by Hughes, Mary
My brain churned. The intimate way he held me made no sense, but the laughter, well, my clumsiness had lightened the room on more than one occasion.
Then Zajicek’s long fingers slid under my chin, raising my face. His brilliant eyes were shuttered by slumberous lids. I stared in bemusement as his face expanded in my vision…
His lips found mine.
Warm. Smooth. Exciting. “Some Enchanted Evening” sang through my right brain.
My left brain locked up in utter confusion. A man was kissing me. Zajicek was kissing me. The sum of my kissing experience was a slobbery grandmother and a few rushed awkward sexual encounters. I never really saw what the fuss was about. Until Zajicek.
I always thought kisses were simply the press of lips. His mouth didn’t simply anything. It rubbed, it tasted, it gently teased. Warm, velvety soft, his tongue began to explore.
I stood there in stupefied awe.
Until he murmured against my lips, “How clumsy you are, Ms. Hrbek. How very fortunate I was here to catch you.”
He thought I’d done it on purpose.
I struggled out of his embrace. He was slow letting go, his fingers firm on my arms. With a little tilt of his head, he perused me. Whatever he saw on my face made him release me with an extravagant sigh. “I beg your pardon. Apparently I misread your…desires.”
I flushed, because he hadn’t misread my “desires” at all. Just my intentions. I jerked my flute bag onto my shoulder and started determinedly toward my car, fiercely watching my feet on the uneven sidewalk. “No biggie. What did you want, Maestro?”
Long legs kept graceful pace with me. “Call me Dragan, please. Maestro is so overused.”
His first name? It implied an intimacy I couldn’t afford. “You call me Ms. Hrbek.”
“Yes, but perhaps you would allow me the familiarity of your first name as well?” His tone was coaxing.
I skewed a look at him, immediately returning my attention to the stones, although I was beginning to think Zajicek was more treacherous than my footing. “If you want. After all, you’ll be seeing us weekly for a while.”
“Perhaps you and I will be seeing a great deal more of each other, hmm?”
Yikes. My stomach flipped, my attention disintegrated and the elevated corner of a concrete slab cold-cocked my foot. I tripped and would have fallen again if not for Zajicek’s lightning reflexes. He caught me in his arms, steadying me. Senses reeling, I let him, my forebrain scolding idiot but my lizard brain panting and presenting its tail. Before I could completely self-combust, he brushed a thumb over my cheek and released me.
“What do you mean by that?” I croaked. Catching my flute bag to my chest, I wheeled and trotted off, fast, too fast, almost running, nearly stumbling yet again. Making a conscious effort to slow down, I cleared my throat. “Why would you see more of me than any other orchestra member?”
“I am staying in Meiers Corners for the duration of Mr. Banger’s recovery. That is what I wished to discuss with you. I have only just arrived in the area. I’d like to follow you home this evening.”
Dragan Zajicek in all his powerful, elegant glory, driving behind me? My internal meter was pinging red alert, core meltdown imminent. “You don’t need to. I can tell you how to go. It’s not that far.”
“Perhaps. But it’s late and I would not wish to become lost.”
I opened my mouth to say no, heard my voice say, “Oka—” and snapped my jaw shut so fast teeth sparked. Problem was, I liked being with him—which, considering I was practically wearing my heart on my sleeve, was dangerous. What if he found out his kiss was the first real one of my life, and had utterly demolished me?
“Ms. Hrbek?”
He was politely waiting for an answer. Politely, as if the whole of my pitiful ego wasn’t in the balance.
I tried to see it from his point of view. The man wanted help getting around. A few directions, not my soul. Simple neighborliness would do. I breathed deep, and managed to rasp out, “Sure. No problem, Mr. Zajicek.”
He smiled and slipped his arm around mine. “Dragan, please.” His hip bumped against my side as we walked.
My respiration rate shot through the roof. I gritted my teeth. Simple neighborliness, yeah, right. Like your basic neighborhood raging inferno. “Okay. First names. I’m Rocky.”
“Rocky? That’s a boy’s name.”
“It’s a nickname,” I admitted.
“Ah. And your real name?”
Yes. My “real” name.
My friend, Nixie Emerson, once told me names have power. In her case, she went by her kicky middle name instead of “Dietlinde”, her dull-as-dust first. For her, that was appropriate. Nixie was short and punk and smart as a whip—and as smart-mouthed too, though she reined it in around her new baby.
In my case though, my “real” name was not appropriate. Anti-appropriate, in fact. My mom named me Raquel, after Raquel Welch, the sex-goddess of the sixties. So while Nixie’s name was right and good, mine was a joke. And considering my nega-love-life, a rather nasty one at that. “Rocky’s good enough, Mr. Zajicek.”
“Dragan,” he murmured, somehow pulling me closer. The heat of his body licked flame-like up my side. I hissed and shifted my flute bag between us, but as a defense it backfired. Zajicek simply plucked the bag from my hands. “Shall I carry that?”
“You don’t have to. No, wait—”
“Nonsense. It is quite light.” He shifted my bag onto his own shoulder, not the one between us. The strap wrapped itself over his muscles like a second skin, and I swear it moaned happily.
Then Zajicek curled one hand around my waist and pulled me so close I could barely breathe. I tried to, really I did. But every tentative inhale brought the scent of him, cotton and sandalwood and burning masculinity. Every movement of my ribcage scraped the side of my breast against his arm, until I was trembling with the need to rub blatantly against him. Every breath drew cool air over my tongue…yikes, I was lolling like a dog in heat.
My glasses fogged up, and I stumbled again.
Both Zajicek’s arms went around me. I felt incredibly clumsy and stupid, making him rescue me continually from my own feet. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Zajicek—”
“Dragan,” he murmured, cupping my chin and lifting my face for another soft kiss. His lips touched mine, his mouth moving in tiny circles as if to warm my skin. He didn’t need to. I was plenty warm already—and a little buzzy.
“You taste wonderful.” His mouth opened and his tongue teased the seam of my lips.
I jumped at the touch but Zajicek held me, so securely I relaxed into his arms. It seemed to be some sort of cue for him to lick me and slide his tongue between my lips, encouraging me to part them.
He asked so nicely, with tiny hot licks. So I did.
The instant my mouth opened he devoured me. His mouth slanted over mine and his jaw dropped. Heat rushed in. I gasped. Shocked and a little scared, I fell back, but he stepped with me, wrapped his arm around my back and trapped me good. He had to bend quite a ways to do it.
My back arched like a bow, my breasts crushed to his chest, my hips to his thighs. Something stirred against my belly, sending a jolt shearing through me. My mouth tingled and my breasts tingled and I was getting really tingly between my legs.
I slid my hands between us to try to wedge open some space. All I succeeded in doing was fitting my palms to the hardest pectorals in the world.
The tingling between my legs was starting to drive me insane.
Zajicek’s mouth left mine to trail licks and nibbles down my jaw to my throat. He nuzzled me there, an odd dark rumble coming from his chest, almost a lion’s purr. “You smell divine. Ah, to taste you fully.” His tongue rasped over my pulse.
Somewhere along the way his hand had found my breast and was kneading and cupping while he sucked gently on the tender skin of my neck until my head spun.
Then his fingers found my raised nipple and plucked.
A thousand Christmas lights w
ent on in my head. I shrieked.
Kissing was at least in the same neighborhood as my sexual experience. This catapulted me out of the country. I pushed him away as hard as I could. “No!” I panted it, undermining it some.
Zajicek backed off with a brief, puzzled look. I breathed a sigh of relief until he asked, “You are not fond of men?”
“No. I mean yes! Yes, of course I’m fond…I like men.” I automatically tried to tug my flute bag across my stomach, but it still cuddled his shoulder, the traitor, so I had to settle for wrapping my arms around myself instead. “I like men, but not so…fast. I mean that was a little too…we barely know each other.”
He was still gently puzzled. “Didn’t you like it?”
Sure—like I liked playing with nuclear warheads. “It was nice. It was more than nice, but….” I shook my head. “Why me?” I spread my arms next to my pudgy thighs. Waved an embarrassed hand at my fat tits. “Surely you’re used to better.”
For one instant his eyes flared, twin flickers of angry flame. “Ms. Hrbek, listen carefully. Your body is as supple and shapely as a nymph’s. Your face is delicately chiseled from finest cream marble. Your eyes are huge pools of blue warmer than the Mediterranean Sea. There is no better.”
That floored me. “Me?” I squeaked. “Do you need glasses?”
“Hardly. Do you?” He pulled off my big aviator frames and held them up to a streetlight to look through them. “These are plain glass.” He handed the spectacles back, a slight crease between his black brows. “Why do you wear them?”
“Well…they make my eyes look normal.”
He took an actual, physical step back. “You believe those monstrous things work to your advantage?”
“Um…yes?” I polished the glasses nervously, then perched them on my nose.
“They do not. They cover and distort what is lovely and pure. Those glasses are an abomination and should not be tolerated. In fact, I will destroy them.” He snatched my glasses from my face and dropped them to the sidewalk, where he stepped on them and ground them into shards with his heel.
I was shocked. “Uh, Mr. Zajicek—”
“Dragan.” He didn’t raise his voice but his tone was so forceful I stiffened. The elegant conductor had a core of steel—hard, edged steel. “You will call me Dragan.” His tone softened, became beguiling. “And I will call you Rochelle.”
“Rochelle?” I blinked. “Why Rochelle?”
“It is much more melodic than that awful appellation Rocky. Much better suited to one such as you. Since you won’t tell me your real name—”
“Look, Mr. Zaj…I mean, Dragan. I feel like a Rocky. I look like a Rocky. Rocky is good, okay?”
“An abomination.” He slashed his hand in underline. “You do not look in the least like a Rocky. You look like a Rosetta, or Rochelle, or Rosalinda. Melodic and beautiful.”
My cheeks burned. The man was insane. I knew what I looked like. Melodic? Hardly. Beautiful? I hadn’t felt beautiful since puberty turned me into a chubby pony. Acne-riddled too, but at least adulthood had taken care of most of that. “Raquel,” I burst out. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Raquel? Hmm.” Taking my chin in his long, elegant fingers, he raised my face. Studied it with his piercing dark eyes. Turned it first one way, and then the other, as if I was intriguing, or even as if he was telling the truth, and he found me beautiful.
No, more. He looked at me like I would look at chocolate cake. Like I was desirable. It was a weird feeling.
Then he came out with, “Shall we go somewhere for drinks, Raquel?”
A lot of musicians went out after concerts and rehearsals, so it was a perfectly normal suggestion. In See-Sucks the winds went as a group, sort of a gang-bang of residual performance energy. It was the only way I dated—in groups.
But drinks with Zajicek? Just Zajicek? “You and me? No one else?”
“I think ‘you and me’ is sufficient. Don’t you?” His fingers slid from my chin to my jaw, and up my cheek. They left a trail of sparkly quivering skin.
I swayed like I was hypnotized. This man was dangerous. I should rocket the hell out of his orbit as fast as I could.
“Sure,” I said.
Chapter Three
We returned to the church where, in the spot marked “Minister”, sat the sleekest little car I’d ever seen, in a liquid shade of red found only in wet dreams.
Even not moving, the thing looked like it was tearing along French Riviera roads. I swear the tires were painted on the rims. I didn’t know what make or model it was but it was so low-slung that when Zajicek scissored the door open and I slid in, it was like sitting on the pavement—if asphalt were as comfy as a cloud. Then he started the engine and I thought someone let loose a tiger. When he got on the street and shifted into gear we left my teeth behind.
What could I do? He held my flute hostage. The excuse sounded good in my head.
I thought we’d go to nearby Kelly’s Pool Hall, or collect my car and drive to a Redfox Village pub. But Zajicek zipped along until we were almost to Meiers Corners. I’d have asked why, but with the top down, the speed and wind in my face were frankly exhilarating.
At the edge of town he zipped into the parking lot of the Alpine Retreat and Bar. They have live music on the weekends but tonight we’d get a jukebox medley of prom themes and driving tunes that had pumped the patrons’ adrenaline when they were young. Except for what your own dollar bought you, everyone hated jukebox music, since nothing good had been written after the 60s/70s/80s/90s/Noughties/insert-your-generation-here.
I loved it all. But I have no taste.
As we walked into the place, Zajicek gave a little humph. “We will not sit at the bar. Here, we will require a table.”
I glanced at him. He towered above me with a little moue of distaste on his austere features. Lord above, the man was beautiful. I wanted to lick every curve and plane.
He chose that moment to turn his black eyes on me. Incredibly, they got darker. “Ms. Hrbek. Raquel. Have you changed your mind? Do you wish to go somewhere more…private?”
“No, this is fine.” Flustered, I pushed my way through the crowd milling around the long main bar to the hostess station in back.
“Two,” I said to the hostess.
The woman, dressed in tuxedo black and white, didn’t even bother to look up. “When will the second party arrive?”
“Arrive…?” I spun.
Zajicek was still at the entrance, mobbed by every female in the place.
I stared a moment in consternation. What did I do now? Table for one? Table for twenty? Miss Manners didn’t cover this.
I couldn’t just leave. Zajicek had been the one to ask me out to drinks, and while I fully appreciated the appeal of twenty panting gorgeous women over pudgy little me, I didn’t have a car and it wasn’t like I had a lot of alternatives. I turned back to the hostess. “He’s, um, in the men’s room.”
“Twenty minutes.” She handed me an electronic hockey puck.
“’Kay.” I headed toward the mobbed Zajicek, some idea in my head of telling him he had twenty minutes to finish…to finish what? I blushed because, although I didn’t know what he would be finishing, he’d have a sixty-second “Minute Waltz” per panting, drooling female. Then I blushed harder when it occurred to me that with Zajicek’s strong fingers and impeccable rhythm, it would probably only take thirty seconds each.
Maybe I’d just go wait in the car.
As I hit the door I heard, “Raquel.”
Zajicek slipped out of the noose of females and followed me. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t wish to be rude to those people. Please don’t leave.”
My cheeks were still hot, despite the cooler outside air. “I’m not leaving.” I held up the electronic discus. “We’ve got a twenty-minute wait.” Awkwardly, I added, “I thought I’d wait in the car.” I expected him to nod and go back to his minute maid waltz.
But he plucked the disc
us from my fingers with one hand, grabbed my wrist with the other and towed me back into the Alpine. “We must wait? Outrageous. You didn’t demand immediate seating? You are altogether more forward playing your flute.” Inside, he released me.
“Sure, but that’s my job. Leading the woodwinds.”
I was talking to his back. He was already at the hostess station, radiating affront. “We require a table.” He tossed the hockey puck onto the desk with a thump of disdain. “Now.”
For a conductor, apparently being bold wasn’t a job requirement, it was a personality trait. Or maybe that was just Zajicek.
“Right away, sir!” If the hostess’s smile had gotten any brighter it would’ve been radioactive. “This way!”
She led us to the best table in the house, a horseshoe banquette for ten. I slid in on one side, expecting Zajicek to slide in on the other. He didn’t.
He slid in right next to me. Practically on top of me—when I turned to say something his big chest was in my face. A shocked suck of air filled my nose with the intense, hormone-exciting smell of him. I reared back, wishing fervently for my flute bag as an armored wall between us, but he’d locked it in what passed for a trunk in the front of the car. I started to slide away on the horseshoe seat, but he stopped me by cupping a hand around my nape.
“Raquel,” he purred. His lids lowered, and I thought he was going to kiss me again, right in public.
I blinked and knew I was going to let him.
“Something to drink?” a bright voice chirped.
I jumped, nearly head-butting Zajicek. A single flash of impatience crossed his features.
Then he turned, all elegant grace, to the server. “Yes. Grand Marnier for the lady. Hennessy cognac for me.”
Before she could chirp how happy she was to serve him, he turned back to me and captured my chin in his artistic fingers. “Now, where were we?” His elegant head bent.
“Aren’t you someone famous?” a woman cooed.
I felt rather than heard Zajicek release an annoyed sigh. But when he turned again, every inch of old-world civility was in place.
Three women clustered around his end of the banquette, a curly-headed blonde with two wide-eyed friends, a brunette and a redhead. The blonde toyed with a curl. “I just know you’re someone. Music?”
