Ariadne's Thread

by Marie Treanor

  Uplifted, she let Chopin’s second piano concerto move her as it always did. Maxwell gave a virtuoso performance and the orchestra stayed up there with him, as he was the first to acknowledge when he took his bow and, after shaking hands with the leader of the orchestra, walked off the stage to let the other musicians take their due.

  “Wow,” said Kate. “Wow. Your dad’s amazing.”

  “I know.” Jack grinned.

  Addie pulled herself together. “All right, let’s get you back to him, Jack. You’ll have to show me the way.”

  From the foyer, Jack led the way with confidence. Kate’s gaze was on organ stocks by then, and Addie knew she wasn’t going to like being dragged away so quickly. Never having been backstage anywhere other than Kate’s school play at Christmas, Addie imagined she could leave Jack with someone at the door and flee. However, the solitary security man, clearly recognizing Jack, simply waved them through, and before Addie could explain his mistake, Tammy appeared from nowhere.

  “There you are. Johnny’s just talking to the press, but he won’t be a minute.”

  “Tammy,” Addie began with determination, but Tammy was already addressing Kate.

  “Would you like your programme signed?”

  Kate’s eyes shone even brighter. “By him? John Maxwell? Really?”

  “Really,” said Tammy, laughing.

  But Kate’s face fell. “We haven’t got a programme. We got the good seats instead.”

  Resigned to Tammy’s inevitable ridicule of her economy, Addie stared at her defiantly. But the other girl’s expression was neither sneering nor compassionate. It was irritated.

  “You haven’t got a programme? For—!” She broke off, delved into her bag and came up with a crushed one. “Have mine.”

  But oddly, she gave it not to Kate but to Addie. “Come on,” she said to the kids and pushed open the door in front of her.

  “I’ll wait here,” Addie declared. It wasn’t so much cowardice as self preservation. Memory preservation. She wanted to remember the passion in his eyes, and the laughter. Not indifference, impatience or contempt or whatever she would see there tonight if they met…

  Tammy cast her eyes to heaven, but only shrugged and disappeared inside with the children. Briefly, Addie heard his bone-melting voice explaining, “Yes, he dedicated it to his wife Jemima, who only died a couple of months ago…” And then the sound was cut off.

  Addie sank on to one of the upright chairs against the wall. Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s. It seemed weird that he was only just on the other side of the partition. He might as well have been in a different galaxy.

  She stared blindly down at the programme. Bugger. Kate went in without it.

  Maybe she could take it to her—discreetly…

  No I bloody couldn’t.

  Souvenir Programme: John Maxwell (Piano) plays Maxwell and Chopin.

  Idly, she flipped through the adverts, pausing at the brief biography and photograph of the pianist looking tousled and arrogant, with just that saving grace of humour in his eyes. Her lip twitched tenderly. She touched the cold, paper cheek.

  In another life, we might have had so much fun…

  She turned the page to the performance programme—and her own name jumped out at her immediately.

  Ariadne.

  The third piece on the programme, the short one that had contained “her” music. He had called it Ariadne.

  The words, the whole page faded as tears blinded her. It was the music’s fault. It had made her emotionally vulnerable.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, closing her wet eyes, leaning her head back against the wall in an effort to regain control before anyone came by.

  The nearby door opened and closed. Someone came out, but Addie kept her eyes closed and hoped they wouldn’t notice her.

  But she felt them slide onto the seat next to her.

  Fuck! She’d have to walk away…

  “Addie?”

  Her eyes flew open of their own volition. Her heart seemed to have stopped beating, then without warning it plummeted into her stomach.

  John Maxwell sat beside her, gazing at her. He still wore the black shirt, open at the throat. She could smell him, the sweat of his evening’s exertions overlaid by the clean, spicy scent she associated with him. God help her, he was more devastating than ever.

  His devil’s eyebrows quirked upward. And yet there was no laughter in his intense eyes. “What is it? Why are you crying?”

  “I’m not crying,” she snapped. If you say anything with enough force, people believe you.

  “Yes, you are.” To prove it, he touched her cheek with his finger.

  It was unbearable. She flinched as though he’d struck her.

  “Fuck off, you bastard,” she snarled. Oh, Christ, why am I doing this, why am I fighting with him, swearing at him, when I want to…

  Humiliated beyond belief, she leapt up to storm into the room, collect Kate and go. She wished desperately that she’d never come. It was worse than anything she’d ever imagined.

  But he caught her hand, standing with her. “Addie, don’t,” he said, and there was such helplessness in his voice that she paused.

  In his dark, stormy eyes she saw no contempt, no superiority or distaste. Only, astonishingly, a plea.

  She swallowed. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t cry, don’t be angry…mostly, don’t go.”

  The tears spilled over again. “I have to go. Johnny, I don’t have the words for this…oh, God, Ariadne,” she whispered incoherently. “You called it Ariadne.”

  He smiled, his eyes warm and melting with just that irresistible hint of humour. “What else would I call it?” he asked, drawing her slowly into his arms. “It’s you, you gave me the thread I still hold on to. Like your namesake, you got us all out of the maze.”

  Did she? It was a novel way of looking at it. But even if it was true, she was still hopelessly lost in her own.

  Hands on his chest, she stared helplessly at his tempting lips. She remembered their touch so well, wanted them unbearably. “Johnny, don’t,” she whispered brokenly. “Don’t. Don’t you know how I love you? It’s not fair to—oh, God!”

  Oh, Jesus Christ, why did I say that? How do I live with that?

  She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could run and yet clutching on to his arms as if they were her only salvation. Just for a moment, she let her head drop on to his broad chest. A secret joy that also helped to hide her unforgivable emotion. Because she’d obviously stunned him. Now he’d get out, extricate himself so fast she’d find herself in the street within five minutes.

  But he hadn’t released her yet. Instead, no doubt with pity, his arms moved, tightening, holding her closer and it was a comfort that his body still wanted hers. She felt his semi-erection against her abdomen, and somewhere among the storm of humiliation and grief knew a pang of answering lust.

  His hand even stroked her hair, tugged gently until she lifted her head to face the music of rejection. But there was no warning, no time. He took her mouth fiercely, battering down her resistance, which she no longer understood anyway. There was only his lips and tongue and teeth, his strong arms holding her up, his warm, fit body pressing into her, flooding her with memory and lust and need. Her tears flowed unheeded, over their lips, into her mouth and his.

  A crowd of people walked past. One of them said something, no doubt ribald. Addie neither heard nor cared, and it didn’t stop Johnny from deepening the kiss even further.

  When he did finally come up for air, she buried her face in his shoulder and threw her arms around his neck. Beyond the stunned understanding that he really did want her came remembrance that he didn’t yet know everything about her.

  Into his shoulder she said breathlessly, “Listen, there’s more than you know. There’s Kate’s father.”

  There was another pause, but still he didn’t push her away. He said heavily, “Shug.”

  She lifted her head, staring at
him. “How do you know that? I never told anyone that… Not even Shug knows that! And he never will.” Without pausing for breath, the words tumbled out now. “I was sixteen and not exactly sober. He was all of eighteen—I’d known him most of my life—a boy with a bad reputation who was suddenly wickedly attractive to a stupid, rebellious kid like me. You couldn’t exactly call it seduction, but when he gave me the eye, I went for it. Just once, a drunken fumble at a party. And despite everything, I’ve never regretted the result.”

  He kept her gaze throughout the half-defiant confession and, despite a sudden flare of what might have been jealousy in his eyes, she could find no contempt, no condemnation.

  He said evenly, “Fair enough. I’d like to get to know her.”

  Addie stared at him. “You would?”

  He nodded. “I would.” He laughed. “Addie, don’t look at me like I’m insane. I don’t give a shit about Shug or anyone else in your past. My own taste hasn’t always been perfect. I even married a woman on a whim we both regretted… Look, I have to play tomorrow night in Edinburgh, but after that I’ve a couple of weeks before I’m meant to do Manchester and London. Why don’t you and Kate come up to the house? If you can bear it.”

  Fascinated by this embodiment of dreams she hadn’t even let herself acknowledge in the last two months, she said faintly, “Are your ghosts still there?”

  He smiled. “Some of them. Kit’s gone. And Julia, of course.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  “No, I don’t think I do. I missed you.”

  She had to kiss him for that. Then she said regretfully, “I have to work next week. I suppose we could come up Friday night, or Saturday morning.”

  He laid his forehead on hers. “That seems an awfully long way off. I want to tell you to stuff your job… Why don’t you have dinner with us tonight and then…”

  “I have Kate.”

  “You could invite me back to your place.”

  She looked at him. “It’s in a scabby high-rise. They never get around to renovating it.”

  “Bet it’s cleaner and tidier than mine.”

  “So it is,” she conceded. For some reason she was smiling.

  “And Addie…” His hand trailed down her neck, making her shiver. “Since we’re doing confessions: I’m a mess, I’m arrogant, erratic and bad-tempered. I’m also obsessive and I’ve been known to rush into things other people end up paying for. But you’d better know now, with you I’m playing for keeps.”

  Enchanted, she stood on tiptoe till her lips touched his. Against them she whispered, “Me, too. Oh, God, me, too…”

  About the Author

  To learn more about Marie Treanor please visit www.marietreanor.com. Send an email to Marie at marie@marietreanor.com or join her Yahoo! group to join in the fun with other readers as well as Marie http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sexydelights. You can also join her Newsletter only group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marietreanornewsletter.

  Look for these titles by Marie Treanor

  Now Available:

  Killing Joe

  Gothic Dragon

  Coming Soon:

  The Devil and Via

  Sometimes you can make your dreams a reality…

  Gothic Dragon

  © 2008 Marie Treanor

  Stuck in an uninteresting job and settled in a safe but vaguely unsatisfying relationship, the only bright spot in Esther’s life is her writing. She’s fascinated by colorful life of her ancestor Margaret Marsden, a nineteenth-century Gothic romance novelist. A woman who mysteriously disappeared without a trace.

  A weekend away turns into a hunt for clues when Esther stumbles across Margaret’s “lost” novel, The Prince of Costanzo. Though desperate to read it, every time Esther opens the book, she falls asleep—and headlong into amazingly vivid dreams about Costanzo.

  But in this dream world where war, magic and poisoning are commonplace, nothing is as it seems. Least of all the supposed villain of the novel, the enigmatic sorcerer Prince Drago. She finds herself kidnapped to his castle and subjected to a seductive interrogation that curls her toes. As their feelings for each other grow more powerful, she begins to wonder…is he the real villain, or a hero who only wants to save his kingdom? All she knows is that now that she’s had a taste of Costanzo—and Drago—her real life troubles seem insignificant.

  Until they come crashing around her, threatening to cut her off from the man she loves. Forever.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Gothic Dragon:

  Drago didn’t release her until he’d kicked his bed chamber door shut behind the man-servant he’d just unceremoniously ejected. Her heart drummed like thunder in her ears. To maintain her dignity, she thought she should at least object to being dragged out of the suddenly silent dining room in front of his entire court. But before she could do more than open her mouth, he seized her face between his hands and kissed her again.

  She hung there, helpless, bombarded by sensation, her breasts heaving with the rhythm of his kiss. Her hands grasped at his arms, his back, fisting convulsively in the silk of his tunic, as if by doing so she could somehow hold on to reality. His mouth grew harder, forcing far more than passive response and, feeling it, he made an inarticulate sound of triumph and pushed his body ruthlessly against her.

  For an instant, she felt the hard column of his erection pressing at her stomach before the force of his body made her stumble back against the closed door, but he came with her, slamming his cock against her once more, grinding it into her until she imagined she could feel the very veins of it like ribs. And all the while, his mouth devoured her.

  She barely realized that her arms dragged him closer, that her mouth fought back for domination, not just responding but lashing with her tongue, biting, sucking—not until he eventually broke the kiss and grinned at her like a triumphant, reprobate boy.

  “Strange lady, I can’t breathe. But by the Virgin, you can kiss…”

  Esther, blinded by desire, no longer cared about her body’s betrayals. She needed him closer, naked, driving that gorgeously huge shaft inside her till she screamed… Reaching up, she tried to take back his mouth, but he only brushed his lips over hers, ran his tongue along her upper lip, with a quick flick under its centre, then moved back out of her arms.

  “Deny now that you want me.”

  She said shakily, “Are you really so insecure that you need to hear it as well as feel it?”

  “No. But I like torturing you. And me.”

  “You?” Her gaze had become rooted on the jutting cock beneath his tunic.

  “Trust me, every instant I keep my hands off your delectable body is torturing me.”

  Without inhibition, he swept his hand over his rigid cock which bulged and pushed at his tunic, and Esther wasn’t sure which of them gasped.

  He moved away from her, then, to a table under the dark window. A jug and two goblets stood there. Avidly, she watched every movement of his hips and legs as he walked, his quick, strong hands as he splashed dark red wine into the cups.

  Only when he turned and commandingly held out a cup to her did she lever herself off the door and walk toward him on legs that trembled.

  “So,” he said, as she took the wine from him. He let his fingers trail across her knuckles, and she shivered. He smiled slightly. “So, you never met John Fortune before yesterday?”

  Esther dragged her eyes free. It felt like a kick in the stomach. She was being seduced for information. Worse, she was too damned hot for even that humiliation to cool her raging desire for him. Was that his sorcery, too?

  She said, “You weren’t kidding about business, were you?” and was gratified to hear the steadiness of her own casual voice.

  “Kidding?” he repeated, puzzled.

  “Joking,” she translated. “And no, I never met John Fortune before yesterday.”

  “Well, here’s to meeting John Fortune again,” he toasted, and raised the wine to his lips. He lowered the cup again, still watching he
r. “You don’t drink?”

  “I don’t know that I want to meet him again.”

  “Why not?” he asked, lifting the cup this time to her lips. In surprise, she let the wine splash over them.

  “I don’t know,” she said, when she could speak again. “He seems to be a slightly sinister being…” She broke off with a gasp, for his finger had touched a spot of wine on her mouth and was spreading it lightly along the length of her lower lip.

  “Go on.”

  “I—I think I finished,” she said, still against his finger. He leaned over her, and as his finger slid away, he lightly licked over the same path.

  “It tastes better on you.” Taking her own cup from her suddenly nerveless fingers, he put it back down on the table, and again raised his own goblet to her lips. “Drink,” he said, “but don’t swallow.”

  Once again, the heady wine flowed over her lips and into her mouth. But this time, when Drago took the cup away, he replaced it with his lips, brushing, sinking, opening her mouth so that the wine fell into his mouth, too. Through the velvety liquid, his tongue moved into her mouth, savoring the taste, splashing the wine against the back of her teeth. Accepting the strangely sensual game with growing excitement, she let her tongue dance with his, fought with it while the wine flowed back and forth from one mouth to the other, until he sucked it all into his and swallowed.

  His mouth left hers, came back, smiling, to brush the last droplet of wine from her lips.

  “Then why did you run from me to him?” he said huskily. Esther swallowed. It was so hard to think when her body was on fire, her senses completely absorbed by the strange man seeking information with every caress.

  “You sent your soldiers after me. What else was I to do? I just ran. I didn’t know Cosimo was there. And before you ask, I’d never met him before yesterday either.”

  His free hand came up, spanning her throat. “But you think he is the rightful prince.”

  His long, strong fingers, lightly kneading her throat, could have been a threat. She swallowed, feeling her muscles move under them. As if enchanted, he caressed her skin, following the motion.