29. You Are Just
29
YOU ARE JUST
Harlow
After Andy hangs the painting that morning, I call an impromptu meeting of the Virgin Society for late Friday afternoon in Abingdon Square, a little triangular patch of park atop the Village. It’s an oasis in Manhattan, with benches and trees and so much greenery.
Another benefit? It’s right next to Lulu’s Café, an extension of the chocolate shop.
The three of us nurse iced hot chocolates in the park while Layla preps me for tomorrow’s meeting with Amelie, and I try to stay in the moment and not jump ahead fifteen minutes to when I’ll see Bridger.
Layla issues me a stern, no-nonsense stare. “And where do you see yourself in five years?” she asks, role-playing Amelie, while Ethan snags her iced chocolate drink to take a sip.
Before I can answer and before he can drink, he mutters, “Between Bridger’s legs, sucking him off.”
I smack him. “Shut up.”
Layla simply stares at Ethan, her eyebrows saying well played. Then, she clears her throat. “As I was saying, in five years, do you see yourself giving him a humdinger under his desk, or in your living room while your firstborn naps?”
“You’re both fired!” I shout.
“From friendship? Because it seems like you’ll be firing yourself from the Virgin Society soon,” Ethan points out, then finally takes that sip.
“That was always my goal,” I say, then I look at Layla. “Stop distracting me from work talk with sex talk. This was your idea. You wanted to prep me for tomorrow.”
“And I also enjoy naughty tales. So sue me,” she says with a shrug.
She asks the five-year question again, I answer eloquently, and with that done, I declare that I’m ready for tomorrow.
Ethan pats my thigh. It’s mostly bare. Well, I am wearing a short, blue plaid skirt. “So, does your dad know you quit?”
“I haven’t told him. He hasn’t asked either. He’s probably too busy with Vivian. I’ll tell him soon, though.”
“Speaking of, what happens with you and the birthday present,” Ethan says, wagging his eyebrows, “when Daddy’s back?”
My stomach twists. I’m not sure when my father’s vacation is ending, but he can’t stay away forever. He loves work too much. That’s the problem. He’ll always work with Bridger. “Bridger and I haven’t talked about that. I don’t even want to broach it yet. Everything is so…fragile and dangerous.”
“Ooh, that sounds like lyrics to a new Ethan song,” Layla says brightly.
Ethan knits his brow and nods to a beat in his head, getting a rhythm. “Like, my heart is fragile with you…but dangerous to us,” he improvises in a beautiful tenor with a touch of gravel.
“Stop showing off your talent,” I tease.
He checks the time on his phone. “I should return to the rehearsal studio. The guys will be back.”
I perk up. “How is it going?”
Ethan’s been riffing with his new band, and he stole away to meet us while they ran errands.
“Oh, you know how it goes. You love it and hate it and beat yourself up all at once,” he says.
“So…it’s like any other type of art.”
“Exactly.”
Layla hops up too. “I should go. Mom has a charity thing for me tonight. Wish me luck.”
I say goodbye, and once they head out into the Friday rush hour, I check the time. Bridger will be here in ten minutes.
I can’t wait to see him. And to finally get the details.
I asked him earlier how he pulled off the gift, but he said he’d tell me when he picked me up on the way to the Ashanti Gallery in Brooklyn. Patience, honey , he’d written.
How can I have patience when you gave me this beauty?
Then I sent him a photo of the art hanging on my wall. Andy the Handyman worked fast.
Right on time, Bridger’s town car pulls up, and he steps out of the back, looking sinfully beautiful in dark slacks that hug his legs and a shirt the color of rich red wine. Fine stubble lines his jaw.
His eyes twinkle—he looks so damn pleased. Maybe he’s been grinning wickedly all day after pulling off his very own art heist for me.
I nearly can’t stand how good I feel right now. How fizzy my body is. I head toward him, but he’s faster. With purposeful steps, he strides across the park to meet me. When he reaches me, he looks down at the cup in my hand. “Anything good?”
“It’s an iced chocolate,” I say as if I’m floating—on the whole damn day, on the possibilities of tonight. Since my brother’s arriving later, we have little time together this evening, so I want to savor every second. I offer him the drink. “Do you want to try it?”
“Yes,” he says, watching me as he takes a sip from the same metal straw my lips touched moments ago.
It’s heady.
When he lets go, his gaze drifts to the lip gloss remnants on the straw. “I can taste chocolate and your lip gloss.”
My skin tingles. My body aches. “Do they taste good?”
“Exquisite,” he says, his blue eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them, full of heat and unabashed want. A rumble comes from his throat as he tilts his head toward the car. “Let’s get in the car, Harlow. Now.”
Holy shit. This man just turned all the tables on me.
For the whole month—no, for the entire year—I’ve been wanting, hoping, craving.
Then chasing.
Now, he’s taking the reins. He’s in this too—whatever this is.
Quickly, I toss the cup in the park’s recycling bin, then stuff the metal straw in its pouch.
He holds open the car door, and I slide into the backseat—our private ride in Manhattan. Once he shuts us inside, he turns to me, looking ready to take me. But I’m faster. Setting my things down on the console, I grab his cheeks, holding his face. “Thank you for the painting. Thank you so much,” I say, wanting him to know how much it meant to me.
“It was my pleasure—” He swallows that last word as my lips capture his.
I try to tell him with my kiss that no one has ever given me something like that before.
But a kiss can’t say everything.
I break apart. “Bridger, I love it. And I love your note too,” I say, vulnerable, totally open with him.
He smiles—a warm, relaxed kind of smile that’s all new on him. I imagine that’s his vacation smile, the one he wears when he’s lounging on a chair on a tropical island under the warm sun, the ocean lapping the shore.
It’s the smile of a content man.
But it’s not in his nature to be content. He’s busy, always moving, striving, yearning. In this moment though, he seems satisfied.
With me? With us? With this night? Maybe all of it, all at once.
As the car cruises toward Brooklyn, I ask again, “But how did you do it?”
His grin is wicked. “Do what? Get this car?”
I play along, sliding a palm over the black leather seat. “Yes. The car. It’s so nice.”
“You like me for my town car?”
“That’s it exactly.”
“Say it,” he teases. “Say you like me for my town car.”
“Never,” I taunt.
“C’mon. Just a little?” he prompts. But I wonder if he truly craves reassurance.
Maybe he needs to hear that I like him for him, not for the town car, not for the trappings of his job, not for the accouterments of wicked success.
Not even for the painting.
Maybe I’m the only one he interacts with who doesn’t have an agenda. Or rather, perhaps my agenda is the one he wants too— us.
I grab his shirt. “I’d walk with you to the gallery in Brooklyn.”
He covers one of my hands with his. “All right, we’re pulling over now.”
“Okay, maybe I didn’t mean it,” I say, laughing. Then I meet his gaze again, my smile disappearing. I draw a quick breath for courage, then I leap. “I care about you deeply,” I say, as I test out those words, the start of an admission. But it barely covers this coil of emotions knotting tightly in my chest. Desire, want, hope, and then, something else. Something new. Something delicious. “And I love the painting because you gave it to me. That’s why I love the gift.”
He takes my hand from his chest and curls his fingers through mine. “I had to get it for you.”
“Yeah?”
He presses a soft but terribly sexy kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Once I saw you staring at it, I was determined,” he says, breaking the kiss.
I nearly bounce. “Tell me. How did you pull it off?”
With a confident shrug, he says, “I negotiate for a living. I negotiated for it.”
“But when?” I ask.
“Before I left, while Dominic was chatting with the curator, I asked the owner about purchasing the piece. Bettencourt himself. He said it had sold. He wouldn’t disclose the buyer’s name. Told me he couldn’t sell it out from under someone.” Bridger takes a storytelling pause, building suspense. “But there’s more than one way to get what you want. So I mingled with Dominic as he chatted with attendees—making small talk with guests, seeing if anyone knew the buyer.”
“You did all that?” I ask in a whisper.
He despises mingling. It stresses him out. Makes him feel out of control. Borderline anxious. But he did it for me.
He just nods, then continues. “And I found a lead while Dominic was talking to Bettencourt. There was another gallerist who said she’d heard a guy bragging about having bought the Zara Clementine. As Dominic and I headed downtown, I looked up the guy. Turns out he works at a hedge fund.”
“Wow,” I say, and impressed barely covers it.
“I didn’t make an offer then in front of Dominic. But I called the buyer this morning shortly after the markets opened, told him I wanted it, and then I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
“Bridger,” I say, swept up in the magnitude of his gift.
“It worked out for everyone. He’s an investor. He made a terrific ROI in less than twenty-four hours. You have the work of art you want.” He cups my chin and strokes my face. “And I was able to give you the thing you wanted most.”
I have chills everywhere—sexy, gorgeous chills. My heart is caught in my throat. “Thank you,” I manage to say past the tightness.
“I just wanted you to have it,” he says, then he dusts a kiss onto my lips. “Especially after what you did for…”
He’s this close to saying us .
I can hear it on the tip of his tongue.
I don’t know if there will ever be an us, but right now, tonight, it feels like we can’t be anything else but an us . Especially when he lays kisses on my neck like he adores me. Then when he nibbles on my earlobe, like I belong to him.
Intimacy feels inevitable, whether tonight or another time, so I slide a hand between us, press it to his chest. “I’ve never had sex. I want you to be my first.”
He stops, blinks, then asks carefully, “You do?” It’s full of wonder, naked excitement, and not an ounce of judgment.
“I do.”
He shudders out a breath. Licks his lips. Then just nods. “Yes.”
That’s it. It’s done. A promise that some time, we will.
Right now all I want is to get closer to him, so I lie down on the seat, stretch across it, and pull him on top of me.
He covers me with his strong body, and I wrap my legs around him.
“You are just…” His words fall to pieces as his lips find mine.
He doesn’t have to finish the sentence.
I feel the same.
He is just…
Like that we kiss, with our whole bodies, the entire way across the city.