“Come for me,” I command, and she does, her body arching off the table as she whispers my name over andover again.
I don’t stop until she’s spent, her legs shaking, her pussy still quivering around my fingers.
I stand, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
She looks up at me with heavy-lidded eyes.
“You’re beautiful.” My voice is thick with lust.
She smiles, her fingers already fumbling with the buttons of my pants?—
We hear doors open and close.
We freeze.
I kiss her mouth gently, releasing her hands from my clothes. “Next time,chérie.”
I now know there will be a next time…and a next time. Screw scandal, I want this woman. She’s a fire in my blood.
She nods. She understands, too.
More doors open and close. Someone is coming. This is risky.
“Tonight. I’ll come to your place tonight.” I kiss her pouty mouth once more. “Say I can.”
A door slams. She gasps. “Yes, you can,” she whispers urgently.
I trace a gentle thumb over her lower lip before I walk out of the lab.
As soon as I do, I bump into Giselle.
“Ah, Giselle. I wanted to check on the Carriera.” I take advantage of her interest in me and tuck her hand on my forearm, and walk her away from where Tara isrecovering from the orgasm I gave her with my tongue. Giselle gladly lets me.
“So, this American is working out?” I ask, polite, conversational.
I steer her toward the Salle des États, away from the conservation lab, away from the woman who has undone me with a single whisperedyes.
Giselle hums in approval. “Yes, she’s quite talented. Dedicated. I suppose we should be grateful you arranged the loan.”
I smile faintly.
My blood is still humming from Tara’s touch, my lips still tingling with the taste of her. My mind is half here, half back in that quiet, controlled room where she let me kiss her, which I did like a starving man.
We enter the Salle des États, where the patrons are gathered under the floodlights, glasses clinking, the chatter of money and influence filling the air.
Phone cameras go click, click, click near the Mona Lisa, guests preen and circle one another. The room feels empty becauseshe’snot in it.
I leave shortly thereafter, in a hurry to get to her.
My heart soars in a way I have not felt since I was a boy.
This is no performance.
For the first time in years, I am not thinking of scandal, or of Simone, or of the headlines that might follow me.
For the first time in years, I am thinking only of a woman. A woman who is mine.
CHAPTER 13
