Snapdragon (Love Conquers None Book 1)

by Kilby Blades

  “No,” Michael said. “The museum’s closed.”

  He pressed the button on the intercom and before he had a chance to speak, the chain-link gate lifted to let the car in. She didn’t say anything more—not as they parked, not when Michael ushered her out of the car and slid her coat off of her shoulders, and not as they took the elevator to the main floor. The dimly lit interior and the sole security guard who greeted them inside confirmed what she had begun to suspect.

  “It’s all yours, Mr. Blaine…Ms. Christensen.” Butterflies stormed Darby’s stomach as Michael thanked the guard. A moment too late, she realized how rude it had been of her not to do the same. But she had felt paralyzed.

  “Where to first?” Michael asked casually, her hand still in his. His gaze was soft and knowing.

  She swallowed to find her voice. “The Impressionists?”

  “I thought you might say that.” He smiled.

  It was overwhelming—the feeling of being back in this place, and even more overwhelming to have been brought there by Michael. She felt almost out of her body as he ushered her up the elaborate four-way staircase, turning them left, and then right, until they met the grand glass doors of the Pritzker Galleries. Although she had navigated to this section at least one hundred times, at that moment, Michael’s solid hand at her back felt essential.

  The closer they got to the exhibit, any thoughts of Michael fell away as Darby was consumed by nostalgia. As a child, she had never been taken to children’s museums, but she knew every nook and cranny of this place. She knew how to navigate the labyrinthine exhibits without getting lost, knew every shortcut that would take her swiftly from one wing of the museum to the next. Every staff member and security guard had once known her too. It had been a playground of sorts—when not directly at her mother’s side, she had explored on her own. They had stopped going so frequently when she was shipped off to boarding school at age twelve, but during most of her school breaks, she and her mother had gone there together.

  As they reached the beginning of the exhibit, tears sprang to her eyes. Darby had her own favorites, but her mother had truly loved this impressive collection—the Van Goghs and Cezannes and Gauguins and Seurats. Letting Michael’s hand go, she strode forward, outpacing him, as she stepped into her forgotten world. She drank in painting after familiar painting—the Renoir of the little red-haired boy sewing and the many renditions of water lilies in the Monet room. Time played tricks on her. It wasn’t just the familiarity of the paintings themselves that got to her—it was the smell of this place. It felt like a part of her.

  How have I stayed away from here for so long?

  She didn’t know how long it took for her to remember Michael’s presence. It must have been a while, because she found herself near the end of the exhibit before she thought to turn to him. He appeared slightly blurry to her through the tears that brimmed in her eyes, but she could see his apprehension.

  “If it’s too much—”

  “It’s perfect,” she interrupted.

  For a long moment, his eyes didn’t leave hers.

  “I thought it might be easier if you had it all to yourself.”

  The next blink of her eyes caused the brimming tears to fall.

  “Thank you,” she choked.

  She held out her hand, still feeling overwhelmed but needing to bridge the space between them. She watched him extend his own, watched his eyes lower and take in the sight of their hands held together—not palm to palm, but fingers intertwined, thumbs wrapped around one another. Stepping closer to her, he used the thumb of his free hand to wipe away her tears.

  From there, he took her lead once more, this time walking by her side. She turned to go back through the exhibit. The minutes felt infinite as she flowed in and out of memories, remaining silent about some but speaking others aloud.

  “These were what made me want to visit Paris,” she murmured as they looked at a Pissarro together. “And these too,” she said, turning toward the middle of the room to look between two Rodins.

  “This one always scared the hell out of me,” she remarked as they walked by a Lautrec called Moulin Rouge. She and Michael shared a smile.

  When they arrived once again at Seurat’s iconic Sunday on La Grande Jatte she stopped.

  “I always imagined that was us in this painting—me and my mom.”

  Darby stared at the little girl in the white dress and hat and the mother dressed in soft reds who stood next to her with a matching parasol. The people in the painting were faceless, making their body posture important to interpreting mood. The mother and daughter, who stood at the very center of the painting stood somberly, staring forward, amid an otherwise light hearted scene.

  “It was like staring into a mirror,” she continued thoughtfully. “It wasn’t like I was an unhappy kid…but I wasn’t like that other girl either,” she said, referring to the other young girl in the painting. “I wasn’t like the one who’s running around.”

  “I’ve never thought the girl in white looked unhappy,” Michael said gently. “She’s the most important person in the painting. She’d looking straight at us, the viewers. Everyone else is distracted, or self-absorbed, but she’s the only one who’s paying attention. She’s the only one who knows something.”

  She turned to him then, wondering for the very first time where he fit into all of this. She already thought the world of Michael, but this moment—right now—made her want to know him better. It made her feel that she had underestimated him.

  After they had gone all around and back through the exhibit a third time, the breath she took as they reached the passageway to the modern wing cleansed something inside her. She turned back to Michael, moving close enough to clutch the lapels on his jacket. Her eyes bore into his a moment before she kissed him.

  Their kiss held every emotion—gratitude, awe, and longing. It was not the kiss she had envisioned all week, not the one she had thought would happen in the privacy of one of their houses, not the gateway kiss to their soul-deep sex. His hands floated upward to cup her face and she could tell something had awakened inside him. His kiss held that unfathomable intensity she had once felt before but didn’t yet understand. He was barely pressed against her—it was only his thumbs gently stroking her cheeks as his lips gently devoured hers. Yet she felt thoroughly enveloped in his warmth, every bit as much as she would if she were tightly ensconced in his arms.

  “What next?” he asked softly, his thumbs still on her cheeks a long minute after they had pulled apart.

  “What do you want to see?”

  He shook his head. “I come here all the time. Tonight is for you, cupcake.”

  So they continued, with her leading him with perfect memory around the museum, to the medieval coats of armor, and American folk art, and the contemporary wing. She stopped to admire the sole Liechtenstein.

  “I’ve always wanted one of his,” she murmured.

  “Have you ever studied his work?”

  “Not formally,” she admitted.

  “There have been some fairly detailed psychological assessments of his work. In real life, his relationships with women were very dark.”

  Just when she’d thought there could be no more surprises, they entered the Warhol room. In place of the large bench that normally sat in the middle was a dinner table set for two.

  “Michael, this is—”

  The most thoughtful, romantic, gesture that anybody has ever made for me.

  “Something I thought you might like, so I arranged it.”

  She spun around slowly, taking in all of the paintings—the self-portrait of the artist himself, the bright-colored Elizabeth Taylor, the repeating black and white of Jackie Onassis. That one had always struck a chord in her—the politician’s perfect wife.

  He pulled out her chair and let her sit, pushing her back in and unfolding her napkin to place it on her lap. She was still having trouble comprehending that he’d done all this for her, but she knew he’d brush of
f any further gratitude. So she asked something that had been rolling around in her mind since the second he’d said it.

  “You come here all the time?”

  A waiter appeared at their table, seemingly out of nowhere, and set two plates in front of them before pouring from the champagne bottle that had been chilling on ice. The plates boasted an assortment of well-crafted canapés. Michael had really outdone himself this time. When they were alone again, he spoke.

  “I kind of grew up here, too. When I was younger, art was the only thing I cared about. As soon as I was old enough to take the train by myself, I would ride all over the city, finding people and cityscapes, and objects that looked interesting to me. I spent hours and hours just drawing. I’d lose track of time, come home late for dinner—it worried my mother sick.”

  He smiled at the memory.

  “I also hit the museums, wanting to study all the greats. But also to find my own style, figure out who I was as an artist. I spent hours here, seeing whether I could imitate certain artistic styles and sketching other things I saw—mostly people.”

  As she followed his story, she tried to imagine a teenage version of him sitting on these benches and wandering these halls. She couldn’t help but wonder whether teenage Michael and teenage Darby had ever locked eyes.

  “Do you still come here to sketch?”

  He shook his head, his long fingers playing with the base of the champagne flute.

  “I like to come when it’s quiet and look at the art.”

  She looked around.

  “This is pretty quiet.”

  One corner of his mouth crooked upward.

  “I didn’t mean I come after hours. I usually come about an hour before closing. This, right now, is just for you.”

  A lump formed in her throat as she swallowed back every word their agreement would forbid her to say. They spent the rest of their evening discussing their favorite art.

  STUCK AT WORK. WANT TO wait for me at my place? I can order dinner and meet you in about two hours. Sorry. You know I hate to be late. It’s been a shit day.

  Michael did hate to be late, she had noticed. His punctuality on a good day was actually kind of freakish. Lately there had been more bad days than usual, for both of them. Michael had been called out of town a couple of times at the last minute, and with Huck berating Darby even more than usual, she’d been cancelling on account of work a lot more often than Michael. Huck had been punishing her with the least interesting and most time-consuming patient cases and forcing her to follow tedious administrative protocols that he wasn’t asking of anyone else. She had even begun to suspect that he was sabotaging her ability to work fluidly with Rich, whose schedule decreasingly overlapped with hers.

  She found herself looking more and more forward to her time with Michael, and was grateful of how forgiving they were to each other. Besides, she didn’t mind waiting. A bit of downtime would be welcome before becoming wrapped up in his intensity

  No problem. Don’t worry about food. I’ll stop at Whole Foods on the way.

  Thanks. You still have the elevator code, right? he asked, referring to the fact that, in lieu of a key, one could use the security code to enter his penthouse.

  32729, she texted back from memory.

  It wasn’t until she got to the store that she realized how hungry she was. She had originally planned to grab something for both of them from the hot food bar, but found herself walking down each of the aisles grabbing random items that caught her interest—Humboldt Fog cheese, shelled pistachios, a baguette, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, and cold sesame noodles. She was en route to the cash register when she spied a serious-looking cupcake tin in the aisle full of other baking things. She spent another few minutes plucking her favorite flour, sugar, and baking chocolate from the aisle that she was in, and circling back to the dairy section for the butter she liked, and some eggs.

  Forty minutes later, she was humming softly to a playlist that Michael’s stereo system was blaring all over his house via the Bluetooth on her phone. She whipped up the batter expertly, not needing a recipe. The butter needed to soften more before she made the icing, so she took a shower, glad for quiet moments in Michael’s apartment.

  Since that first time he’d invited her to veg out in his apartment all day, he’d been cavalier about having her arrive before him, and letting her stay after he left. He’d always been cool about that kind of thing. Ever since she’d come to appreciate the sleepovers, there had been no walks of shame, no sneaking out in the middle of the night. Each of them was tired and most nights they were together, whoever’s house they were at, the other one made themselves comfortable. She’d used his washing machine to freshen her scrubs—he kept dry cleaning at her house. It didn’t quite feel as if they were domestic—only practical about such things.

  Yes, she knew she liked his apartment, with its spectacular views, stylish design, and his impressive movie collection. Michael was a total hedonist, and his apartment was filled with so many creature comforts that being there felt luxurious. His rainfall shower, his zero gravity chairs, even his fancy Japanese toilet. Darby had reflected more than once that she wouldn’t mind having one of those. He knew that she loved his shower, and the heated floors in his bathroom, but he did not know how much she loved his closet.

  It was so Michael—so neat and organized, so shamelessly indulgent, and so unapologetically fashionable. She liked to run her fingers over his rows of tailored shirts, open the drawers that held his smartly-rolled silken ties, and peruse his eclectic collection of shoes. She liked how his closet revealed so much about him—how the high-top Vans with a Nintendo controller pattern sat right above a pair of custom-cobbled Berlutis, and how a drawer filled with undershirts made of sea island cotton was right next to one filled with t-shirts he must’ve had for fifteen years.

  Smelling, more than needing to look at a clock to know that her cupcakes were nearly ready, she opened the old t-shirt drawer and put on the soft gray cotton one that read Tufts Crew. She smiled as she put it on. He’d only worn it once, but somehow she knew it was his favorite. Next, she slipped on a clean pair of simple white French-cut briefs—her preferred style of underwear—which she had brought in her purse.

  While her cupcakes cooled, she cut a third of her baguette and spread her Humboldt Fog across the small surfaces, crushing the pistachios with the hard handle of the knife on the cutting board. The Sauvignon Blanc had been long-since opened, and she poured herself another glass. She stood at the counter, sprinkling the nuts on top of the cheese before devouring each piece and sipping her wine in-between bites. When she was finished, she used Michael’s Kitchen Aid to fold her butter, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest and other ingredients in to make the frosting. She sang along softly to her playlist as she turned her cupcakes out of the tin, icing all twelve skillfully and placing them neatly on a large tinted glass platter she had found.

  Keeping to tradition, she took the spatula she had used to apply the frosting and scraped the dregs of it from the mixing bowl. She turned her hip in such a way that allowed her to focus beyond the space of his open kitchen, toward the windows she loved so much and the city view below, toward the butterfly painting she loved. Slowly licking the frosting from the stainless steel spatula, she smiled from the nostalgia of its taste. Her belly was full, her skin was clean, and the wine had her feeling relaxed. Content moments such as these were rare.

  She saw Michael out of the corner of her eye a split second before she felt him at her back. A second later, she realized that he was already very, very hard. He ground into her and slid his hand down until his fingers and the heel of his hand were low enough to cup her sex through her simple French-cut underwear. He stayed there for a minute, giving her time to melt into him, giving them time to breathe together.

  She set down the spatula and her energy changed. As always, his hold on her felt just short of forceful, not as if he were constraining her, but as if it were imperative to him that she be very close.
She tilted her head away from his lips, exposing her neck to him. He waited until he had pushed the crotch of her underwear aside, and slid a knowing finger through her slit to open her, before he gave her what she wanted. Raking his teeth across her neck teasingly before nipping her with precision caused Darby to bite her lip and smile with satisfaction. He paused to palm her lower cheeks before deft fingers played at the waistband of her underwear long enough to send them straight down. The unbuckling of his belt was music to her ears.

  No sooner did he turn her to face him than did she hop up to wrap her legs around him, crossing her ankles behind his back. He supported her weight easily and he already had one hand on his cock while the other guided her hips. He pushed inside her in one languid move, sighing into her upturned jaw in what sounded like relief as he sank all the way in. Yes, she realized, he was granite-hard and balls deep and his girth made it so that he was already teasing her most delicious parts.

  He braced one hand against the counter while his opposite forearm created a seat beneath her bottom. The heel of Darby’s one hand reached back to find purchase on the counter, helping to keep her upright, as her opposite arm circled his neck. He pumped inside her then, in that slow but desperate rhythm her body called for but that only he had ever understood.

  He moved his mouth to kiss her hungrily, and she realized after a moment that he wasn’t so much kissing her as sucking the remnants of sugary icing off her lips. It was his defining quality—his ability to find pleasure in the details—and to commit himself to experiencing it completely. She could see it in the way he dressed himself in the morning, the way he gravity-dripped his perfect cup of coffee, the way he bathed with that fragrant soap in his shower. And she certainly felt it in the way he fucked her, in the way his body responded to her every tiny sound and approving movement, in the abandon with which he surrendered himself completely to everything he wanted and everything she was willing to give.

  The thought unraveled her and she cried out in anticipation of her own orgasm, gasping for breath at the sensation of her walls pulsing around him, so big and hard inside of her. She knew he would be soon to follow, and she waited for it, still so sensitive and wanting. She wanted to hear the moment he came undone, to feel him throb inside her—she relished it every single time. And, when he did, it was glorious. The sounds he made were a hybrid of short grunts and desperate moans. As her hand moved from where it sat on his shirt to cup the nape of his neck, she felt his light shimmer of sweat and had the impulse to lick him.