Chapter 5: Fortissimo
The soreness was a deep, pleasing ache that followed Alyssa all through her morning classes. Every time she shifted in her plastic lecture hall seat, she felt the phantom imprint of the gym mats and the memory of Jerome’s hands, an electric reminder that buzzed beneath her skin. But alongside the thrill was a persistent, nagging thread of confusion. The way he’d left, so abruptly, like a switch had been flipped. It hadn’t felt like an ending, but it hadn’t felt complete, either.
She found him late afternoon, leaving the weight room, a duffel bag slung over one enormous shoulder. His white tank was dark with sweat, clinging to the formidable landscape of his back.
“Hey.” She stepped into his path, her voice cheerful but firm.
Jerome stopped. His eyes, usually so focused elsewhere, locked onto her. A flicker of something—surprise, maybe wariness—crossed his face before it smoothed back into that impassive mask. “Alyssa.”
“You left in kind of a hurry yesterday.” She kept her tone light, tilting her head. “Forgot to say goodbye.”
He shifted his weight, the duffel bag slipping a little. A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant clang of weights from the open gym doors. He glanced around the bustling hallway, at the students streaming past. “Not here.”
“Then where?” she pressed, not letting him look away. “Because I’m not mad, but I’m… curious.”
He let out a slow breath, a low, resonant sound. “Fine.” He turned and started walking, not toward the dorms, but cutting across the quad toward the older, gothic-style arts building. He didn’t check to see if she was following, which only annoyed and intrigued her more. She hurried to catch up, her shorter legs taking two steps for each of his long strides.
He pushed open a heavy, unmarked side door, holding it for her. The air inside was cooler, stale, and smelled of dust and old books. The corridors were dim, lined with locked practice rooms whose small windows showed dark, silent interiors. At the end of a hallway, he took out a key—where did he get a key?—and unlocked a door marked ‘Storage.’
It wasn’t storage. It was the abandoned practice room from her dreams, only more real. The single, flickering fluorescent tube buzzed like an angry insect, casting its sickly light over the corpse of a grand piano, its lid propped open like a broken wing. Sheets of music were frozen in a phantom breeze against the cracked walls. The floor was a sea of cracked, beige vinyl tiles.
“Dramatic,” Alyssa said, her voice echoing slightly. She turned to face him, crossing her arms. “So, talk.”
Jerome leaned back against the door, shutting it with a soft click that felt terribly final. He studied her, his gaze traveling from her determined eyes to the defiant set of her shoulders.
“It’s not…” he began, then stopped, frustration tightening his jaw. “It’s not you.”
“Wow, the classic,” she said, a half-smile playing on her lips despite the tension. “Very original.”
“I’m serious.” He pushed off the door, taking a single step into the room. The space seemed to shrink around him. “What happened… in the shed. People see that. They see me like that, they think one thing.”
“And what do they think?”
“That I’m an animal,” he said, the words rough, carved out of some dark place. “That I can’t control myself. That it’s all I’m good for.” His hands, those massive hands that had held her with such deliberate force, flexed at his sides. “I didn’t want to be that for you. Not just that.”
Alyssa felt her defensiveness melt, replaced by a sudden, sharp understanding. She took a step toward him. The musty air filled her lungs. “Jerome,” she said softly. “I was there, too. Remember? I asked you to. I wanted you to.” She took another step, now within his shadow. “Did I look like I was scared of you? Did I look like I thought you were just some animal?”
A slow shake of his head. His eyes were on her mouth now.
“Then stop deciding what I think,” she whispered. She reached out, pressing her palm flat against the sweat-damp cotton covering his chest. His heart thudded against her hand, a powerful, rapid rhythm. “You didn’t scare me. You thrilled me.”
A low sound escaped him, part groan, part surrender. He moved then, so fast it made her gasp. His hands cupped her face, tilting it up to his, and his kiss wasn’t gentle. It was claiming, hungry, an answer to all the things he couldn’t say. She kissed him back with equal fervor, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his arms.
He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. “I need to see you,” he murmured, his voice thick. “This time. I need to see you.”
He guided her backward until the edge of the forgotten piano lid pressed against her lower back. The cracked vinyl floor was cool through her jeans. With deliberate slowness, his eyes never leaving hers, he undid her jeans, pushing them and her underwear down just past her hips. The air was cool on her skin, a contrast to the heat building within her.
He knelt before her, a shocking shift in his dominance, and kissed the inside of her thigh. His beard was a rough, exquisite scratch against her tender skin. She leaned back, her palms splayed on the dusty piano lid, a discordant, muffled chord groaning from inside the instrument.
Then he stood, unbuckling his own jeans, freeing himself. He was just as immense as she remembered, a fact that sent a fresh, liquid rush of desire through her. He lifted her, effortlessly, setting her on the piano lid. The structure groaned in protest. He stepped between her parted legs, his hands sliding up her thighs, pushing her shirt up to just below her breasts.
“Watch me,” he commanded, his voice a gravelly whisper. “And I’ll watch you.”
He entered her in one slow, breathtaking push, filling her utterly, the soreness from yesterday blossoming into a new, overwhelming fullness. Her head fell back, a moan tearing from her throat, echoing in the cavernous room. But she remembered. She forced her eyes open, finding his.
His expression was fierce, focused, but his eyes were locked on hers, watching every flicker of sensation that crossed her face. She let him see it all—the stretch, the shock, the dawning, cresting pleasure. She bit her lip, her breath coming in short gasps, and she didn’t look away.
“Yeah,” he breathed, the word barely audible over the creak of the piano and their ragged breathing. He began to move, a relentless, driving rhythm that shook the ancient instrument. Each thrust pushed her further across the lid, scattering sheets of yellowed music to the floor.
Alyssa felt the coil of tension tightening, amplified by the intensity of his gaze. He was seeing her, really seeing her—not just a body, but the wild, willing spirit inside it. It was more vulnerable than being naked, and more powerful. She cried out, her fingers scrambling for purchase on the smooth wood.
“Jerome…” His name was a plea, a promise.
His pace intensified, his grip on her hips tightening. The flickering light strobed across his face, catching the sweat on his brow, the stark concentration in his eyes. He was close, she could feel it in the tension of his huge frame, in the ragged sound of his breath.
“Look at me,” she gasped, and he did.
That final, unbroken eye contact was the trigger. Her climax tore through her, wave after wave, her back arching, a sharp, ecstatic cry ripping through the dusty air. As she pulsed around him, he gave one last, deep thrust, his own release shuddering through him with a choked-off groan, his eyes finally squeezing shut as he buried his face against her neck, her name a broken whisper against her skin.
The fluorescent light buzzed. The piano was silent. The only sound was their heaving breaths mingling in the still, dead air.
He stayed there for a long moment, his weight heavy and warm against her. Then, carefully, he pulled back, lifting her off the piano lid and setting her gently on her feet. He helped her pull her clothes back into place, his movements surprisingly tender.
She leaned into him, her body humming, every nerve alight. He wrapped his arms around her, just holding her, his chin resting on the top of her head. In the silence, she could feel the beat of his heart slowing against her cheek.
“See?” she murmured into his chest, her voice soft but clear. “Not an animal.”
He let out a long breath, his arms tightening around her for a second. “No,” he finally rumbled. “Not with you.”
Outside, a bell tolled in the campus clock tower, a distant, resonant sound marking the end of something, or perhaps, a beginning.