Free Intermezzo by Delphine Dryden Page A

clit
with each push. It had curled there, nestling between her hips, then exploded
into brilliant pleasure that rushed from her belly to her toes and all the way
up to her brain. The pleasure pitched higher and higher as he began to respond
in kind.
    It was quite possible Lily had made a noise at that point.
Even in retrospect, it seemed to have warranted a noise. She’d wanted to scream
out that orgasm. She’d wanted to clasp this strange, dark man closer in the
night in gratitude and relief as his wicked hips pivoted against hers again and
again, and he came into her with a barely stifled groan of his own.
    She had to be quiet or the campers might hear. She couldn’t
tighten her arms around him in a grateful hug, because she didn’t know him that
well and she was trying to be cool and worldly. She was the prima, after all,
and he was the adoring fan. At nineteen, she was still that foolish.
    He’d hugged her, though, as his spent penis slipped from her
quivering body. That was some consolation at least. They had breathed at each
other, trembling, and Lily remembered his hand at the back of her neck as a
comforting, almost loving weight. She’d been grateful for the dark. It had
hidden the tears that fell as she’d dragged herself back from the treacherous
edge of falling hard for somebody she couldn’t have. Somebody who was moving to
New York after the camp was through, all the way across the country from Lily’s
home in LA. A man who would be gone the next day, but that night had
unwittingly taught her why she was not the type who should indulge in casual
sex.
    The next morning, from the porch of the mess cabin, Lily had
snuck a last look at her dark lover through the window of a car as he settled
himself into the seat. He had squirmed a bit, reaching for his back with a
puzzled look, then grinned slightly as his fingers found the small abrasions
Lily knew her nails had left.
    Lily, stuck at the camp all that next day until her own bus
ride home in the evening, had one hell of a time explaining to her cabin mates
about the splinters on her shoulder blades.

Chapter One
     
    The air on the plane managed to be chilly and stifling at
the same time. Lily felt it in her bones, especially the aching arch of her
right foot, as she swayed down the aisle past the musicians and members of the corps
de ballet .
    Six hours into a ten-hour flight, the passengers looked a
little glassy-eyed and restive. Most of them were with the company, and the
group had relaxed into that informal familiarity traveling entertainers are
prone to. They joshed, preened, bitched and flirted as the inevitable pairing
off kicked into high gear. Lily was grateful sometimes for the new, stricter
rules about airplane restrooms. At least none of her dancers would be joining
the mile-high club during this trip.
    The air freshener in the tiny restroom compartment was
cloying and aggressively pine scented. Lily couldn’t help but smile. It was
such an incongruous memory to accost her in a place like that, but the smell of
pine always did it. It had been almost seven years, but that particular memory
never seemed to fade. Her one wild fling might not have secured her a
membership in the mile-high club, but it had definitely been in the same
spirit. Hurried, furtive and absolutely thrilling. Emotionally, it had been such a bad idea. Physically, however, it was still the standard by which she judged
first encounters.
    What would her nineteen-year-old self have done differently,
Lily wondered, had she known she was probably having the best sex of her life?
On reflection, she thought it was probably better that she hadn’t known at the
time. Her weeks of heartbreak and Häagen-Dazs had been bad enough as it was.
    On the way back to her seat, she paused next to Dmitri and
gave the elderly conductor a gentle squeeze on the shoulder.
    “Do you need anything?”
    He shook his head and patted her hand, thanking her, and
Lily moved on. She never dreamed it would