Discreet: The Discreet Duet: Book I

by French, Nicole

  “Maggie?”

  I didn’t even notice that Will had entered the studio until he was sitting on the seat next to me.

  “I’m here,” he said quietly. “You don’t…just play for me, all right? There’s no recording. It’s just me and you.”

  I shook my head. “I…can’t. I can’t anymore.”

  “Lil.” Will placed a wide hand on my knee and the warmth of his touch soothed my rapidly fraying nerves. “It’s just me and you, Lil. Just us.”

  “I don’t want to,” I whispered. It was a lie. I wanted to play right now more than I ever had. I had about a million emotions running around inside me, crashing into each other like pinballs. Music had been my release my entire life, providing an outlet for that energy that would have destroyed me otherwise. But I was stuck in place.

  “Look at me, Lily pad.”

  Will’s voice was barely more than a whisper, but I obeyed. I turned to him, and found his green eyes wide and open. Loving. Kind. He smiled, and my heart leapt and calmed at the same time. Slowly, my heartbeat fell back to normal.

  “Let me hear you,” he murmured, his voice so low I almost couldn’t hear it.

  He leaned over the guitar and pressed a light kiss to my lips. His scent surrounded me, blocking out the nerves, the awkwardness, the fear.

  “Will you play for me now?” he asked, his breath still mingling with mine.

  I blinked. He was so close that my eyelashes brushed the tops of his cheeks. Then he sat back, his expression warm and open.

  Finally, I nodded.

  And then I played.

  23

  I went back to your house for a funeral.

  You showed me around. Said I was beautiful.

  But you didn’t have to try so damn hard.

  Wrote me a letter a little later that year.

  Couldn’t read it for a while. Brought me to tears.

  Should’ve known you’d be back here someday.

  And that fallin’ in love is bound to hurt anyway.

  Finally someone to save me.

  You can do what you want now that you forgave me.

  And if forgetting’s a little much to ask.

  We can move on somehow with our heels in the past.

  You showed up at my house around one.

  Bags beneath your eyes, scraped knuckles and palms.

  You wanted ice, a cold shower, a beer.

  You said I asked you a little too much.

  Have more questions than answers, more vicious than just.

  But what could I offer instead?

  Was on my way out the door, when you grabbed me and said:

  Can’t you be someone to save me?

  You can do what you want, so long as you forgave me.

  And if forgetting’s a little much to ask.

  We’ll move on somehow, with our heels in the past…

  In the morning I woke up alone.

  Don’t know why I was so surprised; I was the one who sent you home, but

  I miss your eyes…your smile…your brown hair.

  And when I look to that goddamn door, I’m scared to death you’ll be there…

  Ain’t there someone to save me?

  You can do what you want, now that you forgave me.

  And if forgetting’s a little much to ask.

  We’ll move on somehow, try not to think about the past…

  I finished out the last few chords, letting the song end on the fourth, in that drifting way it always had. It was a song I’d never figured out how to end properly, and every time I played it, I closed out in a different way. Maybe it was because the feeling of the song, that searching for someone, a savior, a rescue, even if they were bad for you, never quite ended either.

  When the notes finally faded completely, I exhaled. That song always took it out of me.

  “Jesus.”

  I turned and found Will staring at me, his green eyes shining brightly, as if they were deeper than the lake waters outside.

  “Maggie, that song…” He swiped under his eyes, then blinked quickly, as if he were trying to chase something out of his vision. “When—how—where did that come from?”

  “I wrote it the night my ex went to jail,” I said quietly. “It’s the last thing I wrote, actually.”

  “What did he go in for?”

  I stood up and replaced the guitar on the wall, then paused, still facing the instruments. They were all so shiny and new. Completely unmarred.

  “Rape.” I spoke clearly, trying and failing to control my voice when I said it. Instead, I warbled like a bird. It wasn’t a word I ever said out loud, particularly since I’d had to say it so many times in the last year. In front of a judge. A jury. Lawyers. Theo. Again and again and again, while people tried to tear it apart, tell me I was fine, prove that the way my body had been violated was a figment of my imagination. “He was only sentenced for sexual m-misconduct, but that’s what it was. R-rape, I mean.”

  I shook my head, trying to ward off that persistent stutter that had emerged ever since that night, a speech impediment that, among other things, had made it hard to perform like I used to. But Will needed to hear this. He carried his baggage around like a cross and still managed to open himself up to me. He deserved to know what he was getting into.

  I took a deep breath and turned around.

  Will stood there, stock-still. His eyes were still shining, dark, turquoise depths that carried an even mix of sympathy and anger. His hands were clenched into tights fists at his sides, but other than that he didn’t look violent or poised to bolt. It was like he knew that in this moment, there was nothing else to do but listen. To bear our burdens together.

  “Once?” he asked.

  I looked at the ground. “More than once.”

  It had taken a long time to understand just what Theo had done, and I still wasn’t sure it had totally sunk in. Over the course of two years together, he had wheedled and guilted and conned me into doing a lot of things I didn’t want to do with my body. I had been little more than a trophy to him—something to conquer, something to dominate. And it was hard, really, to comprehend the fact that sex under any kind of duress, emotional or physical, was not done with my full consent, as the YWCA counselor had informed me every time I sat in her office. More than once, I’d shown up drenched in sweat after a particularly difficult day of the trial.

  The worst had been the day I was deposed by Theo’s gang of lawyers, all of whom had cross-examined me, made me out to be a hysterical, manipulative psycho while on camera. Why didn’t you tell anyone until the end, they’d asked, working their hardest to prove that the last time, the time that was physically violent, which ended with me in the hospital, was really just a result of the kinds of attention I’d courted during our relationship.

  Even now, months after the trial had ended and Theo had been served at least some justice for what he did to me, it was still hard not to feel guilty. Because after all, hadn’t I said yes to him countless times before? And after, when curled in a hospital bed, as I’d recounted the events to a stolid officer in blue, hadn’t my decisions ruined a man’s life? Just like my own?

  “When?” Will asked, breaking through that nasty cycle of thoughts that threatened to overtake me. Those spirals were fewer and farther between these days, but when they came, it was hard to get out of them.

  I swallowed. “The last time was almost a year ago. He…well, that was the one that put me in the hospital. But it was also when it ended. I—I finally went to the police. I mean, I had to. The hospitals, they call the police when there is evidence of it. Of rape, I mean.”

  “Then what happened?”

  I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to tell this story. I wanted to pretend that the last years hadn’t even happened, and that was what I liked about Will. He didn’t treat me like I was damaged goods. He made me feel, finally, like I could move forward.

  “I found a lawyer,” I said. “And I took him to trial. And it took a long time, bu
t eventually, I won.”

  “He went to jail?”

  I nodded wearily. I didn’t mention that he was out now. I was tired, so tired of this story.

  Will didn’t speak for a long time. But when he did, it wasn’t what I expected. “I’m not surprised,” he said softly. “I wish I were, but I’m not.”

  I blinked. “What? Why?” Suddenly, I wanted to cry. Was it that obvious? Were my wounds, the ones inside that I couldn’t stitch together, that transparent? Did I have “rape victim” etched so deeply into my soul that it appeared on the outside, like a tattoo?

  Will took a step toward me, moving very slowly. “I used to…I used to work in a business where…that shit was everywhere, Maggie. Absolutely everywhere. So, yeah. I know the signs.”

  I nodded. If he had been Benny Amaya’s assistant, he had been close enough to the entertainment industry to know how it worked. I’d been lucky to have Calliope as my manager. There were plenty of others who expected certain things of their clients, whether they said them or not. And plenty of other artists who offered it up on a platter to do what they needed to do.

  Will pressed his nose to mine, and his warm, clean scent engulfed me. Immediately, my heart rate slowed as my body relaxed. “I believe you.”

  Before I could stop it, a tear slipped out. I didn’t know how much I had wanted to hear him say that until he had. Even though a jury and a judge had too. Even though after I had fought for a year to have my story validated, to have some kind of justice served, somehow it meant more that the person in this room understood it.

  Will pressed a thumb to my cheek and wiped away the tear before he cupped my face, keeping me upright and facing him.

  “In a way, it’s g-good, isn’t it?” I whispered. “If I hadn’t lost everything because of him…I never would have come back here. I never would have met you.”

  Will sighed as he drifted his mouth over my forehead, eyelids, cheekbones, lips, chin. His fingers massaged gently around my ear and under my jaw, a slow, insistent motion that soothed my anxiety. My shame.

  “I’ll never be happy that happened to you, Maggie,” he said quietly. “That’s why you stopped playing?”

  I glanced back at the instruments around me. Slowly, I nodded. “He—he was a big part of my career at the end. But he resented me for it. Guilted me for it. He said I loved my music more than I loved him. He—he was right, and he knew it. And punished me for it.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to shut out the memories of Theo’s hand finding my face. The time he broke one of my guitars and smacked me with the jagged neck. It was only after he was locked away that I played again, forced back on stage in order to pay my bills. But the magic was gone, and my shows had never gotten the same kind of following they had before. The showcase had been my last shot at making it work. At recapturing that magic that used to overtake me.

  But instead I’d failed. I’d looked out at that audience and only saw the eyes of a lover-turned-ghost. The music had escaped me. Until now.

  “I’m a lucky bastard that you crashed on my property, though,” Will said, pulling me back to the here and now. “I was a ghost until I met you.” His other hand cupped the side of my face, and he tipped it up so I had to look at him. “You brought me back to life, Lily pad.”

  My hands slid around his taut waist, finding the skin of his strong, solid body under his t-shirt. Something coursed through me when we touched—a warmth, an energy, a new kind of strength.

  I pulled him closer so our bodies were flush. “We brought each other back to life.”

  “Your music,” he whispered, his lips hovering just over mine as I ran my hands up his chest. “It makes me feel.”

  “Feel what?” I murmured, my voice pouring out like water. This moment should have been hard, but it wasn’t. Everything that had ever happened with Theo seemed very, very far away. All I could sense was Will.

  “Everything,” he replied hoarsely. “Anything. Anything at all.”

  He let me pull his shirt over his head before I removed my own. Though I was the one caged against the wall, Will moved with me, allowing me to do with his body what I wanted. He stepped easily out of his shorts and underwear, kicking them to the side, then tipped his head down obediently when I reached up to release his hair. When my hands slipped into the thickets of blond waves, he groaned, tipping his head back in ecstasy while I massaged his scalp.

  “Mmmm,” he hummed. “That feels really, really good.”

  My nipples tingled in response to the sound of his deep voice vibrating through his chest where they grazed his smooth skin. I licked his throat while his fingers slipped under the loose waistband of the sweatpants I’d borrowed. With barely a flick, they dropped to the floor, leaving nothing between us. He fell heavy against my thigh, but Will did nothing further. This was on my terms.

  But my previously sore state had evaporated. It didn’t matter that I had a day full of chores to get to. A mother I needed to check on. A life I needed to figure out.

  The only thing that made sense in this moment was Will and me. And I needed him inside me. Now.

  “It’s too much,” Will gasped in between kiss after hungry kiss. “You. Me. It’s too fucking much.”

  I agreed, but that didn’t mean I was going to stop. I wanted more. After years of not enough, I wanted too much.

  I opened my legs and pulled his hands down my ribs to my ass. He didn’t need to be directed further as he lifted me like I weighed next to nothing, keeping our mouths fused as the tip of him located my slick entrance.

  “Maggie,” he moaned into my mouth. “Maggie, please. Let me in.”

  “Come,” I begged before welcoming his tongue again. “I need to feel you.”

  I didn’t have to ask twice. There was no need to adjust as Will slid inside—I was ready for him, ready for this, maybe more ready than for anything else in my life.

  I sighed as he sheathed himself fully. My body fit to his completely, like he was a key that unlocked something deep inside me.

  “Fuck!” He pulled nearly all the way out, then pushed back in all over again, then tipped his head back and hissed aloud. “Jesus God, you feel good. Perfect. Just perfect.”

  “Again,” I demanded, my nails digging into his back. “Fuck me, Will. Fuck me as hard as you can.”

  He straightened up as he slid partially out. “Are you—are you sure, Lil? I can—fuck, I can slow down. Or wait. I don’t mind.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed that. But I definitely didn’t care. Instead, I reached up and grabbed a solid handful of streaked gold locks. “Just fuck me, Baker. Make love to me. Whatever. Sometimes they are the same, but I need it. Now.”

  “With fucking pleasure.”

  He slammed into me, causing my head to slam against the wall behind me. It hurt slightly, but I loved it, grappling at his shoulders and biting his neck as he repeated the action again and again. A long, low howl emerged from Will’s chest.

  “You turn me into an animal, you know that?” he growled as his hips pistoned away. “I fucking lose all control with you.”

  “Do it,” I urged him on. “I want you to lose it. I want you to let it all go!”

  I gripped his shoulder with one hand hard enough to leave crescent-shaped marks from my fingernails, while my other hand slipped down between us to massage the sensitive spot that would lead to both our releases. I didn’t need much. I was already hyped, already halfway there when he started.

  At the feel of my hand reaching that juncture where our bodies met, Will hissed again. He slowed his movements, looking down.

  “That’s right. Touch yourself, gorgeous,” he murmured.

  He kissed me again, then went back to watching. I found myself looking too, thoroughly entranced by the movements of his cock, my hand. My body clenched. I arched against the wall.

  “Fuck,” Will whispered as I squeezed involuntarily. “I can feel you getting close, baby.”

  His words only made me squeeze harder—no
t out of discomfort, but out of impending pleasure. That familiar wave was rising, and the sight of us joining, the ebb and flow of my fingers that moved in tandem with Will’s harsh, steady movements, was quickly becoming too much to handle.

  “Pinch your nipple,” Will urged. “Don’t worry. I got you. Just do what you need. I’m right behind you. You let go, and I will too.”

  His green eyes met mine, and in them, I saw the truth of what he said. That I could let go with this man. That I could be myself, take a leap, and he would be there to hold me up, catch me if I fell. Just like he was doing now.

  My other hand released his shoulders, and drifted down his arm until I found my breast. I trapped my nipple lightly between my thumb and forefinger, enjoyed the surge that shot through my body at the light twinge of pain. All touches converged—Will’s iron grip on my ass, the punishing rhythm of his cock, the pinch of my fingers at my nipple and clit. It was too much, in the best possible way. Two, three, four more pounds of Will’s hips driving into me, filling me completely, and suddenly, I was lifted high on that crest of pleasure. My control evaporated. All pain was gone, replaced only with ecstasy.

  “Will!” I shouted as my hands fell away. I didn’t need them. My orgasm shook through me, matching Will’s steady, unforgiving thrusts as he braced me against the wall.

  “Fuuuuccckk!” he cried as he followed me. He shoved in deeply, so deep I could feel him at the limit of what I could take. It was almost painful, but I was so overcome by the pleasure of him, I could register nothing else. He was right. We were too much together. But too much was exactly what I needed in a world where until now, I couldn’t manage to feel enough of anything.

  It was only then, as we slid to the floor, still shaking out the remains of our pleasure, that the green light of the console caught my eye. The tapes had been rolling the entire time, capturing the sounds of our bodies joining right along with the sounds of the songs I had just played. Our cries mingled, creating harmonies I’d never heard, new rhythms I’d never forget. We were making our own kind of music after all.