“Deep.” I moaned with relief when he slid into me. My body clenched and then gave way to his invasion. “Hard. I need it hard.”
He withdrew almost completely and then slid into me hard, then rocked against me. Gasping, I let my legs drop to the bed and used my feet as leverage as he repeatedly withdrew and then hammered into me. It was perfect, he was perfect, and I was a goner.
Our bodies dampened with sweat, and I lost myself in the steady slap of his skin against mine until I came in a rush of emotion and physical relief. I collapsed against the bed and held him tight as he rocked against me and found his own release.
12
“So which one of those witches is poisoning my ficus?”
“The one that wore red today.” Mathias ran his hand down my back gently and then back up again. “Cold-looking blond with the fake tits.”
“They’re fake?”
“Yeah.” He laughed softly. “I can’t believe you can’t tell.”
“Normally, I’m very good at judging plastic surgery or real.”
“She’s fake all over. I think her ass might be fake too.”
“No way.”
“’Check it out next time you see her.”
I lifted my head and met his gaze. “Why are you looking at her ass?”
“Cause I’m a man and that’s what we do.” He touched my face with gentle fingers and sighed. “I know I’m pushing you, trying to take more than you want to give.”
“No.” I shook my head as his fingers drifted over my lips to shush me.
“Listen, please. I came into your life without even asking. We made a deal, which I violated the first chance I got, and I’ve pushed you at every turn since then. I know I need to back off and give you room, but I’m afraid if I do I’ll never get this back.” He moved his hand to the back of my head and held me there for a few tense seconds. “On the other side of things, I’m worried that if I don’t give you some space you’re going to kick me out of your life for good.”
I leaned in, kissed his lips, and then lifted my head. “You may be the pushiest man on earth. You’re high handed and arrogant, and sometimes I get so frustrated with you that I could take a full-on swing at your head, but if I didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here. Yes, you have forced me to make choices and decisions that I should’ve made a long time ago. Yes, you’ve made me rethink the things that I want and the things that I need. But, in all honesty, Mathias, I really dig all those things about you.”
“For real?”
“Yeah.” I laughed softly, amused at his reaction and at myself for meaning it. “It actually really turns me on when you’re arrogant, and having a man like you want me makes me feel like a million dollars.”
“A man like me?”
“Strong, intelligent, powerful, and worldly. I’ve never known anyone like you, and while I thought for a few seconds there that once the novelty of that wore off, I wouldn’t want anything more to do with you, I don’t think that way anymore. I feel more with you than I have with anyone in a very long time.”
“So you aren’t going to kick me out of your life?”
“Not at the moment. It’s true that I find you a tad overwhelming at times, but I don’t think being overwhelmed a bit now and then is a bad thing.”
“And the sex is mind blowing.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “The sex is, indeed, mind blowing. I think we could medal in the Olympics if fucking were an event.” He turned me over abruptly and held me to the bed. “What are you doing?”
“I figure if we’re going to compete in a world-class event like the Olympics then we might want to practice. I’d prefer to win the gold.”
I laughed as he covered my body with his and slid one thigh between my legs. Parting for him was like breathing. “Yeah, I agree. Gold is the only thing to bring home.”
“I’d never live it down with the guys if I took home the bronze.”
“I can’t have anyone doubting my man.” I pulled him down and sighed against his mouth. My man, indeed.
My man was an ass, and as soon as I found him, I was going to fill him in on that bit of news. I shoved open the door to the new security office where he spent most of his time and stared at the faces that turned to look at me. “Where is he?”
“Mr. Montgomery is not in the building, Ms. Tilwell.” Connor stood. “Can I help in some way?”
“No, you wouldn’t want to play stand-in on this conversation.” I pulled the door shut with a satisfying smack and stalked back toward my office.
Casey hopped up from her desk and followed me in. “I’m sure he didn’t realize what kind of problem it would cause.”
“He’s not here.” I slouched down in my chair. “He closes off the largest exhibit in the gallery without notice and he knew damn well we were having that snotty ass women’s league in here today. It’s on the fucking calendar.”
Casey pursed her lips and sighed. “Ma’am, your language has deteriorated to that point we discussed once.”
“Oh yeah?” I glared at her.
“Yes, and you told me to remind you that a real lady doesn’t use the word fuck like it’s her only adjective.”
So I had. Sighing, I glanced toward my computer screen and then back to her. “Okay, fine. So what are we going to do with those witches?”
“I have an idea.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I figure if we start them in the Montgomery exhibit, either they’ll be blown away and not need to see more of the gallery or their sensibilities will be so offended they’ll leave in a collective snit, never to darken our door again.”
I laughed softly and sighed. “Unfortunately, James is very interested in their money for the Holman Foundation. The whole point of today was to pry them loose from their money.”
“So how about the high school project?”
Straightening in my chair, I focused on her. “Go on.”
“What better way to show them how their money will be spent? If they are true patrons of the cause that’s all they’ll need. Parting with their money once is okay, but getting them to part with it on an annual basis would be another.”
Yes, it would.
“We could give them a tour here, invite them to the special focus event for the kids, and then take them over to the academy for an in-depth look at the creative process. Show them how their money can help the kids in high schools in the area get into the arts academy.”
“You could be the smartest person in the building.”
Casey laughed softly. “You’d have thought of it if you hadn’t gotten your panties all in a twist.”
Maybe.
“Go pitch it to Mercy, and if she agrees, get started on the arrangements. You’ve got about three hours to make it happen.”
“Sure thing.”
I watched her dart away and then focused once more on my decimated calendar. He’d ruined the planned events for the rest of the week with the closing of the Impressionist exhibit. I had four elementary school tours coming through the gallery on Friday, and now the biggest part of the second floor would be closed off.
Opening up the Holman Gallery for cultural lessons had been Mercy’s idea, and the local schools had embraced it immediately. What the hell was I going to do with three hundred elementary school kids for an hour? The hour that had been slotted for a very guided and supervised tour through the Impressionist exhibit. It was the last part of the tour that I had arranged with the teachers over a month ago.
I lowered my head to my desk and tried to think. But, of course, all I really wanted to do was vent on the man responsible. He could have at least asked. The Holman Gallery was more than just a gallery, and since Mercy had become the director, we’d worked hard to make it more. It was a centerpiece for the city, an arts center of a sort, which offered museum-quality exhibits, hands-on exploration for young children, and a wide variety of adult art in the private galleries on the second and third levels.
“Connor told me that you were lo
oking for me.”
Lifting my head, I stared at Mathias as he shut the door. “Dude, you’ve fucked up my whole calendar.”
“Yes, I know.” He crossed to my desk and put a shopping bag down in front of me. “I figured I’d start with that.”
I peeked into the bag and sighed. “You can end with this too.” I pulled out the beautiful gold box and ran my fingers along the word Godiva. “You could’ve warned me last night.”
“Then we might have argued, and I really prefer sex to arguments.”
I opened the box, lifted the paper, and stared at the three rows of bliss in a box. “We could’ve argued and had angry sex.” I glanced up at him briefly and noted the speculation on his face. “Angry sex can be really good.”
“Yeah.” He sighed as if he was thinking about it. “I bet it would’ve been awesome.”
“You’ll just have to find another way to make me mad.”
“You aren’t still mad?” he asked.
I laughed and shook my head. “No woman can stay mad while she’s holding a pound of Godiva chocolate. It would be one of the signs of the apocalypse.”
“I am sorry, but I honestly had no choice. The Impressionist exhibit is at risk. The wiring in that wing is a disaster, and half the pressure plates are malfunctioning with the new electronics we’ve installed. The risk is too great.”
“I understand.”
Mathias chuckled. “You’re just mesmerized by chocolate.”
I closed the box carefully and put it down on the desk. “I’d eat a piece but I have strict rules about having orgasms where I work.”
“You’d actually have to eat several hundred pounds of chocolate to have an orgasm.”
It was an entertaining prospect. I put the box in my briefcase and shut it. “You aren’t to tell a single person about it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
I wasn’t sharing it. I probably wasn’t even going to share it with him. I’m a total chocolate hog, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
“I’ll just have to think of something to do with all of those kids on Friday.”
“Yes, I saw the tours were coming through.”
I met his gaze and frowned. “I will not cancel on them. Those kids sent me little thank-you notes on construction paper for being invited.”
“That kind of chaotic scene would give someone a lot of room to move around in the gallery.”
“You’ll just have to make sure that nothing goes wrong.” I paused and watched him digest that. “Also, I’d like you to tell all the guards to watch all other visitors in the gallery on that day, especially if they interact with the visiting children. School trips like these attract undesirables.”
“Like?”
“Pedophiles for one.”
“Christ, that never even crossed my mind.” He grimaced. “Yeah, I’ll brief the team on it.”
“It’s a harsh world we live in, and bringing beauty into the lives of these children shouldn’t be marred by something so horrible.” I stood from my desk and walked to the window. “I’ll think of something.”
“I know you will.”
“It would help if the Impressionist exhibit were ready to reopen by Friday morning.”
“It might be, but I can’t guarantee anything. It would be best to make plans for something else entirely.”
“Okay, fine. You officially suck again.”
He laughed. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“My goodwill isn’t always up for sale, you know.” I glanced pointedly at my briefcase. “Chocolate only goes so far.”
“Sex?”
“Not likely.” I glared at him and then sighed. “Get out of my office before I get mad at you again.”
He left with a laugh. I sat in my chair, stewing over the fact that I’d stopped really being mad at him the moment I set eyes on him. It did not bode well for future encounters.
“So you didn’t even yell at him for ruining your calendar.”
I glanced up from my sandwich and sighed. “Mercy, the man is making me just plain stupid.”
“I figured as much. Everyone knows better than to mess with your calendar. He decimated it in a matter of minutes, and I haven’t even seen a whisper of a conniption come out of your office.” She grinned and sat back a little.
“It would be difficult to argue with him considering the worth attached to the on-loan exhibit. Christ, if we even came close to losing a piece of that collection it would be disastrous for the entire foundation, much less the gallery.”
“Frankly, as pleased as I am to have it here, I’m really looking forward to seeing it go back to New York.” She glanced around her office and then shrugged. “It reminds me too much of…everything.”
“That collection was an important part of your past, and it was just one of the things that Jeff King effectively took from you.”
“Yes.” She nodded and then shook her head as if to clear something bad from her thoughts. “After I was raped, I thought my world would end. Hell, I hoped my world would end.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No, and eventually I picked up the pieces of my old life and built a new one here in Boston.” She used her fork to stir around her salad and shrugged. “With the trial approaching and Shamus trying so hard to make everything feel normal, I’m left at odds with my feelings.”
“How so?”
“Happy and sad in the same rich instant. I’ve never been in love before, and it’s changed how I see the world and also what I want from it.”
“Do you resent that?”
She shook her head and then shrugged. “Sharing your life with someone comes with a set of challenges that are hard to anticipate. We don’t always agree with what we want in the future, but we do understand that we want that future to be together. And that’s the important part.”
“Is it?” I picked up my drink and sucked on the straw as I frowned. “I mean, really? You make that choice to be with someone and that’s the big step…the rest of it can come as it will?”
“Something like that.”
“Sounds practically religious.” And that made me itch. I’d spent too much time as a child in church listening to the ambitious lead the blind. Maybe it was his job or my mother’s departure from family life that turned my father toward religion.
“Something is bothering you.”
“Tons of things are bothering me,” I responded, and then shrugged. I wrapped up the remains of my lunch and tossed it in a nearby trash can. “How come I didn’t know that Charlie was sort of psycho?”
Mercy stared at me for a moment and then kind of laughed. “We all kind of think we should be able to tell, right?”
“Yeah, I mean, he seemed normal enough.” So had my father. I cringed at the thought of that day and stood from the table. “I’m going to take a walk.”
“Sure. James will be here in about an hour. He wants to talk about the Castlemen show, and then Casey and I will be handling that women’s club.”
“Okay.”
I went to my office and pulled on my jacket. At 32, I had lived enough to understand on a really finite level that life is anything but fair. My mother had bailed on our family when I was ten and our father had bailed four days before my seventeenth birthday. Even now, when I spoke to my mother I could barely stand to think about the time she’d spent in our home. She must’ve felt so trapped by marriage and children. So trapped and desperate that one night she’d packed her clothes and walked out on all of it.
I shoved my cell phone into my pocket and hurried out of the gallery. Why the hell was I thinking about this? It was a stupid question because the answer was obvious as hell. Mathias was making me want to think about the future.
In the small park across the street from the gallery, I sat down on a bench and pulled out my phone. My brother, Stan, picked up on the first ring.
“Do you remember the day Mom left?”
Stan sighed in my ear. “Yeah.”
&nbs
p; “Am I like her?” My fingers tightened on the phone as I waited for my brother’s response.
“No. You couldn’t be less like her. Ever since you were a baby you took life and everything in it so seriously,” Stan murmured. “When you were five years old you promised me that you would never lie to me.”
“I remember.” I smiled and then laughed.
“And as far as I know, you never have. That’s the kind of person you are, Jane. You honor your commitments. Keeping your promises and holding true to the things you say are part of you.”
Deanna Lee Page 21