“You want me to move the Banksy?” he asks, shocked.
“Yes, the Banksy should be in the dining room. It’s bold and a brilliant conversation piece for when you host dinner parties.”
“Since when am I going to be hosting dinner parties?” he scoffs, laughing.
“Well, you should at least be prepared for it,” I grin. “Bold art belongs where people can talk about it.”
“But the living room would also technically be a place where guests would hang out,” he argues.
“Yes, but the living room is too comfortable for a Banksy.”
He frowns, but a slight smile creeps to the corner of his mouth upward, and one dimple appears on his cheek. “Strangely, and I’m not sure how or why, but that makes sense,” he says, surprised.
“I know,” I sass.
***
Anton isn’t there when the guards usher the gallery's delivery people into the house. I’m too excited to go figure outwhere he is. Technically, he should be resting, as his wound is still healing, and it gives me all the freedom in the world to get the guys to move paintings around to my heart’s content.
For over an hour, I am happily rearranging things and putting them where I feel they are better suited.
The gallery guys leave, and I stand smiling up at the new painting over the fireplace. “It looks good,” I say, talking to myself.
Speaking out loud to no one at all makes me realize that Anton would normally be hovering over my shoulder, and I have barely seen him all afternoon.
Curious and a little worried, I go in search of him.
He’s not in his room. He’s not in the kitchen, the office, or the library.
It takes me a while to search each floor until I reach the top floor and finally hear music coming from the gym.
Walking into the open space, I find Anton, shirtless, wearing black sweatpants, leaning over a bench as he tries to stretch his quads, but there is a grimace of pain lining his face, and he’s clearly uncomfortable.
However, that isn’t the only thing I notice.
At first my eyes innocently trace down his body to the bandage on his side, wondering if he should be in the gym yet when it’s not healed.
But as they move, I notice that his body is coated in a light sheen of sweat, making him glisten and accentuating each muscle.
He stands up with his back to me and raises his arms above his head, rotating his shoulder cuff and stretching hisneck to the side. He grunts, then groans, and the sounds are borderline erotic, flooding heat between my legs as I stand there, suddenly very aware of how turned on I am.
A bead of sweat runs down the center of his back, and my eyes follow it until it soaks into the waistband of his pants.Dammit, I should not be perving like this.But it’s impossible to look away. I’ve never seen anything so devilishly masculine in my life, and my hormones are now fully raging as I hesitantly try to work out if I should bolt out of here before he discovers me or make some kind of noise to alert him that Ijustarrived.
But instead of doing either of those things, I continue to watch him like a total pervert.
Anton walks over to the weights and lifts them, gingerly testing which don't hurt his side too much. He grunts again, and honey soaks into my panties.
My cheeks begin to flush with heat, and I’m seconds from fleeing when my sneaker catches on the gym floor and makes a high, embarrassing squeaking sound.
He looks up, and immediately a massive smile spreads over his face.
“Hello, Pixie, enjoying the show?” he teases.
“I wasn’t watching!” I blurt out.
“Really? Are you lost, then? Because you’re just standing there looking a little lost.” His smile is so mischievous that it isn’t helpinganyof the inappropriate thoughts spinning through my mind.
“I was…” I glance down at what I’m wearing. Black leggings. Sneakers. A hoodie. “I was coming to the gym and then trying to figure out if I would disturb you or not,” I stammer quickly.
