He slid deep inside, her body accepting him as always. This time the music vibrated deep inside her, massaging his cock with little ripples of sonic sensation.
After two verses he recognized the chorus and joined in. He wasn’t the best singer in the world—hell, he wasn’t even the best singer in Murder City Ravens—but he could hold a tune and did backing vocals occasionally. He joined in, put in his deeper, masculine tones with hers but didn’t harmonize or echo. Instead he threaded a different melody in, adding his own version, dropping them into her lyrics to add a darker, more ambiguous tone. It wouldn’t work anywhere but here. Nobody else would get it but she did, smiling at him and then laughing at his increasingly audacious interruptions. Her song became a careful dichotomy of opinions, bordering on the argumentative while he fucked her senseless.
He gave her the force he’d so carefully held back in the shower, slamming into her, trying to push her voice off-key. He succeeded but not for long. Like a real professional, she discarded her failures and returned to the true and when the song ended, she started again.
He didn’t have to tell her to continue. She’d gotten the point and the rumbling truth their bodies shared. She came, a small twitch and then a stronger tightening but she only stopped for a second, carrying on, racing him to the finish.
The tune lost most of its artistry as he drove her harder. Then it lost the words and then the glorious richness as she closed her mouth and hummed her way through. He didn’t give up, timing his punctuation to his thrusts so his voice didn’t quaver. She thrust back, pressing her shoulders against the mattress to force her lower body against his. This time he hit her sweet spot with every stroke and her juices gushed, drenching his balls and his upper thighs. He groaned her name, turned his lyric into sin rather than Cyn, a hackneyed comparison he’d avoided before. But now his mind was melting and he fell on the obvious to keep going.
She screamed, “Riku!”, wrapped her legs around his and dragged him in. Then she put her hands on his butt and impelled him to push deeper. Hard and fast, he worked her, gritted his teeth and hummed at the back of his throat as she came to the precipice. She fell, her tones an echo in his head as he tumbled after her into the blessed void.
“Shit.”
“Not the most romantic response I’ve ever had.” She gasped, laughing. “What the fuck did we just do?”
“Probably woke up the whole street,” he replied, grinning. He rolled off her but went up on one elbow to hold her around her waist and gaze down at her. “One of the most insane things I’ve ever done.” He dropped a gentle kiss on the tip of her nose. “Also one of the best.”
“Why did you make me sing?”
“I’ve always loved your voice. I don’t care what anybody else thinks. The world of song lost a great soprano in you.”
She frowned at him. “What do you mean they lost it? I never gave them a chance.”
His turn to frown. “You didn’t?”
“I thought you knew.” She touched his face. “I turned them down, not the other way around.”
Chapter Six
Cyn watched Riku’s bemusement. A shard of the shield she’d formed around herself fell away from her heart. He hadn’t known? True, she’d never told him but she assumed he’d asked his teachers.
Her mood sinking, she realized he’d imagined her a failure. Which she was but not in the way he’d thought. “I never failed my final auditions. I walked away.”
“But why?” Bewilderment clouded his eyes, an expression she wasn’t used to seeing in Riku. Few people were, she guessed, because he always seemed in control of himself and his life and knew which way he was going.
She hadn’t. She’d sailed through the institute, loved her work, never noticed until the very last where they were taking her. She blamed herself for that. When the final day had come, the truth had hit her with the impact of a sledgehammer. She couldn’t do this, shouldn’t. Mustn’t.
He twined a strand of her hair around his fingers, playing with it like a skein of silk, watching the figure-of-eight patterns he was making. Not her face. “I always loved your voice. A tad powerful but true and clear, even when you used the volume pedal to the max. You could wake up a regiment. True, your coloratura wasn’t up to the standard of Vitoria de Los Angeles but—”
“They told me I was a Wagnerian soprano in the making.”
Now he didn’t look bewildered. He looked amazed, his jaw dropping, his eyes wide.
Wagnerian or dramatic sopranos were as rare as hens’ teeth. Great sopranos, the kind who could hold an opera together were rare but the clear, decibel-shattering power of a Wagnerian soprano happened maybe once in a generation. Women capable of singing for six hours or more, of outpacing their tenor, baritone and bass male equivalents, of voicing their strength and vulnerabilities powerfully enough to force tears from audiences of thousands.
“What’s the catch?”
She might have known he’d think of that. “No catch. They offered me a scholarship to Bayreuth.”
His fingers stilled but he kept her hair in his grasp. She couldn’t move her head without hurting herself. “Cyn?” Now he sounded lost. Much as she’d felt when they proposed the dream of a lifetime. Just not her lifetime.
“They named teachers eager to work with me. Names you’d know. Apparently one was at my final audition and word got around.”
“You walked out that day and never came back.” He stated what everyone knew. They knew nothing else. “When you didn’t come to Paris I asked and they told me you’d opted to leave the institute without graduating. I thought you’d failed in some way.”
“I just left.” She swallowed. Time to tell someone the secret she’d hugged to herself for so long. “If I’d let them pass me you know what that would have meant. I couldn’t have refused, they’d have made me.” She stopped, waited for him to tell her.
“Years of work. Hours of practice. World fame. More money than you could count. Adoration.” He paused. “Ridicule, hatred and crazies.”
“Stalkers?” He nodded in confirmation. She realized what he was saying. “All that happened to you?” He nodded again. “What makes it worthwhile? For you, I mean?”
“The music.” He responded so quickly she knew he didn’t have to think about his answer. “I get to create something I love with people I admire and, yes, I love them too. I won’t say we’re like a family, because we all have our relatives and we’re different. We relate to them in different ways. Or we don’t.”
So Riku still had problems at home. Not that he’d ever admitted it to her but his parents’ absence at the institute on concert days told her.
“Anyhow, we are best friends, all of us. V joined at the beginning of the tour and it’s as if we’ve known her forever. She slotted in, found her place as if it was there waiting for her.” He released the lock of hair only to select another to play with. “What the fuck made you turn your back on everything you worked so hard for?”
“Don’t you remember what I wanted to do?”
He nodded. “To sing. You sang a lot of Mozart, some Bellini and Puccini.”
“I wanted to be a coloratura.” The kind of soprano who led operas, who became true divas. The people for whom the modern meaning of the word was coined. Callas, Sutherland, Melba. The soprano who could perform vocal acrobatics. She’d heard a recording of Callas singing Vissi d’Arte and she’d fallen in love.
“You could do that. If you can sing Wagner you can do anything.”
“Not true.” She swallowed again. This was harder than she’d imagined, explaining the choice that had made her leave it all behind. Her career, her ambitions, everything, all in one day. Gone. Worse, she’d done it of her own volition. This man understood exactly what she’d thrown away. Would he think her selfish? “They told me I’d be a good, respectable coloratura. Their words. If I took the path ordained for me—by God, one examiner said—I’d be sure of the best. They tried to guilt me out, blind me with the glories I could
have on and offstage, the wealth, the pampering but I still said no.”
“They were that certain? When you were twenty-one they could tell?” He sounded scornful, skeptical even. “It takes years to create the best soprano voices and many fall by the way. You might have been one of them. You weren’t there yet. Your voice could’ve changed in training. Did you think of that?” He stroked her waist, held her close.
“They did. And I did, deep inside. I could sing loud and pour emotion into my voice. I could sing dramatic parts. In time I’d be the Brünnhilde of my generation. They wouldn’t have allowed me to do anything else. At every turn they’d drag me back to the dramatic parts.”
He snorted. “So you left.”
“Yes. My mother was deeply disappointed but she thought I deserved a gap year. The institute didn’t but they arranged for me to have lessons after I left.”
“Did you go?”
She hesitated then jerked a nod. “It kept my mother happy. My father had just died and she needed something to cling to.” She paused again. She’d never told him much about her home life. “I never got on with my dad, not really. He didn’t like to let people close. But I used his death as an excuse. They said, take a year off, rest, think about things. They were sure I’d come back. But I didn’t and I didn’t intend to when I left.” She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Weariness swept over her in a great wave. It had been some day. “I got into jewelry instead.”
He glanced around. “You could have a penthouse on the East Side instead of this. I don’t mean to disparage your choices but Cyn…”
She laughed, glad to change the subject, or at least get it off her singing. “I got this place when I took over the business. I rented the store from a lady who was retiring. The two stores in Midtown. I leased the small store by the park two years later. My Dad’s insurance money paid for it. When it came through my mother said I needed the money more than she did. I want to pay her back but she…” she broke off, unable to explain her complex relationship with her surviving parent. “Just say it would have upset her more if I’d said no, and she was torn up by my father’s death.”
“And you weren’t?”
Something she could tell him. She’d shied away from telling anyone the details she’d told him now because they always tried to persuade her and she’d made up her mind. “Not as much. Dad was never what you might call open and loving with me. Maybe it was his army training but he never related to people properly. Then he got cancer and died in a year and then the court case proved he’d contracted it because of his time in the forces when he was involved with nuclear weapons and then—” she stopped again. “Too much to tell you in one go. I got the money and spent it on the business. I didn’t have any left over at the time. This place wasn’t half so bad an area when I arrived. But they’ve gentrified a lot of Queens and the people who lived here before either moved on or squished into the remaining areas. This is a tiny pocket of the old Queens.”
“So the gangs came in. You should leave, Cyn.” He dropped the lock of hair and cupped her cheek. “Please think about it.”
“I’m already thinking. I need to start afresh and I can afford to do it now. We’re doing well.” She beamed. “In fact we’re so busy I’ve not had the time to arrange a new place.”
“I’ll help,” he said firmly. “In the meantime use my apartment.”
“No.”
“Yes. I bought a great apartment I’ve hardly seen in a year. You can live there. Pay me rent if you want to.”
He bent and kissed her. She curled her arm around his neck and held him there. This was much better than talking. Already she’d let him know more than she’d told anyone else. He delved his tongue lazily into her mouth, tasted and explored her. She gave herself to the kiss, his cock hardening against her thigh, heating her desire for him. But he drew away, put a little distance between them and when she whimpered and moved toward him he shook his head and lay down. He pulled her against him to rest on his shoulder. “Think about it, is all. Maybe I’ll hear of somewhere near mine.”
“I’d like that. I could lease.”
“Okay, we’ll do that. I have people. I’ll ask them to help.”
“No.” She lifted her leg to tuck between his calves, as she used to. So long since she’d done it but it came back as if they’d been sleeping together for years. Eight and a half years to be precise.
“They won’t mind. Zazz has decided to invest in property and they’re investigating places. He’s sick of hotels. I know what he means.” He grunted, a sound that signified he was settling into sleep.
A pang of jealousy appeared out of nowhere and hit her right in the heart. How many other women knew that little noise? How many had he slept with?
She had no right to feel this way. She’d left him, abandoned everything she knew and sent him a note. He was free to fuck whomever he wanted, whenever and however. Two at a time sounded interesting to her but not something she wanted now. Not that she had to because they’d promised each other exclusivity. Riku always kept his promises.
In the morning she couldn’t get up without waking him but she evaded his grasping hands and took her shower alone, refusing to let him in. “I have to visit the uptown store today,” she said. “You can come with me but I do need to go.”
“Are you free afterward?”
She considered. “Saturday’s usually a busy day for us but Maddy and Janey can handle it. Janey manages the uptown store.” She groped for the shampoo and washed her hair properly, remembering the conditioner this time. She couldn’t have gone in to work looking like she had that morning, hair tousled and all over the place, especially when she was meeting a client. “I’m meeting with someone who could take my designs to London. He’s interested in commissioning a line.”
He gave a low whistle. “Important, then. I’ll be good. Do you want me there?”
She wanted to show him what she did these days. “Yes. You might be an asset.”
He laughed. “First time anyone’s called me that. Except maybe Chick.”
“Doesn’t the band say you’re an asset?” She turned off the water, found her towel and wrapped her hair in it before she stepped into the larger towel Riku was already holding for her. “I could get used to this.”
He kissed her. “Except for the tragic lack of morning sex, so could I.”
An hour later they headed toward the Upper West Side. Her smaller store was on Eighty-Xixth, close to the Metropolitan Museum, right on the walk from the subway to the entrance. Prime position for people who wanted a special reminder of the city. It cost a fortune but it was worth every penny, generating as much revenue as either of the larger stores downtown and frequently out-earning them. Riskier, because each item was higher value but so far they’d been lucky and a day didn’t pass without making a sale. She put a lot of that down to her manager and co-designer here, Ruth O’Brien. Janey, a woman of fifty-plus, was the tiniest person, fashionably skinny and then some, whose eccentric taste matched Cyn’s own. So did her sense of humor.
Riku wore his wide-legged orange silk pants and green tunic top from his stage clothes. He’d washed what was left of his eagle off in the shower but he still had purple hair, so he’d tucked it under his knitted cap. He left his two kimonos at her apartment but he still looked outrageous. She donned a black knee-length dress and a Chinese quilted velvet jacket, padded against the chilly weather. Riku didn’t appear to notice the cold but since they went from her place to a taxicab to the store, he didn’t have much chance. They couldn’t risk the subway. A pity, she’d have loved to see people’s faces. She’d worn black for a reason. It showed off the jewelry better.
When she arrived she wasted no time introducing Riku to Janey. She eyed him suspiciously, her glasses glinting in the bright light of the showcase behind her. “Are you the man she visited last night?”
Riku gazed down at her as Janey drew herself to her full five feet in height. She rarely wore heels, claiming she didn�
�t understand why she should torture herself to make other people feel better, so she didn’t have much to draw. But as usual she made the most of every inch. Alsoas usual, she wore her refined version of hippy but her kaftan was well-fitted and in hand-printed silk, her beads real semiprecious gems. The customers here would tolerate, even enjoy eccentricity but not tawdriness. A shame, because sometimes Cyn relished the tawdry aspects of life. Riku’s privileged background had made him lazily indulgent but not understanding. She wondered if he felt the same way.
He glanced at the case, then his attention grew fixed. He blinked and stared down at the glass-topped counter that stood between him and Janey. He studied the contents for a long time. “Wow,” he said, and then, “Shit.”
His startled gaze went to Cyn. “These are yours?”
She nodded. She’d strung shards of metal onto what looked like string but was platinum wire wound and twisted with silk cord. Bottle tops, pieces of glass, the raw edges still sharp, and screwed-up bits of paper hung in a seemingly haphazard fashion, one she’d spent hours arranging until she was happy. “The glass is rock crystal and the edges won’t cut. They’re carefully faceted to appear that way. The bottle tops are dulled silver and they should tarnish as time goes on. They’re hand enameled. The paper is shaved vellum and the writing is special. If the client wants to read it she’ll have to unfold it but unfolding it will destroy the design. It’s up to her.”
“Or him. I want that.”
She smiled, her eyes widening. “I can make one for you.”
“No, I want that one.”
“I’ll put your name on it,” Janey said hastily. “It’s yours. But we’d appreciate it if you let our client see it first.”
He perused the other items in the case. “This is a collection?”
Janey nodded. “Every piece unique. People look at it, think it’s junk and then at the person wearing it. With any luck she’s wearing designer clothes and thousand dollar shoes, so they know there has to be something more.”
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