Artfully Yours (16 page)

Elle broke out in goosebumps. This was ridiculous. All the guy did was look at her, and her entire body threw itself into a fit.

“Elle,” he said.

“Hi, neighbor.”

He closed the distance between them with an impatient, loose-limbed gait but, to Elle’s disappointment, stopped short of picking her up and pinning her to the wall. Instead, he held out a hand, and she slipped hers into it, no hesitation. His fingers closed over hers as he drew her to the sculpture at the center, glittering in the bright sun. He stopped and positioned her so that she stood in the same spot he’d been in. Without letting go of her hand, he moved behind her, arms casually circling her waist to ease her back against his hot body.

“What do you think?” His breath stirred the hair at her temple.

Take me to the ground and make me scream.
“It’s…uh…it’s big.”

“I was talking about the sculpture.”

Elle’s mouth dropped open and she jerked away from him. She didn’t get far before he hauled her back. “So was I!”

“Then yes, the sculpture is big. A lot of my work is designed for a landscaped setting, or for large interior spaces like the lobby of a hotel or office building, and has to dominate. Do you like it?”

She narrowed her eyes and twisted to look up into his face. “We still talking about the sculpture?”

“All right.”

“In that case, yes. It’s very…well, it’s very striking.”

She was the worst person in the world to ask about art. The worst. She was way too practical for this. She hadn’t had time between work and getting ready to come over here to Google him, but from what T.J. had kept bouncing in all afternoon to tell her, as excited as if he was the one going on a date, Alex Zacharov was a big deal in the art world. A huge deal. He was some kind of sculptor rock star, and honestly? She couldn’t tell if she stood in the presence of genius, or the physical representation of a breakdown.

“I have you to thank for this, you know.” His hands slid down to her hips, tightened.

This was her fault? How could this be her fault?

“Since I ran into you that night in the store, I’ve been on fire.” He vibrated with intensity behind her. “All of this, it’s because of you.”

Elle’s wide eyes followed his gesture from the piece by his workstation to the sculptures stacked along the far wall of the barn. Yikes. “Okay, Alex,” she started, turning in his grip. Whatever she’d been about to say fell clean out of her head when she saw his face. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. Said it all about this guy, didn’t it? He didn’t hide anything. He stood there, and he looked at her like that. Like it was
easy
.

She couldn’t help it; she reached up and brushed her fingertips over the scruff on his jaw. Trying to ground herself in him? Confirming he was actually real and there? He moved his head, caught her fingertip in his mouth, and bit down lightly before releasing it. It was a damn good thing his arms were still around her because she almost fell over.

Elle took a sudden, sharp breath. “I don’t really get what’s going on here,” she said desperately. “I get bits of it, I get the big picture, but…what is this?”

He lifted his chin at the sculptures. “What’s this, or—” he kissed the inside of her wrist, “—what’s this?”

“Yes,” she said, and he grinned. “I mean, both.”

“Well, this—” he flattened a hand at the small of her back, and she gasped, “—is me dating you. Yes. We’re dating. And this—” he let her go to make a proud, all-encompassing gesture over the barn, “—is you, immortalized.”

See, she was on board and knew which way was up and exactly what direction they were headed, and then he came out with that. The weird stuff. He was a beautiful weirdo.

“You’re my muse, Elle.”

Muse? His muse? “That’s fast. We only met a few days ago.” He stiffened and his lips formed a hard line, so she amended, “Reconnected. We only reconnected a few days ago.”

“I’ve only ever had one muse. It’s always been you.”

She felt his words all the way down to her bones.
It’s always been you.
He sounded sincere, and wasn’t that the most seductive thing in the world, so tempting to believe? But come on. Elle Finley, artist’s muse? “Bet you say that to all the girls you lure into your barn.”

“I don’t lure girls into my barn. Just you.” He scanned her thoroughly, lingering in the interesting places. “And you’re a woman.”

Yep. She was feeling particularly womanly right now. “Mind if I take a closer look at your other stuff?”

He gave her a look she found hard to read—challenging, and something else beneath that—and nodded, letting her go.

He could tell that she didn’t get his work. It was cute. Striking? She said his work was striking? All right, he’d give her that, but it was so much more. It was passion and yearning and a pure ego-less coming together of two separate entities into one shattering union. It was a layering of dimensions, with each angle as the captured step of the only dance worth knowing—a dance of giving, taking, demanding, accepting…

Alex watched Elle as she moved on to another piece. Would she understand that one? He absorbed the way she stood in front of it, awkward and uncertain. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her arms. She crossed them over her chest, she hooked her thumbs in the back pockets of her skinny jeans, she tapped her chin with a thoughtful nod.

He grinned. She wasn’t going to understand any of it, was she?

Elle obligingly inspected every single piece. He knew his focus on her as she did so was unsettling, could tell by the wary glances she shot him every now and then and by the set of her shoulders. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t need her to appreciate his work, to understand it, hell, even to like it. He wasn’t interested in
like
and
don’t like
. He did need, to the very depths of his being, to see her in this moment as she saw him. For Elle, she was checking out sculpture. For Alex, he was watching the instant when his inspiration came face to face with reality. Saw her own heart parlayed through the blood and sweat of a man in love.

She finished looking and rejoined him with a smile.

He stepped into her, crowding her because he couldn’t damn help himself. “Hungry?”

“Yep. What’s on the menu?” Her cheeks pinkened when he didn’t reply. “Alex. Hey. Alex. What’s for dinner?”

Right. Food.

They strolled back to the house, where Elle seemed more thrilled with the setup in his dining room than any of his work. “This is romantic,” she said, taking in the flowers, the candlesticks, the crystal glasses, the classic white tablecloth. All perfectly replicated from date number six in the handbook Gabe had sent to his iPad.

“Of course.” He seated her and went to the kitchen, came back carrying an exquisitely arranged salad on a white bone china plate he’d just had to pop the plastic cover off, and placed it in front of her.

She was murmuring something to Gargoyle, who was about as good with personal boundaries when it came to Elle Finley as he was, and she did a double take at the extravagant food. “Wow. You cook, too?”

Alex pushed Gargoyle’s big head off her lap, ignored the drool patches he’d left, and laid a crisp napkin in place. “
No
,” he said and glanced down into her startled eyes. “Talking to the dog. Go lie down.”

Gargoyle grumbled but slithered under the table to sprawl on the floor, nose touching the tip of Elle’s boot.

Alex sat down himself and continued, “And as for the cooking, also no.”

She took in the tableware and the food again. Her hand clenched around her fork. “Is this catered?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Alex. I thought you were cooking! I saw you go into the store!”

He’d gone into the store. He’d come back out of the store. He’d gotten into his truck, driven home to his laptop and found the nearest starred restaurant he could throw enough money at to get over here and help him make a good impression.

“You shouldn’t have,” she said.

“Yes I should. This is a date.”

“A date! Not a formal catered event. A first date!”

“Does this feel like a first date? I was thinking it felt more like a sixth date.”

She waved a hand. “We could have gone out to a restaurant. You didn’t have to bring the restaurant here. This is too much.”

“It’s not too much. I didn’t want to go to a restaurant. Couple of logistical problems. Eat.” He nodded to her plate.

“Logistical problems?” She popped in a mouthful, chewed, and sighed. “Fabulous.”

He shifted on his chair. Shit. She was always making these weird noises. His voice came out rough. “First problem, I didn’t want to do this surrounded by a room full of people and being constantly interrupted by the waiter. I don’t like rooms full of people. I want to be alone with you.”

“We’re not technically alone. Gargoyle’s here.”

“He’s not interrupting the conversation, and anyway he won’t stick around too long. He’s scared by loud noises.”

“What?”

“We’ll be alone later, when it matters, because he’ll run away. Because of the loud noises.”

“You’re a screamer, huh?”

“Can be.”

She grinned at him, then when he lifted his brows, she swallowed hard. “Second problem?”

“Second problem is after we’re done eating. The nearest good restaurant is a forty-minute drive. I’m not a patient man. Don’t like waiting.”

“Oh.”

He continued to watch her as she pushed the food about on her plate. “Right, then. Ready to move on?” He stood up.

Elle’s gaze flew to his and she said, breathlessly, “You really don’t have an issue with just coming out and saying it, do you?”

“No.”

“How about another glass of wine first? Another two?”

She seemed out-of-proportion nervous about the impending main course.

Alex replayed the conversation in his head. “I mean to move on with the meal.”

Elle sat up primly, straightened the knife and fork on her plate. “I knew that.”

He couldn’t help it. He tipped her face up, and touched his mouth to hers in a fast, hard kiss. Then another. Then made himself pull away and pick up the plates. “Stay.”

“You talking to me or Gargoyle?”

“Both of you. This kind of waiting—” he lifted the plates with practiced ease, “—I can handle. Pour some more wine.”

“Oh, I will.”

He whisked the plates away, came back with the main course, and placed it in front of her.

“You’re very graceful for a guy whose day job involves welding torches and whatever else all those tools were out in the barn.”

“Trust me, you need grace and dexterity when you’ve got tanks of combustible fuel, fire, and superheated metal a couple of inches from your face. But as it happens, I have some waiting experience. Did it for years in San Francisco when I was getting started and I couldn’t pay anyone to look at my pieces, let alone pay me for them.”

“Tell me about it. How you got into the whole metal sculpture thing.”

He pointed at her food. “Eat,” he said, waiting for her to begin before he continued, “Not much to tell.”

“Are you kidding? There’s a lot to tell. Misfit high school student with controlling wicked grandfather runs away to the big city and morphs into super-buff artist guy with the power to bend metal to his will. It’s like a superhero origin story. I went to the city too, spent eight years up to my eyeballs in ER trauma, and the only power I discovered was the ability to start a relationship with a man and drain him of passion. As in, completely. I can suck it right out of him. Leave nothing but a husk.”

Alex dropped his fork.

Elle stared at him. “Holy God,” she said, “
not that
. I don’t mean it like that. I’m a medical professional! I’m not euphemistic about these things. If I was talking about giving a guy a—” She choked off. Took a slug of wine. Placed the glass down with care and gave him a bright smile. “Well. That took an unexpected turn for the awkward. Let’s get back on track, shall we? I want to hear more about your art.”

“I want to hear more about the passion sucking.”

“Hah. No. Art.”

“Fine. Eat.”

They ate in a simmering silence, Alex fascinated by the play of her blush, to be able to visually track the heat moving through her. He felt it in himself always, felt the heat running through his veins like a river of fire, but seeing it in Elle made his attention drift as he started to imagine another piece.

“Alex?”

“Hmm?” His vision swung back into focus on her cautious face.

“You okay?”

Yes. He took a deep breath and sighed. Oh,
yes
. “I’m good.”

“Think you about burned a hole in me with that staring thing you’ve got going on.”

He noticed with surprise that she’d finished her food. He glanced down. So had he. “Sorry. I was thinking.” Great. Way to impress her, drifting off in the middle of a conversation. He checked Elle’s expression. She didn’t seem annoyed. She seemed…intrigued.