“Oh.” She’d had no idea.
“Me and some buddies, we’re in this outdoor adventuring club. We go all over the place. Ski or snowboard in the winter, hike mountains when it’s nice.”
It was the first thing he’d ever said to her—besides the fact that he liked to tie girls up and tell them what to do in bed—that had made even the tiniest bit of sense. This big, rough-hewn man—he didn’t belong in a skyscraper, wearing a tie or fetching coffees. The calluses on his hands were too deep, his muscles earned. He wasn’t a gym rat and he wasn’t a slouch.
“My favorite, though,” he said, and when had she ever heard him string this many words together before? “Sometimes, we get all our gear. Go out into the Adirondacks, and there are these places. Bridges, platforms.”
Her brows reached for her hairline. “And?”
“And we jump off ’em.”
“You what?”
“With a bungee cord. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”
She smacked him on his arm for that last bit, only for him to grab her by the wrist. Then placing their palms together, he interlaced their fingers.
For a second all she could do was stare. Here she was—Alexis Bellamy, second in line to the Bellamy fortune. Sitting on a park bench on a gorgeous Saturday morning.
Holding hands with a boy.
If she hadn’t been there, she never would have believed it.
Oblivious to the way the earth was tilting, Dane just squeezed her palm and soldiered on. “It’s amazing, you know. Free fall. All your adrenaline gets pumping, and you step up to the edge, and for a second your body fights you. It knows. No matter how many times you tell yourself it’s perfectly safe, you’re about to take a dive off into nothing, and your muscles lock up.” Wonder colored his tone, making it richer, deeper.
She glanced away from their hands, into eyes the color of the mountains he was talking about, and her pulse roared like a river in her ears.
“But you do it anyway,” he said. “You make that leap, and then everything else just . . . goes. And it’s you and the sky, and . . .”
He trailed off, but in that instant, she was pretty sure she got it. She knew how that must feel.
Because every time he challenged her, or kissed her, or told her she needed to loosen up—every time he held her hand. It was just a little bit like that.
Like stepping up to an edge. And letting herself fall into the unknown.
Out of nowhere, self-consciousness stole over Dane. Lexie was staring at him with an expression he couldn’t read. He’d probably said too much. Babbling about what it felt like to fall and fall for ages to a girl raised in a boardroom and a Manhattan high-rise. Like she could relate.
Problem was, something in her eyes gave him this crazy idea that maybe she could.
She looked away. He’d talked her into wearing her hair down today, and she’d gone along with it easily enough, but all morning she’d been fussing with it. She tucked a strand behind her ear. “Maybe—maybe next weekend, if we’re still here. We can get out of town.”
He blinked. “Really?”
She’d asked him to spend the day with her, so he shouldn’t be too surprised. But an entire weekend? Not working? Of course he was skeptical.
“Sure.” She shrugged, twisted the end of a bit of her hair around her fingers. “I don’t know where we’d go, but there has to be something. Maybe up in the Pyrenees.”
“You’re saying you want to go roughing it in the wilderness with me?”
Her mouth twisted sourly. “I don’t know about roughing it, but a little wilderness is okay.”
He raised his brow.
She mock-swatted at him. “I’m keeping an open mind, all right?”
That was all he’d ever asked of her. Taking her to bed or for a night on the town or out this morning just to explore this foreign city. It was all he’d wanted.
Grasping her wrist, he tugged her closer. He slung his arm around her shoulder, dipping to press his lips to the crown of her head. His heart pounded. It was more affection than he’d shown to her in public so far. She was keeping an open mind there as well, apparently. She let herself be held, and he squeezed her, grateful.
“That sounds nice, then.” He wasn’t going to get his hopes up, but the idea of some fresh air, some fucking space . . . It made the sounds of traffic and the incessant crowds of people fade away.
For a minute, they sat there together like that, the moment stretching. Before it could snap, he loosened his grip. She took his cue, pulling back a fraction. His throat was tight for reasons he couldn’t entirely name.
They still hadn’t talked about . . . well, anything. Not about limits or safe BDSM, and not about what they were to each other beyond a boss and her subordinate fucking. And going out for drinks. And holding hands on a bench in Spain.
But all of a sudden, it seemed a lot less casual than it had just a second before.
Wetting his lips, he nodded toward his phone, still held in her hand. “So. What else is on that list?”
She shook her head, as if coming out of a fog, and it only made his throat tighten harder. “Oh. Um.”
She woke the screen and handed it over when it prompted for his passcode. He entered it in and gave it back.
As she scrolled, he peered over her shoulder. There were plenty of experiences to be had in Barcelona. Most of them seemed to revolve around eating and drinking, and he certainly wasn’t one to complain about any of that. But there had to be something else . . .
She paused in her scrolling, sliding up a little before stilling.
He read the screen for her, eyes narrowing. “Picasso?”
“There’s a whole museum for him, apparently.”
Yeah, he could see that. There was a picture and everything. He couldn’t quite suppress his frown, but she wasn’t looking, so it didn’t matter. Museums were . . . boring, honestly. Crowded, more often than not.
“Do you mind?” She whipped her head around, giving him just enough time to school his expression.
“It’s not my favorite.” He stopped, swallowing as the hopeful look in her eyes fell away. Fuck. He forced a smile. “But, hey. What’s an hour or two?”
It’d be better than that market had been, if nothing else.
“You sure you don’t mind?”
Ugh, this was torture. “It’s fine.” He took his phone back and clicked on the link to the map. “We’re not even that far away.”
“We don’t have to. It’s just . . .” She bit her lip. When she looked at him again, it was with this openness to her face. He’d never seen it on her before this trip. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to get used to it.
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to end up doing anything to get to see it again.
“Just . . .”
“My brother—the little one. Evan. He’s in art school right now, and we have this tradition. It’s silly.”
Had he even known there was another Bellamy? “What is it?”
“I send him pictures of art I see, and it’s all been terrible lately. Crappy hotel paintings or corporate art. I bet he’d get a kick out of me sending him something decent for once.”
For a second, his heart squeezed hard.
He and Jake had had their traditions, too. Nothing as hoity-toity as sending each other snapshots of paintings. It had more been postcards from whenever his brother went adventuring somewhere out of town. He still had them all. The Grand Canyon and Yosemite and these dunes out in the mesas beneath a sky that looked as big as the entire world.
“Oh,” he said, sandpaper tearing his lungs.
Her brows furrowed. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” He shook it off.
Jake wasn’t here anymore. But Lexie was, and she still had the people in her life who mattered to her.
So fuck it. They were going to go look at some stupid art.
chapter THIRTEEN
“I promise, we don’t have to stay long.” Lexie threw a
worried glance at Dane as she waited for her change.
With a thickly accented “Enjoy your visit,” the cashier passed a few coins under the glass, along with their tickets. Lexie handed one to Dane.
He took it, letting their fingers brush. “It’s okay.”
She still didn’t quite believe him, though. The idea of touring a museum didn’t seem to make him as twitchy as the crowded market had, but it clearly wasn’t his first choice.
“If it helps at all,” she said, casting about, “there’ll probably be some pictures of naked ladies.”
He cocked a brow. “If I wanted to look at a naked lady, I could have just stayed at the hotel.”
Boldness filled her, and she met his challenge with one of her own. “Play your cards right and you might get both.”
“Lead on,” he said, gaze flashing dark.
She swept through the entrance, past the bookshop and the clusters of tourists. She had a map in hand, and she consulted it as she walked, but she wasn’t entirely sure why she bothered. The nuances of Picasso’s early work versus his late were lost on her.
Evan would have known. Or her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Kate.
Lexie’s stomach took a bit of a dip.
What was she even doing here? Dane was going to be bored, and honestly, she didn’t want to spend all that long here, either. She wasn’t completely uneducated about art or anything, but it had been her mother’s thing and Evan’s thing. Lexie had been too busy trying to follow her father around to pay much attention. She didn’t have a creative bone in her body.
But sitting there on that bench, she’d seen the image of the gallery, and her heart had leapt. Maybe it was all the talk of brothers in general. Hearing Dane’s voice go rough as he mentioned what had happened to his brother had her missing hers with a fierceness that had blindsided her.
She’d gotten Rylan back this fall, but the only times she got to see Evan were when he stayed with her over the holidays. He’d been living on the other side of the country for years now, and he gave no sign of ever planning to return. But there was this part of her—the one that had grown up with him—that always expected him to be trailing after her, just one step behind.
She’d always wanted to be like Rylan as a child. On some level, she still did. But he’d been the heir, while she and Evan had been the spares. Too young or too female to be included in the family business, they’d been each other’s companions.
Blinking hard against the sudden stinging behind her eyes, she slowed her gait, coming to a halt. Dane nearly slammed into her, catching himself just in time with a hand at the base of her spine, and she shivered into the touch.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Fine.”
Her vision cleared, the haze of the past receding enough that she could focus on where she was. She’d made it quite a way into the museum without really seeing much, and now she found herself in a plain room, surrounded by paintings she didn’t understand and didn’t know what to do with.
Fighting down the squirming feeling in her chest, she spun in a slow circle, taking it all in. There—that one. It had these curving lines and vivid colors. A figure that seemed like it could be staring right at her.
Had there been anything saying she couldn’t take pictures? She couldn’t remember, but none of the guards seemed to be paying her any mind. She grabbed her phone out of her pocket and unlocked the screen. Without even bothering with filters or cropping, she snapped a quick shot of the painting and sent it before she could second-guess herself.
Now what? Jesus. All this fretting and twenty euros, and that was all she’d come here for? One little snapshot?
She barely had a chance to obsess about it, though, because the next thing she knew, her phone buzzed in her hand. Crap, it really shouldn’t have surprised her to see Evan’s ugly mug staring back at her—she’d just texted him less than a minute ago. But somehow, it did.
Holding up one finger to Dane, she swiped to accept the call, bringing her phone to her ear. “Evan?”
Well, that got the guards looking at her all right. Casting apologetic looks at them and at Dane as well, she ducked her head and beat a fast retreat.
“Okay.” Evan’s voice came across the line as she scurried, deep and unmistakable. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”
“Um . . .”
“I mean, there are a lot of things I can chock up as a fluke, but this?”
She frowned. Every room just emptied out into another room, but finally she hit a hallway and spied a sign for the stairs. She ducked that way and around a corner, tucked away enough that maybe she could talk for a minute without getting any dirty looks. “Excuse me?”
“Lexie. Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“. . . No?”
“For the first time in, what, a decade? You. Alexis Bellamy. Sent me art that was good.”
The bubble of worry in her chest deflated all at once. She hadn’t known what the hell he was getting at there, but he’d actually had her worried. “Oh please. Don’t act so surprised.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m shocked. Flabbergasted. Speechless.”
“Well, clearly not that one.”
“Oh, be quiet. Where the hell are you?”
“The Picasso Museum.”
A beat passed. “The Picasso. In Spain.”
“I’m here for work,” she said, suddenly defensive.
He snorted. “Yeah, I kind of figured as much.”
Something in his tone hooked her just beneath the ribs. “What? I could be traveling for fun.”
“Sure, and I could be going back for my MBA.” That one kind of grated, too, but he didn’t give her time to dwell on it. “Seriously, though, what are you doing in a museum?”
Hadn’t she just been wondering that herself? “I don’t know.” It felt even sillier now. “I’m taking the day off, and it seemed like something to do.”
Silence passed across the line, and Lexie frowned, pacing the end of the corridor, shooting glances over her shoulder, but she still had the space to herself.
“You mean, it sounds like something Mom would have made you do.”
She started, flinching as if the phone had burned her. “What? No.”
“Do you have a better explanation?”
Of course she did. There was all the sappy shit she’d been telling herself about missing her brother and wanting to feel closer to him. But did that really entirely explain it?
The fact of the matter was, whenever the family was abroad—whenever their mother could be bothered to spend her precious time with them—she’d always taken them to museums. Surrounded by art, that distant, distracted woman they’d grown up with had come alive.
And so here Lexie was. On her own, deigning to spend time with the person she was closest to of anyone on this boondoggle of a business trip, and what was the first place she had taken him?
She rolled her eyes at herself, blinking hard to keep the moisture beading up from smudging her mascara. “What did Mom ever see in this stuff anyway?”
Evan chuckled. “Wrong brother to ask, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
Because Evan was the artist of the family. The one to follow their mother’s gaze and be entranced.
His voice softened. “Hey. Lex.”
“Yeah?”
“I think it’s great you’re taking a day off and all, but do me a favor, okay?”
“What’s that?”
“Get out of there. Go do something you want to do.”
The hook behind her ribs twisted and pulled. It was good advice—freeing and generous.
And it was also just like their mother waving her off, telling her to go bother someone else. Shepherding Evan off to an art class. Sending Rylan to chase after their father. Leaving her alone.
“Like what?” she asked, choked.
“Pretty sure that’s for you to figure out.”
Apparently, that was all the good-bye
they needed. The line went dead. Lexie made sure the call had disconnected, then dropped her arm. Taking a staggering step backward to lean against the wall, she squeezed her phone in her palm hard enough she feared it would crack.
“Well, fuck you, too,” she muttered.
God, she loved her brother, but sometimes he could be such a prick.
She stayed there for a minute, working to get her head on straight, but it didn’t seem to be any use.
Emerging from her hiding spot, she reentered the gallery, half expecting Dane to be waiting right there. When he wasn’t, she frowned. That wasn’t particularly like him. Then again, he was off the clock—no professional obligation to go chasing her around.
She hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings as she’d searched for a quiet place to take Evan’s call. Retracing her steps the best she could, she wandered through the grid of little interconnected rooms, scanning for Dane all the while.
Eventually, she found herself face to face with the painting she’d sent Evan the picture of in the first place. She spun in a circle, frowning. When Dane hadn’t followed her, she’d figured he’d just waited for her here, but apparently not.
Her fingers drifted toward her phone. She should probably ping him and ask him where the hell he was. But instead, she crossed her arms. Gazed at the figures on the canvas and stewed.
What was it about this that she was missing? Her mom and her brother both ate it up. They acted like it spoke to their souls or something. It wasn’t even all that pretty, the faces too stylized, the colors so bright they hurt her eyes. She shivered, staring into it as if she could see right through to the other side.
She might have stood there for a minute or an hour. Eventually, though, a subtle change in the air brought her back to herself. The warm, woodsy scent, the calm presence. She shifted her weight but kept her gaze just where it was.
Only when the moment stretched on, Dane saying nothing, did she dart her gaze over her shoulder. He stood there, close enough that if she so much as breathed their bodies would be brushing.
She looked away and said the first thing on her mind. “My brother Rylan. He’s getting married to an artist, you know.”
Nine Kinds of Naughty Page 14