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The way she talks about Emerson is hypnotizing – describing what’s below skin and muscle to one’s soul is the true meaning of beauty.
The piece of Emerson I used to hate belonged to my father – self-righteous and hypocritical. She strips away all the awful parts, allowing me to see a new version of him. Just as she threatens to make me fall in love with him, I begin to wonder.
“Who made you fall in love with Emerson?” I ask, and she finally turns to face me, her wide blue eyes filled with trepidation, and I feel as though my question has hit the vulnerable muscle between bone and tendon like the piercing of an arrow.
“Who says I’m in love with Emerson?” she asks, and it’s not lost on me that she’s evading my question, but I’m too distracted by the way her body moves and the red silk of her dress that leaves little to the imagination to keep hold of my thoughts.
“No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love,” I provide her with a particularly lovely quote by Emerson.
“Nobody talks like that anymore,” she says, a romanticism in her eyes and her voice that makes me sad, because I’ve lost that innocence—or maybe I never had it to begin with—but I want a piece of it. I want to sink my teeth into it and shiver from its sweetness.
“It’s a dead language, like Latin,” I muse.
“Not dead. Just lost.”
I sniff, loosening my bowtie and spinning around the room to look at all of the other framed photographs and paintings. “Have you ever had a client recite poetry to you in bed?” I ask. “Is that a kink?”
“That’s a vulgar question.”
“I’m a vulgar man.”
She shakes her head and laughs, and it sounds like a thousand lit candles, throaty and bright. “But would that be so bad?” she asks, placing her hand on her hip. I focus on her nipples that draw tight and visible through the material of her dress, begging for me to run a thumb over the bud just to hear her suck in a breath.
“Do you know how badly I want to fuck you against Emerson’s portrait?” I say in a low voice, unable to trust myself to move.
Her plump red lips tug into a smile. She blinks against her bangs, and when she parts her lips, my dick presses harder against the seam of my pants. She moves over to the photograph and stands in front of it. “This one?” she asks, pointing behind her, and I swear to fucking God, Emerson is looking right at me with judgmental eyes.
I stare back at her, willing myself not to move forward, because if I do, I won’t be able to stop until I have her pinned against the wall, my hand cupping her cunt—I can almost guarantee her pussy will be so fucking wet I could slip two, maybe three fingers in so easily, and Jesus Christ, I’m torturing myself.
“You’re tempting the devil, Evangeline,” I practically growl, and she responds by tilting her head as she pushes the strap of her dress down her shoulder. Just a little bit more and I’d be able to see the dusky pink around her nipple. Lust unfurls deep in my belly, threatening to make me do things I know I shouldn’t.
I palm my face because I can’t look anymore, and when I close my eyes, the image of her standing in front of Emerson with her dress falling off her shoulder and tendrils of her hair brushing her neck is burned into my eyelids.
“Don’t tell me you’re not a rule-breaker, Darren Walker,” she says, the sultry tone dripping from her lips, and my stomach tightens at the sound of her voice, at her words, at the fucking smell of her perfume mixed with the scent of her arousal that fills the small space between us.
When I drop my hand, she’s in front of me like a tempting apple I want to take a bite of. How sweet it would taste.
“Or were you a Catholic schoolboy?” she asks, as she circles me, her hand on my shoulder, leaving embers trailing across my chest and back.
Her voice, her body, the promise hanging in the air, is fucking intoxicating. I breathe her in, lean into the heady air, charged and sweet, tilting my head to watch her move behind me, her lips close to my ear as I close my eyes. “If you want me, Darren,” she whispers, “all you have to do is take me. Isn’t that what you paid for?” My jaw tightens at her words.
I turn around so fast the room spins and take hold of her roughly, pulling her body into mine. She swallows at the feel of my erection pressing into her. My lips hover over hers as I look down, the pale blue of her eyes flashing, and I feel her hot breath on me, so fucking tempting.
She looks up at me through her long lashes just waiting, begging, and I want to give it to her, give her everything. She drives me fucking insane, and I don’t care if we’re in the National Portrait Museum and Emerson is fucking watching. Let him see me fuck her so hard she screams my name, waking every dead poet in this museum.
I grab hold of her neck and she sucks in a breath, making me groan.
Footsteps echo in the nearby hallway causing me to release her, and we leave the exhibit, racing down the opposite hallway towards the atrium while giggling.
22
I Don’t Belong to You
Evangeline
“Where have you been?” Audrina asks as soon as we arrive safely back in the atrium, albeit out of breath. “Dinner’s about to begin, and you still need to make your speech,” she reminds him.
Darren’s grip on mine loosens as his palm begins to sweat. The room spins with laughter and lights, clinking glasses, and soft music from a band that’s set up behind the podium.
