Nocturne (21 page)

But I ached to touch her. I was out of control, my body aching with unchecked lust. The lights lowered as the next song began, a slow song, a ballad. Instinctively I started to let go, my hands loosening.

Why not?

The thought was … unnecessary, wrong. But without transition my hands slipped from her arms down to her waist. I pulled her to me as her hands rose to my shoulders. The touch of her skin, shifting just beneath that insubstantial dress, was intoxicating.

“You dance remarkably well.” As I spoke I tried to keep my breathing under control. I tried to keep my thoughts and emotions under control.
She was a student.
No matter that she’d spent the summer on the faculty at Tanglewood, in a matter of two weeks we would be back at the conservatory, back to our normal roles.

Struggling to get my thoughts under control, I said, “Where did you take lessons?”

She raised one eyebrow, as she leaned back just slightly to look in my eyes. “Lessons? You don’t need lessons to dance, Gregory, you just move with the music.”

With her in my arms, my hands just touching her waist, I wasn’t even conscious of any music playing. I took a breath as we moved slightly closer to each other. Too close, really. Her dress was a light fabric, smooth and barely there. The muscles at the base of her back seemed to tense where my hands rested. “Chaotic as always, Miss Marshall.”

She grinned. “We’re back to
Miss Marshall
now?”

“Savannah. I was commenting on your resistance to structure.”

She shook her head slightly. “What’s your deal, Gregory? I don’t get it.”

I turned us in a gentle circle and said, “My
deal
? Please explain, I don’t understand.”

Her eyebrows worked. I’d seen them before, moving independently of each other sometimes, as if they had minds of their own. I was certain it was completely unconscious. Fascinating, and somehow insanely attractive.

“You’re always so … structured. But broody. Dark. Sometimes I think there’s something inside of you just ready to explode.”

I swallowed. “I assure you, Savannah, I am what you see. A musician.”

My fingertips touched at the small of her back as we moved closer to each other. An intense urge to run my hands over the refined curve of her backside flashed through me. The thought made me suck in a quick breath.

“I don’t think so, Gregory. I think there’s a lot more inside than you show.”

I wanted to tell her more. I wanted to tell her how it felt the first time I heard the cello. The first time my hands brought a note, alive and amazing, from that instrument. Sometimes I felt there was nothing more important than music ... that when the writing and words and pretensions people used as barriers were all stripped away, in the end it was only music that could truly be shared as a universal language.

I didn’t know how to say any of that. And, no one had ever asked me to. But looking in her eyes, swimming in those eyes, I thought she understood. For the first time in my life I felt a gaping empty wound in myself, a wound I’d stuffed with nothing more than melody for all those years and suddenly that
wasn’t enough.

“Perhaps,” I replied. “But all music has depths that don’t show on the surface.”

She gave me a quirky grin at that, and against my better judgment, I pulled her a little bit closer. Our bodies touched down their entire length, and my breath was coming in short, fractured moments. In my arms she felt right … real, and our faces were almost touching. We swayed slightly with the music, and her full, shiny lips grinned a little wider as our eyes met. Against my will, I found my own mouth curving up into a smile.

That made her eyes widen. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. Does that hurt?”

Good god. I felt myself laugh a little. “You are one smart-mouthed young woman.”

That made her smile even wider. “You are an ill-tempered old man, which makes no sense considering how young you are. I don’t get it. Most musicians would kill for what you have.”

I stumbled over her statement. What I had? Did she mean
her
in my arms right now? It was true. But then I realized she was talking about something else entirely when she continued.

“You’re probably the most talented cellist the BSO has fielded in years, and it’s not enough?”

I was oddly disappointed. Because the experience of having her in my arms, dancing, was … unique. Fascinating. It had a music all its own. But I kept my thoughts to myself and kept the conversation away from that.

“I always strive to improve.”

“To what end?”

“Mastery.”

She smiled and shook her head. “You amaze and appall me at the same time.”

I found myself grinning. “In that, Savannah, the feeling is completely mutual.”

Her eyes widened. They were dark eyes, but beautiful. Her voice breathy as she spoke the next words. “I amaze you?”

“You do. You’re … erratic. Dynamic. Incredibly talented. Brilliant. There were days in my class where I wanted to shake you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Shake me?”

“In … frustration. In …”

I found myself floundering. I’m only articulate with bow and cello in hand. What I wanted to say was ... that I wanted to touch her. That I wanted to hold her, just like this. That I wanted to look in her eyes and see admiration. Affection.

“Savannah...” my voice trailed off. Our lips were so close, I would only have to move a fraction, a few bare centimeters, and they would have touched.

“Gregory?” When she replied, her voice sounded small, shaky. She sounded almost as confused as I felt.

What I really wanted to do at that moment was lean in. Closer. Her eyes seemed huge as I took a deep breath and considered my options.

And that’s when I realized the song had ended, and a new one started. A loud, raucous pop song, and dancers were moving onto the floor around us. The change broke the mood, suddenly, and she stepped back, away from me.

She had a wounded look in her eyes as she said, “I have to go to the ladies’ room. Um ... I’ll be … I’ll be back.”  She backed away from me, stumbling a little, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.

I stood in the middle of the dance floor, my breath slowing, feeling bereft, and an unfamiliar ache in my chest.

That’s when I heard an all too familiar voice. “Gregory!”

I turned around and felt my face slip into a mask.
Karin
stood on the edge of the dance floor.
Where had she come from? What was she doing here?
Mechanically, my limbs almost numb, I moved toward her.

“Karin, what are you doing here?”

She gave me a piercing look. “I came to see you. This is the last night for the Institute, right? You told me weeks ago all the instructors blew off some steam tonight.”

I swallowed. Indeed, I had told her that. I’d mentioned it in passing quite a long time ago, but I hadn’t exactly intended it as an invitation. Nor had we really spoken since she’d given me her … not exactly an ultimatum ... back in the spring.

“Anyway,” she said, “I came here hoping to find you, but it seems you’ve found Savannah Marshall.”

I shook my head slightly. Nothing was going on with Savannah. If I repeated that enough times, the reason
why
might resurface in my conscience. I swallowed.

“Just dancing,” I said. The words seemed to stick in my throat. Because they were a lie. That was much more than merely dancing. I could still feel Savannah’s body against mine.

“Can we talk then?” Karin asked.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t really want to talk. Not to her. Not now.

As I looked over my shoulder to the restrooms, I saw Savannah move past the bar. She was in a hurry for the front door, it seemed. Her back was rigid, her steps furious.

“Karin,” I said. “Perhaps later ...”

Then I stopped talking. I stopped breathing. I stopped thinking, because the pain was too much. At the door, Savannah looked over her shoulder. Her eyes fell on me, and on Karin, at the edge of the dance floor. Her face held an indescribable expression, one I’d do anything to capture in a song, but also one I’d do anything to erase. The bleak turmoil in her eyes speared my chest like a blade.

Her eyes swept away from me.

Then, she was gone.

Gregory

M
y eyelids were heavy and felt as though they were lined with sandpaper. The tension I felt seared through my chest and shoulders. I’d been up for hours. Not voluntarily. Once I’d finally seen a disappointed Karin off, I’d returned to the house only to lie awake, staring at the ceiling. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw a hurt and distressed Savannah hurrying for the door of the bar.

I’d almost kissed her. Almost. We’d been so close to each other, and instead of an intrusion, she’d felt … at home there.

I wanted her, and she ran.

I finally drifted off to a restless, unsatisfying sleep at midnight, but then my eyes snapped open again, and fell on the clock, only to see that it was merely 2:30 a.m. I rolled over, unable to clear my mind of thoughts of her. Of her lips, of her eyes, my hands on her hips. The music pounding into our bodies as we danced.

I tried to go back to sleep. But I failed. Which is why I found myself standing in front of Madeline’s house at 3 o’clock in the morning. My head felt cloudy, my thoughts making little sense.

I knew Savannah was here alone. Madeline and James had returned to his room together, which gave me even more reason to leave the house. They’d have been embarrassed if they’d known I was awake.

I stood there at the door for possibly five—or a thousand—minutes, my hand hovering over the doorbell.

Before I could press it, the door opened.

Savannah stood in the doorway, Her eyes were blurry, red rimmed. I couldn’t tell if I’d woken her or she’d been tossing and turning as I had. She wore a long white t-shirt that fell to her knees, and her blonde hair was tousled. It was all I could do to prevent myself from reaching out and touching it.

She blinked at me three or four times. Waiting, perhaps, for me to say something.

“Savannah …”

Without a word, she grabbed my hands and pulled me into the house.

She shook her head. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see you.”

Her eyelashes swept down as she looked at the floor. She swallowed, then her face set in a grim expression and she looked back up at me. “Why?”

Unexpectedly, I found myself shaking. “I had to see you.”

She shook her head, an infinitesimal movement. “You’re a professor, Gregory.”

“Does that matter? I’m not
your
professor.”

She looked away from me. “It should.”

I took a deep breath. “I know it should. But it doesn’t. Not to me.”

“What do you want from me?” She looked right through me as she said the words. The resignation in her tone chilled my core.

My heart was pounding. What did I want from her? How could I answer that? How could I explain to her what I wanted, when I had no idea myself? I wanted to make love to her. I wanted to make music with her. I thought about that moment when she raised her flute and I touched bow to string for the first time, and we looked at each other across those bare feet of space, and wove our song together. I wanted that again. I’d never experienced that with anyone else. Right there in front of our colleagues, I felt as if I’d performed the most intimate of acts. How could I say that? How could I tell her that I desperately wanted to touch her. That I wanted to kiss those lips. That for the first time in my life I wanted to experience a deep emotional connection with a woman, a connection that transcended everything.

My mind frantically sought an acceptable and normal response to her question. Without a conscious decision, I spoke. “You’re doing the Assobio a Jato for your senior recital, yes? I’ll practice it with you … perform it with you.”

Her face looked confused … then disappointed. Her shoulders dropped a fraction as she exhaled, and then she said, “You showed up here at three in the morning for that?”

I closed my eyes. The tension in my body and throat was worse than any recital or performance, worse than any audition I’d ever performed. It was almost painful to speak. My voice came out strangled, too fast, too much force, too much
everything.
“I want much more than that, Savannah. But as you said …” I trailed off, not wanting to remind her of her protests.

Her eyes watered a little and she blinked, moving inches from my body in one graceful motion. “This isn’t … it isn’t right. For either one of us.”

“I don’t care.” The words came out in a rush of breath.

I closed the remaining distance between us. She pressed her palm against my chest, as if to stop me. She leaned her head back, and my eyes fell to her lips. She took a deep breath. The very same spot where her hand had rested when we stood in the rain. Where we kissed.

“I care,” she whispered. “I can’t do this.” But her hand, which was poised to push me away, curled up, bunching my shirt up into her fist, and she pulled herself toward me.

“I can’t either,” I said. “We’ll be back at the conservatory in two weeks. It’s too dangerous. You’re too dangerous.”