Ambrose quickly redirected the man and turned him so that his arm was behind his back. He’d done the entire movement with only one arm, the other hand still holding the knife. He lifted the man’s arm up demonstrating his complete control over the man. The man cried out in pain.
“Fuck—Ricky—,” the man yelled at his companion.
The other man looked hesitant. He dodged right then moved in on the far side of Ambrose, away from the knife bearing hand.
Ambrose pushed the captured man away from himself toward a nearby light pole then threw the knife in a straight line. The knife landed with crisp and perfect aim, two inches from the first man’s head. The man turned and stared at the knife. Ambrose, however, did not. He had been busily moving Ricky into the same compromising position the first man had just been released from.
“Jesus fucking chr…!” The first man reached up to pull the knife away but it was stuck so deeply in the wood of the pole that it took a good deal of pulling and he finally gave up trying. The man looked back to Ricky and shook his head, this time in recognition that he was getting himself into something he wasn’t sure he could get out of.
The man rushed at Ambrose like a linebacker and Eva screamed. Ambrose turned Ricky to meet the impact of the rushing man, then with a magnificent show of force Ambrose pushed the pair back so hard their feet left the ground before they fell on each other in a confused heap.
Eva looked on with wonder. Ambrose didn’t look the least perturbed or worried, his countenance was everything it might have been onstage. He was beautiful, mesmerizing, and ungodly strong.
Chapter Three
The two men stumbled, falling over themselves, in a ragged run. Ambrose walked to the place where the knife had landed. He easily pulled it from the pole and released the switchblade back in upon itself. He tossed the entire thing into a neighboring trash bin.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Eva as if nothing of note had happened.
“You just… those men…” She pointed helplessly off in the direction the men had just gone running.
“Are you ok?” He moved to Eva and put his hands on either side of her face. “You’re in shock?”
“I just…I’ve never…” Eva exhaled a nervous laugh. “That scared the shit out of me.”
Ambrose laughed, “I guess it should.” He kept his eyes on her face, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead, his head dipped and he kissed one eyelid then the other, then his lips met hers.
Eva leaned into his kiss. She noticed the taste of him and the texture of his mouth.
“Come on,” he extended an arm around her shoulders and moved her back onto the sidewalk.
Eva could not help but notice how muscular Ambrose’s body was next to her own. He was stronger and faster than anyone she’d ever seen outside of a movie theater.
They walked in silence until they reached his building. It was a beautiful old structure built in the early 1900’s.
Eva followed Ambrose as a doorman opened the front door for her to enter. They took a small elevator up four floors. Ambrose unlocked a heavy wood door and let her in.
“This is all yours?” she asked as she looked around. The furniture was ornate, the Persian rugs sprawling. They walked down the front hall and foyer then into, what appeared to be, Ambrose’s music room. There was a grand piano that stood boldly against an expanse of space. A marble statue of two naked bodies locked in an embrace was placed on an antique side table.
“What is he doing?” She looked closely at the man in the statue, his mouth around the woman’s neck.
“He is biting her,” Ambrose’s voice was close to her ear, his breath hot on her face. “Bringing her into a new world of eternal ecstasy.”
Eva turned to look at his face, he was smiling suggestively at her.
“Music or a drink?” he asked, as if only one could be had.
Eva understood the difference of the two options.
“Music,” she said boldly.
Ambrose walked to an antique wind-up Victrola. When he placed the needle a stream of heavenly Puccini filled the space.
Eva closed her eyes as the sound swept over her. When she opened her eyes, Ambrose was standing in front of her. His hand moved to her face and Eva blanched.
“You’re so cold,” she brought her hand to his. She tried to steady her breath and realized as his hands moved to her body that she was scared.
He gave no comment but moved his lips onto hers. Eva felt the promise of everything she’d dreamed of. The promise of her voice mingled with his. The promise of what the night would bring.
His lips moved to her neck and his hand plunged beneath the neckline of her dress. His fingers caressed her breast. His fingers moved over her nipple in supplication.
“Yes,” she responded to his touch.
Her body grew hot and needy to his chilly touch.
Stacks of music books lined the shelves and piled on the floor near the piano. Eva leaned into Ambrose and felt herself melt toward the floor. Their bodies moved along the carpet, feet and limbs in close company with the greatest music the opera world had to provide.
Eva pushed off her shoes and heard them roll to the uncarpeted area of the floor.
A cold hand reached down and lifted up the edge of her dress. The hand roamed over the thick expanse of her thighs, then moved over her ass. Ambrose’s hands gripped in, holding her meaty posterior.
“You’re so…abundant,” Ambrose smiled as he lifted his head.
“Is that a nice way of calling me fat?” Eva lifted her eyebrows.
“No…never…your hips, ass, the shape of you…” He looked down over the body he was caressing, “I’m sure you can feel how much you turn me on.”
Eva did indeed. She reached a hand to feel the large, hard protrusion stemming from Ambrose’s trousers.
Ambrose practically sang out at the feel of Eva’s hand on him.
“You are giving me a particular craving I haven’t had in a very long while,” Ambrose looked over Eva, then looked at the white of her neck.
“A fetish?” she asked, wondering if she would have the nerve for it.
“You could call it that,” he dipped his head and licked her neck. Eva pulled in a breath.
Ambrose pushed himself back and looked down at her body. She still had her stockings on. He reached down and with one quick movement he ripped the stockings down the center.
“That’s one way of getting them off,” she exhaled with a near laugh. She’d never felt a man’s complete attention and need like she now felt coming from Ambrose.
He reached down again and took her French lace panties in his hand, then, before she could protest, he ripped them into two little pieces of insubstantial lace. Ambrose bent his head and kissed her inner thigh. His cold lips moved up until his tongue slid over her most sensitive mound.
“Hahh,” Eva sucked in. She felt the world beginning to shift around her. He moved his tongue across her, stroking her gently. He brought his fingers up and moved them along her, then in her, as his tongue continued its trilling explorations.
Eva felt herself opening up wider to this man. She felt a desire to let him do anything he liked, to give herself completely over to him.
She sat up, pulling Ambrose with her. Her hand reached down for his belt, then she unzipped him, pulling out his enormous, rock hard member. Eva straddled his body and pushed his torso into the ground. She lifted the thick hips he’d shown such appreciation for and slid herself on top of him.
Eva groaned as she felt him fill her and Ambrose groaned beneath her. Eva lifted herself then pushed back down. Her hips lifted and rocked as she ground herself on top of him.
“Fucking hell,” Ambrose looked at Eva with a look of pure greedy lust.
Puffs of air filled Eva’s lungs and she listened to the music build around her, inside of her. She’d never felt so completely inside a song before.
Ambrose put his hands on her hips and watched as she twisted, grinding on t
op of him. He lifted her body and rolled on top of her. His face was held just above hers and she watched his eyes lower to her neck again. She tilted her head back, instinctively moving for something she couldn’t comprehend.
The feeling of abandon was rising through her body, every cell alive and electric. His fingers moved over her and she forgot everything else.
Ambrose grabbed her ample ass and plunged himself deeper inside of her, Eva cried out with the pain and pleasure of it.
She arched her back, forcing him to hit new depths within her that she hadn’t even known existed before.
Sweat surfaced over her face and back as his hand reached around her head, fingers holding her neck firmly.
Eva felt a rising sensation deep within, she was on the edge of a precipice and she couldn’t see the drop.
He reached his head for her neck but she lifted her leg putting it between her and Ambrose’s torso then lifted her hips. Her wedged leg kept Ambrose from moving closer to her but also allowed him to move deeper inside of her and Eva gasped loudly at the new angle.
“Oh,” she cried out desperately as her ability to hold back receding from power.
Ambrose lifted his head and let out something close to a howl as he climaxed, filling Eva once and for all in completion.
Eva dropped her head back onto the carpet, devoid of anything but the pleasure and sensation that swilled through her every pore.
Ambrose lay down next to her, his head thrown back, chest heaving for air. She stared unseeing onto a grand fresco painted across his ceiling. She’d not noticed it before, perhaps because of the soft muted lights. Naked women in all their glory rolled ceremoniously across the ceiling of the room.
“Are you always that good?” Eva let her head swivel toward him for a moment before looking back at his remarkably high and ornate ceiling.
“Sometimes better,” he trailed a finger across the soft skin of her neck.
Eva lay on the itchy rug for a few more minutes before summoning the energy to sit up.
“How about that drink?” she looked down at Ambrose, wondering if he was going to kick her out now that she’d opened her legs for him. Ambrose lifted up onto his arm and smiled.
“You turn the record over, I’ll get the drinks.” He got up and moved off toward the kitchen.
Eva pulled the remains of her lacerated panties and stockings off and balled them up next to her shoes before getting up to wind the record player once more and turn the record over.
“Here,” Ambrose held out a short highball glass to her, “come this way.” He walked through the spacious apartment, through another room, and finally into a library.
“This is amazing, I didn’t think you could get apartments like this in New York anymore.” She looked around at the rows of books.
“I’ve owned it for a long time. I own one in Paris, and Milan as well.”
Eva raised her eyebrows. He was famous and certainly successful but she’d still not expected him to possess quite so much wealth. An apartment like this, next to Central Park, in the middle of Manhattan would cost millions.
She walked over to where Ambrose stood.
“The view,” she sighed as she looked over the park. “I live just over there.” She pointed in the direction of her apartment though it could never be seen with the large park between them. Perhaps in the daytime, though she wasn’t sure she would ever get a chance to look across in the daytime.
There was a large reading nook in the windows and Eva climbed up and sat back, Ambrose followed her.
“Do you like the darkness?” He looked over at her and she wasn’t sure what he meant.
“I like the moon… and I’ve always been a night person.” She looked back out at the dark park, the lamps that lit up only a small space around them. The city lights glinted from all directions past the park. “The darkness is mysterious, full of surprises, the good as well as the bad. It is beautiful tonight, isn’t it?”
Ambrose nodded.
They talked long into the night. Ambrose told stories of the cities he’d performed in. The way different audiences appreciated opera, some dressed in ball gowns and black tie, some in jeans.
Eva talked of her school years, how she’d always known she was made for this particular kind of music and the way she felt like it brought her closer to her mother and father.
The last thing she remembered from the night was looking out the window, over the park, and wishing she could hold onto it, just that way, forever.
She woke up the next morning still in the library nook looking out at Central Park where runners and walkers were just beginning to get their morning exercise in. Her neck and limbs felt sore from sleeping in such an awkward position and she stretched out slowly.
Eva looked across from her but Ambrose was gone.
She stood and listened, not hearing anything. She walked through the library back the way she’d come but she didn’t see him anywhere. When she finally landed in the kitchen there was an omelet still warm on the stovetop, a bowl of sliced fruit, along with a steaming carafe of French pressed coffee.
She smiled lifting the note that sat innocently next to the plate.
Early appointment—sorry I won’t be there to see you off. Enjoy breakfast!
A
PS You have an audition with Luciano on the 11th at 3pm
At first the note made her sad. He wouldn’t be here to see her off, which of course meant she was to leave. She also didn’t have his phone number or any way to get in touch with him. But the fact that he’d followed through on his promise of an audition brought her spirits up and she smiled. He really did like her voice, he hadn’t just been trying to get her into bed, and if he wanted to work with her in the future then there might be something else in that.
She ripped off an empty section of paper from the note and wrote out her phone number. Just in case.
Eva ate the omelet, which far surpassed her expectations, and had a steaming cup of coffee as she walked through his apartment one more time. She appreciated the opportunity to be a snoop without Ambrose watching her.
She went to the closed doors and opened them. His bedroom fit in with the grandeur seen in the other rooms. He had a large dressing room, and a closet filled with high end, well made suits.
She went back to the library and glanced over his books. Biographies of great musical men and women, stories of the opera and the building of various opera houses, but a few of his books seemed to run to the occult. She picked up a large, leather bound volume and glanced through it.
There was talk of the moon, of vampires, and the “the royalty of the darkness.” The book had to be at least a hundred years old and Eva smiled at it. Had the person been writing fiction or what they thought was reality? She shook her head slightly trying to imagine the sort of person who would write such a book.
Then she stopped. On one of the pages on a thin white sheet of paper was a name.
Ambrose Leroy, was written next to the title Vampire King of the Underground.
Eva furrowed her brow. What did that mean? Had Ambrose’s parents owned the book and chosen the name for him with specific intent, or maybe Ambrose himself had begun using the stage name because he’d read it.
…endowed with an abnormal amount of strength, Leroy is famous for his trance inducing voice.
Now that was too strange to be a coincidence, he must have chosen the name for himself after reading through the book. A shiver ran up Eva’s spine and she closed the book, putting it perfectly back in its place.
She imagined Ambrose coming home to find Eva snooping through his private possessions.
Time to go home, she thought.
Chapter Four
“So there is a distinct possibility that I might be singing in Ohio for the next few years, or year at least,” Bridget said with equal parts excitement and dread.
Eva heard the sound of traffic over the phone and thought Bridget must be walking somewhere.
“I really c
an’t talk,” Eva rasped into the phone. She pressed the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she moved a stack of papers.
“I don’t get it, you were fine a few nights ago.”
“I don’t get it either, but I can’t talk. I’m supposed to be going to that audition in two hours and…” Eva found the pack of lozenges and shoved a lemon honey drop into her mouth.
“But you can’t sing.”
Eva felt the panic and pressure she’d been feeling for the last five days. As soon as she’d left Ambrose’s apartment she’d noticed the quality of her vocal chords had gone down hill, worse than they had been at her last appointment with the doctor.
She’d tried cleaning out her apartment, opening windows, airing things out. She’d even spent a night on Jerome’s couch wondering if there was something else in her apartment causing the symptoms, but nothing worked.
“Ok, email or text me about the audition…I’m really sorry about your voice,” Bridget’s words sounded awkward to Eva’s ear. Her friend probably felt guilty for acing her own audition while Eva wouldn’t even be able to sing through her own.
“Mm hmm,” Eva hummed before hanging up her phone.
Her throat felt constricted, all of her felt constricted. She had no way of getting in touch with Ambrose to cancel her audition so she was just going to show up and admit the truth, then hope they would be able to understand her.
She knew very well that there would be no follow-up audition offers after that. No one wanted to take a risk on an unknown singer with a possibly defective instrument.
Eva dressed in her best silk button up with a curve hugging knee length skirt and heels. She would at least make an impression on Luciano Costantini even if it wasn’t with her voice. In the back of her mind Eva also thought she might run into Ambrose again and if she did then she wanted to look her best.
She’d had no calls, no texts from him even though she’d left her phone number. She’d tried not to think about him but her mind had other plans, continuously circling back to the famous baritone, his amazing voice, and the things he’d done to her on his coarse Persian rug.
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