AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s only a lithograph, but it’s his. Numbered and signed.” Ambri smirked. “Marc Chagall, at least, remembered to sign his work.”
I stared. It may have been a litho—a copy of the original work—but it came from Chagall’s studio. I knew that without having to look at the certificate affixed to the back. I was holding a small fortune in my hands, but that’s not what made it valuable to me.
“The Painter and His Double,”I murmured.
Like most of Chagall’s work, the painting was fantastical, filled with mythical imagery, symbols, and metaphor. This one was of a painter sitting on a small stool behind his canvas. A yellow sun sat low in a pale blue sky, the Eiffel Tower rising on the right. The scene was Paris but may as well have been Hyde Park. A romantic couple floated above the painter’s canvas, reminding me of the honeymooners who bought my first portrait. The painter’s subject was a man with white wings, standing on a cello.
“Chagall is my favorite.” I touched my fingertips to the winged man. “How did you know?
“You told me. In no uncertain terms.”
“When?”
“At the art store.”
I searched my memory, vaguely recalling that I’d mentioned a certain indigo color I called ‘Chagall blue.’
“You remember that?”
“He seemed to move you. I took a chance.”
I shook my head. “Any particular reason you chose this print with this title?”
“A coincidence,” Ambri said stiffly. “Don’t read too much into it. There’s also a flying fish and a bird playing the fiddle, so…”
I laughed a little though, my heart felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. “Thank you.”
Without thinking, I reached over and hugged Ambri—an automatic gesture of gratitude. Instantly, I was enveloped in his scent, the heat of his body and the power that emanated from it. For weeks, I’d lived in torturous proximity, getting only hints, like scraps of food thrown to a starving man. Now I held him close, absorbing the feel of him everywhere we touched.
“Cole…” he said thickly against my neck.
For a moment, the air between us tightened and filled with possibility. Then he abruptly rose and went to the window.
The wine had made me fuzzy. Or maybe it was his gift. He was too fucking smart to have picked that print by accident. Hope was the true taskmaster, I thought. Relentless. I took off my glasses and set them aside and went to Ambri.
I rested my forehead on his back and laid my hands over the places where his wings would be. I moved my palms up the silk of his suit jacket, then down the sides of his shoulders so I could peel it off him.
Unwrap him…
The jacket fell to the floor.
“What are you doing?” he said hoarsely.
“Trying to keep you.”
Still behind him, I undid the top buttons on his dress shirt and pulled the collar away from his neck so I could put my mouth there. One hand slipped into his shirt, against his chest and over his heart that was pounding. The other slid down to the front of his pants. He was already thick and hard against my palm. All the while, I kissed his neck, grazed my teeth against his skin, tongued his earlobe.
One of Ambri’s hands shot out to brace himself against the windowsill, his breathing ragged. The other reached up to sink into my hair, making a fist and sending electric shards down my spine. I maneuvered under his waistband, under the silk of his underwear. He groaned as I squeezed and stroked, my mouth never relenting against his neck, my other arm holding him tight to me.
I thought he might let me take him to release, but he made a strangled cry and spun around. He captured my wrists and slammed me back, pinning me to the wall. To myself. To the earth. Finally, I felt connected to something other than weightless loneliness.
His face was inches from mine, our bodies flush against the other. I widened my stance to bring him closer, our hips pressed tight. I heard his inhale; it drew me to him, to his mouth. He evaded my kiss and buried his face in my neck, an onslaught of teeth and tongue and heated breath.
“Cole,” he hissed against my ear. “I have to have you.”
With those words, our embrace became a battle. Grasping hands tore at clothes, and mouths bit instead of kissed because kissing wasn’t allowed. He yanked my shirt over my head; the bare skin of my chest met his where his shirt hung open, but it wasn’t enough. I needed both of us naked, in bed, skin to skin and touching in a thousand places. I wanted his kiss, even though I knew it would ruin me forever.
I was losing sense of time and place, reckless need replacing rational thought. I was seconds away from bending him over the couch and fucking him senseless. Or he could fuck me. I was desperate for him.
