Page 47 of A Dangerous Bargain

He guides my hand closer, and I let him. When my finger is a hairbreadth from the canvas, I uncurl it with a held breath. I pull away and leave a tiny dot on the canvas where there was nothing before.

But Leonardo gasps like I’ve put the finishing touch on a masterpiece. “You did it!”

A baby could do what I did. On accident. I open my mouth to say so, but I can’t bring myself to transform Leonardo’s breathless smile into a frown. I don’t want to be the person who dampens his fire tonight. He’s helped me for weeks. I’d say it makes me want to be a better version of myself for him, but that’s not quite right. Being exposed to his relentless warmth has thawed a part of me I forgot was there.

“I did.” I smile shyly, but the grin he beams back magnifies mine tenfold.

“Keep going.”

I dip into the paint again. This time I drag my fingers along the lines of sketch just visible beneath the yellow-gray base layer. The texture snags on my finger pads. The bride’s dress slowly fills with a rich plum color. It feels good, right. After a few minutes, Leonardo lifts his brush and fills in a more detailed section.

Sitting side by side with him feels right too. His breathing follows the ebb and flow of my pulse. The sky goes darker as the scent of the night-blooming flowers tumbles through the open windows lining the workshop’s second-floor gallery.

The dark makes me feel brave enough to tell him something I should’ve said a long time ago. “I’ve always admired the way you paint faces.” Their expressions are alive in a way mine never are. “How do you do it?”

He blinks, as if my question is reaching him from the end of a long tunnel. “I always start with a real person. Not how they look, but how they make me feel.” He drags his brush through ocher and adds it to the panel. “I’ll sketch them over and over again until they possess me, the smallest details taking up my entire mind. Lines in a brow, the curve of eyelashes.”

The word slips out unbidden. “Freckles.”

His cheeks go pink, highlighting his damn freckles even more starkly. I drag my tongue along my teeth, embarrassed, but not enough to take it back.

“Freckles,” he agrees quietly.

There’s a squeal as his stool scrapes closer. I’m facing him now, our knees touching. Heat roars off him like a furnace.

“If I were drawing you, I would do the cheekbones first.” His fingertips slowly drag along the ridges under my eyes. I shiver at the whisper of coolness where the paint sticks. “Then the eyes.” He traces my brow bone tenderly, his finger lingering at the corner of my eye. “They’re the most interesting color, did you know? A burst of copper ringed in green.”

My heart is a storm raging beneath my ribs. After several ragged breaths, I cup his jaw in a trembling hand. “It’s the freckles for me.” My smallest finger presses against each one I can reach, gentle as a snowflake. “How many do you even have?”

A laugh rumbles deep in his chest. “Would you like to count them all?”

“I’ve tried.” I press into the one at the edge of his mouth. It might be my favorite. “But you’re so distracting, I always lose count.”

“I distract you?” He tilts his head, lips against my thumb, eyes heavy-lidded and low.

It’s not a kiss, but it could be.

My thumb drags downward, tugging on his bottom lip. “Always.”

I feel his sharp inhale, the hitch in his breath, a jerk in my lower belly.

“Virgil,” he whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear over my rioting pulse. “What are we doing?”

Dear sweet Cristo, what are we doing?

I lean backward slowly, wanting to put distance between us without hurting his feelings. A tumult of emotions charges through me—but none of them are shame or regret or anything that would douse the hunger in my soul and remind my traitorous, grabby hands that kissing your colleague and co-conspirator is a very, very bad idea!

I’m not allowed to have this. We need to go back to where we were before.

I wipe my shaking, stained hand on my trousers. “You do this a lot, then? Make up stories about strangers?”

His mouth presses together, the movement almost imperceptible. “Perhaps. Why do you ask?”

There’s no point lying. Not when I’ve nearly kissed him and the alternative might be having to talk about that instead. “I… might’ve seen your drawings.”

“Snooping in my room? I thought a rule book brought to life like you would be above such scandal.”

I let out a breathless laugh, relieved he’s letting me change the subject. Him teasing me is safe. It’s something I can handle. “It was an accident, I swear. I went in because I feared your giant mess had finally suffocated you.”