Playing With Fire. Carrie Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ was because she’d been alone so much, she decided. But she hadn’t felt out of place at Bianca’s with all her old friends, even though she’d lost touch with many of their current references. What was truly odd was returning, older and wiser, to play dress-up among the glitterati of SoHo. The liquor wasn’t helping in that regard.

      No, that’s not all, Lara amended in the next instant. The blame was mostly Daniel’s.

      Each time he turned his sharp gray eyes upon her face, she lost touch with the principles that guided her hard-won sense of self. Her intentions—to say nothing of her caution—tumbled into the chasm his eyes blasted into her concentration and when, after several minutes, she came back to herself, she was…unrestrained. Loose all over, like butter in the sun. Oiled like a hinge. The harsh lights and vivid colors burned her eyes. She found herself saying the most provocative things.

      Helpless to resist, she leaned toward Daniel, drawn by his compelling masculinity. He was as magnetic as the great Broadway actor she’d met years ago at her father’s stone farmhouse in Umbria. In a swoony Welsh accent, the notorious old goat had told Lara that he wanted to take her to his homeland, that she must see Aberystwyth and the Vale of Glamorgan. His spell was so potent she’d been all but ready to hop a boat…until he’d stuck his hand up her skirt.

      Daniel was less inclined.

      Thus far.

      Lara laughed freely at nothing in particular, except perhaps the heady whirlwind of an attraction that was so deeply sexual it had to be more than sexual. She sensed a possibility of long-term desire…if she played her cards right, remembered her limitations and kept her cool. The latter didn’t seem likely. She crossed her legs, widening the gap in her skirt.

      Daniel put his hand on her kneecap. Her nerve endings hummed with pleasure.

      She buried her nose in the mahogany-brown hair that curled behind his ear. He had the ears of a satyr; she wanted to nibble on the tip, suckle at the lobe.

      “Mmm, Camille,” he murmured when she licked at his ear.

      The name was part of her game. It provided the mask that was her safety net. Having grown up as the daughter of a legendary Man of Arts, watching the sycophants, dealers and scholars that revolved around him, hungrily snatching at his soul, she understood the value of simple anonymity.

      “Tell me about yourself.” Daniel caught her chin in his big hot hand. She wanted to feel those hands all over her, blasting their heat into every hidden crevice like a relentless Mediterranean sun. “Let me guess. You’re…an artist?”

      To avoid his intense gaze, she ducked under the tumbledown mess of her hair. “Some might say so.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “Well. You know.” She shrugged. “It’s a man’s world. Women’s work isn’t taken as seriously.”

      “It’s the twenty-first century,” he said.

      She laughingly overrode him, insisting, “No, no, in the art world it’s still 1900.”

      “What do you do?”

      She swallowed a private smile. “I sculpt.”

      “Were you one of the artists with a piece on display at the restaurant?”

      “Yes.”

      When he frowned, two lines intersected in a vee an inch above the bridge of his nose. His brows were luxuriously thick, but as well-groomed as the rest of him. His nose was a strong beak, matched by a granite jaw. “I’m sorry. There was a lot of art there, but I don’t remember seeing any sculpture. Did I overlook it?”

      “Probably. But that’s to be expected. Auguste gets all the credit.” She puffed wisps of hair out of her eyes, amused at Daniel’s confusion.

      “I’m lost,” he said, absently stroking her collarbone, sending the tempo of her pulse sky-high.

      “As am I.”

      “You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

      She ducked under his arm and snuggled against him. “That’s the fun of it.”

      “All right. I’ll play along.” He said this with such a weightiness she laughed again.

      “It’s the weekend, Daniel. Forget about Nasdaq and Alan Greenspan and all the bulls and bears and other nasty beasties. Take a few hours off. Have some fun.” She crinkled her nose at him. “Do you know how to do that?”

      “Oh, yes.” His baritone went right through her. “I know how.”

      “I’ll just bet you do.” She gave her response equal weight, teasing him.

      They skipped briefly over his career at a stuffy old brokerage house and how the world would spin off its axis if ever the market were to crash. She said that he could prop it up on his shoulders. He chuckled and nudged his untouched glass toward her empty one. She liked it that he could laugh at himself, though it was clear that he took his position as a Bairstow & Boone financial analyst—and newly minted partner—very, very seriously. There was an ambition in him that matched her own. Not a naked, greedy, soulless ambition, but the driven, meaningful, solid-as-bedrock sort.

      “Harvard Business School,” she guessed, even though he didn’t seem Ivy League.

      He nodded and narrowed his eyes, looking her over. “Cooper Union?”

      She’d gone to Rhode Island School of Design. “I apprenticed to a sculptor in Paris,” she said, spinning her tale. “He was older, famous, domineering. He’d seduced me by the time I was twenty-one. Abandoned me some years thereafter.”

      Daniel scowled, carving out another vee. “This Auguste guy?”

      “That would be the one.”

      “Never heard of him.”

      She waved a hand. “He’s dead. But you can see his stuff in museums across all continents.”

      “This is a joke?”

      “It’s a universal truth.”

      He looked lost again, but he was catching on. “Poor little artist,” he said. “You need a patron.”

      “Oh, no. I prefer my Bohemian existence. Living day by day, scrounging in flea markets, peddling drawings for pennies, having fabulous affairs with rich, important men who grovel after every twitch of my skirt…” His opening.

      The man was not slow on the uptake. “In this particular skirt,” he said, running his fingertips along her bare right leg, making her glad she’d skipped the hose, “a twitch is a mind-bending experience.”

      Little did he know. Her recent garb was anything loose and sloppy—oversize shirts and elastic-waist shorts, long knit tunics paired with pajama bottoms. A by-product of having no one around to impress. Being fashionable was rather nice, for a change.

      “What,” said Daniel, leaning closer so his lips were a millimeter away from touching her cheek, СКАЧАТЬ