Page 19 of Wicked S.O.B.

Chapter Five

Elyse/Elly

Double Exposure

Something is wrong.

There’s an extra layer of intensity in Quinn’s eyes that I haven’t seen for a while. I’m at a loss as to why since the unforgettable trip to Steinway’s and the dinner afterward at Juniere’s were both a raging success.

True to his word, we arrived at Steinway’s to find only the manager in residence. The staid older man barely glanced at me—for which I was supremely thankful considering my face was the color of beetroot—before showing us to the room housing the most expensive pianos. After that he pulled the snowy white drapes closed and told us to take our time. The ease with which Quinn reacted to the whole thing made me wonder just how many times he’d done something like this in the past. Then I concluded that I didn’t want to know.

There wasn’t much room for thought after that.

Quinn didn’t waste any time to stripping me to my bare skin, although he only shed his jacket. Then he walked me around naked while we lazily inspected two-dozen grand pianos. I sat on his lap and played “Greensleeves” on an ebony Boston Grand with his fingers deep inside me and his other hand playing with my breast. It felt a little sacrilegious to play the tune my mother taught me on our plastic dime store piano back in our trailer home, but it wasn’t as if I could deny the man I loved anything he wanted, could I? So what if my conscience smirked at me a little?

After I climaxed like the shameless slut I was, we moved to an Essex upright. He seated himself on the long, cushioned bench and instructed me to kneel in front of him. His hands brought mine to his fly, and with his eyes, he told me what he wanted. I needed no second prompt. As I unzipped him and drew his beautiful cock into my mouth, he lifted the lid and trailed his fingers over the keyboard, sending delicious shivers down my spine. Then he struck up what I found out later was a perfect Vivaldi concerto.

Was I surprised that he played the piano like a maestro? Hell no. Quinn Blackwood is a perfectionist in every sense of the word. And even caught in the savage grip of the best blow job I was determined to ever give, he still managed to execute the tune to pinpoint precision, timing his climax to coincide perfectly with the crescendo of the haunting melody. I’m not ashamed to admit the power of the music and the power of Quinn’s cock in my mouth moved me to tears. Enough to whisper the words he wanted to hear, the words he vowed I would say, right before he erupted in my mouth. It moved him, too, if the deep trembles that coursed through him when he kissed me afterward were any indication.

We left the store with Quinn in a decidedly calmer mood and a manager quietly ecstatic to have made a hundred-thousand-dollar sale with zero effort at all. The rest of the afternoon passed with lazy indulgence in each other and very little conversation. It continued into the evening with an almost solemn Quinn content to feed me from his plate at Juniere’s while he mostly drank his favorite red wine. In the car on the way back to the apartment, he splayed me across his body and played with my hair. We kissed a lot, and he told me he loved me. A lot.

We came home to the new, gorgeous ebony baby grand piano already tuned and set up on its dais in the living room, beautiful and pristine like the rest of the apartment. The carnage from before was almost a figment of my imagination.

We celebrated the piano’s arrival by fucking on top of it, after which Quinn, looking immensely pleased with himself, carried me, exhausted and barely conscious, to bed.

Now, in the morning sunshine, his eyes meet mine in the mirror as he efficiently knots his tie, and shivers run down my spine. I’m almost too scared to ask what’s wrong. But I open my mouth anyway because, while there’s one thing I’m keeping from him for now, I don’t want to shut my eyes to other problems.

“What are your plans for today?” he asks before I can voice my concern.

“A little studying. A lot of resting. Phone call to Petra to tell her about the horse before it arrives. I anticipate a lot of screaming, so don’t be surprised if I’m deaf by the time you come home.”

No response to my attempt at humor. He’s not prone to belly laughs, but one of his blindingly gorgeous smiles wouldn’t be unappreciated right now. From the look on his face, I’m not going to get one anytime soon.

Anxiety rolls through my belly. I take the bull by the horns. “Something’s wrong. What is it, Quinn?”

He takes his time to straighten his tie until it’s military perfect. “Why do you ask, Elyse? Should there be something wrong? Something I should know about, perhaps?”

I bite my lip. Maybe I need to revise my decision to bring everything out in the open later and do it now instead.

As if he’s read my mind, he pulls at his cuffs. “I received an email from Dr. Freeman this morning. He wants to start seeing us together again. You want to tell me what that’s about?”

Ah. Shit. Okay,thisI can deal with. “I just thought it was time. I ran it past him last week, and he said he’d think about it. I didn’t think he’d email you until he’d discussed his decision with both of us.”

He turns from the mirror and faces me where I’m sitting in the middle of our bed. His eyes are white-hot lasers. “I see. And you didn’t think to run it past me firstbeforeyou talked to him?” His voice is as mesmerizing and as deadly as an avalanche.

I grip the sheets tighter around me. As if that would be any help at all. “I thought he would, but I didn’t think you’d mind. You hated it when he proposed we have separate sessions.”

“I didn’t want him filling your head with his ideas.”

“Ideas like what exactly?”

He slides his hands into his pockets with elegant ease, but I notice the vein throbbing at his temple, his clenched jaw. “Like how bad I am for you.”

I laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. When his face remains ice-cold stoic, I sober up. I rise on my knees and crawl to the edge of the bed. “Quinn, no one willeverbe able to convince me of that.”

“He still thinks we should be living apart. He said that to me on Friday. That you need some fucking independence that I’m apparently not giving you,” he delivers with barely suppressed vitriol.

I perch on my knees even though I want to fly across the room and reassure him with my touch as well as my words. “And we’ve both told him, separately and together, that that’s not going to happen. I’m not leaving your side. Not without serious surgical intervention.”

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