Page 26 of Just Say Christmas
“More, please,” he said, and there was that amusement again. On the other hand, his hands were blissful, and so was the music, and the scent, and the night. She was drifting on a cloud of palest pink, floating away.
“All of this is not just preparation for something,” Chrysalis’s pale-blue voice went on, rising and falling gently like the tide washing up on the shore. “It’s a place to be. It’s the first stop on our long, long journey. I want you to forget about ‘foreplay,’ and think ‘play’ instead. Tonight, we’re teasing. We’re playing. We’re going to pull that sheet all the way down to her feet, now, so you can see all of her. You’re going to touch her lovely bum. Her thighs. Her calves. On down over her feet. Down the outside of her legs, up the inside, nearly to the top, and then you stop short and do it once more, using a tiny bit more pressure, starting to work into it. Start out with just your fingertips, or the back of your hands, whatever feels good. Experiment. Explore. Enjoy. Girls, if it tickles, tell him so, and he’ll make his touch a little firmer. Soon, he’ll have his hands around all of you, and they’ll get stronger. Your only job is to breathe in the sensation, and to tell him how it feels. Tonight, we’re edging, just as long as we possibly can.”
What’s edging?Nyree thought. She wasn’t sleepy anymore. Marko had magic hands. They could keep hold of a rugby ball even as somebody as powerful as he was tried with all his might to rip it loose. His hands could bring a strong man down in mid-stride, but right now, they were gentle, because they were on her.
She thought that, and she also thought,Victoria, you are joking. I’m doing sex ed with Marko’s teammates. Just how participatory are we getting here? There’d better not be toys. Why didn’t youtellme? I’d have . . .Then she forgot, because Marko’s thumbs were on her inner thighs, his fingertips drifting over the crease between her bum and the back of her thigh, the oil slippery over her skin, his touch light, but so sure, as if he were more than happy to get with the program. As if he knew her body, and he wanted it. And Chrysalis was talking again.
“What is edging?” the blue voice asked. “It’s getting close, but not getting there, for as long as you can. There are hundreds of thousands of kilometers of nerve fibers in a human body. How many can you wake up before we’re done? Every cell is going to be humming tonight, and you’ll know that all of that sensation is in response to you. To your touch. To your spirit. To the pleasure you’re giving her with your hands, so all of her being, everything she is, is centered in her yoni, and you’re holding her there. You can make that connection, and you can keep her right there, on the edge of bliss, hovering on that highest mountaintop. That’syourpower, when you’re feeling hers. Let’s get her a little closer right now. One tiny step at a time.”
Victoria,Nyree thought,I will kill you. I’m going to have an orgasm right here in front of everybody. But . . . let me just feel this.
15
Stay With Me
KANE
Kane wasn’t sure where he was going when he left the kitchen. To have a swim, he decided on the way to his room, and got changed into his togs again. All he’d done today was play a round of golf and sit on a boat, but his surfeit of physical energy, always hard to satisfy when he wasn’t playing, wasn’t the only reason his body was restless.
At first, he thought the noise he heard as he got closer to the pool was the wind, but there was no wind, not really. It was a warm night, and barely breezy. The noise was music, and not from the speakers Victoria had set up, which were at the other end of the house. Piano music, maybe, played quietly, sounding like a waterfall. And after that, something else.
It was coming from a structure above the pool, overlooking the skinny rectangle where the water glowed like a slab of turquoise, lit from beneath and rippling with gentle waves, while low lighting traced a winding path through the greenery. The music wafted towards him, more than the waterfall now, or weaving around it, liquid and plaintive as a woman’s low voice, singing on a sob.
He followed it, because his feet didn’t seem to have a choice, but when he got to the foot of the stairs and looked up to the sleekly modern pergola, illuminated by white fairy lights dripping from its overhead beams, he stopped.
It was Victoria. Not that it could have been anyone else, logically. He’d left Kors and Ella in the kitchen, and he’d seen Marko’s sister Caro going to her room. And anyway, he’d known it was Victoria. She’d told him she’d played in an orchestra in University, hadn’t she? He thought so. He hadn’t really followed that up.
She’d never played for him, and she wasn’t doing it now. She was playing, surely, for herself. Dressed in the same halter-topped, flowered yellow dress she’d worn at dinner, the full skirt riding up above her knees now, accommodating her long legs as she straddled her instrument, her newly tamed hair falling over one eye. It was some pop song, a tune he vaguely recognized, but the music, played like this, was poignant and powerful as a hymn.
He stepped into the shadows and tried to decide what to do, or maybe he was just listening. This was the Victoria he’d only seen sometimes, and nobody he’d seen today at all.
She’d planned the day’s events so meticulously, and that was here in the precision of her fingers, the assurance of her bow, but she didn’t normally express herself like this. Other than in bed, she didn’t. Her fingers held down the thick strings, then vibrated, which had to take strength. Her body wasn’t swaying like you’d think, either, in somebody playing with this much intensity. You probably couldn’t sway and play the cello. All of her energy, instead, seemed to go straight into the instrument, amplified and given wings. The volume coming from the cello rose, and there was athleticism in the arm that wielded the bow, and aching sadness in the music that rose from it.
He listened until the recorded piano stopped, then waited a few moments more, until the last mellow, impossibly rich notes soared and fell away into the darkness.
When he headed up the stairs, still not sure why he was doing it, she saw him and dropped the hand holding the bow to her knee, then sat looking at him. He couldn’t read her expression. He said, “That was nice. What was it?”
“Someone Like You.Adele. I’m practicing for the wedding. I’m playing them down the aisle instead of walking down it. Not quite the usual maid-of-honor thing, but then, Nyree isn’t the usual bride.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said. “But you’re not playing that song, surely. It’s too sad. At least, it sounded sad to me.”
“It is sad. No, I’m playingYou Raise Me Upfor them. Nyree didn’t want Mendelssohn or Pachelbel, like most people.”
“I like this sort of thing better, myself,” he said.
“Yes.” Her voice was remote, still. Holding him off with her intellect. “Pop music is more obvious in its melody than classical, and less complex structurally, which is why most people would rather hear it. It reaches out and grabs you, especially on the cello. It’s been written to have that instant appeal, whereas listening to a classical piece is much more effort. But, no, I’m not doing that one at the wedding. I was playing it for me.”
“Oh.” He stopped, then, because he didn’t know what else to say. She’d been playing because she felt sad, and she’d needed to express it? Wasn’t that what she was actually saying?
She said, “If you want to swim, you should go on and swim. I just came out to play. I’d find a quiet spot, I thought. I wanted the practice anyway.”
“Why didn’t I know you did this? Or so much of this?”
“It didn’t come up, I guess.”
He sat down opposite her. Time to front up to what had gone on between them. Past time. She wasn’t superficial. Whatever he’d told himself at the time to feel better, the way she’d played that song had reminded him that she didn’t know how to lie. She knew how to hide, but she didn’t know how to lie. If she’d run, maybe she’d been running from demons, and she’d thought she had to. He knew a bit about demons himself, which was why he said, “Maybe I didn’t ask enough. Or maybe you thought I’d laugh. Maybe you’ve been laughed at before. I wouldn’t have laughed.”
Was that noble? He wasn’t sure. He wouldn’t have said he was noble. He wouldn’t have said he was generous, either. He hadn’tfeltgenerous, and he still didn’t. All he felt was, possibly, too raw to be anything but honest himself.
