Not Like This

Chace lifted the sax off its stand and hung it on the strap around his neck. The top two buttons of his shirt were open to allow room for it. He didn’t like wearing a tie when he played. It was too constricting. He didn’t like wearing a suit, either, but it was October in Lisbon, and there was a slight chill in the air, so he wore the black Italian cashmere. He blew a quick run of notes, then turned to the trio backing him and called Days of Wine and Roses.

There were only a dozen people scattered around the few tables at the beginning of the set, but when Chace opened his eyes after his solo on the third tune, he realized the little basement jazz club was filling up. By the end of the next tune, there were people standing all along the back and side walls.

That’s when he spotted her. There were no seats left, and she’d squeezed her way to the front to lean against the column barely ten feet from the edge of the stage. Her hair fell around her shoulders like a curtain of dark satin, in striking contrast to the full length ivory coat she clutched tightly around her body. She was petite, Asian, but she’d spoken English with the barest tease of an accent when he’d stopped at her table the night before.

She’d stolen his attention the moment she walked in. It wasn’t as if he’d never seen a beautiful woman walk into a nightclub on her own, but he’d never felt such a prickly sensation at the base of his skull. And it sure wasn’t like she was this perfect image of grace. She came off nervous and awkward, uncomfortable in her own skin, but the way she moved made it feel like the air around her suddenly grew ashamed of itself and had to rush out of her way.

The crowd had thinned down to the usual stragglers. The rest of the band had already clustered around the tiny bar in back. Chace was going to join the others at the bar, but she’d lingered, absently twirling an empty wine glass by the stem.

She wasn’t unfriendly when Chace introduced himself. She had a ring on her marriage finger that looked to have cost two or three times what Chace’s horn was worth, the only thing of value he owned in this world. But he looked right past it to her face and forgot it was there.

He wanted to believe she’d stuck around for a reason. It seemed almost painful for her to make eye contact, but when she did, Chace felt a little paralyzed. When she looked away nervously, it only got worse, so he took the other seat at her table without being asked.

“I’m Chace, by the way,” he’d said, extending his hand.

She took his hand in a light grip, and then practically pulled it away as if he’d shocked her. Chace wasn’t sure if she hadn’t shocked him.

“I hope you enjoyed the music,” he said, immediately wishing he’d thought of something more interesting.

“Very much,” she said, quickly looking up and back down. “You, um, really seem to play what you feel. I like it.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” he smiled. “It’s all a very carefully concealed act.”

She giggled quietly, and even though she was still looking down at the table, her entire face seemed to glow as she broke into a smile that felt like something unearthly had just blossomed in that dark, damp basement.

Chace wanted to ask her name, and if she’d like to join him for another glass of wine, or maybe even go somewhere else. He was trying to think of anything to keep her from leaving when she suddenly hustled to her feet, mumbling a thank you for the music, and then something barely intelligible about having to go.

Before he could close his jaw, she was halfway to the stairs leading up to the plaza outside where a few tired taxi drivers would be available to take her away.

But she came back.

Tonight, she seemed even more self-conscious, jittery as she worried the edges of her long coat with nervous hands, and so arresting Chace’s heart felt like it had tumbled off some high precipice and flopped down in his stomach. It took some effort to keep the smile off his face when he saw she’d come back. He caught sight of her wedding ring again, quietly sparkling in the dim light.

When the waitress delivered an order near the stage, Chace leaned over and asked her to bring a glass of strawberry wine to the nameless woman leaning against the column near the stage. The wine Chace asked for wasn’t actually made from strawberries, but a grape called the strawberry grape. A red wine with flavor like a fine Medoc, it evaporated off the palate the way an excellent champagne is meant to. It was an extremely hard wine to find, and the club always kept a bottle in stock for him.

When most people drink their first sip, their eyes light up in sensual surprise. He felt more than a little caddish for wanting to see the look on her face when the unique wine hit her tongue.

Then he ordered another glass for himself.

Chace stole another look at her before calling the next song. He hadn’t decided what to play next, and was trying to think of something quickly as the crowd sat and waited. He suddenly realized he was staring at her mouth, mesmerized by the full, supple contours of the richest lips he’d ever seen.

He’d been staring long enough for the audience to realize what was distracting him. The nameless beauty became aware that Chace’s dumb-struck gaping drew everyone’s attention to her, and she looked down at the floor and seemed as if she wanted to disappear. The back up trio were all looking at Chace, waiting for him to announce the next tune. Eventually, he just sighed in defeat and wrenched himself back to reality.

“Besame Mucho.”

The rhythm section broke into a slow, sensuous bolero with a funky backbeat. As Chace started playing, he didn’t even hear the song streaming out of his horn. The woman’s shyly tantalizing lips were as clear in his mind as if he were still staring at her.

With his eyes closed, he didn’t even notice the instrument in his hands and mouth. He felt as if he were holding her. The resonant flurries of passionate notes that swept through the air seemed to come from some place far beyond him. In his mind, he was already kissing the lips that refused to release his imagination and the solo he played merely felt like the sound of the long, slow kiss he envisioned.

When he finished his solo, the audience erupted in applause. Chace opened his eyes, almost surprised to find himself standing onstage in the small, packed jazz club. They were applauding a solo he barely remembered playing. When he looked at the woman against the column, her eyes were closed with her head leaning back. She swayed almost imperceptibly to the music, and Chace forced himself to look away from the delicate softness of her exposed throat.

The waitress suddenly squeezed through the crowd and placed his wine on the stage by his mike stand. Then she delivered the other glass to the surprised woman, nodding toward Chace to let her know who it came from. She took the glass and raised it with a smile. She had a way of raising her face but keeping her eyes down that made him feel like he was falling.

He picked up his glass and toasted back. He watched her take that first sip, feeling his breath catch as her mouth kissed at the edge of the glass. When her brow crinkled in surprise at the strawberry wine, he grinned and sipped his own.

As they played the last chorus, Chace noticed the bottom of her coat fall open, revealing most of the length of one supple, shapely leg. Thigh high stockings left her upper thigh bare. He wanted to sputter, but he was only half way through the melody. Her coat opened a little wider, revealing the rest of her thigh to the lacy black panties cupping the pouting V of the most unimaginable treasure.

Chace had to close his eyes to finish the song. Sweat beaded his forehead as the audience applauded. The woman was smiling but avoiding eye contact. Even in the dim light of the club he could tell she was blushing furiously. She was oozing with a heady mix of sultriness and schoolgirl shyness. He felt his heart drop down another ledge. He was a goner.

“I’d like to play one from my last CD,” he announced, leaning down to the sax mike. “It’s called “Sky Flower”, and I’d like to dedicate every note to someone very entrancing.”

The drummer brushed the snare head while the piano player opened with a solo. Chace listened intently for his entrance with the melody, but he made the mistake of looking back at her. Her coat was hanging open all the way down. It was only open a few inches, but enough for Chace to see the inner curves of her luxurious breasts overflowing a black, lacy bra that matched her panties.

Her hands were stuck into the coat’s pockets, and when he looked again, she pulled the sides a little wider. All he could see were black lace and silken, female skin, as if the whole world were made of it. When he finally made eye contact, she smiled quickly and looked down, quickly pulling her coat closed.

He missed his entrance with the melody, and the confused looking piano player soloed for another chorus. Suddenly the drummer was dropping the time. Chace turned around to see what was wrong. Carlos had dropped one of his brush sticks and was fumbling to pick it up, trying to keep the rhythm going with one hand.

Chace tried to glare at him, but Carlos grinned and rolled his eyes at the woman. Chace had to close his eyes to play. In his mind, there was only one person in the club, and she was a glowing miracle of raw sensuality. She was hard and soft at the same time, a shy tigress who had yet to discover the limits of her own astonishing power.

He blew a note that felt like it came up from his heels and slithered into the air. His eyes were closed, but he held onto that clear vision of the sumptuous banquet of her body, the beguiling curl of her mouth. He poured everything he felt into every note he played, as if he could touch her with the sound he pushed in her direction, as if each phrase could be a hot caress.

He spoke through his horn. He whispered and cried and groaned with desperate longing. He saw her standing, just as she was, in a hundred lonely hotel rooms on the road. By the time he finished his solo, he even felt himself growing hard.

The audience actually jumped to their feet to applaud. Their intensity took him by surprise, and he almost felt as if he been caught making love in the back of a car.

The woman wasn’t applauding. One of her hands was hidden inside her coat. Chace caught the movement of her arm and knew she had to be soothing her magnificent breast. Her eyes looked glazed and shimmery.

He called a break the second the last note rang and faded. He started to approach her, but a small ring of people crowded him to talk about the solo he’d just played. Even the guys in the trio stopped to tell him he sounded like he was on fire tonight as they left the stage.

It was hard to make polite responses to the people peppering comments and questions at him. His dark eyes continually searched for her. He was dying to get closer to her and praying she wouldn’t suddenly leave as she had the night before. This was the last night of their engagement, and if she disappeared on him again, he’d be in another country by the next afternoon.

He had the mistaken idea he was keeping a grin of pleasure off his face when she strolled up closer, waiting a couple of paces behind the others.

He finally managed to excuse himself. Without a word, he took her hand and led her out to the little courtyard through the club’s back door. The only light was what came through the doorway, and there were a couple of other people out there for a little fresh air.

“You came back,” he said intimately, leading her to a quiet corner.

“Well the poster said this is your last night, and…”

“I didn’t think I’d ever…I mean, I’m glad you came.”

She kept looking away, but her eyes always came back to his. Every time they did it felt like permission to breathe.

“I…guess I really like your music,” she said. “That song you just played, the slow one? It really took me away somewhere. Your, um, dedication? That was…”

“Of course. I was just trying to return the courtesy…of being taken away.”

Looking up as she was, with nervous determination in her deeply luminous eyes, with dark, luxurious hair framing her face, it was as if she were peering up at him through a gap between diaphanous black curtains.

“Funny,” he added, musing.

“Funny?”

“Well, ever since you left so suddenly last night, I kept trying to think of better things to say. You know, all the perfect lines I should know to keep you from running away. And now that you’re here, now that you came back, nothing I can think of sounds like much.”

“Well,” she sighed, glancing away and then back again, “maybe you said it with your music.”

A silent moment followed. Chace looked at her eyes like a pair of deep tunnels that led to the other end of his life.

“Did you know you have a perfect face?”

“Oh for…” she flustered and turned away, but he touched her cheek and brought her back to face him.

“Sorry, but it’s just what I see.”

He slid his hand inside her coat, following the silken curve of her torso, around to cup the sphere of her butt cheek in the palm of his hand. He couldn’t resist taking a selfish squeeze of her firm, warm flesh. Her eyes closed briefly as she gulped a mouthful of air.

“Jesus,” Chace sighed. He pressed his face toward her neck and inhaled deeply. “This must be what heaven smells like. But there is one thing I’m curious about.”

She smiled in response.

“Did those eyes come from God or the Devil?”

“Oh come on,” she giggled.

He pushed his thigh between hers, tightening his grip on her impertinent bottom. He could feel her mound arch against his leg, and his cock began to swell again.

“I’m quite sure this came straight from the Devil, though,” he added, playfully squeezing one buttock.

She giggled. It was pure and without guile. It sounded like raining jewels, and Chace knew he could never write a melody as beautiful. He kissed her before she finished giggling. It took her by surprise, but she responded. Her opulent lips parted and his tongue swept across hers. He kissed her as if he were stealing something.

Her tongue snaked against his in a teasing dance. He felt as if his entire being were dropping off a precipice into a deep lake of fragrant petals. He reared back suddenly, surprised by the intensity of this simple kiss. He felt as breathless as she looked.

She seemed a little confused at his abrupt gesture. Her eyes looked nervous yet resolved as her hand drifted over the iron hard shaft in his trousers. He growled softly and pressed his thigh harder into her arching mound. His hand drifted upward, crossing over one lace-clad breast, pausing to sample the warm pliancy of her full sphere. Her nipple was hard and almost the size of his pinky fingertip. He tweezed the taut nub and then brought his hand to her face. He brushed the pad of his thumb across the silk of her lips, then stroked a gentle arc across her cheekbone.

“I’m not…you know…really like this,” she barely breathed.

“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”

He kissed her again, holding her face with both hands as he pinned her to the nine-hundred year old wall. Her hand searched the contours of his straining cock, finding the flared ridge of his jutting dome. His precum was beginning to soak through his clothes. Her pussy arched back at his leg, and he could feel her damp heat straight through to his bones.

He was the one to break off their kiss again, still holding her face in his hands. He let the fingers of one hand drift through her fragrant hair.

“You know, there’s something so much more intimate about touching your face than even fondling your luscious ass or breasts. Even more intimate than slipping my fingers inside you.”

“You have kind of a dirty mouth,” she whispered, tightening her hold on the conspicuously swollen stalk in his pants.

He pushed one hand down between them, boldly delving inside her panties until his fingers had found their flushed target.

“And you have a very wet little pussy,” he countered. “You’re a very naughty girl. You made me hard on stage in front of all those people.”

She snickered with smug satisfaction, then mewled and arched her back when his finger slid along her damp lips and brushed her engorged clit. He wrapped his finger over her hot nub, extending the tip just inside her slick aperture, teasing her entrance and clit at the same time. He could feel her wanting to melt around his hand.

“Hm, now I just don’t know. This is pretty intimate, too, but with a face like yours it’s an awful tough call.”

Her eyes seemed to well up as he looked into them. He wanted to drown in them. He could feel her looking straight past his smug repartee into the part of him that felt the music that had brought her back. It made him want to crawl under her coat where she wouldn’t spot his flaws and let her smuggle him away.

He kissed her again. He kissed her like he wanted to transform everything they became through touching into music. She kissed him back like the song he could never compose. He was barely aware of his finger pressing deeper inside her, her hand tearing at his aching cock.

They only broke apart to breathe, their foreheads touching. He started to speak, his lips brushing hers as he formed the words.

“Where did you come from? How did you ever end up here?”

It seemed as if all his senses were reeling in the fragrance of her perfume and the hint of strawberry wine on her breath. Then someone was calling his name.

Carlos had come out to the courtyard.

“Hey Chace, the manager is…”

Chace looked over his shoulder at the drummer and nodded.

“Okay, Carlos, I get it. Time to go back up.”

Carlos grinned and shrugged, then turned to go back inside.

Chace muttered in frustration. He slowly withdrew his finger from her velvet sheath and rubbed her own nectar into the hollow between her collar bones. Then he kissed the smear, wetting his lips with her froth and lapping her skin clean of it.

He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her knuckles. He looked thoughtfully at her wedding ring, and then summarily slipped it off her finger and dropped it in his jacket pocket.

“No, stop…what are you…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll give it back to you later. You don’t need it right now, and I don’t think it’s something you want to lose. Besides, it would just break my heart if you beat a hasty retreat during the last set.”

She looked angry and a little disoriented, as if she were reconsidering the wisdom of her naughty lark.

“It just that…I’m…I’m not really like this.”

“Yeah, I know,” he whispered back. “If you really don’t think you can trust me, your ring is right there in my pocket. Just take it back.”

Her hand moved back under his jacket and curled back around the shank of his rigid cock. He groaned through his smile on his face.

“I have to go back up now, and I’m afraid you’ve put me in a very inappropriate condition for being on stage. Again.”

“You poor thing,” she replied with an exaggerated pout. She had a way of pouting that had to be illegal somewhere. “If you weren’t such a complete and utter sneak I might even feel sorry for you.”

“Oh yeah? Wait ‘til I announce it’s all your fault over the mike.”

“You wouldn’t!” she chuckled, twisting his cock in a mock threat. It actually felt indescribably good.

Then she glanced over his shoulder, seeing that they were now alone in the courtyard.

“Well, since it’s all my fault, the least I can do…”

She tugged his zipper down before completing the thought. She fished his fully engorged cock out and sank to her knees on the small patch of grass. Chace groaned as she took his dew covered dome into her mouth and gripped his shaft with her hand. He braced himself against the wall and swore he was hallucinating as he watched her sweet lips form a tight ring around his flesh. He could feel every twitch and swipe of her tongue.

Chace closed his eyes and surrendered. He didn’t know how long it went on. It was somewhere between forever and zero. Maybe Carlos would be back to hurry him up, but he was going nowhere. He was enveloped in a wet, swirling cocoon of mystical pleasure. This nameless angel was handing his own soul back to him on a paper plate. He saw meteors change direction and collide. He poured himself into her mouth like a broken dam, weakened by the unrelenting suck and glide of lips that could barely form a four letter word.

He remembered seeing meteors, but no stars. He didn’t see the stars until just after, as she was rising back up to look him in the eye, when he kissed her again and tasted himself mixed with a hint of strawberry wine.

“I’m…I’m not really like this,” he told her weakly.

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

Chace hurriedly pulled himself together and led her back inside. The crowd was still thick, but one of the small sofas close to the stage was free now, and she took a seat while he went back onstage. He was in such a daze he called two ballads in a row. He noticed the potted Bird of Paradise beside the sofa and realized he finally had a name to call her, since for the second night in a row, she had deftly avoided telling him her name.

His solos took on a giddy, playful quality, and it felt good to see her smile knowingly. He soon felt so full of power and energy he wanted to play all night. He turned his focus on his audience of one, and called a series of funky, raucous tunes. He played solo after solo that brought the entire crowd to their feet again.

She sat listening with her eyes closed, and her head resting back against the sofa, and a dreamy smile curling her lips.

In the middle of the set, Chace announced a tune featuring the trio. The guys all rolled their eyes, knowing he was just buying himself a quick break. Carlos gave him a happy sneer and a nod to go ahead. They started playing C Jam Blues while he stepped off the stage and took a seat beside her.

“Are you still enjoying the music, Lita?”

“Lita?”

“It’s short for estrelita. It means little star. That’s what they call the bird of paradise here. You see them just about everywhere. They’re one of the most sublimely obscene flowers in existence. I’ve got to call you something.”

“Is that how you think of me? As sublimely obscene?”

Her coat was closed around most of her body, but her legs were crossed, exposed to the tops of her stockings. Chace touched her thigh through the smooth material.

“Maybe a little,” he admitted. “But it’s not really as simple as all that.”

She smiled at him. Expectant, curious.

“I know you didn’t come here just to kneel in the grass against an ancient stone wall and suck the cock of some musician you only met last night. There are those who would, believe me, but you just don’t happen to be one of them.”

“And just how do you know that?”

“Because you’re not like this, remember? Besides, it’s in your eyes. You came back because you were moved by something you heard. Moved in some bigger way than just your libido. It tugged at you and you decided to take a risk and follow it. It made you feel good to be alive. You wanted to feel it again, feel more of it. Let it excite you enough to test yourself, see if you’d let it take you over the edge.”

Lita sighed, and the top of her coat fell open until the lace edge of one bra cup was exposed. The air got caught in Chace’s throat.

“I’ve always loved music,” she said. “I honestly don’t know what I’m doing here, but you do make me feel something when you play. Like there’s something…I don’t know…a passion in you.”

“And if it weren’t in you, too, you’d never have felt it.”

He was memorizing her face. He couldn’t shake the thought of what she’d been able to do with her lips. Then he found himself imagining the sight of her waking up, her dark hair fanning across a white pillow, her eyes opening to bright morning sun in an airy room.

He forced himself back to the moment at hand.

“You’d be amazed how easy it is to think you’ve lost your passion, night after night. But this isn’t one of those nights. Tonight I remember why I started playing in the first place.”

She didn’t look him all the way in the eyes, stopping at his mouth, but she smiled and reached for his hand.

The trio was finishing to a polite round of applause. Chace placed a light kiss against Lita’s neck. When he got back onstage, he felt as if he were just beginning the night all over again.

It was three when they finished. Chace tried to end the set as early as he could, but the crowd kept asking for encores. He stopped after the second one. The band had around four hours to be at the airport. He shrugged into his topcoat and hastily threw the white silk scarf around his neck. He picked up his scuffed sax case and turned to face Lita, who was standing beside the stage. There was a resigned but expectant air about her now, as if she were simply waiting for him to give back her ring so they could go their separate ways.

Chace stepped down from the stage and took her by the elbow.

“Lets go.”

She hesitated a moment and searched his face. Then her jaw flexed and she let him guide her up the stairs and out into the dimly lit plaza. A few of the club’s patrons were lingering in small groups, and there were several taxis waiting for fares.

He led her to the nearest cab and opened the door for her. The flash of her svelte legs as she got inside made him shudder. He followed her into the back seat, pulling his sax case after and letting it rest against the door. He turned against the seat to face her, and couldn’t resist letting his hand rest on her thigh, where her stocking ended.

“I should get back to my hotel.”

Her voice was tentative, and Chace slid his hand to the bare portion of her thigh, gripping and releasing her creamy smooth skin.

“Yes, you should. But I want to show you something."
“I’ve already seen it,” she chuckled.

Chace laughed, and the driver said something to him in Portuguese. He sounded tired and bored, but he adjusted his rear view mirror for a better view. Chace said something brief in Portuguese, and the driver started the car and circled around the plaza. As the cab entered a confusing maze of dark, narrow streets, Chace pushed his hand to the lace edge of Lita’s panties, letting the tips of his fingers graze her humid mound.

“Your hotel will still be there in a couple of hours,” he told her softly. “Your whole life will be there, too, waiting for you.”

His arm curled around her shoulders and pulled her close, where he could nuzzle her cheek. The fingers of his other hand slipped possessively beneath her panties and explored the flushed lips of her smoldering pussy.

“This is your life, too,” he cooed softly. “Right here and now…for just a little longer.”

“Chace,” she sighed, closing her eyes as his fingers explored her heated depth.

He ground the pad of his thumb across her hardened clit while his middle and ring fingers slipped deeper inside her sheath. She gnawed at her bottom lip and he kissed her warm neck. He could feel the pulse in her neck strong and quick.

He withdrew his honey-wet fingers from her core and thrust his hand inside her bra cup, drawing the plump mound of flesh into the open. He rolled her taut nipple in his slippery fingers, tweezing and pulling it to its full extension, smearing it with her own secretions. He leaned down and let his tongue curl around the tangy-sweet nub. He sucked it deeply into his mouth and rolled his tongue over the sensitive tip. She uttered a low purr and clutched the back of his head at the same time.

The driver hit the brakes suddenly, and the lurch of the taxi rocked Chace and Lita out of their cozy position. Chace sputtered something angrily at the driver. They argued back and forth until the taxi came to a screeching halt.

Chace hastily tossed a couple of bills over the seat and got out. With his case in one hand, he held the other out to Lita as she slid across the seat to follow him. She didn’t seem to care that her long coat spread open and exposed her completely, one luxuriously full breast spilling naked from its misplaced cup as she took his hand and got out of the cab.

Chace slammed the door angrily. The driver threw him an insulting gesture and sped off.

Lita stood there with her coat hanging open, looking slightly shell shocked.

“What was that all about?”

“I told him to keep his eyes on the road before he got us all killed.”

“I take it he didn’t appreciate your advice,” she chuckled.

They were standing beside the main artery that ran along the edge of Lisbon on the bank of the Rio Tejo. At that hour there was traffic, but not very much, and the sidewalk was completely deserted.

Chace shrugged the strap of his case over one shoulder and slipped his hands inside Lita’s billowing coat. He drew her body close, letting her feel the persistent hardness in his trousers.

“Sorry to make you walk the rest of the way, but we’re almost there.”

“Chace, I was almost there when you started swearing at the driver.”

“I guess I still owe you,” he grinned. Then he kissed her. It felt like he was drinking something too sweet to have a name. He gripped her pneumatically round cheeks and pulled her tight, grinding his hardness against her while their tongues fought for dominance over the space between their lips. A car sped along the highway blowing its horn. Reluctantly, Chace released her intoxicating mouth.

“Come along, my naughty angel. We have somewhere to be.”

He led her down the street with his arm inside her coat and around her waist. She held the other side of her coat across her body, attempting to cover what she could from the cars that passed every few seconds.

At the end of the block was a stairway leading to a footbridge that crossed over the highway. Chace led her up, holding onto her to help her climb in her impractical heels while balancing his horn on the other shoulder.

The foot bridge was a good two stories above the highway, and Chace stopped half way across. Lita gazed out across the distance and he smiled, knowing she realized why he’d taken her there.

In the distance, there were two bridges crossing the Tejo. One was an exact replica of Golden Gate Bridge. The other, just beyond it, was bigger and more modern. The darkened docks along the river lay out alongside the bank, with fisheries and clubs and restaurants that were all closed down for the night. Off in the other direction, at the top of a great hill, was a monumental castle that was brightly lit. It seemed to look out over the city and the river like a great citadel.

“When I’m in town, sometimes I come down here and practice. Usually about this time of night,” he explained. “It’s a little like owning the world.”

“Is that what you want, Chace? To own the world?”

He put his case down and slipped his hands back inside her coat. He reached behind her and opened the clasp to her bra.

“No,” he replied with a bittersweet smile. He moved his hands back to the front and filled them with the full, pendulous mounds jutting proudly forward. Her nipples felt like warm knots under his palms.

“I only want whatever little piece of it I’ve got coming,” he went on. “If I get to borrow a little more once in a while, then I’m grateful for the privilege.”

“Some things aren’t meant to be borrowed,” she whispered.

The strain of defiance in her voice was weak. Chace ground her nipples under his thumbs and felt his cock ache with longing.

“That’s when you have to just steal it,” he said with his lips against her ear.

“It’s not stealing when it’s given freely.” She touched that back of his head.

“Then what do you call it when it’s something you want to keep?”

He waited for an answer he knew he wouldn’t get, and then he gripped her breasts firmly and kissed her neck. His lips left a moist trail along her skin until he could nuzzle and suck at the tips of the pliant, warm globes gathered in his hands.

She uttered an odd mix of laughter and gasps as he playfully nipped her breasts with his teeth. As he rose back up to kiss her again, one hand returned to the simple, wet miracle down inside her panties. She purred and groped for his cock through his trousers as his fingers spread and stroked her dewy lips.

Suddenly she was sucking hard on his driving tongue, banging her small fist against his arm and rocking her hips against the drive of his fingers. He knelt down, hearing her gasp for air as he positioned himself at her feet. Then he yanked her panties aside and leaned in to slide his tongue against her pouting lips. He sought to open her petals with his tongue and heard some kind of strangled cry rise from her delicate throat.

Lita spread her arms and clutched the mesh cage enclosing the footbridge. She lifted her feet and encircled his head within her thighs, arching toward his face. He gripped her high along her thighs and supported her diminutive weight. She was fully open to him now, and he explored every crease and hollow of her core with a ravenous tongue. He delved deeply into her channel, wanting to taste her from the inside out. He traced the shape of her ripened clit, closing his lips around it while he battered the hot node with the tip of his tongue.

He pulled her hips forward even more and drove his tongue lower, teasing her tiny rim until he felt her heels banging against his back.

“Oh Chace, no. We can’t…possibly…be doing this…”

He took her clit back inside the clamp of his wet lips and sucked. He didn’t stop rolling his tongue against her nub until he felt her thighs tighten around his head and her hips rocking against him as she reached her frothing peak.

“Oh, Chace, no!” she cried again. “I’m not like this! Not like this at all!”

When her thighs finally relaxed, he shrugged out from between them and stood up again. Despite the raging pulse of his excited cock, he kissed her with a deep, hungry tenderness, wanting to know she could taste herself on his lips, holding her own reluctant pleasure out to her.

Once the blood returned to her legs, she let him lead her back down from the footbridge. He had his case in one hand, and the other arm around her shoulders. She tucked into him without talking, as he led her back to the corner where the taxi had let them out, then up about four more blocks until they stopped in front of an old doorway and Chace fished in his pocket for a key.

“Where are we?”

“This is where Carlos lives.”

The door opened into a dark, echoing hallway of marble stairs and tiled walls. Carlos’s apartment was the first one, and Chace ushered Lita inside. There was a long hallway leading toward a bright kitchen where Carlos was talking to the other members from the quartet. An old Blue Note record played softly in the background.

Chace quickly ushered Lita into the room he was using. It had been a very elegant room about a hundred years ago, but now it was crowded with old records, CD’s and an odd array of musical instruments. Chace set his case in the corner, relieved to be free of the burden, and sat beside Lita on the bed.

“You okay?”

She smiled. “I’m okay. I shouldn’t be here. You’re absolutely the last thing I really need…but I’m okay.”

She touched his face, and he put his hand over hers as if he could keep it there. A moment later, he pushed her coat off her shoulders. He got up to hang it in the wardrobe. He shrugged off his topcoat and jacket and carelessly tossed them over the back of a chair, watching her let the bra slip down her slender arms.

She searched his face while he looked at her, memorizing her. Something demure and then something feline flashed briefly in her eyes. She suddenly giggled softly.

“Poor Chace,” she pouted. “You’re still frustrated.”

His cock was still rail hard and distorting the natural drape of his trousers. He unbuttoned his shirt and watched her unfasten her garter. She slipped off her heels and rolled down her stockings. Chace felt his shaft pulse even harder.

He took off his shirt and the tank top underneath. When he turned back, Lita was completely naked, sitting against the head of the bed with her feet planted apart and her knees raised up in the air. Chace froze, just wanting to stand there and look at her until he outlived his own desire.

Lita smiled at the look on his face, and that only made it worse.

“C’mere. Let your little star do the rest.”

He knelt on the bed between her feet and watched her hands loosen his belt, open his pants and push them down. His painfully aroused cock sprang upward as he shifted to kick his pants onto the floor. She looked up at him and raked her fingers along the length of his shaft. His dome was swimming in precum, and she rolled her thumb around his soft tip.

“Oh, Lita…my little star,” he sighed.

Her wet tongue followed the trail of her fingers up the underbelly of his unyielding shaft. She kissed the tip and swirled her tongue around the ridge. Suddenly he was enveloped in the wet heat of her mouth, while she gripped his shank at the root and jacked him.

He filled both of his hands with woman silk and groaned at the hungry assault of her mouth. There was only so much he could take after delaying his pleasure so long. He pushed Lita back before he exploded in her mouth. He drew her further down and settled into the space between her open thighs, letting his rigid stalk rest against her pussy. He ground himself into the wet nest of petals.

“Chace? Isn’t that your song? The one you played for me tonight?”

He just smiled and nodded, then nudged his blunt dome into the comfortable pocket between her pussy lips.

“It’s so beautiful,” she sighed as he pushed himself a little deeper.

“You have no idea,” he said, gradually sinking deeper. He watched her eyes as he disappeared into her body.

He drew back and thrust forward again, firm but careful. Sensation registered in her face while shudders ran along Chace’s spine. He withdrew and thrust again, a little harder this time. He held still, deep inside her for a moment and leaned down to kiss her. He remembered thinking that for a few brief seconds, they were like a perfect circle.

Soon he was rocking himself into her in a rhythmic motion, withdrawing as far as he could before plunging back inside her to feel the full stroke of her snug core. His hands were filled with her breasts, his lips filled with her nipple, first one, then the other, and then the other.

Lita’s hips rocked and swayed against him. Her mewling gasps countered his urgent groans while their bodies broke with sweat. He couldn’t get enough of her deep russet nipples.

“Cum with me, Chace,” she cried. “Cum with me now!”

His spine arched backward as he thrust hard and fast into Lita’s molten sheath. Spasms rocked through him, and he saw meteors again, but this time they were coming straight for him, obliterating him.

They lay facing each other, waiting for their breath to return to normal. Chace brushed a strand of hair off her face.

“There,” he whispered. “Now you’re perfect again.”

She grinned, her eyes closed, her cheek resting on his arm. “I don’t know when I’ve met a man so full of crap as you are.”

She tucked into him and he stroked her hair. He started to explain how he, Carlos and the others had to be at the airport in another hour. They would be in Madeira for five nights. Then Malta, Amsterdam, Oslo. He was trying to invite her to come to Madeira when he realized she was sleeping. He slipped his arm out from under her and went to shower and find some coffee.

He sat on the edge of the bed and watched her sleep. He was wearing the same suit and shirt. He’d been planning to change, but noticed Lita’s perfume still clung to his clothes. He wanted her scent with him when he traveled. He put his hand on her rib and followed the rise and fall of her breath.

If this was to be the last he would ever see of her, he couldn’t bring himself to wake her up to say goodbye. She had a life to go back to. He had a tour to finish, and a dream he could never allow himself to indulge. Still, he still left a note with his card on the pillow beside her, where she’d expect to see his head when she opened her sweet, gleaming eyes. His card only had a cell number and email address.

The note said: “My dear Little Star, I hope you’ll forgive me for leaving you in this unfamiliar place, but the plane isn’t going to wait. During the day, there are plenty of taxis on the next street over. We’ll be at a place called Tino’s on Madeira for the next five days. I know you probably won’t come, but I’ll keep my eye on the door just in case a beautiful Asian Bird of Paradise happens to fly in and perch nearby. The least I can do is wish, Lita. And even though you don’t really know me, and by now you probably wish you’d never met me, you’re the most I could ever wish for. I know there must be someone very very lucky out there. I hope he deserves you. By the way, you look like a painting when you sleep.”

Chace met Carlos and the others on the street in front of the building. They got two taxis, and Chace rode with Carlos. Carlos wanted to hear the gory details of Chace’s night, but Chace just lay his head back and closed his eyes while his mouth curled into dopey smile.

“Go ahead, be that way!” Carlos snarled with feigned annoyance.

Later, when they passed through airport security, Chace set off the metal detector. The guards stopped him, but he insisted he’d emptied his pockets completely. They checked him with the hand held device, which went off when they passed it over his jacket pocket. Chace’s heart froze. He reached into his pocket to discover he still had Lita’s wedding ring.

The security guards hustled him on his way. He gripped the ring in his fist and felt his palm begin to sweat. They were calling his flight and he started running toward his boarding gate.

Then he stopped short, looking back and forth between the ring in his hand and the boarding gate at the end of the concourse. He considered missing his flight to go back and return the ring.

An irrepressible grin crossed his face, and he kept walking calmly toward his gate. Somehow, he knew she would come. She’d have to.

He’d start praying for it now.