“Brace yourself. Here it is,” he said.
The loft’s interior was cavernous. Piper stepped inside, and in one sweeping glance took in the three-story ceilings, the wide-open floor plan, and the elementary-school color scheme. Everywhere she looked, there was stark white or glossy black, punctuated by small bursts of primary colors.
A curving set of black metal stairs rose from the center of the space, leading to a shadowy upper level hovering over a portion of the room. The living area sported clear tables and white leather couches. Piper spotted a round red lamp and a huge, mostly-white canvas spattered with blue and black paint.
She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Wow,” she told him.
It all looked spectacularly uncomfortable, stark and cold enough to be an ultramodern art museum instead of someone’s home. It must have cost Red a bloody fortune.
Piper’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, and she forced a smile to her face. Her problem was suddenly a very different one than she’d anticipated. She wasn’t jealous of him—but she would have to pretend to like his taste. There was no way he wouldn’t be proud of this ghastly mess.
After the nice night they’d had, it seemed rude to hurt his feelings. Piper wasn’t entirely certain she could respect him after seeing this, however. The place just screamed “pretentious ass.”
Piper was saved from having to make immediate eye contact when Red eased her coat from her shoulders and placed it on a nearby chair, along with her purse.
“Bathroom is right in there,” he said, indicating a cracked door off to the side.
Piper marched over, happy to have a minute alone to compose herself. Sadly, once inside, she was faced with four walls papered in a design that evoked nothing so much as the demented scribbles of a truly deranged mind. She squeezed her eyes shut and peed as fast as she could, then washed her hands and bolted out of there like her pants were on fire. Ugh.
Red still stood where she’d left him. He turned to her with an expectant expression, and Piper couldn’t hide anymore.
“There you are. So, what do you—” Red regarded her and the corners of his mouth ticked up. “Oh my God,” he said.
Piper swallowed. Shit—she was busted. “What?”
Red’s brows veered together as he studied her face. “You actually hate it, don’t you?”
There was no fudging it. Piper really ought to look into some acting lessons or something.
“No. Really,” she tried. “It’s very nice.”
Red laughed outright at that. “Now I know you despise it.”
“Well, it’s not my taste, exactly, but…”
“But what?” He gazed steadily at her, amused by her fumbling. He didn’t seem hurt or angry, so at least there was that.
“Let’s just say, you’d better hope my parents never see this place,” Piper hedged. She might as well roll them under the bus. It wasn’t like they’d ever meet Red, and it would save her from having to tell him she thought his taste was atrocious.
Her comment merely piqued his curiosity, though. “Oh, really? And why is that?”
“My dad is ex-Army and my mom is a bit of a nervous nelly. What do you think?”
Piper could see her father’s dour face like it was right there, silently condemning all the ostentatious ugliness surrounding them. God forbid anyone asked him what to do about it, though—he’d only instruct them to figure it out.
And Piper knew that any attempts her mother might make to help would only hit left of center. Like the time Piper had decided to get fit so she would have a better chance of making her school soccer team, only to have her mother take up baking with a vengeance. Or the times she tried to cram for big tests, and her mom suddenly wanted to take her shopping all afternoon to de-stress her.
“I would think that with a daughter like you, they might be more receptive to creativity in all its forms,” Red smiled.
His eyes skated over Piper’s face, meticulously cataloging her expression and body language. He probably wasn’t even aware he was doing it. She’d bet he did that with everyone.
“That’s a laugh,” she fired back. “When I landed my first deal with Trident, my dad told me that if I was going to insist on being artsy-fartsy all my life, the least I could do was write a real book.”
That set Red back on his heels, all right. Piper couldn’t think of too many men who might give Padraig MacLellan a run for his money, but her father was definitely one of them.
“Just out of curiosity, what would constitute a ‘real’ book?”
“A comprehensive history of trench warfare. Naturally.”
“Of course,” he said. “How foolish of me.”
There was a long pause, in which Piper attempted to look around again without being too obvious or letting her eyes linger on any one hideous thing too long.
“Do your parents have any conception of how popular your books are?” Red inquired.
“They think I’m faking.” Piper blew out a long breath, remembering those excruciating conversations.
“Fascinating.”
Not even close. She cast around for a change in subject, but there was only one real direction for her to head in.
“So, did you pick all this out yourself?” Piper managed weakly.
“Almost none of it.” Red beamed, looking around. “My parents chose the apartment and gave it to me when I finished grad school. They said it would be good for a bachelor pad.”
“And the—” Piper cleared her throat and pushed on, “—the furniture and everything?”
“A decorator, obviously. My mother got restless when I didn’t buy much more than a mattress in the first few months I was here. She hired some friend of hers, and every day after work there’d be new stuff here. It went on for months.”
“And this is what happened.”
“Yup,” he said cheerfully. Red jammed his hands in his pockets and bounced on his toes a little as he looked around.
Piper spun away, trying to hold it together, but her eyes landed right on an enormous canvas on the brick wall beside her. She couldn’t help her astonished gasp. The horror.
“It’s gruesome, isn’t it?” Red laughed.
“Little bit. Yeah.”
“I’ve always thought it looked a lot like a crime scene,” he mused.
Piper stared upward. “Oh, God. You’re right. How do you even live with that atrocity every day?”
Red steered her deeper into the loft. “It’s no big deal. I just try to ignore it.”
Piper frowned, more troubled than before.
“What now?” he laughed, when he caught sight of her face. She had no idea why he might find her distress charming.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” she demanded.
“Why? Because it’s revolting?”
“No. Because it’s…it’s soulless. You didn’t choose any of this.” A broad sweep of her arm encompassed it all. “But you still have to live here, surrounded by an environment you don’t like, every single day.”
Red examined the huge factory windows set in the outer wall, and the grimy rooftops visible beyond. “I think you may be the first woman I’ve ever brought here who didn’t gush over it,” he mused, smirking back down at her again. “Or at a minimum, the first who admitted to not liking it. It’s amazing, frankly.”
Piper liked that Red was counting it as a point in her favor, but she couldn’t help ribbing him. She arched her eyebrows and prodded, “How many hordes of female visitors are we talking, exactly?”
Red snorted but didn’t bother answering. Instead, he explained, “Since I’m not here much, it never seemed worth the trouble to change everything. Why would I? Everyone else loved it.”
“Like that matters. Doesn’t your opinion rate at all?”
Red shrugged.
“Well, honestly,” Piper replied tartly, “If you’re going to base major decisions on what other people think, you really shouldn’t surround yourself with sycophants.”
“Syco—” Red burst out laughing. His eyes watered, and he chortled so much he couldn’t even finish the word. Before he recovered completely, he muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, “I ought to spank you for that little gem.”
Piper crossed her arms over her chest. He wouldn’t dare.
At last he pulled himself together, but mirth still creased the corners of his eyes. “Tell me, Miss Fulham—if you lived here, what would you pick instead?”
Piper’s first thought was that she’d never be able to afford the kind of place she’d seen in the movies, especially if her sales numbers continued to decline. But she decided it was all speculation anyway. Why not run with it?
Her mind wandered a bit before she murmured, “Hmm, probably one of those big, airy places that’s always in architecture magazines, with all the arched windows and crown molding.” As she warmed to the topic and Red’s curious expression, she added, “Parquet floors. Overlooking the park. And one of those long terraces with boxwood bushes and trees in big stone planters.” Piper couldn’t help appending, “And a friendly doorman.”
Red’s gaze went soft. He said quietly, “I could see that.” Then he cleared his throat. “In my defense, I did pick out a few things in this place.”
“Oh really?”
“Can I show you my favorite?”
“Definitely. Where is it?” Piper peeked around, desperately hoping it wasn’t one of the lurid sculptures scattered around.
“Upstairs in the bedroom. It’s a painting,” he explained.
Of course. “Not a scandalous etching?” Piper inquired, saccharine-sweet.
Red smirked again and took her elbow, leading her toward the staircase. “Unfortunately, not. But you can bet that’s an oversight I’ll be rectifying as soon as possible.”
Piper grinned as she climbed the curving stairs, then paused at the top, waiting for Red to direct her.
He flicked a light switch, dimly illuminating a larger area than she’d expected to see. His lair turned out to be a study in dark browns, moody and masculine. It wasn’t quite neat as a pin, not like the downstairs. Piper could almost believe the virile, seductive man next to her lived here. Slept here—fucked here.
She coughed and turned quickly around. Red was standing near the far wall, next to a painting that hung facing his bed, where he could see it when he woke up every morning. He gestured to it like a game show host, then moved away to turn on more lamps. Piper tried not to imagine him laying on that huge bed.
Red returned to stand easily next to her and studied the oil with an appraising eye. Piper could feel the heat coming off him. With his burnished auburn hair, towering frame, and sinfully-seductive face, Red was like a blaze burning at the center of the chocolate-brown room. She wanted to melt for him.
The painting he was perusing was an abstract, but unlike the others downstairs, this one was soft and muted. As she examined it, too, Piper decided it reminded her of a forest, cold and barren at the end of winter. White sky, gray and black tree trunks, brown mulch blanketing the ground. She thought there might be the faintest suggestion of tiny green buds, beginning to emerge on some branches.
Despite the lack of definition in the brushstrokes, Piper could almost feel the brisk bite of the air on her face. Smell the rotted leaves and icy frost. It was the diametric opposite of the city that surrounded Red’s apartment. It beckoned you in, and if it were a real place, Piper would want to walk there with Red, bundled up and hand in hand.
She pulled back and refocused on his face. What did he see when he looked at it? Maybe not a forest, but a worn stone wall, streaked with mold or algae? Or maybe Red simply saw more dripping paint.
He turned to her, and his hazy brown eyes gradually cleared. “You can hear the twigs snapping underfoot, can’t you?” he asked, looking almost sheepish.
Piper nodded eagerly, delighted that they saw it the same way, after all. Red’s eyes flicked over her shoulder to his bed, then quickly back to her face. “I won it at an auction one time,” he said quickly.
“Lucky you.”
He peeked at his bed once more, and Piper began to wonder if she was finally going to get kissed again. Instead, Red squared his shoulders. “Dessert,” he announced. “Before we go. I got tiramisu at the Italian market.”
No make-out session, then. Piper sighed and trooped after him to the stairs. “Yum,” was about the best she could muster.
Down in the kitchen, Red parked her on a tall metal barstool while he pulled out some plates and forks. “Would you like some coffee?”
“No thanks.”
Red plunked a slice of the dessert in front of Piper, then settled on the next stool to dig into his own piece.
Her first bite melted on her tongue in a miasma of espresso, custard, and liquor-soaked cake. Piper groaned. “Oh my God. This is so good.”
His eyes drifted briefly to her mouth before he nodded. “It’s my favorite.”
“If I could find it this good at home, it would be mine too.”
Red finished off his portion in about five bites, then turned and watched Piper work her way through hers. “Are you tired?” he asked at last. “Or do you think you still have that extra stop in you?”
“This wasn’t it?”
“If you recall, this was the unscheduled potty break.”
“Ah. Right. Well, what did you have in mind?”
“I have a club about ten minutes from here. If you want, we can go have a quick drink and listen to some music. I’ll show you around, and then I promise I’ll let you go.”
Piper didn’t expect Red had ever let something go without a fight, but if the object in question was her, who was she to complain? Besides, there were bigger issues at play—because it had sounded an awful lot like he’d just said, I have a club. She definitely needed to see that.
“I’m down,” she told him, unhooking her heel from the rung of the barstool and letting her foot swing free. Red’s eyes tracked the movement immediately, turning hot and hungry.
“Good. Much as I’d like to be the only one who gets to see those damn shoes,” he muttered, “They probably deserve a wider audience.”
“You got that right,” Piper told him, leaning closer.
She was only a breath away by the time Red realized what she was doing. He ripped his gaze from her shoes, met her challenging stare with one of his own, and set her heart galloping in her chest.
Piper glanced at his impossibly sexy mouth and her breath hitched. Red made a low, sexy sound deep in his throat, and then, finally, his mouth was meeting hers. Her lips parted, his tongue swept in, and all the grotesque décor around them spun away in a fog of cocoa-flavored lust.
TWELVE
RED HAD NO idea how he’d managed to let Piper go. It felt like an insurmountable task when she was standing two feet from his bed, and positively Herculean once she’d basically invited him to taste her in his kitchen.
Tiramisu-flavored Piper. Fucking hell, Red wasn’t likely to forget that anytime soon.
Somehow, he’d gotten them back out of his apartment without tumbling Piper onto the nearest horizontal surface, but that was mainly because she’d seemed a little skittish when they were there. Her mood hadn’t been screaming Take me now, so much as Dear God, I think that art wants to kill me.
It really was past time for Red to make some adjustments to the décor in his loft. He’d been ignoring it for too long, but maybe Miss Piper could help rectify the situation.
He couldn’t fault her taste, after all. After a brief spell of agonizing in the back of his car, she’d decided to don her new red fuck-me heels for their stop at the club—and Red couldn’t take his eyes off them.
Unfortunately, neither could Piper. In between watching the dancers, she kept stealing glances at her feet, obviously smitten beyond all reason. Hell, even Red’s dick wanted to get in on the action, flexing like a Jersey shore bodybuilder behind his zipper, hoping for its own look-see.
He winced and readjusted him
self on the leather loveseat for the umpteenth time. Security had commandeered the upstairs VIP area for him and Piper the moment they’d arrived, and fortunately, they’d been left alone after that. If Red was forced to get up and walk around right then, people would be in for quite a show.
“If I had known how much I would have to compete with those shoes for your attention,” he told Piper drily, “I’m not sure I would have been so eager to get them for you.”
She pulled her gaze from the mass of gyrating bodies below the balcony and giggled. “They’re a little like wingtips on ecstasy, aren’t they?” Piper took another happy slurp of her second whiskey and ginger ale, and Red wondered if she was getting tipsy. That would be something.
He draped an arm around her shoulders, unable to resist getting closer. “I’ll give you this,” he said. “Your facility with words is not limited to the printed page.”
Piper sighed and snuggled into his side, and Red wanted to thump his chest like a fucking gorilla. He inhaled the light scent of her perfume and the warm fragrance that was simply her.
“If you say so.” She turned her head to look up at him and her eyes went seductively hazy. “Guess what? My wingtips are better than your wingtips,” she teased, drawing out the syllables and making him burn even hotter.
The sass of her. Piper was lucky Red didn’t yank her onto his lap and take her right there in front of all and sundry. The lights were low, the bass was thumping in time with the insistent pulse of his blood, and Piper was caged securely in his arms. As plan Bs went, this was nearly as good as having her back at his house was.
Red had just bent to have another taste of that tempting, whiskey-laced mouth when a sudden camera flash exploded in his peripheral vision.
“Fuck,” he growled, leaping up and blocking Piper with his body. That sure hadn’t taken long.
He threw his hand out, reaching through the spots dancing across his vision to clamp onto the paparazzo’s arm before the little weasel managed to dart away. The guy looked indignant, like he was getting ready to work himself into an epic tantrum. Too bad.
The Titan Was Tall (Triple Threat Book 1) Page 13