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Verlene’s gaze turned hazy. If Alice didn’t know better, she would’ve sworn Verlene was stoned. “I do want her to sing,” Verlene said, “but…”
Ivan’s smile was amused as he studied her. “But what?”
“I can’t think, now.” Then Verlene’s features lit up. “Yes, I want to sing. Let’s sing.”
“You want Alice to sing,” Ivan repeated.
Verlene lifted her arms and turned in a circle around the room. “Alice must sing!”
Everyone was stone crazy in this place.
“Sing, Alice!” Verlene said.
At Ivan’s signal, the pianist started playing from the top. With Verlene acting cuckoo and Ivan’s beautiful voice filling the space, Alice felt less intimidated. She soon lost herself in the music, again. Reality ceased to exist. She no longer noticed the people in the room. All she was aware of was the piano and Ivan’s voice. It felt good to give in, to figuratively scream at the top of her lungs. She closed her eyes and allowed the notes to elate her, to take her someplace beautiful and serene.
In her head, another voice suddenly joined in. A memory of her mother standing on the stage, roses raining down on her while she bowed to her audience, floated into the moment. That voice… It felt like her mother was in the room. She missed a beat and another. Her voice faltered. She pressed her hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound that rang through the space. Then it vanished, and all that was left was her distorted voice.
Alice opened her eyes and looked around. Verlene stared at her in frozen horror. The violin players’ expressions were sympathetic. What the hell was she doing?
“Making a fool of yourself,” her mother’s voice said.
Another memory poured into her mind. “Poor Alice,” her music teacher had said, addressing the dance teacher who’d smoked in the schoolyard. “She’ll never live up to her mother.”
Frowning, Ivan urged her to continue with a nudge of his head, but even the pianist didn’t take up the score, again.
She did the only thing she could to save grace. She bowed with a forced laugh and left the room. In the corridor, she started running, not stopping until she exited in the alley at the back of the warehouse. Another pair of footsteps echoed behind her on the tarmac. She glanced over her shoulder. Ivan was walking toward her at a fast pace. She broke into a sprint, barely dodging a trashcan, but three seconds later, warm fingers dug into her arm and flung her around.
“Alice!” He gave her a shake. “What happened in there?”
“Nothing.”
She tried to pull away but he didn’t relax his grip.
“Let me go.”
“You’ve got to stop lying to me, Alice.”
Trying to jerk free only prompted Ivan to dig his fingers deeper.
“Let me go or I’ll scream.”
“No, you won’t.” He backed her up to the wall until she was pressed against the hard surface.
His eyes were as mesmerizing as a magician’s but so intense she couldn’t help but cower under his stare. His square face was harder now, the sharp lines defined by the perfect shave of his short beard. The gentle, tormented boy she used to know had changed into a man, a very dangerous man. Despite her resolutions, her body heated. Liquid heat gathered between her legs, and her breasts turned heavy.
The atmosphere changed. Something in Ivan’s stance shifted. He started breathing harder. His fingers flexed on her arm, his nails imprinting half-moons on her skin. For a charged moment, they simply stared at each other until Ivan’s gaze finally dropped to her chest.
He lifted his free hand to her breast.
“No, you don’t,” she whispered.
“Oh, yes, I do.” Fingers splayed, he clamped his hand over her curve.
Her nipple hardened. Her stomach muscles fluttered as he gently rubbed a flat palm over the tip before testing the weight of her breast. She wasn’t going to give in, but her body arched toward him when he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Taking her reaction as his cue, he leaned in. He wasn’t unaffected. It was evident in the hard-on pressing against her stomach. She jerked when he pinched her nipple, feeling the sensation all the way to her clit. Letting go of her arm, he worked her dress up over her thighs with frantic impatience.
This was it, the moment of surrender. She was too tired to fight it, any longer. She didn’t want to contemplate the consequences. All of that could come later. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t handle emotional pain. If she was sure of one thing, it was that going down this path with Ivan could only result in more pain. For now, she didn’t care, because her desire was running away with her, and it was too good to feel with so much intensity, again.
Holding her gaze, he pushed the elastic of her underwear aside and drew his finger over her folds. The contact made her shudder with pleasure. He brought up his hand up and studied his finger. It glistened with her arousal.
