by S. A. Ravel
“I can give you three days to show me something. After that, I’m walking away.”
6
Davingelo roared, and flung his metal pallet across the room. It collided with the wall, contributing the paint on its gleaming surface to the growing mosaic on the wall. The first time he lashed out, it scared the hell out of Perrine. Now, in the early hours of the second day of the deal, his hourly outbursts were just another thing she had to get through to have a shot at getting what she needed.
He sure as hell wasn’t going to make it easy. Their first butting of heads was where the first try to replicate the magic would happen. Perrine thought it made the most sense to go back to the gazebo. In her experience, if they wanted to make something happen again, the best method was to replicate the circumstances. Both Davin and Karina refused. Neither of them wanted prying eyes to spot failures. Plus, something about an exhibit?
She only saw two people at AINA; Davin and Karina. There was a private bungalow residence hidden among the wild outskirts of the grounds. Compared to the Institute it was minuscule, but it was larger and nicer than any home Perrine had ever lived in. Davin and Perrine worked in the small room she woke up in. Her room, apparently. He’d pulled aside heavy floor to ceiling drapes, revealing tall windows, flooding the room with light.
Perrine felt they were trying to keep her short residence on the grounds a secret too, and was mighty annoyed about it.
Her tension began to show in the music. They worked for hours, only stopping for Davin to load a new pallet or for Perrine to gulp down a cup of citrus leaf tea. She tried different genres and style, he tried different themes and compositions. None of it mattered; there was never even the faintest hint of the magic from the gazebo. Oh, they created plenty of stuff. Davin started several paintings, but halfway through each of them, he exploded in frustration. He threw pallets at walls, ripped canvases from their framing. In the beginning, Karina suggested using a digital canvas to save supplies. Davin smashed that, too.
“This isn’t what we need,” he said, his voice a low growl, and whirled around.
Perrine backed up several steps as he stalked towards her, his wings flared as if he were about to pounce.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed.
He circled her, fingers flexing. “I don’t want canvas. I want flesh.”
Her heart almost stopped. “What the fuck?”
“Fuck. Exactly. Let me have you. Tear the clothes from your skin and create my art on your flesh. I need a living canvas. Blood and bone.” He stopped, head titling, eyes bright. “I’ve never painted a woman while I fucked her. This is new. I want.”
She couldn’t help it; the place between her thighs warmed, body clenching. But he was insane.
Davingelo inhaled, eyes halfway closing. “So sweet. Is that a yes, Perrine?”
“No,” she said, her voice hoarse, then cleared her throat. “I am not so easy, Davingelo Avramchelli.”
He sighed and turned away. “Seduction, then.”
Perrine kept her lust in check and continued to work, but none of the songs she chose to sing felt right. None of it was inspiring. New lyrics didn’t suddenly appear in her mind like they had in the gazebo, and the break in time while she picked a new song, caused Davin’s outbursts as often as not. The music never felt like it was flowing through her. Just the opposite, by sundown every note was a battle of wills. Every drop of tea was like pure acid, flowing down her throat.
So, when Davin threw his umpteenth tantrum of the night, Perrine wasn’t scared. In fact, for a second, she wished she had something to throw too. But that was just an emotional response, and there was no sense in being emotional when what she needed was a plan.
“This isn’t working,” she said. “We need to return to the gazebo and start there.”
He braced his hands on his hips and let his wings unfurl slightly as he studied the smears of paint on the wall. His hair was a wild, tangled cloud of pale-gold silk streaming over his shoulders, eyes brilliant, never quite dimming to a more normal vibrancy. “That section of the grounds is being monetized. I don’t want to fool with it.”
“I know you and Karina want to protect your potential money maker, but it’s not working. You can’t make money off something we can’t reproduce.”
Davin’s head snapped towards her, eyes narrowing. His jaw ticked, and for a moment, the mad, insolent, dissolute artist was gone and a dangerous Archan took his place, voice flat. “You think my concern over the money is something contemptible. I have children to feed. What is your motivation?”
Perrine locked her knees. She would remember not to underestimate him, not to believe the mask that was beginning to slip with his increasing ire. This man wasn’t a dilettante. He was a schemer, a clever marketer, an actor… and had the power to crush her.
“You don’t know a thing about my motivation,” she said. “I don’t think your concern with money is contemptible. I just think it’s stupid to discount the circumstances that produced the… power… in the first place.”
“So,” he said, voice soft, “now you lecture me on power?”
The hair on the back of her neck stood. Perrine inhaled. “Fine. Do what you want.” She struggled to keep a curse between her lips, and failed. “Merde, vous ailes paon.”
He smiled, the expression sharp, nearly vulpine. “J’ai été appelé pire, mon cher.”
Perrine paled. Fuck. He must have gotten a translator installed. “We take one more run at low blows or we can change things up and see if that works.”
Davin watched her, knowing. “I’ve been studying your people from Earth, the New Orleans and the jazz and the gumbo—so I may know better who you are. The language is enchanting.”
“Studying or stalking?” She winced as soon as the words left her mouth.
He just laughed. “There is something else that may work, Perrine Despre.”
She took a step away from him. “What?” She knew that tone. Knew what he would suggest next, as he strode towards her. Or stalked. It was more like stalking. She wasn’t wrong to use that word.
“Don’t be such a virgin, dear. You know what I want.”
Of all the… “You’re one of the most spoiled creatures I’ve ever had the displeasure to know.”
He seized her wrists, pinning them at the small of her back as he pulled her against him. “We were rudely interrupted the last time. Karina has no manners.”
“Davingelo…”
“Say my name again. And stop the false protesting.” His head lowered, mouth brushing her jaw. “It’s beneath you. I hear your heart beating.”
She gasped, skin tingling where he touched her, from the rough purr of his voice, her breasts tightening against his chest. She wasn’t in control, she wasn’t the seducer. This had never happened before and she didn’t understand how to handle it. “I’m afraid, you bastard.”
“Then why are you wet?”
Perrine froze, and he seized her lips. She couldn’t fight him. Kisses were her pleasure, her weakness. And he wielded his lips like a weapon, sure and sensual, aggression escalating until he ravaged her, demanding she respond. She’d thought he’d be a lazy conqueror, accustomed to women at his feet. But he was a warrior, and he demanded surrender. Showed her why the surrender would be sweet.
Her back arched, heat snaking through her body, lighting her clit on fire. His mouth left hers, trailing along her neck, little nips and kisses. The hardness of his erection pressed against her middle, his hold on her tightening.
“Let me have you,” he said, hold tightening. “I’ll make you scream for me. Here, now, on the floor. I need to be inside you.”
She couldn’t think, couldn’t remember the reasons why she should say no.
“I—Davingelo, please. I can’t think. Please.”
He let her go, stepped back, and turned. Perrine didn’t dare move, wrists aching, lips swollen, body clenching with desire she struggled to tamp down. This wasn’t a man she could control. T
his wouldn’t be a simple love affair. He could break her body, break her heart.
“If not now, when?” he asked, his back to her. “There will be a when. Once you stop running from yourself.”
Her hands curled into fists. “I don’t want a one-night stand with you. I’m not going to be another one of your groupie fucks.”
Davin turned, pinning her in place with the molten heat of his stare. “Then don’t be. I never said I only wanted you for a one-night fuck. And that isn’t your real fear, is it, hmm, Perrine? You aren’t afraid I might not keep you—you’re afraid I will.”
She couldn’t respond to that. Wouldn’t. They stared at each other for a long moment. “We were talking about methodology.”
His brow rose, but then he shrugged, accepting the change of subject. The decrease in tension. “If you have a suggestion, I would welcome it.”
Perrine didn't miss the snide edge in his voice, but she resisted the urge to comment on it. At this point, they were both wired too tightly for the magic to work even if they knew how. They needed a way to blow off that energy, but failing that…
“You teach music here, no? Where?”
Davin canted his head toward the door. “South Wing. Second floor.”
“Do you have a piano?”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course, we have a—what are you doing?” His voice turned silky deep as she grabbed his arm. “If you wanted foreplay, my dear, you needed only have said so.”
She ignored the frission of desire deep in her loins. Damn him. “Grab your paints, mon coeur. We need a change of scenery.”
“Not to the school. The—”
“Oh, my God! Always an argument.” She pulled him towards the door.
He stopped, yanking her to a halt with him, and gave her a long, even look. “There are students who live on the grounds. The older ones will have been working all night on their final projects, and I don’t want to wake them.”
It took Perrine a few seconds to pull her foot far enough out of her mouth to respond. “Okay, I didn’t think of that.”
“There’s a piano downstairs.”
He grabbed his easel and slung a ream of canvas over his shoulder. They carried his supplies down to the first floor, in a room at the back corner of the courtyard. The architecture of this room was much more like other Aikalah structures—huge ceilings, windows large enough for an adult to fly through if the urge took them, but was unfurnished, other than a dust-covered piano in the center of the room.
Perrine ran her fingers over the keys and found that the piano was still perfectly in tune. She sat down and plucked the bare melody of a song to call it to her mind. She needed a song she could sing effortlessly, gliding from beginning to end and back as easily as breathing.
Davin set up his kit and easel, stretching a fresh square of canvas over the frame as the melody grew more complex. He stood watching her as the tune took shape. “I didn’t know you had instrumental training as well.”
“It never came up. I’ll keep playing the same song. No breaks, no pauses. You will paint, and you will keep painting this one until it’s finished.”
Davin shook his head. “That’s not how I work.”
Perrine pressed four keys at once, releasing a discordant note into the air. “If you’re not going to be serious about this, then why the hell should I be?”
He stared at her in silence, gold eyes narrow. It must have been unusual for anyone to talk to him so sharply. After a while, he snatched a clean pallet from his supply box and loaded it with paint.
Perrine started playing again, letting the music fill the room and bring her heart rate back down to a normal level. When the intro ended, she started singing along.
Davin picked up a brush and went to the canvas. At first, he didn’t move, just stared at the white threads as if the paint would fly onto it on its own. It had before, after all, that night beneath the gazebo. He hadn’t even had paint or a brush then. He had pulled all the color he needed from the world around them.
As Perrine approached the end of the song and started again, Davin started to paint. His brush strokes were tentative at first as if he was too afraid of choosing the wrong color or line to commit to anything. But as the melody continued, his movements grew more confident.
Perrine could feel the tension easing from her body under the song’s influence. For a few seconds, her worries melted away. Parodie and Lans, Davin and Karina, every wild thing in her life that made her feel like she had no control slowly disappeared, blasted away by the music.
An impulse took hold of Perrine. Without warning, she transitioned the melody, adding heat and intensity to the patterns. Her fingers moved faster, bringing the beat to a driving tempo. A new song came to her lips, the words and themes springing to the front of her mind like they had been there all along. Davin didn’t seem thrown by the sudden change. In fact, it seemed to rev him up. His movements became more fluid, taking on an air of confidence she hadn’t seen from him that day. She closed her eyes, abandoning herself to the sensations flowing through her body as the song took shape.
7
Perrine played, her fingers floating endlessly across the keyboard. Time had no meaning for her unless it occurred between the opening and closing notes of the song. She lost count of how many rounds she did, but each one felt as fresh and intense as the last. More than that… the sensations were getting stronger. Every muscle in her body pulsed along to the beat, sending a wave of sensation through her. Even if her mind weren’t busy with her phantom melody, Perrine couldn’t have untangled it all. She could see the music again in her mind, she could feel it… just like she had that night in the gazebo.
Davin grabbed her wrists and pulled them from the keys. When she opened her eyes to look at him, sunlight filtered through the open window, framing him in a glowing halo. She waited for the sensation to fade, for her body to return to normal, but it didn’t. Every breath only made the lingering influence of the music more intense. Was this the magic at work again?
One look in Davin’s eyes told her that it wasn’t, at least not for him. But there was no doubt that something had a hold of him. If she couldn’t tell from the fire in his eyes, she knew it when he slid a hand around the small of her back and pulled her to her feet, crushing their bodies together.
Perrine understood the look in Davin’s eyes perfectly. She’d seen it before, in the eyes of men when she was on stage at Parodie, the Vixen Queen holding court. The rock-hard cock pressed against her middle helped get the message across.
He wanted her, burned for her. Probably from the first time he saw her in the courtyard, and he was done resisting her siren’s call.
That suited Perrine just fine—so was she. In a snap, her mind changed, inhibitions gone. Perrine Despre, afraid of taking a lover? It was laughable, even if he was an Archan. She was never afraid of the place between her thighs, or a man’s. Never afraid a match would end badly—such was life. And she would live it.
She reached up, threading her fingers through his thick blond locks and claimed his lips in a blazing kiss. There was nothing tender or gentle about the way her lips crushed against his.
“Don’t touch unless you know what to do, bebe,” she purred.
Davin growled as his hands moved lower to squeeze the curve of her buttocks. He kneaded the firm flesh in his hands, fingers bunching the hem of her dress, rolling the thin material between his fingers before he ripped the flimsy thing apart in one motion.
“I think I can handle it,” he said. “And you.”
And he would have her. Desire, and the melody that inspired it, had flooded her senses.
“I want you on your knees,” he said, stepping back and pulling off his shirt, shedding pants until he stood in front of her, an old-Earth statue of a god.
A wicked grin came to her lips. Perrine did as she was told, but with her own flair, teasing him by unclasping her bra, then cupping her own breasts and lifting them high, massaging her nipples until they
were stiff peaks. She reached forward, running her fingers down over his hard abs and grasped his cock by the base, tugging gently to pull him forward. Perrine tilted her head down and leaned forward, sneaking a drip of pre-cum from his already dripping tip. She moaned shamelessly as she slid the smooth cap over her lips, lapping at the sensitive flesh with her tongue.
Davin shuddered, and gripped her shoulders, pumping his hips gently as she took his shaft into her throat.
No, that wouldn’t do at all. She didn’t want gentle. Perrine tightened her lips around the shaft, humming as she caressed the shaft with her tongue.
It wasn’t until Davin’s groans of pleasure reached her ears, that Perrine realized she was humming the melody she played moments before. She could still hear the music, still feel it in each throbbing crescendo of pleasure that rippled through her body. And he hadn’t even touched her yet.
He unfurled his wings with a rush, the air rifling through her hair. The cool gust against Perrine’s bare skin made her shiver.
Davin’s fingers tangled in her hair. “You’re not finishing me with your mouth, Perrine.”
He pulled her upright and suddenly she was turned around, her back against his chest, his cock pressed against her buttocks. Perrine didn’t know whether he turned her or if she turned around by herself.
Now that she knew she could still hear the music, Perrine couldn’t hear anything else. It filled her ears, flowed through her blood so that her racing heart beat out the rhythm perfectly.
She leaned forward, bracing her hands against the smooth body of the piano. Davin positioned himself behind her, ripping her panties away only for his cock to replace the thin material as he pressed against her entrance.
