Caressa's Knees (29 page)

“No, that’s not true. You know that’s not true. You and I will still be here, no matter what.”

“You left me.”

“You sent me away, you maniacal diva.”

Caressa laughed softly, a wondrous sound to his ears. “Why did you come back?” she asked.

Kyle made an impatient noise. “I never left, and I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” He cupped her chin and tipped her face up, pinning her with his gaze. “We have things to talk about, and plenty of time to talk about them. But right now, there are fifteen hundred people out there waiting for you to show them something they’ve never seen.
Something unforgettable.
One hundred thousand fireflies.
You’re the only one who can do it.”

“I can’t do it.”

“That’s a lie.”

“I don’t want to do it,” she insisted. “I don’t.”

“If I believed that for one second, I would carry you out of here. But I don’t believe you. You need to do this. You need to finish this and have a place to stop, at least for a while. After this, you and I are going to take a vacation somewhere and we’re not bringing the cello. We’re going to go somewhere, just you and me, and the only person you’re going to need to please there is you.
Caressa.
Do you understand? You’ve done enough. You’ve satisfied everyone. It’s time to get some distance and find out what Caressa needs and what Caressa wants. The cello will be here when you get back. Okay?”

“Well…” She sniffled. “I guess. But what about pleasing you?”

He smirked at her, running a hand over the intricate embroidery of her dress. “You can do that too, if you choose. Let’s see how it goes.”

“Okay,” she said. She drew in a deep breath, and he saw her steel herself. “But…I guess I’ll need a new bow.”

A fellow musician produced a spare bow and there was a scramble to the wings. Kyle brushed back her hair and wiped the last of the sheen of tears from her face.

“I’m so proud of you,” he whispered. “Go out there and enjoy every second of this.”

She nodded, squeezing his hand in her cold fingers. The venue was in disorganization and the stagehand who was supposed to carry her cello onstage was nowhere to be found. In the end, it was Kyle who followed his lover onto the stage carrying her precious
Peresson
. As she arranged herself in her upholstered chair, Kyle looked out of the corner of his eye into the glare of lights and the sea of shining faces. Even for him, who had seen so much and done so much, the massive-scale scrutiny was daunting.

He looked away, focusing on his lover at his side. She reached for the cello and he passed it to her by its long, slender neck. Her hands shook just a little. Only his eyes could have detected those tiny tremors, but they moved him. She settled the instrument between her knees and looked up at him with a brave, conspiratorial smile.
Oh, Caressa, my God. That I ever thought I could live apart from you.
He had to leave her though, for this. The welcoming applause was dying out and his cello-carrying duties were discharged. On impulse he took her hand before he turned to go, bowing over it with what he hoped was a dashing kiss.

He received more than a few speculative stares as he started back to his balcony seat, but then Caressa began to play and all eyes were on her. If any of her fear or hysteria remained, she didn’t show it. Her playing was a victory, a triumph.
A swan song?
Perhaps.
Or perhaps not.
They would worry about that later.

For now, Kyle let himself sink down into the melodies, those lovely melodies that were just one part of the wonderful whole that was Caressa.
My God, those knees of hers.
He wanted to be between them, clasped between them just like her cello. He should have been the one with the strings drawn vertically down his chest, and the f-holes on either hip. Well, no f-holes. But he’d never really been the conductor, any more than she’d ever really been his to play.

* * * * *

There was a reception after the show to celebrate the last night of her tour, and Kyle made her go to it since the Italians had so graciously thrown it for her. But Caressa had wanted to celebrate something else, and in an entirely different way than wine and pasta. Kyle seemed to know exactly how eager she was to be alone with him, but he insisted she fulfill her duties as the guest of honor before he would let her go.

There were music critics there she recognized, and notable music and cello patrons, all of them effusive in praising her accomplishments on the tour. Kyle stood beside her through all these conversations, silent eye candy. No one probably suspected how many times it almost all
came
tumbling down around her, or how instrumental the man standing at her side had been.

At last the crowds thinned and they made their escape, leaving Aunt Denise at the suite with hugs and reminders of the flight back to New York the following morning. Kyle switched his ticket in the cab on the way to his hotel so they could fly back together. Caressa watched his fingers on the phone, and the casual way he sat back and loosened his tie as they inched through city traffic. It was all she could do not to crawl into his lap, but she made herself sit still and quiet while he talked to a ticket agent in pretty good Italian.

He was so
good
at everything. She was good at one thing, but it didn’t make her happy. Not the way she was currently doing it anyway. She’d take a break, take time to think. Take time to enjoy life and then find out what place music was going to have in her life. But it couldn’t be everything. It couldn’t rule over her. Not anymore.

“Okay?” he asked when he was through, squeezing her hand and looking down at her.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think I’m okay.”

As soon as they got to Kyle’s hotel room, they both stripped, but stood apart as if to gather their defenses. Caressa eyed him from across the darkened hotel room, gawking at the beauty of his masculine virility. “So,” she asked in the silence, “where are you going to take me?”

Kyle cast a lascivious look from the top of her head down her entire nude body to her feet.
“Tonight…or later?
I know where I’m taking you tonight,” he said in a voice that thrilled her. “But the other… We’ll talk about it some other time when I can think more clearly.” He smiled at her. “Come here. You’ve been away from me for too long.”

She bit her lip, moving toward him. She breathed in the still-familiar scent of him as he clutched her close.

“Hmm,” he growled softly in her ear. “You’ve been a pretty bad girl.”

“I’m always a bad girl,” Caressa said. “You still said you loved me. I’m holding you to that.”

“If we can just get the meltdowns down to once a month or so, I think I could eke out some tender feelings for you.”

She pulled away with a protesting giggle, but he wouldn’t let her move an inch. He kissed her—a demanding, skillful kiss that reminded her of all the things she loved about him. One hand tightened on her waist while the other grasped the back of her neck, angling her face so he could kiss her deeper still. The force of it stole her breath and had her groping for his engorged cock nestled between them. As soon as she started stroking him, he pulled away and ordered her to the bed, collapsing on top of her and nudging her thighs wide open with his knees.

“God, I’d like to make this last longer,” he said. “But you really make things difficult sometimes.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiggling under him as he nudged at her slick opening.

“I don’t think you are, but I’ll punish you for it later, so it’s okay.”

Her laughter cut off in a moan as he lifted her legs over his shoulders and fell forward, filling her to the hilt. His cock stretched her open and slid deep, so she felt him in every place and every nerve. She reached for him and they grappled until he caught her hands, pressing them to the pillows over her head.

“Be a good girl,” he whispered, twisting his hips to rock her in a wonderful, sensual friction. The stern endearment sent the ache between her legs into full throb. She clenched her fists over her head, determined to be the best girl in the history of civilization. He gazed down at her, grasping her by the waist to control her frantic jerky attempts to meet his thrusts.

“Kyle, Kyle…” She sighed as his hands slid up to cup her breasts. She
arched
into his touch,
then
shuddered as his fingers closed on her nipples with unrelenting pressure. As the pain built she tried to pull away even as the brutal ache caused a flood of slickness to her pussy. He fucked her harder, lifting her from the bed. He twined his fingers with hers and nudged her arms up to wrap around him as he released her legs.

They nestled together, belly to belly, so close she could feel each breath he took from the tickling slide of his chest hair against her still-sensitive nipples. He slid his hand down the back of her bottom as she clung to him, and he lifted her for each pounding stroke. She began to jerk her legs, seeking that final release that would join them together in that magical avalanche of pleasure. He ground his hips against hers so he slid across her clit, teasing her higher and higher. She clutched at him, squeezing a handful of his hair, and let go.

She knew she would never fall. He always caught her. He held her as her world disconnected into nothing but animal awareness and the unyielding pressure of him between her legs. She felt him tense and growl against her ear, going still in her, seated as deeply as he could manage.
“Oh, God.
Caressa…”

She laughed out loud, surprising herself, and surprising him too, since he looked down with a question in his eyes. She didn’t know why she laughed with that wild, abrupt laugh except that she was just so happy. It had burst from somewhere deep inside her, some new place illuminating out of the darkness.

She laughed again and realized she was crying as hard as she was laughing. She pressed her face to his neck, embarrassed. She could feel the wetness of her tears and smell their faint, salty
scent mingle
with the sensual aroma of his aftershave. Her fingers slowly unwound from his hair as he nuzzled against her forehead and dropped a kiss on her nose.

“Okay, sweet pea?”

“I need you, Kyle.” She blurted out the words through more uncontrolled laughter and tears. She wanted to explain to him just how
much
, but she was helpless to do it. She wanted to explain what he meant to her, with his strong arms and his quiet, reassuring voice.
His faith and his unwavering focus.
But in the end, all she could do was hiccough and repeat herself twice more. “I need you. I need you.”

“You have me, Cara. I’m right here, I’m still inside you,” he said, shifting his hips so she felt the delicious tease of his still-hard member. “If you tell me you can’t feel me there, you might just hurt my feelings.”

She giggled softly. There was a line of gold expanding at the edge of the darkness that had threatened her so long.
Daybreak.
Or sunset.

Her fingers tightened on his arms around her, the arms that promised to keep her happy and safe. Through her bleary, tearful eyes her world snapped into focus as his voice rumbled and his thumb stroked her cheek. “Where do you want me to take you now, Caressa?
Anywhere.”

She thought a moment. “First I want to go back to Spur.
To Burger’s Pond.
Are the fireflies still there?”

“They may be. If not, there’s always next year.”

Next year.
Years and years.
They had so much time to see and do beautiful things together. She would go with him to Spur and catch fireflies for herself this time, and peek at them as they lit up a tiny world inside her fingers. That had been her once, trapped in a cage of her own making. Now she would have a whole forest of delights to flit around in.

“Are you sure I can’t bring my cello?” she teased.

His look was priceless.
Pure exasperation.

“You’re lucky I love you so much, Caressa Gallo,” he whispered as he gathered her close.

Epilogue

One year later

Kyle paced back and forth across the porch, going over a sizable mental checklist. Jeremy sprawled in a creaky rocking chair nearby, looking more wilted than Kyle could ever remember seeing him. A glass of Great-Grandma Winchell’s special sweet tea dangled from Jeremy’s hand, the icy drink sweating in the August Texas heat.

“You might have picked a cooler day to get married,” Jeremy said, arresting Kyle’s pacing with a leg stuck out in front of his path.

“We had to do it now, you know.
The fireflies.”
Kyle rolled his eyes at Jeremy’s long-suffering expression. “You’ll live. Forgive me if I don’t have much sympathy for you. I’m getting
married
.”

Jeremy laughed and leaned forward, raising his glass in a toast so the ice inside clunked and tinkled. “Yes, you’re getting married, and you couldn’t be happier. So sit down and relax. Take off your organizer hat for just one day. You’re like some kind of…” He searched for a suitably insulting word.
“
Bridezilla
or something.
Sit the fuck down.”