Pain throbbed behind her right eyebrow. Crap. This kind of thing could easily stress a person out. Right move, wrong move, who knew?
Let go, let things happen
, she reminded herself.
It's the only way.
Maestro looked over at her, and the storm clouds on his face lightened. “Probably not,
Schätzchen
. I'm sorry I couldn't keep her from following me back here. I did everything I could, short of bodily throwing her out of the hotel. Once Elena's got her teeth in something, she doesn't let go easily.”
“So I've seen,” Annasophia said, looking down at her hands, which she'd tightly folded in her lap. Oh, how she hated drama! Though she had fallen desperately in love with Maestro, did she really want to emotionally mud-wrestle with his ex-wife every second she was here? Especially knowing that, at some point, she'd inevitably have to give ground to Elena and it was just a matter of time.
“I don't want you to worry,” Maestro said. “We'll make our choices, and she'll just have to deal with them.”
Annasophia shook her head. “I still can't stay here. At least not for the long term. It's for the same reason that I can't tell you about. I won't try to go back to my own time immediately, but at some point in the not-too-distant future, I will have to leave.”
Maestro took her hands in his. “I understand,
Schätzchen
. Well, I don't understand, really. I don't understand a thing about why you think you have to go back, unless your life in the future is truly what you want. If it is, then I would never stand in your way, like I told you. That isn't what I'm feeling from you, though. I feel like you want to stay here. That you feel you need to go back, regardless of what you truly want.”
“That's about the size of it,” Annasophia said. “I'd love to stay here with you. My life in the future is nice, but oh, what we could share here together, for decades...”
Shut up,
she told herself. She had said too much.
He gave her a little smile. “In your time, I'm old. Am I a nice old man, as your teacher? I hope I've never been crotchety with you.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks and she didn't bother to wipe them away. “You are and have always been the kindest, sweetest, wisest, and most remarkable human being I've ever known, young or old.
“Oh, Anna, Anna,” He drew her in her arms and held her close. “I can't bear to see you so sad.” Oh, the warmth of his arms encircling her, the feeling of being held, loved, cherished. She'd never felt anything like this in her life. She wanted it to last forever. But nothing could last forever. Not Maestro; she knew that only too well from her own timeline. Not her, either. And certainly not this relationship they'd developed. Soon, they would both have to let go.
They could, though, enjoy what they had while it was in their grasp.
He stood, gently drawing her up with him. Still held in the circle of his arms, she looked up at him and started to say something, any silly old thing, but it vanished from her mind as he feathered kisses on her forehead. He fixed her with a steady, lingering gaze in which she saw the depth and breadth of both his desire and his love for her. Oh, yes – love and desire together. Most of all, the love.
“Come on,
Schätzchen
. Let's go to my suite.”
Unable to speak, she nodded.
###
Annasophia and Maestro didn't make it through the door of his suite before they were kissing each other hotly and deeply. Somehow, Maestro got the door open, and he held Annasophia under her bottom while she wrapped her legs around his waist. She encircled his big shoulders with her arms, ran her fingers through his thick, dark hair, then used it to pull his face closer to hers. A soft thud reached her ears as Maestro nudged the door closed with his foot. Wrapping one hand around her waist, he caressed her bottom with his other hand as he carried her to his bedroom and lay her on the bed. From the radio in the living room shimmered Handel's Water Music, Suite 2. Its beauty and majesty made her shiver, and her desire ratcheted up higher. For Maestro. For love. For life. Oh, she felt more alive than she ever had!
Nothing she had experienced with her groupies could have prepared her for the tenderness of Maestro's touch, even as he flamed with desire for her. A potent combination, love and desire. And oh, the look in his eyes as he gently rid her of her t-shirt and started unbuttoning her blue jeans. She went to work on his shirt, and they couldn't have stopped kissing if they'd wanted to, except to pause, ever-so-briefly, for their hot gazes to meet and meld again. She took off his shirt, and Maestro nudged her jeans down her legs, then tossed them aside, onto the floor.
Something fell out of one of her pockets and landed on the bed. As Maestro kissed her neck, worked his way down to her shoulders, and then – oh, yes – to her breasts, she raised her head, cast a quick glance toward the foot of the bed, and saw the folded-up piece of paper on which she had printed the picture of the two of them together, in this time.
Oh, no
. She mustn't let him see that.
How could she move away from Maestro to retrieve the paper? As he lay alongside her, he cupped her bottom with his big hands, and she gasped at the feel of his mouth on her nipples, first one, then the other. His hands wandered up her back, and he moved up to kiss her mouth again. A soft moan escaped her. For a moment, the image of the picture receded almost to haze in her mind. But no, she had to get hold of it before he saw it, if only to quickly pitch it under the bed.
The paper lay inches from her toes. For now, she would try to push it off the bed, and the next chance she got, she'd flick it underneath. Oh, Maestro was kissing her breasts again, sucking them now, and her hot haze of desire spiraled up and up, making her body tingle all over and pushing thoughts of the paper from her mind. All she could think about was Maestro's powerful body, the feel of the muscles in his back as she held him to her, the coarseness of his black hair when she ran her fingers through it. She couldn't get him close enough.
She had to get rid of these underpants. Sitting up, she started to tug them off, and her eyes fell on the piece of paper again.
Maestro pulled her underpants the rest of the way off. As he tossed them away, in a different direction than he'd tossed her jeans, Annasophia saw her chance. While he was looking away, she took the piece of paper between her bare feet and swung them over to the floor. Just before she could let the paper drop, though, Maestro pulled her to him again, and the paper made a crackling sound under the pressure of her feet as she reflexively tried to keep hold of it.
Wrong move
.
Maestro looked down. A slow smile spread across his face. “What on earth are you up to, Miss Anna?”
She grabbed the paper from between her feet and quickly tossed it onto the floor. Asinine, but what else could she do? “Something fell out of my pocket.”
He leaned over and picked it up. She carefully watched his expression as he unfolded the paper and studied it. His smile faded. For a moment, he looked so confused that his expression seemed blank. Then he looked at her, smiled again, and shook his head. “You are a complete mystery.”
“Let me see that.” She grabbed the paper. Nothing there. Well, okay – she was looking at the wrong side. She flipped it over.
Still no picture. No handwriting. Nothing there at all.
Dimly, she became aware that her mouth was hanging open. She felt Maestro's gaze on her. To avoid meeting it, she folded the paper back up and put it on the nightstand. She desperately wanted to throw it away, but she couldn't quite make herself.
It made sense for the paper to be blank. The picture that had been printed on it in her time hadn't yet been taken in this time. Would the picture appear, she wondered, once it had been taken in this timeline? She'd have to keep the piece of paper and test that theory, but she'd have to hide it from Maestro.
“Anna?” His deep voice reached her ears, sounding serious. “What's the matter?”
She shivered. Was she messing everything up for Matt, for Maestro, for herself, after all? Perhaps she should get her clothes back on and run, not walk, back to the hotel lobby and play the piano there to get back to her time. But Matt still might not exist there. Who knew what ripple effects from Maestro's actions and from her actions would have to culminate in whatever would bring Maestro and Elena together again?
She felt cold. Nerves, she supposed. She hadn't realized, though, that she was shivering until Maestro pulled her onto his lap and held her close to him. “You seem so worried about something,” he said. “Please try to relax, dear one. Whatever it is, it can't be urgent. Here we are together, enjoying each other and having a wonderful time. What could possibly be upsetting you so much?”
He had a point there. Again, she told herself,
Let go
. Whenever she tried to force outcomes, things got worse. The taste she'd already had of physical pleasure seasoned with love was intoxicating. She had to have more, even if it could be only be for this one time.
She couldn't stop shivering.
Maestro caressed her back and her arms. The warmth of his hands and the tenderness in their touch soothed her somewhat, but she pressed closer to him, wishing that somehow this moment could linger forever. “
Schätzchen
, can't you at least tell me why that paper bothered you so much? You looked so frightened.”
Why hadn't she wanted Maestro to see the picture? Second-guessing again, she supposed. He could have a bad reaction to it, which might skew things in the wrong direction. At this point, though, Annasophia had no idea which direction was right and which was wrong. And since the picture no longer existed, how come she remembered it? When she had gone to those future timelines which had been so wrong, she had lost her memories of certain things.
“Honestly, it's something I didn't think you should see,” she replied, “but since it's gone now, it no longer matters.”
He kissed the top of her head. “You're speaking in riddles, but I won't ask any more questions.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at him. “I wish I could tell you more. I don't like holding back. But...”
His eyes darkened with desire when she said the words
holding back
. “I understand that you have to hold back what you tell me, but my darling Anna, I'm going to see to it that you don't hold back anything else.” His tone caressed her all over.
Her shivers forgotten, she got up on her knees and pressed herself, naked, against him. “Please. Let's not waste any more time. I don't think I've ever understood how precious time is until now. And I promise, I won't hold back a thing.”
###
Feeling as though their movements were choreographed by the last movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21, Annasophia relaxed into the music and back onto the bed as Maestro slowly, gently lowered her down and covered her body with his. Oh, how much she wanted him inside her, but for now, they could take their time, and she would enjoy – yes, revel in – each precious second. What a revelation, to experience the sensations Maestro's touch evoked. His simplest touch made her skin, heart, and mind rejoice as one, as though every part of her, both corporeal and non-corporeal, were playing its own magnificent symphony.
Not just playing a symphony, though. Writing a symphony. Writing music had nothing to do with creating something out of nothing. Composition was more akin to magic than to building. Songwriting felt like discovery, and lovemaking, like songwriting, was taking her on a brand new adventure, into territories she could, before, have only dreamed about. With love as an ingredient of touch, sex transcended mere physical pleasure and became creation and discovery in action – two hearts, two souls, striving for the ultimate closeness, the union already experienced through love, now to try to translate that into the physical.
Lying on her back, Annasophia opened herself to Maestro. Gasping at the feel of him inside her, she pushed up against him, needing more, more. Mozart's piano concerto came to an end, and at the grand, opening chords of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, she sighed in delight. How perfect, hearing during love the piece that had brought them together. She and Maestro moved together tenderly, almost tentatively. Maestro, a big man, leaned heavily on his arms, as if he didn't want to press into her too hard. Did he think she'd never done this before? She flushed at the thought of how much of this she'd been doing since the age of sixteen. He mustn't know that, though.
Oh, she needed him to go at her harder, deeper! Instead, his power lessened. Teasing her? Maybe. No, something else was happening. She opened her eyes, saw the flexing of Maestro's bottom, stronger and more ardent in its movements than before. His thrusts felt no more substantial than a feather against her skin, and she now felt achingly empty inside. It made no sense, except...
The Rachmaninoff concerto. Playing it had brought her here.
And now, hearing it was taking her away.
“Turn it off, turn it off!” she screamed.
Maestro jumped out of bed and leaped into the living room. Annasophia sat bolt upright. As she stared, the door and the bedroom grew transparent. In front of her, as though it were forming itself, she saw the piano in her apartment. It grew a bit more solid-looking, then a bit more so. The softness of the bed under her bottom was shifting, too, and increasingly, it felt not like a bed but like her piano bench at home. She gaped. She had never kept her eyes open during the transition. Past and present overlapped: the piano in her apartment, and through it, the bedroom door of Maestro's hotel suite.
She jumped up, not ready to go back. What if she couldn't return to this timeline? She scrambled to the bathroom, found a bathrobe and put it on. Through the images of Maestro's suite, she saw her own bathroom, her own bathrobe. Which bathrobe did she have on? Hers at home was green; Maestro's was blue.