Page 44 of Crescendo

“I mean—I-I think my friend Sian already knows.”

“Pretty sure a couple people have a strong suspicion. Probably the way you look at me like I’m the only person in a room. But just… nothing too coupley in public.”

“Just a dirty secret for dark rooms, huh,” she said dryly, and I pulled my hands out from under her shirt and cupped her face, tilting her to look me in the eye.

“The problem,” I said, my voice low, “is thatyou,Ella Hendrickson, are a brilliant creative, a sharp mind, incredibly charming and stunningly, incandescently beautiful, and every time I look at your eyes, I lose myself. And I have to do everything I can not to get too attached. You understand that, right?”

I’d thought she was red when I had her grinding in my lap teasing her desperate to get fucked. That was nothing compared to how much she lit up for me now, eyes wide. “Ah—er. Well. That is…”

“If you don’t understand,” I said, shifting in closer, “then I’ll have to make you understand.”

I kissed her—pressed my lips up against hers, claiming her, and I slipped my hands into her hair, holding her against me, feeling her melt into the kiss, meeting me just as passionately. Her hands roamed my sides before slipping down my back, falling into me with a long, slow kiss, and she looked like she was in a living daydream when she pulled back, a hazy smile on her pretty face.

“You are… terribly romantic, you know, Lydia,” she said softly.

“Terribly romantic, stunningly talented, shockingly attractive, I know, I know.”

She laughed. “Ah, dammit. Why does it turn me on when you act like that?”

I tousled her hair. “Well, if I went and got you turned on, I guess I ought to do something about that, shouldn’t I?”

She bit her lip. “Oh, you’re just now thinking that, are you?”

“Do you want to go to the bed, Ella?”

She paused, hanging there in the moment, before she ground her hips on me again. “Not particularly,” she said quietly. “It’s awfully far.”

“Hm. You make a good point.” I slipped a hand down between the two of us, pressing up against the damp fabric of her underwear, and she moaned softly, gripping her fingers tighter against me. I pulled her into a kiss, deeper this time, tongues touching, as she rocked her hips against my hand, grinding, seeking friction. It was a relief when I finally pushed her up to her feet and tugged her underwear down, dropping it around her ankles as she stripped her shirt up over her head, and I turned and guided her to sit in the chair while I sank onto my knees in front of her. She gasped loudly, moaned, cursed desperately in between breathing my name, and—her pretty, crisp Londoner accent gasping my name while she rocked her hips against my mouth,Iwas very much a fan of how it sounded.

I took her slower this time, knowing how she’d been just alittledisappointed how quickly she’d finished both times last night, which—it was all well and good taking my time and savoring her on my tongue, but it did have the side effect of that I’d practically soaked through my pants by the time Ella finished, and when she pushed me up on the table to return the favor, her damneyeslooking up at me from between my legs as she touched her tongue to my clit and then sank into me, goingdeeper and taking me like it was the greatest thing she’d ever experienced—well, I came in about two seconds.

Didn’t matter a lot, though. We cleaned up and went to take a shower—figuring it made more sense to take a shower together, just out of sheer practicality, of course—and it ended with me pressing her up against the shower wall with my fingers buried deep inside her, her screaming my name as her fingers worked desperately over my clit and sent me before long into another orgasm, and, all things considered—by the end of it all, we needed another snack.

Once we’d finally finished satisfying each other for the morning, we made our way back to the music room, hands still all over each other as we, ostensibly, tried to focus on the compositions homework we had. We started off with playing together, sitting side-by-side at the piano and starting our regular routine, and this time, we’d barely started before she paused.

“Lydia,” she said.

“Mm?”

“You can… go ahead and tell me what the chords are, and how they work, now. I think I’m ready.”

My heart ached in a beautiful happy way a little too much. That wasn’t a casual feeling.

Ah, who cared? Fighting those feelings would only make them get bigger and harder to ignore. I’d just throw myself into it, feel them all I liked, and hope they mellowed out like most feelings did after two months. I turned and kissed her cheek, going back to the D Major key she’d picked out for this one. “This is a D Major chord,” I said. “In the context of D Major, of course, that’s the root chord, the base one, the most resolved chord. It’s satisfying, it’s reliable. It’s a solid beginning and it's a happily-ever-after.”

She giggled, a cute little sound from next to me. “You are so much more a romantic than I’d had you placed as.”

“Oh, you thought I was an unromantic, heartless monster.”

“Mm-hm. Yes, darling, of course I did. Continue on, please.”

“Unbelievable.” I played the chord. “D Major, the first. Then… G Major, the fourth. The fourth is major, but doesn’t sound as resolved as the first, a hopeful, rising note. It’s a powerful chord to pass between sections and leave this feeling like there’s more to come while still maintaining a major tonality. When you combine it with A Major, the fifth, you get a couple of very classic progressions, like I-V-IV-V or I-IV-V-I. I’ll make some progressions with just those three and name them as I play.”

“Thank you,” she said softly, and I couldn’t shake the feeling it may just have been about a little more than the lesson on chords that I was sure she’d already heard a million times.

I played the chords, first just playing them straight, and then explaining inversions as I shaped them differently, giving her classic four-chord progressions before I moved into longer progressions, and she rested her head on my shoulder as we played together, her melodies blending beautifully into the chords.

She did learn quickly… which was terribly attractive. I rested my head against hers as we played together, back into the dance of our shared music, and when we both seemed to settle on a sweet, heartfelt conclusion to the song, we lifted our hands off the keys, and I turned to her at the same time she turned to me, cupped a hand on my cheek, and kissed me, a deep, sweet kiss that feltadoringin a way that probably should have been a concern.

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