Chapter 16 #2
She squeezed his biceps. “I dare you to.”
He slipped his new phone from his pocket.
“Jane” grinned at him from the lock screen. Vivian’s outer wrapping had changed since this pic was taken. New hair color and lighter, looser and more revealing clothing.
But the sparkle in her eyes was the same.
Vivian inspected the placard next to Amina’s piece. “Argh, her bio’s wrong. It says she trained with her brother.”
He snapped pictures of Vivian, hands on her hips, frowning.
“This’ll probably fetch—” she squinted one eye and tick-tocked her head “—five thousand euros. But her accurate backstory could bump it up to fifteen. I need to get this fixed before tonight.”
Her disappointment was palpable. Even though art brokering was her alias, she sincerely cared about her artists. He loved that about her.
As he moved through the gallery, he snapped pics of the setup.
The paintings were hung with simple French gallery hooks, no anchors.
Easy enough to lift from the walls. As they progressed, Vivian ballparked what each piece would sell for, giving an accurate mini-bio and sales history for each artist.
She was so good at Jane’s job.
Between her sharp sense of humor and irresistible looks, she’d intrigued him from the start. He’d fallen off a cliff for her, though, when she revealed her encyclopedic grasp of art history coupled with her chokehold on the business side.
And it was her second job? He didn’t know when she slept.
But when she did sleep, he wanted to be the one lying next to her.
* * *
Vivian docked her hands on her hips. This would not do.
The gallery had hung the Rocksy piece differently than the artist’s request to place solid pieces on the floor and lean them against the wall, and to hang flimsy pieces with binder clips.
Instead, they’d framed Smoking Hon and hung it on the wall.
In a stroke of luck, though, it was near the vent that capped the duct they’d crawl through.
Even better, the Casino d’Or had sprung for fancy Beaux Arts–style vent covers with huge gaps.
Easier for anyone crawling through the duct to see through, too.
One screw in each corner. Easy enough to kick through.
Vivian tilted her head back. Domed cameras dotted the room’s corners.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said. “Lie on the ground for a worm’s eye view of these pieces.”
“Great idea.” Without argument, John dropped and fired off shots.
She covered her laughter with her fist. Based on his enthusiastic charades-playing, she should’ve predicted he’d be a champ at this.
As he snapped photos, she encroached on the protective barrier.
The thin elastic cord strung through steel uprights was either a visual cue not to come closer to the Rocksy piece or an alarm would be triggered.
“Babe,” John said.
She stifled another giggle. Babe? They were not babe people. Plus, he’d unbuttoned his shirt down to the middle of his sternum. Much as she liked the view of his pecs, his Hollywood-esque persona was like he’d slipped into a Ryan Gosling-as-Malibu Ken costume.
“Lean in,” he said. “Your dress really pops against her cigarette’s cherry.”
Her shoulder was an inch away from the painting, and…
An electronic squawk interrupted the gallery’s hush. Confirmed. Laser curtains protected the painting.
“Step away,” the gallery guard droned.
“Sorry!” Vivian held up her hands. “Let’s do a selfie, sweetie.”
She touched her head to John’s, then tilted the camera to view the ceiling. Shit. A fogging system, too? If it detected motion after hours, it would fill the room with opaque fog. Respect to the security team for layered theft countermeasures, but goddammit.
She found his hand and squeezed three times.
“Let’s stop at the gift shop,” she said as they passed the security guard.
In the overpriced shop, she browsed for toothbrushes, toothpaste, and on a whim, super bouncing balls from the toy section. Ruckus adored them, and they might come in handy.
“Babe, I’m getting this too.” He dropped a Formula 1 magazine, a sport he’d never watched, on the pile. And yet another button was undone on his shirt.
After paying, they strolled to the elevators.
John rested his hand on her ass as they walked.
Inside their suite, she flipped the locks and dragged John to the bathroom. Once again, a full blast from the luxurious shower would disguise their voices.
“Let’s compare notes,” she said.
“The paintings are alarmed but not anchored. I’d guess a minute, maybe two, per painting to remove them, inspect for the flash drive, then return them to the wall.”
“Got it. Let me see your phone.” She smiled at their goofy selfies, scrolling until she got to his excellent shots of the cameras, then enlarged the pics. “These look like infrareds to me.”
Museums lowered the lights at night to save money and preserve the art. But they relied on infrareds to detect thieves’ heat signatures.
He nodded. “Me too.”
“The fog system might work to our advantage—they won’t be able to see our faces. The fog takes an hour to clear, too.”
“What’s the timeline this evening?” John asked.
Vivian read the event details on her phone. “Gala starts at eight, the auction’s at ten, and the exhibit space closes at eleven. Gambling goes until 4:00 a.m.”
“When do we hit the gallery?”
“We want to time it with security shift change at 11:30 p.m. They walk the halls outside the gallery and watch monitors. We want to be in the auction exhibit space by 11:32 p.m. First, we trigger the fog for cover. The infrareds will see that people are in there, but no one can facially ID us. You’ll wear my camera glasses—they’re also infrared.
The paintings carry a light heat signature.
We’ll locate a painting, you lift it, I’ll search it, and we’ll move to the next one if we don’t find the drive.
Ultimately, we’ll find it, then blend into the crowd to escape. ”
This felt good.
There’d be unknowns along the way—there always were—but what she laid out was solid and within her capabilities.
John shifted on his feet.
“Are you good?” she asked.
“Goofing around downstairs was fun, but this is real.” His feet slapped the tiles as he paced. “I might mess it up.”
The confident persona he showed downstairs was disappearing faster than a watercolor in the rain. She’d seen this with baby agents. If she didn’t get him out of his head, he’d spiral.
A brilliant, selfish solution came to her.
With the steam swirling around them, she slid her hands under his shirt. “You won’t mess this up. You’re with me. My team always wins.”
She raised herself on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. John’s firm lips, his tongue sweeping her mouth, that quick gaspy breath he took when he was on the edge of losing himself in her…she wanted all that so much she might cry.
“I’m sorry.” She pushed away from him. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“Yes, you fucking should.” John hauled her tight against him, clutched a handful of hair and tilted her lips to his. “The kiss in Tangier, and Casablanca. It was hard to walk away.”
The trail he kissed from her jaw to the pulse in her neck made words difficult. When he slipped her maxi-dress’s straps from her shoulders and the garment dropped in a soft pool around her ankles, difficult became almost impossible.
But she had to ask him. “Then why did you walk away?”
“Pride. Mostly stupidity.” His belt, still threaded through the loops of his shorts, clinked as it hit the marble.
An acceptable answer.
“Wait.” She stepped back. She had to do one more thing.
He cradled her face. “Is this okay? I shouldn’t have pushed. I—”
“Oh, I want you. Desperately. But I’m gross. I haven’t showered since Morocco.”
“Fortunately…” He hugged her and then dragged her into the Roman shower.
Pulsing heat rained on her from all directions. If they had this shower at home, she’d never leave.
“Turn around,” John said.
Anticipation frizzled her nerves. Her nose perked as the scent of delicate flowers mixed into the steam, and John’s big, thick fingers scrubbed her scalp with luxurious shampoo. Tingles spiraled from her nape to her back.
“Rinse,” he said.
She stepped fully under the water, tipping her head so the suds cascaded down her back. Next he worked conditioner in her tresses. Briefly he removed his hands, then returned them as he gently, so gently she might cry, washed her back with a sudsy washcloth.
“Your bruises are mostly gone.”
“Thank God. They would have clashed with my dress.”
She sucked in a breath as he pressed his lips to the crook of her neck. While he licked and kissed her ticklish flesh, he dragged the washcloth across her belly and around her breasts. The soap slicked her skin. With his free hand, rolled her nipple between his fingers.
He dropped the washcloth, then dipped his hand between her legs. “Do you like this?”
“Yes.” She arched her back, then hooked her arm around his neck, letting him take her weight as he massaged her rapidly swelling bundle of nerves.
She wasn’t the only one rapidly swelling. His hard cock pressed firmly against her ass.
Their engagement night felt like a lifetime ago. She’d never had makeup sex before. For the old Vivian, fights meant pulling the relationship’s plug. She’d never made up with anyone because she’d barely had time for a relationship in the first place.
But John was worth fighting for.
“I’m sorry for everything.” She turned in his arms. “And I need you, now.”
He shut off the water, then wrapped her in a towel and scooped her up. In the bedroom, the sun bathed everything in gold. He knelt on the expansive bed and laid her amid the sumptuous linens.
She let the towel’s flaps fall open, then reached for him.
With a groan, he said, “God, you’re beautiful.”
He’d seen all of her more times than she could count. There were no first-time jitters. No questions about the scar on her hip or awkward moments while they figured out each other’s bodies. No, this was pure, hot, informed need.
“Turn over,” he said.
One secret they shared—John was bossy in bed. He claimed he’d never been this way with anyone else, was worried it might upset her. On the contrary, she loved it. Everywhere else in her life, she made decisions, assessed the situation, weighed the options, took charge.
But between the sheets? She did whatever he asked.
John kissed a trail down her back, a reliable shiver-inducing move, followed by a light bite on her ass.
He adored her ass. Muay Thai training thickened her glutes, and he grabbed a handful any chance he could.
Next, he delved between her legs. She gasped as he wheeled her clit with the pressure and speed he knew she liked.
“You’re so wet,” he murmured. “Because of me?”
She ground her ass against him. “Always.”
Thank God for her IUD. The least complicated, most reliable form of birth control for someone who wanted kids maybe someday, definitely not now, and couldn’t always predict her schedule or proximity to a pharmacy.
“I want you,” she breathed. “Please.”
“Too bad.” He hoisted her hips up and turned so she was kneeling.
This was also part of their sex life. Playful teasing, denial, capitulation. With his hands clamped to her shoulders, he slid his cock against her folds, a guaranteed turn-on for her.
Desire fully bloomed between her legs.
“Please.” She gasped as he gently pinched her nipple. “I need you.”