by Leslie North
He thought it more than likely that his enjoyment was shared, considering her closing proposal to him.
"Want to see some art?" Madison blurted out unexpectedly. If alcohol served to sharpen her tongue, then it blunted her other parts of speech.
Vlad grinned expansively. "Da. I would love to."
He watched her blush at the unexpected Russian resurgence. They rose together, and Vlad came around the table to walk her out. He let his hand fall to the small of her back, his fingers pressing themselves against the womanly indent they found as he guided her, and relished the little startled arch her spine gave at the intrusion as they walked out into the night together.
4
Madison didn't get art. She wasn't even sure she liked it most days. But if there was one thing she knew, it was that art sometimes inspired things in people. Feelings. Ideas. Honesty.
She had seen the gallery act as a confessional between couples on more than one occasion, especially late at night, and she didn't see why this evening should be any exception to the rule. Just because she had never been affected by the enchantment herself didn't mean it was beyond the realm of possibility.
But no. That wasn't right. She was the enchantress tonight, and she couldn't allow herself to get swept up in the spell she hoped to cast. Just a little more flirting, a little more give-and-take—with a lot less give on her part—and Russian career criminal Vlad Karev would be as malleable as sculptor's clay in her hands. If the way he was looking at her back at the restaurant was any indication, she was almost there.
"The new exhibit is all set up. We're unveiling it late next week," Madison explained as she fished her ring of keys from her purse to unlock the front of the building. Vlad stood off to the side at a polite distance, as if respecting the fact that he was an invited guest. It was a stark contrast to how he had conducted himself around the gallery earlier in the day. It was an even starker contrast to how he had conducted himself only minutes before, with his hand pressed against the dip of her back in an easy, undeniably deliberate signal to anyone who might be watching. She found herself missing the unexpected warmth of his touch and wasn't sure she stood a chance of succeeding in her plan with the newly-reserved man standing beside her.
She should have known it was all a ruse.
She unlocked the front door and pushed it open. To her surprise, Vlad slid past her and crossed the main room, turning through a doorway leading into one of the back hallways. Madison hastened after him to correct the error.
"Vlad, there aren't any exhibits this way," she said as she caught up to him. "Only offices…"
The tall, immaculately dressed man at her side grinned wolfishly.
"Oh, no. No," Madison said. She wished it didn't come out sounding so much like a plea.
"Oh yes," the Russian returned. "I came to see art, Miss O’Connor, and art is what I intend to see. That dress you're wearing looks good on you, but it's not the dress we agreed you would wear this evening."
"First of all, thank you." The least she could do was express gratitude for the compliment, considering no man had ever spoken its equal to her before. "Second of all, get bent, Karev. I didn't agree to anything, and I'm definitely not some doll you get to play dress-up with. Just because you're used to getting your way—"
"You're right," Vlad interrupted her, as if they were already in agreement, and not at complete odds with one another. "I am."
She might have stood a chance of having her own way if she had remembered to lock her office door that afternoon. She even paused to watch him go for the doorknob, a smug smile crossing her lips… before she saw it turn beneath his hand, and her feelings gave way to despair. She followed him inside, heart pounding in her chest, knowing exactly what they would find.
The parcel that had arrived that afternoon was torn open on her desk. Balls of tissue paper were scattered everywhere, and a midnight-black garment that looked too short and too thin to be a dress draped across the back of her office chair, tags still in place.
"Look, I…" She struggled for an excuse, trying not to panic as Vlad moved behind her desk and plucked up the dress. "If you want to see me in it so badly, why don't you ask me on another date?" She certainly hadn't meant to ask for another date so early on into her mission, but desperate times called for desperate measures… otherwise she was bound to find herself stuck with measures leaving little to the imagination.
"This one isn't over yet." Vlad held the dress out to her, blue eyes flashing like silver scimitars in the low light of her desk lamp.
She didn't have to take his orders. She didn't have to do anything she didn't want to do, especially in her own office… but as her gaze met his, she found herself taking the gift.
Could it be a small part of her actually wanted Vlad to see her in the dress?
It wasn't as if she looked terrible in it. On the contrary, she’d thought she looked borderline incredible when she tried it on earlier… but the look was so unlike what she was used to that she had hastily stripped it off again. It was too easy to think of herself as another woman inside that dress. A kept woman. A woman who too easily forgot to put family first and allowed herself to be swept away by charming Russian conmen.
"Are you at least going to leave the room?" she pleaded.
"I'll turn my back."
Vlad arranged himself in the corner facing the wall. Madison's heart, which hadn't been behaving correctly since meeting him that morning, lodged in her throat. She could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. After reassuring herself that there was no possible way he could observe her from his chosen angle, Madison quickly shed the red dress—her pride and joy, although it had been a part of her wardrobe since college if she was being honest—and started to wriggle herself into the costly, highly-contested black dress. She knew from earlier in the day that trying it on with underwear was out of the question; it would never fit, and it would show lines besides. She dropped her panties and kicked them discreetly beneath her desk as she finished pulling it on.
"Will you zip me up?" Her request was as muted as the whisper of the fabric against her skin.
Vlad turned in the darkness and stepped into the warm glow of the lamp. Madison came around the side of her desk until there was no barrier left between them. Once she was within his easy reach, she stopped and turned to present her back to him. It felt like what she imagined turning her back on a predator in the wild might feel like: stupid. And exciting.
His hand lifted her hair aside; then, she felt the brush of his fingertips, the ice-cold metallic line of the zipper as it pressed firmly along her spine, the tight breathlessness that came as her torso was cinched up inside the bust. She rocked slightly, her eyes falling shut as she savored the feeling. Vlad swept her hair back into place, and she thought it was over. She moved to take a step away from him.
"One moment." He stooped down beside her, and Madison's traitorous heart rebounded around her newly-constricted ribcage. She could feel her core heat as he drew level with the curve of her ass.
What was he doing? Did he suspect she had already stripped off her underwear for him? Was he about to find out?
The Russian pressed his face close to the seam running over the swell of her hip. Madison thought she would hit the ceiling. She thought a lot of things were about to happen to her in that moment, but what Vlad actually did was the least expected of all. His hands came up to grasp her thighs through the dress, and he clenched his teeth. He yanked his head to the side.
The dress's tag came off in his teeth. He stood and extracted it from his mouth. Madison was certain her face must have been as red as her lipstick.
"Give me that. You could have used scissors." She turned, about to toss the tag in the trash, before thinking better of it. She laid it on her desk. "So you can return it later."
"I won't be returning it. It's yours."
They stared at each other for a long moment in the low light. Madison had always thought her office was small, but now it was positively
claustrophobic. She cleared her throat, and Vlad smiled politely.
"You were going to give me a tour," he reminded her. "Show me the new exhibit, I believe."
Oh, right. Art.
"I want to show you the O’Connor Fine Arts Gallery is more than just a cover for the mob's money laundering scheme," she explained as she led them both out of her office. "It's an important public fixture. It benefits everyone, not just my family, or yours. It's more than another way to get around the feds."
As they walked together, he said nothing about how she looked in the dress. She wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Just when she thought she had the man pinned down, he acted in a way she didn't expect. It made her nervous.
More than that, it left her craving more.
"I didn't think you liked your job at the gallery," Vlad noted as they entered the main hall.
As she led the way into the west room, Madison pulled a face. "I like my job fine. It's just that… I still have a lot to learn about art and art appreciation," she confessed as they halted before a display. "I'm the first to admit it. Hell, I even went to school for it, pursued my Masters in Art History. My father hired me not only because he knew I was the most qualified to run the family business, but because he thought I could continue my education here."
"I defer to your expertise, then." Vlad laced his tattooed hands behind his back and studied the far wall. "What do you think of this one?"
"I…"
In truth, Madison hadn't been thinking much outside of wondering what else Vlad could do with his teeth. The monologue she had been rattling off to him was a version of the one she usually told when she was forced to give tours to investors give or take a few of the more personal details. No one except Savannah knew about her struggle with art appreciation.
No one until Vlad. And she refused to belabor the fact that she had so willingly shared that little bit of information about herself.
The latest installation drew her attention away from him. It was a colorful piece, bold, with indefinite lines between swatches of flesh-toned hues. Anyone, even Madison, could see after a moment's consideration that it was meant to invoke a couple having sex.
A shiver coursed through her that had nothing to do with how revealing the little black dress was. If anything, it was starting to feel a little too warm in here.
"I think that I might have to keep the sheet over that one until the later tours," she muttered as they continued on.
The other pieces weren't much better. If anything, they were more explicit; not that Madison didn't find their eroticism strangely beautiful, but she couldn't help but wonder what her father had been thinking when he agreed to exhibit this artist's work. Surely the audience for this was limited? Then again, maybe they were inviting a whole new audience in, inspiring new feelings…
Did her eyes deceive her, or was one of the figures wearing a black dress, her abstract breasts bared above a burst strap? The ecstatic look on the painted woman's face as she gave herself over to her dark, destructive lover was…
Madison felt the ghost of something. A hand. Vlad stood so close to her that his shoulder brushed against hers. How had she not noticed him right beside her before?
"Um…" She wrestled with her own thoughts, desperate to continue the tour, as the hand moved up her thigh, bringing the skirt of her dress with it. "And that one is…"
"I'm tired of only viewing," Vlad murmured into her temple. His fingers neared the cleft of her ass, and Madison shuddered.
"Cameras." She didn't know why it was the word she chose, but it seemed to perfectly encompass the sudden danger in their situation.
"There's a blind spot in your security system," Vlad said. "Here."
"How do you know that?" Madison gasped as he backed her behind a nearby pillar. "You shouldn't know that."
"There are a lot of things I shouldn't know," Vlad whispered heatedly into her neck. "Like the fact that you were wearing underwear earlier this evening, and now you are not."
He tugged the material of the dress up as savagely as the man in the painting, baring her rear in the dark. Madison gasped again. This was spiraling; they were spiraling. His hand pushed its way between her legs. Madison moaned and arched her back desperately, giving those skating lips fuller access to her neck even as Vlad freely took his liberties elsewhere.
His fingers slid closer to the core of her need. As the pads of his fingers slipped slowly, agonizingly within reach of his ultimate goal, Madison's traitorous brain snapped back to the present. She ducked her chin, red pin curls spilling down her shoulder to conceal the suddenly obscene feeling of the nakedness of her back. She reached back behind her to push the encroaching male chest from pressing any closer. The hand between her legs halted, hesitated. Then, in defeat, it slipped away again.
Madison yanked the back of her dress down before turning to face her adversary. Vlad's glacial gaze found her in the darkness, studying her. She knew she didn't need to study the situation below his belt to know exactly how much he had been enjoying their unexpected rendezvous.
But then again, maybe she did want to know. Or more importantly, how it would feel without all the excess clothing they seemed to be wearing.
Oh, to hell with it. Madison threw caution to the wind and reached out to him, recapturing the rogue hand, her thumb gliding its way along the tattoo as she tugged him closer. Vlad came without resistance. Clearly he wasn't used to being refused by women, but it was equally evident that he wouldn't readily give up all plans of tangling with her if she invited him back.
"Let's get out of here," she murmured. "Please." She moved her cherry-red lips to form the plea scant inches from his own mouth.
Vlad groaned. It was encouraging, at least, that he could not seem to articulate an answer one way or the other. His free hand, the one that she didn't hold in her own, came up to cup the curve of her backside and usher them both out from behind the column. Madison felt a flood of warmth at the ready return of his touch.
Savannah was going to kill her. Madison wondered if she had the ability to keep something like this from her friend. The FBI agent could almost immediately detect when she was being lied to. Madison wasn't sure whether she preferred being branded a liar to being branded something else entirely.
But damn it, she had a job to do and if that meant getting in bed with the inked Adonis and submitting herself to his talented roving hands once more, then so be it. Granted, a bed might not even be necessary.
"I live a few blocks from the gallery. Down on Third." She should not have said that. Seducing Vlad and getting the information she required didn't mean filling out an application form. It was better that her mark didn't know where she lived… right?
"But I've been looking for a place a bit closer," she continued as she pressed herself against his chest. "Maybe your place is a bit closer."
"I would have you in your office," Vlad murmured. The thought thrilled Madison, but she shook her head. The whole point of this was to get closer to Vlad and Vlad's world… right? This had nothing to do with her sudden, inexplicable desire to be lying beneath him on her back, supported by protesting bedsprings… did it?
"But I'm guessing you would still prefer we pick this up somewhere else."
"Yes, please," Madison agreed before she could too vividly imagine otherwise.
She fished for her keys as they strolled quickly for the front doors, appearing for all the world, and for the cameras, like two art-viewers who had taken in all they could for one evening. Thankfully the security footage did not show just how eager Madison O’Connor was to continue taking in new things...
As they exited the gallery together, they were met with a sobering surprise. A man sat on the wide stone steps out front. A man who appeared to be waiting, although she couldn't imagine for who. She hadn't told anyone but Savannah where she intended to be tonight…
"Peter!" She recognized the man as he rose fluidly and didn't mask her surprise at seeing him. Vlad froze in pl
ace beside her as she detached without realizing and glided forward to meet the gallery's surprise visitor.
Peter Franklin had been an associate and good friend of her father's for years. She had always thought him tall and in well-kept shape physically, but next to Vlad, she could see just how unremarkable Peter really was… and this was with him standing a few steps higher than Vlad. It surprised her that the Russian, who had found ways of keeping close to her all evening, now appeared to be hanging back and maintaining his distance from them.
"Maddie, I'm sorry." Peter Franklin forked a finger and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Looks like you're… I didn't mean to interrupt anything."
"'Maddie'?" Vlad observed the familiarity. His voice was as stiff as his posture. Madison darted him a look, wanting to be angry with his rudeness but unclear as to where it was coming from.
Finally, terribly, it clicked.
"Wait, do the two of you know each other?" Madison demanded.
An awkward silence descended between the three of them. She supposed that answered her question. Her skin prickled, and she knew her already-overworked complexion darkened in a hue indicative of her displeasure. Funny how the human body, or at least her body, could find every opportunity to flush and make her feelings known.
"I see," she said eventually. "You've worked together in the past. Maybe you even work together now."
"Purely a business arrangement," Peter interjected.
"How do the two of you know each other?" Vlad demanded. The heat behind his own version of the question startled Madison. It was almost as if he… but no, it couldn't be. There was no way Vlad Karev perceived a threat in Peter Franklin. What's more, there was no way he could actually be jealous of Madison's history with the other man, could he? Her friendship with Peter was entirely innocent. She couldn't decide if having it misconstrued now as anything otherwise would work in her favor, or only succeed in driving an unforeseen wedge between herself and Vlad.