“What are you confused about?” He genuinely wants to know.
“You. Her. Both of you together,” she tells him, licking her lips.
She shifts, and he wonders for a moment if she is aroused by what she just said.I believe she is.
“What is it about us together that’s confusing to you?”
“I don’t know.” She quickly adds, “That’s a lie, and I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.”
“What? Lie?”
“Yes.” She nods. “You seem so different through her eyes.”
Silence stretches between them as the weight of her reply floats across the air.
“Interesting choice of words. How do I seem different?”
He watches her red fingertips caress the side of the violin as she continues looking down at it. “With her, you seemed…happy.”
Phillipe nods. “I was happy, happier than I had ever been. I guess it showed. What do I seem to be now?”
Gemma turns her head and looks at him with narrowed eyes. “Angry, sad, hurt.”
Placing his brush on the easel, he moves over to her. He’s tired of not being able to do what he wants, and right now, he wants to touch.
“Angry?” he asks, stopping and crouching down before her.
She raises her eyes to his. “Yes, that day I saw you, you were in your room and…”
Phillipe cocks his head and waits.Let her say it.
“And you were hurting yourself. Why? Why are you hurting and punishing yourself if you didn’t do anything to be sorry for? I don’t understand. I’m confused.”
Phillipe runs the pad of his finger against the hard tip of her full breast. “Have you ever had a moment of passion that was so deep and so fucking perfect that you know you will never have it again?”
Gemma’s gaze moves to his lips before shifting back to his eyes.
“Have you?”
She shakes her head. “Have you?”
Phillipe feels the side of his mouth pull up into an ironic smirk. “Yes, and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to capture it again.”
I’m holding the violin so tight that I start to think I might accidentally crush it.What is he trying to tell me?He is so close to me that I can smell the scent that always seems to cling to him. It’s making my head spin.
“I don’t understand,” I finally manage to say.
His heated stare wanders all over my face but never dips below my neck. I can’t explain why, but it makes me even more aroused that he doesn’t feel the need to outright stare at the obvious. It’s almost as if he has memorized it already.
He stands and walks around me, running the tip of his finger against my shoulders, until he’s behind me, where he kneels down. I can feel the fabric of his clothes pressed against my back and bare skin.
“What I mean, Gemma, is that I’ve experienced a moment so perfect that it remains unequaled.”
I think about that for a moment as a shiver runs down my spine, starting where his warm fingertips are touching the base of my neck.
“So, what you’re saying is that because the moment was perfect, you can’t feel that pleasure anymore?”
“What do you think I mean?” he asks, his mouth now joining his fingers on my left shoulder.
