Then, with lips as light as silk, Cassius kissed her.
So soft, so gentle, like a sweep of petals on the wind… Her breath caught at the gentleness as she sank into the feeling, as it held the air in her lungs captive until they were screaming for release.And when she sighed at last, she pushed her fingers through his hair and allowed his curls to cling to them.Cassius was everywhere.Inside her, holding her, surrounding her, in her lungs and against her, heavy as ballast.
Cassius was everything.
‘Moja muzyka,’ he said, and she had to grope through all the forgotten words and broken letters of her early years to find its meaning.
My music.
Their laboured breaths began to slow, then eased.Cassius lowered her to the floor, and with a swift movement, withdrew, and tucked himself away.Her skirt fell.
‘Better?’she asked.
He laughed and nipped her ear.‘Much better.’
Someone thumped on the door.‘Miss Delaney?Have you seen Mr Zadora?’
He buried his face against her neck and bit playfully at the skin.Snickered.Pressed a kiss there.Warm.Gentle.So different from the man she’d known for so long.
‘No,’ she called.‘Zadora is not here.’
Chapter 14
Itbeganwithasound.
La.
A sound so soft it was almost a hum.A tender note that betrayed the mechanisations of the knocking of wood on strings that was taking place beneath the lid.
Then, if he pressed harder, with a little more purpose, a clear note would emerge, plump with a percussive undertone and rich with vibration.
Lah.
Cassius stroked the keys of the piano in the pit.Not playing.Not pressing.Only touching each one as he hummed.That’s how he had first found the piano as a child.He had watched from the corner as his sister played and memorised the notes as she practised.When no one was nearby, he would place both hands on the seat and clamber onto the bench.He had grown tall in the later years of his youth, but as a child, he’d always been shorter than his peers.And on that very first day, the top of the piano seat still came up to his ribs.
Stiffening his back in imitation of his sister, he sat before the piano, not daring to depress any of the thin wooden lengths or tap a short black plank.At first, he merely rested his small fingers on the places he’d seen his sister touch and sang the notes the same way that she sang them while playing.
La
La
La
La
La
La
La
La
Laah.
Once he grew bolder, he dared to press the keys so that they made a little sound, barely louder than a beetle’s wings or a bee’s buzz.More vibration than note, hefeltthe music, then replicated it in his chest.Then the next.And the next.His less obedient right hand soon joined his left, and he experimented with their placement, tickling the smooth surface, before dispensing with caution and pressing both hands hard onto the keys in a perfect mimicry of what he’d seen his sister do so many times before.
C major…
