by Cari Quinn
I wasn’t quite sure when I’d loosened more buttons. It might have been when I’d turned into a living vine around him. It might have been when I was ripping at his clothes to get him closer. There had been a lot of insanity in those moments.
I stepped into my shoes and shimmied the skirt of my dress down. My pantyhose were destroyed, but it would be a little obvious that I’d gone from black stocking-clad legs to my fair skin. I just prayed that the runs in the silk would hold out until I could change.
Hmm. I might have another pair in my old desk.
When I noticed he was almost to his neck with his buttons, and the collar was already flipped up, I stepped into him and stilled his hands and brought them to his sides. Deep brown eyes flashed and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. I crouched in front of him.
“Fuck.”
I swiped his tie off the floor. On my way back up, I locked eyes with him as I brushed my nose over the front of his pants. He was still semi-hard for me. When his fingers tightened into fists, I opened my mouth and fanned his rapidly lengthening shaft with my breath.
His muscles locked from thigh to belly and shoulders—all of it was fascinating to watch.
It was because of me. I made him this way, but I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to let this moment go. I grazed my teeth over his cock, flicking my tongue along the outline of his head before I stood.
I wrapped his tie around my palms, dragging that up his length as well. I lifted my arms up, letting one of the ends unspool so I could get around his neck. He was incredibly tall and I was an inch above petite standards.
I draped the tie around his neck, adjusting until the wider end was longer. I’m not sure what it was about tying a tie that made my blood buzz and heat, but it seemed to be even worse when it involved Blake. I kept it simple with a standard Windsor knot. Mostly because of time. Maybe a little because my fingers were shaking.
The intimacy of it quickened my heart rate. His scent left me lightheaded, but it was his stillness that left me breathless. As if I was leashing something too wild to tame.
His eyes were mere slits as he allowed me to dress him. Before I pulled the knot up, I buttoned the last one at the top. His bearded skin tickled the back of my fingers. The linen of his shirt was crisp and stiff, but I finally managed to get the disk through the hole.
I tightened his tie and used the ends to pull him down to me. We watched each other as we kissed. The slow glide of our lips—without the usual crushing bites and sliding tongues—became an exploration.
His hand slid around my hip and up my back. A gentle brush of fingertips up my spine, between my shoulder blades, into the wild knots my hair had become.
I fell into the kiss, closing my eyes as I swayed into his arms. Just as he relaxed into me, the sliding door rattled.
“Grace? Are you in there?”
I groaned. “Phil.”
He gently pushed my hair back, and around my ear. “Phil?”
“Philomena Stanwick.”
“Your former employer.”
I squared my shoulders. “Current. You took care of that.”
“Dammit, Grace.”
I rolled my eyes. “My first name is always said in exasperation.”
“Or when I’m coming inside you.”
The flash of heat and anger in his eyes fired me up again. I backed out of his arms. “Don’t.”
His fingers tightened at his sides again. “You don’t like the truth?”
I so didn’t have time for a Blake temper tantrum. It was brewing now—words like truth and consequences were our triggers after all. I hurried to the door and flicked the lock before sliding the door open an inch. “Sorry, Phil. I was just…”
She looked over my head, then back down at me with a gleeful smile. “Why, Grace.”
“Oh, don’t start.” I pushed her back, following her out into a cloud of Chanel.
She looked over her shoulder at me as I urged her down the small hallway to the Cove Room. “Don’t be embarrassed, dear. You’re single. And I know he is. Boston’s most eligible bachelor. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I sighed. “Because there’s nothing to tell.”
Her eyes widened. “Is that who you were working for?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Why—how? Never mind.” Of course Philomena figured it out.
“Is that why you couldn’t work for him anymore?”
“No. He fired me, remember?”
“So that he could sleep with you?”
“Oh my God.” My chin dropped to my chest. “Can we not discuss this? You obviously needed me for something.”
She craned her neck around to look down the hall, but I moved in front of her to block her from going back to where Blake was. “Yes.” She finally snapped in. “Yes, that lazy little shit Brody isn’t coming with his piece.”
“Phil, why do you keep offering him spots?”
“Because he sells, darling. And he sells big. The stupid child has lost his hunger now that he has money. You’d think he’d want more like the rest of the artists I deal with, but no.”
I rolled my eyes. It was a familiar refrain. I’d kill to be able to sell my work like Brody Nelson did. He wasn’t even twenty and already had more sales and more ego than artists forty years his senior.
The fairness was in the negative numbers by about a million.
Philomena gave a dramatic wave of her hands over the empty pedestal. “I gave him the best placement, of course. I could rearrange the entire show and make this room a showcase for Robert Singer, but I just don’t have the time.”
I have a piece.
The voice was as loud as a trumpet in my head, but I couldn’t get it past my lips.
Not ready.
Not ready.
Ready. It was so ready. Shut up, Negative Nancy voice.
I wrapped my arms around my middle. I never wanted to use my friends as a way to sell my work, least of all Phil, but desperate times…
“I have one.”
Her gaze snapped to mine. “You do?”
I gnawed on my lower lip. Just spit it out, Grace. “Just finished last night actually.”
“You’ve always sold well in the past. Can you get it here? How big is it?”
My belly fluttered with nerves and hope. “I don’t want to push it on you.”
“Stop.” She placed her hands on my shoulders. “As I said, you’ve always sold well for the gallery. You’re doing me a favor.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Come on, Phil.”
She waved me off and placed her hands on her hips. “What do I have this place for if I can’t help a friend or two? Besides, you’re like a daughter to me. Of course, I want to put your piece in here. I should have thought to do it sooner.”
My eyes prickled. “It’s a little different than my usual stuff.”
Her shrewd hazel eyes lit with interest. “Oh?”
“It’s a bigger piece.”
“Is it a window?”
“No. A sculpture.”
“Then yes, definitely. Can you go get it?”
A wide set of shoulders drew my eyes away from Phil. “I…”
“Do you need someone to help you?”
Blake nodded to me as he strode across the room to the archway. He stopped there and gave me a slow half-smile. Just the corner of his mouth turning up. So very much like the first time I met him. Then he was gone.
“Grace?”
“What? Oh, yes.” I moved forward and caught Phil’s hands. “I’ll go get it now. Thank you.”
“Well, go ahead.” She squeezed my hands back. “And maybe a new dress? Something less…mangled.”
I could feel the heat in my cheeks. “Right. Of course.”
Philomena turned around, and citron and gold sparkled against her all black layers. She waved from the doorway. “Off you go, dear.”
I ran back to the frame room, but Blake had erased any proof we’d been in there. In fact, it was too neat
. He’d cleaned off the table, even so far as dumping scraps in the correct recycling bins.
I didn’t know quite what to think about that, so I backed out and closed the door once more. I scooped up my iPad from the empty pedestal and the butterflies returned to nest in my belly.
My sculpture would be there for everyone to see.
Tonight.
Before I lost my nerve, I escaped the Cove Room and dropped the iPad into the charging rack. I pulled out my purse from under the desk and ran into Jax again on the way.
“Where’s the fire, Grace?” He folded his arms. “Actually, looks like the fire has already been put out.”
“Jax.”
He lifted one finger off his forearm. “Hair is a bit wilder, cheeks flushed, and there’s a whole lot less stress in those shoulders.”
“Shut up, Jax.”
He laughed. “I’m jealous. And if it was the same guy who just glowered at me on the way by not five minutes ago, then I’m thinking you need to go for another round. He’s still wound up.”
I blew out an exasperated breath. “We are definitely not discussing this. Where’s Linda?”
He grinned. “In recovery.”
“Oh God. You didn’t.”
He threw his head back, his chuckle throaty and delighted. “Not that kind of recovery.”
“Never know with you.” I flipped my keys around my fingers and into my palm. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
I turned around at the door, pushing it open with my butt. “To go get my future.”
Seven
Getting a three-foot glass and copper sculpture into my little car required a lot of bubble wrap, blankets, and muscle.
The ride out to my grandmother’s house, time to change and clean up—holy hurricane hair—as well as loading my precious cargo for movement took a lot more time than I’d thought. By the time I got back to the gallery, I had twenty-five minutes to get her set up.
Phil was fluttering again. Her mouth was flapping as much as her arms now. While I’d been gone, she’d rearranged one of the rooms completely.
I rolled my eyes and hoped Linda would remember to update the gallery program. Doing the commissions would be a bitch otherwise.
I grabbed a hand truck and went back to my car, snagging one of the half dozen interns on my way out the door. The two of us got it out of my car without mishap and into the Cove Room.
Phil rushed in as we were tearing off the bubble wrap. She pushed the intern away. “Go help Linda.”
“Yes, Mrs. Stanwick.” The girl gave me a finger-wave and bolted.
“Thanks,” I called after her.
“No problem,” she said over her shoulder.
“Oh, Grace. When you said different, you weren’t kidding. This is gorgeous.”
“Yeah?” I wrapped one arm around my middle again, the other resting on my forearm so I could nibble on my thumb. We were well beyond butterflies in my belly at this point. I was pretty sure I was going to fly apart.
Phil slapped my hand away from my mouth. “Stop that. Yes. It’s stupendous.” She glanced down at my bright indigo dress. “You look better in color.”
“You like us in black.”
“Well, now you’re an artist, so I’m glad you went with color.”
I clasped my hands together or I was going to gnaw what was left of my thumbnail off. “I’m still working the show.”
“Of course you are,” she said absently. She walked around the column of marble. “You did this alone?”
I bristled. “I’d have given credit otherwise.”
“Relax.” She held a hand up. “It’s just really different from your usual work.”
I stared at the angel with her outspread wings. Instead of being in a pious stance as most were, she was suspended from a spire of copper with thin wires, and in a falling position. Her body was a mosaic of different glass from smoky to clear, but her wings were panels of the same smoke-tinged gold. Such unusual glass.
I’d had it forever, but never had the right project to use it.
Until now.
Each of the panels was framed in copper. It gave the piece a fragile nature, even though it was one of the most intricate and sturdy pieces I’d ever done.
And it was my hail Mary play at this point. I was out of materials, out of money, out of options. This was my only chance to start over.
Phil stood next to me. “We’re going to end up with a bidding war.”
“You think?”
“I know.” She patted my arm. “It’s a good thing you got fired. You’re going to be busy.”
“Mrs. Stanwick?”
She turned to the tall, austere student in the doorway. “Yes, Stephen?”
“It’s seven o’clock.”
“Right.” Philomena hooked her arm through mine. “You ready?”
“No.”
She bumped my shoulder. “Spoken like a true artist. Let’s get this party started.”
The next three hours were a whirlwind of patrons and locals who came for the gossip. Many knew me by name, so I was constantly being pulled in nineteen directions. Sales, schmoozing, glad-handing, and the all-important bits of gossip made the night fly by.
Each time I heard my piece mentioned I had to talk my stomach into behaving.
Can’t throw up at the gallery. That’s not good form at all.
I had a hard time going into the Cove Room though. I didn’t want to hear reactions to my piece at all. Good or bad, I just wasn’t sure I could handle it tonight.
I finally escaped to the small break room and collapsed into a chair. I’d been talking for three hours straight and the herd didn’t seem to be thinning at all. It was Black Friday so there were a lot more families in town than normal. Marblehead was mostly a seasonal place when it came to tourists.
I hauled myself up to go to the fridge for a bottle of water. Inside was a white bag. I frowned and peeked inside.
“I think that’s yours.”
I spun around. “What?”
Linda nodded toward the fridge. “If you’re looking at the white bag. That tall, really good looking man in the dark suit brought it in for you.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to think about that. I vaguely remembered him holding a bag when I’d seen him earlier. But then we’d…well, we’d been too worried about getting naked to talk about how and why he’d been there. He’d actually brought me food—thinking it was my house he was going to.
The butterflies were finally silenced, but now my chest felt tight. I brought the bag to the table. I pulled out two tins with white tops.
Linda sat down across from me. “What’d you get? Chinese?”
I tucked a fingernail under the pinched tin sides and peeled back the white top. My stomach roared at the scent of dressing and turkey. I opened the other tin and it was full of cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and a large container of gravy.
Thanksgiving dinner.
“I couldn’t even look at turkey.” Linda sat back and sipped her water. “I swear I ate my weight in it yesterday.”
I plucked a piece of breast meat out and nibbled. My mouth watered so much that I crossed the room for our stash of plates and cutlery. Five minutes later, it was warmed in the microwave and I was plowing my way through it.
He’d brought me Thanksgiving dinner.
I wasn’t quite sure what to think about that. In fact, confusion was tipping the scales in all ways tonight.
Linda stood with a sigh. “I wish a guy brought me dinner.”
“No luck with Jax?”
She snorted. “Yeah, that man is for a lost weekend, not bagged lunch. Though your guy brought ultra fancy bagged lunch.”
I poked at the stuffing, my initial hunger receding finally. “Yeah.” Wait—not my guy. I looked up, but Linda was already heading out with a wave. I hurried to do the same. I went to scrape the rest in the garbage, but changed my mind.
I couldn’t really waste food
right now. And this was more than enough for an entire second meal. I tucked everything back into the tins, and then stashed them in the fridge. I cleaned up in the little bathroom, and popped a breath mint from the roll I kept in my pocket.
I took a deep breath before jumping back into the fray. I recognized two of the more gossipy blue bloods on the cove.
Abort. Go around.
All of the bells and whistles were sounding off, but it was too late when Catherine Bishop smiled at me.
“Grace, dear.”
“Hi, Mrs. Bishop.”
“It’s so nice to see you in the gallery again. We all miss Annabelle so much.”
I forced a smile. “Yes, we do.”
“I just wanted to congratulate you on the sale of your angel. I was bidding on it before I even knew it was yours.”
“Bidding?” I asked.
“Yes. The price was too much for my blood by the end of it.”
“Oh, Cat, you ruin all my fun.”
I turned to Phil’s voice. “Fun?” I realized I sounded a little thick, but what the hell had happened since I escaped for my impromptu turkey dinner?
“Yes. You’ll be so very pleased with the sales figures.”
I blinked. “Truly?”
“Oh, yes. You did quite well. I’m going to require at least another six pieces, Grace. People love this new style of yours.”
I squeezed her hand. “Thanks, Phil.”
“It was a pretty penny. I know you’ve fallen on hard times.” Mrs. Bishop’s smile was serene, but I saw the glee lighting her eyes.
And it was one of the reasons I’d been hiding away from everyone. Everyone knew everyone’s business in Lady’s Cove. It was a small curve of beach with many old and established houses along the shoreline. The Bishop and Gregory houses represented the oldest families as well as the oldest money.
Once upon a time that had been me as well. I lifted my chin. “Feels good to earn my own money.”
Phil pinched me on the underside of my arm.
Instead of insult, I caught a glimpse of respect in the older woman’s eyes. “Everyone should be able to do what they love. I’ll be looking for more of your work, Grace.”