I know Vivaldi. I know I’ve heard this piece, but now, I find myself searching for it. When I locate it online, I hit play and move to the window in my room. Looking down below to the vineyards and the arbor, I close my eyes as the music begins softly.
I picture her standing there under the large trees among the grass, her hair gently blowing in the breeze, as she serenades Phillipe in the sunlight.
That moment was herI love you. It didn’t matter if she never told him. Every time she stood in front of him and shared a piece of her soul, she also offered up a piece of her heart.
Two passionate people, two insanely talented people, were so consumed in their own world that they couldn’t understand that the world around them would not fathom such a union. For those moments in time, it didn’t matter. Forthismoment, when she stood down there under the trees and played for him, he had to have been in complete awe of her.
I have only heard her play through recordings, and I am always moved and enamored by her at the end of each piece. To have her standing in front of me, eyes closed with fingers swift and sure, I can’t even begin to comprehend the feelings she would have evoked.
Sheis the mystery that is wrapped tightly around the man I am trying so desperately to unravel.
As I finished the piece, I could feel my heartbeat thunder in my chest. It was always this way after I performed, but knowing Phillipe was standing somewhere close by made the experience even more arousing and somehow more exhilarating.
“Phenomenal,” he said from behind me.
Turning around, I felt his hands on my face.
“You are surreal, like a dream. God, don’t ever let me wake.” His mouth crashed down on mine, and I opened to him immediately.
I could feel the desperate and soul-consuming passion he was holding on to as he reached down to my hand, taking Diva from me. I relinquished my hold, and when his lips left mine, Iwaited. He moved a little, presumably to place her down, and then he was back.
He straddled the bench and took my mouth with his own. His tongue slid between my lips, and I moaned and reached up to clutch his shoulders. He angled his head as he smoothed his hands down my sides to move them under the bottom of my shirt.
I smiled against his hungry lips. “Is this where you take off all my clothes?”
His shoulders relaxed, and he laughed, the intensity of the moment eased. “I don’t think I will get anything done, but I’m going to try. I want to wrap a white sheet around your waist and add the F-holes again.” He gripped the edge of my shirt. “Lift your arms.”
I acquiesced as he removed my top.
Standing, he moved away from the bench. “I wish you could see all that I do. Then you could tell by my face just how much I love you. You take my breath away.”
I removed my pants and panties and stood before him proudly. My breasts rose, like an oblation to him, as I replied with my heart in my hands, “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and, therefore, is winged cupid blind. I don’t need to see you, Phillipe, to know you feel as I do.”
I close my eyes as the final strands of “Winter” float over me and find that I have tears running down my cheeks. I brush them away and wonder at myself.
Last night, I wanted Phillipe with a hunger that I never knew. I felt like he was right there with me. But is he? Or is he always with her?
I’m finding it increasingly hard to believe that anyone would come between the two of them, yet last night, I felt as though heinvitedme in. As he lay down with me in the gallery, he took me with such force and passion that I felt him hours after.
The most disturbing realization to come from last night is that now I can feel her, too.
Lying in his bed, Phillipe closes his eyes and lets the smooth sounds of the violin float over and calm him. His mind keeps running over last night with Gemma, and no matter which way he looks at it, his continual surrender to his lust feels like betrayal—betrayal so deep and painful that it aches like an open wound.
He knows his desire for Gemma is growing. It will likely continue that way, but he can’t seem to shake the overwhelmingneedhe still holds for Chantel.Sheis still everywhere, and no matter what his body is craving, his mind cannot andwillnot deny her.
In the studio is where he feels her the most, but that’s expected. That was their world. No one touched them there. No one tried to come between them.
Up in his studio, there is just him, and there is just her.
“I know you’re watching me,” Chantel mumbled.
He smiled as her gray eyes slowly opened.
“And how would you know that?”
“Because I can feel you,” she told him.
She shifted so she was lying on her side, just like he was as he watched her.
