As they walked together, he said nothing about how she looked in the dress. She wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Just when she thought she had the man pinned down, he acted in a way she didn’t expect. It made her nervous.
More than that, it left her craving more.
“I didn’t think you liked your job at the gallery,” Vlad noted as they entered the main hall.
As she led the way into the west room, Madison pulled a face. “I like my job fine. It’s just that… I still have a lot to learn about art and art appreciation,” she confessed as they halted before a display. “I’m the first to admit it. Hell, I even went to school for it, pursued my Masters in Art History. My father hired me not only because he knew I was the most qualified to run the family business, but because he thought I could continue my education here.”
“I defer to your expertise, then.” Vlad laced his tattooed hands behind his back and studied the far wall. “What do you think of this one?”
“I…”
In truth, Madison hadn’t been thinking much outside of wondering what else Vlad could do with his teeth. The monologue she had been rattling off to him was a version of the one she usually told when she was forced to give tours to investors give or take a few of the more personal details. No one except Savannah knew about her struggle with art appreciation.
No one until Vlad. And she refused to belabor the fact that she had so willingly shared that little bit of information about herself.
The latest installation drew her attention away from him. It was a colorful piece, bold, with indefinite lines between swatches of flesh-toned hues. Anyone, even Madison, could see after a moment’s consideration that it was meant to invoke a couple having sex.
A shiver coursed through her that had nothing to do with how revealing the little black dress was. If anything, it was starting to feel a little too warm in here.
“I think that I might have to keep the sheet over that one until the later tours,” she muttered as they continued on.
The other pieces weren’t much better. If anything, they were more explicit; not that Madison didn’t find their eroticism strangely beautiful, but she couldn’t help but wonder what her father had been thinking when he agreed to exhibit this artist’s work. Surely the audience for this was limited? Then again, maybe they were inviting a whole new audience in, inspiring new feelings…
Did her eyes deceive her, or was one of the figures wearing a black dress, her abstract breasts bared above a burst strap? The ecstatic look on the painted woman’s face as she gave herself over to her dark, destructive lover was…
Madison felt the ghost of something. A hand. Vlad stood so close to her that his shoulder brushed against hers. How had she not noticed him right beside her before?
“Um…” She wrestled with her own thoughts, desperate to continue the tour, as the hand moved up her thigh, bringing the skirt of her dress with it. “And that one is…”
“I’m tired of only viewing,” Vlad murmured into her temple. His fingers neared the cleft of her ass, and Madison shuddered.
“Cameras.” She didn’t know why it was the word she chose, but it seemed to perfectly encompass the sudden danger in their situation.
“There’s a blind spot in your security system,” Vlad said. “Here.”
“How do you know that?” Madison gasped as he backed her behind a nearby pillar. “You shouldn’t know that.”
“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t know,” Vlad whispered heatedly into her neck. “Like the fact that you were wearing underwear earlier this evening, and now you are not.”
He tugged the material of the dress up as savagely as the man in the painting, baring her rear in the dark. Madison gasped again. This was spiraling; they were spiraling. His hand pushed its way between her legs. Madison moaned and arched her back desperately, giving those skating lips fuller access to her neck even as Vlad freely took his liberties elsewhere.
His fingers slid closer to the core of her need. As the pads of his fingers slipped slowly, agonizingly within reach of his ultimate goal, Madison’s traitorous brain snapped back to the present. She ducked her chin, red pin curls spilling down her shoulder to conceal the suddenly obscene feeling of the nakedness of her back. She reached back behind her to push the encroaching male chest from pressing any closer. The hand between her legs halted, hesitated. Then, in defeat, it slipped away again.
Madison yanked the back of her dress down before turning to face her adversary. Vlad’s glacial gaze found her in the darkness, studying her. She knew she didn’t need to study the situation below his belt to know exactly how much he had been enjoying their unexpected rendezvous.
But then again, maybe she did want to know. Or more importantly, how it would feel without all the excess clothing they seemed to be wearing.
Oh, to hell with it. Madison threw caution to the wind and reached out to him, recapturing the rogue hand, her thumb gliding its way along the tattoo as she tugged him closer. Vlad came without resistance. Clearly he wasn’t used to being refused by women, but it was equally evident that he wouldn’t readily give up all plans of tangling with her if she invited him back.
“Let’s get out of here,” she murmured. “Please.” She moved her cherry-red lips to form the plea scant inches from his own mouth.
Vlad groaned. It was encouraging, at least, that he could not seem to articulate an answer one way or the other. His free hand, the one that she didn’t hold in her own, came up to cup the curve of her backside and usher them both out from behind the column. Madison felt a flood of warmth at the ready return of his touch.
Savannah was going to kill her. Madison wondered if she had the ability to keep something like this from her friend. The FBI agent could almost immediately detect when she was being lied to. Madison wasn’t sure whether she preferred being branded a liar to being branded something else entirely.
But damn it, she had a job to do and if that meant getting in bed with the inked Adonis and submitting herself to his talented roving hands once more, then so be it. Granted, a bed might not even be necessary.
“I live a few blocks from the gallery. Down on Third.” She should not have said that. Seducing Vlad and getting the information she required didn’t mean filling out an application form. It was better that her mark didn’t know where she lived… right?
“But I’ve been looking for a place a bit closer,” she continued as she pressed herself against his chest. “Maybe your place is a bit closer.”
“I would have you in your office,” Vlad murmured. The thought thrilled Madison, but she shook her head. The whole point of this was to get closer to Vlad and Vlad’s world… right? This had nothing to do with her sudden, inexplicable desire to be lying beneath him on her back, supported by protesting bedsprings… did it?
“But I’m guessing you would still prefer we pick this up somewhere else.”
“Yes, please,” Madison agreed before she could too vividly imagine otherwise.
She fished for her keys as they strolled quickly for the front doors, appearing for all the world, and for the cameras, like two art-viewers who had taken in all they could for one evening. Thankfully the security footage did not show just how eager Madison O’Connor was to continue taking in new things...
As they exited the gallery together, they were met with a sobering surprise. A man sat on the wide stone steps out front. A man who appeared to be waiting, although she couldn’t imagine for who. She hadn’t told anyone but Savannah where she intended to be tonight…