Chapter 20
Nate
London, evening…
Green.
All I saw was emerald green hugging every luscious curve.
Clinging enticingly to her body, a lure for me, and me alone. Like she’d clothed herself in the secret of our affair—the dress that drew me back to New York, and into the first night I’d made love to her. It was a private message in a language only I could understand.
“You wore it,” I said, and something dangerously close to hope dared to surface inside me.
She nodded. “I told you I’d wear it for you.
I keep my promises. Let’s go,” she said, pointing inside Sotheby’s.
She walked quickly, guiding me up the stairs, down the hall, and into one of the sales rooms that was abuzz with activity.
The hum of hushed voices filled the air, and the auctioneer presided over the podium at the front of the room.
She pointed to a row in the middle and I slid in next to her. As she sat down and adjusted her skirt, I dipped my head to her neck, and whispered, “All day long, Casey. All day long.”
She turned to me. “All day long what?”
The auctioneer spoke. “Good evening, ladies and gentleman, and welcome to tonight’s sale of modern art.”
“All day long I thought of driving you wild,” I said, finishing the thought.
She shivered against me, pressing her shoulder closer to me.
My god, touching her was such a high. She was like a cat, arching her back to be petted.
Every move of her body in response to even the slightest touch drove me mad with lust. I dropped my hand on her knee, tracing lazy lines across her bare flesh as the first item went up for bids.
It was a lithograph by a Belgian artist, and nothing she was keen on.
She showed me her paddle, and said in a hushed tone, “Would you like to use this on me later?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I guess you’ll have to see,” she said, that taunting look in her eyes.
It threw me off for a second; I wasn’t sure if she’d returned to our games of seduction.
Was she playing a part again, that of the tease, the temptress?
I had no interest in those roles anymore.
I’d need to rid her of all interest in them too.
One more night of driving her wild might do the trick.
“Sold for four thousand pounds,” the man said, and his assistants promptly brought a new work to the stage. “And now we have a sculpture from Franz Dubliner.”
Casey shot me a concerned look at the word sculpture.
I leaned in. “I’m fine. Don’t even think about it,” I said.
To keep proving my point, I brushed my finger along the inside of her knee, heading in the direction I craved.
The woman next to Casey had her gaze locked on the item on display at the front of the room, but I honestly didn’t care if anyone noticed that my hands were all over the woman in the emerald-green dress.
Casey’s eyes fluttered closed as my finger drifted north.
I continued my travels, a grin working its way across my face at her reactions.
The subtle hitch in her breath. The sweet, sexy sigh she tried to hide.
The press of her thigh against mine as she moved her leg closer, seeking any kind of contact as the art buyers surrounding us bid on a sculpture.
“I can spend all night doing this,” I whispered.
“And the opening bid is five thousand pounds,” the loud voice boomed through the room.
The woman next to Casey raised her paddle, as I fingered the hem of her skirt. “Do you know what I thought when I first saw the picture of you in this dress? The one you texted me when I was in D.C.”
“What did you think?” she asked as our neighbor continued to raise the stakes.
“That you looked edible in it.” I traced the outside of her dress, skimming her thigh where she was pressed to my leg.
“That the dress was like a goddamn temptation. When I saw you in it, my only thought was how much I wanted to push it up to your waist and slide my tongue over all the tight places in your body.”
Her hand shot out and grasped mine, her fingers digging into the bones of my hand. A bolt of lust rocketed through me from her reaction.
“What would you do if I were against the wall right now?” she whispered, and I loved that she craved more dirty words. I had a whole arsenal of them to feed to her, to send heat between her legs, to turn her damp and hot and needy for me.
“If you were up against the wall, I’d fully expect you to hike up your skirt for me.
Jut out your hips. Run your fingers along the outside of your panties and give me that naughty, wild look that tells me how much you love touching yourself.
Then you’d need to dip your fingers between your legs.
And once you do that, you’d better let me suck all that sweetness off them. ”
She drew a quick breath, clamping her lips shut. I suspected she was trying to hold in a moan. Excellent.
“You’re good and wet already, aren’t you Casey?”
She nodded, breathing hard.
“So wet I could get down on my knees, spread those legs wide open and worship your perfect body with my mouth?”
A small pant emanated from her lips—those lips that had sent me straight into oblivion earlier today. “Yes,” she murmured.
“So wet that you’d be calling my name in less than sixty seconds, right?”
“Yes.” Her chest rose and fell with each breath. “I want that so much.”
I licked a quick path along the shell of her ear. “You fucking love everything I do to you.”
“Everything, Nate,” she said, her voice all hot and wanton.
She turned to me, firing up every synapse in my nervous system with the look in her sapphire eyes—they were hazy with desire, and she gazed at me like a woman in heat.
Lust rolled through my body, chased by pride.
I loved turning her on. I loved being the one who could get her in this state. She was so patently aroused.
“And now, we have a new painting from a rising star in the European art world, Miller Valentina. I’ll start the bidding at three thousand pounds. Do we have three thousand pounds?”
She swiveled around, snapped to attention and thrust the paddle in the air. Damn, she was even hotter with her focus on the prize.
“We have three thousand in the room,” the man at the podium intoned, pointing at Casey, as he scanned the crowd, then quickly nodded to the other side of the crowd. “Three thousand two hundred fifty in the room,” he said from his post.
I followed the auctioneer’s gesture. A man in a pinstriped suit near the back raised a paddle too. My shoulders tensed. Casey had a competitor. I tried to size up the guy from a distance. Slick gelled hair, a too-tight suit, and a goatee.
Casey raised her arm again. “That’s thirty-five hundred in the room,” the man called out, as the price rose in increments.
She turned to me, speaking in a voice laced with pure determination. “I’m not letting this slip away. I want a Valentina,” she said, having shifted from lust-struck to single-minded in seconds.
“Three thousand seven hundred fifty,” the man at the front said.
Cheetah-fast, Casey raised her paddle once more. Damn, she was hot going after something she wanted.
But the goateed-man wanted the painting too and signaled his intent.
“We have four thousand in the room.”
Casey’s arm went up again. I glanced at the guy in pinstripes. He matched her bid.
The pair of them went on like that for another few rounds, neither Casey nor her new nemesis backing down.
I was tempted to jump in and offer some ridiculous price to guarantee the painting would be hers, but I knew that wasn’t what she wanted.
She didn’t come here to have a man swoop in and save the day with his wallet.
She came here for the thrill of the chase, and for the prospect of winning the prize.
She wanted to win it on her own terms. But there was no way I’d let this guy take what my woman wanted, so I figured I could help her along in another way.
She raised her paddle again at five thousand pounds, her jaw set, her lips pursed.
“You are so fucking hot when you bid on art,” I said to her, and she flashed a quick smile.
“Does it make you want me more?” she whispered as the goateed man hesitated briefly, but stayed in the game.
“He’s wavering,” I whispered. “Go for it. Go big, and then I can take care of that sweet ache between your legs like you want.”
She trembled and her eyes flashed a hot and hungry look at me. “We can’t leave. I want the other Valentina too,” she said. “I just decided. I need both.”
“And you’ll get both. And as soon as you get this one, we’ll find an office or another sales room or a coat closet, I don’t care. But I’m going to have my hands up your dress in about fifteen seconds,” I said roughly, and my tone seemed to spur her on.
“Do we have five thousand two hundred fifty pounds?”
Casey raised her arm high, and then spoke in a loud, but measured tone. “Sixty-five hundred pounds.”
The auctioneer raised his eyebrows in appreciation, then scanned the room, his gaze settling on Casey’s opponent. I watched the pin-striped man start to lift his paddle, but it was half-hearted at best. The man shook his head.
The auctioneer beamed. “I shall sell it then. It’s the woman in the green dress’ bid at sixty-five hundred pounds.” He slammed the hammer down. “Sold.”
The expression on her face was one of pure victory, then she wrapped her fingers around my wrist and stood. She tipped her head to the exit. When we walked out, I heard the man who’d lost out utter a curse of frustration. I didn’t take it personally; not getting what you wanted was a bitter pill.
Thirty seconds later, we were inside a restroom at Sotheby’s, locking the door behind us.
“By my calculations we’ve got less than eight minutes till the next Valentina goes up for bidding,” she said, and locked her arms around my neck. “Give me something.”