Caught Up in Us (15 page)

“So when do you think you’ll go to
Paris?”

“Claire and I talked about it and
even looked up flights during our chat. I think in two weeks. Over
Veteran’s Day weekend. So I won’t have to miss too many
classes.”

He lowered his voice, but looked
straight ahead. “Speaking of missing. I’ll miss you when you’re
gone.”

My stomach flipped. I wanted to
brush my lips against his, to run my hand over his arm. To let him
tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. Tenderly. He would do it
tenderly. “Same here,” I said.

“Kat
.”

There was
something new in his voice. Something softer, more vulnerable.
Something like love, perhaps? My heart trembled with hope at the
possibility. I ached for him to feel the same way. I was falling
for him again, and I couldn’t bear the thought that I would be
smacked hard with
the I have to go
again. Of course, I hadn’t uttered a word about
feelings this time around, and I supposed I could walk away from
this strange us with some shred of dignity. I could protect myself
from feeling that kind of hurt again. But at this point, even
without the contact, even with the rules, I was all
in.

He shifted gears. Back to banter.
“So, you’re going to Paris, you’re going to find new designs, and
make more necklaces and be a superstar, right? That’s the plan? And
I can say I knew you when?”

“Ha. I honestly just want to make
enough money from My Favorite Mistakes to help out my parents.
Mystic Landing isn’t doing well.”

“I didn’t know that. You hadn’t
mentioned that.”

I shrugged. “I’m pretty good at
keeping some things buttoned up.”

“Tell me what’s going on. Maybe I
can help. I do know a thing or two about running a business.” He
held up his thumb and forefinger to show a sliver of
space.

I gave him the rundown, then said,
“They’ve been trying everything to drive more traffic to the store.
And, frankly, I just want to help them pay off the loan so they can
have some breathing room, you know? Things have got to pick up
soon. I just want to buy them some time.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm what?”

He stared at a Monet again, but he
wasn’t looking at the painting. He was simply gazing off in the
distance and I could see the wheels turning in his head. He looked
back at me. “It might not be a traffic issue.”

“But there aren’t as many
customers.”

“Right. But maybe the solution
isn’t in driving more traffic. Sometimes it’s something
else.”

“Well, let me know when you figure
out what that is.”

“Would it be okay with you if I
visited the store?”

I furrowed my brow. He couldn’t be
serious. “You would do that?”

“Of course. I’d
love to just take a look around, and see if I can come up with an
idea. Their daughter Kat is my protege after all. It seems the
right thing to do,” he said, and leaned a tiny bit closer to me
without touching.

“That would be above and beyond
the call of duty.”

“Consider it done, Kat.” Then he
said my name again as if it were a strange object he’d never seen.
“Kat. What’s the story with Kat? Your parents didn’t actually name
you Kat, did they?”

“Like that’s so
implausible?”

“It’s like a writer’s name. A
made-up name. It has to be short for something.”

“Didn’t my brother ever tell
you?”

“Never.”

“Never
ever?”

“I swear.”

“So guess
then.”

“Ah, so it is short for
something.”

I nodded.

“Here’s what I think. I think
people guess first that it’s short for Katherine, or Kathleen. Or
even Kathy.”

“They do.”

“And then, they guess Katie, or
Kaitlin or even Katalina.”

“Those are next.”

“And then the slightly more
adventuresome guess Katrina or Katya.”

“Katya? You do your
homework.”

The gold flecks in his forest
green eyes shimmered with playfulness. “But, I don’t think any of
those are right.”

“They’re not.”

He leaned his shoulder closer to
me. “You’re Katerina.”

He pulled away to gauge my
reaction. My eyes were big and wide and sparkling. They said
everything.

He pumped his fist in victory.
“Damn. I impress myself.”

“You should be since I’ve never
told anyone the name and haven’t used it.”

“Why not?”

“My mom always wanted me to be
Kat. My dad said I needed a real name, so they named me Katerina.
But no one ever called me that. So I’ve always been Kat. Funny,
because now my mom calls me Katerina.”

“Kat is a perfect name for you.
But so is Katerina. Did you ever think about using it?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I got
used to Kat. Once you’ve had a weird name, you just don’t give it
up when you’re older. It becomes a badge of honor. Like you made it
through life with people saying ‘Here, kitty, kitty’ or ‘Cat got
your tongue?’”

Bryan laughed once.
“Tongue.”

“Tongue?”

He leaned closer without touching.
“So many things I want to do with my tongue.”

I smiled knowingly at him. “Like
what?”

He downshifted his volume. “Like
taste you.”

I lowered my eyes, as if that
small act would hide the way sparks flew inside me.

“Right here? At the
museum?”

“Here. There. Anywhere. I think
about tasting you all the time.”

“You do?” The sparks became
fireworks, crackling and zinging.

“Sometimes when I’m in a meeting I
have to force myself to focus because I’m thinking about burying my
face between your legs.”

“I guess our minds are never
really on the meetings.”

“I’ll sometimes imagine everyone
else is gone, and I’m in a conference room just with you, and
you’re in a chair. Maybe even the power chair. And you spin around.
You’re wearing a tight white blouse and a short skirt and you call
me over, and all you do is point to the edge of your
skirt.”

“And what do you do
then?”

“I get down on my knees and push
up your skirt and go down on you.”

“I bet that makes it really hard
to focus at meetings.”

“Incredibly hard.” I raised an
eyebrow and followed his gaze to his pants. I wanted to press a
hand against him.

“What if I put my computer bag on
your lap right now as a shield? Would you touch
yourself?”

“Right here? On the bench in the
middle of the Impressionist Gallery?”

He nodded, and lifted his computer
bag, holding it above my legs.

“Are you serious?”

“If you want me to be
serious.”

I nodded my assent, and he laid
his bag gently across my thighs. I glanced around. Museumgoers were
preoccupied with still lifes and landscapes. I overheard snippets
of conversations, but they were all static noise to me. All I could
process were Bryan’s words, as he moved his mouth perilously close
to my ear. “Pretend you’re reaching inside the bag, and instead
slide your hand up your skirt.”

I’d like to say I was nervous or
cautious, but the truth was I was a live wire and I craved only one
thing right now — touch. So I followed his order.

“Are you touching
yourself?”

I nodded. I was afraid if I spoke
I’d cry out.

“Are you wet for me?”

Another nod.

“How much?”

“On a scale of
one to ten?”

“Yes.”

“One hundred.”

He breathed out hard. “God, I want
to taste you right now.”

I flipped through my mental
rolodex of bathroom locations in the Met. “Basement level. There’s
a two-stall bathroom off in a far corner.”

“Let’s go.”

I adjusted my skirt as he stood
up. I handed him his computer bag and he positioned it
strategically as we walked quickly past seascapes and portraits,
then Egyptian relics and stone horses, until we reached the white
marble stairwell at one end of the wing. I turned down the steps to
the basement level, and he followed, and soon I found the quiet
bathroom. I opened the door first, and peered around. It was
empty.

“Coast is
clear.” I pulled him inside, then into a stall. I shut the door and
as I was sliding the lock in place, Bryan’s hands were in my hair,
and his mouth was on my neck.

Then he moved to
my lips. “This is what I’m going to do to you.” He pressed his lips
on mine gently, and slid his tongue across them, licking once,
twice, three times in a lingering and hungry way, simulating what
he planned to do next. My knees wobbled. I was aching for him to
touch me. I’d never been so turned on in my life, let alone in a
fantasy. He dropped down to his knees, lifted my skirt, and pulled
down my panties. Within seconds, his mouth was on me, and I gasped.
“
Bryan
.”

Then I grabbed his hair, bringing
him closer. I pressed my back against the wall, and gave in to the
feeling of him tasting me for the first time. My god, he knew what
to do with his tongue. He knew where I wanted him, and how to touch
me in just the right way to send me spiraling. My hands dived into
his hair as he explored me like a starving man, and I was the one
thing that he needed. I’d never felt so desired; I’d never felt so
wanted as when he placed his hands on the back of my thighs and
brought me closer to his mouth. Then he made the sexiest sound, a
breathy groan as he ran his tongue across me. It was enough to take
me to the edge, knowing how turned on he was by doing this to me. I
said his name as quietly as I could, but inside I was screaming
out, feeling the sweet rhapsody across every square inch of my
body, as if the world itself had been shattered into diamonds and
starlight, brilliant and perfect as I stood there, awash in a
dazzling sort of pleasure from the tips of my toes to the end of my
hair.

He rose, and planted a gentle kiss
on my neck.

“My turn,” I said, and he grinned
in reply.

I kneeled, unzipped his pants and
tasted him for the first time. He groaned quietly and said my name
as he ran his hands in my hair. I took him all the way into my
throat, drinking in the taste of him, the scent of him, the feel of
him as he grabbed hold of my hair and I moved my lips and tongue up
and down. Soon, he inhaled sharply as he came.

I stood up, and I was sure we both
looked drunk and happy. He pulled me into a quick embrace and
tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “You are the sexiest
woman I have ever known and I am totally —”

The door opened with a loud creak.
I placed a finger on my lips. He stopped speaking. Someone went
into the stall next to us. When the stall door closed, I motioned
for Bryan to sneak out. He left quickly, and I adjusted my clothes,
left the stall, washed my hands, and walked out.

I found him down the hall, and he
had a goofy smile on his face. He started to reach for my hand, and
I near about melted. Even after what we’d just done, the fact that
he wanted to hold my hand meant so much to me. He didn’t though,
remembering we had to be careful in public.

“I am going to sleep well
tonight,” he said.

“Are you kidding? I’m going to
sleep well.”

We walked up the steps to the main
floor, when I saw a flurry of quick movement in one of the gallery
doorways. Bryan jerked his head, then tensed. That same
curly-haired guy in the sunglasses was dashing off
again.

Bryan swore under his breath. “Be
right back.”

Then he was off on some sort of
search. A few minutes later he returned, agitated. He rubbed a palm
over his chin, what I’d come to recognize as his tell when he was
stressed. “I think I know who that was. I’m not sure because he was
gone when I looked around. But I think that was Wilco.”

I flashed back
to an hour ago when the same man looked at me on the steps. Then
back to the other week when I’d bumped into him at NYU and written
it off as a look-alike. Had he seen us go downstairs? Did he know
where we were or what we were doing? Was Bryan the
hypocrite
he was ranting
about on Facebook?

“I think he’s following me,” Bryan
said in between gritted teeth.

I shook my head as fear snaked
over me. “No. He’s following us.”

Chapter Sixteen

We have to lie
low
.

Those were the last words Bryan
said before he hailed a cab for me and sent me home. He didn’t call
that night. Or the next night. When he did finally call, it was for
two minutes. He told me he’d call me again soon.