“And don’t forget you’re sleeping with the best pianist of this century,” he says, “A private concert in our living room. Best seat in town.”
“Of the century, huh? I’m not sure I can afford the seat.”
“It’s not much. Just a kiss or two.”
He leans down and presses his soft lips on hers. They travel to her jawline and down her neck. She feels the sharpness of his stubble raking her skin. He bites the thin flesh on her collarbone, and she shudders.
“A nibble here and there,” he says.
He continues to move down the curves of her body, inhaling her scent.
“I love your smell.”
She catches his face before it disappears under the covers.
“Oh, that’s all?” she says, giggling.
“And whatever else you wish to give.” He smiles mischievously.
She pivots her hips and rolls him over. It is her turn to be on top. He does not resist.
“Will a deposit be required?” she asks.
By the feel of him against her leg, she knows the answer.
“Yes, it’s very, very necessary,” he says.
He runs his hands along her sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake. They come to rest at the smallest part of her waist. His thick palms feel hot on her skin even in the warm air.
She gazes down at his contented face. A soft smile dots the corners of his lips. Seeing it brings a smile to hers. She brushes loose, dark waves off his forehead and runs her index finger on the line between his eyebrows.
“It’s like someone took a blade and cut you here,” she says, “trying to release your third eye.”
He chuckles. “Time is a vicious murderer of youth.”
He traces the contours of her waist and up the curves of her breast. He presses. A sound, barely audible, escapes her lips.
“But for the lucky few,” he says.
An errant thought slips through, and sadness washes over her.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Only a year left.”
He sits up and looks at her with serious eyes. He pulls her to him and wraps his arms around her. His long-fingered hands press firmly on her back, cradling her. She hears his heart beating, constant like a metronome.
In one quick movement, he twists and pins her to the mattress, surprising her. The feel of his strong thigh muscles prominent on her hips. As if remembering his own strength and weight, he shifts off her protruding bones, relieving her. He gently brushes a stray hair off her face and strokes her cheek.
“Three hundred and sixty-five days,” he says. His eyes burrow into hers. “And we will make every minute count.”
He kisses her deeply. When they part, she is left with the scent of the ocean and his skin. And the wanting.
She lets him in. An indecipherable sound chokes his throat. Their bodies mimic the rhythm of the tides outside. Slow and insistent, like water against rocks. He laces his hands in hers, and she clings to him like the last ray of the sun the moment before it sets, afraid she would disappear into the other side of the world.
She feels her arms being raised toward the headboard. He untangles his fingers from hers and gathers both her wrists in one hand. The other moves like the wind over the dunes of her body, changing its shape as it passes. She feels like an offering, a sacrifice to calm the thirst of the sea monsters.
His grip tightens. Their movement hastens. Fast. So fast she feels like glass spinning under pressure, readying to explode into a million grains of sand, to be blown east with the wind.
Chapter Nineteen
A familiar music draws her out of slumber. But there is something different about it.
What time is it? She looks at her watch. February 15, 9:17 a.m.
“Lucy, coffee please,” she says. No answer.
She smells lavender. It’s in the sheets and pillows, surrounding her. She opens her eyes. A crystal chandelier. Warm green walls. Dark cherrywood sleigh bed. This is not her sleek and modern bedroom.
Where am I?
Then she remembers. Metis’s Victorian house. She bolts upright.
Metis!
The dream that has been haunting her this cycle is of him. He is her “man in the white hat!”
She wonders what to do. Should she tell him? Not tell him? She feels as if she’s about to combust with the knowledge. She decides she wants to tell him. But how can she do it without sounding like a lunatic? Would he think she had lost her mind? She can use grief as an excuse. Maybe. Can grief turn a person insane?
Finally she understands Benja. If he were here, she knows what he would say. But he is gone—flown away with the blue cranes of happiness. Instead of the drowning sadness that has been haunting her since his death, she feels lighter. She knows her friend is happier, wherever he is.
The music beckons. She takes a deep breath and decides she will improvise as she goes. She lowers her feet off the bed and feels smooth wood planks. Each step makes the wide floorboards of the old house creak beneath her bare feet.
The hall is shrouded in shadows. She pulls open curtains as she passes, letting in the morning. From a vestibule surrounded by windows, she sees the sun peeking up from behind the mountains to the east, while the side of the city near the horizon to the west is still sheathed in darkness.
She treads lightly down the stairs, trying to keep the squeaking to a minimum. The parlor, with its shiny mahogany-paneled walls, is empty. She walks to the back of the house, toward the light and the music.
In a room surrounded by walls of windows and lacy-leaved Cyathea ferns, she finds Metis. In front of him is a shiny black piano. Pencils and pieces of paper lay scattered on its top. Steam rises from a green cup. It smells of bergamot and cream. Earl Grey. His serious face is bathed in the pale light of the dawn.
She watches him, studying the contours of his face. Her eyes go to the deep etched
