Priceless

“Oh it’s definitely stiff,” Ivan said softly while looking devilishly into my eyes.

Simon giggled and snapped what felt like millions of shots. “This is brilliantly luscious, you two.” He kept directing us into positions that required my body to be plastered up against Ivan’s tantalizing one. God, he smelled so good to me, something that hadn’t changed from that first night at the National Gallery. His hair fell forward when he dipped me this way and that, brushing along his jaw and sometimes over mine. I couldn’t take much more of this. It was too hard for me.

And I was starting to hate Simon-the-photographer with a passion.

“He’s so right, you know.”

“About?”

“Your magnificent legs.” He brought his eyes down and over my bent knee and pointed toe, the effect of which had raised the wispy skirt of my dress so high he was probably seeing way more than he should.

Fuck my life.

I struggled to pull my skirt down but gravity has the ultimate say in such matters. Ivan held me how he wanted to anyway, and I sensed he wouldn’t release me until he was good and ready.

“Please…Ivan, can we stop this?” I begged on a whisper. “I don’t want to—I can’t—please.”

His gaze flickered for a moment as he held me against him, and stared down at me, weighing my request possibly?

“That’s it. We’ve had enough,” he told Simon firmly, before raising me up back to standing, his hands still holding me close, one at my lower back and the other gripping one of mine.

My dress floated back down to the floor.

“If you have a drink with me I’ll stop.”

“I shouldn’t.” I’d had several drinks tonight already but I didn’t tell him that.

“But you will. I’m calling a truce with you and it’s what I want. It’s time for us to make friends, Gabrielle.”

“Fine.” He just didn’t give up and I was tired of fighting him at every turn.

When I agreed to the drink he smiled at me again, this time just as devastating to my resolve as all of the other times.

I was in very deep trouble with this man.

And he knew it as well as I did.

“YOU liked this last night so I hope another blueberry mojito is okay.” I held out the glass to her as I came up to where she was waiting for me opposite the dance floor. The fact she was waiting for me at all and not trying to ditch me was a nice place to start, I thought wryly.

She accepted the drink and took a sip. “Oh, that’s strong, but it’s good. Thank you.”

“My pleasure, of course.” I tilted my head, wanting to show her I did possess some manners even if she’d never really witnessed them from me thus far. I could tell she was a complicated woman, but it was the fact she was a total mystery, that captivated me more. I needed to peel away her layers and discover her secrets one by one until there weren’t any more to know. She drove me to wanting to know everything about her.

Her eyes flicked down and away from me.

My eyes on her stayed put.

I finally had her semi-alone, and since she wasn’t running for the moment, I needed to get my fill of looking. The warm summer breeze fluttered her gauzy lavender dress and pressed it against the definition of her legs and breasts. Intoxicatingly female. She was also a woman very finely made.

Her hair moved, too. I wished she would look at me so I could see what was in her eyes. Eyes were sometimes all you needed to see to know how a person felt about you.

I was still trying very much to understand her motives. Why she had been so connected at the gala, and why she kept running from me now. I sensed there was far more than my error in mistaking her for an escort.

I hadn’t been very successful so far but there was one thing I was dead certain about. Gabrielle Hargreave was really struggling with our attraction. It was real, and right now I could feel the heat coming off her as strong as the first time we’d met in that back gallery hallway two months ago.

“This whole thing is priceless you know, you being Brynne’s friend I was supposed to meet and ask to have a look at my paintings.”

She finally let me see her eyes, but the smile she gave didn’t reach them.