Temptation's Song (Kimani Romance)

by Janice Sims

He handed Elle a glass of Chianti and she sniffed it and swirled it around in the glass. After he poured his he did the same, then touched the rim of his glass to hers. “To many idyllic days like this,” he intoned. His soulful brown eyes held her gaze. Elle took a sip. It had a delicious, fruity, refreshing quality.

  Dominic handed her half a roast beef sandwich on thick homemade bread with spicy brown mustard. He kept the other half.

  They enjoyed it in silence as they watched boats on the lake drift by. “No speedboats today,” Dominic commented after a while. “I hate them. They upset the tranquility of the setting.”

  Elle changed position, putting her long legs out in front of her. He was right, this was a peaceful spot. She could lie back and fall asleep right here and sleep the afternoon away. She sighed. She must really be tired after those grueling rehearsals to be thinking of napping when she had an Italian lover only two feet away.

  She gave him a quizzical look. “Have you always loved peace and quiet?”

  Dominic smiled at her. “No, I was a wild child in my youth.”

  Elle laughed at him. “In your youth,” she said derisively. “You’re only thirty-three.”

  “Well, in my teens,” Dominic said. “I drove too fast, got drunk, had sex with any willing girl. I put my parents through hell.”

  Elle was truly surprised by his admission. “I imagined that you have always been disciplined, and hard on yourself, the way you are today,” she told him.

  “No, I had my rebellious stage,” Dominic told her. He smiled, remembering. “You see, my father started grooming me to take over the family business as soon as I came out of my mother’s womb, if not sooner.” He laughed shortly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he told me he used to talk to me about the business while I was still in her belly. He told me that, from the moment Momma told him she was carrying me, he knew that I was a boy and would be the next Corelli to head the company. Imagine his disappointment when from the time I was three I demonstrated a talent for music. I was like you—I could hear a tune and play it by ear. Papa was devastated. My mother and my grandmother said it was a gift from God. Papa thought it must be from Satan. If I pursued music, where would that leave him? He had an obsessive fear that when the time came there would be no one to inherit the family business. When my mother was pregnant with Sophia and Ana, I prayed that they would be boys. I believe that from an early age Sophia resented my father for not considering his daughters likely candidates to take over the business. But he stuck to his belief that I was just going through a phase and I would give up music.”

  Riveted, Elle asked, “What happened to make him realize it wasn’t a phase?”

  “I entered a young composers contest given by La Scala and won,” he said. “I was fifteen. I was given a full music scholarship. I was sent to a boarding school that specialized in preparing young people for careers in music.”

  “Like Juilliard,” Elle said softly.

  “Yes, except it was in Switzerland,” Dominic told her.

  “I remember reading about that. How long did you go to school there?”

  “From fifteen till twenty-one,” he answered, his smile gone.

  Sensing something bad had happened to him at that school in Switzerland, Elle reached over and grasped his free hand in hers.

  “I’m listening,” she gently said.

  She set her sandwich down on its wax paper wrapping and reached for his other hand. He gave it to her and, after taking a deep breath, continued. “In a last-ditch effort to conform me to his ways, my dad took me out of school when I turned twenty-one. ‘You’re a man now,’ he said. ‘You can’t continue to have pipe dreams. It’s time to face reality—you are my heir. You must learn the business.’”

  “How did you handle it?” Elle asked, brows knitted in a deep frown.

  “I went out partying with the first lowlifes I could find. I didn’t have any friends here. All of my friends were at school in Switzerland. We got drunk, trashed a bar, you can’t imagine what stupid things you think of doing when you believe your life is no longer in your control and nothing matters. Add alcohol to the equation and you have a recipe for disaster. The elderly man who owned the bar got hurt during the scuffle. He wound up in the hospital with a concussion and we ended up in jail. It was the single most stupid thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

  “So your trip to headquarters to rescue me wasn’t the first time you’d been in a police station.”

  He smiled again. “No. It was the most humiliating night of my life. My mother and father had to come down and bail me out. That was the first time I met Felix Filianoti, the lawyer who helped you that night.”

  “Yes, I’m grateful to him,” Elle said.

  “Felix pleaded my case, explaining that I had never been in trouble before, and assured them I would never do anything so foolish again. My father, he said, was a fine, upstanding businessman and my mother was the great Natalie Davis who had sung at La Scala. I believe that impressed them more than my father’s credentials.” He paused. “On the way home in the car my father told me I was free. ‘Free?’ I asked. ‘Free from what?’

  “‘Free to pursue your music,’ he told me. ‘If being denied your calling is going to turn you into a criminal, then I set you free.’”

  He smiled at Elle. “There were no hard feelings between us. He loved me just as much as he had always loved me, and I loved him more. I was free to be me.”

  “You finished your first opera when you were twenty-three,” Elle said in an awe-filled voice. “That’s amazing.”

  “Not really,” Dominic said. “I started it when I was sixteen. It took me seven years to finish it.”

  “But it was worth it,” Elle said. “Inferno has been performed all over the world. Music from it has been used in major films, and artists from opera and pop music have covered the songs. It’s a wonderful piece of work.”

  He held her gaze. “How do you know that opera so well? You sang the opening aria at your audition and then you played ‘Burn in Hell’ as if you’d written it.”

  “Inferno was our senior class project,” Elle told him. “Every year an opera was chosen and the senior class performed the starring roles. I had the lead soprano part, so I must have sung that aria a hundred times. It’s embedded in my memory. And because I love your music, I learned the entire score my senior year.”

  “I’m impressed,” Dominic said with sincerity. “Tell me more about you. Where did you get your voice?”

  Elle felt her tear ducts filling up. Every time she thought of her grandfather and hearing his glorious voice on Sunday morning, she wanted to cry. “I know you’ve heard of Paul Robeson,” she said.

  “The black social activist, singer and actor from the early twentieth century,” Dominic said.

  “I’ve never quite heard him described that way,” Elle said.

  “I’m sorry, but I learned about him from a history book,” Dominic explained.

  “No, you’re exactly right,” Elle said. “It’s just that when I was growing up I always heard him described in glowing terms. My grandfather and his contemporaries adored Paul Robeson. They would listen to his recordings endlessly. And my grandfather’s bass voice was so close to his that it was almost impossible to tell them apart. That’s where I get my voice, from my grandfather. He was also the first person to tell me I was talented. He played piano, too, and we would spend hours at the piano, singing together. I think my range is the way it is today because I used to try to mimic his bass voice.”

  Dominic nodded, understanding completely. “Yes, in your lower registers you have a purity that astounds me. You know, you’re probably not a mezzo-soprano at all. You’re probably a contralto, but you sing mezzo-soprano very well.”

  “What are you?” Elle asked.

  Dominic smiled and picked up his sandwich. “I told you, I don’t sing.”

  “You’re lying,” Elle said with certainty, her eyes filled with humor. “Your speaking voice alone sends chil
ls down my spine. You’re either a baritone or a tenor. One of these days, you’re going to sing for me.”

  “Don’t hold your breath, my darling girl,” Dominic said. “Eat your sandwich. You’re going to need your strength later.”

  Elle eyed him curiously. “For what, exactly?” she asked.

  “Tonight, I’m going to take you out in my boat and make love to you under the light of the full moon,” Dominic promised.

  Elle blushed and picked up her sandwich. “Well, I guess I do need my strength.”

  They ate in silence from that point on, stealing steamy glances at one another and smiling. They were happy, truly happy, just being together.

  Chapter 14

  “It’s back to work tomorrow,” Dominic said wistfully. It was a little after nine in the evening and he and Elle had just had dinner together on the deck of his forty-five-foot sailboat. The sails were lowered and the anchor was down so the only motion was a gentle rocking caused by the wind and the lake’s currents.

  They were lounging on the long, padded seating area on the foredeck. Dominic was sitting with his arms around Elle, legs stretched out, his back supported, and Elle was sitting between his legs, her back against his chest, her legs also outstretched.

  Both were casually dressed in jeans, shirts and deck shoes. Because the air was cool, and when the breezes blew it was cold, they were sharing a blanket. They were also sharing a bottle of wine, which was almost gone. The mood was mellow.

  “So, there are going to be two or three days separating each performance,” Elle said. She’d gone over the schedule earlier.

  “Yes, to give the singers time to rest their voices. This way we get the optimal performance out of them,” Dominic said. “Teatro alla Scala has to be able to justify their high ticket prices.”

  Elle laughed softly. “Everybody complains about it. But, really, when you buy a ticket aren’t you also paying for the ambience, the reputation and the historical significance of the theater?”

  “You should give that one to the theater’s publicity department. It would sell even more tickets,” Dominic joked.

  “I’m just saying that when you go to La Scala you’re going there for the whole experience, not just for the opera or the ballet or some other entertainment event that you’re going to see.”

  “Yes, dear, but ultimately you go there for the superior entertainment,” Dominic insisted.

  “I’m not arguing the point,” Elle said. “But when I think of La Scala I think of all the wonderful singers who’ve performed there, like Pavarotti, Grace Bumbry, Maria Callas, Denyce Graves, Leontyne Price. It has an enviable history of great performances. To say nothing of the composers who debuted their operas at La Scala. All the i’s.”

  “The eyes?” Dominic asked, puzzled.

  “The alphabet, i,” Elle said. “Verdi, Rossini, Puccini.”

  Dominic laughed. “Corelli.”

  “My favorite i,” Elle said, twisting her torso around to kiss his lips.

  As the kiss deepened, she got up on her knees to get in a more comfortable position.

  Dominic was delighted. He liked it when she desired him. The Latin lover in him wouldn’t let him be subjugated in lovemaking, but it was nice to know she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  He had to stop her now, though, because although the cushion beneath them was soft, the bench was far too narrow to make love on. So he gently broke off the kiss, got up, took her by the hand and led her below, the wine and glasses abandoned on the deck and the blanket in Elle’s hand trailing after her.

  In the well-appointed cabin, Elle tossed the blanket onto the big bed and began to slowly and methodically peel off her clothes. Dominic alternated between watching her and taking his eyes off her long enough to walk over to the CD player and switch it on.

  Aretha’s voice filled the space as she sang, “You’re a liar and you’re a cheat, and I don’t know why I let you do these things to me….”

  Dominic began pulling off his clothes, too, his body swaying to the music. Elle watched. He had good moves, sexy and assured. He pulled the shirt he was wearing open to reveal his muscular chest and stomach. Elle sighed, remembered she was also getting undressed and resumed.

  Above them the moon was full and its bright light shone down on them through the skylight. It was the only illumination in the cabin and cast a pale white light on their brown bodies. The effect was almost ethereal to Elle, like a dream she’d recently had about them—a very sensual dream.

  Nude, they met in the middle of the cabin and embraced.

  “Cara mia,” Dominic breathed, his hands caressing her shoulders, moving down to her back and then her bottom. “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you.”

  He honestly felt that way. Of the lovers he’d had he could not recall any who had made him feel this way. It was like a hunger that he thought had been sated the last time he’d had his fill, only to realize later that he was even more ravenous. The feeling increased exponentially until he felt he would go crazy if he didn’t touch her. Like now, his excitement was such that he didn’t know where to touch her or kiss her first: Her neck, her breasts, that spot he liked behind her ear? It was all sweet to him.

  After months and months of deprivation, having no one touch her intimately at all, Elle’s body was practically singing with joy! That sensation was magnified by the fact that she loved him. It was a doomed love, but love nonetheless.

  She would stay as long as it lasted.

  Dominic picked her up and put her down on the bed. Elle pulled him on top of her, opened her legs and welcomed him inside of her. Their loving was fierce and near violent, as if passion had possessed them and their actions were not their own, and therefore couldn’t be reined in.

  Their kisses were hungry and designed to pull as much succor from each other as possible. It was an intimate urgency that was totally out of control.

  Everything she couldn’t say to him was expressed in her lovemaking.

  After several minutes of this sensual intensity Elle’s body stiffened and she arched her back. She moaned loudly and scratched his sides as the orgasm rocked her. Dominic went deeper and enjoyed the feel of the multiple contractions she was having.

  It was only when he was about to ejaculate inside of her that Dominic’s feverish mind suddenly realized that he wasn’t wearing a condom. But she felt so good to him that he debated whether or not it was worth the risk. At the last moment he pulled out and hoped irrationally that, since he was a Catholic, the rhythm method could somehow magically work for him. Or Elle could be on the pill. That would be a godsend.

  His seed spilled onto her belly and he collapsed on top of her, but quickly removed his weight from her body and lay beside her.

  Elle, breathing hard, noticed the wetness, which seemed like a lot more than she was used to, and put her hand on her belly. She instantly knew what the thick dampness was and tried not to panic. She sat up. “The condom broke?” she asked, keeping her tone as normal as she could manage at that moment.

  “No, I forgot the condom,” Dominic admitted. “But I pulled out before I ejaculated. Don’t worry, I’ve been tested. I’m healthy.”

  Elle hadn’t thought that he might be HIV positive. But she knew that in this day and age, it should have at least been somewhere in the back of her mind to find out. Talk about being blinded by lust!

  But HIV was not her only immediate concern. “I’m not on the pill, Dominic. Although I’m healthy, too, we can never forget the condom!”

  Dominic sat on the side of bed and held his head in his hands. “We should have talked about this before….”

  Elle sighed. “Okay, well now we know. I’m not getting on the pill because it messes with my hormones, so that’s not a solution for birth control with us. We’ve got to rely on condoms unless you want to…” The word vasectomy flashed in Dominic’s mind and he cried, “No, I’m not letting a doctor near me.”

  Elle smiled. “But you don’t want child
ren. It would be the perfect solution.”

  “It’s not going to happen, Elle, so get off the subject!” Dominic said loudly.

  Elle laughed. “Calm down, I was only pulling your leg. I would never ask you to do that. I expect you to respect my wishes about not taking the pill.”

  Dominic laughed softly. “All right, I won’t forget the condoms again.”

  Elle reached up and patted his strong jaw. “Good.” She climbed out of bed. “I’m going to freshen up.”

  Dominic watched her go, his desire for her still high even after what had just happened between them. So, now he knew there was a risk of pregnancy if they weren’t careful. Strangely enough, that didn’t send him into a panic. Worse things could happen than having a child with a woman like Elle.

  By the time Dominic pulled the boat into the dock adjacent to the villa, it was late. After making love they had unfurled the sails, raised the anchor and toured the lake district. They called hello to fellow night boaters and drank in the beauty of the romantic landscape, of the villas lit up and sitting high on hills, to say nothing of the moon.

  While they sailed they talked about everything under the sun, from world politics to religion, and Dominic finally revealed why the devil figured prominently in all of his operas. “I’m not saying that I prefer him over God, but I can certainly understand his point of view,” he began. “He was one of God’s favorite angels. He was assigned the task of watching over humans and he began to covet their adoration, so he took it upon himself to get them to worship him. The only way for that to happen was to get them thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Then they would have to depend on him. Unfortunately for him, his plans didn’t work out—he wound up getting tossed out of heaven, and Adam and Eve got tossed out of paradise. All because he disobeyed his father by wanting to go out on his own.”

  Elle thought she could see where this was going, and said, “You’re saying that because you didn’t want to follow in your father’s footsteps, you were demonized by him?”

  “Made to feel unworthy,” Dominic said, surprised that she had put two and two together so quickly. “It wasn’t intentional, of course, but that was the end result.”