Page 86 of Crescendo

“You’re so perfect, Ella,” I whispered.

“Please.” She hit long, heavy chords, dark, lingering, unresolved—aching for resolution. The girl was a natural. I tugged her underwear to the side, just enough to slip my fingers under the band and run them through her folds, and she jolted, hips bucking up as she stepped on the sustain pedal, I think by mistake. But she went with it, playing notes that bled together, all the edges blurring, a haze of sound like the haze of desire clouding my mind, and I moved my hand to slip down inside her underwear, feeling how wet she was getting for me. When my fingers found her clitoris, she let out a small cry and stopped playing, fingers curling in the air over the piano, and I stopped, hovering my fingers just off of her.

“Oh, god—Lydia—please—”

“Keep going.”

She dropped her hands back on the keys. Letting gravity play the notes, not by pushing down. She was improving her form. Played small, cycling melodies, little motifs swirling around and around, building up as she doubled them as a call-and-response on the lower register, and I was happy to oblige—moved my fingers rhythmically, small patterns around and around, building up faster and faster until I felt her body arching, desperate for more. She dropped a dramatic trill on the upper register, and I moved my other hand up inside her shirt, slipping under her bra to tease one nipple as I kept working faster and faster over her clitoris, and she gave up holding back the sounds she made, gasps and small, broken moans falling out of her as I worked her perfect body to her unspoken instructions. She played louder, maybe to cover her own noises or maybe to plead me for more, probably both, and I took her higher and higher until she cried out, muffled against her own shoulder, “Lydia, please, I need to come.”

“Come for me, darling,” I whispered, and with a playful touch, “You can stop playing if you need to.”

She didn’t—stopped playing intelligibly, fingers twitching into the keys and slamming down chords harder as she arched her back into me, crying out as she came, perfectly and beautifully, on my fingers. She didn’t stop playing until her body softened back against me, petering out until she ended on a single high note, rolling her head backwards against my shoulder.

“My god,” she said, a breathless laugh, a toothless reprimand. “You are… a problem.”

I kissed her neck. “Sometimes I want dessert first.”

“I don’t understand why that was so hot.”

“Because of how much we communicate with music. And how vulnerable it feels to show it.” I paused. “Or it could just be a kink thing. Have you always gotten off on pianos? If so, it’s probably the latter.”

“Do not be difficult.”

“When it gets you this wet?”

“Oh my god.” She buried her face in her shoulder, and I laughed, leaning in to kiss her as I extricated my hand from her underwear, fastening her pants back up. “You know—” she said, speaking into my lips, and I pulled back just an inch, raising an eyebrow.

“Mm?”

“You know that we’ll have to do it the other way too once we’re back at the apartment.” She smiled at me through a brilliant, beautiful flushed face. “I mean, it would be a shame not to compare how you play like that with how I do.”

I laughed. “Might be just the ticket to unlock that inspiration.”

“Will you be able to reach the sustain pedal if I’m kneeling in front of the bench?” she whispered, bedroom eyes and sultryvoice, and for a second I wondered how much more time we had before the others got back.

“I think I might just find a way.” I checked my phone, sighing hard. “They’ll be back in just a couple minutes.”

“You checked to see if we had time for me to do it now.”

“What, like I’ll get embarrassed and deny it? Of course that’s why I was checking.” I kissed her quickly and stood up, looking down at my hand. “Well, I should probably wash this. You… get to sit in the mess we made and think about how I’m going to play later.”

She blushed harder, but she gave me a dazed, dizzy smile. “That works,” she said, and I smiled wider before I licked my fingers, tasting her all over me.

“It does,” I said, and she swallowed hard, looking away.

As luck would have it, I didn’t get Ella to myself again right away—by the time I was heading back from the bathroom, I found Hannah and Dodge coming down the hall from the other direction, carrying a takeout bag, and Hannah rolled her eyes at the sight of me, hand on the door handle.

“Try not to look that fucking happy,” she said.

“Why not? I’m getting to playmusic.Did you know I love music?”

Dodge grinned. “And that’s the only thing you played, naturally.”

Hannah opened the door, leaning inside. “Ella,” she called. “I got us some scran. Also, did you and Lydia at least clean up?”

I couldn’t see Ella, but I couldseethe redness in her face from her voice. “What—clean up? From what? What did she tell you?”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Shedidn’t tell me nothing. That fucking got-laid-parade down the hall told me everything. You gonna come down to the lounge to eat, or what?”

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