He's Come Undone: A Romance Anthology Read online

  “Thank you, I—”

  She gave him a squeeze, and he closed his mouth. He hadn’t been certain what he had been about to say anyhow, and Kristy looked like a woman with a plan.

  She pulled the tongue of his belt free from its buckle. “That second day, when you were voicing the piano, I was fantasizing about you.”

  His brain short circuited. “I, you, what?”

  “Yup. I was nervous, playing in front of someone. And some like, I don’t know, electric awareness of you crackled through me. So I just…went with it. I played better than I have in months.”

  She pulled down the zipper on his jeans, and then her cool, powerful fingers slipped inside his boxer-briefs.

  “This isn’t a quid pro quo thing,” he managed through gritted teeth.

  “Shut up and let me stroke your cock.”

  He wasn’t going to argue with that.

  Her grip allowed him no quarter. It was so firm that it could’ve felt punishing, but with her gaze on his, he simply felt achingly exposed. He couldn’t have looked away from her, and he didn’t even want to, but he knew he was slack-jawed. Panting. Absolutely desperate to come and in complete awe of her.

  Kristy was biting her lip and moving with his thrusts. She looked as if she wanted his release every bit as much as he did. With her that intent on him, that invested in him, he couldn’t last long. He also couldn’t keep from mumbling her name when he did it. It felt as if she’d wrung his soul from his body.

  She pressed her mouth to his temple, and he tapped on the side table for a tissue and cleaned them both up.

  But then she surprised him when she slumped in his arms and asked, “Do you think we’re the first people who’ve fucked in this greenroom?”

  He managed a breathless laugh. “I don’t want to consider it.” All he could think about was what they’d just done together—and how much it was going to hurt when she left after a triumphant performance in ten days.

  “I’m serious. How much action do you think this couch has seen?”

  “I hope very little.”

  “You see, I hope a lot. Maybe then it would be lucky. The lucky banging couch.”

  Brennan had done his level best, but it didn’t seem to be enough: she was still thinking. He tightened his arms around her, prepared to hold her still if need be until she talked to him about what was wrong. Why did she think she couldn’t do this when he knew she could?

  “I think it’s a talking couch.”

  As always, she saw through him immediately. “Hmm.”

  “Kristy, if we can do…that.” He’d wanted to say make love, but he didn’t know how that would go over with her, and so he went with a pronoun instead. “Then you can trust me. I’m not pushing, but I’m here. And I care about you.” He wouldn’t pretend that wasn’t true.

  For a long, long time, she was silent, and he enjoyed the feel of her against him. He could wait forever like this.

  “When I do talk to people about it, they don’t understand,” she whispered at last.

  Thank God she was considering telling him. “I won’t pretend I can.” But tell me anyway.

  “Which I appreciate.”

  “But—”

  “No, don’t ruin it by adding a but! You were doing so well.”

  “I’ll take my chances. I don’t understand what you feel, but I know what it’s like to…to lose confidence in yourself.” She wasn’t going to believe him unless he got her to trust him. If him licking her to ecstasy hadn’t gotten it done, then he’d need to try something else. Maybe giving her a confession in fair exchange? “The story I told you last night, about how I got into this—I might have left out some salient details.”

  She pushed up from his chest and gave him an evil look. “Such as?”

  “I used to play.”

  She blinked and some of the anger in her eyes paled. “I didn’t know that.”

  “It was a long time ago. I auditioned for BUTI that summer, but I—I didn’t get in. What I do, piano technician work, wasn’t what I wanted to do. It started in a last-ditch effort to salvage that other career. I thought maybe if I understood the mechanism better, I could elevate my playing. It didn’t work.”

  He wished he could tell her that his own sturm und drang had been short and painless, but he couldn’t. Still, she was worth exhuming his pain. His own origin story, such as it was, might convince her to open up to him.

  Her expression had gone fully empathetic. “You really must’ve hated all the kids in the piano program that summer.”

  “Hate is a strong word.”

  “Ah.” She didn’t believe him. “But that’s why you were a bit…chilly?”

  “I don’t think I was.” Okay, that was a lie.

  “You were always so formal. So—distanced. So correct.”

  She had him there. “There are more things I could tell you. My family is…messy.” That was a polite way of putting it. “Music is where I went to hide because I liked the rules and the logic of it. If anything, moving from performing into being a technician suited that part of myself. So if I was cold, I didn’t mean to be. I was hurt because I was coming to terms with the fact I wasn’t good enough, and I was clinging to the rules because they made sense to me. Kept me safe.”

  And he’d just shattered them for her. He probably ought to be afraid, but instead, what they’d done together had felt inevitable. He’d trade anything if it would help her find her voice and confidence again, but it would sound silly to say that out loud.

  “I’m just surprised you let one rejection do that to you—and no, don’t even think of saying I’m being a hypocrite. It’s just…we were, what, fifteen?” she demanded.

  “What else were you up to that year? I mean, in terms of your music?”

  “Um, I had my Carnegie Hall debut then.”

  “This is my point. And my little sister, Caroline, she’s a violinist now with the symphony—”

  “Really?”

  “—she was having those kinds of successes too. And I…wasn’t. At first, I didn’t react well. I threw myself into practicing. Four hours of scales and technique exercises every day, that sort of thing. And it did help. I became better technically.”

  “But?”

  “Now who’s throwing around but.” That he could joke about this showed how long ago it was. It certainly hadn’t felt manageable at the time. “But…technical skills hadn’t been my problem. It was something more indescribable. A lack of a voice. Charisma, maybe. I played pretty well, but I didn’t have It, whatever It is.”

  He fixed his gaze on her, trying to put into his expression all the conviction he felt in his heart. “This is important, Kristy, listen to me: you do. You have It in spades. You’re fecund with It.”

  After twenty years of trying to hide what he felt, he was sure it was a poor show, but he wanted her to see his certainty and believe too.

  “Hmm.”

  He hadn’t managed to convince her, but of course it wasn’t going to be as easy as giving her a few orgasms and offering a handful of supportive words. He was willing to keep searching for the right spell if she was willing to let him keep trying, though.

  She snuggled back down into his arms. “Tell me another story.”

  If it wasn’t what he’d asked for, her demand implied an emotional intimacy that had his blood feeling carbonated. “About what?”

  “Is it strange working with your sister? Is she one of the messy ones?”

  “No, Caroline’s wonderful. She’s the one who understands me. But it’s not as if we interact much.” For weeks at a time, he wouldn’t see her at work. Sometimes he even forgot they technically shared a place of employment.

  “Are your parents proud?”

  “Yes.”

  His answer came out vacillating, and of course she picked up on it. “There’s a story there.”

  “Not really. They’re not classical music people. They know it’s a big deal, but they can’t really get it in the way a symp
hony subscriber could. My dad’s an electrician, and so are my brothers. This world won’t ever be as clear to him as that one.”

  She tipped her head back. Finally she asked, “Is that hard?”

  The question was so matter of fact, so free of condemnation of his parents, that he fell for her a little more. “No, it’s actually a relief.”

  She nodded, understanding. “My parents wanted me to play. When they started me on lessons, they’d been thinking piano would look good to Stanford when I applied to be a pre-med, you know? My success sort of surprised them, maybe even scared them. What could be more risky than trying to be a musician? After a while, they got used to it because I was doing too well for them to doubt me, but then these past two years…”

  “We don’t have to talk about it.” He meant that absolutely.

  “It seems I can’t prevent myself from talking to you about it.” She gave him a cheeky grin, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “When I stopped performing, my parents and I pretty much stopped talking. At first they found all these different experts to refer me to, but when nothing seemed to work, when I just couldn’t get it together, they didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t not talk about it, and I couldn’t fix myself, and it was fucking awful. So we stopped calling each other. I just stopped visiting, and so did they. And then it was…radio silence. For months and months.”

  Fifty questions rushed into his mouth, but he kept himself quiet. So, so quiet. Not pushing. Not judging. Just waiting.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me that’s unhealthy?” she prompted.

  “No.”

  “Do you think they’re jerks?”

  “I don’t even know them.” He was annoyed they hadn’t found a way to help their daughter—even as he knew he hadn’t found a way to help their daughter either—but that wasn’t the point.

  “Do you think I’m wasting my talent?”

  “No, it’s not even about that. Kristy.” He repeated her name, loving how the two syllables felt on his tongue. “You’re one of the most phenomenally talented artists I’ve ever heard play.”

  “But?”

  He hadn’t meant to say it with conditions, but there was an implied one. “That it would be a waste if you stopped is not a good enough reason to do this if you don’t want it.”

  That was the part that made the least sense to him. If she’d lost the fire, she could walk away. Why keep doing it if it was causing her so much angst?

  “Believe it or not, I never, ever stopped wanting it.” She wasn’t watching him anymore. She was staring at the wall, and her expression was almost dreamy. “At times, actually, I felt like the wanting would consume me. It was more I knew, just as intensely, I wasn’t good enough to have it. And I—look, let me stop you right here.”

  He had been raising his hand to interrupt. He set it back on her hip—and it was still shocking to touch her like that. To know she wanted him to. And perhaps equally shocking to have her confess all of this.

  “Whatever you were about to say, it would’ve made me itchy. I have mantras I’m supposed to recite, lists of accomplishments and awards and honors. I’m supposed to focus on my process, my work. Intellectually, it’s all there. But it’s not—” Her eyes were glossy, almost overfilled with tears, and she slammed her fist against the back of the couch. “—here. Once those doubts wriggled in, they spread like ivy. In my studio with no one else, I can shut them out sometimes. But as soon as I know someone is listening, there’s too many thoughts pressing in on me. And I just can’t do it. When you say I play without passion, you’re right. I’m playing out of unadulterated fear.”

  He wanted to refute the things she thought about herself point by point. He’d have no trouble assembling the evidence. But he knew there was nothing he could say to quiet the doubts in her mind. He couldn’t make this go away for her, no matter how much his heart ached.

  Even so, he also couldn’t let what she’d said go by without comment. “I meant what I said. Watching you play the last few days has been one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.”

  She scoffed. “Brave?”

  “Yes. And that was before I knew what you just told me.”

  At last she managed to toss her hair and look mostly herself. Poised, if also a bit mussed—and he thrilled at knowing he’d been the one to muss her.

  “Well, that’s just wrong. There was no courage in it,” she said.

  “We’ll have to disagree about that. But, Kristy?” He waited for her to look at him before he added, “Thank you for sharing your doubts with me.”

  He’d tried to put some small measure of the things she made him feel into the words, but because he wasn’t an artist like she was, he failed.

  She finally managed a real smile. “And thank you for making me come. Twice.”

  He gathered her back against him and kissed the top of her head. “It was an honor.”

  In that, at least, he’d succeeded.

  Chapter 6

  Intimo

  Kristy was as happy as she’d ever been in a place she’d never thought she’d be: naked in Brennan Connelly’s bed in his tiny Charlestown apartment.

  For nearly a week, he’d been the perfect distraction from her worries, a role he was utterly committed to. He never talked about her upcoming performance unless she brought it up first, and he was endless fun to tease—at least until she pushed him too far, and he shattered. And then he tended to make her shatter. She’d never had as much fun with a lover, and it had been good, very good, to pretend she could have warm constancy at the end of the day.

  If she wasn’t going to resume her concert schedule, she could have this all the time, here with him, or—but that was the conflict. Who did she want to be? And was she brave enough to be whatever she’d decided?

  “You’re thinking again,” he whispered against her shoulder. The last bit of light was disappearing as twilight fell. Out the windows of Brennan’s bedroom, the city spread like a child’s forest of block towers against the darkening sky.

  “Sorry,” she whispered back.

  “I thought I’d worn you out.”

  He’d certainly tried. The relentlessness he’d brought to voicing pianos for her had been a preview of coming attractions. The man had the most talented hands…

  “Should we go to dinner?” he asked.

  That had been the plan when she’d come over. They hadn’t made it.

  “I’m not really hungry,” she said.

  “What are you thinking, then?”

  She knew he wasn’t fishing. He’d accept it if she lied and told him politics or movies or the meaning of life. She also knew now that she could trust him and that, as far as it was possible, he understood the torrent of different emotions she was experiencing.

  Four days. She had four days until she had to play the gala in front of a packed house. To conquer her fears and to see if she could still perform with reckless abandon. Could she get onto that stage and show everyone the crinkles and pleats on her soul, knowing that they wouldn’t all appreciate the view?

  Well, she certainly couldn’t if she wouldn’t show it to Brennan. The man had been inside her not ten minutes prior.

  She swallowed and then said lightly, “I was trying to name my fears.”

  “Oh.” Brennan hadn’t been expecting that. He rubbed his hands over his face and sat up a little, pulling away from her in the process. “What are you afraid of?”

  He wasn’t trying to pretend he wasn’t interested. He didn’t ever play it cool. That was the extension of his seriousness: Everything he did and said, he meant. He was utterly sincere. Even now, his eyes were riveted to her. He wanted desperately to know, because he thought if she could say it out loud, she’d be able to fix it and he’d able to help. She was less convinced about this, but what could she do at this point but try?

  She cleared her throat and began ticking things off on her fingers. “That people will listen. That people won’t listen. That they’ll think I sound terrib
le. That they’ll think I should have stayed retired. That I’ll play the concert and be adequate. I don’t want to be adequate.”

  For most of her life, she’d taken her talent for granted. She’d been so extraordinary for so long, she’d blindly believed she always would be. But as she’d played for Brennan in the past week, she’d had to face the nasty gnawing possibility that the ember of her genius had gone cold.

  He nodded. “Those are all bad things. But…what would happen if they occur? If you play the concert in a few days, and the critics say, ‘Eh,’ what’s the harm?”

  Her career would end. But worse than that: “I could believe them.”

  Her fingers and gut had gone icy. She’d never said the words out loud, and even in her head, she’d tried not to form them all the way into language.

  She didn’t know who she was if she wasn’t Kristy Kwong, concert pianist. While her parents might have had another vision for her life, Kristy never had. It was this, and this to its fullest, highest level, or it was nothing.

  Now that she’d admitted it, her eyelids were heavy with the effort not to cry.

  “Is that why you can’t play like you used to?” Brennan asked.

  “Playing like that—” She broke off and wrestled a sob back down. “—it means I have to rip my heart out of my chest. Set it right out there on stage where everyone can see it. I guess I thought my heart was made of iron. Or maybe I just didn’t think. I got successful young. There wasn’t time to worry, until…until it was all I could do.”

  Hesitantly, he reached out and ran his fingertips over her cheekbones. “Do you think the audience can’t be trusted with your heart?”

  She didn’t know if he meant his question literally, or if he’d said the audience when he meant himself. As intense as the last week had been, they’d never talked about what they were doing together. They’d never discussed their feelings. It had been all chitchat and orgasms. Lots and lots of orgasms.

  “Honestly, I don’t expect them to care about my heart on its own terms. It doesn’t have intrinsic value to them.”

  Brennan swallowed. It might have intrinsic value to him, but she wasn’t going to let herself contemplate that. She couldn’t. Not with what she had to do in four days. She only had enough space in her brain for one problem, and it had to be the gala, not what she and Brennan could—no. She wasn’t going to go there.