Page 51 of Four on the Floor: A Menage Romance

I play it again and again, practicing untilTwinkle, Twinkle Little Staris smooth and melodious. It’s not perfect — I’ve seriously got a tin ear — but for someone who started piano lessons two weeks ago, it’s not bad.

“Want to try something new?” Slate asks. “We’ve got time.”

The lessons are usually around an hour long, starting at about six and ending whenever someone finds us and tells us it’s dinner time.

“Sure,” I say, sneaking a glance in his direction.

For one wild moment I imagine that thesomething newis going to be Slate himself, that instead of pulling out another piece of sheet music he’s going to lean over and kiss me, pull me onto his lap. That maybe he’ll take me right here on the ballroom floor, hard and gentle all at once, just like everything about him.

Having three boyfriends has been very, very bad for my already-pretty-high libido. You’d think that I’d be completely satisfied, maybe even overwhelmed, but that’s not quite what’s happened.

The more sex I have, the more I want. Sometimes I catch myself in the middle of dinner, daydreaming about what I’m going to do with one or two of them that very night, less than twenty-four hours after the last time I did that.

Before this piano lesson, I had a good long session with my vibrator, hoping to get rid of these sorts of thoughts before sitting here with Slate for an hour.

It didn’t work.

I think I’m broken.

“I know it looks like a lot, but I think you’re ready,” he says, sliding another piece of printer paper in front of me. Across the top it saysWhen the Saints Go Marching In, and it looks… complicated.

I mean, in the grand scheme of piano music, I’m sure it’s incredibly easy and simple. But to me, it looks like a whole lot of notes, many of them at the same time. I just look at it, trying to get a handle on what all this even says.

“Here,” Slate says. “I’ll help.”

He stands from the piano bench, circles back behind me.

Then his arms wrap around me, his chest against my back, his hands on the keys.

My heart nearly stops, then makes up for lost time, hammering in my chest. I swallow hard, trying to keep my breathing even.

I’m sure this is a perfectly normal piano teaching technique, I tell myself.Piano teachers do this all the time, probably.

I’m not convincing myself.

“Put your hands on top of mine,” he says, the nearness of his voice making goosebumps prickle down the back of my neck as I do it, lightly perching my small hands on his big, strong ones.

He plays the song, slowly, and my fingers dip and rise with his, our bodies moving together as we make music. Even though I’m not the one playing, I can still feel the music flowing through me, the echo of it in my fingers as they move along with his.

When we finish, he lets his hands linger on the keys, the sound still echoing through the ballroom. I don’t dare move. I don’t want this moment to end, us together like this, his arms around me while we play.

Slate releases the keys. The echo of music ends. Without wanting to, I lift my hands off of his, holding my breath.

“Turn around,” Slate murmurs. He’s so close that his lips are practically touching my ear, and it sends another charge of goosebumps down my spine.

I tuck my legs and turn. He’s still lightly resting his hands on the keyboard, encircling me with his arms, as I look up at him.

Slate’s face is a storm. I can see him fighting with himself over something, though I don’t know what, but his blue eyes hold mine steadily, never wavering for a moment as a curl of his dark hair falls over his eyes.

He doesn’t push it away, even as his gaze falls to my lips, then regains my eyes. A knot tightens in my stomach, but I can’t move.

I don’twantto move, so I hold very still, thinking of absolutely nothing but the closeness of Slate.

Finally, he kisses me.

It’s not a polite kiss. It’s a hungry kiss, a kiss that speaks of pent-up frustrations, of longing and need. He moves one hand to the back of my head and brings me in, still bending over me, his powerful body towering over mine.

We kiss for a long time. I open my mouth under his and our tongues tangle together, moving against each other. Before I know it I’m standing and we’re still kissing, only now our bodies are together, pressing so tightly that I can feel every breath he takes.

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