What he doesn’t know is that secret involves a dark-haired woman with talented hands. My secret involves the woman he so obsessively loved, a woman he himself has admitted to wanting close by at all times.

Well, that woman has crept into my mind. Somehow, she has stolen my very sanity because now I want her hands on me. I begged for her to touch me until I, too, lost myself in the beauty of a fantasy—a fantasy I still don’t fully understand.

* * *

She is aroused. As she sits there holding the violin, Phillipe can tell that Gemma is one-hundred percent aroused. Her breasts are beautifully flushed, and her nipples are nice and tight.

When he handed her the violin, her eyes dilated, and he could have sworn that he could smell her arousal and he is reminded of the passage she must have been up to. A moment in time that had literally changed him as a person.

He wants to talk to her about what she read.

Once he is behind the easel, he looks over to where she sits. The violin’s handle is resting against her skin, and her hands are holding it with so much care that he can’t help but feel moved by her attentiveness.

“So, tell me, Gemma. What did you learn this afternoon?”

Her eyes focus on him, so he lowers his on purpose, giving her the space she might need to open up.

“I’m here to ask you questions, not the other way around.”

Raising only his eyes, he tells her, “Well, you are being so quiet, so I’m trying to start an open forum.”

“Well, I don’t need one,” she tells him firmly. “If you weren’t so disagreeable this afternoon, I wouldn’t feel this way.”

“And how do you feel?”

“Confused,” she admits immediately.

“What are you confused about?” He genuinely wants to know.

“You. Her. Both of you together,” she tells him, licking her lips.

She shifts where she is sitting, and he wonders for a moment if she is aroused by what she just said. I believe she is.

“What is it about us together that’s confusing to you?”

“I don’t know.” She quickly adds, “That’s a lie, and I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.”

“What? Lie?”

“Yes.” She nods. “You seem so different through her eyes.”

Silence stretches between them as the weight of her words float across the air.

“Interesting choice of words. How do I seem different?”

He watches her red fingertips caress the side of the violin as she continues looking down at it.

“With her, you seem…happy.”

Phillipe acknowledges that with a nod. He explains simply, “I was happy, happier than I had ever been. I guess it showed.” He stops and asks, “What do I seem to be now?”

Gemma turns her head and looks at him with narrowed eyes. “Angry, sad, hurt.”

Placing his brush on the easel, he moves over to her. He’s tired of not being able to do what he wants, and right now, he wants to touch.

“Angry?” he asks, stopping and crouching down before her.

She raises her eyes to his. “Yes, that day I saw you, you were in your room and...”

Phillipe cocks his head and waits. Let her say it.

“And you were hurting yourself. Why? Why are you hurting and punishing yourself if you didn’t do anything to be sorry for? I don’t understand. I’m confused.”

Reaching out a finger, Phillipe traces the pad of it against the turgid tip of her ripe breast.

“Have you ever had a moment of passion that was so deep and so fucking perfect that you know you will never have it again?” he asks.

Gemma’s eyes move to his lips before shifting back to his eyes.

“Have you?” he presses.

She shakes her head as she returns the question. “Have you?”

Phillipe feels the side of his mouth pull up into an ironic smirk. “Yes, and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to capture it again.”

* * *

I’m holding the violin so tight that I start to think I might accidentally crush it. What is he trying to tell me? He is so close to me that I can smell the scent that always seems to cling to him. It’s making my head spin.

“I don’t understand.” I finally manage to push out of my mouth.

His right hand moves to stroke my hair, gently tracing it to the tip where he twirls it around his finger. His heated stare wanders all over my face but never dips below my neck. I can’t explain why, but it makes me even more aroused that he doesn’t feel the need to outright stare at the obvious. It’s almost as if he has memorized it already.

Dropping the ends of my hair, Phillipe stands and walks around my body, tracing the tip of his finger against my shoulders, until he’s behind me where he kneels down. I can feel the fabric of his clothes pressed against my back and bare skin.

“What I mean, Gemma, is that I’ve experienced a moment so perfect that it remains unequaled.”

I think about that for a minute as a shiver runs down my spine, starting where his warm fingertips are touching the base of my neck.

“So, what you’re saying is that because the moment was perfect, you can’t feel that pleasure anymore?” I try to make sense of his words while his fingers trace across the curve of my shoulder and move down my arm.

“What do you think I mean?” he queries, his mouth now joining his fingers on my left shoulder.

My fingers tighten against the violin as I dare myself to say it. Just do it. Don’t be a coward. “I think you have been ruined since the night Chantel took you in her hands and pleasured you. I think you have trouble doing that on your own now, so instead, you punish yourself. You hurt yourself, trying to get where you want to go, and you get frustrated because you can’t.”

As my speech comes to a definite end, his fingers stop tracing, and his mouth stops the lazy kisses. He lowers down on his knees behind me as his hands smooth around my waist and move down between my thighs to cup my aching sex. All the while, I am clutching her violin, just as she once did. The only difference in this scenario is that I know I am using it as a shield. Against what though, I have no clue.

Removing his hands from between my legs, he strokes his palms up my thighs to run his fingers over mine where I still hold the violin. He traces each finger, slipping in between, and then his mouth is by my ear.

“What makes you think I don’t get there? And, let’s be clear here, Gemma. Say exactly what you mean.”

Taking a breath, I feel my breasts rise on each side of Diva, reminding me that she’s here in the room again. “The morning I saw you.”

“Yes?” He breathes softly.

“You didn’t—”

“Didn’t what, Gemma?”

Looking back over my shoulder, my eyes connect with his. “Come. You didn’t come.”

“But, in the vineyard, inside of you, I came,” he reminds me.

I feel my core clench, and I have to shift because there is no way to tighten my naked thighs with my legs crossed as they are.

“Yes, but you were with me, not by yourself.”

His left hand traces back down to my leg to my inner thigh. “I like you like this. Your legs are already open for me.” He growls.

I once again shift mindlessly.

With a wicked smooth voice, he questions, “Do you know your inner thighs are wet?”

I nod silently, trying to remind myself I am asking him something. “So, why do you hurt yourself?”

I feel his fingers slide between my legs, moving up to touch my pouty wet lips. I shiver as my mouth parts on a moan.

“Because I deserve it,” he tells me.

My fingers hold the violin in place as I look down to see his right hand tracing the strings now, almost as reverently as he’s stroking me between my thighs.

“Why?” I sigh, wanting to part my legs further for him. “Why would you think that? You didn’t—”

“Shh.” He hums as he has before, while his hand on the strings comes down to where I am cradling the violin. “Give me this,” he instructs.

I let go of Diva. He accepts it and leaves me abruptly. I take the moment to stand and face him. I’m completely naked and quivering with need as he places Diva in her case. As he turns, my eyes can’t help but fall to below his waist. He’s as aroused as I am, and I can feel the tension in the room like it’s a live wire.

“Tell me what happened this afternoon.”

He completely catches me off-guard. Shaking my head, I refuse. Instead of answering, I take my hand and press it down between my legs, trying to ease the ache. His eyes glance done at the apex of my legs before they move back up to my eyes.

“This portrait for Chantel and me was about regaining trust and finding strength, yet you still hold yourself back from me, Gemma,” he explains, stalking toward me.

I step back as he moves forward, and my naked back bumps up against cool, rough bricks. I have nowhere to go, and he’s a solid unmovable force in front of me. I’m achingly aroused, and at the same time, I find myself fighting the instinct to take flight and run.

“You want me to trust you and tell you why I do something, yet you won’t tell me what happened to you this afternoon,” he continues.

I open my mouth to lie, but I find his index finger up against my lips.

“Don’t tell me it was nothing because I don’t believe you.”

Blinking up at him, I remain pinned to the burnt copper bricks, like a trapped butterfly. Removing his finger from my lips, he opens his palm and places it on my chest at the base of my throat where I know he can feel my pulse beating nervously against his fingertips.

“Do you trust me, Gemma?”