Part 16 (1/2)
I shall give you back your spectacles if you kiss me.
But she hadn't kissed him. The sense of satisfaction she had felt that evening at having outwitted him had long since departed. Now, as she stared at the image on the shelf in front of her, she knew she should have just done it. Just wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. She could have satisfied her curiosity on the subject of Anthony's kiss once and for all, and she hadn't done it. Three weeks of dancing lessons, night after night they had been alone together, and he had been so proper and distant, so gentlemanlike, never hinting by word or deed that he even remembered wanting her to kiss him.
She was leaving in only a few weeks, and she knew she would probably never have another chance to kiss a man like him. She felt an unabashed sense of regret, and she vowed that if the chance ever came again, she was not going to let it slip away.
She stared at the painting, thinking of Anthony, and she lifted her hand to touch her mouth with the tips of her fingers, just as she had done countless times during the past few weeks. She closed her eyes and imagined far more. A kiss, a touch, his hand on her breast.
The sound of the door opening made her jump, and all her pleasurable speculations vanished as she turned around. Through the storage room doorway, she could see Anthony as he walked into the antika. He caught sight of her, and came to a halt. After a moment, he shut the front door and came toward her.
Careless of her not to have shut the storage room door, she realized, knowing there was no way to hide the pieces now.
”Good morning,” she said as he entered the storage room, trying to look nonchalant. ”I heard you had returned.”
”Last evening.” He crossed the room, and Daphne's stomach felt as if it were full of b.u.t.terflies by the time he halted in front of her.
She cleared her throat and hoped she wasn't blus.h.i.+ng, hoped her body s.h.i.+elded the fresco from his view. ”Did you have a nice journey?”
He leaned sideways, and one side of his mouth curved in that one-sided smile of his. ”You were not supposed to see these,” he commented as he straightened and looked at her. ”Mr. Bennington was very particular about that.”
”Yes, I am sure he was,” she answered, looking straight into Anthony's chin. ”But I am a professional antiquarian.”
”I believe Mr. Bennington was thinking of you as a young lady, not as an antiquarian.”
”I have seen dozens of them before.” G.o.d help her, the words came out in a whisper. All she could think about were the man standing in front of her and the sensual image behind her and how much she wished he would touch her.
”Excellent,” he replied, and before she knew what was happening, he had turned her around to face the fresco. ”I would appreciate your opinion on this one, Miss Wade.”
Daphne stared at the image, unable to even pretend an intellectual interest when there was this deep, hot hunger inside her that made her skin tingle and her knees feel weak. She was acutely aware of his body behind her.
”What do you think of the artist's skill?” he asked over her shoulder. ”Is this of purely historical value, or does it have artistic merit as well?”
Her cheeks burned. She tried to move away, but he put his hands on her shoulders to keep her there. ”Come, Miss Wade, give me your opinion. Do we see G.o.ds depicted here or just an ordinary man and woman?” He leaned closer to her. ”Give me some instruction on the academic aspects. For myself, I find it quite erotic, but I know you could not be moved by anything more than an intellectual interest.”
Those words thrown on her already seething emotions ignited like brandy thrown on a fire. ”Why should you think me unmoved by the sensuality of this painting?” she cried. She tried to turn around, but his grip on her shoulders kept her where she was. ”Do you think I am so cold as that? Do you think that I have no desire in me? Do you think I am not a woman of feeling?”
”You cannot blame me for wondering,” he said softly beside her ear. ”You hide your feelings very well, Miss Wade.”
She drew a deep, shaky breath and wrapped her arms around her ribs. ”But I have them. I have the same hungers and desires as any other woman. How could you think I do not?”
”Perhaps because you would not kiss me,” he murmured, his lips brus.h.i.+ng her ear and making her s.h.i.+ver. ”I was hoping-very strongly hoping, I might add-that you would, but alas, you did not. And as I told you, I am a gentleman and not really permitted to kiss you.”
When she did not reply, he straightened away from her and his hands slid away from her shoulders. ”You have diverted me from our discussion, Miss Wade,” he said, and reached around her, his arm touching hers as he pointed to the fresco. ”Do you suppose this red color of the background comes from red ochre or cochineal?”
She stared at his hand as his fingertips brushed the upper right corner of the background. ”Ochre,” she whispered. ”Am I tormenting you with the promise of a kiss?”
”Most a.s.suredly. But you were quite right to remind me that friends are what we ought to be. It was the proper thing for a young lady to do.”
She looked at the plaster pieces on the table, at the man and the woman lying there. She did not feel very proper. ”I suppose it was,” she agreed, her voice just above a whisper, ”but what do you suppose Cleopatra would have done?”
There was a long pause. After what seemed an eternity, he bent his head close to her ear. ”Why, Miss Wade,” he murmured, ”have the tables turned? Are you asking me to kiss you now?”
”No, I am not asking.”
”I rather thought you were. I must have been mistaken.” He leaned forward enough that his body brushed hers as he touched the fresco again, as he traced the line of the woman's hip with his finger. ”This particular image, is remarkably fine, I think. Would you not agree?”
”I did not realize a woman had to ask a man to kiss her.” She held her breath, watching the movement of his finger back and forth across the painted woman's body, waiting in an agony of uncertainty.
”Not unless the man has already thrown propriety to the winds, made an attempt to steal a kiss, and has been rejected. Then it is up to the woman to make the next move.” His arm fell to his side, and he took a step back away from her. ”If a kiss from me is what you desire, Miss Wade, all you need do is make your wishes clear.”
It wasn't as if she were in love with him anymore. She no longer cared what he thought. She had no doubt he'd kissed dozens of women, and he would know how to do it properly. She would so hate her very first kiss to be disappointing.
She knew this was a game between them now, and he was giving her an opening. Daphne took it.
She drew in a deep breath and turned around to face him. She curled her fingers around the edge of the shelf behind her, raised her chin and looked him in the eye. ”I should like it very much if you would kiss me.”
She sounded so prim about it, which was a hypocrisy, since there was nothing prim about the way she felt. She gripped the edges of the shelf, her body tense with antic.i.p.ation, a hungry sort of waiting. She watched him smile, those laugh lines forming at the edges of his eyes, but she knew he was not laughing at her. He just looked pleased.
”That is clear enough.” He stepped closer to her, and her heart began to thud in her chest like a Somali drum as he pulled off her spectacles and leaned sideways to set them on the shelf behind her.
His hand touched her cheek, he brought his mouth closer to hers, and she felt a queer, weightless sensation in her stomach as if she had just dived off a cliff. His lips pressed to hers.
Pleasure unfolded inside her like a b.u.t.terfly opening its wings to fly. Never in her imagination had she experienced anything so piercing and sweet as this.
Her body came keenly alive at this moment, all her senses heightened and focused on him and herself and the touch of his mouth until nothing else mattered. Everything else in the world receded into insignificance.
She breathed in the scent of lemon soap and the taste of him. She felt her hands relaxing their tight grip on the shelf. She brought them up between them, not to push him away, but to feel the hard muscles of his chest against her palms through the linen of his s.h.i.+rt, the rise and fall of his breathing, the beating of his heart.
His palm cupped her chin. There was a callous on his middle finger. She could feel it as his fingers splayed across her cheekbone. His free arm wrapped around her waist, lifting her onto her toes, pulling her closer. He parted her lips with his own, a lush, full openness that tasted her, that enabled her to taste him. Oh, how could anything as simple as this bring so much pleasure?
Daphne wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him as an ache spread through every part of her, a sensation never felt before, yet oddly familiar. Yes, her body seemed to say, this is what poets write and artists paint, this rush of joy and this need, this warmth of his body so close to her own and the exquisite tension that came with it.
She slid her hands up into his hair, and she pressed against him. Her leg curled around his, wanting to bring him even closer. It was as if her entire body knew just what to do, even if her mind did not. She rubbed her ankle up and down along the back of his calf and heard a sound, the mixture of his stifled groan and hers.
With an abruptness that startled her, he turned his face away, breaking the kiss, his breathing uneven. His arm around her relaxed and fell away. Taking her cue from him, she uncurled her leg from around his, and sank back down until her feet were flat against the floor.
Still touching her face, he bent his head to rest his forehead close to hers. ”You see,” he said, his breathing ragged as he looked into her eyes, ”how much power you have when you choose to wield it?”
She did see. It awed her, it excited her-that she, who had been hauled across half the globe by her wandering father, who had convinced herself she had no influence over anything in her life, who had placed herself in the position of wors.h.i.+ping a man who had never even noticed her-she had power, power over the very man she had once wors.h.i.+ped.
Suddenly, plain, ordinary, Daphne Wade felt as captivating and alluring as Cleopatra, and a joy she had never felt before blossomed inside her. ”Thank you,” she whispered, ”for making my first kiss one of the most extraordinary moments of my life.”
”That is high praise indeed, but I think that I should let you go while I still can.” His hand slid away from her face. He took several steps back and clasped his hands behind him. ”For your very first kiss, I am honored that you chose me, Daphne,” he said quietly.
Then his serious expression changed. She saw a glint of amus.e.m.e.nt come into his eyes, and he slanted her a wicked look. ”In exchange for giving you one of the most extraordinary moments of your life, may I have another month?”
Chapter 17.