I frowned. Chase seemed to be paying more attention to his bombing getup than to his paid obligations, which made me think a lecture might be in order tonight. But I wanted to stay on his good side enough to ensure he wouldn’t get upset at me and renege altogether on his agreement to do the piece for the exhibit.
And, if I were honest with myself, I wanted to stay on his good side enough to ensure I’d see him some more. I hated to admit it to myself, but being around Chase—as infuriating as he could be—made me feel invigorated and alive. I was beginning to pay more attention to my surroundings, to the ever-changing canvas that was the city itself. I was starting to see high-quality murals and spurts of color that appeared to me almost as if they were mysterious languages conveyed in coded text. I didn’t know if the art was genuinely getting better or if the way I was seeing things was transforming. When I’d mentioned this excitedly to Chase via text a week ago, he’d responded, “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” I sighed deeply and wrote back, “You’re a poet too?”
“No, but W. B. Yeats is.”
Chase’s reading Wordsworth and Yeats seemed too good to be true, but his intellectual prowess had clearly not been compromised, even if college wasn’t in his foreseeable future. Unfortunately, that served only to make him more attractive to me.
Get over it, Annie, I told myself as I boarded the 5 train, which would take over an hour to get to the Bronx. You’re Harrison’s girlfriend now, and you’re just doing business with Chase. But as much as I tried, I couldn’t stop the butterflies in my stomach from fluttering in anticipation at the mere thought of seeing Chase.
As I walked up to street level, I noticed the dilapidated state of things around me. Pockets of apartment buildings and multiunit row houses flanked large, ugly, industrial edifices. There weren’t too many people around except for the occasional staggering wino. I noticed some women, most of them wearing miniskirts, dangerously high heels, and clownish makeup. They were slumped up against walls, eyeing traffic. Some of them were even stopping cars. One woman, with feathered bangs and an alarmingly young face, laughed loudly and opened a passenger door, slamming it behind her as the car screeched off down a dark alley.
I shuddered, clutching my backpack more tightly and zipping up my jacket. Chase hadn’t mentioned this was a red-light district.
“Hey, girl, can I get a minute of your time?” A middle-aged man with a bedraggled beard and sores on his face stumbled toward me.
I began to walk faster toward Drake and Spofford. “Sorry, I don’t have any money,” I said tightly.
“I don’t want your money, bitch!” he spat after me. My heart was racing, but the man didn’t pursue me any further.
“I’m gonna kill you, Chase,” I muttered under my breath. Thankfully, he was exactly where he’d said he would be, at the intersection of Drake and Spofford, right next to a metal pull-down gate attached to an ugly factory building. I breathed a sigh of relief, which was complemented by that old, familiar weak-kneed feeling I got every time I saw him. Chase was grinning. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his dark jeans, and a thin gray T-shirt clung to his chest. He had a cigarette hanging from his lower lip and his eyes glinted like emeralds in the darkness.
“Hi,” I said, shifting my weight from one leg to the other.
He opened his arms in a gesture that I took to mean, Ain’t it grand?
“Welcome to my life, Goldilocks,” he said. “Bombing after dark. You’re lucky to see it, you know. Those of us who deal in the dark arts try to be like stealth invaders. Whenever a LunaBomber original goes up, you can trust that nobody but my closest associates have ever been there to see it.” He winked at me.
“You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” I joked nervously, looking around to ensure there were no vagrants or drug dealers hanging out in close proximity. “You don’t, like, have a home or a studio? You’ve never told me where you live.”
He licked his lips and examined me. “Why? You wanna have a sleepover or something?”
“No,” I snapped, suddenly embarrassed. Chase always had a way of making me feel self-conscious, even when he was trying to be friendly, and I didn’t appreciate it. “I just don’t understand why we have to be out this late in . . . this kind of environment.”
“Well, Goldilocks, like I said, it’s a full moon tonight, so I’m taking advantage of it by putting down some fresh paint. ’Cause of the way I work, I don’t get to have my stuff out there the way the rest of my crew does, so time is of the essence.” He nodded at a small bag next to him, which I assumed was full of paint.
I hesitated before I spoke, trying to figure out what the most diplomatic words might be. “That’s really great, Chase, but the reason I’m here is that I wanted to talk about the Quentin Pierce project. My other teammates are already ahead of the game with their artists, and I want to make sure you and I are . . . on the right track.”
Predictably, my words made Chase smirk. “Why do you care so much, Goldilocks? You want a good grade or something? I told you not to sweat it. Just because I don’t work according to some arbitrary timeline doesn’t mean I don’t have my shit together.”
“That’s not fair, Chase,” I said, attempting to keep the shake of defensiveness out of my voice. “I already told you what you were signing up for, and, as you know, I’m working in a professional setting under a very specific set of rules and circumstances. If you can’t cut it here . . .” My voice trailed off; I could tell from the stern look on his face that I’d crossed a line.
“You think I can’t do the work?” He took a can out of his bag and shook it aggressively. “I’ve thrown up thousands of pieces of my own volition. I don’t make stuff on the orders of some shitty professor or an artist without any chops or ’cause Instagram made me do it. This, right here?” He kicked the bag lightly. “It’s my blood, my soul.” He popped the cap off his spray-paint can, which he held up proudly.
I was starting to get alarmed, as Chase’s voice had risen. “Chase, what if a cop sees us?”
That seemed to amuse him. “Just chill, okay? Busting hookers is their beat around here. There’s too much real stuff going on for the fuzz to get all bent out of shape over petty shit.”
He started shaking his cans some more, which frustrated me. Clearly, Chase had invited me only in order to have an adoring audience, not to talk business. But he definitely had another thing coming if he believed I was just going to stand here, oohing and aahing over his illicit activity.
“Look, Chase, I’m not trying to be a bitch, but you have to show me that you’ve at least made a little progress on the mural. Seriously, heads are going to roll if I don’t show the committee something. As it is, it was a risk to—”
“To what? Take a chance on a shady street artist?” Chase shook his head. “I expected better from you, Goldilocks, but you’re still too caught up in that high-and-mighty university world of yours to see there’s an entire wonderland that goes unacknowledged right under your nose.”
“I’m not saying that isn’t true,” I insisted, my own voice starting to rise. Arguing with Chase was hopeless, and I was frustrated that I was beginning to lose my temper, seeing as it was a losing battle. “All I’m saying is that I need to know you have something for us, or else . . . or else I’ll need to look for a different artist.”
I hadn’t meant to issue a threat, but he was giving me no choice. Chase sucked in his cheeks and glared at me, but I stood my ground. He wasn’t going to intimidate me this time.
“Fine, Goldilocks. You wanna see what I have? Here it is. Right here, right now.”
At that, he furiously whipped out his spray-paint canisters and lined them up in an efficient row, then proceeded to go to town on the pull-down gate.
I looked around. I could’ve sworn I’d heard voices and sirens not too far away, and I was afraid that Chase’s impulsiveness was going to get us both in trouble. “Chase . . .” I started. But w
hen I turned back to him, he was completely engrossed in his work. In a mad blur of paint and movement, he looked like some crazed genius moving to his own enigmatic dance. I watched, my mouth agape.
A hieroglyphic collage of faces and letters began to emerge, in an array of colors so bright they almost glowed in the darkness beneath the faded light of the street lamp. A city skyline began to take shape amid the faces. Chase was creating something I’d never seen before, not even on the most adventurous and far-out murals. He was making his shapes and figures entirely out of text. I don’t know how long he went on, because I was too intrigued by his process to keep track of the time. He finally ended with his tag—a bubbly “LB” curled around a full moon rendered in opalescent paint.
“Chase . . . it’s . . .” I could hardly find the words.
He stepped back to admire his masterwork. “Fucking tight, huh?”
Before I could respond, a voice behind us startled me. “And just what the fuck are you punks doing out here?”
I gasped and spun around. It was a police officer. With his arms akimbo and a solemn expression on his mustached face, he was a hulking shadow beneath the street lamp. I gulped at the sight of the handgun in his holster.
Chase came up behind me, placing a protective hand on my shoulder. “Be cool, Goldilocks,” he murmured.
“Hey, man, I didn’t mean any harm. I’m pretty sure this right here is a permission wall.” He spoke slowly, but there was little fear in his voice.
“The hell it is!” the officer exclaimed, spitting on the ground in a show of disgust. “Fuckers like you are turning this borough into a third-world country, but it ain’t happening on my time.” He turned around and called out, “Hey, Jenkins, look what the cat dragged in! Says this here is a permission wall. What does he think? I was born yesterday?”
Another officer came into the light. He was tall, broad, and meaner-looking than any of the guys I’d met the other night when Chase had dragged me along on his tagging adventure. And he didn’t seem amused in the least. “Nice try, shithead,” he said in a low, booming voice.
At the sight of me, the one with the mustache let out a small whistle. “And what do we have here?”
“Looks like the little shithead has got himself an Upper East Side princess,” the mean-looking one said.
“NYU, actually,” I said in a small voice.”
“Shitheads like this guy are bad news. You hear?” He pointed a finger at me.
His partner nodded. “We’ve seen too many nice girls like you go down the wrong path.”
I wanted to offer up some kind of excuse. Surely, they couldn’t take someone like me down to the station, so perhaps if I spoke up some more, they’d actually listen. Chase seemed to read my mind. “Say nothing,” he breathed into my ear. He clutched the bag of spray paint in one hand and tightened his grip on my shoulder. Then he whispered loudly in my ear, “Run, Annie!”
He grabbed me by the hand and pulled me along, and we were off before I knew what was happening.
“Hey, you get back here right now!” one of the cops shouted. I was terrified. I could hear their footsteps behind us, but Chase wouldn’t let up. We whizzed past street signs, gloomy-looking tenements, and row upon row of warehouses—very few of which were illuminated by anything other than the moonlight.
“Whatever you do, don’t look back!” Chase hissed. I didn’t look at him as I felt the cool air on my face and the straps of my backpack flapping against my arms. I was so out of breath, I couldn’t respond anyway.
At some point several minutes later, he started to slow down. “I think we lost ’em,” he said, gasping and bending over to clutch his knees.
“What do we do now?” I managed to sputter out.
He grinned at me and stood. “We’re at my place, so we might as well go inside, Goldilocks.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“What the fuck was that back there?” I said, still somewhat breathless, as I slumped against the wall. It was dark and dank inside Chase’s apartment, which was more like a massive derelict warehouse than an actual living space.
As Chase peeled off his T-shirt, exposing the gleaming muscles beneath, he didn’t bother to turn on the lights. I squinted to acclimate my eyes to the darkness. We’d raced down Drake Street, through some of the most squalid areas of New York I’d ever seen, past an industrial-looking patch of tractor-trailers and long, glorious stretches of murals that I would probably have found stunning had I actually been able to stop long enough to look at them.
“It was fucking amazing is what it was!” Chase exclaimed, moving toward one corner of the long, boxy room. A flash of light erupted, and I realized he’d just opened a refrigerator. In seconds he was back at my side, handing me a beer and cracking one open himself. I took the beer weakly but didn’t drink.
“It was . . .” I wanted to say that it was exhilarating, but the words choked up in my throat and the spike of adrenaline turned into a spike of rage. “How could you do something so stupid, Chase? I mean, those cops could have shot at us for being insubordinate. We could have either died or been arrested!”
I could see him raise an eyebrow. “What are you talking about? I live here, Goldilocks. Cops don’t shoot at graff artists. There’d be way too much backlash in the community. Besides, I could practically smell your excitement. You were just as into it as I was!”
I raked my fingers through my hair, and I could feel how sweaty I was. I grimaced in disgust. “You don’t get it, do you, Chase? This whole bad-boy scenario isn’t going to get you where you want to go.”
“Oh yeah—where, exactly, is that?” I thought for a moment he was going to smack me—he looked that angry—but he just crossed his arms across his perfect chest and looked at me. I could barely concentrate in the face of his beautiful body and my own confusion.
“I don’t know . . . somewhere better than this!” I waved at the scene around me. Massive sheets covered the windows, which I could tell from the draft in the room were broken. The skittering sounds across the floorboards made me nervously imagine a fleet of spray paint–covered mice. I looked at Chase, my eyes wide. “This is crazy, Chase, and it’s not what I signed up for when I asked you to work with me. When are you going to realize that none of this is sustainable? You could have gotten both of us locked up, on top of that!”
He dropped his beer bottle abruptly, which made me jump. It clanked on the ground but didn’t break.
“When will you get it through your head, Annie? I’m not interested in making art that’s enshrined by the fucking powers that be!” He stepped toward me, and I reflexively stepped back. “And I know you felt something back there—I know you got, for at least a second, exactly what I’m trying to do here. So fucking say it, Annie. Admit to me that you actually liked it, that it made you high, that it practically made you fucking wet!”
My cheeks blazed as he loomed over me. His presence was overwhelming, as always, but tonight the flavor was different. Tonight I feared that the thing that seemed to be unfolding between us was going to come to a head. I was aroused by the heaviness of that thing, which seemed to make the air suddenly thicker and hotter, but I was also confused by it. We’d just spent the last fifteen minutes running away from the cops, and while everything about that scenario was utterly wrong, it felt like it had been the necessary cutaway to this very moment.
I placed my hand out, and it made contact with his bare chest. I was afraid to look into his eyes. If I typically felt naked and exposed in Chase’s presence, tonight that feeling was even more heightened.
“Admit it—you liked it, Annie,” he breathed, covering my hand with both of his.
“I . . . I . . .” I didn’t finish my sentence. At that moment, everything—all the defenses I’d had in place to keep Chase at a safe and neutral distance—began to collapse around my ears.
He was right in front of me, and I could no longer neglect the burning fire between my legs, in my heart, in my hands, as we drew toward each o
ther like magnets. As he grabbed my hair and pulled me into him, I could swear I heard a soft growl—but I didn’t know if it was from me or from him. His hands were all over me, setting fire to familiar and aching places, and as we stumbled around in the darkness, knocking over cans of paint and empty beer bottles, I thought I would die from the sheer pleasure of his warm mouth, his warm and slightly callused hands.
“Oh God,” I muttered. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
He chuckled softly and pulled back a little to look at me. His eyes were almost black in the dim moonlight, and he wasn’t smiling. “Babe, God ain’t gonna save you here.”
My legs almost buckled at that point, and he had me in his arms. He was carrying me somewhere—to his bed, perhaps? I had little sense of space or time—none of it mattered. My neck was in his mouth, and I felt my body curl into him, wanting to feel the fullness of him—his heat and hardness, his sweat and strength and desire. He laid me down and kissed me so tenderly, so delicately, that it felt like torture.
I was whimpering. “I don’t think I can take it anymore.”
He laughed, and the sound of it was almost too cruel for me to endure. “I’m not gonna fuck you until you beg for it.”
My heart began pounding like crazy at his words, but I couldn’t deny it was what I wanted, that it was exactly why I’d come here, even though I’d had no idea how the night was going to end. But I offered no resistance as he peeled my clothes off, and then his. I sighed as he lowered his beautiful naked body onto mine, his tongue flicking across every square inch of me, exploring me, opening me, feeling me in a way no boy ever had.
“You’re so beautiful, Annie,” he moaned as his mouth nestled into my belly.
I sighed and bit my lip so as not to cry out as I felt an earthquake of an orgasm building in the places where his fingers had pried me apart, kneading me deeply and skillfully.
So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) Page 17