“Most people don’t see the effect until I show them this view,” he said.
“It’s genius, Ian,” she said feelingly. She gave him a questioning glance, noticing the glints in his eyes caused by the lights from the skyscrapers. “Why didn’t you brag about it to the press?”
“Because I didn’t do it for the press. I did it for my own pleasure, just like I do most things.”
She felt trapped by his gaze and couldn’t respond. Wasn’t that a particularly selfish thing to say? Why, then, did his words cause that heavy sensation to grow at the juncture of her thighs?
“But I am pleased that you’re pleased,” he said. “I have something else to show you.”
“Really?” she asked breathlessly.
He merely nodded once. She followed him, glad he couldn’t see the color in her cheeks. He led her to a room almost completely surrounded by filled, dark walnut bookcases. He paused inside the door, watching her reaction as she glanced around curiously, her gaze finally landing and latching onto the painting above the fireplace. She froze. She walked to it as if in a trance and studied one of her own pieces.
“You bought this from Feinstein?” she whispered, referring to one of her roommates—Davie Feinstein, who owned a gallery in Wicker Park. The piece she was staring at was the first painting of hers he’d sold. She’d insisted upon giving it to Davie as a deposit on her share of the rent a year and a half ago, when she’d been broke before they’d moved into the city.
“Yes,” Ian said, his voice telling her he stood just behind her right shoulder.
“Davie never mentioned—”
“I asked Lin to procure it for me. The gallery probably never knew who actually bought it.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat as her gaze ran over the depiction of the solitary man walking down the middle of a Lincoln Park street in the dark early morning hours, his back to her. The surrounding high-rises seemed to gaze down at him with a detached aloofness, as immune to human pain as he appeared to be to his own suffering. His open overcoat streamed out behind him. His shoulders hunched against the wind, and his hands were jammed deep in his jean pockets. Every line of his body exuded power, grace, and the resigned sort of loneliness that hardens into strength and resolve.
She loved this piece. It’d killed her to give it up, but rent must be paid.
“The Cat That Walks By Himself,” Ian said from behind her, his voice sounding gruff.
She smiled and laughed softly at hearing him say the title she’d given the painting. “‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’ I painted this in my sophomore year of undergrad. I was taking an English literature class at the time, and we were studying Kipling. The phrase seemed to fit somehow . . .”
Her voice trailed off as she stared at the solitary figure in the painting, her entire awareness sharply focused on the man who stood behind her. She glanced back at Ian and smiled. It embarrassed her to realize tears burned in her eyes. His nostrils flared slightly, and she turned abruptly, wiping her cheeks. It had touched something deep inside her, seeing her painting in the depths of his home.
“I think I’d better get going,” she said.
Her heart started to do a drumroll in her ears in the heavy silence that followed.
“Perhaps it’s best,” he said eventually. She turned and gave a sigh of relief—or was it regret—when she saw his tall form exiting the room. She followed him, murmuring a thanks when he held up her jean jacket once they reached the entryway. He resisted when she tried to take it from him. She swallowed and turned her back to him, letting him put it on her. His knuckles brushed against the skin of her shoulders. She repressed a shudder when he slid his hand beneath her long hair, skimming her nape in the process. He gently drew her hair out of the jacket and smoothed it over her back. She couldn’t repress a shiver and suspected he felt it beneath his hand.
“Such a rare color,” he murmured, still stroking her hair, sending the alert status of her nerves up another notch.
“I can have my driver Jacob take you home,” he said after a moment.
“No,” she said, feeling foolish for not turning around to speak. She couldn’t move. She was paralyzed. Every cell in her body prickled with awareness. “My friend is going to pick me up in a little while.”
“Will you come here to paint?” he asked, his deep voice echoing just inches from her right ear. She stared in front of her, unseeing.
“Yes.”
“I’d like you to start on Monday. I’ll have Lin provide you with an entry card and password to the elevator. Your supplies will be ready for you when you come.”
“I can’t come every day. I have class—mostly in the morning—and I waitress from seven to close several days a week.”
“Come whenever you can. The point is, you’ll come.”
“Yes, all right,” she managed through a constricted throat. He hadn’t removed his hand from her back. Could he feel her heart throbbing?
She had to get out of there. Now. She was way out of her depth.
She lurched toward the elevator, pushing a button on the control panel hastily. If she’d thought he’d try to touch her again, she’d thought wrong. The sleek elevator door slid open.
“Francesca?” he said as she hurried inside.
“Yes?” she asked, turning.
He stood with his hands behind his back, the posture causing his suit jacket to open, revealing a shirt-draped lean abdomen, narrow hips, a silver belt buckle, and . . . everything beneath it.