“You left—” Alexander’s forefinger presses to my mouth, my whisper going unfinished. The door open.
No time, his shrug seems to say.
Muffled footsteps meander along the hallway, a deep chuckle ringing out. In the reflection of the darkened window, I see them appear in the hallway before they turn, their backs now facing the open door. I guess they’re admiring the paintings hanging on the wall.
I cast my eyes around the room, looking for someplace to hide, just in case they decide to explore the artwork in here. I’ve been in here before; this is one of the rooms dressed for public view. Brass stanchions cordon off part of the room, claret-coloured velvet rope swagged between them. The tourists don’t enter from the hallway we were just in, but the door next to the marble fireplace that leads out to the other side of the building.
“. . . combined with the collective sense of the sublime,” a masculine voice in the hallway recounts.
“Is it?” replies a nasally voice. One of the film’s money men, as far as I can tell. Not that I spoke to everyone at the dinner table, but his accent is American, and the money men weren’t at all interested in me. I guess they mustn’t have seen me juggling haggis bonbons earlier. “I can’t say I like it,” he continues. “It’s kind of depressing. Gloomy. I mean, couldn’t she have cracked a smile?”
“She’s enigmatic,” the other man protests. “And a Rubens, I think. Not one of his contemporaries, as Lady Isa said.”
“Isla is right. It’s not a Ruben.” At Alexander’s low whisper, I find myself suppressing a shiver. Attuned to my every move, as close as he is, he doesn’t miss it.
“The only Ruben I know is a sandwich,” I whisper dishonestly. “I don’t think they’re looking at one of those.” Alexander’s chest moves against mine in a silent chuckle.
Ack! Why did I say that? It wasn’t for the lols. I know we’re not suited, but I don’t have to make myself out to be some backwoods hick.
“I know what a Ruben is,” I whisper, ducking my head to hide the twist to my lips. “I saw Sampson and Delilah at the National Portrait Gallery in London.”
I’m not sure he's listening or impressed as his fingers reach for a lock of my hair. I watch as though hypnotised as he winds it around his forefinger, bringing it to his lips.
“A tale of love and betrayal,” he murmurs. His gaze lifts, and I see the intensity there. “I swear I would never hurt you.”
The moment is broken by the voices in the hallway.
“Now, there’s a looker,” old nasally Joe says. “And as my old dad used to say, it’s not what you look at but what you see.”
“It sounds like his father was a fan of Thoreau.”
“I’m surprised he can see anything the way the light glinted from the diamonds in his watch. He’s not living life simply.”
This time, I hear his smile. Feel it as he presses his lips to the space below my ear.
“How long do you suppose he’s been dead?” Alexander whispers.
“Who, Thoreau? A hundred and fifty years, give or take.
“So the same length of time they’ve been staring at that bloody painting.”
I stifle a giggle and whisper, “Patience.”
“Is shot.” The hard t makes me shiver. “I want to touch you so much it physically hurts.” His declaration is intimate, fierce. They create a deep and captivating ache deep inside of me. His fingers trail languidly across my bare collarbone before he lowers his head to press a kiss against my throat. “This isn’t a recent malady, Holland. It’s not something that began tonight.”
Thought disappears, and reason drops away as his kiss becomes a sucking pull, everything happening without real thought or cognisance. Just instinct. My soft moan. The way he lifts his head and the way my lips catching the sharpness of his jaw. Just a soft brush. His throat ripples with a hard swallow, his gaze sharpening in the dim light. As if he needed further hints, I wrap my hand around the back of his neck, pulling his lips down to mine. I taste the wine on his breath, warm and earthy, the world further shrinking at the sound of his low groan.
Kisses in the dark seem worth ten in the daylight, every sense heightened, every brush of his tongue nothing short of intoxicating. His fingers grip my hips, pulling me tighter against him like he’d climb inside my skin if it were possible.
“The other door—”
His response is to glide his thumb over my nipple, his mouth swallowing my quiet moan.
“I’ve been imagining burying myself deep inside you all evening,” he whispers, his thumb and forefinger pinching it over my dress.
I bite my lips to keep in the sound, my body convulsing against him, demanding more as I press my breast fully into his hand.
“I want—” his clever hands. His tongue. The feel of him pressed against me.
“Tell me.” Before I’ve even registered his answer, hands pass over my hips almost as closely as the fabric of dress. My ankles feel the brush of cool air. My knees. My thighs as the fabric whispers up my body.
The conversation continues outside of the room, words indistinct, their whereabouts unimportant, my reckless need reigning supreme.
Alexander’s teasing fingers draw the soft fabric up my legs. I inhale a soft gasp as his hand cups over my panties at the apex.
“You’re so hot.” I close my eyes as he presses the meat of his palm against me, my insides tightening as one long finger presses against my cleft. “I want to see.”
I close my eyes against the sight of him, the intensity in his gaze, and the way he watches me. I want to be devoured. Devoured by him.
Fingers pluck the zipper at my side opening, its teeth, and my laboured breath the only sounds in the room. Fabric skims up my torso before Alexander pulls it up and over my head.
And I let him. Crazed. Dazed. And desperate for this.
Until a burst of laughter sounds out in the hall.
“Relax, they won’t come in,” he whispers. “They’re too busy admiring the art in the hall.” His eyes glitter as they fall over me. “My God, they have no idea what they’re missing.”
His words are wrong, seven shades of them, so why do they make me feel like they do. Standing so close to an open door, so close that the light from the hallway falls over my naked skin. I feel vulnerable. Powerful? Exposed and kind of wrong.
Maybe Alexander sees the conflict in me as he speaks again.
“I would never share you. Not ever. Not with anyone.”
Words spoken another night bring with them a sense of truth, his gaze shining like sin in the darkness. I like it. Oh, hell, I really do, as I find myself leaning back against the wall in nothing more than my thong and heels. I choose to revel in the power I feel in this moment. Revel in my power over him.
“What did I do to deserve you?” he whispers as his hands find my hips. The way he looks at me heats every inch of my skin, bloody coursing in my veins, a mixture of excitement and disquiet as the pair continue to converse just a few feet away.
“I think you’ll find you saved me from a three-way.”
He laughs, pressing a kiss to my shoulder as his thumbs hook under the string of my panties.
“They’re hardly worth wearing,” he murmurs, beginning to slide them down my trembling legs. As he helps me step from them, my hand falls to his shoulder as I teeter. “But they’re very pretty,” he adds, dropping them to the top of my dress. His wide shoulders turn as he deposits the garments to a chair to our left. And just when I think he’ll drop to his knees as he did in the library, he lifts me into his arms instead. Even as my hands feed around his neck, I fight the urge to protest being carried naked across the room.