“I’m sorry,” he finally muttered, his voice tight and gravelly.
“For what?” she asked, hating the way her voice broke. “We never promised each other anything.”
Slowly, so slowly, he raised his head to look at her, and his eyes were shattered. Crushed. Panicked even. “Wait. What does that mean?”
“I get it. You’re not into this anymore, so we can just—”
“I am into it,” he said, standing up but still holding tightly to her wrist as though it was a lifeline, and he’d drift out to sea if he wasn’t holding on for dear life.
“Then what?” she whispered, staring into his eyes as she lowered the file and iPad back to the table.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he said harshly, moving around the curve of the table to pull her closer. “I don’t know how to feel comfortable with it.”
“But you want it?” she asked, wishing she could quell the wild uncertainties in his eyes.
He nodded once, covering his heart with his free hand. “I want you.”
She turned away from him, pulling him toward the back of the gallery where they could be alone. He followed her, sliding his fingers from her wrist to her hand.
In the dim, quiet light of the hallway, she turned to face him, backing him against the wall. “Are you freaking out? Is that what this is?”
The severe expression on his face softened and he nodded.
She exhaled, breathing a sigh of relief and cocking her head to the side as she glared up at him. “Are you sure that’s all it is? Because I’m planning to make a major life change tomorrow and if you’re not into this—”
His lips crashed down on hers with a groan of gut-wrenching need, his hands landing on her hips to pull her between his legs as he leaned against the hallway wall, positioning her firmly against his body.
“I’m into it. I need you, Libitz. I want you. I’m crazy about you, baby,” he murmured, his lips trailing down the column of her neck as he whispered his truth in a husky, emotional voice. “I’m sorry for saying that before. I didn’t mean it.”
She flattened her hands on his chest and leaned away to look up at him.
“Oh. So we do share a love of each other?” she asked, desperately trying to keep a straight face, since she suspected this question would make him extremely uncomfortable. She didn’t care. After what he pulled back there, he deserved it. She raised her eyebrows and waited.
His eyes widened and he cleared his throat. “Well, um—I’m not sure that we need to, well, um—”
Her trembling shoulders gave her away, and he sighed, his whole body relaxing as he realized she was teasing him. She giggled softly, reaching up to cup his face. “There’s no reason to freak out, Jean-Christian.”
“Though she be but little, she is fierce.” He sighed, kissing her sweetly. “This is new for me. All of it.”
I’m falling in love with you, she thought for the second time that afternoon, gazing up into his beautiful dark eyes.
“For me too.”
***
Libitz rested her head on his shoulder on the cab ride up to the Met, and J.C. marveled over the fact that he had somehow sidestepped a meltdown. By her strength. By her grace. By her understanding and wisdom. In the space of a few hours, two of the most terrifying words in the world—“ring” and “love”—had been introduced into his life, and he hadn’t spontaneously combusted or had an impromptu heart attack. In fact, he thought, resting his lips on the crown of her head, he was feeling…okay. Because of her. Because when he’d said that asinine comment about them not loving each other, her gasp of breath and the sudden flash of pain in her eyes were enough to make him want to die. He never, ever wanted to see that look on her face again. Never.
Leaning away from her just a bit, he tilted her chin up and kissed her. Though she didn’t know it, it was a promise to her, and to himself, that he wouldn’t hurt her again—that if she gave him her trust, he would prove himself worthy of it.
“What was that for?” she asked as the cab pulled up to the curb of the Met and he drew away.
“For being you,” he answered, dragging his wallet out of his pocket and paying the cabbie.
“Little and fierce?” she asked.
He nodded. Little and fierce…and mine.
She was waiting for him on the sidewalk when he exited, and he took her hand as they walked up the grand steps together.
“Who are we meeting again?” she asked.
“Niles Harkin. Doctor. Professor. He taught at Princeton, and I audited some of his classes. We kept in touch.”
“And he just happens to work at the Met?”
J.C. nodded. “He’s the head of Painting Conservation.”
“People in high places,” she said.