Caressa's Knees (12 page)

The shows were going fine, but she felt like shit. She’d thrown up a wall between them and he aggravated her by stubbornly staying on his side. He still managed everything, kept her on schedule, made sure she had room service and dry cleaning. He got her to interviews and appointments. He hauled her cello on and off planes and through hotel lobbies, up and down elevators. He never once bumped it or banged it into the wall.

He never touched her either.

She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. The music mattered. She kept her mind on music all day without a problem. The better she played, the better she felt. She practiced and felt the concerto that was once her enemy becoming more like a friend. New aspects of the work opened up and she embraced them, sometimes in the hot chaos of a performance and sometimes as she sat quietly eating or resting. She was actually fine until she turned out the lights at night and remembered the feel of him holding her down, pressing into her. Her body betrayed her will, and wouldn’t let her forget.

She finally gave up on sleep and threw off the sheets, sitting up and hugging her knees to her chest. She’d moved the bed against the wall because she knew he was on the other side of it, and now she leaned against it as if he might feel her in the next room and know she needed him. Needed
him
? God, did she really need him? She had a handle on the concerto finally, and she was getting into the rhythm of life on tour.

He
certainly
didn’t need her. Everywhere they went, women gawked at him. A lot of them openly made passes. Ugh. He might have a woman with him right now, in the hotel room next to hers. She pressed her ear against the coolness of the wall but she heard nothing.

Well, she couldn’t just sit in the room and stew. Tomorrow was a traveling day, so she could stay up late if she wanted to. She got dressed and put on a little lipstick and grabbed her key to go downstairs. She’d go hang in the bar, do some people-watching. Maybe try to buy a drink without ID. She looked a little older with her hair pulled back.

As she left, she caught the door so it wouldn’t slam. If Kyle was in there fucking some lucky woman, God forbid she would disturb him. Maybe he was sleeping. She thought just a moment of knocking on the door. After the rooftop incident he’d told her to always keep him advised of her whereabouts, but it wasn’t like she was leaving the hotel. She shrugged and continued down the hall.

The bar was like every other hotel bar she’d ever been in.
Slick and yet depressingly sterile.
Dark and a little smoky.
Not very crowded,
which screwed the people-watching idea.
She sat at a table near the door, glancing around and gathering up her courage to try to finagle a drink from the bartender. She was almost twenty-one anyway. Maybe she should just show the guy her ID and hope he’d spot her a few weeks. Just as she decided to try it her problem was solved, because a businessman appeared at her elbow with two beers in his hand.

“Hello.
Lonely?”

Caressa looked at him, not sure what to respond.
Yes, I’m lonely.
No, not for you.
Not that he wasn’t attractive in a rich businessman kind of way.
He was pretty short and not classically handsome, but he exuded success and power. He was probably some corporate higher-up on a business trip. When she didn’t answer, he held out one of the beers, a question in his eyes.

After a moment, she took it. “Thanks.”

“Can I sit down?”

“Sure.”

He sat beside her, not crowding her. He didn’t seem to be too drunk or sloppy. “So, are
you
lonely?” she asked, turning his question back on him.

He laughed. “Not really.
Just bored.
I’ve been in a hundred of these hotel bars.
Hundreds of hotel rooms.
They get old.”

Caressa looked down at the beer bottle. It was some brand she’d never heard of, probably some expensive import. She took a tentative sip. “Yeah, I know.”

He looked surprised, or perhaps amused. “Aren’t you a little young to be jaded by travel?”

She shrugged, made nervous by the way he scrutinized her. She hated the taste of the beer, but she didn’t want to be rude and not drink it. She took another miniscule sip and let the bitter liquid sit on her tongue. “I travel for a living,” she finally said.

“Doing what?”

Caressa hesitated. How much should she tell him about herself? He was a complete stranger. Her eyes darted around the room. It’s not like she wasn’t safe here. It’s not like he could make her do anything she didn’t want to do, no matter how rich and assertive he seemed. She inched away from him a little and smiled, toying with the neck of her beer bottle. “I’m a musician,” she said. “I play with various orchestras. I’m touring right now.”

“Ah.” He looked duly impressed. “What instrument do you play?”

“Cello.”

“I used to play a little sax back in the day.” He smiled ruefully. “I didn’t keep up with it. Doubt I could play a note now.”

“Really?
Music is like bike-riding. You never forget.”

“Maybe.
My name’s Michael, by the way.”

“Hi, Michael.
I’m Caressa.”

He shook her hand with a warm, firm grip. She thought he shook it a little too long.
“Caressa.
That’s different. So I take it you’re not a Seattleite.”

“No. I’m a New Yorker.”

“I’m from Toronto.” She watched him take a deep drink of his beer and tipped her bottle back too. He was old enough to be her father. She got the feeling he liked that. She turned a little from his intent gaze, and then noticed a tall, dark-haired man sitting at the far end of the bar. His face lifted and all-too-familiar eyes latched on to hers. She quickly lowered the beer bottle from her lips, but he was already up.

“Um…” was all she managed to get out before he arrived at the table.

“Making new friends?” Kyle bit out.

“Excuse me?” Michael’s voice bristled.

Kyle pushed her beer back to his side of the table. “Yeah, she’s not old enough to be drinking that. And really not old enough for a business-trip hookup either. If you’ll excuse us,” he drawled, pulling Caressa from her chair and leading her toward the door.

“Let go of me.” She pulled her arm away, too embarrassed to look back and see what Michael was making of this.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked.

“What are
you
doing down here?” she shot back.

“I was trying not to have a drink, Caressa.
Although I’m legally of age to do so.
Unlike you.”

“I’m almost twenty-one. And what do you mean, ‘trying not to have a drink’? Why were you in the bar, then?”

“That’s a story for another day. So were you seriously planning to hook up with that toad?”

“He was very nice.”

“Said the hopelessly naive victim.
He’s a married businessman on a trip wanting to screw you after he got a few beers in you.”

“How do you know that?”

“How do you
not
know that? Seriously, you scare me sometimes.”

He was leading her to the elevators. She pulled away, turning on him. “Don’t talk to me like that.
Like I’m a stupid, naive idiot!”

He looked around the mostly deserted lobby and steered her into the elevator as the doors opened. She stood as far away from him as the small compartment would allow, her arms crossed over her chest. “Maybe I wanted to sleep with him. Did you ever think of that?”

He gave her a look that silenced her. When they reached their floor, he walked her to her room. “I asked you to tell me whenever you’re going somewhere.
Especially alone.”

She didn’t reply, just looked at the floor. She hated this, being lectured like a child. He hadn’t been interested in lecturing when he was busy fucking her. She wanted to say that, how much he hurt her, how cruel he was to desert her, but he hadn’t deserted her. She’d forced him away. She looked up at him, torn by emotion and confusion.
Big mistake.
He looked down at her and she knew he saw everything she felt but couldn’t say. The irritated lines of his face softened.

“I didn’t really want to sleep with him,” she said.

Still his gaze held hers. She reached out for him with one hand, hating herself for doing it, but unable to do anything else. Her fingers met the hard planes of his stomach and moved lower to play over the crest of his hip. The words—
I wanted to sleep with you
—were unspoken but understood. The softness in his face transformed again into something intent and dangerous. “There is…” She stopped, remembering how she’d leaned against the wall to listen for him. “There is this wall between us.”

“You put that wall there.”

“I know, but…”

He waited. She didn’t know what came after that
but
… After a moment he put his hand over her hand where it was toying with the waistband of his jeans.

“Would you like to spend tonight with me, Caressa?”

Time seemed to stand still. She wanted to answer in a thousand different ways, but finally she just whispered, “Yes.”

“No walls though,” he warned her. “Just you and me, and all the things I want to do to you.”

“No walls,” she agreed.
Whatever.
Whatever you want.
Do all those things to me.

* * * * *

Once the door closed, she lost her nerve a little. He stood as if ready to…what? Do something to her. He intended
something
, and that both excited and scared her. She had come to think of Kyle in two ways…as a cool, responsible assistant and a rough, impassioned lover. Now he seemed a strange combination of both—coolly calculating and sexually threatening. She skirted the outside of the room, coming to stop beside the TV.

“So…I’m kind of scared to hear about these ‘things’ you just alluded to.”

“You should be scared.” He was still staring.

“You’re a massive pervert, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea. But you
are,
of course, free to tap out at any time.” He finally moved, taking off his shirt and laying it over the chair to his right. His hands went to his jeans, unbuckling the belt and popping open the buttons with that same dexterity that made him seem so dangerous from the start. “I doubt you’ll leave though. What’s that they say? ‘Curiosity killed the cat’.”

“Are you going to kill me?” She gawked as he kicked off his jeans, revealing a very distinctive bulge in his boxer briefs.

He chuckled. “You’ve survived thus far.” The boxers came off and he stood before her in all his breathtaking, masculine glory. She had the sudden impulse to drop to her knees. But before she could do anything, he crossed to her and put his hands on her, on her neck, on her shoulders, down the sides of her hips, and then to the curve of her buttocks. He kissed her, impulsively, sloppily, as if he hadn’t meant to but couldn’t quite resist. He pulled away and unbuttoned the printed blouse he’d helped choose for her, to reveal the delicate ivory bra she’d chosen for herself. He paused, running his fingers over the tiny row of buttons.

“I like this,” he said quietly. “Understated and yet ornate, like you.”

“I’m not ornate,” she said. “What does that even mean?”

“You’ll see.” He unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down over her hips with flat, warm palms caressing every inch of skin on the way. God, she was already so wet for him. She wanted what she’d had before. She wanted him to throw her down and fuck her so her skin was scraped against the rough hotel carpet.

He knelt, not yet removing her panties. “Very nice…” He slid his fingers down the tiny row of buttons at the front, matched to the ones on her bra, and then his tongue traced the path his fingers took. She could feel the wet, warm trail through the sheer silk as she looked down in wonder at his broad shoulders, his dark hair. She moaned as he pressed his lips to the apex of her cleft.

At the same time, his fingers slipped up her panties and parted her, and one delved into her soaked pussy. She whimpered and grasped his shoulders. The pleasure was crippling, immediate. The teasing of his tongue through the silk was magnified by the slow in-and-out invasion of his finger. Soon, another finger pushed up inside, filling her, stroking her. She wanted to rip off the panties and feel his tongue against her clit, not this horrible, half-fulfilled state of craving and wanting. Her fingers twisted in his hair and she moaned out a wordless plea.

He pulled his fingers away and yanked her to the floor with two strong hands on her hips. He crawled over her, one solid knee pressed to the juncture of her legs. She ground against it, unthinking,
a
hapless creature of pure, wanton desire.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

She stilled, confused.
Not yet?
He was killing her. He left his knee where it was and pulled down the cups of her bra, exposing hard, pink nipples. He gave her a look, of challenge or perhaps warning, and then he put his lips on her and suckled her. Warm wet arousal became frantic alarm as his lips and teeth tightened on the sensitive bud. God, it
hurt
! But it felt…so…amazing…