I shake my head. "You just said a whole lot of words I don't understand. What's an SK-1?"
"You remember those little mini keyboards kids used to have in the 80s? Like, 32 keys and a few preset beats? That's an SK-1. The difference between that and a piano is... I don't even know. It's the difference between a firework and the damned space shuttle." He laughs. "Jesus, these guys piss me off. It's like nobody knows how to do anything properly any more. Everyone down there is just stumbling through a never ending adolescence, pretending to work on their latest startup so they don't have to get a real job."
"Now hold on a minute," I say, narrowing my eyes, "didn't you have your own startup? Penny showed me an article on her phone. Perfect Pitch, right?"
Rafe nods and smiles. "Yeah, but mine actually existed, Princess. I tended bar at night and played piano in a hotel lobby through the day to pay my way. I didn't sleep for four years, and I didn't – this part is important – I didn't grow any ironic facial hair or spend my days riding a fixed gear bike around the fucking Village searching for hipster tail."
"I'm sorry," I laugh, "but are you trying to give me a rags to riches story that involves you playing piano in a fancy hotel?"
Rafe grins and gives me a wink. "I played until my fingers bled, baby."
The elevator suddenly grinds to a halt, and Rafe yanks at the gate until it creaks open. He steps out into a dark hallway and beckons to me to follow him up a narrow flight of stairs.
"Where the hell are you taking me, Stone?"
Rafe doesn't reply. Instead he hops up the last few steps and pushes open a fire door. Beyond it I can see the lights of the city.
"Welcome to the hipster free zone."
Rafe leads me out onto the rooftop, and I gasp as I see the view. A block to the west is the river, and on the still water beside the Williamsburg Bridge is reflected the countless lights of the skyscrapers of downtown. To the north I can see the Empire State and the Chrysler buildings – the only two I know by name – towering above midtown. Up here the constant sounds of the city are muted, as if filtered through layers of cotton wool, and it almost feels as if we're not in the city at all.
Rafe straddles the low brick wall that bounds the roof and reaches down to a six pack of Rolling Rock hidden in the shadows. "Take a seat and grab a beer, Princess. It's not exactly a fancy rooftop bar, but it's better than downstairs." He pops the top of a bottle on the edge of the wall as I gingerly sit down, looking over to the long drop to the fire escape hugging the side of the building below.
"Is it safe up here?" I ask, trying my best not to look at the street six or seven floors below.
"Sure," Rafe smiles, "just so long as you don't fall. Here, take this." He hands me a cold beer and grabs another for himself.
"So, tell me about this business of yours. What do you do?"
Rafe takes a sip. "You mean what did I do. I left the company when I sold it. I decided it was time to move on to the next challenge."
"So you're unemployed?" I tease.
"Ha! Yeah, I guess you could say that. I won't have to work for a while, so long as I don't blow 27 million dollars on lottery tickets."
I almost choke on my beer. "27 million? Are you serious? 27 million fucking dollars for an app?"
Rafe grins. "That's pocket change for Facebook. They just bought me out because they were trying to develop their own music discovery app. They knew mine was better, so Zuckerberg reached down the back of the sofa cushion and tossed me what he fished out."
"But how... what..." I can't get my head around the idea. "Sorry, but how the hell did you manage to design an app worth millions of dollars?"
Rafe slips a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and pats around for a lighter. "Prison. I had a lot of time to think in my cell, you know? After a while I started thinking about how I'd get by on the outside with a felony on my record, and I decided the only way to get a decent job was if I was my own boss. I managed to get hold of my own laptop in my second year, and I started learning about computers. By the time I was released I was pretty good. It's surprising how much you can learn when you don't have any distractions."
He lights his cigarette and takes a long pull. "Enough about me, though. I want to hear about Mongolia."
I take a swig of my beer and sigh. "You've read the book. It's all in there. I had to fill 300 pages, you know? I didn't leave much to the imagination."
"No, I want to know what isn't in the book. I already know you named your horse Binky because you love Terry Pratchett. I know you fell in love with the food, and learned how to make buuz and khuushuur on a coal stove, and I know you made that leather jacket you're wearing with your own two hands. Those are details for your fans." He flicks the glowing butt of his cigarette over the side, and we both watch it as it falls to the street below. "I want to know how you really felt while you were over there. Did it turn out to be what you expected? You know, back when you were writing Jaisalmer Dawn?"
I blush. "Jesus, I hadn't thought of that story for years until you mentioned it in the store. I don't even remember how it went anymore."
Rafe smiles and looks out into the night. "Naresh wept joyous tears on the parched desert sand, and Meena watched as they mingled with her own and grew to become a great river. The waters washed away all that had gone before. The pain. The solitude. Even the palace was taken by the torrent, but Naresh felt no sorrow. His fortune may be gone, but in its ruins he'd found love. Not even a king could ask for more."
I stare open mouthed at Rafe. "How the hell...?"
He slips a hand inside his jacket and pulls out the little black Moleskine notebook I remember so well. I try to pluck it out of his hand, but he takes my wrist. I can feel my pulse racing beneath his grip.
"I took it from the diner. I was gonna send it back to you, but you never wrote me and I didn't have your address. After a while... well, it was the only thing I had to remember you. I didn't want to part with it. Here, it's yours."
Rafe holds out the little notebook, and I remember the first time he picked it up. I remember that morning in the diner, and the way I felt when I saw his eyes flit over the words I'd wrote. I remember the joy I felt when he told me I was good. I remember the moment, right there, sitting across from Rafe on a squeaky vinyl bench seat with the remains of an Insanity Burger on my plate, when I first felt the confidence to write.
"No," I reply, pulling open his jacket and slipping the notebook back in his pocket, "it's yours now.”
I know I should pull my hand away. I know I should go back downstairs, hail a cab, head back to the hotel and get some sleep before the long flight home. I know I should show up at the studio to film my spot on the damned Ellen Show, smile for the camera, sell my book, make my money, and head back out into the world and write the next one. I know I should leave right now.
But I don't want to. I don't want to pull back my hand. I don't want to leave. As my fingers touch the firm muscles beneath Rafe's jacket I know there's only one way this can go. I knew it from the moment I saw him in the store.
I feel Rafe's hand reach beneath my jacket, and his fingers slide around my side. He pulls me toward him, and I don't resist. I can feel his warm breath on my lips.
“I want to be there when you write your next story, Princess," he whispers, pulling me closer. "All of them."
I close my eyes and lean in, and the moment our lips meet it all comes flooding back. I hear David Bowie singing through my bedroom wall. I feel the grooves of Rafe's Elliot Smith record, and I remember the taste of Marlboros and chili sauce.
Now the hunger overwhelms me. Seven years of yearning, pushed down, suppressed and bottled up with all my strength... it all comes boiling to the surface at the touch of Rafe's lips. His kiss awakens me, and I can tell from the strength of his grip around my waist he feels the same.
I pull away from him for a moment. “Where's your place?” I ask, urgently.
He shakes his head. “Way uptown. I can't wait. Here?” He gestures to the e
mpty rooftop.
“Here,” I nod, almost laughing at the fact that for the second time we've been overcome by lust in such a place. First the car park of a diner and now a rooftop. Fuck it. I have no control over my need for him, and this won't hold until we've found silk sheets sprinkled with rose petals.
Rafe pulls off his jacket and tosses it carelessly to the floor before kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning onto his shirt. I tear off my jacket and fumble with my jeans, transfixed by the sight of Rafe's growing erection tenting the crotch of his suit trousers.
After much struggling I manage to get rid of my pants, and I'm thankful I chose a pair of halfway sexy panties today. Rafe kicks off his pants, and in the moonlight his body is magnificent. The last time I saw him naked he was tight, toned and skinny, but in the years since then he's bulked up more than a little. He doesn't have an ounce of fat on him, and his firm, tight muscles have been painted by yet more ink. His chest is adorned with tribal markings, and on his shoulders I see what look like prison tats, roughly drawn but perfect nonetheless.
Rafe's eyes run hungrily across my body, taking in my own slender form. Gone is the puppy fat that used to cling so stubbornly to my belly, replaced by the taut, flat stomach I earned through two long, hard winters in the saddle. I can see from his hungry eyes that Rafe has noticed the difference, and I revel in the pleasure of showing off my new, tight body.
I lower myself to the ground and rest on my jacket to protect my skin from the cold stone. Rafe lowers himself down above me, sliding between my splayed legs. He leans in, slips one arm around my back and supports himself with the other, and I gasp as he slides himself inside. It's just as I remember it... the momentary fear of taking a cock that large, biting my lip and waiting for the pain that doesn't come. My body accepts him, spreads to accommodate him and clenches tight around him.
As Rafe slips inside I moan loudly, my voice echoing across the rooftops, and I know we could be seen by anyone who chose to look out their window. I don't care. They can watch.
“Jesus, I missed you,” Rafe whispers, his hips undulating smoothly back and forth.
I don't reply. There's nothing to say, and nothing I can say. All my energy is devoted to the moment, to feeling Rafe inside me. Right now I can barely remember my own name.
All I know, as the heat radiating from Rafe's body protects me from the April night chill, is that there's nowhere on earth I'd rather be. All I know – the same thing I knew the last time Rafe was inside me – is that I never want this to end. As my first climax quickly arrives, sparking every nerve ending into life and sending a delicious tingle through my body from head to toe, I know that nothing else matters as long as I can be Rafe's Princess, and he can be my Prince.
That's all I ever wanted.
Penny's yelling down the phone. She's... well, she's not happy.
"Madison, you can't just back out at the last minute like this! It took us weeks to get you a spot on the show!"
"I'm really sorry, Penny. Look, it's the last day of the tour anyway. It's just one show, OK? Just tell them I'm sick or something. Please?"
Penny sighs. She knows it's too late. Ellen tapes her show in Burbank at 4, and there's no way I could possibly get there in time. It's already almost 11AM. Even if I left right now and hit green lights from here to LA it'd still be too late. The flight I was due to take left long ago, ferrying my angry, hungover mother back to the west coast with dad. It's all over. Ellen will have to make do without me. I'm sure she'll survive.
Listen, Pen, I want you to cancel everything today. I'm done with the tour.”
Penny's not happy. “Look, Maddy, I know I encouraged you to hook up with Rafe but I didn't mean you should throw away your career over him. I don't know if you've gone crazy or what, but you have to think about your future. You can't just fuck over your publisher so you can have a fling with an old flame. I'm telling you this as a friend, Mad. Please don't fuck this up for yourself.”
I look across the airport concourse to the ticketing desk, where Rafe smiles and gives me the thumbs up. I can't keep the grin from my face. I'm just too excited.
“Pen, I promise you I'm not fucking anything up. You can tell your boss that I've made a decision about my next book. You can tell him to start drawing up the contract, OK?”
“You mean you know what you're gonna write? Seriously?” Penny's boss and my agent has been pushing me for a new idea for three months now, ever since The Gobi Rider started flying off the shelves.
“Yeah, Pen, I know what I'm going to write.” Rafe strolls back towards me with a smile, two tickets and our passports in his hand. I catch a glimpse of the destination on the ticket: Jodhpur, the Blue City, just a day's drive from our true destination in the middle of the baking Thar Desert.
“The book will be called Jaisalmer Dawn.” I take Rafe's hand, look up at his perfect, beautiful face and lose myself in those piercing blue eyes. In them I see not just love, but our future rolling out ahead of us. I see endless possibilities, excitement and adventure. I can't look away. I don't want to, ever again. “I have to go, Pen. They're calling my flight.”
I hang up the phone, slip it in my jacket pocket and flash Rafe a smile. “You ready to go?”
Rafe taps his Ray Bans down from his forehead, wraps his arms around my back, pulls me close and grins. “Princess, I was born ready.”
E
PILOGUE: TWO YEARS LATER
The glint catches my eye, and once again my gaze is drawn back to rock on my finger. Even after a year I still haven't gotten used to the weight on my hand, or the way the bright morning sun catches the diamond at just the right angle.
I shield my eyes and look out over the Mongolian steppe, empty but for the occasional wild horse all the way to the distant hills towards the Chinese border. The sun bathes the landscape in a warm golden light, and a gentle breeze brings with it the fresh aroma of young grass and clean air.
It also carries the tantalizing aroma of meat sizzling on the stove. I turn back towards our ger and see the column of smoke rise from the chimney, and like every morning since the cravings began my mouth starts to water as I look forward to breakfast. I begin to drift back towards the close warmth of the ger, a crisp bacon sandwich and Rafe's smile.
Beside the ger I see Binky Junior dip her head to nibble on a tuft of grass, nudging aside her nameless friend (Rafe refuses to name his horse. He says – only half seriously, I suspect – that a name would steal away its essential 'horseness'). Soon enough I'll be too far along to ride Binky, and – for a while, at least – I'll let her roam free on the steppe. She'll come back when she's ready, and when I'm ready to ride again.
I absently stroke my growing bump, and not for the first time I wonder how I ever managed to get so lucky. How did I find myself here, with the cool grass tickling my bare toes, a little life growing inside me, my books flying off the shelves back home and a loving husband cooking an enormous breakfast on the stove? I never imagined I could have any of this. I never thought I could ever be quite so content.
Y'know, I try not to ask these questions any more... about the past, the future and how we reached the present. There's no need for answers, not really. We may one day return home to the States and leave our wandering days behind. We might find a new adventure; a new place for the three of us to explore, discover, and love. We might just stay here, far from the bright lights and chaos of the world, alone on the endless steppe with nothing but our cozy little home, our faithful horses and the big blue sky. It doesn't matter. As long as we're together, nothing else matters.
Not even a queen could ask for more.
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Stepbrother Fallen Page 12
