Musical Beds (3 page)

He had an extensive repertoire, but tonight he played the gentle lover, the man reconnecting with something lost. He explored her body as if it were new territory, marking each spot with reverent tenderness. He slid his fingers over her breasts and closed his lips around her nipples while she clasped him to her. But she wanted to be more than passive tonight. She wanted to let this damaged, beautiful man know how loved he was.

While he lay on his back, she feasted on him, sucking his nipples, nipping the hollow of his neck and shoulder, feeling where his flesh was most resistant and most pliant and using that knowledge to give him pleasure.

She cupped his sac, finding it heavy where it hung beneath his firm erection, and breathed on it gently, enjoying his little shivers of delight.

When the tip of her tongue alighted on the base of his shaft, he wove his fingers into her hair and gripped tight. Lydia felt his muscles tense, his lungs hold in his breath, while she licked little patterns along her lover’s upright cock.

Once she had enfolded him in her warm, wet mouth, he groaned with pleasure, massaging her scalp as she moved gently lower, trying to take as much of him as she possibly could.

If she could make him understand how much he was loved with her mouth, she would. Nobody, man or woman, would ever have given him a better blow job, she vowed. This was going to be a mind-blow job.

She tried to paint the words of love on him with her tongue—then she tried to communicate those same words with the force of her sucking, the tenderness of her touch. From the sighs and shivers that poured from him, she thought the message might be getting through.

“Ah, Lydia.” He sounded panic-stricken, then her mouth was filled with the reward she craved, the warm seed with its bitter aftertaste. More bitter than usual.

Did sadness affect a man’s semen? she wondered half deliriously, keeping his cock in her mouth until it was soft, reluctant to lose the physical connection with Milan.

He nudged her off in the end, pulling her up the bed to cradle her in his arms.

“You taste different,” she said.

“Do I? Is that bad?”

“Just different.”

He yawned. “
Miláçku
,” he said, holding her closer. They drowsed for a while, then he said, “I wonder if that is true for you.”

“What?”

“Do you taste different? I will see.”

He raised his head from the pillow, smiling wickedly, and pressed his lips to Lydia’s before kissing a trail downwards along her throat, along her collarbone, through the valley of her breasts, over her belly, arriving finally at her pubic triangle. He buried his nose in the smudgy scattering of hairs, inhaling her, then crouched between her knees and lowered his lips to her labia. Hot breath worked magically on them, puffing them up, expanding her clit until it felt heavy and wanton. There was no disguise for her desire—he would see it all.

She saw the focus in his eyes and her stomach flipped. She relaxed her neck, letting her head sink back into the pillows. Nothing mattered except the sensation. His thumbs parted her pussy lips, rubbing the flesh in little circles, freeing her clit so it was exposed, on full display. Then she felt his lips descend, capturing the bud of flesh in a lavish kiss while his tongue swirled around and across it.

Her buttocks quivered and she tried to push them into the mattress, but Milan had a firm hold of her thighs and his tongue was in control. She could not prevent its roving wherever Milan wanted it to, and why would she, when Milan knew his territory so well? He started delicately, his tongue almost whispering over her most intimate areas, darting into the folds, zigzagging over her fattened clit. Once she was squirming and gasping for more, he drew back for a torturous moment, laughed at her discomfort, then dived back in with lusty greed. This time he feasted on Lydia’s sex, his tongue hard and his mouth wet. He growled against her flesh, making it buzz so she convulsed with pleasure. Two of his fingers then a third circled and filled her cunt while her clit was stimulated without mercy. She began to lose her moorings, drifting away from the bed and into a whirl of sensation centred on her pussy. She knew he would not be content until he had made her lose her mind.

He laughed and sucked her clit when she came—hard, the first time—then he carried on as if he hadn’t heard her orgasmic cries, working her poor, suffering sex until she came again, even stronger. The sheets tangled beneath her, damp with her sweat, but Milan wouldn’t let up.

“Please,” she whimpered.

He took pity on her, kneeling up and looking down in triumph.

“Please? You have a problem?”

“I can’t take any more. Oh, God.”

“You don’t want my tongue anymore?”

“It’s killing me.”

He turned his gaze from her face to his cock, which had grown hard again during the epic bout of oral sex.

“What about my cock? That will kill you also?”

“Maybe. But it’s as good a way to go as any.”

“That is a complicated sentence. Does it mean we can fuck?”

“Yeah. It means we can fuck.”

“Good. And, by the way, you taste no different. Sweet and juicy, like always.”

He arched his spine, resting on his elbows above Lydia’s sapped body.

“I take it easy,” he said. He kissed her forehead, then smiled crookedly. “You are looking a little tired.”

“I’m not used to it anymore,” she said, running her knuckles along his lips. He kissed them, too.

“Let’s take it slow and hold on to each other. I just want to be inside you again.”

“I’ve dreamt of this.”

“Me too. Hush now.”

Milan fastened his lips to hers, precluding any more speech, then slid his cock easily into the passage that had been well prepared by his fingers.

Lydia wrapped her arms around his chest, clasping her fingers behind his back. Oh, it felt so good to have him inside her again. He was just wide enough to make her feel the stretch, just long enough to fill her completely.

She belonged to him and that was all there was to it.

They stayed like that for a while, just reacquainting with the sense of connection, letting flesh adjust to flesh, skin cover skin, kissing their way through the wonder.

“
Miluji tĕ
,” whispered Milan, breaking the kiss.

“I love you,” she whispered back.

His hair on her brow again, his weight on her—these things were both her current experience and tied in with intense memories and a sense of loss. For a moment, it was almost too bittersweet to bear and she thought she might cry.

Then he began to move inside her and her mind switched from emotion to sensation, wanting to conserve the memory of each second, just in case it was the last time. If only she could be sure of him…

But, for now, she had to process and file away each thrust, each teasing nudge of her G-spot, each whispered endearment, the exact pressure of his fingers on her flesh. She would want to relive them over and over again.

He brought her to the crest of pleasure, holding her there for such a long time then letting her fall from that height into her orgasm, joining her only when her cries subsided.

Lying together afterwards, warm and hidden from life in the dark, they were silent for a long time.

“Will it be all right, Milan?” she asked, her words breaking the spell.

He held her closer.

“I don’t know.”

Her stomach clenched. He sat up, releasing her, and reached for the lamp switch on the bedside table.

The lamp cast an unforgiving yellowish light on the room.

“I need a drink,” he muttered, then he got up and walked, naked, through the bedroom door.

Lydia felt his absence as keenly as if he’d ripped out her heart and taken it with him. Surely this was an overreaction, she told herself sternly. Just because he’d left her in bed to get a drink, it didn’t mean…anything. Did it?

But her anchor was adrift and she had lost any sense of stability in the relationship. Words of love were just that—words. Where was the security?

She groped for her bathrobe and followed Milan into the living room, where he sat drinking brandy on the sofa and staring into space.

“Are you okay?” She sat beside him, fearful of his response, but brave enough to put her hand on his thigh. He was half dressed now, in trousers and unbuttoned shirt.

“No, Lydia,” he said with a sigh. “I am not okay.”

“You need time,” she said. “It’s still all so painful.”

“Time? No. Time won’t bring people back.” He held out the bottle to her, but she shook her head.

“Nothing can do that,” she said. “There’s nothing to be done. Just life to be lived.”

He turned to her and she saw that his eyes were bloodshot.

“I can’t live. How can I live, when they are dead? How is that just? How is that right?”

“Milan!” She tried to take the drink from his hand but he shook her off, more roughly than he’d probably intended.

“Don’t,” he said. “Go back to bed.”

“I want to help you.”

“Go. I’m fine. I’ll come to bed when I drink this, okay?” He screwed up his face, put out a hand to find her, ruffled her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m not the man… I’m not the man you wanted. I’m not him.”

“You are. You always will be.”

“Go to bed, hey?”

“I love you.”

“I know it.”

He didn’t come back to bed after the first drink.

* * * *

Lydia woke up alone the next morning, only remembering when she noticed the state of the sheets that Milan was here. Or was he?

She threw her bathrobe back on and peered into the living room.

He was deeply asleep on the sofa, his feet hanging off the end, his arm thrust out, still holding a glass that had tipped to a disastrous angle, staining the carpet with expensive Czech brandy.

His skin was drained of colour. She could almost have imagined he was dead, if it wasn’t for the snuffling breaths he took. She went back into her bedroom, took the duvet off her bed and covered him with it, then went to take a shower.

He didn’t even wake when she practised her playing in the ‘rehearsal corner’. The smell of coffee couldn’t rouse him, or the reheated mulligatawny soup she ate for her mid-morning brunch. Was he ever going to wake up?

The clock warned that rehearsal time was coming soon. Surely he would want to shower, eat, freshen up before that?

She grabbed one of his feet and stroked the instep. He began to writhe and splutter. For the first time in what seemed an age, she laughed. He opened his eyes reluctantly and squinted at her, propping himself up on one elbow.

“Fuck, Lydia, what are you trying to do to me?”

His voice was slow and slurred.

“Rehearsal starts soon. We have to get ready and get into town in one hour.”

He let his head fall back down on the armrest.

“I can’t do it. Not today.”

“Milan! You’re the conductor! You have to go in.”

“Tell them I’m sick. Leonard will do it.”

She stared at him speechlessly then made an angry swipe for the glass that lay on the floor, stalking into the tiny kitchenette with it and banging it on the counter.

“So that’s what all your plotting and skulduggery was for, was it? So you could get the job of your dreams and then piss it all against the wall? You aren’t going in because you’re hung-over? That’s your idea of commitment?”

Milan clutched his forehead.

“
Miláčku
, you are making my head go crazy. Please stop.”

“You’re a… Oh, I can’t even get the words out. Suit yourself, then. Ruin your life if that’s what you want. Don’t expect me to help you with that, though.”

He pulled the duvet over his face.

Trembling with unexpected rage, Lydia went into the bedroom to breathe deeply and try to calm down. So Milan wanted to pull a sick day. Was that so totally unacceptable? There was something else drawing all this anger up above the surface, something deeper. Everything he had put her through, every tear she had shed, every night she had lain awake checking her phone for messages.

“Why me?” she whispered, covering her face with her hands.

Chapter Three

On the Tube on her way to the rehearsal, Vanessa Barber was asking herself the same question, but in a rather more exhilarated manner.

She had to be imagining it, didn’t she?

Gorgeous twenty-seven-year-old men didn’t have any interest in forty-two-year-old divorcees who lived with two cats and a set of kettledrums. Did they?

She had spent too long of late peering surreptitiously into her compact mirror, counting crows’ feet, but now she did it again. If he saw anything in her, what was it?

It was true, she thought, with a tiny swell of smugness, that she looked good for her age. She had cleansed, toned and moisturised religiously since her teens, never smoked, drunk little, eaten sensibly, partied moderately—and now she was seeing the dividends of that careful lifestyle. On the other hand, perhaps it was possible to be too careful. Her still-delicate skin and shiny black bob gave her an air of youthful insouciance, but her eyes were guarded. In them could be read her real age—the woman who had experienced love, loss and heartbreak, not the trim, carefree girl you might think you saw from a distance.

Her divorce, five years before, followed by a disastrous rebound fling with Milan Kaspar, had sent her retreating from the dangerous waters of emotional involvement.

But Ben Chancellor… He was another proposition altogether. Refreshingly free of older men’s ego issues, he had been open and friendly with Vanessa from the start of their working relationship. And now things seemed to be crossing a boundary…

“Stop fantasising,” she told herself severely. “He likes flirting, that’s all. And so do you. It’s been a long time since you did any.”

The train juddered into Victoria Station and she squeezed out with the rest of the throng, looking forward to emerging into the aphrodisiac spring air.

Ben was messing about with the xylophone when she arrived in the rehearsal hall. The plinky-plonky sound of
Fossils
from Saint-Saens’
Carnival of the Animals
struck her eardrums straight away. His friend Martin, a viola player, was accompanying him.