6. Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog #2
Her fingers touched his shirt, and in a flash of motion, he wrapped his hand around hers and drew it away.
It was a gentler version of a wrist hold, and he expected to startle her long enough to step out of her grasp.
Instead, she broke free with a twist and countered with a jab to his collar.
He pulled back, but she didn’t connect the hit—instead, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt, stepped between his legs, and jerked him forward as she lifted her hip into his.
One moment he was standing before the painting, and the next, he was looking up at her from the bed.
She tilted her head. “I was off-balance. You could have broken free.”
He didn’t answer. He might have been able to break her hold, but it would have hurt her. Besides, his opponents usually expected to have the upper hand after throwing him, and that gave him the opportunity to surprise them with an attack from the ground.
When his silence stretched on, she gave him a grin and lifted her eyebrows. “That’s it? I would have thought someone with your skills could have—”
He seized her, rolling her across his body and down onto the mattress. He lifted himself over her, careful not to touch her except where his knees straddled her hips, and watched her lips part in surprise.
“I could have,” he said gently.
Louna flattened her palms against his chest, but left his shirt where it was. “I suppose I deserved that,” she said, with an air of deep concession. “You’ve made your point, mon loup. I will not tease you again.”
A glinting in her eyes added yet, but Tennyson didn’t take her bait.
He couldn’t. His entire attention was suddenly focused on her body beneath his, her exposed neck, her unprotected pulse.
He’d never thought of her as fragile before, but here, pinned beneath him, all he could see were her vulnerabilities.
Wrists he could break in a single snap. A throat he could crush with one hand.
It wouldn’t even take all of his strength—she would have no chance against him.
And Hartmann was bigger. Stronger. He wouldn’t hesitate, and he wouldn’t stop, and if he caught her, it would be over before Tennyson could do anything to help.
Nausea rolled through him, and he sat back to let her up, pulling off his shirt so he wouldn’t have to see the lack of fear in her eyes.
“See?” he said gruffly, turning so she could look at the back of his arm. “The stitches are holding. No bleeding. It’s fine.”
Louna reached across the bed to retrieve her kit, setting one hand carefully on his shoulder. She ran her fingers across the bare skin, testing for tenderness around the healing wound. Her perfume surrounded him again, and he cleared his throat and nodded at the painting over the bed.
“A Friedrich,” he said, a little more firmly than necessary. “One of yours?”
She spoke without taking her eyes from his arm. “It was practice for a job a few years ago.”
Tennyson studied it a moment longer, taking in the dark figure framed by the dramatic spray of a crashing wave.
It was Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, if he remembered correctly, though the composition was slightly different.
The colors were darker, and it felt rushed, a sketch before the final details had been decided.
She’d done the same thing when she painted him as the figure of Anchises, depicting him in a preparatory sketch which she claimed to have found with the original painting.
It was a clever way of authenticating forgeries, and he admired her audacity in going through with such plans, even if he did not appreciate his forced involvement in them.
“Very well,” Louna said finally. “The cut is healing nicely. Wait here.” She went to the closet and emerged again with a pair of designer jeans and a Windsor blue crewneck draped over one arm.
Tennyson frowned at her. “What is that?”
“You can’t go around in those clothes,” Louna said, sniffing distastefully at his cargo pants.
“Why?”
“They do not fit,” Louna said. She tossed the shirt to him, and he caught it reflexively. “And there is no need to hide under baggy clothes here.”
“I’m not hiding,” Tennyson argued, but she lifted a hand.
“All your clothes are too big,” she said. “It makes it easy to misjudge your muscles, your strength—makes it easy to underestimate you.”
“Like your makeup?” he countered. “The way you made yourself look…”
Her smile turned feral. “Look what?”
He could feel a frown pulling at his face, and he tried to temper it. “Innocent.”
She laughed, then went on, ignoring the fact that he was ignoring the change of clothes. “Your glasses are not the right fit for your face. Perhaps we can find new frames in the city.”
“We’re not here to shop,” Tennyson muttered.
“I could steal them if you prefer,” Louna said sweetly. When he frowned, she shrugged one shoulder. “Then we will have to shop. Go on.”
Tennyson sighed and pulled the crewneck over his head, pushing the cuffs up to his elbows. He shot Louna a glare until she turned around, then changed into the jeans—which fit much more snugly than his other pants. “Happy?” he grumbled.
She looked him over and gave a chirp of approval. “Yes, that is much better. You have a very nice figure, mon loup. It’s a shame you insist on hiding it.”
“I’m not interested in showing off my figure,” Tennyson grumbled.
“You never know when it might come in handy.”
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and she blew him a kiss and stepped toward the door.
“Now you are ready to plan,” she said. “Let us see what we can come up with.”
Tennyson hesitated, and she paused at the door to look back at him. “Give me a minute,” he said, gesturing lamely toward his ear.
Louna’s expression softened, and she nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Exhaling, Tennyson dug his comm out of his discarded pants and set it into his ear. “Lindsey?”
No answer. Tennyson hadn’t really expected one, but the silence was disappointing all the same.
“We’re looking into your case,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “The evidence won’t hold up in court. But you know that already—that’s why you won’t leave.”
His gaze found the painting again, and he studied the dark back, the hair whipped wild by the wind, a solitary figure against the raging sea.
“I know you don’t want my help,” he said quietly.
“I don’t blame you for that. But I’m not going anywhere until you’re free, so...
if anything changes—if you change your—”
He exhaled sharply. Lindsey wouldn’t change his mind, not on this. “If you need anything,” he finished. “I’ll keep my earbud in.”
Lindsey didn’t say anything. He may not even be listening, which, based on what Tennyson had overheard of his meeting with Louna, was likely. It didn’t matter. Tennyson had gotten them all into this mess, and he was going to get them out.
One way or another.