Feel the Heat (Hot In the Kitchen) by Meader Kate

Author:Meader, Kate [Meader, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781455528790
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2013-05-06T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

There was no respite from the heat inside the fourth-floor studio of the Flatiron Arts Building in Wicker Park. Not that it would have made a blind bit of difference. The studio Lili shared with Zander was small and stuffy, but still large enough that she should have been able to keep a sane, chilled distance from Jack.

Seemed they both had other ideas.

Gravitating. That’s what they were doing. No touching, not since he had held her during her meltdown back at his restaurant, but a couple of circuits of the space seemed to exert a curious animal magnetism. If he wasn’t standing next to her, she came to him. If she found herself alone, it didn’t last. He would slide in by her side, swarming her senses.

He tilted his head while examining one of Zander’s very earthy male nudes, hung, ahem, on the studio’s north-facing wall, and did a marvelous job of keeping his upper lip stiff.

“This guy sells?” His gaze skimmed the $3,000 price card, tucked discreetly at the corner.

She nodded. “Quite well. He was part of the New Artists exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art last fall.”

He arced around her and moved to the next one. Every hair on her neck stood to attention as he passed. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say you didn’t bring me here to look at photos of naked men. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. There was no reason to be nervous; he’d already seen her more conservative photos on DeLuca’s walls and the collage in her apartment where everyone but Lili took a starring role. It was just that she rarely showed her real work to anyone but her artist friends. The unsuitable people who understood the beauty and the pain.

Jack understood beauty, and from what he’d said about his father, he had more than a nodding acquaintance with pain. Back at his restaurant site, she had wanted to draw him into her body and hug away his hurt. Assure him she was worthy of his trust. But he had slapped on his emotional armor and shut her down. After how she had treated him, could she blame him?

Fingers shaking, she yanked open the top drawer of the corner file cabinet, acutely conscious of the stunning hunk of male at her shoulder. Which first? Which first? Her mind raced as fast as her deft fingers raked through the prints, passing over the luminous black and white close-ups of her mother, starkly beautiful during her treatment. Lili’s delicate emotional state meant those photos would have to wait for another day. Today, she would show the work that made her smile. She plucked out one of her favorites. Sadie Number Three.

She held it for Jack and smothered her surprise when he took it from her. No need to tell him to be careful about smudgy fingerprints. A man with hands like his knew exactly how to hold a photo. Like he held a woman.

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