Sadie took a moment to make sense of his words. She shook her head and waved at the window. “I have this habit of seeing colors in terms of art.”
Confusion flashed in those grape-green eyes. “I don’t understand.”
Normally, she didn’t try to explain, but for some inexplicable reason, she wanted Carrick to understand her obsession with color. Maybe if he did, they’d have something in common, a connection.
Something other than sex...
Seeing his interest, she looked down onto the busy street, trying to find an object to make her point. A woman cut across the common, wearing a yellow coat.
Sadie gripped Carrick’s sleeve, her fingertips digging into the corded muscle of his forearm. She wanted to let go, but she could feel his heat, smell his clean, fresh skin.
“That woman, the one wearing yellow, do you see her?”
“Yeah.”
Her fingers remained on his arm, as if stuck there with superglue. “Name the first painting that comes to mind where the artist used that color.”
Carrick didn’t hesitate. “Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.”
“Too easy. Try again.”
“Andy Warhol’s banana on the sleeve of The Velvet Underground’s record?”
“Nope, try again,” Sadie suggested.
“Jeez, you’re tough.” Carrick’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Gustav Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer?”
Okay, that was a really good answer. “Better,” she reluctantly admitted.
Carrick’s laughter was low and rumbly. “Think you can do better?”
Please.“It reminds me of that untitled Mark Rothko work sold in New York a few years back.” She cocked her head to the side. “Or maybe it’s the color of The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis by Rembrandt.”
She felt Carrick’s eyes on her profile, and she couldn’t look at him, not sure if she wanted to see whether he was impressed or not.
“You know your art,” Carrick said.
“I have a PhD in art history, so I should,” Sadie replied, her tone crisp. Then she realized that she was stroking Carrick’s arm like he was a cat with a particularly luxurious coat. She looked down at her hand, blushed and yanked it away.
“Sorry, along with color, I’m also a textile freak. And your suit is so soft, so...touchable.”
Yeah, sure, the fabric was wonderfully soft, but that wasn’t the real reason she was touching his arm.
Stop thinking about that night, Slade, and take your hand off his arm.
Sadie moved away from Carrick, folded her arms and hauled in a deep breath, telling herself to act like a professional.
Carrick stared down at the Common and they silently watched the Boston residents taking advantage of the cold, clear afternoon. After a minute of silence, Carrick pointed to a woman dressed in a fuchsia-colored coat and walking two elegant, very well behaved Great Danes.
“The pink coat of the woman walking the Great Danes is the same color as the floor in Matisse’s The Pink Studio,” he said.
“Or the pink in O’Keeffe’s It Was Yellow and Pink.”
They could talk about art, thank goodness. It was a neutral subject, something they were both passionate about. And far safer than their other mutual interest: their fascination with each other’s bodies.
“I also think it’s the same color as your nipples after I lave them with my tongue.”
It took Sadie a few seconds for his words to sink in and she flushed, immediately catapulted back to that night and the shooting, aching ribbons of pleasure running through her, heating her from the inside out. Sadie couldn’t look at him; she knew that if she did, if she saw the passion in his eyes, she’d fly into his arms and curl herself around him.