King Me (Forever Wilde 7)

I whimpered and melted against him, soaking in every bit of the praise he showed me in that kiss. After pulling off, he kissed every streak of his own spunk off my face before kissing me on the lips again.

“Go,” he said, nudging me in the direction of the hallway. “Or we’ll never make it to the bed.”

I found his bedroom easily because the first one I came to was too plain and tidy. It looked like an unused guest room. The one at the end of the hall, however, was a lot like mine. The bed was made with super-soft sheets and a duvet with extra throw blankets. Squishy down pillows were stacked just how he liked them as if he’d slept there last night.

There was book on his bedside table I recognized as a recent release about the contemporary art market and the rise of mega dealers in the industry. I’d forced myself not to buy it as part of my commitment to a new life outside of the art world, but now that I saw it on his bedside table, I had to laugh.

He was as obsessed about the art world as I was, and he’d been right when he’d joked about having museum posters because it was all he could afford. The framed prints around his apartment were as varied as the pickings in a thrift shop. He had classics like The Kiss from his cat’s namesake, and more obscure pieces like a Ben Smith wood block print. It was the kind of hodgepodge that would drive a curator crazy trying to make some kind of sense of the display, but in this cozy apartment, it somehow worked.

One of the cats jumped up onto the bed and curled into a tight ball, clearly anticipating a nice cuddle with his man. I had news for him. There was a new kitten in town.

“Scoot over, Gus,” I murmured, peeling my clothes off and tossing them over a chair in the corner of the room. When I slid between the cool sheets, I reached out to pet his silky fur. “I think your dad’s feeding you in the other room.” He didn’t budge, and I didn’t blame him. The bed was so comfortable, it felt like heaven.

That was the last thing I remembered until morning.

29

Falcon

After feeding the boys and making sure there wasn’t a note from the neighbor who cat-sit for me, I finally made my way to the bedroom to find King dead asleep curled around Gus. Coolie followed me into the bedroom and jumped up to join them, completing the domestic little tableau that fed into all of my fantasies.

In Greece, I’d made some snap judgments about King. I’d assumed he wasn’t the settling-down kind because he seemed right at home in the glitz and glamor of the jet-set art life. I’d watched him schmooze at the gala with other elites who seemed to travel from one luxury destination to another, and I’d assumed he enjoyed that life.

But then today, I’d seen him with his family and heard about a completely different side of him.

His grandfathers had told me about a teenager who’d begged to mow the lawn because he found it meditative. They described a skinny knock-kneed version of King who could often be found hiding in the hayloft of the barn sketching his favorite scenes from around town and the ranch. When King interrupted one of their stories to describe the small town of Hobie, something had lit up in his eyes. I could tell he missed it. As different as a place like that was from his current Parisian life, Hobie seemed to give King a sense of place, of belonging.

His grandfathers told me about King volunteering at a rec center youth program to help teach art to young children after it had been cut from the school budget. King had pointed out that his grandfathers had been the ones to bankroll the program. He’d been trying to take the focus off his good works to put it on his grandfathers’ generosity, but Doc hadn’t let him.

He’d said, “Remember Winnie’s friend Cherry?”

King had groaned and begged them not to tell the story, but I’d put a hand over his mouth and asked politely.

“Cherry was diagnosed with melanoma on her face when she was twelve, which is super rare,” Doc had said.

King’s soft voice had interrupted. “Doc’s late wife, my grandmother, died of melanoma, so it hit us all pretty hard.”

The love in Doc’s eyes as he continued was palpable. “King here went over to Cherry’s parents’ house and offered to paint her portrait before the surgery. And then a year later, after her disfiguring treatment and several surgeries to try and repair it, he painted another one, making her look just as gorgeous as before. You could see the strength in her. He just… he just captured it beautifully.”