Page 47 of Stolen Goods
Addison was the first one awake the next morning. Thad stirred to the feel of her head resting on his shoulder as her finger casually drew loops across his abdomen.How the hell did she get the jump on me?
He blinked, trying to snap out of the daze. It took a moment for him to realize the brain fog wasn’t from sleep, but a lack of oxygen. His blood supply had fled his brain to gather in an extremely conspicuous location, and his mind had ceased to function. His entire body was on fire, acutely attuned to that finger dipping closer and closer to the waistband of his pants, then rising up his chest, then sliding back down, teasing and taunting and—
Thank God I left my jeans on.
He sighed, trying to figure out how to extricate himself from the situation, and Addison suddenly paused, pressing her palm flat against his stomach. He was half convinced flames would spontaneously erupt from the spot, but when she glanced up to meet his gaze, she was perfectly at ease. There was none of the embarrassment from the morning before, none of the discomfort. She seemed more self-assured, as though she’d come to a decision in the night without telling him the question or the answer. A soft smile sat across her lips. She looked at him as though it were any other day, as though she were immune to the inferno that had so thoroughly aroused him from sleep—and, well, aroused him. Full stop.
“Morning,” she said, still drowsy.
He cleared his throat. “Morning.”
He shifted to indicate without words that they should get up, pack up, and start the day. But Addison remained where she was, leaving her head on his shoulder and keeping him in place.
“Can I see it?” she asked.
Bloody hell.He wasn’t British by any means, but the expletive seemed oddly appropriate for this moment and the way he practically jumped out of his skin. Could she see it? See what? Surely she wasn’t talking about… She couldn’t mean…
Get your head out of the gutter, Ryder.
“It’s only, I’ve been staring at it all morning wondering what it looks like, and I figured, why not? We’re alone. No one else is around.”
Wait—wasshe talking about what he thought she was talking about?
No.
Definitely not.
Just because his thoughts were focused in a very singular location didn’t mean hers were. There was no way. But shewasacting strange, waking up all easygoing and relaxed, very unlike the woman he’d come to know—it was driving him crazy! Thad drew his brows together, thoroughly confused, as he stared at the curls tumbling over the back of her head and spilling across his stomach.
And then he saw it—the art tube propped against the corner of the tent, exactly where he’d carefully placed it the night before.
Of course, he realized. Everything became perfectly clear. She was talking about the Degas. Obviously, she was talking about the Degas. Though, he couldn’t for the life of him stop that little twinge of remorse that shewasn’ttalking about something else.
“Sure.” He forced the word out smoothly, with a nonchalance he certainly wasn’t feeling. “Why not?”
Addison eased off his chest—thank the Lord—giving Thad space to reach for the art tube. During those few lonely days on the yacht he’d stolen to escape New York, he’d spent hours staring at the painting, dissecting every stroke and every splash of pastel color, yet still, his breath caught in his throat as he carefully unrolled the canvas. There were a handful of dancers in a dimly lit studio, a classic Degas portrayal of practicing ballerinas. Two main figures were caught mid-rehearsal, gracefully spinning before a mirror, with a third half-cut from the image dancing the same dance. A group of girls watched from behind, in various resting positions, stretching sore muscles, relacing shoes, watching in silence. In the light of the tent, their dresses appeared to be a soft blue. Thad remembered them as more of an ivory, though the difference hardly mattered. There was no lighting that could make a Degas anything less than majestic.
“It’s beautiful,” Addison whispered. Her hand hovered over the image.
“It is,” Thad agreed, then teasingly added, “Don’t touch.”
She jerked her hand back, pressing it to her chest.
“I was only kidding,” he said. She glanced up at him, a smile in her eyes, but kept her hand where it was. “You can hold it if you want. Just be careful not to touch the paint. Hold the blank edges of the canvas.”
Addison shook her head no, but the subtle way she bit her lip revealed her interest.
“Come on,” Thad urged. “When else in your life are you going to have the chance to hold thirty million dollars in your hands?”
She exhaled sharply, but unclenched her fingers. Thad adjusted the canvas with a grin, lifting his arm around her shoulder to spread it across her lap. Their hands grazed and little sparks ignited, leaving a tingling sensation in their wake. Thad drew his fingers back, but remained where he was, with his stomach pressed lightly to her back, close enough for pulsing static to fill the space between, yet far enough to breathe. The edges of her curls tickled his chin.
Addison swallowed. Her voice was almost breathless as she asked, “So, what makes this worth thirty million dollars?”
“It’s a Degas,” he answered simply.
“I knowthat.” She turned to look up at him, then froze. The tips of their noses were a hairsbreadth from touching. From this angle, her eyes seemed impossibly large, bright and full of wonder, flashing with a hint of something else as her gaze dropped to his mouth and jumped back up. “But why is a Degas, aDegas?”
“Well…” Thad paused to take a breath, lowering his gaze to the painting. He couldn’t think with her face so close. “Like with all the masters, part of it is pure talent. I mean, he was a true artist, and not just with paint. Pastels were probably his second most popular medium, but he also drew and sculpted. Part of it is ingenuity. It’s hard to understand with our modern world, but at the time, a lot of the things he was doing with art were revolutionary. The way he framed his paintings was unlike anything before, like a snapshot in time, probably influenced by the emergence of photography. Like here”—he stopped to point at the third dancer, who was half-off the canvas—“he cropped the images close, so some figures were completed and some were cut off. He used unusual viewpoints, as though he were standing backstage watching a performance, or sitting in the crowd with his view partially blocked. And the last part is something intangible, something psychological. Good art is beautiful, but great art—great art makes you feel.”
