Musical Beds (7 page)

The sound of shuddering crystal and gasping and sighing was all that could be heard in the room for a long time, then, once the lump pushing into her stomach was hard as hard could be, she broke off and made a slow descent to her knees.

He exhaled reverently when she unbuckled his belt and loosened his trousers, easing them down over his thighs and down to his ankles.

She kissed her way back up his long legs, then lowered the boxers over his cock, which was upright in readiness, just waiting for her to do what she wanted with it.

She darted her tongue over his sac, causing him to squirm delightfully, his hips shivering in her hands.

“Oh, you…” he whispered.

She nuzzled his crotch, nipping at his tender inner thighs, breathing warm air all over him until he was teased beyond endurance and he put his hand in her hair and pulled.

“Do you want me to suck your cock?” she asked, looking up brazenly.

“You little fucking minx.” She loved the glow of lustful mischief in his eyes, the look she hadn’t seen for a while now. It made her heart swell and her hopes enlarge. “You know it.”

“I’m going to drink you down,” she promised him. “I’m going to swallow it all.”

She enveloped him in her mouth and attempted to keep her word to the best of her ability, sucking and licking that smooth, sleek shaft until her jaw ached, but, just as she felt the end approach, he yanked her off by her hair and pushed her, panting hard, to the kitchen floor.

He had her trousers off in seconds and pushed her knickers aside before entering her with one hard thrust. The tiles were unforgiving against her spine, but nothing could spoil her primal, selfish joy at having him inside her. It felt like a victory and she clenched him tight, grunting and urging him onward.

He fucked her sincerely and without quarter, on his elbows on the kitchen floor. His hair whipped over her face and he tried to protect her back from the worst effects of the granite slabs by sliding an arm beneath her.

All the same, the bumping and jolting was fierce and intense and Lydia was relieved when her orgasm unleashed itself, blanking out all other sensations.

He poured into her on the kitchen floor, covering her, filling her.

She felt a oneness with him that took away her breath.

He shifted on top of her, lifting his head from her shoulder to look her in the eye.

“You are okay?” he slurred, as if drunk, but it was simply the exertion that distorted his speech.

“Oh, yes, Milan.” She raised her neck to kiss him on the cheek.

“You don’t hurt your back?”

“Well, probably. But nothing fatal. Does this feel like a new start to you, too?”

“For us, you mean?”

“Among other things.”

“We should drink that champagne.”

Lydia quelled the urge to nag. It just wasn’t the time.

He eased himself out of her and crawled over to where the bottle stood. He picked it up and took a swig directly from it, gasping as the bubbles took effect.

He sat down next to Lydia, who was gingerly pushing herself into a sitting position, and raised the bottle to her.

“Here’s to music, love and laughter. And solo violins and virtuosi.”

He took another mouthful of champagne and lowered his lips to hers with the fizz still held inside.

When they kissed, he poured the stream of tingling liquid bubbles into Lydia’s mouth. She swallowed it down—most of the fizz had gone by then—spluttering slightly. He cleaned her mouth with a long, lavish lick of his tongue then broke the kiss, leaving her lips still stinging.

“And here’s to playing more than violins. Here’s to you and me.”

She sheltered herself in his arms, holding on to him, laying her head against his chest while he continued to drink from the champagne bottle.

Later, as they lay in bed, champagne all gone—mostly into Milan—Lydia started wondering if that really could be his final fling. He had drunk it quickly—within an hour—and seemed hardly the worse for it. Over the past fortnight, she had seen him in full red-eyed slurring wreckage mode, but he had had to drink bottles and bottles to get that bad. He shouldn’t have such a high tolerance. It made her uneasy.

At least tonight he was happy-drunk. She had endured so many miserable nights of anger and recrimination, repeated over and over again because he had forgotten what had already been said. It had been a relief of sorts when he’d lapsed into Czech and she hadn’t had to listen to the endless litany of self-loathing and universal blame.

“So,” he said, speaking unexpectedly just as she thought he had fallen asleep. “This von Ritter.”

“What about him?” She yawned.

“He sounds like a drag. Pain in the ass.”

“You’ve never met him. Give him a chance.”

“Why?”

Lydia turned to him, frowning.

“Why not? Milan, you aren’t going to start all that again, are you? You’ve had your shot at conducting and you blew it.”

“What? I make one mistake while I am grieving and depressed, and that is me, finished in conducting forever? You can’t say that’s fair.”

“I’m not saying you’ll never conduct again, of course I’m not. Once the counselling is done and you’re able to pick up the pieces of your life… But that’s not now. And it’s certainly not going to happen if you start bullying the conductors again.”

“Who is bullying? I only said he sounds like a bad-tempered asshole. You want to work with a bad-tempered asshole, good luck to you. I don’t. That’s all.”

“Please, Milan, don’t start a war with him the minute he enters the building. My nerves just couldn’t take it.”

“If he tries to push us around, I won’t have it, Lydia. Somebody has to stand up. You won’t stand up. Leonard won’t. It has to be me.”

“Oh, stop it! He hasn’t even got here and already you’re plotting his downfall. Remember Mary-Ann? Poor woman. I feel bloody awful about that, and you should too.”

“Ah, don’t be so righteous. Little Saint Lydia, wants everyone to be as pure as she—”

He ruffled her hair mockingly and she slapped his hand away.

“Oh, shut up, Milan. You’re so vile sometimes.”

He put his face right against hers, his handsome face ugly with hostility.

“You knew what you were getting when you let me fuck you the first time, sweetheart. In front of another man. You aren’t the little virgin you like to play. You wanted it just as much as we did.”

“Oh, God, sometimes I hate you.”

Reminded of that first night, and how Evgeny had been there, his dark eyes glowing, Lydia felt the tears rush up from deep within. His hands had been so skilled and delicate. He’d been a beautiful, talented man who should still be alive now.

“Don’t you even miss him? He loved you so much he’d have done anything…for…”

Her throat caught and she couldn’t continue. She stormed out of bed and ran to the bathroom, locked herself in, then wept inconsolably on the hot tub step.

It was some time before Milan knocked.

“Come out of there. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you.”

She wiped her face with the towel, took a deep breath and squeezed the last tears from her eyes.

“I’m going home,” she said. “I think this is wrong, a mistake. You aren’t ready.”

“Are you fucking dumping me from behind a closed door?” Milan sounded so outraged that she almost let out a nervous laugh.

She unbolted the door and opened it just a sliver, in case Milan did something crazy. He sounded capable of it, frighteningly so.

“No. I’m not dumping you from behind a closed door. I’m saying that I think the timing’s wrong. You aren’t ready. I can’t cope with your anger and your…insane competitiveness. Not now. I’m tired, Milan. We’ve both been through too much this year. Let’s give ourselves a break. Maybe rethink after you’ve done the counselling.”

He stared at her, appearing stunned.

“How can you be so…? Don’t you have a heart? Don’t you love me anymore?”

“Of course I do.” And now she was crying again. “I always will. I love you so much. Too much. I can’t keep my head together and I can’t think. I’m too mixed up in you and I need to step back.”

He reached out for her. She let him take her hand, but kept the space between the door and the frame as tight as possible.

“I can’t lose you now. I’ve lost so much.” His eyes were like a sad child’s, pleading.

“You aren’t losing me. I’ll still be here for you, but as a friend. You need to focus on getting better and playing at the Prom concert.”

“For God’s sake, come out of there.”

She relented, pushing open the door and allowing herself to be manipulated into his arms. Leaving them was going to be the hardest act of her life, even harder than walking away from him in Prague, and her resolve wavered dangerously.

“I won’t let you go,” he said.

“I’ll come back, Milan, I swear. I’ll come back when the time’s right. I just want you to be happy.”

“You make me happy.”

“Don’t make me responsible for you,” she said, recalling Vanessa’s words. “I’m not. I can’t be. It isn’t fair to put that on me.”

He sniffed and held her tighter. “You’re growing up,” he said. “You’re so much stronger than when we met.”

“Don’t you like strong women?”

He sighed and dropped his head on her shoulder.

“I love them.”

“And they love you. But if you love someone, you have to, I don’t know, do what’s best for them. And, if we stay together, we’ll fight and you’ll say cruel things that can’t be taken back and we’ll split and it’ll be horrible, and maybe something neither of us can overcome. I just want to hope. If we break now, I can keep that hope. And so can you.”

She shut her eyes, held a breath right at the top of her lungs, waiting.

“If you leave me now, that’s it,” he said.

It was hopeless. He wasn’t a man to negotiate with, and she should have realised. Even so, the words hit her like a punch to the stomach.

She’d gambled and lost.

She looked him long and hard in the eye.

“You don’t mean that.”

His gaze burned her.

“Yes. I do.”

“Then there’s nothing more to say.”

She wrestled her way out of his arms and started to look for her clothes.

Chapter Six

Because Lydia had done so much grieving for their relationship after leaving Prague, she found that she was hardly able to do any more.

She was grateful for her eyes, which were cried out, and her body, which wasn’t going to stand for any more sleepless nights. She was also grateful for her violin, which took the angst from her and turned it into music, setting the heartbreak free on the wind.

She was most grateful of all for good friends, notably Vanessa. And Ben. Ben was around a lot these days, it seemed. When she mentioned how close they seemed to be getting, though, Vanessa brushed it off. With a blush.

“Why don’t you come and stay at my place for the weekend?” offered Vanessa, at the end of their third rehearsal after the breakup.

Like the previous two, it had resembled inserting a dagger into her heart and twisting it very, very slowly for hour upon hour. Every tragic note in the music made her chest heave and her violin bump on her breastbone. She had to get a grip or her playing would be affected.

But Milan barely looked at her, bowing away with his head back and his face furiously focused. She was almost tempted to make stupid mistakes just so he would have to address them and, by extension, her. He was still in nominal charge while they waited for von Ritter to arrive at the end of the week, and he threw his weight about to such an extent that some sections of the orchestra were considering a rebellion.

If he was still drinking, he was hiding it well. This was Lydia’s sole, tiny life-raft of reassurance. He was behaving like an arse, but he was getting better.

“You sure?” asked Lydia.

She and Vanessa were standing in the percussion section while Milan and some of his loyal acolytes were talking loudly about von Ritter’s reputation.

“Of course.”

“You’re not busy this weekend?”

“Just practicing, as usual.”

“Nobody to…see?” Lydia swerved her eyes over to Ben, who was chatting with some trombonists.

Vanessa smiled, much too broadly, and looked at her feet.

“No,” she said.

“Okay, then. That’d be nice. Thanks.”

“Pack a bag for tomorrow’s rehearsal, then.”

Before Lydia could turn to leave, Vanessa seized her in an unexpected bear hug.

“You’re doing the right thing,” she said. “He isn’t stable. You need stable.”

* * * *

It was reinforced to Lydia exactly how unstable he was that night, when she received a phone call.

It was two in the morning, and the caller display said ‘Milan’. Fearing that he might have been involved in some terrible accident, she snatched up the phone and answered with a trembling voice.

“Hello?”

“Lydia,” he purred. He was drunk and there was lots of noise in the background. “Come and save me.”

“What? What’s happening? Where are you?”

She had one foot out of bed already, ready to fling on some clothes and fly to his rescue.

“I’m at home,” he said. “Where else?”

“What’s happening? Is something wrong?”

“Come to me,
miláčku
. Come…to…ah, fuck.”

The line went dead.

Lydia felt competing waves of fury and fear. The noise had included music and laughter. It sounded like he was having a party. He’d got drunk and maudlin, that was all. Wasn’t it? What if that
wasn’t
all?

She dithered for a while. Should she go over there? But it would mean getting dressed, getting an expensive night taxi, probably just to find him lying passed out on the bed. If anyone let her into the building, that was.

No. She wasn’t going to rise to this bait. It was the brandy talking, no doubt.

And why the
hell
was he still drinking, anyway?

She pulled her covers back up to her chin and failed to sleep until morning.

* * * *