Chapter 9 #3
She reaches out, hovering a perfectly manicured hand over the painting before letting it fall to her side again.
Watching her try to understand and solve the passage has my heart racing, or maybe it’s finally being able to freely take her in that has my pulse leaping.
I’ve never let myself really look at Juliette the way my gut has urged me to do, because the fear of getting caught was too great.
Cade would never let me hear the end of it if he saw me checking out a girl that nearly spent her teen years living with us.
But now she’s at work, studying the wall and the art, debating, turning things over in her mind–and that gives me time and freedom to lay eyes on all the beautiful things I cannot have.
The soft curls at the ends of her hair, and the way I’d love to wrap those curls around my knuckles and give them a tug, just to see what her squeal sounds like.
Those plentiful thighs, and the way they’d feel pressed to my chest, her petite ankles in my grips. Or her luscious legs wrapped around my waist, shining blue eyes glittering up at me from the mattress as I fill her with years of desperation and desire.
Fuck.
These thoughts.
It feels like unleashing the floodgates that I had no idea were so ready to burst. My groin tightens as Juliette shifts, reaching for her camera on the table.
Positioning the camera to frame the painting and light, she snaps a few photos, the whoosh of the shutter snapping me out of my momentary obsession.
“I know you are showing me this because the passage is here,” she says, still snapping photos, giving me time to adjust myself, tucking things that need it. Peering back at me over her shoulder, she flashes me her million-dollar smile before turning back to the painting, taking a step closer.
That single peek over her shoulder at me has me envisioning Juliette on all fours, centering my mattress, looking back at me as I slide inside of her warmth from behind.
I scrub a hand over my face, and nearly jump when my phone rings from within my pocket.
Juliette peers back, but my nerves are askew, so this time I don’t see the fantasy, but just the girl that grew up with my daughter.
“You can take it. I won’t do anything without you,” she says, alluding to the phone call and the passage.
Nodding, I retrieve my phone and answer without giving the screen a glance.
She’s not even looking at me but still, I can’t take my eyes from Juliette.
It’s been years since I thought of that old Frankie Valli song, I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You, but it plays in my mind as I watch Juliette run her long fingers over the detail of the golden frame.
“Hi,” I greet Elle, who has launched into her crisis within moments of answering.
“And–hi,” she says, stopping to greet me before returning to her woe. “Like I was saying, the exhibit designer just, doesn’t understand that some pieces require more space and–”
“Elle,” I halt her there, because I know I cannot give anything attention at this moment except Juliette, and that’s not fair to Elle. “I’m tied up at the moment. Let me call you back this evening.”
Juliette turns, peering at me over her shoulder again, but the effervescent smile isn’t there anymore. A curt smile curves her lips before she turns around again, tugging her blonde hair over her shoulders, stealing it from my sight.
“The bar isn’t open yet,” Elle comments, “what’s got you too tied up to not take the opportunity to poke fun at Michaelangelo?”
I can’t help but smirk. I do like making fun of the man who works at an art gallery with the name of Michaelangelo, that’s true.
“Juliette is here to photograph the passage for her portfolio,” I say, loud enough for Juliette to hear me.
I don’t want her to feel like her visit is a secret, nor do I want her to feel too unimportant to be named.
She turns again, nodding toward the painting as if to ask if she can touch it, and I wink.
Elle rattles on, but my focus is on the way Juliette’s cheeks go pink from my singular wink.
She turns around, and runs her hand up the painting, hovering over the subject’s eyes–wide and discerning, like she’s focused on something abhorrent in the distance, but too buzzed on champagne to react.
I’ve always loved this piece, and when it was suggested that this piece be duplicated and bear the secret passage, it felt right.
“I’ve gotta go, Elle,” I say again, before gently ending the call.
“She’s a nice woman. Very lovely,” Juliette says, surprising me.
“Elle, yes, she’s wonderful,” I comment, noticing that glittering diamond band on Juliette’s finger again.
I nod to her hand and she lifts it, as if afraid she’s touched the painting too much, or damaged something.
I shake my head and take two steps, bringing my right hip to her left hip, barely touching.
Wrapping my hand around her wrist, I move her hand over the painting, placing it on what appears to be an unsmoothed clump of paint.
“Here,” I tell her, watching as her fingers work over the spot, which is the subject’s earring, until–
“Oh my goodness,” she breathes, her words weightless and gentle.
I peer over at her, studying her eyes as they widen, fixed on the painting.
When you touch the earring, you discover a small lever beneath the faux paint, and when pulled, the lever turns the painting into a trap door, which swings open, away from the wall, exposing–
“Stairs?” she asks, looking between the dark stairwell and me.
I nod. “We didn’t have the square footage above ground at this location, so we decided to utilize the basement. Many speakeasies were underground during the prohibition era anyway, you know, to hide.”
Holding her hand over the lens of her camera protectively, she leans into the hole in the wall, staring down the dark stairwell.
It’s only now that I look down to see I’m still holding her by the wrist, so I slip my hand inside of hers, waffling our fingers together in a way I haven’t done with a woman in over fifteen years.
She blinks down at our hands, and because I have no fucking clue why I just did that, I think quick on my feet, nodding toward the stairs. “Come on,” I tell her. “I’ll take you down.”
Her neck floods with color and she swallows audibly. “I’d like to photograph it from the outside before we go in,” she says, her voice hardly a whisper. She lets go of my hand, and I swear a pained expression flashes over her gentle features, disappearing in a beat.
“My god,” I sigh. “Of course.” Stepping back, I rest my lumbar against the pillar between tables, and watch Juliette snap photos of all kinds.
She replaces the painting, and takes photos focused on the earring, at one point stopping to tell me she thought the broken light was a red herring.
She continues, once requesting the restaurant manager temporarily cut the lights, which he does.
After what feels like no time at all, she peers at the watch on her wrist.
“My gosh. I’m so sorry Mr. Mercer. I’m taking so much of your time.” She reaches out, twisting the earring with ease, opening the passage before my eyes. “I’m ready to go down.”
I take her hand again, ignoring the flurry of warmth that knocks me square in the chest when her hand is in mind, and help her onto the top step. “Ah,” she breathes, insecure in her footing as she reaches for the railing with her spare hand.
“Here,” I offer, sliding her camera strap over her body, removing it so I can slide it down over my chest. “And here,” I add, fingering the wall until I find the switch, and flip it.
We pause as she hums her awe, Edison lights glowing, lining the entire stairwell down, from long strands pinned down the ceiling to strands wrapped around the second, decorative handrail.
The walls have tiny little glowing spots in them, where LCD tube lights have been run and cut, to give the appearance of stars in the walls.
She looks back up at me from where she is two stairs down, and smiles.
“This is so cool, Mr. Mercer,” she beams, “and I was about to ask you how no one gets hurt in this dark staircase but now I get it.”
“Usually,” I tell her, “the lights are already on. On your way out, you’ll have to take some photos of the passage with the lights on, too.”
She nods, “I already thought of that. In fact,” she taps her temple, “I’ve kind of already figured out how I’m going to arrange some of these photos.”
She’s been here at the passage for less than ten minutes and she’s smiling, full of ideas. I can’t help but notice, and I want her to notice it, too. I brace my hand on her lower back as we continue down the stairs. “You light up when you do what you love, you know that, right?”
Once we reach the bottom, Juliette doesn’t immediately peer around at the luxury stylings of the secret bar. She focuses solely on me. “Do I?”
My heart stutters in my chest, breath knocked askew by my overwhelming attraction to her.
“You do.” I lift the camera off my torso where it hangs idly, and bring her into focus.
She attempts to swat me away, laughing, “no, Mr. Mercer. Don’t.
” But I snap the photo, and though it’s full of movement, and there’s a motion blur, the one thing certain, set, and unmoving–her beautiful smile.
I tip the camera toward her, and watch her face as her eyes land on the screen.
More flush eats up her cheeks.
“See?”
She only smiles, and slides the strap over her neck, tugging at her silky hair to free it.
Before turning around, she begins snapping the stairwell.
After a few minutes, she drops to her knees on the bottom step, and peers up, angling her camera to capture the rectangular entry above, light pouring onto the first steps.