FascinatingRhythm

by Lynne Connolly

  Every time she gave one of the little whimpers at the back of her throat his arousal went higher. Awareness of his body increased, tingles spreading through all his limbs, the urge to drive hard and fast almost overwhelming him. His balls tightened, increased in sensitivity, growing more and harder every time they slapped against her body. He gritted his teeth against the desire, the need to come, determined she would have her pleasure first.

  Only that will, that insistence kept him from exploding inside her. She watched him, never closed her eyes. He bent to kiss her again, taking her lips gently this time, his mouth trembling against hers as he forced restraint on himself. Not helped when she slid her hand from his elbow where he’d propped it next to her, up his arm to his shoulder, the caress a special one for them both, tender and loving.

  He drew away, watched as she tightened her lips, her breath coming in short pants, opening her eyes as they threatened to close. She was close. So wet, so easy to glide into her and force her higher, harder.

  Yes! At last, he felt the first quiver of her pussy against his cock as the first physical signs of her climax shivered through her body. Small and delicate she was, but when she finally bucked and cried his name, he almost forgot where they were. He had to slam his mouth down on hers to drink her cries as her body clenched around his cock, forcing him into an orgasm he had no chance of preventing.

  She milked him, took all he had, and he poured his love into her accepting body. But for the condom, they’d have slid together, soaked her thighs and the bush of pubic hair around the base of his cock.

  Fuck, but he’d missed her. So badly, so much. Worried about her, unable to settle. Tiananmen and Red Squares were nothing compared to this, the rush of adrenaline fighting for supremacy. Take her, hold her, keep her. He would. Now and forever.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Sabina awoke Hunter was lying next to her, holding her in the shelter of his body. He’d disposed of the condom, presumably in the tiny bathroom of her hospital suite, and put on his underwear and T-shirt, but his bare legs tangled with hers. His T-shirt was a thin one so she felt his body, hot and hard. His heart beat steadily against his chest. When she stirred, he murmured something. Her name. It sounded so good.

  Lifting her head, she gazed at him. He wasn’t asleep as she’d first thought. “What time is it?”

  “Nearly midnight. The nurse came in but I told her we were fine.”

  “Were you—”

  He shushed her with a gentle kiss. “I’d already put some clothes back on and I pulled the covers up around your shoulders. You should put your nightgown on though.”

  “Why? I’m warm enough.”

  He drifted his hand over her breast and paused to tweak her nipple. “Because of this. Because you’re irresistible and we only had one condom. You’re irresistible, so have mercy on a poor feeble male and let me help you cover up.”

  It didn’t matter. Her nightgown was fine silk, only masked by lace on the bodice and around the hem and slit. She recalled what he’d done when she found it had a slit and giggled.

  “What is it?”

  “Is that why you dressed?”

  “I didn’t want to embarrass you.” He frowned. “And I thought if they found us naked in bed together, they might throw me out.” He sat up, easing his arm out from under her before he reached under her pillow.

  Tenderly, he helped her into her nightdress, so carefully she laughed. “I won’t break.”

  She emerged from the folds to find him staring at her in what looked suspiciously like awe. “I can’t believe it. It is a miracle, isn’t it?”

  He put his arm around her shoulders but she remained sitting, leaning into him. “No, it’s science. And it might not work completely. I can’t take anything for granted.”

  “What level of hearing do you have?”

  “Close to normal,” she admitted. “I still can’t hear high and low ends of sound very well and I might never do so, but I can hear. I can function, as they say. It’s strange. I woke up this moaning convinced I was nine years old, because that was the last time I could hear this well.” She leaned against him, remembering how weird that had felt. Not as if she was waking from a dream of being nine but rather waking from a dream of being an adult, going right back to the time before she’d contracted the infection that had taken her hearing. “Just as well I’m not though, eh?” Her effort to turn the experience into a mild joke didn’t work too well.

  Hunter frowned. “I shouldn’t have made love to you.”

  “Yes you should. I wanted you to. Would you rather I chased you around the room until I caught you?”

  That did the trick. He lost the frown, although his smile appeared a little false. “You can’t do that.”

  “Yes I can. My balance is excellent. They had me walk along a line, just as if I’d been drinking. That was yesterday. They let me get up the day after the operation but I was still dizzy then, so I didn’t do more than sit in that chair and watch the TV. They wanted me upright to help with the drainage, they said.” She grimaced. “I didn’t ask, but they changed my dressings a few times.”

  “Did you hear anything when they did?”

  She bit her lip and nodded. “A little. But they said it could be a residual memory. They didn’t want to get my hopes up I guess.” She ran the flat of her hand across his considerable chest. “When they tried to treat me like porcelain, I told them to fuck off.”

  He did chuckle then, the low rumbling a sound she’d always treasure. “That’s my girl. When will they release you?”

  “Tomorrow, probably. But I have to come back for tests every day.” She paused, not knowing what he’d think of her next information, but she had to tell him. “My mother has to go home on Sunday. She got all the time off work they’d allow her and she can’t afford to lose it. Since the economy collapsed, there aren’t many jobs around.”

  “That’s okay.” He sounded remarkably calm. She thought he’d go nuts if he knew she’d be alone after the weekend. He had to get back for another concert, but Berlin was even closer than Moscow, and a lot easier to get in and out of.

  “I can’t fly, Hunter. If I come to see you, it will be ferry and train.”

  “I’ll come to you.” He turned his head, met her gaze. She saw speculation in the blue depths and a determination she didn’t trust. He was planning something.

  “Emmelie has offered me a room in her house. It seems a good idea. While I can’t fly, I’ll be able to drive after this weekend they said. Or I can get the train.”

  He frowned at her. “Do you want to stay with her?”

  She hesitated before she replied. “At first I thought not, but I have some ideas and I want to talk to Emmelie.”

  “After what she did to you, I’m surprised you want to see her again.”

  “Why? I don’t hold grudges. Life is too short for that. Besides—” She kissed his chest. “Look what a fine son she made. How can I be mad at a woman who produced you?”

  Sadness, she saw it now, ringing his eyes together with the dark shadows of weariness. “She has her faults, but she means well. I spoke to her about what she did. She texted me to say she was sorry but she had good reasons. I want to talk to her about that, find out what she meant.”

  “I’ll drive you,” he said, “but I have to be in Berlin for the weekend. After that we have a few days before Paris.” He paused. “I’d like you to come with me to Paris.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Train,” he said. “I can fly here and travel with you. Or hire a car if you’d prefer.”

  She shook her head but stopped, because despite what she’d said about being well, she still had residual dizziness. Everything was fine as long as she kept her head steady. The doctor said it would pass in a few days and to tell him if it hadn’t gone by Monday. She wouldn’t tell Hunter though. Already she knew her big man worried about her and in a perverse way, she reveled in it, because it showed how much he cared. “It’s a
long journey. In any case, I have to be here for therapy and examinations.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Something stopped then and she paused, watched him. His muscles tightened slightly and his eyes gained an expression of wariness.

  “What have you done?” Sitting up in bed, she turned the dimmer switch by her bed down so the light glowed brighter. She didn’t want to miss anything of this, and if she could aid her burgeoning hearing skills by lip-reading then she was all for it.

  Glad she’d put on her nightdress, despite its thinness, she felt safer, as if it were some kind of armor. Why she needed it she wasn’t sure yet. “What’s happened?”

  His expression warmed and softened. “I’ve found a way for us to be together, at least until the end of the European tour.”

  He had said that, hadn’t he? “It’s impossible,” she said. “I have to stay here for tests and aftercare. They want me close for the next six weeks and then I have to let them test me in some detail. It’s part of the agreement and I won’t renege on it.”

  Now he just looked smug, and she didn’t like that any better than the wary expression of a few moments earlier. As if he could solve everything with a wave of his wand—or drumstick. “I know that. I called every day and asked for your progress and I spoke to your caregivers. One of them is available.”

  “For what? A threesome?” She snapped the words, unnecessarily tense, but she didn’t care.

  “She’s willing to travel with us and do all the tests she can offsite. She’s a qualified therapist so she can do that part too.”

  “And who will pay for all that?”

  He shrugged. “I will.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  He blinked, his eyes widening. “What?”

  “No. Thank you, but no.” At least she’d managed the thanks, although she said it through gritted teeth. Could he get any more infuriating? Couldn’t he see?

  “It means you can travel with me.”

  He really couldn’t see. “And do what?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  She’d already decided that part and she was making plans. Taking off around the world with him wasn’t one of them. “I want to make a difference to the deaf community.”

  “But you’re…” He trailed off. He must have seen the look on her face. Maybe she’d colored up, her fury had to be showing somewhere. It had, because he got out of bed and bent to retrieve his jeans. A pang of sorrow went through her. Why couldn’t she have waited until tomorrow?

  Because he’d been bursting to tell her. “I’m a bridge.” To emphasize her point, she signed as she spoke. “I can lip-read and I can sign in several languages. I plan to add more. I can talk to the people who have suddenly become hearing after years of deafness, and to people who have lost their hearing after a life of sound. I want to help.”

  “And that’s more important than us? Than our happiness?” He growled the words, facing her. “Why can’t you do that with me?”

  “I want to do it here, in Scandinavia, the area of the world I know best.” She’d thought her plan through carefully, made notes, worked on it when she had a chance. The plan had kept her sane when she wondered if she’d regain her hearing or be stone deaf. It made sense whatever happened, and she could concentrate on something else.

  “I want to take care of you.”

  If anything, her anger rose even more. “I don’t want anyone to take care of me. Haven’t you learned anything? Why does being deaf mean I need someone to look after me? Why don’t you accept me as I am? I have always hated that, to have people to fuss around me.”

  With a dedicated therapist and Hunter, she wouldn’t have time to do her own thing. She’d have to report in and allow someone to go with her, even if she wanted to go on a simple shopping trip. “I won’t do it, Hunter. I wouldn’t survive. Not as a person and not as someone who wants to do something useful in society.”

  She stumbled over her words and stopped talking, continuing her argument with her hands. “I can’t be so dependent on someone else. I can’t. I want to do this. The hospital will make an announcement about the procedure and the TV company wants to interview me. I can make this part of my interview.”

  He paused in the act of zipping up his pants and stared at her, his expression unreadable now, the Hunter Ostrander the press knew. He spoke. “You could do that with me.”

  “But you’d be paying. I’d be dependent on you. Don’t you know me better than that? How can I possibly let you do it?”

  He came over to the bed, dropped his palms onto the surface and leaned in, invading her space so she could feel his heat, his breath on her face. “Because I love you. Don’t you trust me? Money is nothing, Sabina, nothing at all.”

  “Only when you’ve had it all your life. You’ve gone from rich to richer. My mother works as a PA. She’s worked all her life to get up to that point and she needs the money. My father teaches at a local school. He qualified late. I have six brothers and sisters. Six, Hunter. We never had money to spare, we were always looking for it, making it. When the economic downturn came, we had more problems. Four of my siblings don’t have jobs anymore. I will never depend on anyone else for my income.”

  “Fuck.” He pulled away. “Money is more important to you than happiness? Then wallow in your misery. Struggle and fight and hate it. Keep your nose down. If you let me or my family help, you’d reach more people faster.”

  She’d been working for years to reach this point, built up her savings. This operation and its aftermath would take a considerable chunk. At least she had somewhere to stay. It meant she could live near enough to the hospital to travel there for her tests. She also had no doubt that Emmelie had ulterior motives. She’d parade Sabina as an example of a woman made miserable by the restoration of her hearing.

  Sabina wanted to combat that and beat her at her own game. Use Emmelie in her turn. Emmelie had access to the right people, the ones in the hearing community and the deaf who understood and could choose to back her.

  If she took off with Emmelie’s son, none of that would work.

  Hunter glanced back at her. “It hurts, Sabina, that you think more of your career than you do of me. I will keep in touch, because I promised I would. Have a good life.”

  He turned and left, closing the door carefully behind him. She’d never noticed he did that before. Never heard the hushed click, never understood why.

  She wasn’t sure she understood now, but she was too busy trying to stem her tears to think about it clearly.

  How could things have gone wrong so quickly? One minute she was telling him she loved him and the next he’d gone. Issues? His anger, certainly. She’d seen him lose it with his mother so she should have paid more attention to that, realized that one day he’d turn it on her.

  When he left, he’d been furious. His upright stance, the fire in his eyes, the way his mouth had tightened and the lines at the corners deepened with a rigidity that had nothing to do with humor.

  Maybe she was better off without him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hunter drove to Stockholm. Bitterly shocked at Sabina’s rejection after he and Chick and Beverley had worked so hard, he couldn’t understand her selfishness, her refusal to listen.

  Did she think his mother was the only one with access to the press? He could have worked it out for her, given her all the access she needed.

  His rage drove him all the way to Emmelie’s house. For a change, he slammed the front door behind him after he’d jabbed in the series of numbers that gave him access to the front gate and the main door. The nasty little camera outside snapped a picture of him and he hoped it gave it some pleasure in its miserable little life. He’d sleep here instead of in Sabina’s bed or the chair next to it and get a plane in the morning.

  Past midnight now. His mother always had at least six people staying, probably more considering her new venture, but none of them should be up at this time of night. She’d have a few inte
rviews, press and so on. As far as he knew, she hadn’t arranged any evening functions, something else she used some of the bigger rooms in the house for.

  It was silent except for the reverberations from the slam, which did nothing to ease his mood.

  Neither did the sudden appearance of the blonde woman in her robe, one he’d never seen before. But then that wasn’t strange because he rarely saw his mother in anything but immaculate business attire or equally immaculate evening wear. Now she wore her hair down, albeit tied back, and her face was bare, stripped of makeup. She was still beautiful.

  She lifted her hands and signed, “I came to see what caused the vibrations, but now I know. Come with me.”

  Jolted straight back into his youth, when he’d come back drunk or wasted in some other way, he felt guilty and foolish, but his temper still burned through everything else. Nevertheless, he followed his mother to her room.

  Emmelie had a suite on the ground floor near her office. It was the only part of the house she kept for herself. A large, comfortable sitting room with a view through French windows of the garden beyond, a small kitchenette and a bedroom with an en suite. As much as most kids had for a starter home, except that the rooms contained comfortable, expensive Swedish designer furniture. Hand-knotted rugs reposed on the highly polished floors and the bathroom had the best shower and tub available. He knew because his own rooms here were similar.

  Something Sabina had said pierced the veil of anger and unhappiness surrounding him like a shroud. She’d never had money to spare. She was right in one thing—before he’d left home, he’d taken the way he lived for granted. But she didn’t know him that well. She saw a man from a comfortable background get even wealthier. She had no idea what had gone in between. Perhaps he’d tell her.

  No he wouldn’t.