Page 62 of Just Say Christmas
Nyree said, “Isaiah, will you do the honors?” That snapped Victoria back to herself. He stepped forward, took the scissors she handed him, and cut through the tape as everybody applauded. Nyree opened the door, Victoria went inside and set up in the chair set out for her, at the back of the room, and began to play. The first low, absolutely recognizable notes, resonating through the hushed room, and then the melody soaring above.
Music some people would recognize, because they’d heard it at the weekend, even though they might not be able to identify it, and music that could never be anything but powerful. The Pas de Deux from theNutcracker.Nyree hadn’t chosen it. Victoria had. This musicwasthe night sky, in all its mystery and grandeur. At least to her.
She kept it down, though. It wasn’t that big a room, and the cello could get loud. She started with picking out the preliminary notes with finger and thumb, then brought in the melody as the exclamations started to compete with it, and Nyree slowly dimmed the lights. Simple white sconces like boxes, they cast their glow upward, into the night sky.
With Kane’s help, Nyree had created a three-dimensional effect on Isaiah’s ceiling. The deep blue—“Indigo,” Nyree had told her, “because both Rhys and Isaiah are indigo, deep, but clear”—was darker here, lighter over there, washed with white, as if the galaxies really were that close, with the shining cloud of the Milky Way swirling diagonally across it all. Nyree had sprayed in stars, then added touches of something sparkly, so the ceiling picked up the light of the sconces, looking for all the world like the twinkling pinpricks of starlight. The view changed depending on your angle, and when you lay on the top bunk, surely it would look like you were in a space capsule, drifting through the void.
The music was like that too, Victoria hoped. Starting softly, then gaining a bit of strength, because she couldn’t help it. Music, like prosecution strategies, was where she felt powerful, so she took her power, and then gave it back again.
It was the power—or, let’s face it, the volume—that had probably woken Kane last night. She’d shut the door to the master bedroom where he slept, his big body flung across a bed that was too small for him, let alone both of them.
She’d tried to keep it quiet, creeping into the tiny office on the other side of the kitchen, switching on the work lamp that sat on the desk, and shutting the door before she perched on the chair, wheeled it to face the windows, stuck the cello spike into its stand, and kicked the brake on the chair’s wheels so she wouldn’t skid across the floor, then picked up the instrument at last, got it settled, got it right, and started to play. She had joy inside, and sorrow too, the hope warring with the fear, and she needed to let it out. It was the witching hour, and that was how she felt.
She hadn’t quite managed the “quiet” part.
She didn’t realize he was there at first. She was playing with her eyes nearly closed, letting the music vibrate through her, feeling where she needed to add more emphasis tomorrow. The first thing she saw was a flicker at the corner of her vision, and she opened her eyes, unwilling to stop playing. When it was good, like this, it carried her along like a river in full flow, taking her out of her thoughts and into her body, out of doubt and into certainty.
It took her a second. She saw the reflection of the open doorway in the black glass of the ranch sliders, and Kane standing in it, filling it, one big hand on either side of the frame. Naked, intent, and enormous.
She lifted her bow from the strings and said, “I woke you. Sorry.”
“No,” he said. “Keep playing. Start it again.” He didn’t say it politely. He said it like he meant it. So she did. But this time, she didn’t close her eyes, and she didn’t look down. She let the notes swell.
Kane watched. She played on, and he took a step closer, then another one.
It was a small room.
She’d worn a white singlet and bikinis to bed, as she always did in the summer, and she was wearing them now. She loved playing when the music could touch her skin, the sound resonating through the maple and into her thighs and chest, spreading to fill all of her. Her hair was loose and had curled tight in the humid night, and in response to Kane’s hands in it earlier that night, when he’d been over her, kissing her mouth, then her neck. Now, his hands were in it again, lifting the curls between his fingers, and she got a thrill straight down her body. But still, she played on.
His hands were sliding down her head, now, his fingers stroking over her neck, then over her shoulders. Not interfering with her playing, not really, but interfering like hell with her concentration. He was barely touching her, but she could feel him. And she could see him in the window.
“Keep playing,” he said, when she faltered, so she did, even as his hands traced the edges of the singlet, roamed down her sides, over the ribbed cotton, and slowly made their way up again. She wasn’t getting the most power out of every note, because her fingers weren’t vibrating on the strings the way they should.
The back of the chair separated them, and that was so frustrating, and so exciting, too. She could only see his upper body, the width of his shoulders, the breadth of his chest, the bulk of his arms. And she could only feel his hands, and the music.
Her breathing was coming faster, but she focused on her fingering, her bowing, the sound rising to a crescendo now. But Kane’s hands had gone under the bottom of the singlet, were pulling it up.
She tried to play. The white blur of cotton, in the imperfect mirror of the dark glass, though, as it slid slowly up her body, to be replaced by his hands on her skin . . . The trace of his fingertips over her belly, her ribs, the undersides of her breasts.
She stopped.
“Keep going.” It was a breath.
She said, “I . . . can’t.” Sitting with the bow on her knee, the other hand clutching the neck of the instrument, and everything in her body trembling, from the quiver of her inner thighs to her fingers on the strings, watching as Kane’s hands captured her breasts, and stayed there. Pinching a little, now.
“Look at you.” His voice had roughened. Deepened. “Look how beautiful you are. You always close your eyes. I don’t want you to close your eyes tonight.”
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. And when he let go of her, she said, “No. Don’t stop.”
“Lay it down,” he said, and she did. Carefully, because she was always careful. Aware that her singlet was pushed all the way up to under her arms, feeling vulnerable. Feeling shaken.
When she stood up and would have turned, his hands were there again. Pulling the shirt over her head and dropping it on the chair, taking gentle hold of the bikinis and shoving them down. “Step out,” he said, and she did. And then he was sitting in the chair, pulling her down to sit on his lap, facing the window.
“Like you’re my cello,” he said, and she thought,Oh, God.That was before he started to touch her for real. Holding her in place with his chin over her head, like shewashis, and his hands sliding down her body, over her belly. The moment when his palms went to either thigh and shoved them slowly apart.
“Watch,” he said, and she did.
He took his time. One hand holding her around the thigh, the other exploring in lazy circles, diving to probe deeper, then falling off again, until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She got one hand around the back of his neck and saw him sigh, his hand coming up to capture a breast, the other one continuing to work on her.
