“We’ll come back,” Ryan said, utterly unconvincingly, and then he laughed softly at my patent disbelief. “I’ll make a winning bid before we leave.”
“Okay.” I was too dizzy to protest anymore. My hand slipped into his larger one, warm and safe, and we walked toward the closest auction piece, a quilt made by children from Queens. Ryan picked up the pen, signed away the equivalent of six months of student loans, and then we turned to go.
“Hey, aren’t you Ryan Carter?”
For a moment, we stared blankly at the couple before us. It took that long to remember there were other people in our world, old rich folk who wanted to talk. After the blankness cleared the lust away, I wanted to impale them with my fiercest glare, but Ryan had already changed over from my Ryan to theirs, to the charming quarterback with a ready smile and a firm handshake. “Yes,” he said, and his hand withdrew from mine to shake theirs.
In the minute introductions took, a small, eager crowd gathered around Ryan, and our chance to escape slipped away. Maybe we’d been spared those first minutes because we’d stood too close and spoken too softly, but now the fans had flocked and I could only stand at his side, smiling and wishing my pulse would slow and that I could stop picturing Ryan sliding his hands under my dress and pressing his mouth down on mine.
I swallowed and blinked and nodded as the woman beside me spoke. I tried not to focus too much on the timbre of Ryan’s voice, instead concentrating on his words as he told a story—and told it well—of the winning drive in the last AFC Championship game.
His arm swept out as he demonstrated a point. His knuckles glanced across my upper arm.
I focused entirely on the painting of the gypsy camp until I was certain I was in control.
Ryan’s crowd of fans grew. It contained politicians and one of the museum’s board members. At one point, a movie star wandered by, did a double take, and came back to add his own voice, identifying himself as a native New Yorker and lifelong Leopards fan.
I’d known people were passionate about sports. I had. There were sports riots, weren’t there? And hadn’t I read that Super Bowl Sunday was the second most observed holiday, after Christmas? And people wore their teams’ jerseys. And had bar fights.
Could people buy Ryan’s jersey?
Think about that later, Rachael.
But watching these people, their glowing faces and their unifying gestures made the game’s significance hit home, and I was struck by a fierce pride for Ryan. Not that he was mine to be proud of.
But he could be. If I let him in.
“Having fun?” someone asked, a hand landing on my shoulder. I almost jumped at the feeling of fingers curling over my bare flesh, and I twisted to see Mike grinning at me.
“Mike! Hi! I’m watching sports fans in action.” Did I sound painfully turned on? Were my pupils inappropriately dilated, like I was on drugs or sex? Nothing to do about it now.
Mike regarded the scene fondly, not seeming to notice my still-speeding pulse. “Yeah, we have some good ones, don’t we? Nice dress. You look good.”
“Thanks. So do you.”
A man at the edge of the group, in his mid-fifties with a bit of a gut, swung to face us. “Mike O’Connor!” He reached out to shake Mike’s hand. “So good to meet you!”
Soon enough, Dylan and Abe joined our clump, forming a bastion of Leopard support in the middle of the gallery. Nominally, I was speaking with Mike and three older fans, two suits and a woman in a sparkling blue dress with a spiderweb of diamonds across her throat. But my body focused on Ryan, who stood at an angle to me. Each time he shifted, our bodies slid across each other. Hands brushed. Hips touched each other for a bare second. Shoulders, finally, settled against each other. I didn’t so much as twitch my arm for fifteen minutes.
Finally, Ryan slipped his arm around my waist. “I hate to leave, but we haven’t had a chance to look at all the items up for bid.” With a few more words encouraging the crowd to place their own bids, we were finally able to slip away, the crowd parting for us like magic.
“Sorry.” His hand lingered on my waist. “Sometimes that happens.”
I raised my brows, trying to keep my tone light. “Next time you’re wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses.”
We’d made it out of the room, into the hall, and halfway to the entrance when another voice called out his name. We paused to see Sharon Downey, celebrity reporter extraordinaire, striding toward us, followed by a camera crew. Her famous bright red hair swayed back and forth, the waves never breaking alignment. “So good to see you again. Do you have a moment to talk about your contribution to the Children’s Society?”
“Don’t even think about it,” I whispered.
Ryan smiled smoothly at Sharon Downey. “Of course.” His hand slid away.
As I waited—“No, not there,” the lighting tech said, “You’re blocking the light”—two paper-thin twenty-somethings walked by. “God, he’s gorgeous,” one of them sighed. “Is he dating anyone right now?”
“Not since Louisa Belltower. Go for it.”
This was getting ridiculous. Had I somehow signed up to reenact the Twelve Labors of Hercules? Except instead of slaying and capturing and mucking out stables, I had to sneak Ryan away from fans and newscasters and twiggy girls.
All right, then. If Hercules could slay some man-eating birds, so could I.