She nudged me with her shoulder.“You hungry again?”
I checked the time.Damn, the art museum took longer than I had expected, and we still needed to grab our stuff from the studio.
“We could hit the coffee shop by the train,” I said.
She nodded, and we made our way out.
As soon as we stepped onto the sidewalk, the outside world hit me like a flashbang.Traffic, wind, some guy yelling on his phone.I went right back into scan mode, checking every corner, windows, and faces in the crowd.Nothing flagged as a threat, but it was muscle memory.
The walk to the studio was quiet.At the door, Nadya unlocked and let us in.The light inside was different than yesterday—softer, a little golden, dust motes spinning in the shafts from the windows.
Nadya’s painting stood on the easel, dry now, the colors even wilder than I remembered.The bottle and blood had a sheen to them, almost alive in the light.Her bag was propped against the wall, and my jacket was draped over a chair.
She went to the painting, stood in front of it for a long time.“You really think this is better than what’s in the museum?”
I came closer, the distance between us shrinking until we stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the canvas.
“I do,” I said honestly.
She looked up at me, and in the dim studio light, her eyes looked darker, deeper.For a second, I forgot every reason why I should keep my distance.The whole professional boundary thing, the trauma, the fact that I was supposed to protect her, not fall for her.
She must’ve seen it on my face because she smirked and said, “You’re about to do something stupid, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” I admitted right as I lowered my lips to her.
The kiss turned desperate and messy, teeth and tongue and the taste of a hundred unsaid things.Her hands clutched at my shirt, pulling me in, and I backed her into the wall, careful of the painting but not much else.
She made a sound—half laugh, half gasp—and pulled away just enough to say, “You’re such a bad influence, Agent Santana.”
“Only returning the favor,” I said, and kissed her again.
This time, it was slower.Her hands traced my jaw, my neck, the line of my spine.My own hands wandered, memorizing the curve of her back, the way her ribs flared out under her sweater, the heat of her skin through the fabric.I wanted to map every inch of her.
We broke apart, breathless.She stared at me with an intensity that made my heart race.
“I wanted this since I saw you again,” she said, voice raw.
“Me too.”I couldn’t even pretend I hadn’t thought about it every hour of every day.
She grinned, a little wild.“So, what now?You going to sweep me off my feet, or just make out in every train station from here to Brooklyn?”
“We shouldn’t do either,” I reminded her.“I don’t want to screw this case up.”
“I kind of want to screw you though,” she fired back.
I groaned at the memory of being balls-deep inside her, holding her to me, kissing her soft skin.Fuck, I wanted that so bad.
“We really shouldn’t,” I insisted, but I didn’t move away, and in my mind I was imagining offloading the case to Renat so I could be free to date my girl.
