Game On(75)
“Strange as it might seem, the color pink doesn’t brainwash women into buying things,” I replied, trying not to let on how breathless he had made me. Trying not to imagine his hands instead of his eyes on that pink bra strap, easing it slowly from my shoulder as he kissed my neck.
I raised the stakes, slipping my foot out of my shoe to stroke his ankle, and then moved it slightly higher. This was really out of character for me, but something about our conversation, the flush of whiskey in my cheeks, the way he was looking at me…I felt emboldened in a way I never did at work or even when I was out with my friends.
I was rewarded with a flush of heat in his gaze, his pupils dilating as his grip tightened slightly on mine. He leaned forward, close enough that I could have kissed him without rising from the seat. His lips were so full, they looked so soft—
He was so close I could feel the heat of his breath as he murmured his next words: “So, tell me, what would you do?” He picked up his glass and drank, the muscles in his throat working as he swallowed it down. I didn’t look away. It was safe to assume my panties were on fire, and there was only one way to put that fire out.
And you know what? I decided I’d been overthinking things at work. Either I had confidence in myself or I didn’t, and doing some last-minute drinking wasn’t going to change a damn thing about my presentation tomorrow.
But some really good sex just might give me an edge.
I lifted my own glass and downed the remaining Knox. My decision was made.
It was go time.
I leaned towards him until our lips were barely a millimeter apart. “Do you really want to know what I’d do with this brand?” I whispered. Before he could answer, I brushed my lips against the corner of his mouth. He tasted like smoke and cinnamon and danger, and I liked it. “Or would you rather know what I’d do with you?”
His eyes gleamed, and I knew his answer even before he spoke.
***
What happens next? Ally and Hunter’s story continues in BILLIONAIRE WITH A TWIST – Available now!
Meet Grace and St. Clair: she’s an aspiring gallery girl, he’s the sexy billionaire art collector. Together, they’ll discover a world of romance in the hot new series by Stella London!
THE ART OF STEALING HEARTS available September 30th!
CHAPTER 1
My mom taught me that art is everywhere; you just have to look. “Keep your eyes open, Grace, and you can always find the beauty,” she said, filling our small apartments with gorgeous paintings and bright colors, pointing out shapes and compositions as we walked city streets. Her love of art inspired mine, but right now my heart and head are pounding under the stress of running late, so it’s hard for me to notice anything pretty about the traffic literally standing between me and the chance of a lifetime.
“Um, excuse me?” I pipe up from the back seat of the immobile taxi cab, anxiously looking at the driver slumped in his seat. He ignores me.
I check my watch again: 8:41 am. Crap! I bite my lip to keep from yelling. Crapcrapcrap. I’m supposed to be at Carringer’s Auction House in nineteen—make that eighteen—minutes. First BART was late, and now I’m spending the last of this week’s tips to be trapped in this smelly cab, sweating under my best business outfit. My only business outfit.
After a year of dropping off resumes and talking up gallery owners and museum directors, I’d nearly given up hope of finding a job in the art world until last week when the best auction house in San Francisco called me. Carringer’s deals in the most sought-after and highly-valued art and antiquities in the world: French Impressionist paintings, Chinese ceramics, Native American head masks, Greek sculptures…I get chills just imagining the masterpieces that flow in and out of those vaults. If I’m late to this interview, the first opportunity I’ve had in months might slip away and I’ll be serving spaghetti and meatballs at my waitress gig until I permanently smell like marinara and am too old to remember the specials.
“Sir?” This time I rap insistently on the plexiglass separating me from the driver. He eyes me in the rearview mirror. “I’m super late. Is there a short cut or something you could use?”
The minute hand on the watch my mother gave me jerks forward again and we’ve gone less than a block. Why aren’t we moving?! As if the obvious answer wasn’t right outside my window, honking and spewing fumes and inching along like snails on their way into the financial district’s high rise office buildings.
The driver just laughs at me. “What do you think?”
I think you smell like someone Febreezed over a cigar shop. But it’s the number one rule of waitressing: rudeness never pays. “How much further is Gold Street?”
The cabbie shrugs. It’s 8:43.
“Is it close enough to walk?” I press him.
“Sure,” he says. “Everywhere is close enough to walk to eventually.”
Screw this. There is no possible way for me to arrive looking cool and collected as planned anyway since my makeup probably already looks like a Jackson Pollock, and I’m not going to let some stupid traffic keep me from my dream. “Here,” I say, tossing a pile of ones onto the front seat and scooting out the door. “I’ll take my chances.”
The cab driver rolls his eyes. “Maybe ten blocks,” he says. I inhale a deep breath of crisp ocean air, steady my purse on my shoulder, and start jogging.