Song of Seduction

by Carrie Lofty

  Mathilda visibly shrank from his suggestion, shaking her head before he even finished speaking. Wariness eclipsed her irises, darkening her hazel eyes with clouds of fear. “I cannot.”

  “Come now, put away the violin.”

  “Why?”

  “You are suspicious of me.” Sensing a flourish of possibilities opening before them, he staunched his excitement to keep from overwhelming her. “I have honest intents, Mathilda.”

  Grounded fast like the stump of a tree, she would not budge from her stool. Her expression lobbed hostile accusations about the night at the Stadttrinkstube, condemning him with a silent language more eloquent than speech. She did not trust him. She had not forgiven him.

  Arie stalked the room, a hunter seeking his quarry, but he was a tentative warrior. Before meeting Mathilda, engaging in conversation with a woman he found attractive would have been even more difficult than negotiating crowds and speaking to strangers. Limiting his amorous encounters to female admirers who aggressively sought his attentions, he had never pursued a woman. He restricted his use of sexual play to situations in which his partner had already decided the outcome.

  Now, when his fascination approached a dire crest, an absolute lack of meaningful experiences left him inept and stranded in dark ignorance. He longed for any meager flame to guide his way.

  “Are you afraid of me, Arie?” The clouds of her fear had dispelled. She assessed him, clear and smiling. Her slight laughter somehow denigrated herself at the same time.

  Arie could not understand a whit of her humor. Afraid of a woman? What sort of man would he be if he admitted such a thing?

  He cringed when he considered the answer, knowing by the desperate, eager thump of his heart that she terrified him. She ushered a crack of light into his darkness, and he would be a fool to blot out that glow. He was a careless idiot and a miserable Lothario, but he was no fool.

  “Why do you laugh?” he asked.

  Another unruly giggle pushed into the air. “Look at you!”

  Worried his attire disappointed her again, he flashed a glance down to his shoes. “What?”

  “You’re Arie De Voss!” She stared hard as if willing him to understand. “You are afraid of me?”

  “Yes, yes, I am the famous man and you are the plain, dull Frau. You are in awe of me, is that it? I am not allowed to feel the same?”

  Her eyes skittered away. Fear, humor, playfulness and even the anger she had displayed with such merciless intensity disappeared. Assuming a rigid posture, she stood and regarded him with a look that flattened his pride and ambition. “I should go.”

  Arie watched her retrieve the pelisse. She was pulling away again, and he had grown tired of trying to comprehend why. Devoid of reason, besieged by emotion, he knew she readied to leave for good. In the wake of the damage they carelessly inflicted on each other, a single certainty remained. He needed to take a chance.

  “I understand the phrase now,” he said quietly.

  Mathilda stopped, turned. “What?”

  “Falling.” Desperation shaped his words and made them honest. “Falling in love. I have stepped off a ledge. And yes, I am afraid.”

  Her hands froze in the task of donning her outerwear. Her eyebrows shot up, providing Arie with a glimmer of hope. She felt something. She must.

  “You aren’t in earnest.”

  “I am,” he said. “Why otherwise will I say something so ridiculous?”

  “You negate your fine sentiment by deriding it.”

  “But it is ridiculous.” He laughed at their shared idiocy. “I do not enjoy the experience.”

  Exhaustion pressed behind his eyes. He clenched his molars at the insistent knowledge that she would leave at the first opportunity, at his first ill-chosen word. So much depended on a mere handful of minutes. And he only wanted to kiss her.

  “You speak as if this is all new to you.” Curiosity peeked through her attempt to remain rigid and impassive. Again, hope flared within him.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “What do you mean ‘of course’?”

  Arie walked to her, confident for once in his own honesty. “If I were in love before, I would not marvel at our attraction. I would be with that woman, whoever she might be.” Closer, he took her pelisse and returned it to the hook. They held hands. “But there is no one else. And I am with you.”

  “You’re not with me,” Mathilda sputtered. She backed against the wall, inadvertently pulling him with her. “You speak nonsense. An impossibility.”

  “Not so.”

  “Go to the devil!”

  “This is my house. If you are angry, you go.”

  He assumed a nonchalant posture at odds with the urgency building within his body. Could she feel the truth of that tension through the hands she held?

  “But I do not think you will,” he said. “You want to be here because you are safe with me. I am not those people, those gossips, nor do I need to learn every flaw. I know you.”

  “You know no such thing!”

  “I know you cannot leave.”

  “I can.”

  So near, the conflict between their bodies radiated like dancing air currents above a torch. Arie’s line of sight narrowed. His attention centered on a single being, memorizing her every feature. With an unsteady forefinger, he traced the angular slope of a cheekbone. Her respiration accelerated, and the metronomic pulse of blood under the pale skin of her neck hypnotized him. He smelled the gentle echo of sherry on her silent exhale. Dizziness mingled with passion. Intoxicating.

  How could they continue this wanting and not having? This restless, destructive combination of desire and denial?

  “I have never been in love because my ambition overshadowed all.” He released her hands in favor of the softness of her hair, without another thought about how reckless he had become. He swept soft, loosened tendrils away from her face. “With you, Tilda, I had no choice.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  She struggled to break free of his hands, his words, but Arie tightened his hold. “Do you understand? I could fall in love or go mad from wanting you.”

  He kissed her then, their searching mouths melting together. She relaxed into the wall and he eased deeper into the shelter of her body. She tasted of sherry and heat. Nothing existed between them but luminous impulse. A kiss. A masterpiece. Bliss.

  Embracing, pulling, Arie lost the capacity to gauge time. With his breath burning in his chest, he relished the mingled sensation of pain and wild pleasure. His hands, so perceptive and skilled on the keys of a piano, became numb and clumsy. Her delicate textures escaped him. Her passion, her devastating reaction to his hands, stole reason. The language they invented had no words, no music—only touch, rhythm and an implacable need Arie could not ease, no matter the secrets he discovered with his lips and tongue.

  He pulled his mouth from her sweetness with the reluctance of a man returning to the frigid isolation of winter. She nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck while her fingers wound into the disarray of his hair.

  A past steeped in unfulfilled daydreams merged with the present, forging a moment where Arie made her fantasies real. Thought, doubt, rationality—Mathilda held them at bay, barely, by focusing on the spicy scent of his skin. His pulse beat rapidly, throbbing against the press of her cheek. His persistent embrace forced her to an undeniable awareness of every shared breath. She was thankful for the sweet confinement of his limbs lest she drop to the floor, a victim of too many sensations.

  Tentatively, hardly daring to move for fear of breaking the spell, Mathilda tilted her head to read his expression. She had to know what those blue depths contained. Maybe regret? Happiness? She feared the discovery of a thoughtless lust that would belie his unfathomable declarations—declarations she dared not trust.

  With the barest distance between their faces, she found the familiar web of tiny lines at the corners of his eyes—eyes filled with a wary, intense longing. Even now, he remained afra
id of her, terrified she would disappear despite the clench of his arms. But he didn’t retreat. He held her close, still waiting. That he could seem so defenseless and yet so determined made clear the depth of his regard.

  Arie De Voss. Her idol. Her maestro.

  Out of the thousands who experienced the power of his music, he wanted her. That heady knowledge tossed Mathilda in exhilarating flight.

  She pulled tingling hands from his scalp and touched delicate fingertips to his cheeks, his lips. His hair stood in wild thatches, pulling a wobbly giggle from her chest.

  His breath rasped. “You tell me to comport myself, Tilda, but then you tangle my hair. I cannot win.”

  His elusive sense of humor signaled her undoing.

  His smile. She wanted to taste his smile.

  Mathilda kissed her maestro with the unrestrained passion of a woman who held nothing in reserve. Her mouth became a partner to his and toiled at the happy task of learning him. Thoughts of retreat vanished. Impatience demanded more. The connection she had sensed on stage proved a mere prelude to this, a more staggering intimacy. Words, melodies—those powerful means of communication became ungainly barriers.

  But rhythm…she understood rhythm. In the midst of their kiss, she wanted to melt into the man who held her enthralled. The steady push and withdraw of their tongues became her native language. It beat in her blood, a rising tide of delight surging beneath her skin.

  Arie acknowledged her body’s request for more. He trailed a parade of kisses along the ridge of her jaw. He captured one earlobe between his lips, his teeth, and Mathilda recalled the moment, weeks earlier, when she had waited in expectation of just that touch. Now he advanced. Each deliberate taste aroused new, reckless sensations. She gasped at the tickle of his tongue. Her lungs stretched against her stays, frantic for breath enough to sustain her yearning.

  Drowning, feeling her waking mind dip below the surface of the visible world, Mathilda experienced desire’s sharp onslaught. A rush of warmth unfurled in the pit of her stomach, sliding through her muscles in an exotic dance of need. She knew what that warmth meant.

  After all, she was no innocent.

  She was selfish. Decadent. Hungry. Alive.

  Arie pressed lower, suckling the tender stretch of her neck and nipping at the upper swell of her bosom. He ran his tongue along the lace edging her bodice, wetting the delicate trim and pressing it along her tender flesh. A surge of expectant moisture pooled between her legs. She grasped his head and dragged his mouth closer. He complied with her gasping, wordless command, plundering the sloping valley between her breasts while his hands gripped her backside.

  Mathilda angled to straddle one of his solid thighs, pushing her body to his in a willful pursuit of release. Too many layers of bombazine thwarted her quest. She moaned against the top of his head and yanked at her skirts. Arie gathered the fabric of her gown and captured those folds in a hand at her back. He pressed the rigid heat of his arousal toward her pelvis, reinvigorating their hypnotic rhythm before taking her mouth once again.

  The pull and clench of desire ripped through her. Chilled air flashed along her bare legs. She foresaw the next steps in their dance. He would enter her. She would experience a blaze of need. He would thrust and find his blind satisfaction, leaving her wanting.

  Throughout her marriage, she had learned to accommodate that makeshift pattern with Jürgen. But the idea of standing against the wall of Arie’s studio, shaking and unsatisfied in light of his climax, proved enough to make her weep. Humiliation would place a distant second to frustration. She wanted that as much as she wanted him.

  “Wait.” She fought, pushing at his chest and the arms encircling her waist.

  Heedless, he kissed her again. She struggled. Panic tarnished her delight. She only wanted to end their prelude to disappointment, but Arie dropped to his knees.

  For the duration of a breath, she stood motionless with uncertainty and shock. He remained poised before her, still pinning the folds of her dress behind her back. Then his mouth was on her, sucking the tender span of her inner thighs. First one leg, then the other, Arie pulled at her curved flesh with the firm, insistent caress of his lips.

  Mathilda writhed beneath his exploration, marveling at her quick return to a pinnacle of need. He tormented her, delaying any chance of satisfaction until she opened to him, helpless and desperate. Harsh sounds of passion echoed across the tiny room: her moaning pleas and the erotic resonance of his deep, sucking kisses along her thighs.

  Melting into a puddle of yearning and anticipation, she became a greedy, wicked creature. He kissed and nipped her skin to the brink of insanity and still she craved more. She awaited the instant he would relent, when his tongue would part her wet folds. She wanted quick, searching strokes. Finding Arie’s scalp again, she threaded fingers into his hair and squeezed, pulling at the source of her torture.

  “More.”

  The single word hovered between them, a dictate, until Arie took her feminine center into his mouth. He pinned her between the hard, unyielding wall and the delicious suffering of that most intimate kiss. He licked. He sucked. He caught her ever so gently in his teeth.

  A remarkable peace settled over her as he manipulated her body. She savored the moment when her satisfaction became a promise. Behind closed eyes, she could all but see her pleasure emerging like the sun from behind a billow of white. She relaxed against the wall, giving herself to his tongue and the strength of his restless, pulsing hands until, with a shudder and a groan, she liquefied.

  At last.

  PART TWO

  Let not my love be called idolatry,

  Nor my beloved as an idol show,

  Since all alike my songs and praises be,

  To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

  William Shakespeare, “Sonnet No. 105”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Arie exchanged his mouth for the heel of his hand, pressing Mathilda’s intimate triangle of curls. She prolonged her pleasure against the heavy push of his palm. For a few aching, timeless breaths, he shared the ripples of her orgasm, that tight spasm of release.

  When his lovely prodigy’s knees shook with a trembling borne of sated exhaustion, Arie drew her to the floor. He wrapped her body within the snare of his limbs, sliding along her supple length, returning eagerly to the mystery of her concealed bosom. His lips caressed the treasure of those upthrust curves while he cradled her head in his hand. He unfastened his breeches and hooked his other arm under one of her knees, drawing her leg toward the slim curve of her waist. Wet and contented, her flesh yielded sweetly, willingly, to his rigid phallus.

  He groaned into the hollow of her neck, and he bowed his head to the stabbing ecstasy radiating to the furthest reaches of his mind. Mathilda gasped and whispered his name at his temple, urging him with the welcoming thrust of her hips. He understood nothing more than a driving need, accelerating the quick pulse of his thrusts.

  The final jolt of his climax woke Arie from a fitful sleep.

  Beset by irrepressible erotic images, he met the mid-March sunshine with a curse. Rolling his eyes in opposition to the day, he wanted a return to paradise. His dreams, no matter how arousing, held not a candle to the pleasure they echoed—the satisfaction he had found with Mathilda on that gratifying afternoon more than two weeks ago.

  The blanket covering his body was damp with sweat and the sticky consequences of his tormenting dream. He sank, spent, into the softness of his bed, although his unconscious climax had done little to assuage the sad mental ache that battered him upon each daily return to wakefulness.

  He yearned to remain in the realm of nighttime fantasies, a perfect place in which he did not have to watch—prostrate, from the floor—as Mathilda stood and fled. Only the hasty arrangement of her skirts and a brief struggle into her pelisse had slowed her frantic flight. Whereas Arie had wanted to snuggle into the relative comfort of his narrow bed, loving leisurely and happily through the night, she had run from the emb
race of his satisfied body.

  He blamed himself. After all, he had only wanted one kiss.

  He had not thought to expect more. To do so would be to live as a prisoner of unceasing desires. But at the touch of her lips to his, bludgeoned by a turbulent hunger, he had understood that their kiss merely prefaced a greater search.

  And his memories helped decipher none of it. The impatient exploration of a young man’s first kiss, the casual acceptance of a lover’s tongue, the forceful drumming of angry passion—all proved useless. Mathilda was his muse. Unlike his creative drive, an impulse he purged through bouts of dedicated struggle, his obsession with her refused to be satisfied. Even naked and limp, lying on the floor in the confused, embarrassing aftermath of their passion, he had known she would torture him as long as he drew breath.

  And how had he behaved?

  He had pleasured her, he knew, while his lust had still cooperated with his mind. Following her final, exultant groan, however, Arie had coveted that same obliterating sensation. He had transformed into a senseless animal, pushing her against the unyielding plank floor and rutting without thought to her comfort—except a casual hand to protect her skull from the thump of his assault.

  But how he wanted her still. One harsh, sweet coupling only teased him with the beauty of their connection.

  She had wanted him, too. Her desire had been obvious in every touch, every sound, until the moment she simply left.

  Arie’s confusion became an eternal spiral. He moaned, protesting the uncomfortably familiar pattern of his mornings. The dreams. The messy conclusion. Upon waking, memories of the horrified expression on her sweat-dampened face. A bittersweet melody of loss. Then came questions, recriminations, and the inevitable need to have her again.

  Wait—a melody?

  He sat up and tossed aside his soiled blanket on the wings of another disgusted curse. Crossing the meager span of his rooms, he flashed a quill across the nearest spread of lined parchment. He shivered in his nightshirt and covered the paper with huge, scrawling splatters that he alone could understand. Only when the bare skeleton of his melody sat safely within its staff did he turn away from the table. With an efficiency borne of practice and fueled by impatience, he lit a fire, washed, dressed and brewed coffee.