Caught Up in Us (Caught Up In Love #1)(28)
Author: Lauren Blakely

“Are you serious?”

“If you want me to be serious.”

I nodded my assent, and he laid his bag gently across my thighs. I glanced around. Museumgoers were preoccupied with still lifes and landscapes. I overheard snippets of conversations, but they were all static noise to me. All I could process were Bryan’s words, as he moved his mouth perilously close to my ear. “Pretend you’re reaching inside the bag, and instead slide your hand up your skirt.”

I’d like to say I was nervous or cautious, but the truth was I was a live wire and I craved only one thing right now — touch. So I followed his order.

“Are you touching yourself?”

I nodded. I was afraid if I spoke I’d cry out.

“Are you wet for me?”

Another nod.

“How much?”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“Yes.”

“One hundred.”

He breathed out hard. “God, I want to taste you right now.”

I flipped through my mental rolodex of bathroom locations in the Met. “Basement level. There’s a two-stall bathroom off in a far corner.”

“Let’s go.”

I adjusted my skirt as he stood up. I handed him his computer bag and he positioned it strategically as we walked quickly past seascapes and portraits, then Egyptian relics and stone horses, until we reached the white marble stairwell at one end of the wing. I turned down the steps to the basement level, and he followed, and soon I found the quiet bathroom. I opened the door first, and peered around. It was empty.

“Coast is clear.” I pulled him inside, then into a stall. I shut the door and as I was sliding the lock in place, Bryan’s hands were in my hair, and his mouth was on my neck.

Then he moved to my lips. “This is what I’m going to do to you.” He pressed his lips on mine gently, and slid his tongue across them, licking once, twice, three times in a lingering and hungry way, simulating what he planned to do next. My knees wobbled. I was aching for him to touch me. I’d never been so turned on in my life, let alone in a fantasy. He dropped down to his knees, lifted my skirt, and pulled down my panties. Within seconds, his mouth was on me, and I gasped. “Bryan.”

Then I grabbed his hair, bringing him closer. I pressed my back against the wall, and gave in to the feeling of him tasting me for the first time. My god, he knew what to do with his tongue. He knew where I wanted him, and how to touch me in just the right way to send me spiraling. My hands dived into his hair as he explored me like a starving man, and I was the one thing that he needed. I’d never felt so desired; I’d never felt so wanted as when he placed his hands on the back of my thighs and brought me closer to his mouth. Then he made the sexiest sound, a breathy groan as he ran his tongue across me. It was enough to take me to the edge, knowing how turned on he was by doing this to me. I said his name as quietly as I could, but inside I was screaming out, feeling the sweet rhapsody across every square inch of my body, as if the world itself had been shattered into diamonds and starlight, brilliant and perfect as I stood there, awash in a dazzling sort of pleasure from the tips of my toes to the end of my hair.

He rose, and planted a gentle kiss on my neck.

“My turn,” I said, and he grinned in reply.

I kneeled, unzipped his pants and tasted him for the first time. He groaned quietly and said my name as he ran his hands in my hair. I took him all the way into my throat, drinking in the taste of him, the scent of him, the feel of him as he grabbed hold of my hair and I moved my lips and tongue up and down. Soon, he inhaled sharply as he came.

I stood up, and I was sure we both looked drunk and happy. He pulled me into a quick embrace and tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “You are the sexiest woman I have ever known and I am totally —”

The door opened with a loud creak. I placed a finger on my lips. He stopped speaking. Someone went into the stall next to us. When the stall door closed, I motioned for Bryan to sneak out. He left quickly, and I adjusted my clothes, left the stall, washed my hands, and walked out.

I found him down the hall, and he had a goofy smile on his face. He started to reach for my hand, and I near about melted. Even after what we’d just done, the fact that he wanted to hold my hand meant so much to me. He didn’t though, remembering we had to be careful in public.

“I am going to sleep well tonight,” he said.

“Are you kidding? I’m going to sleep well.”

We walked up the steps to the main floor, when I saw a flurry of quick movement in one of the gallery doorways. Bryan jerked his head, then tensed. That same curly-haired guy in the sunglasses was dashing off again.

Bryan swore under his breath. “Be right back.”

Then he was off on some sort of search. A few minutes later he returned, agitated. He rubbed a palm over his chin, what I’d come to recognize as his tell when he was stressed. “I think I know who that was. I’m not sure because he was gone when I looked around. But I think that was Wilco.”

I flashed back to an hour ago when the same man looked at me on the steps. Then back to the other week when I’d bumped into him at NYU and written it off as a look-alike. Had he seen us go downstairs? Did he know where we were or what we were doing? Was Bryan the hypocrite he was ranting about on Facebook?

“I think he’s following me,” Bryan said in between gritted teeth.

I shook my head as fear snaked over me. “No. He’s following us.”

Chapter Sixteen

We have to lie low.

Those were the last words Bryan said before he hailed a cab for me and sent me home. He didn’t call that night. Or the next night. When he did finally call, it was for two minutes. He told me he’d call me again soon.

Soon.

When I showed up at Made Here’s offices for my work, I spent most of the time with Nicole Blazer in design. She showed me the new line of tie clips with the gold tints I’d suggested, then remarked that she was going to get one for her partner. “She likes to wear the pants in the relationship. And the ties,” Nicole said, as we looked at the first set of clips spread out on the coffee table in her office. I felt a pang of jealousy for Nicole and her partner, simply because they weren’t a secret, because they were something. They were an un-secret.

“Which one do you like?”

“I love them all. But especially this one.” I chose a clip that shone with the gold of a sunset.

“My favorite too! And Bryan loves that one as well,” Nicole said, then called out to Bryan who was walking by her office. “Kat has the best taste.”