FascinatingRhythm

by Lynne Connolly

  No, she wouldn’t. She wanted to watch him, to enjoy every minute of this, to recall and enjoy again—in the near future. She refused to let any negativity in.

  He drove in and out of her willing body, watching her avidly. “That’s great timing,” she said.

  “Drummer,” he answered. Even now they could share a smile.

  Tightening his arms around her waist, he rolled them so she ended up on top. “I want to touch these.” He curved his hands over her buttocks and guided her movements. Her turn to prop her elbows on the bed and to drive back as he thrust up. His cock rubbed against the most sensitive skin of all, driving her relentlessly toward another climax. She pushed her hair back behind her ears so his face remained unshadowed by it and watched him as he slowly lost control, working her as if he didn’t know how to do anything else.

  That feeling growing slowly, warmth building to an inevitable climax, surged and pulsed. Toes curling, reaction screaming through her, Sabina threw back her head and cried his name.

  An increase of heat told her it was his turn, and quickly she turned her attention back to him. He let her see, didn’t hide anything from her as he met her gaze and shattered.

  She fell onto him, let him hold her close, their sweaty bodies gluing together. Giving out a helpless, panting laugh, she made a confession. “The best yet. The best ever.”

  She wasn’t sure what he said in reply. He mumbled something against her neck and she felt the vibration. He finished whatever he was saying with a kiss and then cupped the back of her head and guided her lips to his.

  He tasted of her. Still kissing her, he rolled them over again so she lay on her back and then he withdrew from her body. Even though she knew it was necessary, she didn’t want him to go. After one more swift, tender kiss, he swept the covers aside and got out of bed. “Don’t go anywhere.” He touched a finger to her lips and went to the bathroom, returning in less than a minute.

  When he got back in, he kissed her as if greeting her after a long journey. She loved it, took him in, but already real life was invading her thoughts. “When do you leave?”

  Regret entered his eyes. “Thursday. But I came here with a purpose. I want to ask my mother to come to the concert, and I want you to come too.”

  She bit her lip, worried about what she felt she had to say. She’d seen it in the past, so why should now be any different? “She’ll say no. She can’t hear you, so why do you want her to go?” Reaching up, she cupped his jaw. His incipient beard prickled her palm and nearly made her smile in pleasure, but she repressed it. Now was not the time.

  He turned his head and kissed her palm. “I know. Stupid of me, but I want her there. This is a great time for the band, it might even be our peak. I want her to see it. I want her there to see the applause and the audience. Malmö is a huge arena, and I’m proud of what I do.”

  The vehemence of his speech made her release the smile she’d been suppressing. “But you know she’ll refuse.”

  A touch of sound pierced her senses, as it did sometimes. Not words, but a warm rumble. “Do you have a low voice?”

  “People have said so.” He grinned. “They also say I don’t talk much. It’s true, I don’t say a lot normally. You make me chatter like a magpie.”

  A laugh broke free from her chest. “And I can’t hear what you’re saying. Although I can sense something sometimes.”

  He went up on one elbow, leaning over her to curve the other arm around her waist. “You can hear?”

  Swallowing, she wondered if she should tell him the truth. “A little. I don’t tell people, because some of the deaf would refuse to use me as interpreter. They won’t associate with people who have even nonfunctional hearing, like me. It means I can speak better than a lot of deaf people.”

  He frowned. “They shouldn’t do that. Why won’t they accept you?”

  “Because I’m hard of hearing, not completely deaf.” She shrugged. “It’s what it is.” And meant she had an important choice to make.

  He kissed her and they lost a few minutes. When he would have bent to her again, she put her hand on his chest and held him off. “Uppsala University Hospital pioneers the treatment of the deaf.”

  He went still, staring at her, blue eyes intent. “I know that.”

  “The scientists there can restore hearing.”

  “Cochlear implants. I know that too.” A spark of understanding lightened his expression. “You’re having a cochlear implant?”

  She shook her head, her hair clinging to one cheek. Tenderly, he moved the strand away. “I don’t want one. When I lost my hearing, I was nearly ten, the result of an infection, not a genetic trait or a mal-form-ation.” She’d had to take a run at that word. “When you hear, the little fibers in your ears respond to the sound and transmit the result to the brain, which interprets it. I had nerve damage.” He nodded but didn’t interrupt her. “Uppsala has a new operation. They can insert new fibers that work as well as the ones lost. A transplant. I went for tests and they said I was very suitable. They’re very keen to operate, but they emphasized that it’s a pioneering operation and it might not work.”

  He swallowed. She adored that he didn’t immediately tell her to have it, as most hearing people would. That was why she wanted to share this information with him. A hearing person who understood that the choice wasn’t that clear-cut. “My mother won’t like it. Does she know?”

  “She knows I’ve been chosen as a suitable candidate. She said I should think about it for myself, but she’s doing her best to show me that I don’t need it. And if I do have the procedure, she won’t have any more use for me.”

  “What does the procedure entail?”

  “The actual operation doesn’t take long. The fibers are intelligent, bionic if you like, and they should develop and learn on their own. My hearing would improve. I’d have to go back for checkups and tests as part of the ongoing studies, it’s part of the agreement.” She touched his mouth, melting a little when he kissed her fingertips. “If I have the operation. I’ve not decided yet.”

  “Because you will change your world.”

  She nodded.

  “Are there risks?”

  She had to tell him, though she doubted even he would know what it meant. “I would probably lose my hearing completely if the procedure failed.” She made a grimace, trying to make light of it. “What I have isn’t very useful though. More of a problem.”

  “It’s probably more useful than you realize.” He did understand, after all. “And you’d have to change your way of life, wouldn’t you?”

  Deaf separatists claimed that a deaf person changed fundamentally when he or she had implants. It changed their personalities and perhaps the people they were meant to be, the people they had created in themselves. That was only one objection, but it had persuaded a lot of people not to go ahead.

  “I don’t think I’ll change who I am, but how can I know for sure? I have a good life, Hunter. Do I really want to change it? And what would I do if I did? There are a lot of compensations for the deaf. We’re not bombarded by sound all the time. I love waking up and hearing peaceful silence. I know my family can’t understand that.” She smiled. “At least they don’t treat me like I’m made of china anymore.”

  “They used to do that?”

  Laughing at the memory, she watched his face relax into softer lines and was glad. “All the time at first. It helped for a couple of months, until I got into my new routine and then it started to get on my nerves. I got them all learning FSL with me and then things improved.” She paused. “Over a few months, my hearing will come back fully if the procedure works. With a cochlear implant, it is an electronic kind of sound, it means you can communicate verbally. I don’t want that. If I’m going to do it, I want my real hearing back. This operation can offer that.” She touched the back of her ear, where the scar would be if she went ahead. So many ifs, she shouldn’t worry.

  With a wry smile, he kissed the outer rim of her ear and leaned
back again so she could see him talk. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You don’t have to join my mother’s new political party, and you don’t have to have the operation.”

  “I won’t join the party anyway, because of my job. Interpreters should try to be impartial. I haven’t made my mind up yet.” Still, she loved to hear him say it. That was what she wanted to hear. “When they offered me the possibility, I was confused. My family sees it as a cure, which it is in a way, but what will I be? The same person? Someone different?”

  “You’ll be you.” He cupped a breast and stroked her nipple, bringing it right back to attention. She moved toward him so he could do more, loving the intimacy. “Whoever you are, whatever you choose to do, I’ll be your friend. I won’t abandon you again.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She laid her hand over his to stop his movements. This was too important for her to allow him to distract her. “Then you admit that’s what you did?”

  He lowered his gaze, stared down at her body, but she didn’t feel the least embarrassed. She could still see his lips move enough to read them. “Yes I did. I thought it was for the best. You needed to be here. I couldn’t take you with me.” He paused, swallowed. “Sabina, I found more that night than I dared dream about, but what could I give you? An itinerant musician’s life on the road? I didn’t know what would happen to me and I didn’t want you waiting for me. I couldn’t offer you anything. I didn’t want to give you hope.”

  Lifting his chin, he met her gaze. The bleakness in his made her cup his cheek again, stroking it, touching his ear with the tips of her fingers. “Then you succeeded,” she said.

  “Forgive me?”

  “Would I be here if I didn’t? I forgive you.”

  A smile wreathed his face, lighting his eyes and curving his mouth. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Four

  Relief surged through Hunter, so powerful that it swamped him. He hadn’t realized just how much that had weighed on him until she said those three words. Her eyes met his fearlessly, and he could see the truth written there, that she wasn’t saying it to please him. She meant to give him her forgiveness, and it sliced through him like a clean cut from a scalpel, lancing a festering wound he’d tried hard to ignore.

  And ultimately failed. Pushed it back every time it reared its ugly head. Told himself he was doing the right thing. Over the last few months, ever since Murder City Ravens’ manager had told them he’d arranged a concert in Malmö, he’d thought about finding Sabina and begging her forgiveness.

  He could never forget that midnight hair and the way it sifted through his hands like the finest silk. How soft her skin felt under his hands. Fuck, how she tasted. Nobody, and he hadn’t exactly stayed celibate, had taken the shock of those revelations away from him. They’d only had one night, and then he’d fled. He’d always planned to leave, but not like that. She’d scared him off, the intensity of his feelings for her that first night and the terror that he’d never go anywhere, never do anything if he stayed for her.

  At the time he knew he couldn’t ask her to join him. She was starting a promising career, interpreting different languages for the deaf, working at a high level thanks to his mother’s influence. Living in a London bedsit, working gigs in pubs where they were sometimes paid in beer—how could he ask her to do that? But how could he give that up?

  Together with the terror that had haunted him most of his adult life. The fear of going deaf, a fear he couldn’t control, that made him ashamed.

  “I’m so sorry.” Even that made relief surge in another wave.

  “Prove it.” Her eyes heated and he knew what she wanted.

  Now that he could do. In spades. Already thirsting for another taste, he took her mouth, reveling in the way her lips fit against his, the way she welcomed his tongue, gave him her own. He wanted to kiss her all night, but then he’d be denying himself other treats.

  Reluctantly, he broke the kiss, pulling away slowly, opening his eyes to gaze into her rich, dark-chocolate depths, her eyes such a startling contrast to her pale skin and her black hair. Her cheekbones, high and prominent and her firm jaw, not the delicately pointed kind but determined, giving her face strength instead of a fairytale sweetness.

  He moved down to the places he knew she liked, and those he had yet to discover. Down to her breasts, sucking her nipples one after the other until they became hard, crinkled peaks and she was moving restlessly under him. His cock had risen as if it hadn’t fucked anyone for years, straining against her leg. He couldn’t stop himself pushing, a primal instinct that gave him the tiny amount of alleviation he needed until he got inside her.

  This is for her. To show her how much he’d missed her, to prove to her that he wouldn’t repeat it. That when he left this time, he’d keep in touch, stand her friend. She needed friends, ones who would be with her whatever she decided, to accept her and her choices without question.

  He moved down, ignoring the demands of his increasingly desperate cock. Anybody would think he’d never gone all night before. Tonight—no chance. He’d be lucky to get inside her this time before he went off.

  He curved his hands around her waist. So slender, but not skinny. When he’d known her before she was too thin, but now she had sleek, satiny skin and a nice softness in the right areas. He kissed around her navel, loved the way she shivered when he kissed the little dip just beneath her hipbone. So he did it again, and loved it even more when she cried his name softly.

  He lifted his head and met her gaze over the lovely profile of her breasts. “What do you want, Sabina? Tell me.”

  “I want—I want—”

  He spelled it out with his fingers on her stomach. Unlikely she could interpret it, but the touch made her squirm some more. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Touch me—kiss me.”

  Loving the way she said “kiss”, like a sigh, he kissed the soft skin on her belly. Then, supporting his arms on his elbows, held up his hands so she could see them and signed, “Where do you want me to kiss you?”

  She shuddered and spoke. “My-my pussy. Lick me, Hunter.”

  As if he could resist that, even had he wanted to. He’d tasted her before, but concentrated on bringing her up and over the edge, wanting to send her wild because he’d been desperate to get inside her. This time he took pains to explore her properly and memorize the places that seemed to send her wilder quicker.

  Her clit of course, but he’d avoid that for now. The inner crease, the path to her entrance. He investigated that, tried lapping right down and then teasing her, flicking his tongue just inside.

  She lifted her legs and rested her feet on his shoulders. She had such small feet compared to his huge ones, dainty and tipped with pretty polished nails. He’d noticed earlier when she’d slipped off her shoes. Wondering if she liked her toes sucked, he decided this wouldn’t be the last lovemaking session tonight, because he doubted he could manage that this time.

  Sabina working her toes against his skin in a sensual massage drove him on and he stopped teasing, opened his mouth wide and took her in, covering her clit and her vagina. Listening to her cries, better than any lyric, he worked his tongue inside her, scooping out her juices to claim for his own, rubbing his lips against her clit to urge her higher, faster. Maybe twice. Oh fuck, she tasted so good. More tart than sweet, all sexy, tempting woman.

  When she dug her toes into his shoulders, he knew she was close. Even more because her clit pressed hard against his upper lip. He sucked, enjoying the sounds she was making. She made more juice. He took it, drank it down, taking gulps from her.

  Like a heartbeat, he absorbed her, accepted her and drew strongly on her. Until her pussy tightened around his tongue and she screamed as she came. He counted the pulses, committed them to memory, felt the extra, double beat at the end. Music echoed around his head and he knew where he’d put that double beat, what he’d do with it. For her, even though she might never hear it, or recognize it. How could he desc
ribe this? Regrets that she couldn’t hear too crept into his mind but he banished them. He’d tell her when he could, share it with her.

  His inner adolescent had subsided, thank fuck, enough to concentrate on pleasing her before he let himself go. He was tempted to stay there and bring her up again but his cock was too insistent.

  Lifting away with some reluctance, he enjoyed the sight of her flushed face, her mouth full and red, her eyes darker than usual. She lifted her feet away from his shoulders when he came back up the bed and leaned over to grab protection from the nightstand. He wanted in her now.

  His little witch had other ideas. She caught him off balance, rolling him over. At first, instinct taking over, he fought back, but only for an instant. Before he realized she wanted to do something to him and he let her have her way.

  He lay on his back, staring up at her. Her pretty breasts moved as she sat, gazing at his cock. Licking her lips in a way that made him groan, she glanced down at his cock and just swiped her finger across the tip, collecting the drop of essence that had collected there. Lifting the digit to her mouth, she sucked it as if it were the best dessert in nature. She took her time, watching him all the while, tempting him to lift her and push her down on his straining dick.

  When she opened her other hand, he saw she’d already swiped a condom. She’d torn open the packet so all she had to do now was to tip out the fine latex and smooth it over his cock, which she did with loving care. So much that he was groaning by the time she’d finished, his brow beaded with sweat, and not because the room temperature was too high.

  Wanting a woman as desperately as this came as a delicious surprise, one he never expected to feel, even for Sabina. He’d imagined the intervening years had tempered his passion for her. He was wrong. Her slight hesitation when she spoke, that glorious body and her distinctive, lovely features all drove him to complete distraction.