His hands came up—one at the back of her neck, fingers threading into her hair, the other curving around her waist to pull her flush against him. He kissed her the way he’d wanted to since the first afternoon in the studio when she’d put a brush in his hand and the world had rearranged itself. Deep. Thorough. His tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she opened for him, and the sound she made when he tasted her sent heat straight down his spine.
She melted into him—arms locking around his neck, rising on her toes to press closer. The kiss turned urgent. Her teeth caught his lower lip. Pulled. Released. His grip tightened on her waist and she arched into it, her breasts pressing through the thin stolen cotton, and the friction of that contact—the lace he could feel beneath the shirt, the heat of her through the fabric—shortened his breathing.
His hands slid lower. Down her waist. Over her hips. His palms settled on her bare thighs where the shirt ended and her skin began, and the smoothness of her made his jaw clench. She inhaled sharply.
“Bedroom.” She breathed the word into the kiss. “Unless you want to do this against the window, in which case I have concerns about the forty-sixth floor and also the pigeon.”
“There’s no pigeon here.”
“I’m establishing boundaries for future reference.”
He gripped her thighs and lifted. She wrapped her legs around his waist—lightweight, compact, fitting to him in a waythat aligned everything that mattered. Her heat pressed against his stomach. Her laughter pressed warm into his neck as he carried her down the hallway, her fingers already working the buttons of his shirt.
She got three buttons open before they reached the bedroom. The fabric hung loose. Her palms slid inside—flat on his sternum, his abdomen, mapping the terrain with the focused intensity of an artist studying form. Her touch was light and deliberate and it set every nerve ending on fire.
The bedroom was dark except for the city. Manhattan’s ambient glow filtered through uncurtained windows—silver and gold painting everything in half-tones. He set her on the edge of the bed. She pulled him between her legs, hooked her ankles behind his thighs, and finished the buttons. His shirt dropped. Her gaze traveled down his torso—unhurried, appreciative, the frank assessment of a woman who drew bodies for a living.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m a visual artist. It’s professional.”
“You’re biting your lip.”
“That’s also professional.” She pressed her mouth to the center of his chest. Then lower. Her lips tracing the ridged line of his abdomen. His muscles contracted under her mouth and he exhaled hard through his teeth.
He eased her back. Knelt between her legs. His hands found the open collar of the stolen cotton and peeled it off her shoulders slowly, watching the fabric slide down her arms, watching her appear inch by inch in the city light. The lace bra beneath was black and simple and the sight of her in it—Lumi, in his bedroom, in his stolen shirt pooled at her elbows, the swell of her breasts above dark lace—made his hands unsteady.
Her lips curved. “You’re shaking.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve wanted this since you walked into my office and told me my villain lore substituted darkness for depth.”
“That was a critique, not a seduction.”
“Same effect.”
He pulled the shirt free. Tossed it. His lips found her collarbone—the paint stain, the warm hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse beat fast. He kissed his way down her sternum. Her fingers drove into his hair and her breathing went ragged.
He unhooked the bra with one hand. She helped—shrugging out of it with the practical efficiency of a woman who didn’t do coy. And then she was bare from the waist up in silver city light and he stopped.
“Zeir.”
He couldn’t speak. The geometry of her—small breasts, dark nipples already tight, the elegant line from her collarbone to her waist—was the most compelling composition he’d ever studied and he’d spent his career building them.
“If you’re going to stare at me like original art, the least you can do is?—”
He lowered himself to her breast.
Her words cut off. Her back arched off the mattress. His tongue circled her nipple—slow, focused, the deliberate attention of a man who had spent months memorizing the rest of her and was now applying the same discipline to the parts she’d kept hidden. He took her into his mouth. Sucked gently. She gasped and her grip in his hair tightened to the edge of pain and he wanted more of that, wanted every sound she was capable of making.
He moved to the other breast. Same attention. Same slow, devastating focus. Her hips rocked against nothing and the small, involuntary movement sent a jolt through him.
His mouth traveled lower. Her ribs. The freckle below her left breast that he kissed twice. The soft skin of her stomach. Her hip bone—the scar from a childhood bike accident she’d mentioned once in the studio. He kissed that too. She shivered.
He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her underwear. Looked up at her—a question.
