Carrie Alexander - Playing With Fire

“A forest,” he said, surprisingly moved by its beauty. “Sunlight shining through the leaves. Autumn leaves.”

It wasn’t Art Speak, but the lioness seemed pleased. “You like?”

She’d been testing him, he thought, not sure why. Although, he remembered belatedly, she had been at the center of a group of people who’d studied the piece like connoiseurs, all of them narrowing their eyes and nodding sagely. Except her. She’d looked highly skeptical.

“Yes, I do like it,” he said, his curiosity renewed.

She spoke directly in his ear once more, the sultry resonance of her voice overriding his newfound appreciation of art. “Let’s go.”

He stared into her face. “By all means.”

She threw back her head, her eyes slitted. “Perhaps not all means. Can we start with the usual one?”

Missionary? he wondered, then tried to banish the mental picture he’d conjured when it made heat surge lavishly toward his lower body.

“Walking,” she said, smiling just enough to further tease his senses.

He nodded and gestured for her to proceed. They’d negotiated the crowd and were nearly out the door when a tall man of indeterminate age broke away from a cluster of guests and hurried over to stop them. “A moment, my dear,” he called, and Daniel’s companion winced as if she’d touched a fingertip to a red-hot stove burner. By the time she turned, a pleasant expression had been plastered across her features. But he saw the grit of her teeth.

“You mustn’t leave so soon.” The other man was several inches taller than Daniel’s six feet, suited in double-breasted charcoal-black with a glossy onyx tie. His face was patrician and immobile, except for the eyes, which were avid. Freshly clipped platinum hair lay close to his skull.

“The Peytons have arrived,” he continued, with the faintest trace of exasperation. He reached for her elbow. “They are important.”

She brushed away his hand. “Another time.”

Daniel opened the door, drawing the other man’s assessment. And puzzled dismissal. He tried for her elbow again, eager to tow her back inside. “I know this sort of thing isn’t your cup of tea. However—” he drew out the word, laying it on thick as a dollop of too-sweet jam “—you did agree—”

The lioness kissed the man soundly on both cheeks, effectively shutting him up long enough for her and Daniel to slip out the door. “Hurry, hurry,” she said, taking his hand and moving swiftly along the sidewalk in a race-walk step that had to be doing interesting things to her slitted dress. Sure enough, from somewhere behind them a wolf whistle pierced the brisk night air.

“He’s not after us.” Daniel slowed, using their clasped hands to draw her in closer.

She glanced back. “I guess we’re safely away.”

“Who was he?”

“Kensington Webb.” She gave no other explanation.

“And you are?” Daniel asked.

She did not hesitate. “Camille.”

“Camille…?”

Her profile was unwavering; her eyes stared straight ahead, avoiding his. “Let’s keep it to first names for now.”

“Fine.” For now.

He was strangely enthralled by her reluctance. Nothing like a good chase, he thought as he slid his arm around her waist. Except, of course, the capture and the sweet surrender that would follow.

SOHO ON A FRIDAY NIGHT was familiar, but as far from home as Lara Gladstone could imagine. There had been rain earlier in the evening, enough to freshen the air and make the elaborate facades of the cast-iron warehouses gleam. An abundance of lights, pedestrians and traffic blurred together into a melange of city life, an animated stream that flowed continually along the narrow street. Its cobbled Belgian bricks glistened like fish scales, reflecting and refracting the carnival of color.

Lara looked up, forgetting that the stars weren’t visible the way they were at home; the glow of city lights hung like gauze across a patch of charcoal sky. Remembering the deep night skies and woody wet cedar smells of her home in the Adirondack Mountains made her shiver.

“You’re cold.” Daniel took his hot palm off the small of her back—he’d placed it where the open vee narrowed—and shrugged out of his suit jacket. Standing close behind her, he dropped the jacket over her shoulders. She shuddered into its warmth. His fingers brushed across her nape to gather up the loose strands of her hair. A small tug at her scalp, and he’d pulled her straggling hair free of the collar. Her head rolled to one side, like the blossom of a tulip grown too heavy for its stem. She was touched by his chivalry.

“Better?” he asked huskily, shooting sparks along her spine.

She straightened, nodding. “I had a wrap. I left it inside.”

“Should I go back?”

“No!” She gripped the jacket’s lapels, thrilled to have avoided a second round of meet-and-greet with her dealer Kensington Webb and his well-curried art collector clients. Kensington would be disappointed in her, no doubt, but she couldn’t take another minute of explaining her “vision” to the uptown elite.

There had been a time when she’d sworn to conquer that scene. No longer. If she’d had her choice, she’d have skipped tonight’s event altogether and stayed at Bianca’s to laugh and gab and eat with her real friends. But Kensington, in his subtle slinky octopus way, had worked hard to convince her to attend. And he was trying to push her work beyond craft, into the realm of museum-quality collectible art. Too many people believed stained glass belonged only in craft fairs and church windows.

In no hurry to move along, Daniel put his hands on her waist. She leaned even closer, remembering the expression in his eyes when he’d stepped back and really looked at her stained-glass panel. He’d gotten it, without her having to explain in complicated, pretentious jargon. His reaction was the kind of simple reward she cherished, more precious than the prestige of having her work selected for display at SoHo’s newest chichi eatery.

She slid her palms along his shoulders, down his arms. Her fingertips fluttered toward his. His eyes were locked on her face as he took her hands. A heated awareness of every magnificent inch of him flushed across her cheeks. He threaded their fingers, giving her a small half smile. Enchanted by the moment—the man—she looked her fill, staring like a greedy child until it felt as if her skin had grown plump and glossy with satisfaction. He was uniquely her match. She knew it instinctively.

Pedestrians continued to flow around them. Finally someone muttered, “Get a room,” and they widened their eyes and laughed, breaking apart, then coming together again. They walked to the corner with their hands linked. “We’ll go for a drink first,” he said, and she thought, Daniel, so chock-full of pleasure at the sound of his name in her head that she only belatedly wondered what came “second.” They crossed the intersection among a flurry of traffic and turned toward Mercer Street, their footsteps ringing on the metal vault covers of the loading bays.

Lara’s head was catching up to her impulses. She was astonished at her daring, but intrigued by the direction it had taken her. How far would she let it go?

Earlier, Daniel had drawn her attention as soon as she’d shed Kensington’s fawning attentions and taken a good look around the restaurant. There were other business types mixed in with the artsy uptown crowd, but only Daniel had exuded such a distinctive aura. Already feeling unlike herself in the costumey dress and out-of-use social mask, she’d decided right then to play a little game with him. At first the relationship she’d sensed between him and the pale woman with a casque of ebony hair had been disconcerting, but that had turned out all right.