‘I was sketching it earlier,’ she said. ‘Before the first rainstorm.’
He looked up at the sky and smiled. ‘OK, maybe tonight you win. But only for a few minutes. It’s supposed to rain again any time now.’
‘Guess we’d better enjoy it while we can then,’ she said, still looking up at the moon. ‘I’ll get the pizza and we can eat here.’
She turned to go, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her back, pulled her into his arms. ‘Pizza’s not what I’m hungry for at the moment.’ He dropped the sketchpad on the floor and settled a lazy, lingering kiss on her lips with his opportunistic tongue darting into her mouth when she gasped her surprise. ‘Pizza’s not going anywhere, and I have it on good authority that you love it cold.’
‘Mmm.’ She slipped her arms around his neck. ‘Garrett Thorne has a big mouth.’
‘Yes, he does, and I plan to take full advantage of it. If you won’t talk, he seems more than willing.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he is, but don’t believe everything he says. Remember, he is my ex.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ His hand slid over her bottom and groped for the edge of her skirt, which he shoved up until he could feel the top of her stockings and garter belt. ‘If you dress like this before the gallery’s even open, I can’t wait to see what happens when it’s up and running.’
She slid his jacket off to land on the floor with a soft swish and began work on the buttons of his plaid shirt. ‘I’ve had meetings with VIPs all day and haven’t had the chance to change yet.’ She didn’t tell him that now she was always dressed and ready for Jamison. She couldn’t afford to give the man the slightest hint of weakness. For a brief second, the tension in her belly was not arousal, but visceral fear, fear for the man in her arms. And just when she was ready to push him away and tell him he had to leave, the moon’s veil dance with the clouds sent bright shafts of silver through the glass, highlighting his face, his beautiful face, with its sun-freckled skin and its tight growth of beard, which looked like it fit the wild outdoors he loved. She felt the slight callous of his hand against the tender skin of her bottom. His other hand was wound fist-deep in her hair. In that moment, the heart of the man was laid bare in the clothes he wore, in the boldness of him coming to her just as he was, in his excitement to share with her his passion, excitement for her to be the first to enter his secret world. And she was lost. She could no more turn him away than she could stop breathing.
‘I need you now, Stacie.’ His voice was coarse with arousal. ‘I’m too hyped after tonight; I’m too full of the experience, the experience I wanted to share with you.’ He pulled aside the crotch of her panties and stroked the soft humidity he had exposed, his breath catching, no doubt at the feel of how much she needed him too, as she bore down onto his caressing fingers.
She fumbled desperately with his fly. As she freed his erection into her hand, he produced a condom from one of the multiple pockets in his pants. Then, together, they sheathed and maneuvered until he plopped down ass-first on the hard wood floor and she straddled him. He guided her until she sat on his lap, facing him in the flood of moonlight, then, with a slight shifting of his hips, he penetrated her, not gently, but deeply, intensely, urgently, as though he couldn’t wait, as though it had to happen now.
‘Oh God, Stacie,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘You feel so damn good.’
She had managed enough buttons of his shirt for the two of them to wrangle it off over his head. He returned the favor, first with her blouse, and then with inpatient pulls and tugs at the straps of her bra until her breasts tumbled free into his hands, and then pressed up tight against his chest. Everything else was subsumed in pushing and thrusting and rocking, the contours of their bodies undulating in the silver and slate of the intense moonlight.
The scent of him rose like the tide on the rocks and washed over her own scent, reshaping and devouring the smell of desire at its peak before they tumbled into orgasm, orgasm that blended more than just their scent, orgasm that somehow blended the driving force of each of their lives and their passions.
‘Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a powerful picture of a great horned owl,’ Stacie whispered, almost as though she were afraid her voice might scare the bird away.’
‘I know,’ Harris said. ‘I thought the shots I got last time were good, but these … Wow! It was almost like the bird knew I was there and didn’t care. I’m anthropomorphizing, I suppose, but I really did feel a connection.’
‘It shows.’ Stacie scooted closer for an even better look at the image Harris had pulled up on the iPad. ‘I wasn’t wrong to choose you for my photography exhibition,’ she said. ‘Was this your experience when you photographed the mountain lions?’
‘No! God, no!’ He rubbed his bare arms as though he were cold. ‘I wasn’t in control in that situation at all. I was damned lucky, really. I was shaking so bad I’m amazed any of the shots turned out, and they tolerated me. They knew I was there. They never let me forget it. And every second felt like a gift, a gift they could take away from me at any moment.’
She leaned in, pressing a kiss against his bicep. ‘It must have been the most amazing experience ever.’
‘Well, one of them.’ He slipped his arms around her and gave her a lingering kiss, then pulled her back down onto the floor beneath the skylight, which was now pockmarked with the soft sizzle of rain. They were both still naked. Stacie was amazed at how comfortable Harris was with nakedness. Why she had thought him to be prudish, she couldn’t remember now. After they’d made love, he came out of the post-coital bliss like a ravenous lion, shoving pizza into his mouth and feeding her as though she were one of the begging branchers in the owl family, first from his fingertips, then from his lips in a rough and tumble across the floor that had both of them licking tomato sauce and mushrooms from nipples and napes and thighs.
In the fridge, she found a couple bottles of Mirror Pond she’d stashed for those long overnighters, and they had shared them, him leaning on the wall, with her back up against his chest. That worked well until he deliberately began to miss his mouth and drizzle beer over her nipples and down her belly. That had been an hour ago, and now the room smelled of beer and pizza and sex. She wondered what kind of message that would send visiting dignitaries. She’d have to make sure and pay the cleaners a little extra the next time. Eventually, they’d managed a shower, but even that had taken way longer than it should have. She had planned her office space after Ellis’ at the Pneuma Building. She had wanted it to be a living space because it would be, as the New York gallery had been, so much a part of her life. So there was a lovely shower with plenty of room to share.
Harris nuzzled her neck and ran a hand through the tangle of her hair. ‘Why do I feel like I should have a camera on you, Stacie, like I should be observing you from the safety of the hide so you won’t bolt?’
‘Probably because you’re a smart man with good instincts, Harris,’ she answered, circling his nipples in turn with her index finger.
‘Garrett said you knew way more about the great outdoors than either he or Ellis did back when you were growing up together.’
‘I did all right for myself.’
He laughed. ‘All right for yourself? Mother was a naturalist, father a Russian translator assigned to work with her at Lake Baikal. You were born there, weren’t you?’
‘Garrett really does have a big mouth,’ Stacie said, giving his nipple a pinch that made him flinch then roll to pin her beneath him.
‘Lucky for me.’
She studied him against the skylight and felt the knot tighten once more in her stomach, warning her she was making a mistake, reminding her there were very good reasons why she shouldn’t let him into her life. ‘Harris, there are things about me both Garrett and Ellis could tell you that aren’t anywhere nearly as glamorous. And there are things … Things even they don’t know …’
He covered her mouth again with his and she could feel his returning erection pres
sing against the inside of her thigh where he had wriggled his hips so he was poised and ready. He pulled away, breathless. ‘You can’t scare me away, Stacie Emerson, so stop trying.’
‘You’re either brave or stupid, Harris Walker,’ she managed in between nips and kisses. ‘The jury’s still out.’
‘Either way,’ he said. He ran a splayed hand down her belly and eased it over her mons and between her legs. She shifted her hips, opening to him as though to do so were the most natural thing in the world. It was certainly the most desirable. It had been a long time since one man had moved her so powerfully. His mouth followed the trail along her belly, then to the tops of her thighs and made an assault down between to find her open and ready. His kisses were accented with little nips of his lips and his front teeth and alternated with deep, diving, open-mouth gulps of her, from her clit all the way back to her anus. And when she juddered and bucked her first orgasm, he held her tight, mouth still pressed against her opening, the heat of his heavy breath grazing the swell of her clit. She curled her fingers in his wild hair and held on to him until she was a little less sensitive, until she could breathe again. Then she realized that his mouth was on the move, making a delicate feather path up the valley of her toward her clit. A sharp nip sent her tumbling over into orgasm again, just as he rose and pressed into her, this time not waiting for her to calm. This time he rode in hard and deep and mercilessly until they both came together and the room echoed with their cries of pleasure.
Later, much later, he asked her, ‘Why won’t you tell me what’s going on with you and Jamison?’
She pushed away from him and sat up. The sky above was now iron grey with the coming of dawn.
‘Was he your lover?’ Harris asked, moving to sit next to her, taking her into his arms when he realized she was shivering.
‘No. No, he wasn’t a lover. He was never a lover.’ There was no disguising the venom in her voice, nor did she try. There were times when the amount of hatred she felt for the man couldn’t be disguised. ‘I need a shower, Harris. The workers will be here in a little while. I’ve got another appointment with Martin and the security guys, and Carla’s coming over to show me the videos of the interviews.’ This time she didn’t invite him to join her.
Chapter Twenty
The dreams were mostly disconnected images, like flashes on a movie screen, only there for a second and then gone. Images of being gnawed on by something with sharp teeth, something she could never quite see; images of sculpting a piece of white marble while Terrance Jamison told her which bits to chip away next. She wasn’t sure it was the images or the sound of voices that woke her. Clearly Mr. Jamison wasn’t alone in the suite. It was a male voice she could hear. She wondered what someone was doing there in the middle of the night, but a squint toward the window told her it was after dawn. Still a strange time for a visit.
The conversation was muffled at first, but as she rose from the bed and went to the bathroom to pee, she could hear more clearly. At the mention of Stacie Emerson, she froze in her tracks and held her breath, listening. Could this be another exciting plan Mr. Jamison was hatching to further her career? If it was, certainly Stacie Emerson was the person who could do it. She still felt bad about blowing off the dinner after the art auction in New York – especially since she was the person of honor. It was really rude now that she’d had time to think about it, and surely it wouldn’t have hurt Mr. Jamison to wait until the next day to wine her and dine her. But, at the time, none of that mattered. At the time, all that really mattered was that her work had sold for a million dollars and she had caught the attention of someone with the funds and the connections to push her career into high gear.
‘I told you not to come here,’ Mr. Jamison was saying. His voice was clipped and impatient. ‘You’ve been tailing Stacie Emerson ever since she settled in Portland, and you’re just now getting back to me. This had better be good, Baker.’
Tailing Stacie Emerson? Ingrid held her breath and inched her way closer on tiptoes. Why was this man tailing Stacie?
‘Oh, I think you’ll find it worth your while,’ the man responded smugly, which made Ingrid cringe. Jeez! She’d been with Mr. Jamison long enough to know being smug in his presence was never a good idea. The thought made her stomach knot and her palms sweat. Baker continued, ‘She’s been hanging out with Harris Walker, you know, the –’
‘I know who he is,’ Jamison interrupted.
‘Of course. Anyway, she wants Walker to do an exhibition for the opening of her gallery.’
‘I know that too, Baker. Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘Well, I’ll let the pictures do the talking.’ Ingrid could hear the rattling of paper. ‘These were taken a week and a half ago at Walker’s home on his lake. It’s clear they’re … intimate. I suspected as much when I tailed them at the Boiling Point, but there was a raid and I lost them in the crowd. These – well, these were taken after the woman had been wandering around on the Bald Hill clear-cut. Walker, it seems, came to her rescue.’
The silence prickled along Ingrid’s spine, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck. What in the world was going on, and what difference did it make if Stacie Emerson was boinking someone? She was an adult. She could do what she wanted. Ingrid recalled a mention of Harris Walker in some of the Portland research she’d done. He was a wildlife photographer and apparently a brilliant one. She hadn’t paid much attention. It had nothing to do with her.
At last Jamison spoke. ‘Is there any indication this is more than a one-off?’
‘I’ve just come from her gallery where he spent the night,’ Baker said. ‘I suppose they could have been working, but he showed up late with a pizza and left this morning a couple of hours before the work crews got there.’
There was another charged silence, ending in an explosion that sounded like shattered glass. Ingrid jumped and felt every nerve in her body go tense as she clasped a hand tightly over her mouth to keep from yelping in surprise.
‘She knows better than this,’ Jamison was saying. ‘The bitch knows better than this. It’ll cost her, and it’ll cost him. Why can’t she just behave herself? Why does she have to be such a little whore?’
Ingrid felt as if she had been slapped. How could he even say such things about Stacie Emerson, the Stacie Emerson? The woman was a goddess in her field. Everyone admired and adored her. She had a high enough profile that if she were sleeping around the gossip rags would have picked up on it, and even if she were, that was her business and her right. It had nothing to do with Jamison. Nothing!
Suddenly it was all she could do to stand on her trembling legs. Quickly, she returned to the bed. She hadn’t turned on the light and, for a long moment, she sat there, holding her breath, trying to gauge just what was going on and how long she might have. Mr. Jamison never actually slept with her, once they’d had sex. She wasn’t sure where he went or what he did after, but he’d probably leave her on her own until morning. If she kept her head down, he’d never know that she’d overheard. If she just pretended she was asleep, then tomorrow … tomorrow what? She found herself desperate to be safely back on the farm with her father, working in the old barn he’d cleared for her. Her stomach lurched so hard that she feared she’d vomit, and it wasn’t the alcohol. If Jamison was going to make this Harris Walker pay for sleeping with Stacie Emerson, then would going home put her father at risk? Dear God, how had she gotten herself into this mess?
From the nightstand next to her bed she grabbed her iPhone, doing her best to be quiet. She emailed Stacie Emerson.
Ms. Emerson, I’m in town with Terrance Jamison. I’d love to see you as soon as possible. I was just wondering, are you all right? Is Mr. Walker all right?
‘What are you doing up?’ Jamison’s voice broke into the silence. She jumped as though she had been shot. But she somehow had the presence of mind to press “send” before he took the phone from her hand.
She offered him a weak smile and a little sob. ‘I w
as having bad dreams. I woke up and decided to email my father. I miss him. I know that sounds strange, but we’re close.’
He settled onto the bed next to her, still holding her phone in his hand, and she tried not to stiffen when he touched her to stroke her cheek and push her mussed hair away from her face. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your dreams, darling. I was actually afraid I’d woken you. I had some business to attend to and my colleague knocked a vase off the table.’ His smile was solicitous, but his eyes were unreadable.
‘I … I suppose that might have been what woke me from the dream. I don’t know, what with the busy day and the alcohol. Normally I don’t drink much. That sort of muddles my brain, you know?’
With no more effort than the caress he’d just been indulging in, his large hand moved down to press hard against either side of her trachea. ‘Don’t lie to me, Ingrid. Don’t ever, ever lie to me. You’re not very good at it, and I make my living detecting when people are lying.’ Then he leaned in and kissed her ever so gently, all the while his hand threatened to cut off her breath. ‘I get very angry when someone lies to me, so don’t ever do that. Do you understand?’
She nodded carefully, trying not to increase the pressure of his hand at her throat, trying desperately not to cry. At this point, crying would definitely not help.
‘Good girl,’ he purred, releasing his grip as though it had been nothing. ‘I’m glad we understand each other so that it won’t happen again.’ Carefully, he laid the iPhone back on her nightstand.
She was so relieved that he hadn’t looked at her message, so relieved to have his hand off her throat that she didn’t see the first blow coming.
Chapter Twenty-one
It was like déjà vu. Harris found himself wondering how a night that was so hot and so full of promise ended with him fucking it up. Again! The connection between Stacie and Terrance Jamison had all sorts of alarm bells going off in his head loud and clear. He didn’t like it, hadn’t liked it from the beginning. And, frankly, he was really scared for Stacie. He liked that even less.
The Exhibition (An Executive Decision Trilogy) Page 18