by Gwyn Cready
“There’s stuff to write about in Pittsburgh,” he said. “You should come there too.”
She knew he was right. Only a lazy writer missed an opportunity to add depth to her story, and Ellery was not a lazy writer. “I-I- I just think if we want to get this done by the deadline—”
The buzz-buzz of Kate’s wheelchair interrupted her thoughts.
“—it would be easier if we split up and—”
Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz. Ellery put a hand behind her back, giving Kate a signal of a different nature.
“Ellery,” he said, his eyes turning a fathomless green, “come with me. Please.”
She could feel the familiar pull and felt herself weakening. His earnestness was a trick. She knew that. He was a dating iceberg—the sort of boyfriend who looks great on the surface but has the power to sink any relationship with the dangerously bad behaviors hidden underneath. And she remembered all too clearly that, unlike the Titanic, she hadn’t even bothered to try to turn.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Six Years Earlier
Ellery watched as Axel adjusted the lens on his camera, the muscles in his forearms rippling as he moved. He’d grown quieter after he’d shown her the picture he’d taken of her and the little girl, his usual sly humor replaced with a sort of tremulousness, and Ellery wondered if it was something she’d said. They had the museum to themselves for another two hours, and this was the time she should have been banging out a first draft of what was to be her paper’s first cover story so she could work on the paid stuff tomorrow, but there was something about the way he set up a shot that made it easy to lose track of her work.
“You need help with that?” she called as he moved the light he was setting up.
He snorted. “If I said yes, would you actually get up?”
“Hey, I’m the one who got you the beer.”
She had dragged an upholstered visitors’ bench from the hall into the center of the room and was lying on her stomach on it, typing on her laptop while the balloons gamboled around her. There was a way someone moved when they were expert at their craft, with a sort of undivided intensity that was fascinating. It was like watching a very practical ballet. Axel crouched to adjust a cord, his shoulders flexing under his shirt, then stood again and withdrew a light meter from his pocket. She was very lucky he had agreed to do the photos for her. Besides the fact that he was working for free and had arranged to get them in after hours to shoot—the mere fact of having his name associated with her paper—gave it instant credibility.
He lifted the beer to his mouth and drank, the long muscles of his neck moving up and down. He was on his third bottle, and she’d picked up the six-pack only half an hour ago. She’d found herself more and more attracted to him with each assignment, but he inhabited a world far different than hers. He was a grown-up, for one, eight years older than she was, with a real job and a real income and a list of credentials as long as her arm. More important, though, he had a street edge to him that seemed completely out of reach to a girl whose most serious excess was miniature Kit Kat bars.
“I can’t believe you thought this would take an hour,” she said, pulling her eyes back to the screen.
“I can’t believe you thought it would take all night.”
“Typical male point of view.” She gave him an innuendo-filled smile. “Always trying to shortchange the rightful process.”
He didn’t reply. “Did you hear what I said?” she asked.
“If an hour’s not enough to do the job,” he said, turning to meet her eyes, “perhaps you need more competent partners.”
She felt a boom, as if a mortar had just gone off, completely altering the landscape between them, and she was both thrilled and petrified.
“You have a high opinion of your work,” she said dry-mouthed, turning back to the keyboard to hide her unsteadiness.
“I have an impressive résumé.”
And he did. She knew of at least a TV reporter and local artist whom Axel could number among his conquests, although he himself never mentioned them. Her own list was considerably shorter. Two. Her high school boyfriend, even though they had done it so badly it could hardly count, and the French grad student who’d done a full-court press during her junior year in Paris. Ellery’s parents had had a rocky marriage, even before her father cut out entirely, and Ellery had learned to expect, well, if not the worst from men, then at least not the best, which meant she did not give her heart willingly. This had kept her safe—and focused on her writing—but it had also kept her circling the same emotional ground. Although she dated a lot, each relationship always ended up stalling, like a car with a bad fuel pump. She was starting to be afraid she would never feel the thrill of full-on acceleration.
“What are you doing?” Even without looking, she could feel him turn the camera in her direction, and she was relieved to change the course of the conversation.
“I’m setting it on auto timer,” he said without pulling his eye from the viewfinder. “Don’t worry, you’re not in the frame.”
Like rugged climbing vines, his legs were woven into those of the tripod, and there was an enthralling intensity to the way his hands made minute adjustments to the lens and dials. For some reason she was instantly jealous.
“Can I look?”
He gave her an amused smile. “Are you art-directing me now?”
“I am the editor, right?”
He bowed, and she made her way to the tripod. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but the idea of inserting herself into his milieu was irresistible.
An electric charge shook her as she peered through the viewfinder. She could smell the piquant beer malt that had become his signature scent to her and feel the fading warmth of his hands on the camera body.
“What do you see?”
The shot was amazing. The pillows of silver drifted slowly in and out of the shadow-dappled frame, but she was finding it hard to formulate a reason, given the immediacy of his arms and the fact she could feel his breath brushing over her shoulders.
A sheen appeared on her palms. “Shouldn’t there be something playing in the background to channel your concentration? You know: Anne Murray, Celine Dion, a Maple Leafs game?”
“Don’t worry. I have my muse.”
She pulled away from the viewfinder, fingertips tingling. “Looks good.”
“I’m glad you approve.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I think I’m going to shoot the Brillo boxes now.”
“No,” she said automatically, visualizing the layout she had in her head. “Too Warhol specific,” she said. “The cover story is about art as a reflection of self.” She might not know photography, but when she thought of her cover story, she knew exactly how the narrative should flow both verbally and visually, and the Brillo boxes just didn’t fit.
A flinty look flared in those green eyes. He wasn’t used to having his choices questioned, but the spark was hard to read. Did he like it or not?
“I’m the photographer.” He drew shoulders higher. She was close enough to feel his heat.
“I’m the editor.”
A small growl. “Then what would you like me to do?”
“Kiss me.” She didn’t know where the courage to say this had come from, but he complied instantly, finding a home for his hands on the small of her back.
The yeasty bouquet of beer blossomed in her mouth and filled her head, moving the buzz-o-meter on her nerve endings into the red zone.
“Oh,” she said, pulling away in a dizzying rush of emotions. “That was nice.” Thoroughly flustered, she bent for his bag. “Let’s try the self-portraits,” she said. “They’re upstairs, I think.”
He fished the bag out of her hand and followed. When she reached the stairs, he caught her arm and turned her.
The kiss, in his hands, was more demanding, and her knees began to tremble. As always, she knew what she wanted but was afraid she couldn’t get it.
She du
cked again and took refuge on a step, rocking where she sat. “This is fast.”
He dropped the bag. “You’ll like it fast.”
“I don’t even know if you’re seeing someone.”
“I’m not.”
He ran a finger across her collarbone and she leaned back on her elbows without thinking. She wanted to feel those capable hands on her body. He was three steps below her, looking at her with those emerald eyes.
“Do you like me or do you want to sleep with me?” she said.
“That is a trick question.” He flicked her top button open, put his hands on her knees and kissed her again.
Reason was leaving the arena. If there was something she needed to know, she’d better find out while she still had brain cells left to process the information.
“So, why do you like me?”
She moved up a step, and so did he, opening another of her buttons in the process.
“Are you kidding?” he said. “Because you’re a bloody amazing writer, because you have the stones to ask me to work for free and because it’s like you have fireworks going off inside you all the time.”
He slid deeper between her legs and their mouths met hungrily.
When she caught her breath, she moved up another stair. “So you’re saying you don’t think I’m pretty?”
“Is this the obstacle course you put every boyfriend through?” he said, loosening another button. “If so, I can see why your track record is spotty. For the record, you’re beautiful—alarmingly so—but I was given to understand that it is ungentlemanly to focus on the superficial.”
One more step. “It is. It was a test. You passed.”
He took two buttons as his wreath of laurels. Then he took her blouse.
She could feel her heart beating but was afraid to look down. He slipped his finger under the clasp that rested between her breasts, and she could see the turbulence in those eyes and feel it in his fingers.
She undid his buckle, and he undid her bra.
“Good God,” he whispered.
Her breasts were high and full, and she was used to men admiring them, but the look on his face went beyond admiration or even desire, and she knew it would be seared into her memory forever. She took his hands, which had fallen useless to his sides, and brought them to the warm flesh. He made a noise deep in his throat, and she found her own hands quaking.
He cupped her reverentially, then brushed her nipples, igniting her instantly. They fell into a kiss deep and hard enough to remind her that this had the potential to be an epic mistake. A deep-bellied fear shook her, launching hot arrows of doubt through her veins.
“I want to be your friend,” she said, slipping an arm back into her blouse. “Not this.”
The weight of her statement was reflected in his eyes, which turned an abrupt emerald green. But a curve rose at the corner of his mouth as well. “Do you think at this point we can go back?”
The answer, of course, was no. She damned herself for lifting her mouth to his at that bottom stair and thought of what Hemingway had said: “Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” She’d been drunk with giddy lust, and it was a lesson she needed to learn. In the course of a single reckless instant, she had ended the heady, laughter- and debate filled friendship that had roared to a start like a drag race two months ago, fueled by an explosive mixture of admiration, attraction, clashing creative egos, cheap chardonnay and a lot of expensive beer, and launched them, one literal step at a time, into God knew what. If she was lucky, it would be everything they’d had before and more. But she wasn’t lucky, and the only thing she knew for certain was that whatever tomorrow would be like between them, it wouldn’t be like yesterday.
She gave him a fierce look. “If we’re not friends after this, I’m going to be really pissed at you.”
“Fair warning.”
He leaned between her legs and bent to kiss her.
“I mean,” she said, stopping him with a hand, “if you had to pick between our friendship and this”—she fluttered her hand vaguely between his midsection and hers—“which would you pick?”
He laughed. “This,” he said, and lifted her to standing.
“That doesn’t sound very committed to friendship.”
“Doesn’t it? Which would you pick?” He unzipped her jeans and buried his hands in them.
“Ooh, this.” She thrust her head back.
“There you go. We’ll sort the rest out later.”
In another moment, her panties and jeans were in a heap on the floor and her legs were wrapped around his hips tighter than Warhol’s labels on a can of soup.
He carried her back into the darkened gallery and pressed her against the nearest wall.
“I’ve wanted this since the first day we met,” he said, “well, since the first time we argued. Same day, come to think of it.”
“That shot should have been in landscape, I’m telling you.”
He gave her a long, deep kiss and squeezed her hips. The neon beside them blinked rhythmically, rendering his profile in Alice in Wonderland colors.
He dug something out of his back pocket and handed it to her. It was his wallet.
“You’re paying for this?” she asked.
“Condom,” he said, and unzipped his fly.
He carried her to the adjoining wall, kicking off his running shoes, briefs and jeans as he went, and kissed her with a fire that made thinking seem like an Olympic feat. Her hands were out of sight, crossed behind his neck, and she tore blindly through credit cards, business cards, receipts, pills and cash, which rained down on the gallery floor, coming up at last with the familiar foil-wrapped square.
“Got it,” she said, and he looked.
“No, no, no. That’s the good one.”
She giggled, and he let her slide to the floor. Muscular and tan, his forearms stood out against his pale, lightly haired thighs, and her breath caught as he suited up, handling the long, thick length as skillfully as he did his camera lens, with much the same heart-pounding effect on her.
“Where is best?” he asked.
Her face must have betrayed her shock, and he laughed and said, “I meant here, in the museum,” then added in a low voice, “though if you stand with your mouth like that for much longer, I’ll have no choice.”
His fingers were already exploring the soft triangle of hair below her belly. She knew she was wet, and he found her bud and rolled it. She curled into him, groaning, and tasted the salty skin of his neck. He turned her gently and pressed her toward the wall. She laid her forehead on her arms and rocked as he plucked her nipples, crying in pleasure.
She wanted him inside her. She could feel his desire, and her imagination was far more wicked than his fingers. His hands trailed down her body, setting off a charge in every cell, before he palmed the curves of her hips.
“God, you’re beautiful.”
Gooseflesh popped out on her skin, and he made a deep, satisfied noise when his returning fingers found the taut flesh of her aureoles. He lifted her hair and kissed her nape, and she turned, meeting his mouth hungrily. Then she bent her arms around his neck and lifted herself off the ground. He responded automatically to her invitation, spreading her thighs and entering her slowly.
“Oh, oh,” she whispered.
He was thicker than she’d ever known, and she locked her ankles behind his back, amazed to discover how much he made her burn without even moving.
He bumped her gently against the wall—once—and the friction nearly lifted her out of her skin.
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.”
Cupping her buttocks, he coaxed her open further with a second bump.
She dug her fingers into his back, taking in the musky scent of his skin. He thrust a third and fourth time.
A phone buzzed to life. Instantly she patted the pocket of her shirt, which still hung loosely on one shoulder, and found the object in question, nearly bobbling
it as she did.
“What is it?” she asked breathlessly. My little sister, she mouthed.
He nodded, his eyes glittering. “Hang up.”
“I can’t,” she said, hand over the mouthpiece. “She’s home alone.”
“Hang up.”
“What, Jill? No, that was the photographer. He’s, ah, asking me about a shot.”
Axel snorted. He pressed Ellery carefully against the wall and began a more determined beat, lifting her a few inches skyward with each thrust.
“What? No. Where?” Ellery crushed her eyes closed, trying to listen and ride this bucking wave. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I-I-” The phone slipped from her ear.
Axel grabbed it. “Jill, hi. It’s Axel.” He listened for a moment and gave Ellery an interested look. “Yes, that Axel. Sorry, your sister’s looking at a shot. She thought it looked better in landscape, but she’s realizing she was completely wrong. Where are you going?” He nodded. “All right. Call with their home number when you arrive.” He paused, listening. “Hard to say. Depends on your sister, really. We could be done fast, or it could take all night.”
He closed the phone, dropped it on his discarded jeans and slipped his hand between her legs.
“Is she…?” Ellery asked, disoriented
“Probably.”
“I should—”
“Yes, you should, but tonight just doesn’t seem to be the night for it.”
He lifted her from the wall and began a slow procession toward the balloon room, each step punctuated with a deep pump that fanned the flames licking at her belly.
She wanted to ride him, to rake her sensitive flesh along his burning length, heedless of anything but her own desire while he groaned beneath her.
When they reached the room, he lowered her to the bench, and she rolled him to his back.
His eyes widened in surprise, and she grinned, rocking her hips forward and back, putting that fine iron thickness to use. A smattering of bronze hair edged the outlines of his chest. He was more muscular than she’d expected, and he rested his head on an arm as he watched the undulations and the crisp bounce of her breasts. She’d heard someone whisper once that Axel liked to snort coke off of that TV reporter’s breasts. Ellery had never seen him do anything more than pills and a lot of beer, and she wondered how reliable a rumor it was. But if it was true, she wondered if that was what he had been thinking about when he looked at her.
