Malibu Music Page 11

  'Yes,' she replied finally in a reassuring tone. 'Don't worry.'

  'Very well.' Madame pulled back her narrow shoulders and lifted her chin. 'I must get now to my kitchen.' With a brave little smile, she turned and swept out of the room.

  When Barbara came, Bianca explained the situation to her. After she had finished, the two women looked at each other with some anxiety.

  'We'll have to cut our breaks short,' Barbara said at last. Bianca nodded ruefully. She needed those breaks. Barbara sighed sadly. 'And I will miss Dino.' Bianca agreed. 'Let's just hope he gets well by tomorrow night.'

  The evening wasn't as bad as they had anticipated. As Bianca had expected, the Tuesday night crowd was light and not so demanding on the two violinists as a weekend group would have been. Madame Tedescu's culinary efforts seemed to be well-received, and to all outward appearances the restaurant was running as smoothly as ever.

  By eleven o'clock, however, Bianca felt dead on her feet. The two women had decided at the beginning of the evening that with only two of them playing, it would work best if each of them covered a separate half of the dining room, rather than wandering aimlessly as they usually did. They also decided that they'd take their shortened supper break together, on the basis that it was better to have no music at all than only one player trying to cover the whole area.

  By eleven there were still several late diners seated at the tables in the various sections and the requests for favourite tunes kept coming. Bianca had just finished playing a request when Barbara approached her side, a worried frown on her normally placid face.

  'What's up?' Bianca asked in a low voice.

  'Trouble, I'm afraid.'

  Bianca groaned. 'That's all we need. What is it?'

  Barbara motioned with her head back in the direction of her own section. 'There's some guy down there who keeps asking for a song I don't even know.' She pursed her lips. 'I've been avoiding him, but he's getting insistent—and loud—and drunk. I wish Dino was here.'

  'Which one is he?' Bianca asked, craning her neck to get a better view.

  'That bald guy with the cigar sitting alone back in the first section. You can probably hear him.'

  Bianca glanced past Barbara and saw a heavyset man waving a cigar in the air and singing offkey. 'What song does he want?' she asked anxiously.

  Barbara gave her a guilty look. 'When A Gypsy Makes His Violin Cry,' she replied. 'You play it so often that I just never bothered to learn it,' she went on defensively.

  Bianca sighed. 'Oh, all right. You take over here, and I'll go see if I can keep him quiet. It's almost closing time anyway.'

  Wearily, Bianca made her way down to the far end of the long room. She stepped inside the lattice-enclosed dining section and, taking a deep breath, started walking towards the table where the man was now singing loudly. There were five other tables in the area, all of them occupied, she noticed with an inward groan of dismay, and all of the other diners' eyes seemed to be firmly fastened on the drunken man.

  'Sir,' she said, smiling down at him. 'I understand you have a request.'

  The man closed his mouth abruptly, shutting off the flow of sound, and turned his bleary gaze on her. He nodded happily. 'When A Gypsy Makes His Violin Cry,' he slurred, trying hard to enunciate each word clearly and failing dismally.

  Bianca smiled again and lifted her bow. He seems harmless, she thought, as she began to play the sobbing melody. Certainly not dangerous or threatening. Perhaps the music would soothe him. As she played, she glanced down at him from time to time and noticed that tears were rolling down his cheeks as he hummed along with her offkey. She also noticed that his musical efforts were interspersed with long swallows from the amber-coloured glass in his hands.

  'Beautiful!' he cried out, applauding noisily, when she had finished. He reached into his wallet, pulled out a bill and held it up to her. 'Beautiful,' he repeated soulfully.

  Bianca took the bill from him and, as usual, slipped it into the bodice of her dress. With another smile and a nod, she thanked him and began to move away, congratulating herself on having handled a sticky situation rather well.

  Then she felt his hand on her arm, quite a firm grip, she realised as she tried to pull free. Apprehensive now, she turned to face him again.

  'Play it again,' he demanded thickly.

  'I'm sorry, sir,' she began to explain, 'but we're short-handed tonight and…'

  'I gave you ten dollars,' he broke in, giving her a sullen look. He pointed accusingly at the bosom of her dress with his free hand. 'That should pay for an encore.'

  Bianca didn't know what to do. He had a point. What she wanted to do was just get away from the clutching man any way she could. If she stayed and played for him again, he might never let her escape. If she freed herself by force, he might get really ugly. One glance at his petulant frown told her he was already showing signs of it.

  Finally, she decided to go with her feelings. She reached down and began to pry his fingers off her arm. 'I'm really very sorry, sir,' she said in as calm and soothing a tone as she could muster in her growing distress. 'I really have to move on. I'll be happy to return your money if you…'

  Suddenly, he was on his. feet. The table came crashing down in front of him. He lunged at her, one hand tightening his grip on her arm, the other clawing at the bodice of her dress.

  'You bet you'll give me back my money, you little bitch!' he was shouting.

  Before Bianca could even react to this sudden attack, she saw the man rise up in the air and give a howl of pain. She stared, wide-eyed, and saw a tall blond man with a heavy moustache holding her tormentor by the scruff of his neck two feet off the ground, then slam him down hard in the chair, where he sat moaning and holding his head.

  It was all happening so fast that Bianca was left speechless, breathless, almost in a state of shock. She had noticed the tall man earlier when she had first arrived and scanned the other diners, but he had been sitting alone in a dim corner, and she had been concentrating so hard on placating the drunk that she hadn't paid any attention to the others in the room.

  Now, watching the tall man as he set the table back on its legs and shoved it hard against the still moaning drunk in the chair, she felt that something about him seemed vaguely familiar. When he turned to look her full in the face, she knew.

  'Gerry!' she breathed. 'What…'

  Then, steely-eyed and grim, he grasped her roughly by the shoulders. 'We're getting out of here,' he ground out angrily. 'Go get your things.'

  She continued to stare at him, open-mouthed. That hair! That moustache! And what was he doing here? Then she knew. He had tricked her, disguised himself so she wouldn't recognise him, knowing she didn't want him here.

  'Go!' he repeated in a threatening tone. He was looming over her now, and the tight grip bit painfully into her shoulders.

  'No,' she said, growing angry now herself. What right did he have to come barging in here ordering her around? He wasn't even supposed to be here.

  'No?' he repeated, his voice dangerously soft, a menacing gleam in the black eyes.

  He picked her up, flung her over one broad shoulder and stalked out of the dining room, into the foyer and out on to the street. She began beating on his back with one fist, her violin and bow clutched in the other hand, but she might as well have been pounding against a granite wall.

  She felt the fake hairpiece come off her head and fall to the pavement as he marched towards the parking lot in long purposeful strides. Her dress was torn where the drunk had pulled at it, and she watched in horror as her money fell out of the bodice and floated away.

  'Put me down, you animal!' she cried, still pounding feebly on his back. 'My hair! My money!'

  They had arrived at a sleek, dark, low-slung car by now. Gerry opened the passenger door and dumped her unceremoniously inside. She was so concerned about protecting her priceless violin and bow that before she could make a move, he was in the driver's seat beside her, the engine started, and dri
ving like a maniac, with tyres squealing, out on to the boulevard.

  She was so angry by this time she was trembling. She turned to glare at him. He was driving more carefully now out in the traffic of the main thoroughfare, and had pulled off the fake moustache and blond wig. His jaw was set, his mouth clamped in a hard angry line. When she saw the thunderous expression on his face, the stinging accusation she was about to deliver died on her lips.

  Why was he angry with her? For a moment fear clutched at her heart. The distance between them on the front seat of the car was only a few inches, but it might have been a hundred miles, and she felt bereft at the way he was shutting her out so coldly.

  Then she began to feel her own anger return. What did she have to feel guilty about? He was the one who had broken his word and come to the restaurant in that stupid disguise. He was the one who had humiliated her in front of a roomful of interested spectators, made her lose all her tips and almost ruined her violin. And her car and clothes were still back at the restaurant, she suddenly remembered with a sinking feeling.

  She crossed her arms firmly across her chest, and gave him a withering look. 'Turn this car around right now, Gerry,' she demanded in what she hoped was a firm, no-nonsense tone.

  'Shut up,' he snarled, and shot her a brief glance of such contempt and fury that she instinctively shrank away from him.

  'I don't know who you think you are…' she tried again.

  This time he shouted. 'I said shut up!'

  They were stopped at a busy, well-lighted intersection, and when she got a clearer view of that forbidding countenance, she decided she'd better do as he said for now. He seemed to be keeping himself barely under control with an almost heroic effort. The cords along his neck were bulging, the knuckles of his hands gripping the steering wheel were white, and she could hear his laboured breathing over the noise of the car engine and nearby traffic.

  She decided to sulk. She didn't think he'd actually hurt her, but she was certain he wanted to. She flounced over to the far edge of the seat, pressing herself up against the car door, and gazed stonily out the window.

  When they reached the beach house, he stopped the car, pulled viciously at the emergency brake and before Bianca could collect her violin and bow, he had moved swiftly out of the car, around in front and was pulling her door open.

  'Get out,' he ordered, in a gritty tone.

  'I was just going to,' she muttered, and with as much dignity as she could summon up, she got out of the car, clutching the instrument in one hand and holding her torn bodice together with the other.

  She sailed past him with her head in the air, and it wasn't until she had taken several steps that it dawned on her this was not Laura's house. She whirled around to face him. He was just a few paces behind her. He stopped short and stood with his long legs apart, his fists resting on his hips.

  He made a jerking motion forward with his head. 'Go on.' He didn't sound quite so angry now.

  'I'm not going in there,' she stated flatly.

  'Yes you are.' His hooded dark eyes flashed a warning at her. 'If I have to carry you again.'

  He'd do it, too, she knew now from experience. With a little sniff of disdain, she turned and started walking again towards the entrance of the house, which she now recognised as the one next door where Gerry was staying. She couldn't get into Laura's house anyway, she thought philosophically, since her keys were in the handbag she had left behind at Rumania House.

  At the door, Gerry stepped in front of her to unlock it, then flicked on a light and stood aside while she stepped over the threshold. He closed the door behind him and strode past her into a large sunken living room. The far wall was one vast expanse of glass, and with a little jolt, Bianca recalled the day she had seen him standing at that very window. He was standing there now, his back to her, his arms folded in front of him, gazing out into the dark night.

  Suddenly, all the anger left her. Not only was she exhausted from the gruelling evening of playing and emotionally drained from the encounter with the drunk, but it tore her apart to see Gerry so cold to her, so tight and distant, so angry. He had behaved badly tonight, but even though he shouldn't have been in the restaurant at all, she couldn't help but be grateful to him for rescuing her from what had been developing into a really ugly scene.

  She set her violin and bow down on a table near the door and began to walk slowly towards him over the thick plush carpet. He didn't move until she was directly behind him. She put out a hand to touch him tentatively on his rigid back. Then he flinched. She could feel the tense, hard muscle recoiling under her fingers, see it ripple under the thin white shirt.

  'Gerry,' she said softly.

  He whirled around, then, wild-eyed, and his fingers bit into her shoulders. She stared up into those fathomless black pools and winced at the pain she saw there.

  'Bianca,' he choked out. 'I'm so sorry. I know I behaved like a maniac, but you can't imagine what it did to me to see you there tonight—my Bianca— in that awful costume…' He broke off and turned his head away, his hands kneading her shoulders painfully.

  'Gerry, that's why I didn't want you to come. Don't you understand?' she pleaded. 'That's not me. That's only a performer. It's only a disguise. It's the music that's important.'

  'God, Bianca,' he muttered, 'when I saw that guy pawing at you, I was so close to murdering him—or you…'

  He turned back to her. His face was still pale under his tan, but more relaxed now, and he was even making a feeble effort to smile. Shyly, she raised her hand and placed it on his lips, tracing the outline of the beautiful mouth with trembling fingers.

  'I'm still your Bianca, Gerry,' she crooned. 'I love you.'

  With a groan he gathered her into his arms, murmuring her name over and over again in her ear, on her forehead, her eyes, until finally his mouth came down to cover hers. There was no gentleness in him now, no playfulness, only an aching, driving need. The hard body trembled against hers, and through the thin material of the ruined costume, she could feel the strength and extent of his pulsing arousal.

  Her mouth parted joyfully under his, and immediately his thrusting tongue was inside, probing deeply into every crevice. She put her arms around his neck and gave herself up totally to the warm sensuous mouth. The large hands moved feverishly now over her slight body, first spanning her waist, then running up along her fragile ribs, brushing against the sides of her breasts, then sliding back down to clutch at her hips and pull her lower body hungrily against his where his grinding need raised her to an even higher pitch of desire.

  Her own fingers slipped under the collar of his shirt, then came around and moved down to his waist. She pulled the shirt out of his trousers and ran her hands underneath it and up over the smooth chest, the muscles and skin quivering at her touch.

  She sensed dimly that they had crossed over into a new territory of sensuality, had passed a point from which there was no return. His demand and her response were total this time, with no holding back. She gave herself up to the rapture of the moment, her blood singing in her veins, her heart yearning, her mind empty of everything except the exciting man in her arms.

  He tore his mouth from hers and jerked his head up. The dark gaze fastened intently on her. 'I want you, Bianca,' he choked out hoarsely. 'I want you now.'

  There was a question in the hard statement, she knew, and for answer she reached up and placed both palms flat against his rough lean cheeks. She smiled at him, her eyes glowing with answering passion.

  'Yes,' she whispered. 'Oh, yes.'

  A muscle twitched by his mouth. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and reached out for her. His hands were heavy on her shoulders, the thumbs caressing the base of her neck. Then, his eyes never leaving hers, he very slowly slid his hands down until they came to rest on her high firm breasts, half-exposed under the torn dress.

  She closed her eyes. With a sigh, she let her head fall backward a little, giving herself up to the fiery sensations
that coursed through her body. His fingers trailed first along the smooth fullness above the ragged hem of the bodice, then moved to fondle the taut peaks with a rhythmic circular motion that sent a shaft of fire directly to the centre of her desire.

  He brushed the torn edges of the bodice apart and slid the dress off her shoulders, down her arms and along her hips until it slid with a slight swishing sound to settle at her feet. His hands were back at her waistline now, tugging at the sheer tights, pulling them down off her hips and along her legs, then lifting each foot to release them.

  Finally, she stood naked before him. She felt his hands grasp her ankles, then glide slowly up her calves, her thighs. He was kneeling before her, his moist mouth following the magic feathery fingers up over her legs to her flat stomach.

  She reached down and raked her fingers through the silky strands of his smooth dark hair, drowning in the sensations aroused by his hands and mouth. Then she felt him raise himself up in one quick movement. She watched him tear off his shirt and slip swiftly out of his trousers, and then they were clinging together again with not a shred of clothing separating them at last.

  He picked her up in his arms and with her head against his shoulder, her mouth on his neck, carried her off down a long hallway. He kicked open a door and laid her gently on top of a bed, easing himself down beside her, one hair-roughened leg flung over hers. He propped himself up on his elbows and gazed down into her eyes.

  'I love you, Bianca. You know that, don't you?'

  She nodded happily. 'I know, Gerry. And I love you.'

  He kissed her then, a long sweet kiss, his open mouth pulling at her lips as though to draw out her very soul. A deep ache began to pierce her loins, a longing to have all of him, to possess him completely.

  'Trust me, darling,' he murmured as his mouth left hers and travelled downward.

  When she felt his lips enclose the peak of one breast, she gasped in sheer delight. His tongue worked its magic on the hardening nipple, while his hand moved languorously over her other breast, then down along her hips, her thighs, to settle between her legs.