Flirting With Forever (39 page)

“Breathtaking,” he said. “Rust and paprika and umber and even rich Kentish loam—al filtered through bars of heavenly gold. May I?”

She nodded, and he drew his hands through the waves, scattering them like rays of sunlight.

“Oh Christ, how I have wanted this.” He fumbled under her skirt and found his buckle. The
clack-clack
as he loosened it made her bel y contract. When he’d lowered his trousers, he lifted her effortlessly, slid her panties aside and entered her.

She came down slowly, savoring the iron press of him.

He was bigger even than she’d remembered. The slightest movement brought an exquisite heat that reached almost to her throat. He dandled her slowly, drawing his luminous gaze over her body, and her skirt sizzled as its slippery weight resettled again and again over his hips.

He grazed his palms over her nipples, hardening them into rubies.

Her experience was broad. There wasn’t a position or surface she hadn’t tried, but to luxuriate here in his adoring gaze, while he rol ed the tiny seed pearls of her bra between his thumb and her tender flesh, was beyond any pleasure she had ever known.

His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes held hers, unblinking. She didn’t want to think about what would come next. Whatever they could have, she would have here, now.

He found the bow, and in an instant her breasts were loose. She felt him thicken as he brushed the lace and boning away. With a groan, he jerked his hips and the weight of her flesh bounced against her chest. He caught each nipple between knuckles and tortured her, plucking the burning flesh until fire scorched a path between her thighs.

Then his hands left her chest. He brought them to her shoulders and down her arms. He drew his thumbs along her chin and over her cheekbones. She closed her eyes to hold on to the moment, but it was flying too far in front of her to catch.

“No,” she whispered, and he stopped.

“No, no,” she cried, and began to ply her hips on her own. Each circuit brought the cool metal of his loosened belt under her overheated flesh. He stroked her knees, bringing his hands up her straining thighs until at last he palmed her buttocks. She could feel the panties’ crystals as they swayed, and she knew he could feel them, too.

“Harlotry,” he said, smiling.

“Yes.”

“I shal never forget you.”

He sat straighter, pul ing her tight against him. They were rocking in tandem now, feverish, slow sways that fil ed her with a fiery, heartbreaking joy. It was as if he were trying not so much to possess her as disappear into her, and she opened her arms and legs to offer him safe harbor.

He lifted her now to his own purpose, and Cam began to sway dizzily, the overwhelming mixture of fire and sorrow and affection separating her from her senses. She wanted to stop time, to hold him here, safe in her arms forever. She closed her eyes, and he brought her down his length, again and again, in a thumping staccato. When she clasped his shoulders, he kissed the val ey between her breasts. He held her there, fil ing her with his desperate hope, until there was nothing but two hearts, wedded in a fire she could no longer contain.

“Oh,
oh,
” she cried.

His thumb found her bud and he held her at the peak, twitching her higher and higher until her breath stopped and her lungs burned and the conflagration between her legs consumed her.

A long, shuddering moment later, when she realized she hadn’t died and that her limbs stil functioned, she saw he had not finished. She brought him close, losing herself in the thick brown-black waves of his hair. She moved reverential y, stretching out each moment like taffy. Only when she laid a hand on his cheek did she feel he was crying.

“Oh, Peter. I shal never forget you, either.”

He brought himself high into her, pressing her almost to standing with his need, and his groan echoed in her ears.

His body jerked reflexively, once and again, but his shoulders, cool and damp under her touch, did not relax.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t move.”

She saw their reflection in his mirror, his back as straight as a castle wal , his lips on her glistening breast, and her long white skirt streaming from the couch. It was a wedding night fantasia, and she tried to capture it forever in her mind’s eye as a replacement for the wedding night she would never have with him.

With an easy heave, he moved her from his lap to her back on the couch, where he found purchase in the midst of the silk. He laced his fingers in hers, their rings touching, and looked in her eyes.

“Tel Jacket he is to have you, but not until I am done. For now, for today, until I am removed, I wil have you for my own.”

Her breath caught, and he kissed her.

Peter, now
was the only message that registered.

She smoothed her skirt and gazed at her reflection. Peter had insisted she wear the sweater without the bra, saying no woman would be tortured by whalebone on his account, but she suspected more than general bonhomie at work as she’d twice caught him stealing sidelong glances at her.

With hair streaming in uncombed waves down her shoulders, spots of pink on her cheeks, a button missing from her sweater and a skirt that looked like she’d just crawled through the climbing tower at Burger King, the lack of bra was pretty much in keeping with the theme. She supposed she should just be glad there were no teeth marks on the wool.
Ah, well, self-confidence, right?

“I won’t be too long,” she said, giving him a kiss. “Three hours of forced smiles, air kisses and wine spritzers is about al I can take. I don’t want to miss a minute with you I don’t have to.”

Peter’s pencil stopped on the words
air kisses
—he had retreated to his desk and was sketching her—but he continued on with a shrug. “You won’t miss a minute with me. I am invited. Bal ’s guest.”

“Oh.” This threw a slight wrench in the evening because Cam knew she had to talk to Jacket, and Peter’s presence would make things more awkward. “I, um—”

“Fear not, fair lady. I shal make myself scarce. You need to focus on fil ing the room with the confidence of a sultan, er, sultaness, and in any case, I shal not be the cause of any further embarrassment for you and Jacket.”

“Thank you, Peter. But after, can we—”

“Aye.” He put his arm around her waist and pul ed her close. “After. And for as long as we have.”

She looked at the clock. Time was her enemy. “Are you ready? My car’s around the corner.”

He took a glance out the window. “Bal was sending a carriage—I mean, car—for me—Oh, I think it’s here. Long and black, aye? I’l tel the driver I don’t need him. ’Twould be a pleasure to see you drive.”

For an instant she had a vision of Scarlett O’Hara seated high on her carriage, driving her horses around Atlanta, but then the recol ection that her eight-year-old Honda hadn’t been washed since June cleared her head.

“Um, I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if I were you.”

The corner of his mouth rose. “I shal temper my anticipation.”

A particularly loud snippet of “Walking on Sunshine”

began to trumpet through the room. It was her ringtone and Cam scurried toward the couch. Her phone was in her purse, but she didn’t have the faintest idea where her purse might be.

The noise seemed to be coming from the floor. She dove to her knees and looked under the coffee table.

Nothing. She checked under the couch. No joy.

Peter was looking now, too. He crouched by the desk.

“Are we looking for the music?”

“Yes. It’s coming out of my purse.”

“Ah.” He unfolded himself, strode to the credenza and found her clutch on the floor. It must have fal en out of her coat.

She grabbed it and answered just as the music stopped.

“Crap.” She looked at the display. “It’s my boss.”

Jabbing the button to cal him back, she gave Peter a “no worries” look and said, “I’l just be a minute.”

Packard answered on the first ring. “Oh, thank God.”

“What is it?” She could hear the concern in his voice.

“Cam, there’s a problem with Bal ’s Van Dyck.”

“What do you mean, a problem?” The painting had passed every insurance and curate review and was now sitting on an easel behind a velvet curtain, ready to be revealed at the gala.

“I mean it’s not by Van Dyck.”

Peter buckled the belt across his lap just as Mertons had shown him and watched Cam as she twisted the key and the car roared to life. Even in the shadows of the evening she looked beautiful, and he burned with pride, lust and a terrified gratitude that for however long he could al ow himself to stay, she would be with him. As she busied herself with the launching of the vessel, something in the back of the car caught his eye.

A warmth came over him as he realized it was the portrait he’d done of her.

“How … ?”

“Mertons,” she said inexplicably.

He damned the man silently. He’d asked Mertons to dispose of it and instead he’d given it to her.

“He wanted me to convince you to go back. I was going to return it. Never quite got around to it.” She gave him a lopsided smile, but the lights of a passing car showed lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there a few minutes earlier.

“What is it?” He laid a tentative hand on her wrist. He knew it was the cal . She’d laughed it off, but something in her had changed.

“Nothing, it’s … I’m sure it’s nothing.” She pushed the rudder into place, turned the wheel and the car sailed into traffic.

“Tel me.”

The beacon turned from yel ow to red. The car slowed and stopped. Cam pul ed a lever until it squealed and touched her lashes with a finger.

“It’s the Van Dyck,” she said. “But it just doesn’t make any sense.”

Peter felt a trace of foreboding. “The painting from Bal ?”

“Yes. My boss just cal ed. He says it’s not a Van Dyck.”

His heart thudded in his chest. “Pul the car off the road. I need to run upstairs.”

He flung open the door and hit the switch for the light. In two strides he was at the desk. But his hopes sank before he even flipped to the back of the sketchbook. The letter from Anthony Van Dyck was gone.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Cam said.

He gazed at her in the light of the museum’s entry-way, looking so beautiful and so worried, “I mean, don’t worry.”

He kissed her forehead, which felt as soft as a summer breeze, and slipped the coat off her shoulders. “Go talk to your master. The gala doesn’t start for half an hour. I’m sure you’l be able to work it out.”