The Exhibition (An Executive Decision Trilogy) (16 page)

Dressed like she was queen of the world, Mr. Jamison had shown her the empty building on the Willamette River in a part of town that had been wonderfully renovated. The place had room for her studio and for the equipment she would need, none of which she could really afford, but he told her not to worry about that. It was spacious and full of light and high ceilings with a lovely wrought iron catwalk. And there was a luxurious space for her apartment. The gallery itself would extend, not only to the main exhibition room, but into what would become a huge sculpture garden overlooking the river. Well, that was his vision for it, and he was so enthusiastic she could almost see it in her own imagination, though having a gallery seemed a bit premature to her. But surely he knew what he was doing.

Afterward, the limo had taken them to a fabulous restaurant. The name now slipped her mind. By then she was already slightly tipsy from the champagne with which he had toasted their successes in the back of the limo on the way. She would ask him to remind her of the name tomorrow so she could tell her father and her friends back home all about it.

And then there had been sex. Wow, had there been sex! They’d barely got back to the limo after dinner before he was all over her, and it was so naughty to do it in the back seat that she came all over herself and all over him.

By the time she fell asleep, in the big bed in their suite, her lovely black dress had been thoroughly ruined, but he promised to buy her another one just like it if she wanted. He had promised to make all of her dreams come true, and as she drifted off to sleep, she couldn’t help thinking that her father wouldn’t approve. There’s no such thing as a free ride, he’d always said. Watch out for the hidden price tags. They’re the ones that come back to bite you in the backside. With that thought, she fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep. 

Chapter Nineteen

‘I’m at the back door with pizza. I’m assuming you’re the one burning the midnight oil or else your gallery’s haunted, Ms. Emerson.’

Stacie gripped the BlackBerry tight to her ear, and she was sure the smile was about to split her face. She shouldn’t be so happy to hear his voice. She should tell him to go away, but she didn’t.

‘Harris, if the place were haunted, believe me, with the hours I keep, I’d know it. Pizza, did you say?’

‘Yep. Canadian bacon and mushroom. I believe that’s what Garrett said your favorite is. Now, are you gonna let me in, or do I have to eat it all by myself sitting on the sidewalk looking like a nutcase?’

‘Hang on.’ When Harris called, she was sitting in the control room Martin and his men had just finished so she pulled up the monitor for the back door. Sure enough, there he stood looking sexy and outdoorsy as usual. She’d been familiarizing herself with the new security monitors and link-ups. ‘I’ll buzz you in, then just wait in the foyer and I’ll be right down.’

She pushed the button and he immediately opened the door and stepped inside. She watched him for a second as he stood there taking in her domain – well, at least as much as he could see from the foyer. She’d had fantasies about proudly showing him around her gallery, fantasies about him being über-impressed. But those fantasies had never taken into account the risk he might be at if their relationship took a turn for the intimate. And still, she couldn’t fight down the butterflies of excitement that came from knowing he was waiting for her just downstairs.

As she joined him, he pulled her into a delicious sloppy kiss, carelessly balancing the pizza box on one forearm. His hair was damp from the rain. He looked as though he might have just come from the hide, photographing some fabulously elusive wildlife, and he smelled like the outdoors,  which set off little tremors of excitement just below her navel.

‘You didn’t think I’d agree to an exhibition and not want to see where my work would be displayed, did you?’ The twinkle in his grey eyes made her giddy.

‘Of course not, and I’m ready for you. If you’d care to come this way, Mr. Walker, I’ll be your guide for the New World Gallery West deluxe tour package complete with an exclusive look at the pizza-eating facilities, which are upstairs off the mezzanine.’

She heard the catch of his breath as they made their way into the main exhibition hall. Even lit with only the security lighting and the moon coming in through the skylights, it was impressive. She smiled to herself. She really hoped he would like it.

‘Wow!’ he said. ‘You don’t do things by half, do you, Ms. Emerson?’

‘No, I do not, Mr. Walker.

‘And I see you’ve already got the monitors up for the film loop. You’re really speeding along.’

‘Have to. The exhibition will be here before you know it. Carla tells me she’s now got the footage and the interviews with both you and Kyle Waters. You see, things are coming together. You know how time flies when you’re having fun.’

‘Oh, I do indeed,’ he said, following her upstairs to the mezzanine. ‘In fact, I’ve been getting more shots of the owls. This time with the BlackBerry turned off.’ He gave a shrug to indicate the rucksack on his back. ‘Brought the iPad in case you’d like to see them.’

‘Of course I would,’ she said, feeling extremely privileged that he had brought them to her first.

‘I thought about inviting you along for the shoot, but sadly there wouldn’t have been room for both of us on the tree branch. Besides I’m not sure I’d have been able to concentrate on the owls if you’d been up there with me.’

‘Well I, for one, am very happy that you’ve taken your safety into account this time. At least partially. I’m sure Dee would be very unhappy with you for being up in that tree instead of in the hide.’

‘And you’re not?’

The smile slipped a bit. ‘I understand the need to take risks to get what you want, Harris.’ Before he could respond, she led him into her office, which was now fully decorated and equipped. She had already broken it in properly by spending a couple of nights on the sofa.

‘Wow! Your facilities beat the hell out of mine. Well, at least the ones for
Wilderness Vanguard
.’ He set the pizza box down on the coffee table next to the sofa, dropped the backpack on the floor, and looked around. ‘In all fairness, though, I do most of my own work from home, so that’s a pretty great place to work, and even you have to admit my view’s better than yours.’

‘Not tonight it isn’t.’ She took his hand and guided him to stand in an area where she had had a small dormer and the accompanying alcove of space turned into a miniature sun room. At the moment, the nearly full moon looked as though it might fall through the glass from the strain of its own weight. Harris let out a low whistle and picked up an open sketchpad from the floor where it lay with several charcoal pencils. On the pad was a detailed drawing of the moon’s face – at least, as detailed as she could make it.

‘I was sketching it earlier,’ she said. ‘Before the first rainstorm.’

He looked up at the sky and smiled. ‘OK, maybe tonight you win. But only for a few minutes. It’s supposed to rain again any time now.’

‘Guess we’d better enjoy it while we can then,’ she said, still looking up at the moon. ‘I’ll get the pizza and we can eat here.’

She turned to go, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her back, pulled her into his arms. ‘Pizza’s not what I’m hungry for at the moment.’ He dropped the sketchpad on the floor and settled a lazy, lingering kiss on her lips with his opportunistic tongue darting into her mouth when she gasped her surprise. ‘Pizza’s not going anywhere, and I have it on good authority that you love it cold.’

‘Mmm.’ She slipped her arms around his neck. ‘Garrett Thorne has a big mouth.’

‘Yes, he does, and I plan to take full advantage of it. If you won’t talk, he seems more than willing.’

‘Oh, I’m sure he is, but don’t believe everything he says. Remember, he is my ex.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ His hand slid over her bottom and groped for the edge of her skirt, which he shoved up until he could feel the top of her stockings and garter belt. ‘If you dress like this before the gallery’s even open, I can’t wait to see what happens when it’s up and running.’

She slid his jacket off to land on the floor with a soft swish and began work on the buttons of his plaid shirt. ‘I’ve had meetings with VIPs all day and haven’t had the chance to change yet.’ She didn’t tell him that now she was always dressed and ready for Jamison. She couldn’t afford to give the man the slightest hint of weakness. For a brief second, the tension in her belly was not arousal, but visceral fear, fear for the man in her arms. And just when she was ready to push him away and tell him he had to leave, the moon’s veil dance with the clouds sent bright shafts of silver through the glass, highlighting his face, his beautiful face, with its sun-freckled skin and its tight growth of beard, which looked like it fit the wild outdoors he loved. She felt the slight callous of his hand against the tender skin of her bottom. His other hand was wound fist-deep in her hair. In that moment, the heart of the man was laid bare in the clothes he wore, in the boldness of him coming to her just as he was, in his excitement to share with her his passion, excitement for her to be the first to enter his secret world. And she was lost. She could no more turn him away than she could stop breathing.

‘I need you now, Stacie.’ His voice was coarse with arousal. ‘I’m too hyped after tonight; I’m too full of the experience, the experience I wanted to share with you.’ He pulled aside the crotch of her panties and stroked the soft humidity he had exposed, his breath catching, no doubt at the feel of how much she needed him too, as she bore down onto his caressing fingers.

She fumbled desperately with his fly. As she freed his erection into her hand, he produced a condom from one of the multiple pockets in his pants. Then, together, they sheathed and maneuvered until he plopped down ass-first on the hard wood floor and she straddled him. He guided her until she sat on his lap, facing him in the flood of moonlight, then, with a slight shifting of his hips, he penetrated her, not gently, but deeply, intensely, urgently, as though he couldn’t wait, as though it had to happen now.

‘Oh God, Stacie,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘You feel so damn good.’

She had managed enough buttons of his shirt for the two of them to wrangle it off over his head. He returned the favor, first with her blouse, and then with inpatient pulls and tugs at the straps of her bra until her breasts tumbled free into his hands, and then pressed up tight against his chest. Everything else was subsumed in pushing and thrusting and rocking, the contours of their bodies undulating in the silver and slate of the intense moonlight.

The scent of him rose like the tide on the rocks and washed over her own scent, reshaping and devouring the smell of desire at its peak before they tumbled into orgasm, orgasm that blended more than just their scent, orgasm that somehow blended the driving force of each of their lives and their passions.

‘Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a powerful picture of a great horned owl,’ Stacie whispered, almost as though she were afraid her voice might scare the bird away.’

‘I know,’ Harris said. ‘I thought the shots I got last time were good, but these … Wow! It was almost like the bird knew I was there and didn’t care. I’m anthropomorphizing, I suppose, but I really did feel a connection.’

‘It shows.’ Stacie scooted closer for an even better look at the image Harris had pulled up on the iPad. ‘I wasn’t wrong to choose you for my photography exhibition,’ she said. ‘Was this your experience when you photographed the mountain lions?’

‘No! God, no!’ He rubbed his bare arms as though he were cold. ‘I wasn’t in control in that situation at all. I was damned lucky, really. I was shaking so bad I’m amazed any of the shots turned out, and they tolerated me. They knew I was there. They never let me forget it. And every second felt like a gift, a gift they could take away from me at any moment.’

She leaned in, pressing a kiss against his bicep. ‘It must have been the most amazing experience ever.’

‘Well, one of them.’ He slipped his arms around her and gave her a lingering kiss, then pulled her back down onto the floor beneath the skylight, which was now pockmarked with the soft sizzle of rain. They were both still naked. Stacie was amazed at how comfortable Harris was with nakedness. Why she had thought him to be prudish, she couldn’t remember now. After they’d made love, he came out of the post-coital bliss like a ravenous lion, shoving pizza into his mouth and feeding her as though she were one of the begging branchers in the owl family, first from his fingertips, then from his lips in a rough and tumble across the floor that had both of them licking tomato sauce and mushrooms from nipples and napes and thighs.

In the fridge, she found a couple bottles of Mirror Pond she’d stashed for those long overnighters, and they had shared them, him leaning on the wall, with her back up against his chest. That worked well until he deliberately began to miss his mouth and drizzle beer over her nipples and down her belly. That had been an hour ago, and now the room smelled of beer and pizza and sex. She wondered what kind of message that would send visiting dignitaries. She’d have to make sure and pay the cleaners a little extra the next time. Eventually, they’d managed a shower, but even that had taken way longer than it should have. She had planned her office space after Ellis’ at the Pneuma Building. She had wanted it to be a living space because it would be, as the New York gallery had been, so much a part of her life. So there was a lovely shower with plenty of room to share.

Harris nuzzled her neck and ran a hand through the tangle of her hair. ‘Why do I feel like I should have a camera on you, Stacie, like I should be observing you from the safety of the hide so you won’t bolt?’

‘Probably because you’re a smart man with good instincts, Harris,’ she answered, circling his nipples in turn with her index finger.

‘Garrett said you knew way more about the great outdoors than either he or Ellis did back when you were growing up together.’

‘I did all right for myself.’

He laughed. ‘All right for yourself? Mother was a naturalist, father a Russian translator assigned to work with her at Lake Baikal. You were born there, weren’t you?’

‘Garrett really does have a big mouth,’ Stacie said, giving his nipple a pinch that made him flinch then roll to pin her beneath him.

‘Lucky for me.’

She studied him against the skylight and felt the knot tighten once more in her stomach, warning her she was making a mistake, reminding her there were very good reasons why she shouldn’t let him into her life. ‘Harris, there are things about me both Garrett and Ellis could tell you that aren’t anywhere nearly as glamorous. And there are things … Things even they don’t know …’

He covered her mouth again with his and she could feel his returning erection pressing against the inside of her thigh where he had wriggled his hips so he was poised and ready. He pulled away, breathless. ‘You can’t scare me away, Stacie Emerson, so stop trying.’

‘You’re either brave or stupid, Harris Walker,’ she managed in between nips and kisses. ‘The jury’s still out.’

‘Either way,’ he said. He ran a splayed hand down her belly and eased it over her mons and between her legs. She shifted her hips, opening to him as though to do so were the most natural thing in the world. It was certainly the most desirable. It had been a long time since one man had moved her so powerfully. His mouth followed the trail along her belly, then to the tops of her thighs and made an assault down between to find her open and ready. His kisses were accented with little nips of his lips and his front teeth and alternated with deep, diving, open-mouth gulps of her, from her clit all the way back to her anus. And when she juddered and bucked her first orgasm, he held her tight, mouth still pressed against her opening, the heat of his heavy breath grazing the swell of her clit. She curled her fingers in his wild hair and held on to him until she was a little less sensitive, until she could breathe again. Then she realized that his mouth was on the move, making a delicate feather path up the valley of her toward her clit. A sharp nip sent her tumbling over into orgasm again, just as he rose and pressed into her, this time not waiting for her to calm. This time he rode in hard and deep and mercilessly until they both came together and the room echoed with their cries of pleasure.