by Emme Rollins, Julia Kent, Anna Antonia, Helena Newbury, Aubrey Rose
“No,” Eliot said, over and over as she talked. “No, no, no. Brynn, no. This isn’t your fault, not ever.”
“But I—”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Listen. You did nothing wrong.”
“If something had happened…” Brynn’s voice trailed off into an awful silence during which Eliot felt the adrenaline of anger rush through him.
“You’re going to be okay,” Eliot said. “That’s all that matters.”
“Yes. Okay.” Brynn closed her eyes, her brows furrowed, and Eliot couldn’t bring himself to imagine what nightmares must be going through her mind.
Silence filled the bedroom, and Eliot thought Brynn might have dozed off. But when he rose from the bed, her eyes snapped open.
“Eliot? Can you bring me my math stuff? So I can do the problem?”
“You really want to work on math?” Eliot raised his eyebrows.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “It will take my mind off of everything.”
“Then we can work together,” he said. “I’ll bring your notebook.”
“Eliot?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you staying?”
He leaned over and caressed her forehead, his hand pressing back her hair.
“So that I can keep working with such a brilliant mathematician.”
“No. Really.”
Eliot considered the question. He hadn’t thought about it, but the second he knew Brynn was in danger, it was like a switch had flipped in his mind. Nothing else mattered. Nothing but her. Any obstacle between them was only an illusion, something put there by the world to make him lose sight of what he cared about. In the middle of the night, he had known that he would not be able to leave her side until he was sure she would be okay without him. And even then…
“Really?” he asked.
“Really.”
The gate was down, his past worries forgotten. All that mattered was Brynn, right now. She looked up at him expectantly.
“I’m staying because I love you.”
Brynn’s mouth dropped open slightly, her pink lips parted in disbelief.
“I’ll get you that notebook,” Eliot said. He stood and left before she could say a word.
* * * *
He loved me.
It wasn’t a dream anymore, not another fantasy I had imagined in my head. He said that he loved me, and meant it. Air stopped moving through my chest; I had forgotten how to breathe.
He came back with a notebook I took carefully in my hand. His eyes were kind, and despite the horror of the past day I trusted him to keep me safe. He looked at me as though he expected me to say something, but I turned my head down to the mathematics. I did not want to break the delicate bond that had stretched out between us by talking about it too much. In any case, I did not know what to say.
We worked for an hour, and then he fixed me breakfast. As I waited for him to return, my chest tightened with fright and did not relax until he came back into the room. I could not eat very much, only a bit of bread and honey. The honey tasted sickeningly sweet in my mouth, and I gulped down water to relieve the stickiness of it.
Tucked under Eliot’s arm was a record; he placed it on the old-fashioned player in the corner of the room.
“I thought we could use some inspiration,” Eliot said. I closed my eyes and heard the familiar strains of the Gymnopedie amplified in the air.
“Do you want to take a break?” Eliot sat next to me, moving my half-eaten plate to the nightstand.
“No,” I said. “I mean, maybe just for a minute.” I put my hand over his, praying that I was not too presumptuous. My heart soared when his fingers twined themselves into mine. We rested, listening to the dissonant chords, the elongated coda, the resolution in the last few phrases.
“Brynn.”
“I love you too,” I said, turning my eyes down to my notebook. My heart twisted inside my chest. I had never allowed myself to hope, but Eliot was here and real and not at all a fantasy.
“Are you reading that out of your notes?”
“Sure am,” I said, chuckling lightly. “Right under the section on equivalence relations.”
“Is love an equivalence relation?” Eliot put on his serious lecturer’s voice, and I could not help but laugh.
“You tell me.”
“What does it mean to be an equivalence relation?” Eliot asked me, leading me on.
“It must be symmetric, transitive, and reflexive.”
“Let’s take the first one. If love has the symmetric property…” His silence hung purposefully, and I swallowed at his meaning.
“If I love you, then you love me.”
Eliot’s lips turned up into a sly smile.
“Not always true, but it is in this case. Carry on. The transitive property.”
I only had to think for a second to find an example. “If I love you, and you love Satie, then I love Satie.”
Eliot laughed appreciatively. “And don't you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Two of three already. And now?”
“Now…”
“The reflexive property.”
I swallowed. My voice was softer than before. There was only one example possible here, and I did not know if I could bring myself to say it until I opened my mouth, turning my head back to the notes.
"I love myself."
“Yes?” Eliot took my hands in his; his blood pumped fast through his veins and his skin was hot on mine.
“Yes,” I said, and for the first time in a long, long time, I really did.
* * * *
I heard the slow music of a piano coming from downstairs, and I moved down the steps carefully, the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Tiptoeing down the hall, I found Eliot in a room that looked like it had been abandoned to time. Dusty white sheets covered all of the furniture except for the grand piano which stood majestically in the middle of the room. Eliot’s back was to me, and I stood for a moment, listening to him play. The notes felt warm, comforting, and I could not help but think of the second time I had met him, in the music practice room.
His fingers moved gracefully over the keys, and as I watched them I felt my body begin to respond as though his hands were moving over my own curves, caressing me in long octaves. He played with such passion I swayed along with the music as the chords moved slowly from rhythm to rhythm, building into a crescendo that seemed to last forever. When the rest note came in the middle of a coda, it took me by surprise.
“Oh!”
Eliot turned at my gasp to find me barefoot in the doorway.
“Brynn!” He stood up, and I ran forward, throwing my arms around his neck. I needed his touch, and he seemed to welcome my forwardness. He pressed me to his chest in an embrace that felt like he never wanted to let me go. “You shouldn’t be up. You should stay in bed.”
“What are you playing?” I asked, ignoring his admonitions.
“I wanted it to be a surprise…” his voice trailed off.
“You wrote this?” I took hold of the pages and saw that the notes had, indeed, been penciled in onto printed staff paper. The page was marred all over with eraser marks and redrawn notes.
“For you,” Eliot said. He looked embarrassed, and my smile stretched so wide I thought the top of my head would fall right off.
“For me?! Nobody’s ever written me a song!”
“Every beautiful woman deserves a song written for her,” Eliot said, smiling at my obvious pleasure.
“Play it for me,” I said, plopping down on the side of the bench.
“Now? It’s not done yet!”
“Please?” I reached out and slid my hand into his. “Please? Just play me what you have already. You’re a great composer.”
“I’m not a composer,” Eliot protested. “I’m just…”
“Just a prince?” I cocked my head sideways.
“Argh!” Eliot threw his arms over his head in mock surrender as he sat down next to m
e on the bench. “I’m not a prince!”
“Prince-ish,” I insisted.
Eliot rolled his eyes and kissed the top of my head.
“Okay,” he said. “But you have to promise not to laugh.”
Before I could promise, he had started to play. I let my head loll against his shoulder as the initial notes danced down from the high octaves. Eliot’s strong hands moved so gently on the keys that sometimes I could barely hear the melody as it flowed in and out of focus.
The tones grew darker and Eliot’s fingers moved faster. I recognized the coda from when I entered the room, the tension building along with the tempo. Eliot wove a melody that began one way, seemingly predictable, then turned at the last second into a different thread, changing the tone of the song along with it. Around us in the dim room an invisible draft fluttered the white sheets, and I pressed myself into Eliot’s side.
The music was haunting, beautiful, but I could not tell what chord would come next, nor did I want to. The piano sang its own song, the notes tumbling one after the other, and I was content to let the music wash its beauty over me. One finger trickled down a brief series of arpeggios in a high octave, like a tiny waterfall coming down the side of a mountain.
Then there was silence. Eliot’s hands stopped, his fingers paused over the keys.
“What comes next?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Eliot said, closing the piano lid. He turned and kissed me, this time on the mouth. Even though his lips barely moved against mine, I felt all of the air taken from my lungs.
“You’ll have to help me write the ending.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Perfect numbers, like perfect men, are very rare.” - Descartes
Eliot insisted that Brynn take her time before getting up and about, and while she protested, he could tell that she was glad for the forced rest that day. He made her a hot tomato bisque for lunch and stayed by her side when she napped. Her dreams were fitful, and she woke up with a scream.
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“The hunter! Where is he? Where is he?” Her eyes were wild.
“Shh, Brynn, it’s alright. He’s gone, remember?” Eliot smoothed her hair with his hand and kissed her forehead.
“He’s gone?”
“Gone far away. You’re safe now.”
Brynn swallowed water from the glass at her bedside table, her eyes still troubled and distant.
“Can I do anything?” Eliot asked. Brynn shook her head and lay silent for a moment, her breathing returning to normal.
“That book,” Brynn said finally. “The one you’re reading. It has an English title.”
“It’s poetry,” Eliot said. She was so attentive. “It’s one of the first books I was able to read in English.”
“Will you read me something?”
Eliot began to object, but thought better of it. He brought the book over to her side and flipped to the last page he had been reading. Self-consciously he began to speak, but as the poem went on his voice fell into a natural speaking rhythm. Brynn closed her eyes to listen.
“When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.”
“That’s beautiful.” A tear had slipped down Brynn’s cheek, and she wiped it away with her finger. “Thank you.”
“Anything for you.” He put his hand on hers. “Even a poorly done poetry reading.”
“Can I ask you for something else, then?” Her voice was thin, tired. Scared, maybe.
“What is it?”
“Will you hold me? Here, in bed?”
A strand of hope wound itself around Eliot’s heart: that he was not doing things entirely wrong this time, that he might do some good or be some good to her, that his guilt might be assuaged. He lay down next to Brynn and she turned into him, pulling herself tight against his chest. His mouth went dry when he felt her soft curves touch him alongside his entire body. His arms encircled her protectively, shielding her from the rest of the world.
Brief as it was, his kiss against her forehead was meant to be kind, warm. She lifted her head and he tumbled headlong into her gaze. If he had a soul, it was burning now, set aflame by the desire he saw in her eyes.
“Eliot?” Brynn’s hand was on his chest, her fingers toying insistently with his shirt button. She did not take her eyes away from his.
Eliot took her hand in his, clasping it chastely. His eyes asked a question and hers answered. Answering her longing, he bent down and seized her lips against his.
“Oh!” Brynn let out a soft moan as Eliot deepened the kiss, shifting himself toward her on the bed. He waited for her to respond, taking each step slowly, carefully, until she accepted his advances with her sighs, her fingers clutching at his arms tightly, pulling him.
“Let me know when you want to stop, Brynn.” Eliot’s lips moved against her cheek.
“I will.”
“Anytime. Let me know.” Eliot did not want to hurt her, and especially not after what had happened. If he stepped over the line…he shuddered to think of the pain she had suffered through.
“Eliot. I will.” She leaned forward and kissed him, pulling him into her arms. Giving up any pretense of resistance, he pressed his body to hers. The soft curves under the robe moved against his palms, sending him into such an aroused state that for a moment he forgot to breathe.
She broke the kiss and his heart began to beat again. He ran his fingers under the edge of her robe at the collar by her neck. Lips pursed, Brynn watched him intently as he moved his hand down along the curve of her breast, his fingertips just grazing the silhouette of her figure. Down, down to the navel, where he hit the line of her panties. He edged alongside the elastic, trailing his fingertips over her skin, and pushed back the heavy velour robe at her hip, exposing her breast and the line of her body.
“Such wonderful curves…”
“Eliot,” Brynn said, and he paused, looking back up at her face. There was a kind of curiosity in her face that he could tell was fighting with some doubt. In a blink of her eyelashes, though, she brushed it away.
“I want you,” Brynn said. Eliot’s heart swelled in his chest and he raised her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers.
* * * *
I didn’t know what I was doing, inviting Eliot into bed with me, but once he held me in his arms every misgiving that I had disappeared. His touch possessed me completely, but he went slowly, carefully, so that I was soon vibrating with anticipation. When the robe slipped off of my body, I held my breath. I was not perfect, far from it, but I wanted Eliot to see me entirely, to see every imperfect part of me. The fear of rejection, the doubt that I carried inside of me, made me tense with uncertainty, but I ached for him to take me.
He touched me tenderly, his fingertips marking their way slowly among my curves.
“So many beauty marks,” he said, smiling, his fingers pausing at my hip.
“Moles,” I said, looking down at the place he had paused. “Those there form a constellation.”
His mouth curved as he recognized the pattern from the night sky.
“Orion?” he ventured. I nodded.
“Are there more?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
“We’ll have to find them all, then,” he said. He kissed me again, and I forgot all of my doubts, all of my fears. I only wanted him to stay with me forever.
He
kissed me on the neck, his warm breath melting me into nothingness. His lips felt soft and hot against my skin as he moved down to my shoulder, following the line of my collarbone. When he began to move farther down I placed a hand on his arm. He stopped.
“Wait,” I said. “It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair?”
“I’m completely naked,” I said, blushing as the words came out. It was the first time I had been naked in front of a man, but with Eliot I felt that it was completely right.
“And?”
“And you have entirely too many clothes on.”
“Is that so?” I saw a flash of hesitation in his eyes. “Well. If the lady insists.”
“I do.”
He unbuttoned his shirt slowly and pulled it off. My breath caught in a soft gasp. The scar on his face was not the only one he had. His muscled arms and chest were covered in long, jagged white seams that puckered his skin. The longest one reached from his shoulder to his waist in a diagonal bolt over his chest. I reached out to touch it. His eyes tracked mine as they lingered on his skin.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I did not know what else I could say. He shook his head.
“All reminders,” he said. I remembered what he had told me in the piano room, back in California.
“A reminder to be careful,” I whispered.
He leaned over me and kissed me on the lips.
“I’ve been careful for long enough, I think.”
His mouth moved down to my neck, his teeth grazing my shoulder and sending shocks of pleasure running through my nerves. I ached for him as he bent his head down to my breasts. As his tongue slipped over my nipple, I could feel myself growing slick between my legs, wanting him. I had never felt such a rush of desire as when he circled my breast slowly with his tongue and grazed the sensitive tip with his teeth. A scream tore up my throat and stopped there, strangled before it could leave my mouth.
Eliot felt hard against my leg, and I did not realize what it was until I slid my leg slightly underneath him and he gasped. A newfound sense of power swept through my body as I realized that he was in some small way under my control.