Page 58 of Symphony of Salvation

The moment shifted under the quiet weight of his question. The music returned, serenading me down a path that led to an unknown destination. We harmonized. His chords. My melody. The imbued allegro rhythm of my heart. The pianissimo of a held-breath moment. An aria of a journey not yet begun.

“I am,” I croaked. “I’ve barely been able to take my eyes off you since the day we met.”

“The day you insulted my piano playing in my own classroom.”

“I didn’t insult you. I was trying to explain how—”

“August. Shut up.”

A hand on my nape.Accelerando.

The touch of his mouth against mine.Crescendo.

A majestic, symphonic explosion as his tongue breached my lips.

The kiss sang through my veins, “Flight of the Bumblebee,”Ruslan and Ludmila.

I soared on the high, frantic notes, trying to keep up, ability failing for the first time in my life as the pace quickened beyond my skill. I was out of control, out of my depths, but I didn’t care.

Niles took the role of conductor. His soft mouth and confidence became my guide as he orchestrated our music and created new harmonies not yet explored. It had been years. Decades. Centuries. Eons. These feelings were new. Timeless. Infinite. Precious and rare.

He tasted like hazelnuts and apple orchards, like thirty-second notes gone wild. Instinct took over like it did so often when I played, my hands and body knowing what to do without cues from my brain.

I grappled for the elastic holding Niles’s hair secure and pulled it out, letting its length fall over his shoulders in waves. Cinnamon. Cardamom. Sweetness and spice. A crashing cymbal. The thunderous boom of a timpani.

I wrapped my fingers around the thick strands and fisted them like I’d wanted to do the day we met.

He grunted at the aggression, chuckled, and broke the kiss. “Repressed bisexual. Christ.” He laughed against my mouth.

“Shut up.”

I tried to draw him back, but he resisted, breathless. “Hang on.”

Shifting the armrest out of the way, Niles crossed the barrier, moving halfway onto my seat, wedging a leg between mine. Hands on my face, my shoulders, my chest. Lips, tongue, and teeth.

My erection pressed against my pants, and had there been light, I might have been embarrassed by the youthful reaction. From a single kiss. A joyous touch.

By a man.

After years.

Niles’s tongue wrapped around mine, hand wandering lower. He found my shame and pressed his palm against it, pawing and stroking me through my pants. I could barely think. Struggled to breathe and keep up. The shivering, rushing, cascading glissando of a harp touched my spine.

The belt buckle.

My zipper.

Shifting of underwear.

Air against swollen flesh.

A warm, steady hand.

I gasped, breaking from Niles’s mouth as he stroked me, shuddering with unrepressed pleasure. "Se thélo tóso polý."

Chuckling, he nipped my lower lip, the sting of his teeth another shot of pleasure. “Speak English, Maestro. I didn’t understand.”

“It’s…” I couldn’t think straight. “It roughly translates to ‘I want you so badly.’”

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