Chapter Nine
Eventually we discovered the bed.
After we did, we stayed there all night. The next Wednesday when I arrived, he was there waiting for me, and with hardly any words at all, we headed straight to the bedroom. There wasn’t any place I’d rather be. I’d never had sex like I did with JC—primal and heated and unrestrained. He pushed me to make noise, to be heard, to free my voice. He continued to question me, continued to beg for reassurance in his subtext.
I gave him what he asked for. I answered, I cried out. He even made me scream once or twice. After only a handful of nights, I knew him in ways I’d never known another person. Knew his body, knew what turned him on and off. Knew when he wanted me to beg. Knew when he wanted me to bend.
And I still didn’t have the slightest clue what the initials JC stood for.
Overall, our arrangement was working out pretty well. Though I was wrong about one thing—I did fall asleep. Not the first night we spent together, but the next. It was February, and I was fighting a cold. Plus, I was still worrying about Ben, who seemed better from the reports that we received, but still wouldn’t talk to us.
Those were my excuses for nodding off, but truthfully, JC had worn me out. He’d fucked me until we were hungry and needed to order room service. Then, after we’d finished eating, he’d fucked me until I slipped into sweet oblivion.
When I woke, I found my body exquisitely sore and the bed very much empty.
I waffled, trying to decide if I really wanted to get up and look for him or if the warmth of the covers was too enticing to move. His voice drifted in from the living room, and my ears perked up. But he was too quiet to be talking to me, so I decided he must be on the phone. I glanced at the nightstand clock—it was almost three. Was he ordering more food?
Then I noticed his tone had an edge to it that I’d never witnessed in my carefree lover. A mixture of curiosity and concern pulled me to investigate.
Still naked, I crept out of the bedroom, not wanting to disturb him, and stood back at the mouth of the room. He’d thrown on his boxer briefs and was pacing the room, his ear pressed against his cell. I could hear the faint buzz of the other person on the line—a man—who was doing most of the talking. Occasionally, JC would interject with an “Uh-huh.” Even in those short syllables his irritation was evident.
After a few seconds, he stopped suddenly and said, “Yeah, I’m pissed.” It sounded like the response to a question. Something like, Are you mad? “And no, it’s not because you called me at three in the fucking morning, though that isn’t helping.”
I knew I shouldn’t be listening. Despite my guilt, I couldn’t move. I was frozen—captivated by this glimpse into JC’s other world. The world that was his real world and had nothing to do with me.
The other guy said something to which JC responded, “People don’t just vanish without a trace. And I’m paying you a shitload to keep an eye on him.”
A chill ran through me. Where I could usually separate myself from interest in JC, I suddenly was very intrigued. Who was he paying? What was so important to disturb JC in the middle of the night? Who was JC watching and why?
The questions maybe should have made me fearful of the man I’d been sharing a bed with once a week, but oddly they didn’t. Whatever JC was involved in, it had nothing to do with me. But now I had a glimpse of the reasons he needed to escape from his life. The reasons he came looking for me.
Most of all, I could tell he was upset. And I had an overwhelming desire to make it better.
“Listen,” he said into the receiver now, his voice eerily low and controlled. “I don’t want to hear any more excuses. Whether there’s enough to hold anything against him means squat if the guy is MIA. Either you track down the motherfucker or I’ll find someone who can.”
He didn’t bother pushing the button to end the call, but the call was over. For a moment, I thought he was going to throw his cell. Instead he swept an arm across the desk and knocked the ceramic lamp and a clear vase with flowers to the ground, where both shattered.
I jerked in surprise.
That was when he noticed me.
His eyes met mine, his hands in tight balls at his hips, his chest rising and falling as he tried to get control of his anger. Fortunately, it didn’t appear as if any of his rage was directed at me.
The light on the floor flickered on and off. On again. Then off for good. I took a step into the dark room, now only lit by what came through the windows. “Wanna talk about it?”
He shook his head.
“Do you want me to leave?” I didn’t want to go. I wanted to tug him back into the haven of our bed and help him forget whatever was bothering him. Just like all the times he’d done that for me.
But that wasn’t what we were supposed to be for each other. We weren’t comfort—we were distractions. And if a distraction wasn’t what he needed right now, I would respect that.
The lamp on the floor flickered back on suddenly. JC said nothing, just continued to stare at me, his eyes wild in the blast of light.
He suddenly looked as sad as he was angry. As tormented as he was frustrated. Again, I had the urge to soothe him. It pulled at me from deep in my chest, much higher than the region of my body that feelings regarding JC usually originated.
It unnerved me more than anything else I’d seen or heard in the last few minutes. And with JC’s continued silence, I made the decision myself. “I’ll go. Just give me a minute to—”
“I have another idea,” he said, cutting me off. He stepped over the lamp and found the jeans he’d abandoned on the floor earlier in the evening. “Get your bra and panties on. And grab one of the hotel robes from the bathroom.”
“Okay. Why?”
“We’re going on a little field trip.”
When I came back from dressing, JC had put his jeans on but was still shirtless. It was a good look on him—his boxers peeking out, the deep lines at his hips that disappeared beneath his pants, the trail of light hair that dusted his perfectly taut abdomen. He wasn’t wearing shoes, so I didn’t bother with any either.
Without a word, he opened the front door and led me out. We often spent time with each other without speaking, but the silence between us was never tight and tense as it was now. I wasn’t sure he really wanted me with him. I wasn’t sure that I even was with him. I walked right next to him. I matched his stride. But not once did he look at me. We could have been strangers who happened to be going down a hall together.
In many ways, that’s exactly what we were—strangers.
I should have gone home. What was I even doing with this guy in the first place? I didn’t want to be wrapped up in his drama, which he obviously had, but I also didn’t like being purposefully left out of it.
Usually, he made me feel wanted. Right now, I didn’t feel that in the least. But what I did feel—the reason I followed him despite the tension radiating off his body—was needed. He needed me. Maybe only for tonight, maybe only for this hour. But I knew that sure as I knew anything.
We took the elevators down but got off on the meeting rooms level. The corridor was empty, but I still felt strange walking around the hotel half-dressed. I wrapped my robe tighter around myself and read the signs as we passed by—Salons A&B, The Sutton Room, The Boardroom. We went through another set of doors and turned left into a pre-function room. At the Madison Suite, he stopped.
JC tried the door handle. It didn’t turn. Then he pulled his hotel keycard from his back pocket and slid it in the seam of the door.
My entire body went rigid. “What are you doing?”
“A trick. This door has a faulty lock so if you—” There was a click, and this time the knob turned. “There we go. Come on.” He opened the door and stepped aside for me to walk in.
Tentatively, I stepped inside. JC flicked one of the switches on the wall and a single row of lights illuminated enough of the room that I could now see. It was a fairly small room with nothing much in it except for a baby grand piano on the far wall.
I heard the click of the door behind me and turned to see JC had shut us in. My heart was pounding, my palms sweaty. “Did we just break into a meeting room at the Four Seasons?”
He shrugged as he walked past me, heading toward the piano. “I wouldn’t call it breaking in exactly. Nothing got broken that wasn’t already broken.”
My pulse quickened. “JC!”
“What?”
“We aren’t supposed to be here!” If it was possible to yell and whisper at the same time, that’s what I was doing.
JC, however, talked at a normal volume. “Relax. It’s fine.”
Relax. As if. I was a rule follower. And this? This was definitely breaking the rules.
JC had reached the piano now. He pulled out the bench to sit on it then he looked back at me. For the first time since I’d found him on his mysterious phone call, he really looked at me. The way he usually did. With lust, with desire. With camaraderie. With intimacy. “Come on,” he coaxed. “Trust me.”
Always with the trust me. He had me with those words.
I crossed the room to him without another question. At the piano, I leaned into the curve and tried to settle my nerves by rationalizing the situation. Nothing was going to happen. No one was going to discover us. And if they did, what kind of trouble would we get in? JC was a valued client. He’d get a slap on the wrist. That’s all.
I managed to calm myself. Until JC pushed back the lid over the keyboard and played a few notes on the high end. “Oh my God, what are you doing? Someone will hear you.”
I detested how I sounded like a complete stick-in-the-mud. It wouldn’t have surprised me if JC were more than a little irritated with me about it.
He met my eyes, and I braced myself for his chiding. Instead, he gave a reassuring smile. “Gwen. Calm down. I’ve done this before. It’s fine. The walls in here are pretty thick. They’re designed to keep noise in. And if anyone does hear, they never complain. People like the sound of a faint piano in the background.”
He was so confident, so sure of himself. “You have permission to be here, don’t you?” I asked. “You’re trying to push my boundaries.”
“No. I don’t. I just want to play the piano. So sit down and shush so I can.”
It wasn’t his commanding tone that convinced me. It was the hidden plea underneath. I heard the need in his words. It echoed the unspoken need that kept me with him. Whatever had upset him from the phone call, this was how he needed to deal with it. This was his coping mechanism.
And for whatever reason, he needed to share it with me.
It shut me up. “Okay.”
I sat down on the ground and hugged my knees to my chest as JC started to run his fingers up and down the keyboard. Basic scales, but they were rhythmic and smooth and I suspected he had good technique despite not having a clue about what good technique was.
“I didn’t know you played.” I didn’t know anything about him. Why this specific thing I didn’t know was surprising was beyond me.
JC shrugged, even as his hands ran meticulously up and down again and again. One scale after another. “Rich parents who liked to occupy their child so they didn’t have to spend time with him.”
His response had been unexpected. He’d never shared anything about himself. I felt like a child clinging on to a beloved kite string in a windstorm the way I clung to this tidbit of information.
I wanted more of it. Tentatively, I pushed him. “They gave you lessons so they could ignore you?”
“Shh,” he said. But he nodded.
I might have said more, but his scales transitioned then into something familiar. A melody I knew inside and out. The piece was haunting and stirring and reflected so much from my past that it was hard to put it in context in the present. I closed my eyes and let the dark notes fall over me. Let them drown me in memories.
Her. Young. Happy. I could still picture her doing dishes while the cheap tape recorder played a collection of her favorites. It was her most cherished possession. Her only possession.
I hadn’t listened to the music in a long time now, but for a while, after her death, I listened to it all the time. Playing it until the tape had worn and long stretches of silence interrupted what had been her favorite sounds.
This song was equally bitter and sweet. Hearing it hurt as much as it healed. And JC, playing it now—I recognized it was the same for him. The way his back bent over the keys, the way his dynamics grew and subsided organically. He felt as he played. He felt deeply.
By the time he’d finished, I’d forgotten my anxiety about our whereabouts. He too, seemed lighter. His shoulders relaxed and the tension about him was almost gone. He took his hands off the keys and placed them into his lap.
He didn’t look at me for several seconds, for which I was glad. He’d played brilliantly. He was obviously a very skilled musician. And I needed the time to focus on those aspects of his performance instead of what the piece had done to me.
Finally, when he snuck a glance my way, I was ready. “That was stunning, JC. Truly.”
He nodded once, and I realized he was uncomfortable with praise. So strange. He deserved so much praise.
But if that wasn’t what he wanted, I’d have to connect in another way.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Philip Glass.” Specifically Metamorphosis II. I hadn’t known the names of the pieces when she played them, but I’d learned them when I bought a CD for Norma as a Christmas gift years later.
His head turned to me, his eyes surprised and pleased. “Very good. Not many people can identify him.”
There weren’t any solo piano pieces I could identify except Philip Glass. “My mother loved all his music. She was obsessed.”
“Was?”
I didn’t usually answer questions about my mother. But he’d given me a piece of his past when he’d mentioned his parents. It seemed only fair to return with a piece of my own. “She died when I was seven.”
“Died how?”
“Complications due to pneumonia.” I didn’t tell him that the main complication was that she’d had her lungs kicked in by my father when he was on a tirade. It wasn’t mentioned on her medical chart either. No one looked into it. No one asked. It was the norm in the area I lived in. The poorest hospitals didn’t often spend much time on the cases of patients who couldn’t pay for their care.
JC didn’t press. I was surprised he’d asked for any information at all. The funny thing was that, now that I’d started talking, I actually wanted to keep on talking. I never talked about the past. But now, if he asked, I would have told him everything.
But he didn’t ask. So I didn’t tell. I moved up to the bench to sit beside him. “Play me something else.”
His hands perched on the keys, but he didn’t play yet. “More Philip Glass?”
Since we weren’t going to talk about her, I didn’t want to think about her anymore either. “No. Anything but that.”
I recognized the piece he performed next but couldn’t name the composer. It had the same haunting, hollow feeling of the Glass piece. It wasn’t as simple—his hands danced nimbly across the notes, his arms stretching past me to reach the higher end of the instrument.
He played beautifully. Exquisitely. Incredibly. I was lost in the sound. Lost in the movement. It occurred to me he was telling me more about himself without words during the course of playing that song than he had the entire time I’d known him.
When he finished with the movement, he shut the cover to the piano and stood up.
I followed him to a standing position. “Show’s over, I guess.”
“Yeah. Show’s over.” He stepped away from the bench and turned away from me as he shook out his hands, and I wondered what it was that he was hiding from me. What he didn’t want me to see on his face.
It wasn’t my place to pry. But maybe he wanted me to ask, just as I’d wanted him to ask. I opened my mouth to do that, not quite sure what I’d say, when I heard a noise coming from the far side of the meeting room. Or more accurately, on the other side of the wall on the far side of the room.
JC cocked his head. “It’s the cleaning crew,” he said. “They vacuum on Thursdays for the weekend.”
“That’s our cue to go.”
I started toward the door, but when I turned back to see if JC was following, I found he hadn’t moved. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before we’re caught.”
He took a step in my direction, his head cocked. “I don’t think so.”
“What? You’re joking. We have to go.” I laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. He was teasing me. I was sure of it. And I didn’t like to be teased.
He met my giggle with a somber expression. “I think, Gwen, that this is a perfect opportunity to try something else. Push your boundaries, as you said earlier.”
“JC, I’m serious.” But the shiver that ran through me was as much excited as scared.
“So am I. Come here.”
I went to him because, hell, that’s what I did. I came when I was called. When I was close enough, he reached out, wrapped his hands in my robe and tugged me up against him. Hovering his mouth above mine, he whispered, “How quiet can you be?”
After he’d taught me to be loud? “Not that quiet,” I whispered back. “Besides, if you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, I’m not interested.”
“I haven’t suggested anything yet. And I think that you’re wrong. I think you’ll be very interested.” He licked my lower lip, teasing me with his tongue.
Suddenly, he drew back and picked me up. He carried me over to the piano and set me down on the closed lid. “Lean back,” he said, at the same time pushing me gently until I lay flat on the piano. The instrument was solid and cold, even through my robe. It was a stark contrast to my jittery nerves and the heat that pulsed through my veins. I knew where this was going. I knew I’d soon be stripped and fondled. I knew that we could be caught.
Yet, I did nothing to stop him.
I didn’t protest as he pulled my panties down and dropped them on the bench behind him. I let him pull me forward so my ass was directly at the edge of the instrument. When he bent my legs to prop my feet on either side of me, I didn’t fight. I was opened wide for him, my pussy exposed. And I did nothing to cover myself.
JC sat on the bench. I could feel his scorching gaze on my sex. “Perfect height,” he said, his tone coarse and strained.
The vacuum started up in the next room, reminding me we weren’t alone. I panicked and sat up enough to prop myself on my elbows.
“No, Gwen. Lay still.” His voice was hot and chocolaty. It melted over my apprehension, covering it in sweet luxury that made it almost impossible to remember what I’d been concerned about to begin with.
Almost.
I didn’t lie back down, but I stopped trying to get up.
“They make you nervous.” JC nodded toward the cleaning crew. Then he trailed a finger down the seam of my sex. “But let me worry about them. Let me worry about you.”
“And what will I worry about?”
“You’ll worry about trying not to scream.” He bent forward and swiped his tongue across my clit.
I bit my lip trying not to cry out.
Even with all the nights we’d spent together, JC had never once gone down on me. He’d mentioned it that first day in the hotel room, said that one day he’d suck me off, but after that, he seemed to lose interest. It was the same with blowjobs. Once, when I’d moved to put his cock in my mouth, he’d subtly directed me elsewhere. I’d gotten the hint. Oral was out, for whatever reason. I’d assumed it was too intimate. Or maybe it just wasn’t his thing.
Tonight, he’d changed his mind. Tonight, he seemed to want to make due on his promise.
He swirled his tongue again around my nub, massaging it with light strokes followed by a long, lush lick. He repeated his pattern, his tongue seeming to move in the opposite direction—I couldn’t be sure. I was too consumed with how good he was making me feel to really be able to discern.
Besides being overwhelmed by the physical sensation, I was also lost in the visual one. I was enrapt. Watching him like this, with his head between my legs, his eyes glued to mine as he cherished my most private parts with his tongue—it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
He glided his tongue down farther this time, playing at my entrance. “Do you like watching?” He grazed his teeth across my sensitive flesh.
“Yes,” I said on an inhale.
“I’ve been saving this, did you know?”
I shook my head. I had no words.
“I’ve wanted to please you like this for so long.” He was so close to my cunt, I could feel his breath skate across my moist flesh. “Wanted to suck on you and lick you. Wanted to taste you. Do you know why?”
“Why?” I wanted to know if he’d confirm my silent guess. But I also wanted him to stop talking altogether and return to what he’d been doing.
“Because you’ve never asked. I told you I wanted you to ask.”
Oh. That. He had said that, hadn’t he? Maybe I was the one who had avoided it because of the intimacy level.
“But now I can’t wait any longer. So I’m giving you a pass.”
I started to say thank you, but was distracted by another lick. Then he spread my folds with his fingers and sucked at my clit.
Fuck, it felt insane. So fucking good. Like a fire had been set directly to my nerve center and now I was aflame.
I fell back on the piano, unable to stay up any longer. I gasped and moaned and wriggled. When I tried to push back, to get some relief from the overwhelming sensation of pleasure, he gripped my hips and held me closer. A storm gathered underneath his lips. I grew wetter with each pass of his tongue and the muscles of my thighs tightened as my climax made its impending arrival known.
My foot slipped off the piano, and JC threw it over his shoulder. He drew back to speak again, but this time he replaced his mouth with the expert attention of his thumb. “With as vocal as you’ve become while being fucked, I’m sure this is very hard for you right now.” He spoke evenly and controlled, the exact opposite of how I felt. “But now that you have to work to be quiet, you’re going to be surprised at how amazing it’s going to feel when you come.”
It was hard. I was already struggling with it, my moans having turned into soft, jagged cries.
“If you need to,” he suggested as a finger now dipped lower to circle my rim, “bite down on these.” He dangled my panties in the air. Still holding my underwear up, he bent back down to suck on my, clit simultaneously plunging several fingers inside of me.
I snatched the panties from his grip and stuffed them into my mouth to stifle my scream.
I was vaguely aware of the vacuum in the next room turning off. But it was background noise. Irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was the growing ball of tension inside of me. It tightened as JC stroked and licked me. Tightened and stretched until there was nothing for it to do but burst.
My back arched and rose off the piano as the release slammed through my body, shaking my very core, igniting every cell in my being. My jaw clenched around the muzzle in my mouth as my pussy clenched around JC’s fingers. I was spinning, dizzy. Overwhelmed.
Even as I came, JC didn’t relent. He continued to fuck me with his mouth, with his hand, and while my first climax hadn’t quite ended, I could already feel another building. It was too much. I wanted it to end. Wanted to cry out and beg for him to stop.
And I wanted him to never stop. Wanted to die in the exquisite pleasure of this moment. Felt sure that when he let me finish, I’d be reborn as something new and wild and strong.
Stars burst across my vision as my next orgasm took hold.
Then the whole room flooded with light.
It took a second to register what was happening, especially since my head wasn’t exactly in a place where thought came easily. But JC made it clear. “Shit. We have to go.”
Disoriented, I sat up and, after blinking a few times, realized that the brightness wasn’t from my orgasm but from all the lights being turned on. I spun toward the doors we’d come in through. They were open. A woman dressed in the uniform of the hotel’s cleaning crew was pushing a vacuum through it. She saw us immediately. “Hey, what’s going on over there?”
I didn’t look to see if she came after us. I was too busy hopping off the piano and running with JC out the door closest to us. We fumbled blindly through The Boardroom and out into the corridor, where we sprinted to the elevators.
JC pressed the call button repeatedly, as if it would make the doors open any faster, while I kept glancing behind me, sure that we’d been followed.
But the doors opened and we slipped in before anyone came after us. Inside the car, we looked at each other. Then burst into laughter.
“Sorry,” I said, when I realized we weren’t alone in the car. That was also the moment I realized I had left my panties behind. I tugged my robe tighter around myself and elbowed JC.
He peered over at the couple sharing our ride. Then angled back toward me. He pulled me close—so close that I could feel the ridge of his hard cock through his jeans—and spoke low at my ear. “You were such a good girl. I promise I’ll finish you off in the room. In fact, now that I’ve tasted you, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my mouth off you, whether you ask for it or not.”
Though his voice was quiet, I felt certain the others could hear him.
I didn’t care one bit.
I grinned, leaning in to nuzzle his neck. Immediately, he stiffened. I pulled away, puzzled. I’d just let him bring me to climax with his tongue and his lips, yet he couldn’t let me caress him? Couldn’t handle the intimacy of my hug?
I studied him, looking for an answer, but he turned away, suddenly intrigued by the changing numbers on the elevator panel. When the door opened on our floor, he took my hand and pulled me out behind him without looking at me.
I tried not to let his demeanor disappoint me. It wasn’t what we were to each other, I reminded myself. We weren’t intimate like that. We weren’t personal. I knew what I’d signed up for.
The problem was, I was changing. JC was changing me. Little by little, he’d been tearing down my walls, letting me out.
But his walls stood just as tall and strong as ever.