Not mine, not mine, not mine. Even if he kept catching her eye throughout the rehearsal and doing insanely arousing things like smiling at her, or biting his lower lip, or raising his eyebrows as if they were sharing a naughty secret. Even at lunchtime, when she saw him talking with David and then he scanned the theater to find her, calling out, “Lily, where do you want to go for lunch?”
Right in front of David, right in front of everyone. Lily’s heart soared.
During lunch, Aidan checked his email on his phone and, shortly thereafter, Lily’s heart crash-landed into her steak au poivre.
“Anything serious?” David asked at Aidan’s grim expression when he put the phone down.
Aidan glanced briefly at Lily then away, almost guiltily. “Just a scheduling change. My symphony’s director needs to book our next recording session a little sooner than planned because one of the principals, who’s pregnant, is apparently expecting twins and having some complications. He wants to shoot for a date two weeks from now if I can get back to New York in time to rehearse for it.”
Lily’s mouth was too dry to respond, but David jumped right in. “This works out perfectly. That’s what I wanted to tell you, I found a long-term replacement. We still need to hammer out the contract, but I’m hoping to have him here by tomorrow.”
“Anybody I know?”
For all Lily registered the information, the replacement conductor could have been the Abominable Snowman. She pushed her steak around for the rest of the meal, forcing her lips into a bone-dry smile and making faint noises of interest whenever David or Aidan looked her way.
When they returned to the rehearsal hall, Lily lost herself in the performances and took brutally honest notes. For the most part, however, the new rapport between conductor and orchestra made all the difference. The show looked like a ballet again, and David was tentatively optimistic by the end of the rehearsal.
“We’re two days away from opening. Tomorrow we’ll do tech all day in the performance venue, and day after tomorrow the orchestra will work out their thing with the new conductor before the dress rehearsal. Everybody’s done a fantastic job!”
Lily gave notes, dismissed the dancers and had gathered her things to leave when Aidan strode up the aisle.
“Dinner?”
When she shook her head, he narrowed his eyes.
“Dinner. Lily, you need to eat, you barely touched your lunch. We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to. Come out with me, please?”
“We shouldn’t. It’s not that I don’t want to.” She also didn’t want to cry in front of people, but she felt in imminent danger of doing exactly that.
Aidan frowned. “It can be just dinner, Lily. I don’t want to leave things like this.” He stepped in closer, one hand grazing her upper arm in a tender gesture.
She swallowed down the hard, painful lump in her throat. “Whether we have dinner or not, this is how we’ll be leaving things. Whether we have sex again or not, this is how things are. So can we please not—”
Her voice broke and she pressed her fingers to her lips, grabbed her bag and fled before Aidan could say another word.
* * * * *
The ice cream’s container was an unfamiliar size, and Lily couldn’t pronounce the brand name, but it was delicious. Even in her current state, she could appreciate that much. She had stopped at a corner store on the way to the hotel, knowing that ice cream from room service would be all wrong. Too expensive and served in a bowl, not what she needed at all. The situation called for a carton, a spoon and a series of cheesy movies.
After realizing the tiny television in her hotel room would be no help—her French was good only for ordering things in restaurants and getting herself around town, not for following plot lines—Lily popped for the hotel’s exorbitant nightly wireless fee and started a movie night on her laptop.
Five minutes into her first selection, Gigi, she thought how ridiculous it was to sit in a hotel room in Paris, eating ice cream from a carton and watching movies about Paris.
Dmitri never even got to see Orly Airport.
The pain in her throat swelled and finally burst, all the bottled-up grief pushing to the surface in a pitiful flood of gasping sobs. Tears streamed down Lily’s face, threatening to drip into her ice cream, and she put the carton on the nightstand while she reached blindly for the box of tissues she remembered seeing there.
If she hadn’t been so distraught, she would have ignored the knock on the door. In her sudden, stabbing misery, however, she didn’t think about who it might be. One of the dancers, probably, looking for a needle and thread or a spare cold pack.
Scrubbing her face dry with a tissue, she scrambled for the latch as she called out, “Who is it?”
“Lily, it’s me. Aidan.”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck…
He already knew she was in there. She couldn’t pretend to be out and keep silent until he went away. It was too late.
Just like Dmitri. All too late.
A spate of fresh sobs claimed her, and she clutched the now-sodden wad of tissues to her nose as she opened the door and let him in.
“Lily, what—oh my god, I’m so sorry. I had no idea—”
“No, no, it’s not you,” she reassured him, doing a terrible job of it as her eyes were still leaking at a mad pace. At the moment, however, she was telling the truth, as she wasn’t exactly crying over Aidan. “It’s Dmitri. It really hit me for the first time. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be silly. Here, come here.” Aidan sat on the bed and reached for her, tugging her down to his knee and wrapping his arms around her. After a moment’s hesitation, Lily bent her head to his shoulder while the tears ran their course. When the sobs and sniffling hitched to a stop at last, she let him pull her down to lie on the bed, where he seemed content to stroke her hair and let her relax in the aftermath of her crying jag.
“I ended up going to dinner with the string section,” Aidan said quietly after what seemed like hours of silence. “I think the first violin, Amy, did this same thing last night, but she felt better today. She said what helped was thinking about how excited Dmitri was before the trip. He’d been to so many places all over the world and it was kind of a standing joke with him that he’d never been to Paris. She said after she thought about it, she figured he probably died exactly the way he would have wanted to. Right at the beginning of yet another adventure. That was his favorite thing.”
“That’s true,” Lily whispered.
Aidan reached for the tissue box and offered her a new handful of them. She tried to be circumspect, then gave up and did the serious nose blowing that needed to be done. He was nice enough to pretend to ignore it.
“I wish I’d known him,” Aidan said after she was finished. “They all had such great stories about him. Is that ice cream?”
Lily looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe.”
“You were eating ice cream straight out of the container for Dmitri?”
“No.” She sat up and reached for the carton, pulling the laden spoon out and taking a bite.
A single creamy drop escaped, and before Lily could catch it, Aidan rose and pressed his lips to her chin, swiping at the spot with his tongue. Lily froze, spoon in hand, as he proceeded to her cheek, then her forehead, then her nose and finally down to her mouth, where he stole some of the ice cream she had yet to swallow.
It was a gooey, silly, sweet kiss, and Lily broke into a smile when he released her mouth. Her eyes and cheeks ached from crying but the smile felt good anyway. “I should be making you go.”
“I should be going on my own and not putting the responsibility on you to make me,” Aidan contested. He kissed her again, however, less gooey and less silly, stealing her breath and not a little of her sense.
When her equilibrium returned, Lily took the ice-cream carton into the bathroom, placing it carefully in the sink where it could do no harm as it melted. She rinsed her sticky fingers and returned to close down the laptop, moving
it back to her suitcase. Then she stood at the foot of the bed and watched Aidan’s reactions as she stripped down slowly, camisole and bra, jeans and thong. By the time she stood before him, naked and already needy, he was mostly undressed and fully hard himself. His jeans and boxer briefs hit the floor with a jingle, the sound of keys and coins.
Without a word he reached out a hand and Lily took it, closing the distance between them as Aidan sat back down on the edge of the bed. His mouth found her nipple as his fingers found the slick heat of her pussy, and Lily trembled as pleasure began to thread its way through her.
“Now.” She straddled him, ready to impale herself. She didn’t want foreplay, didn’t want to play at all. She wanted him inside her, raw and fast.
Aidan seemed to have other plans. He held her up by the thighs when she would have fallen onto him, and let her down so slowly she wanted to scream. The pressure of his hands, her efforts to work her way onto his cock, spread her legs wider, arousing her even more.
Then, when he was finally filling her, Aidan pressed her close at the waist and shoulders, allowing only pulses instead of the frantic beat she sought.
“Lily,” he said softly, weaving his fingers into the thick hair at the nape of her neck and tugging until she leaned back to look at him.
“Faster,” she pleaded, but Aidan’s arm was like an iron band at her waist.
He shook his head. “You want to lose yourself,” he said with effort, the strain of self-control clear in his voice, “but I’m not ready to lose you.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. It made her want to cry again, but the dark thrill his controlled thrusts sent through her was enough to drive the tears back. Lily wanted something else, but she needed what he was giving her, a measured dose of pleasure to sustain them through the worst of the grief.
Last night was wildfire, an explosion, anything hot and dangerous. Lily had no metaphor for the climax creeping up on her now, an agony of anticipation paying off at last in a slow, sweet flush of ecstasy that seemed to go on forever.
She was still quivering when Aidan groaned and drove up into her so hard she exhaled with a startled huff. A second thrust, and then a third, Lily saw his face transform as he emptied himself into her. Back arched, neck taut, every muscle in his sharply defined jaw springing into prominence from the force of his climax.
Beautiful. She longed to see it again, the sophisticated expression devolving into sheer animal power. The knowledge that she wouldn’t be seeing it again brought a pain no amount of ice cream could numb.
Lily knew she wasn’t cut out for casual flings. She thought maybe her destiny was to be reminded of that once every seven years by losing her head, her body and her heart yet again to Aidan Byrne.
* * * * *
Their technical rehearsal lasted all the next day and well into the night. The new conductor arrived in the middle of the process and was still conferring with David and Aidan when Lily left the theater with the rest of the company near midnight. Aidan saw her leaving and gave her an apologetic shrug. She knew that was all he could spare.
If he knocked on her door later in the night, she was sleeping too deeply to hear it.
The following morning, the troupe enjoyed a free day in Paris. Lily went shopping and sightseeing with a few of the dancers. Aidan was stuck at the theater working with the orchestra and his replacement—Lily had finally learned his name was Paolo something, and he was young but apparently highly recommended—so she didn’t see him until the dress rehearsal. It went better than expected, but not stellar by any means; this was regarded as a good sign, as a perfect dress rehearsal was widely agreed to predict a weak opening.
This time Lily was the one kept late afterward, helping the wardrobe mistress with last-minute fixes and helping David with a hundred tiny details that still needed seeing to. She was only able to give a wistful half-wave to Aidan as he disappeared from the theater with Paolo and the orchestra principals.
The next morning over coffee and croissant, Lily asked David if Aidan planned to stay for the opening. He looked baffled and gave her a nod that looked more like, “Well, duh.” She didn’t have time to question him further, though, as there were still far too many things to see to before the show.
There were bandages and tape and foul-smelling liniment to stock, ready to apply to various knees, ankles and wrists before and during the show. There were sequins to sew onto things, elastic to tighten, props and costumes to check and double-check and triple-check. By the time Lily and the rest of the crew felt ready for the show, she barely had time to shower and change into the sleek black knit dress, black tights and flats she would wear backstage during the performance.
Long habit made her sit down in front of a dressing-room mirror once she was dressed, and twist her hair up into a slightly softer version of the bun she’d worn when she danced. Now she had the luxury of layers, a side-swept bang that flattered the angles of her face, a few gently curling tendrils pulled out for effect near the neckline. No stage makeup, just her usual lip-gloss and mascara, but she still felt a bit better for making an effort.
As the dancers started to pour in, grumbling and chattering, Lily abandoned the seat and strode across the room, only to catch an unexpected glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror at one end of the long space.
I look like I’m in charge, she thought with a start, turning to face the image. She didn’t look like a woman who was stuck in a rut and marking time because her real career had died, but like a woman who knew what she was doing and enjoyed it. Confident.
As a dancer, she had only ever felt that way when the show was over and the audience was applauding. Fleeting, and so dependent on other people’s approval. Now other people depended on Lily.
Before that line of thinking went much further, she was distracted by the buzz of preshow excitement, the last-minute preparations, the mini-tantrums and dramas that always flew around the dressing room before a big show. Minutes before curtain she heard the sound system click on, and the distinctive tones of the orchestra tuning up caused the dancers’ excitement to ratchet up several notches.
When places were called, Lily followed the wave of floating tulle out to the wings. The dancers milled there in silence, awaiting their cue while the conductor took his podium to a smattering of polite applause.
Lily saw it on one of the closed-circuit monitors first and thought she must be mistaken. Then she looked closer and her jaw dropped as she recognized the man raising his baton to begin the overture. It wasn’t Paolo.
It was Aidan.
* * * * *
If any of the dancers had needed Lily’s help during the first act, they would have been out of luck. She was so dazed and anxious she barely followed their movements on and off stage.
At intermission, when most of the troupe mobbed the dressing room, Lily hung back in the wings, leaning on the wall by the curtain controls and trying not to think at all. Her eyes were closed, but she opened them when something soft brushed the tip of her nose.
Damn, he looks good in a tux.
“Where’s Paolo?” she asked Aidan, who was just about to tap her nose again with the fat pink rose he was carrying.
Before he answered he offered her the rose, which she took automatically then held in two fingers, twirling it around. The thorns had been carefully stripped from the stem.
“Paolo didn’t work out,” Aidan told her. “He didn’t have a feel for the music at all. He had to go.”
“So you’re staying until David can find a better replacement?”
“I’m staying for the rest of the tour.”
“What about your recording session? I thought—”
“The guest conductor was thrilled at the prospect. And my director was accommodating about the terms of my contract. These were unusual circumstances,” he said with a wave of his hand at the theater in general, “but he recognizes that’s the risk when your conductor is also a composer.”
“Rock-star compo
ser,” Lily reminded him.
“Still waiting for the paycheck. This was more important to me,” he said, catching her free hand in his. “I wanted to come talk to you about it, but the past few days have been from hell and there was never time.”
A gaggle of dancers wandered back into the wings and started stretching at the barre along the wall. Intermission would be over soon and Aidan would have to return to the orchestra pit.
“What if we find out we hate each other?” she asked, thinking at least one of them should be the practical one. “You’ll be stuck here.”
Aidan chuckled, bracing a hand over her head against the wall and leaning in with a lascivious grin. “The tour is only a month long, Lily. That’s not even going to get us past the fucking-like-bunnies stage.”
She suppressed a giggle. “Okay, what if we find out we like each other, what then? You still live in New York, I still live in Seattle, we both have jobs we plan to keep, we can’t—”
He kissed her, long enough and thoroughly enough to make it plain he didn’t care who saw. Judging by the murmur from the nearby troupe members when Aidan pulled away, Lily suspected that quite a few of them saw. She knew anyone who hadn’t seen it would hear about it by the end of the show, if not by the end of this intermission.
He hadn’t just been kissing her, he’d been staking a claim.
“I’m staying,” Aidan said again, lifting Lily’s hand with the rose in it, “but I do have to go right now, I’m due down front.” He tapped her nose with the silky-soft petals again then dropped another swift kiss on her lips.
Lily wanted to wrap herself around him, but instead she let him go…at least as far as the orchestra pit.
“Better hurry,” she urged him breathlessly. “The second act is about to start.”
About Delphine Dryden
After earning two graduate degrees, practicing law awhile and then working for the public school system for over ten years, Delphine finally got a clue. She tossed all that aside and started doing what she should have been doing all along, writing novels! In hindsight she could see the decision was a no-brainer. Because which sounds like more fun? Being a lawyer/special educator/reading specialist/educational diagnostician…or writing spicy romances?
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