew hard. “Ailis,” not Red, not dirty girl, for once he used my name, “I swear no one will ever know this is you on this song. I thought you’d like it. But if you don’t, if it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll take it out. I’ll destroy the tape. I’ll let you destroy it if you want.”
He looked so sincere. So desperate to make me happy I wanted to cry. This reminded me of the Danny I met. The young Danny I first fell for.
Did I want him to keep the tape of me coming against his tongue?
A shiver went through my body at the thought of him listening to it at night, his hand wrapped around his hard cock, pleasuring himself to the sounds of me, even after this was all over and I was gone.
Yes. I wanted that.
“You can keep the recording. I trust you when you say it’s only for you.”
He grabbed my hand and pulled it against his lips, kissing my fingers before placing my hand over his chest. “Only for me, Ailis. I would have to fucking murder anyone else who heard that tape of you.”
I gave him a small smile.
“And the song…?” he asked.
Right. The song. The song that was still playing on repeat, my breathy voice sliding between the notes like a hand between my legs.
This song was good. So good. It made me want to get naked. It made me feel sexy like only a good song could do.
It would be missing something without those breathy noises that I made.
I gave Danny a small smile. “Keep me in it. Only if I get my fair cut.”
He pulled my arms around his neck. “You like it?”
“I love it.”
He leaned in and kissed me hard. And we got naked, just like the song told us to do. We fucked, my twin cries entwining with the melody.
51
____________
Ailis
The rest of the semester flew by. And I was a girl with a secret. A double life.
During the day I was Ailis, good girl, perfect student, attended all her classes, did all her homework, kept her hair tidy and her guitar tuned.
At night, I was a bad girl, a naughty student who snuck into her professor’s apartment and let him teach her all about wicked pleasure.
Tonight we were on a thick blanket on his living room floor, empty containers that were our takeaway dinner tossed aside.
We’d already fucked twice so I was lying beside him naked, recovering from our second sex session. He lay beside me but not quite touching me as he always did. A chill went through me so I grabbed the closest item of clothing, his oversized The Untouchable band shirt, and pulled over me.
“Hey,” Danny turned to me, “do you think—”
He froze when he saw me. A strangling noise coming out of his mouth.
I blinked at him. “What?”
He just stared at me.
I sat up and looked down. “The shirt? Sorry, do you want it back?”
He scrambled to his feet as if someone had lit a bomb underneath him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Stay right there.”
“Danny—?”
“Stay,” he barked as he ran naked across the room.
I took this opportunity to admire his fine round ass and the width of his shoulders. He snatched his guitar from its stand, along with a pad and pencil, and returned to sit cross-legged in front of me.
He looked so sexy sitting naked with his guitar cradled in his arms. He scribbled something on the notepad, then stared at me. Intently. So intently I felt my skin break out into goosebumps.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Danny shook his head, a grave look on his face.
“What—?” I asked.
“Shhh. It’s coming…”
Before I could ask what was coming, he began to hum under his breath—a tune, a melody I’d not heard before. No words, just the low, deep crooning of his voice, causing a shiver to run across my skin.
Then he strummed a few chords, all while watching me. Before he started to sing along.
No makeup on, so lovely
Hair styled from my bed
Sex heavy on your lids
Kisses paint your lips red.
You’re something birthed from inside my dream
The prettiest thing I’ve ever seen
With nothing…
Nothing but my t-shirt on.
My heart clenched so hard in my chest it ached. He was writing a song for me, about me. Right now.
I watched as magic unfolded, silent, breathless, as he added lyrics to his piece, as he went over bars, adding, taking away notes, tweaking each section until he was happy.
All the while his eyes only left mine to look at the n
otes he was writing.
I could barely breathe. My stomach tied in knots.
Finally he threw his pencil down in triumph. Shot me a slow, lingering grin over his guitar, the kind that burned like whiskey in my belly, before sliding it to one side.
My eyes bulged out of my head. “You’re…hard.”
He was. Long and thick and perfect.
“Writing music turns you on?” I asked.
“No,” he said as he crawled over me, covering me with his body. “You in nothing but my fucking shirt turns me on.”
He grabbed the bottom of the shirt, raising it up and placing kisses all over my stomach and the undersides of my breasts.
“Take that shirt off and lie down on your stomach.”
I did as he asked, lying across the blanket. He kneeled beside my naked body and brushed my hair out of the way. I felt the tip of something on the back of my neck.
“What are you doing?”
“Just lie still.”
The tip moved a line down the side of my spine all the way down to the top of my ass. I let out a shiver.
He chuckled. Then did the same thing, only slightly closer to my spine this time. The light touch sending tingles through me.
He repeated his action a total of five times. Then he stopped.
He leaned down to place a kiss on the side of my hip.
“Perfect,” he muttered. His breath blowing across my sensitised skin. Then he took his phone out and I heard a click. I turned my head around to see what he was doing.
He held out his phone. On the screen was my naked back, five lines drawn along my spin like the strings of a guitar.
“You are my favourite instrument,” he whispered as he lowered himself over me and began to kiss down my sides.
I let out a moan as his tongue licked a sensitive spot. “Even over your guitar?”
“Even over my guitar,” he mumbled over my skin.
He was lying. But just for tonight, I’d believe him.
52
____________
Ailis
The semester finished up the week before Christmas. The evening of the last day of classes I slipped into Danny’s apartment, unlocked as usual. He was sitting on his couch folded over his guitar, sheets of paper spread out over the low table in front of him.
“Sit. Eat.” Danny waved at his dining table, a table we often sat at while we talked over song lyrics.
He had takeaway waiting for me. Vietnamese. I recognised the Pho Viet logo.
“I got your favourite,” he said. “Bun Bo Hue.”
Which made me feel even more guilty.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to.”
He shook his head and plucked at a few strings. “I don’t know how you can eat that spicy soup.”
“I can’t stay long,” I said, not making a move towards the table.
He frowned. “I’ve got a new song I want your opinion on.”
“I just came to say Merry Christmas.”
Danny froze, his head snapping up. “You’re going?”
I nodded. “Catching a late train to Limerick.”
“When are you back?”
“Not sure. Probably the day before semester starts in January.”
It would be a whole two weeks before I’d see him again. I knew I’d miss him. I shouldn’t. But I would anyway. I wanted to tell him that I’d miss him.
I wanted to give him the Christmas present that I’d had hidden in my bag.
His lips pressed together before his face smoothed into a mask of apathy. “Well. See ye, then.”
He curled over his guitar and proceeded to ignore me, tension pulling his shoulders up.
I didn’t want to leave just yet. Not like this. I mean, I didn’t expect a long, soppy goodbye. But I thought after all this time we’d spent together I’d get…something.
“Are you going home?” I asked, taking a step closer to him.
He lifted his face. I spotted the flash of pain behind his eyes before it was gone behind a derisive smirk and a snort. “Fuck no.”
My heart dropped. “But it’s Christmas and—”
“Christmas is for going back home to family, yeah, yeah, I know. That cold mansion was never a home to me. And that…man was never a father to me.”
“But—”
“He and I don’t speak, Dearg, so drop it.”
I couldn’t just drop it. Some of my favourite memories were from Christmastime around the dinner table with my whole family or sitting around the fire opening presents.
“So you’ll be alone? On Christmas?”
“Not any different from any other year,” he muttered.
My heart broke right then and there. How many Christmases did he have to spend alone? Probably every Christmas since his mother passed away.
Danny looked up from his guitar, a scowl on his face. “What?”
I walked up to him, reaching into my bag. I took out the small wrapped present and placed it onto the papers in front of him.
“Merry Christmas, Danny,” I said softly.
I saw the surprise in his eyes as he spotted my gift, before they softened, a hint of tenderness in their sapphire depths. I wondered if anyone had given him a Christmas present in years.
His features hardened, turning brittle. “You still fucking here?” he spat out.
His words were like barbed arrows, aimed at me. But unlike when I was a teenager, I understood this Danny sitting before me, a sad little boy trapped in the broad-shouldered body of a man.
I gave Danny a soft smile, tried to tell him with my eyes, I understand.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
He grunted at me and returned to his guitar, ignoring me. But I didn’t care. I saw the real emotion underneath the shield he used to cover it. I saw the truth.
And the truth broke my heart.
53
____________
Danny
Fuck Christmas.
It was just another stupid commercialised Hallmark holiday. The streets of Dublin were crammed with last-minute shoppers, an explosion of charity workers standing on the street hassling you for donations.
I sat at my living room couch, my guitar by my side, hunched over this set of lyrics. I’d been staring at this fucking sheet for almost a week now. Since the end of the college term.
It was all Ailis’s fault. If she’d just stuck around, my writer’s block wouldn’t have come back, cutting off the magical flow of creativity I’d been riding these last few weeks. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so inspired.
But Ailis couldn’t stick around, could she? Not when I needed her help. She just…left.
A small part of me knew I was being stupid and petulant and unfair. But the other part of me didn’t care. Being angry at Ailis was easier.
Outside, the Christmas lights from the balcony opposite mine made patterns on my curtains, distracting me. The sound of people laughing as they walked the streets below, punctuated by drunken calls of “Merry Christmas”, distracted me. Inside my apartment was heated like a tropical island. Somehow I still felt cold.
My TV was on in the background with no noise on it. The movie The Grinch was playing, the modern version with Jim Carrey in it. Now, see, this Grinch guy was just misunderstood. All he wanted was to be left alone, but all these happy fuckers couldn’t leave him be.
My mate Diarmuid was having Christmas with Brian, our old Juvenile Liaison Officer, back in Limerick. That’s how Diarmuid, Declan and I met. Brian had brought all three of us to the boxing gym to train as part of his JLO mentoring.
They’d invited me to spend Christmas with them but I’d never had the same kind of relationship with Brian that Diarmuid had. Those two were like father and son. I always felt like a third wheel around them.
Rickie was spending time in London with his daughter. She had a husband and family of her own so they were all gathered at her house for a big Christmas do.
And Declan… Lord knows where in the world Decla
n was. But he had a new wife and would be spending it with her.
When my phone rang with a call my heart skipped a beat.
Ailis?
Instead, Declan’s bare ass hanging out of a set of silky fighting shorts showed up on my screen. Ah fuck. The last time we caught up, the asshole must have changed the incoming call image for his number without me knowing.
“Your ass needs waxing,” I said into the phone.
Declan cracked up laughing. “Merry Christmas to you, too, asshole. And P.S. My ass does not need waxing…for at least another three weeks.”
I made a face. I prayed he was joking but with Declan, you could never tell and I didn’t want to know.
“Thought you might forget about us mere mortals now you have a wife,” I said, only half meaning it.
Declan snorted. “Please, dude. Bros before hoes. Dicks before chicks. Salami before hot-mammies—”
“Jesus, alright, I get it.”
I heard a soft female voice in the background. Something twinged in my heart as the silence in my own apartment echoed in my ears.
“Is that the missus?” I said, brushing off this oddness.
“Yeah. She’s hungry.”
“You’re about to eat Christmas dinner?” My stomach rumbled, reminding me that it was about that time. But the thought of ordering takeaway was so…unappealing.
“No, she’s hungry for the D.”
I smacked my palm over my face. “Dex, I love you, man. But I don’t need to hear that shit.”
“As if you’re not getting any regular pussy.”
Ailis’s image flashed in my head and my hand tightened to a fist. For some reason him using the term regular pussy to refer to Ailis made me…angry.
I didn’t want to inspect too closely…why?
I grunted, my response to Declan.
He laughed. “Oh, I see. You are gettin’ regular snatch. But you don’t want to share the deets. Lemme guess. Is she a brown-bagger? The kind you can’t stand to look at but for some fucking reason has a golden snatch?”
“That’s enough, Dex.”
“Is she famous? Are you tapping star pussy, you son of a bitch? Is she one of the Olsen twins?” Gasp. “Both?”