Chapter 14 #2
He was happy she was still using the nickname and their level of familiarity hadn’t completely fallen to pieces because of one perfect kiss.
“I’ve seen it at Christian’s estate, but I don’t know what I’m looking at.” Grace cocked her head at him, and he felt obligated to continue.
“Well, obviously it’s a woman.” He was aware he sounded like an idiot, but of course, he had no better analysis to offer. He was convinced the art handler snickered.
“Yes,” Grace deadpanned, but she didn’t bother teasing him. Instead, she went back to staring at the painting, and Rafael let out a sigh of relief to be free from her scrutiny.
“And?” he prompted, surprised by his curiosity about the work.
“Picasso painted a lot of portraits of her. This was one of his lovers. Dora Maar.”
The air seemed to thicken, and Rafael very deliberately kept his eyes on the painting.
“Interesting way to portray your lover,” he said.
Though the bright colors could have been called appealing, the subject of the piece was quite…
abstract. He couldn’t help but think if he could paint, he would paint Grace a bit more proportionally. Not that she was his lover.
Grace shook her head. “But look at how he captures different aspects of who she is. She looks thoughtful and serious, but the background is bright and bold. She had a fiery side to her. And her eyes really feel like they’re looking at you, don’t they?”
Rafael coughed. “Almost too much.” The eyes were also uneven on the face, which made them even more unsettling.
Grace inched closer, and the art handler flinched, so she took a step back again. “I won’t touch it, I promise,” Grace said, and Rafael hid a smile.
“They had an intense relationship,” Grace continued.
“I feel like you can see it in the way he paints her. I’ve never seen one of his portraits of her in real life like this.
They were partners. They challenged each other intellectually.
They had a passionate affair, but he was with other women at the time, too. ”
Rafael’s eyes went wide. “What a guy.”
Grace was still staring at the work of art.
“I told you,” she said. “His personal life…” She finally looked back at Rafael and shrugged.
“There’s a reason I don’t know what to do with him.
The way he saw these women in real life bleeds into his art.
He also painted Dora Maar as his weeping woman, turning her into nothing more than an image of the suffering that he had caused.
But she was a great artist and photographer herself. ”
“You always have a way of making this stuff very interesting.”
She gave him a sad smile. “I don’t have to make it interesting. I mean, the man was so volatile, there’s no way it could be boring. Even if it’s also hard to swallow.”
“Yes,” Rafael said, “but the art. I couldn’t even pretend to care about it, but with you explaining, it seems to organize itself into some kind of sense. You see so much when you look at a painting, so much I’ve never even bothered to notice. I can see why your students adore you.”
“Huh.” Grace let out a breath. “Who said they adore me?”
“Alma.”
“Alma just says that because she adores me, but it’s really only her.”
“It’s not only her.” The words were out before he could stop them, and he didn’t know whether to wish he could take them back.
She was facing the painting, only her profile in view, so he couldn’t make out her expression.
Slowly, she turned, and somehow, she looked more beautiful in that moment, surprise and confusion and maybe a little pleasure written across her face, as she stood in front of that strange, colorful portrait.
He could see her chest moving up and down with each breath.
Suddenly, he found himself closer to her, like his body had carried him a few centimeters forward without bothering to mention it to his brain.
The art handler glanced at both of them before carrying Dora Marr’s portrait to an art rack to conduct a thorough inspection.
Grace slipped away into the nearby alcove, her lips parted as she watched him, alert and wary, and eager, too, if he wasn’t imagining it. “Raf,” she breathed.
“Mmm,” he hummed, trying to stop himself, even though he couldn’t help moving with her, matching her step for step. There was still a rush of activity throughout the cave, but in this spot they were out of view, as if no one else existed.
“We agreed…”
“We did.” He refused to move any closer. Clearly, he wanted her. If she reciprocated, then she would just have to make a move. She was the one who’d called it off, and she would have to call it back on. He would just stand there hoping to God that she would.
She lunged for him, then, and her mouth was on his before he knew what was happening, but he caught up quickly, wrapping his arms around her, pressing them closer together, his fingers in her hair, then a hand on her hip.
She moaned into his mouth again, just as she had a few nights earlier.
It was a sound he’d been hearing in his dreams, a sound that made him hard in an instant.
He backed her into the wall of the big alcove, to ensure they wouldn’t be seen unless someone walked right over to them.
He felt the rough texture of the cave wall against the smoothness of her skin, and he traced his hand against her cheek, cradling her head so it wouldn’t hit the wall.
She pulled away almost as quickly as she’d kissed him, but her hair was mussed, and her lips were pink and swollen, proof that it had really happened.
Rafael forced himself to take a step backward, giving her space so she would know she was the one in control of the situation.
“Sorry.” She tried to cover her face with her hands, but he pulled them back down to see her expression. “That was unintentional.”
“You’re completely forgiven,” he said, swallowing hard, burying the tiny hope that had bloomed inside him. “Don’t worry.”
Grace exhaled in frustration and shook her head. “What are we doing?”
She was always asking him questions he wasn’t prepared for. Normally, he liked every angle mapped out, every talking point ready to go to make a sale, to impress a client, to win over a vendor. But with her, he was always at a loss, always trying to catch up and find the right thing to say.
“I don’t know.” It wasn’t very elegant, but it was honest. It was all he had at the moment.
“Me neither,” she said. She put her hands to her cheeks again and sighed. “I think, maybe, until we have a handle on what this is, we probably shouldn’t…” She trailed off, absently touching a fingertip to her lips.
Rafael didn’t know if he would ever have a handle on what this was when it was so unlike any situation he’d been in before.
He supposed that meant it was never going to happen, because he would never be able to puzzle it out.
He wanted to sleep with her, certainly, but he was starting to worry there was more to it than that.
Even in the past few days when she’d been distant, he’d thought about her too often, missed her too much.
Her laugh, hearing about her students, watching her wrinkle her nose as she studied a book, planning her next class.
But what did that mean? Did he want to have a relationship with Grace Cameron?
It seemed impossible to even think such a thing, but here he was, imagining what it might be like.
He could picture it so easily—lazy Sundays in bed, cocktails before dinner, holding hands in the park.
Suddenly his fantasies had morphed from fevered kisses to long, intimate conversations with her, which only made him more concerned he was losing his mind.
“Sure,” Rafael said, making every effort not to sound like his brain was spinning in circles.
Grace’s face was tinged pink. “Okay. Sorry, again. I know that was my fault.”
Rafael trained his face into an easy smile despite the feeling that something was ripping open inside of him. “Nothing to worry about.”