Текст книги "Seven Nights to Surrender"

Автор книги: Jeanette Grey

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

He flexed his hips against her backside, sliding roughly against her skin, and letting out a shaking groan of his own.

“Just the way you’re fucking yourself with this,” he said, thrusting the toy inside. “I’m going to fuck you. I’m going to get so deep inside you.”

“Please—”

He pressed something else into her other hand, and she was so far gone it took her a second to recognize the vibrator they’d bought. Breathing hard, she curled her fingers around the handle. With a flick of his wrist he turned it on, helping her to get it right against her clit.

Everything in her leapt to life. It was perfect, hard and rumbly and turning the sweet pulses of pleasure into something overwhelming in their intensity. Together, they bore down, to the point where she wasn’t sure who was doing what, only that she was so close and needed to get there. Needed—

He thrust the toy into her harder. His voice needy and rough, “I can’t wait to come inside you.”

She held her breath. Tensed every muscle and pressed her face into his neck. Pushed down harder with the toy, and—

Her climax tore through her, dark and vibrant all at once, sweeping her along into a cocoon of ecstasy she’d never imagined before. Her throat hurt, and there was screaming, his name and God’s, and her whole body sang as she arched, head dropping back. Wave after wave, and he held her through it all.

After what felt like eternity, the pulses started to dim. She fumbled, trying to turn the toy off, and eventually she managed. His hands had shifted, one still keeping the glass held deep within her, while with the other he grasped her hip, and– Oh.

His breath was still coming in harsh rasps as he pulled her more tightly against him. His hot length slipped and skidded over her skin, and her belly dipped. Maybe he’d take her like this someday, her on his lap. He’d be buried deep inside of her, helping her ride him, touching her clit and her breasts, and she wanted that.

She reached a hand back, grabbing his hair as she twisted, pulling him down into a fiery kiss.

“I’m going to—” he panted.

Against her mouth, he groaned, and everything went slick against her spine. Deep within, she throbbed, aftershocks trembling their way through her as he came on her skin, painting it with his release.

For a long moment, he stayed there, trembling and tense, pulsing weakly as he clutched her close. Finally, he sighed, lips going slack. He pulled away, kissed her temple and eased the body-warm glass from her sex.

It left her feeling empty, but not unpleasantly so. How could it, after what he had given her?

After what he had shown her how to do?

And yet, as he held her, wrapping both arms around her chest, he was the one to murmur, “Thank you.”

Shaking, she curled her hands around his forearms. Wonder pounded through her, the way arousal had moments before.

“No,” she said, the words choked. “Thank you.”

chapter TWELVE

Another day, another museum.

Rylan gazed at the painting in front of him, trying to come up with something insightful to say about it. His mother had given him some of the language to talk about art, but he was drawing a blank now. Of course. If only he’d known back when he was a kid that he was actually going to need that kind of stuff someday.

He snuck a glance to the side. After more than a little cajoling, Kate had consented to spend the day with him again. It burned him that he’d had to dangle a visit to the Musée d’Orsay in front of her to get her to agree. He was pretty sure he’d paid for the pleasure of her company in orgasms the night before, but apparently, that wasn’t valuable enough of currency for her. What she really wanted was Monet and Van Gogh.

He didn’t mind, exactly, but there was still something petty niggling at the edges of his thoughts. Like he was torn between loving how she got so into all this modern art stuff and being annoyed that she was scarcely paying attention to him. He frowned. Even more annoying was that her preoccupation bothered him at all.

She was staring at a different piece, her head tilted to the side, and he could just about see all the art history knowledge running through her head. She took a small step back and into a beam of light streaming in from the window. It made her hair glow, and God. He really really wished he had something intelligent to say.

He straightened his shoulders, shaking off the plaintive, insufferable tone to his own internal monologue. Ridiculous. His mother wasn’t the only one who’d taught him anything, and there was more than one way to get a conversation going. His father had instilled in him that much.

People loved to talk about the subjects that interested them—whether or not the people they were talking at knew a goddamn thing.

Biting the bullet, he sidled over to stand beside her, and nudged her with his elbow. “So. Teach me about art.”

Tearing her gaze from the painting she’d been staring at, she raised an eyebrow at him.

Right. Because she always saw through him.

Speaking slowly, voice colored by both distraction and skepticism, she asked, “What do you want to know?”

He shrugged. He had to do better if he wanted her to actually talk to him. “Everything. Teach me about . . .” He squinted at the placard on the wall. “Eugène Boudin.”

The thing that killed him was, he did actually want to know. Maybe not about Eugène Boudin in particular, but about why she looked at the picture the way she did. What drew her in about all this Impressionism and Cubism and Fauvism?

“Funny.” Her tone was desert dry. “The man who paraded me around the Louvre showing off his favorite painting is looking for an art lesson now?”

“I’m serious.” More serious than he’d realized a couple of minutes ago. And besides . . . “I may know the Louvre pretty well, but—” The next words took him by surprise. He cleared his throat to hide his pause. “Mother never really cared all that much for this place.”

If she caught his hesitation, she ignored it in favor of her incredulity. She flung her arm out as if to encompass the museum as a whole. “Who doesn’t care for this?”

She had a point. The building was gorgeous, with warm light pouring in from all the windows, and the statuary and paintings were undeniably masterpieces.

He shrugged, sorry he’d brought it up. “It was still the ‘new museum’ when I was a child. Mother was more interested in showing us the classics.”

She’d appreciated modern art as much as any cultured woman of her social status should. Hell, she’d let that interior designer fill her apartment with the stuff. But it was the work of the old masters that made her seem alive.

Made her eyes light up, the way her husband and children so rarely seemed to manage to.

Of course, what Kate latched onto after all of that was “‘Us’?”

“Me and my brother and sister.” The Bellamy children. Something in the back of his throat tasted sour.

She pursed her lips. “I didn’t know you had siblings.”

“We’re all scattered. Doing our own things.” He’d scarcely spoken to either of them since the trial.

“Let me guess. You’re the oldest?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“You were probably super bossy, too.”

That made him grin. “There I plead the fifth.”

“Uh-huh.” She leaned in closer to inspect a corner of the painting, and he half thought she’d decided to drop it. But then she turned to him, arms crossed over her chest. “You never volunteer anything, do you?”

He frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Every time it’s your turn to talk about yourself, you answer questions. Barely. But you never offer anything.”

Her accusation took him off guard.

He’d volunteered plenty, their first couple of days. He’d shown her that painting and told her about his childhood visits to the Louvre. About his father’s ring.

He’d volunteered things he’d never volunteered before.

And besides. “This all started with me asking you to tell me more about what we were looking at.”

It had started with a question he hadn’t even cared about until it had come out of his mouth.

“But it evolved into us talking about your family. Or at least me trying to.”

She wasn’t wrong, but nothing about it seemed fair. “So you can be evasive and I can’t?”

“I wasn’t being evasive. I was just trying to figure out what you wanted.”

“To get to know you.” He spat it. “Is that such a crime?” He heard what he’d said—heard the hypocrisy in it about a second after it was out in the air. He tried to backtrack, spinning wildly. “That’s not the same thing at all. Stories about dead artists versus my whole . . .” Clusterfuck of a family. He was practically pleading now. “It’s not the same.”

“If you can’t tell me anything about who you are, then what are we even—” She cut herself off, eyes shuttering. He’d never seen her so pissed off before, and a ball of dread formed in his stomach when she waved a hand at him and turned, heading toward a sculpture on the other side of the room.

It left him alone, standing there beside a fucking Eugène Boudin, watching her walk away from him. An instinct surged up, telling him fine. If she wanted to be like that, what did he care? It was only a matter of time until she walked away in any case. If not now, in the middle of a museum, it would be in a matter of days, disappearing behind airport security, never to be heard from again.

But . . . but . . .

Fuck.

Forgetting the people surrounding them, he jogged across the gallery. Came up behind her and took her shoulders in his hands, spinning her around until they were face to face. She gazed at him expectantly, like everything that would happen after this point revolved around what he said now.

Maybe he should cut his losses and go. There were a hundred other women just like her, tourists on their own in a beautiful city, waiting to be shown a good time.

Only none of them were her. None of them would see through all his lines or make him work so hard for it. None would come to him so innocent and yet so fiery. She was the one he wanted to give up his empty days to walk around museums with, and take to quirky restaurants, and kiss and touch. The one he wanted to spread out naked on his bed.

“My name is Rylan Bellamy,” he said, and it was the truth.

But like everything he’d told her this week, it was only a partial truth, and the part he didn’t say burned. He’d been going by his middle name since college—had settled on changing it the day his father sent in his acceptance letter for him. As if choosing his name were any kind of substitute for choosing his fate. He hadn’t offered the rest of it to anyone in years.

But now it rose up in his throat, that monstrosity he’d been saddled with at birth. That weight that had been placed on his shoulders, that had determined his path for his entire life.

Theodore Rylan Bellamy III.

Somehow, withholding it from her felt like a lie.

He darted his gaze up to her face, searching for any sign she’d caught him in it. But her mouth was a flat line, her eyes impassive and impatient. She was still waiting. He needed to give her more.

Right. She’d been asking him about his family.

He took a deep breath. “I’m the oldest of three children. My sister, Lexie, is three years younger than me. She’s finishing business school, and she’s going to take over the goddamn world someday.” She really was. Lexie, the spitfire. If she’d only been a son . . . Instead, his father had gotten him. Him and . . . “My brother, Evan, is the youngest. He’s a junior in college, and no one knows what he’s going to do with his life, but he—” He cut himself off at the pang in his chest. Because Evan was the real disappointment of the family, and yet . . . “He’s like you. And my mother. He loves art, and beautiful things.”

And that’s why Rylan had always fought so hard to protect him. To keep him from being stuffed into the same airless box that Rylan had.

He’d made sure his brother had a choice.

Kate’s mouth had dropped open, like she hadn’t been expecting any of that. It hadn’t hurt to give it to her, though. All at once he wanted to take back the myriad half truths he’d told her and start anew.

But the idea of it had him reeling, suspended on a tightrope and ready to fall. She’d walk away for real if he did.

That didn’t just hurt. It ached, and in ways he wasn’t prepared for it to.

Something inside of him lurched, reversing wildly to pull him from the precipice. All the lessons he’d had drummed into him about holding his cards close to his chest, not showing people the tools they could use to ruin you—they crowded in around him. Keeping him safe.

He let her go, drawing his hands to his sides to hook them in his belt. He took a single step back. Squaring his jaw and lifting his chin, he said, “And that’s more than I’ve volunteered to anyone. In years.”

Hell, when was the last time he’d given away his last name?

There was danger in all of this, but he stood there beneath the weight of her scrutiny. She’d effectively asked him to let her get to know him. If what he’d offered hadn’t been enough, that wasn’t his fault. Not now.

After what felt like an hour, she closed her mouth, and her posture softened. She reached out a hand, crossing the space he’d put between them, and the air seemed to shiver as the distance shattered and fell.

Her hand on his was cool and small and soft, but it was a relief. The one she placed against his heart even more so.

Gazing up at him, she smiled, real and tentative. “Thank you.”

His throat refused to work, so all he could do was nod.

“Come on,” she said after a moment. She nodded her head toward the hall. “I don’t have a lot I can tell you about Eugène Boudin. But I hear they have an incredible collection of Cézannes?”

It terrified him, just how good that invitation sounded. Twisting his wrist, he moved to intertwine their fingers, swallowing past the tightness in his lungs. “Lead the way.”

The strangest mixture of excitement and nerves bubbled up behind Kate’s ribs. Rylan’s palm was warm against hers, and he followed her so willingly.

She’d challenged him. Called him out for the evasiveness that had been making her feel more and more disposable with every aborted conversation. And he’d chased her down and told her things. Not much, but enough.

And now he wanted to listen to her talk about art.

She was falling into something entirely too deep with this man, giving him more and more of her trust, despite the way her head screamed at her not to. But as they wound their way through the galleries, dodging other patrons and nodding at security guards as they passed them by, she gave in to it. She felt incredible and in control and alive. Consequences were things she could worry about later.

Finally, they reached the part of the museum she’d been thinking of. She skidded to a stop in the center of the room and looked around. Landscapes and still lifes and even a portrait or two lined the walls, all created from thick, short brushstrokes on canvas. All portraying something she’d been trying to figure out but had never quite managed to pull off.

She turned her head to look at Rylan and found him eyeing her expectantly. A moment’s doubt rocked her, making her come up short before she could really launch into anything.

“You sure you want to hear me talk about this stuff?”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

He had, but she couldn’t quite believe he really meant it. “Just, I get carried away.”

“If you do, I think I can manage to get a word in edgewise.”

Now that was something she did believe. Gathering up her confidence, she nodded to herself, then gestured around at the paintings on the walls. “How much do you know about any of this?”

He tipped his head side to side. “As much as anyone whose mother took them to the Louvre when they were a kid?” At the look she gave him for that, he shrugged. “A little. No formal education, but I know who Cézanne was.” His mouth pulled to the side. “Sort of.”

She chewed on her lip, considering. He really didn’t need a full-on history lesson here, but he had asked . . . “So, there were always schools of art, right?”

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

She ignored that. “But for ages and ages, it was all basically realism. Lots of variation inside that, and different styles, but for the most part, people used art to capture what the world looked like. There weren’t cameras, so you needed some way to make your castle look pretty. Or to document things.”

“Makes sense.”

And wow, but it was a good thing he hadn’t asked for that full-on history lesson, because she was taking some serious liberties here.

“But then things changed,” she said. She glanced around at the rest of the room. None of this was based on her own formal education, which, truth be told, was a little lacking in the art history department. But she’d sat through enough lectures, looked at enough slides. Drawn enough studies of other people’s works. “It’s not really formally linked to the camera, but I like to imagine it was. When you don’t need these painstakingly done renderings just to remember someone lived or that something happened, why have them at all? Why make art?”

Rylan’s smile was low and wry. “To express the inner workings of your poor, tortured soul?”

She laughed, a little breathless with it. “Yeah. Basically. That’s what it finally became, when it wasn’t needed anymore just for documentation.” She lifted one shoulder up before setting it back down. “It didn’t make sense to pay a painter to take three months to do what a photographer could do in a day.” She connected her gaze with his again. “And it didn’t make sense to replicate something a lens could do, when as a person you were so much more.”

There was a warmth to the way he looked at her then, and she squeezed his hand before glancing away. “So people started mixing it up. Making it personal. Impressionism brought in all these crazy colors and left in all the brushstrokes the old masters would have blended in. They let you see the artist in the art.”

And that had always been the place where she’d struggled so much. She’d never known what to let people see.

She still had her father’s voice in her ear, telling her there wasn’t anything in her worth seeing.

Beside her, Rylan nodded. “So it’s more about the interpretation instead of just about what they saw.”

He’d said something similar before, hadn’t he? That one time she’d showed him her sketchbook?

“Yeah,” she said.

They stood there for a minute before he raised their joined hands and gestured at the images surrounding them. “What made you want me to look at these pieces in particular?”

It was hard to put her finger on. “I don’t know. This is technically Postimpressionism, and it’s just . . . it’s my favorite, I guess. Things started getting all blocky, and he was playing with . . .” She stumbled, looking for the right words to describe what it felt like Cézanne had been trying to do. “With the shapes of things. Deconstructing the forms. But it was all still real, you know? That’s clearly a rooftop”—she pointed at one picture and then another—“and that’s a man.”

“A funny-looking man.”

“But a more real man for all that he’s impossible.” The idea suddenly gripped her, fervent in a way she couldn’t quite explain. “You’re seeing what he looked like and getting this idea of who he was, or who the artist thought he was.” The thick strokes of paint split the man’s face into planes, hinting at where Cubism was heading without quite getting there. They broke him up. Disassembled him, and put him back together, more whole than he could have been if he’d been rendered any other way.

“I don’t know,” Rylan mused. “I see Cézanne’s style more than I see a personality. Am I seeing who the subject was or am I seeing who the man behind the easel wanted him to be?”

“Hard to tell, isn’t it?”

He let go of her hand, but it was only to shift to the side, moving to stand behind her and wrap his arms around her waist. With his lips beside her temple, he asked, “What do you want me to see?”

And she didn’t know if he meant as a tour guide, showing him the works that had moved her in the past. As an artist in her own right, or as a—whatever she was to him, sharing his days and his bed in this finite slice of time they had.

Something shaky fluttered inside of her, but she pushed it down, folding her hand over his. “I guess I’m still working on that.”