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And again, she could hear her own breath. He leaned against the side of the piano, stretching a hand out across the folded back lid, and her eyes followed the movement. Compulsively. As if she had no choice in the matter.
She would have expected a man so wealthy and arrogant to have hands soft and tender like the belly of a small dog. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see a careful manicure. Or a set of garish rings.
But his hand was bare of any accoutrement. And it was no tender, soft thing. It looked tough, which struck her as incongruous even as the notion moved in her like heat. His fingers were long, his palms broad.
And she could not seem to keep herself from imagining them touching her skin, cupping her breasts, gripping her bottom as he pulled her beneath him and made her his.
When a different sound filled the room, she understood that she’d made it. She’d gasped. Out loud. And that darkness he wore too easily seemed to light up with a new kind of fire she couldn’t read.
“I’m accustomed to having my questions answered,” he said in a quiet tone, but all she heard was menace.
And she had already forgotten the question, and possibly herself. So she did the only thing she could under the circumstances.
Angelina began to play.
She played and she played. She played him melodies that spoke of her dreams, her hopes, and then the crushing storm of her father’s losses. She played him stories of her confinement here and the bitter drip of years in this ruined, forgotten place. Then she played him songs that felt like he did, impossible and terrifying and thrilling all the same.
She felt caught in the grip of his unwavering, relentless gaze. And the notes that crashed all around them, holding them tight even as they sang out the darkest, most hidden parts of her.
And while she played, Angelina found she couldn’t lose herself the way she usually did.
Instead, it was as if she was found. As if he had found her here, trapping her and exalting her at once.
So she played that, too.
She played and played, until he stepped out of the shadows and his face was fully in the candlelight.
Fierce. Haunted. Sensual.
And suffused with the same rich, layered hunger she could feel crashing around inside of her.
For a long time, while the music danced from her fingers into the keys and then filled the room, it was as if she couldn’t tell which one of them was which. His hands did not touch her body, and yet somehow they were all over her. She could feel the scrape of his palm, the stirring abrasion of his calloused fingers.
And she explored him, too, with every note she coaxed from her piano. They were tossed together in the melody, tangled, while the music tied them in knots and made them one glorious note, held long and pure—
When she stopped playing, for a moment she couldn’t tell the difference.
And then the next, his hands were on her.
His beautiful, terrible hands, for real this time.
He sank his fingers into her hair, pulling it from her chignon—and not gently. And her whole body seemed to bloom. His face was over hers, his mouth as grim as his eyes were hot. And then he bent her back at an angle that should have alarmed her, but instead sent a thick delight storming through her in every direction.
He feasted on her neck like the wolf she half imagined he was, teasing his way around those sullen, moody pearls she wore.
I need,she thought, though she could not speak.
The more he tasted her flesh, the more she felt certain that he stole her words. That as his mouth moved over her skin, he was altering her.
Taking her away from here. From herself. From everything she knew.
He shifted then, spreading her out on the piano bench. She lay down where he put her, grateful to have the bench at her back. Then he lowered himself over her, the dark bespoke suit he wore seeming blacker than pitch in the candlelight. He skimmed his wicked hands down the length of her body, moving his way down until he wrenched the skirt of her shift dress up to her waist.
It didn’t occur to her to object.
Not when every part of her wanted to sing out instead, glory and hope alike, and no matter that this man was not safe. There was no safety in staying where she was, either. There was only disappointment and the slow march of tedious years, and Benedetto felt like an antidote to that.
He touched her and she felt as if she was the piano, and he was making her a melody.
