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Telling her should have made him feel better, especially as it opened up the possibility of sinking into that soft womanly body for a sympathy hug. There would be no more of that nonsense. He broke their connection and returned his gaze to the restaurant’s embryonic interior.
“There I go again, making it all about me.”
“I could listen to you talk all day,” she said, her voice thrillingly compassionate.
His chest tightened and he cleared his throat like he could dislodge the annoying constriction. “I’ll probably need art for these walls. Interested in picking up a commission?”
At his abrupt halt to the intimacy, her mouth quirked but she didn’t question it. “I'm not sure my work would be suitable. It's—”
“Porny?” he cut in, aiming to lighten the mood.
That got him a cuff in the arm and they were back to the playful vibe between them. Not entirely, but he faked it. He’d learned a few tricks since climbing the ladder of fame.
“No!” she said. “I was going to say far too sophisticated for new American with country French influences. Though I suppose you could get some nice pics of farm girls doing chores.”
“Virginal milkmaids with big buckets?”
“The farmer's wife with her husband's huge...knife,” she said with a naughty laugh that did wonderful things to his brain, and surprisingly, not the one in his trousers. The tension of last night and the previous few moments had faded only to be replaced with a sweet ache somewhere in the vicinity of his lungs. A ground-rumbling sound started up at the back of the site.
“We should make a move,” he said, resolved to keep a cool head where Lili was concerned from here on out. Just a few hours to go.
“We have some time, don’t we?”
“Depends on what you have in mind.”
She brushed by him toward the exit. On purpose, the little minx.
“Well, I figured you showed me yours, so now it’s time I showed you mine.” Those pool-deep blues gaped wide, an innocent coda to her flirty words.
Not. Buying. It.
Heat burned a molten trail down his spine. So much for keeping it chill. He followed her out to the street.
Twenty-Five
There was no respite from the heat inside the fourth floor studio of the Flatiron Arts Building in Wicker Park. Not that it would have made a blind bit of difference. The studio Lili shared with Zander was small and stuffy, but still large enough that she should have been able to keep a sane, chilled distance from Jack.
Seemed they both had other ideas.
Gravitating. That’s what they were doing. No touching, not since he had held her during her meltdown back at his restaurant, but a couple of circuits of the space seemed to exert a curious animal magnetism. If he wasn’t standing next to her, she came to him. If she found herself alone, it didn’t last. He would slide in by her side, swarming her senses.
He tilted his head while examining one of Zander’s very earthy male nudes, hung, ahem, on the studio’s north-facing wall and did a marvelous job of keeping his upper lip stiff.
“This guy sells?” His gaze skimmed the $3000 price card, tucked discreetly at the corner.
She nodded. “Quite well. He was part of the New Artists exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art last fall.”
He arced around her and moved to the next one. Every hair on her neck stood to attention as he passed. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say you didn’t bring me here to look at photos of naked men. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. There was no reason to be nervous; he’d already seen her more conservative photos on DeLuca’s walls and the collage in her apartment where everyone but Lili took a starring role. It was just that she rarely showed her real work to anyone but her artist friends. The unsuitable people who understood the beauty and the pain.
Jack understood beauty, and from what he’d said about his father, he had more than a nodding acquaintance with pain. Back at his restaurant site, she had wanted to draw him into her body and hug away his hurt. Assure him she was worthy of his trust. But he had slapped on his emotional armor and shut her down. After how she had treated him, could she blame him?
Fingers shaking, she yanked open the top drawer of the corner file cabinet, acutely conscious of the stunning hunk of male at her shoulder. Which first? Which first? Her mind raced as fast as her deft fingers raked through the prints, passing over the luminous black and white close-ups of her mother, starkly beautiful during her treatment. Lili’s delicate emotional state meant those photos would have to wait for another day. Today, she would show the work that made her smile. She plucked out one of her favorites. Sadie Number Three.
She held it for Jack and smothered her surprise when he took it from her. No need to tell him to be careful about smudgy fingerprints. A man with hands like his knew exactly how to hold a photo. Like he held a woman. Gentle and sure.
He gave it a long beat of his attention, then walked the couple of feet to Zander’s drafting table where he placed it in one corner.
