Beneath The Skin(19)

“I’d laugh.”

Brant hisses his own laughter through his teeth. “Yeah? Why would you laugh?”

“If I called you a banana, you’d laugh, wouldn’t you?” I turn my head, drinking in the sight of his bright blue eyes as they wonder the meaning of my words. Then I take a sip of those chiseled arms of his … and that sexy, dimpled smirk. “Because you’re obviously not a banana.”

“No, I’m not,” he agrees.

“So if you really are an artist,” I go on, “then you’d laugh when I accused you of not being one. You’d laugh and think of your best photo, the one that blew your mind apart, the one that encapsulates everything you are, even to this very moment. You’d laugh at me.”

He stews on that for a second. Then he faces me and flashes his teeth. “I have a banana in my pants.”

I ignore him and his stupid, childish comments—despite the urge to chuckle and betray my cool demeanor. I think he sees it because he snorts breathily, which very quickly converts my almost-smile into a tightened smirk.

After listening to our footsteps for a measureless amount of time, we take another left onto Abernathy and arrive at the destination. Brant doesn’t say a word as I open the tall front glass doors. The cool air wafts over us like a refreshing spritz of water as we step inside, the doors shutting gently at our backs.

As I cross the brightly lit room, my heels echo loudly off the tile and the art displays and glass walls. When I stop at one of them and turn, I find Brant standing in the middle of the room with his eyes grown to twice their size as he spins slowly, swallowing in the new environment. With the exception of the gallery owner and likely a student or two in the back, there’s no one here yet but us. The only others in our immediate presence are the countless pieces of art that sit on their respective displays, silently staring back.

“Never been to an art exhibit before?” I ask him, my voice echoing hollowly across the room.

“Holy moly.” Brant stops and stares back at the entrance. “You can see the street. All the walls are glass. They can see in,” he states dumbly, then turns back around to look at all the art projects spread around the room in their little sections and stations. His eyes zero in on one in particular. “Is … Is that a penis?”

I follow his line of sight to a clay pot that looks like a very tall mushroom and would likely be mistaken for one if it weren’t for the two round drums the artist deliberately set in front of it.

“It’s art,” I answer vaguely.

He scoffs, coming up to it and smirking. “Right. And I can toss a clam on a pedestal and call it a vagina. Is that art?”

My eyes narrow. Every stupid thing that spills from his stupid, sexy mouth just confirms more and more what kind of guy I’m getting to know.

“Want to see more?” I offer tersely, masking my annoyance the way one holds back from shouting an obscenity after stubbing a toe.

His bright blue eyes lift from the penis pot and meet mine.

The effect loosens every ounce of tight frustration I’d just gained.

Then, it’s his soft footsteps that now fill the room, tapping slowly along the tile as he struts up to me. The closer he gets, the more his smile fades until we’re nearly nose-to-nose and all I see are his infinite blue eyes.

“Yep,” he says, quiet as a sigh. “I wanna see more. Much more.”

Every little spark of willpower within me is exercised to its fullest capacity to turn away from that sexy face. He’s really making this a challenge for me.

Over my shoulder, I tell him, “This way.”

I lead him to a work of art that sits on a pedestal out in the open—fully visible to the street from the front and side glass windows, as well as within perfect view of the whole rest of the gallery. There, his eyes fall on the display that gives him cause to lift his brows in surprise, and gape. I watch with secret, dark delight as he walks around the piece of work, taking it in at all possible angles with his big, bewildered eyes. I’m feasting on his every little reaction, joy bubbling within me like a spicy soup on the stovetop. He even stops to cross his arms, bringing a thoughtful finger to his lips as he studies it.

Finally, just when I’m ready for him to offer his admiration, he lifts his face, meets my eyes, and says, “And what in freaky hell is this?”

I lift an affronted eyebrow. “Well, what do you think?”

He tilts his head. “It’s a naked woman,” he observes, “on all fours … and her mouth has … a ball-gag with a censor bar over it.” He shakes his head. “The hell kind of sick shit is this?” He laughs suddenly, his chuckles whistling through his fingers. “Some kind of BDSM thing?”