Imaginary Lines (New York Leopards 3)

Yes. One little word. Funny that it should fill me with such happiness.

A few minutes later, Mike O’Connor joined us with his girlfriend, Natalie. She maneuvered her way next to me, noted Abe’s hand on my back and then smiled slightly. “Looking forward to the show?”

I nodded. “It sounds awesome. It’s been getting great reviews.”

“Yeah, I heard.” She grinned sheepishly. “By which I mean I read the ads on the sides of every bus in the city.”

When the staff slowly started ushering us toward the showroom, Abe caught my hand. “Come sit with me.”

&nb

sp; I shook my head reluctantly. “I should really sit with the other press.”

“All right. What are you doing afterward?”

I licked my lips before they curved into the slightest smile. “Why? Are you propositioning me, Abraham Krasner?”

His eyes darkened. We stood inches from each other. I could feel my blood pulsing through my veins, heady with oxygen and adrenaline. I could see nothing but Abe, his black eyes and dark honeyed hair that I ached to comb my fingers through, his open smile and his broad hands. His mellow, teasing voice filled my ear, his fresh scent tempting me. “Yes. Come to my place tonight.”

I slowly drew back, drinking in his face. My belly tingled and my whole body felt like it might float away any moment. I opened my mouth and waited for an answer to float out, not entirely sure what it would be. “Okay.”

* * *

The show was amazing, a dazzling exhibition that appealed not only to our eyes but the rest of the senses. We could feel the heat wash across our skin when men blew fire in great, roaring clouds; we could feel the mist that drifted over us when water flooded the stage. Smoke and flowers tickled our sense of scent. The howling, minor key music sent shivers down my spine, and the tribal chants reverberated through the stands. I gasped as acrobats flew through the air, barely breathed as performers defied gravity, and came near to tears at a silent dance.

The wash of emotions was nothing to what I felt when I left the show with Abraham.

He held the door open as I stepped inside his Tribeca brownstone. I hadn’t been here before, but it looked like him. The living room was warmly furnished, not unlike at his parents’ home: lots of tightly packed bookshelves and a green and white Persian rug that I recognized after a moment of once belonging to his grandmother.

He hadn’t been able to resist, apparently, furnishing the next room with plush black leather couches and a ginormous television and sound system, but even they looked cozy instead of ultra-modern, what with the familiar quartz globe that had once graced his mom’s study, and several sweatshirts draped about.

“You want anything to drink?”

For some reason, I didn’t feel nervous. I felt...high. “Water’s fine.”

He smiled that slow, private smile that always felt like it was meant just for me. “Want to see the roof?”

My lips curved up in response. “Yes.”

I followed him up a last flight of stairs and through a narrow door. My breath caught when we stepped into the cold night. The city spread out before us, each dark shape lit up with hundreds of bright golden squares. Everything glowed yellow and burnt orange.

It took me a minute before I’d soaked in enough of the view to take in the roof itself, and then I couldn’t help letting out a laugh. “Of course you have a private, gorgeous roof garden.” Enough plants lined the roof that it felt like a forest, not just trees but herbs and bushes. The roof itself, where it wasn’t soil, had been set with giant white stone that shone with flecks of silver.

He grinned almost sheepishly. “If I was going to spend my money on anything, I wanted my own little refuge.”

There were chairs, but the best feature was a wooden swing. We sat on it, swaying slightly, and stared up at the moon.

When he spoke, his voice was low and measured. “In the city, the pollution’s so strong that stars are blotted out. But you can always see the moon.”

There was something about the moon, the sky, the way the whole world—the whole universe—stretched above us. It gave rise to the primal, purest part of me. The person I wanted to be, the person who was balanced and happy and who noticed the freshness of oxygen as she drew it into her lungs.

I could feel it building in my chest, the beauty of the trees and moon and night. It was like an animal, moving and stirring, uncurling throughout my lungs and throat and calming me. I watched the slowly drifting clouds, veils of white again the inky dark. The moon floated through them, bright and full as the hope in my chest, a beautiful illusion of motion that wasn’t an illusion at all. I could see the craters in the white globe, though I’d never been able to see a man.

I’d only ever been able to see one man.

I turned to study him. His hand slid around my waist and tugged me easily into his lap, and I let out half a startled laugh and braced my hands against his chest for balance.

Then we were kissing. We were pressed up against one another, arms tangled, legs and hips pressed together, breathless and thoughtless.