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CHAPTER
FOUR
LUNA
“Whew, I’m glad that tour is done!”
School field trip groups are typically my favorite visitors to the art museum where I work, because the younger kids are so unfiltered and the older kids are usually art lovers already.
But the group I had this afternoon was a doozy. One kid kept trying to touch the paintings, and another was making inappropriate comments about every centuries-old sculpture. He even pretended to spank a dyad’s ass.
And the poor teacher was trying to be in five places at once with octopus arms to keep each kid safely corralled while preventing damage to the museum’s pieces.
So I’m admittedly grateful to see that particular school bus pulling away.
“Well, I hope your tank still has some gas in it, girl. You’ve got a four o’clock tour now,” Maeve informs me.
Maeve is basically the boss of the museum. She usually stays buried in the administrative tasks, keeping us funded and running. But it’s not unusual to see her walking the floor, her colorful outfits almost works of art themselves. Today, her gray hair is pulled back to give her teal hat the spotlight, which matches her multi-colored wrap dress and contrasts with her bright red loafers and lipstick. She’s what every cool sixty-year-old woman dreams of being on their best day.
Shoot, she’s what I dream of being at twenty-three.
“A four o’clock? That wasn’t on the schedule this morning.” I look at my phone to confirm. Nope, schedule clear. And after the insanity of my last three-hour tour, I was looking forward to a cold cereal dinner with a fruit punch, truly like a real adult after a long day, not another couple of hours of WWE-meets-art lecture with kids who scatter like wolf spider babies.
Please let it be a couple of tourists who want a show-and-tell tour.
“It was booked today, actually. A private tour at that, with a special request for you as the guide,” she confides slyly. I know what she’s thinking . . . the cost of a private tour will be a boon for the monthly museum budget.
But I have a sinking suspicion that I know exactly who would book a private, last-minute tour with me.
An hour later, my suspicions are confirmed when I arrive at the main desk only to find Carter there, leaning against the counter and at least halfway to charming the panties off the receptionist with his toothpaste-commercial smile and naughty-glint eyes.
Before he notices me, I take a moment to look him up and down. He’s objectively attractive, of course, but I’ve always felt that there’s something dark beneath his squeaky-clean exterior.
For him, I think he’s dressed casually in slacks that are likely part of his daily suit and a button-up shirt that he’s undone at the throat after ditching the tie. Vaguely, I wonder if he ever gets down and dirty, and an image of him climbing into bed in one of those old-man, two-piece matching pajama sets makes me giggle internally.
Right at that moment, it’s like he senses me because he looks my way, catching me grinning like a loon right at him. Of course, he thinks I’m smiling because he’s here, the idea that I’m laughing at him never once occurring to him.
“Well, hello, Luna,” he drawls out, seeming pleased to see me. Or tickled that he’s busted me mooning over him like the receptionist and every other woman he encounters.
Prickles run along my arms, and my own response to his honeyed voice saying my name all sexy like that annoys me. “What’re you doing here?”
His blue eyes go frosty, but he shrugs as though my challenge is no big deal. “Getting the help I need. I don’t give up easily, or ever.” He shoots a cheesy wink at the receptionist who’s probably sitting in a puddle of her own making.
I take a big breath to steel myself. “Fine. We’ll start with the medieval torture devices.”
We don’t even have those, but right now, I’m wishing we had an entire wing of them so that I could put Carter on a rack and stretch him until he was as long and elastic as Gumby.
“For my use or yours?” Carter quips with a sly lift of his brow. When my jaw drops in shock, he holds his hands up and grins that panty-melting smile. “No judgment if that’s what you’re into.”
“I could be into that,” the receptionist offers with a twirl of her hair.
“Argh,’ I growl. “Come on.”
I lead him to the Impressionist section first, showcasing the single Monet painting we’ve acquired that is the capstone of our collection. In full tour guide mode, I tell him, “This was loaned to the museum by an anonymous donor. It’s been on display here for over ten years and seen by thousands of visitors. If you’ll notice, looking at the piece overall, the way he used light and shadow creates a sense of vibrant movement even though the subject is a still-frame capture.” I pause, waiting for Carter to agree, and once he nods, I continue. “Moving closer, you can see that the way he does that is through small brush strokes going all different directions to create that fluidity. For example, here.” I point to the lower portion of the painting where there’s a section of greenery in the foreground that appears to be blowing in an invisible wind.
