I pressed my lips to his reverently, but he made no move. He was still as a statue, an Adonis of a statue. I had begun to think that maybe my dirty talking hadn’t come off as sultry as I’d hoped when he leaned in closer to my ear and whispered.
“Delaine?”
“Hmm?”
“I think I just came a little.” Before I could formulate a response, he pulled away abruptly and went to sit on the piano bench.
With my chin perched on my shoulder and angled toward him, I watched his hands softly skate over the keys without making a sound. The look in his eyes was one of pure awe and concentration, a man who obviously revered his instrument. I couldn’t blame him; I thought his “instrument” was pretty awe-inspiring myself.
He licked his lips and shifted to a more comfortable position before he looked back at me expectantly. “You promised you’d provide the inspiration if I’d play.”
One problem: if I tried to swing my ass around on his glossy piano, which was nowhere near as slick as it looked, it was more than probable that there would be some skin squeakage. And I just didn’t know if my dignity could handle a major blow of embarrassment like that when I was trying to be sexy and seductive. So I did the only thing I could.
I hopped down, amazingly remaining upright on the insanely high hooker heels that I was wearing (the Cooch had picked them out because they matched the nearly-there outfit), and then strutted my nearly naked ass toward Noah, channeling every runway walker I could remember from the countless fashion shows my mom had forced me to watch.
I think I was pretty successful at it, because Noah eyed me like he was a wolf in one of those Looney Tunes cartoons, licking his chops like I was a prized lamb. Feeling probably more confident than I should have been, I put one foot up on the bench beside him. You know how they say, “If looks could kill …”? Yeah, well if looks could feel you up, I swear that was exactly what Noah had done to my legs, my ass, my boobs, and the Cooch—heck, his eyes had just as many appendages as an octopus.
Speaking of puss, mine was positively sopping wet. Go figure. It wasn’t because Double Agent Coochie was salivating; it was because the twisted slut was crying tears of joy over what she knew was to come. Well, lots of tears, actually. So I made a big show of perching my ass on the top of his piano again and crossing my legs to conceal that little fact. Even though I’d come to learn that was a major turn-on for Noah, I wanted to tease him a little bit. After all, he needed some incentive to give me what I wanted before I gave him what he wanted.
Noah looked up at me and then slowly began to undo the studded buckle that was wrapped around my ankle. When he was done, he leisurely pulled my shoe off and placed a lingering kiss on the top of my foot.
“Can’t have these on my ivory babies, kitten,” he said in a hushed voice as he dropped my bare foot and went to work on my other shoe. “By the way, remind me to give Polly a raise.”
“Just buy her a pair of these bad boys, and she’ll say you’re even.”
Placing my shoes down on the floor beside him, he kissed a trail along my shin until he reached my knees. Then he pushed them apart and set my feet directly on the keys, as far on each end as they would stretch. The sound that came from them depressing the keyboard was really quite hideous and we both cringed at the same time, but then he was eyeing the Cooch and that expression changed quick, fast, and in a hurry.
“I fucking love how wet you get for me.” The Cooch was busy oiling herself up and spraying Binaca in her mouth, warming up for the big show. “You should probably know that no one has ever laid a finger on my baby grand, Delaine, let alone their feet.”
“I’m sorry. I can move them,” I said, but before I could lift so much as a pinky toe, he stopped me.
“Don’t.” The quiet stillness of his voice carried more weight than if he had barked the order.
Noah never took his eyes away from my center as he rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. When he was done, he straightened his back and curved his shoulders in slightly to position his fingers on the keys.
“Um, I haven’t played in a while,” he said nervously with a shrug of a shoulder. “So I might be a little rusty.”
I already knew that. Right before Noah had called to tell me to be in the car when Samuel picked him up from work, Polly had phoned to check on me. We talked for quite some time while I wandered around the house. That was when I had stumbled upon the room we were in. That was also when Polly had told me that he used to play all the time before the whole Julie debacle. When she told me that she didn’t think he’d played since, I knew I had to at least try to get him to again. After all, they said music soothed the savage beast. I wasn’t so sure I wanted him soothed right before he fucked the life out of me, mostly because I thought he needed to release some pent-up frustration or rage or whatever, but maybe if he got reacquainted with something that had made him happy once upon a time, it would still be all good.
Was it risky? Yes. But I figured if I had any chance whatsoever at succeeding, appealing to his sexual nature was definitely the way to do it. Polly thought I might be a weak spot for Mr. Crawford, and while I had no intention of exploiting that tidbit of knowledge for personal gain, I definitely wasn’t going to deny myself any pleasure that might come my way from helping him learn to live again.
I was a puddle of goo the moment he made that piano sing the first chord. His fingers moved quickly and expertly along the keys, stringing together a melody that I didn’t think I’d ever heard before but which was beautiful nonetheless. I was afraid for the cleanliness of his piano, because if he kept playing like that, I’d come big-time, without him even having to touch me. Although, I guess in a way, he was; the fingers making that beautiful music that was vibrating through the piano and across my girlie bits belonged to him, after all.