THE REST of the class was a joyous blur. The powerful young man transformed himself into a Fra Angelico angel and finished the class with the pose of a muscular, intent nude from the Sistine ceiling.
At each break he started directly for Amanda but, as the evening had progressed, the students had become friendlier and more enthusiastic and kept waylaying him.
The end of class brought spontaneous applause. Antonio went behind the screen to dress as, surprisingly, Mr. Parkerson urged them all out of the studio. He praised them for their enthusiasm and the evening’s accomplishments, but nonetheless pressed them to gather their things and vacate quickly.
Normally, the class would hang around chatting with their instructor and commenting to each other about the evening’s session. The next class would slowly feed in, and eventually Amanda and a small group of fellow artists would find themselves reassembled outside the classroom as their other classmates dispersed.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Emerson,” Parkerson said gently, guiding her out the door as he helped her zip her portfolio. “I’m sure next week will be better.”
“Good work, Christine,” he called out to the disappointed group waiting in the hallway. “Next session perhaps you’ll enlarge your horizons?” And the door to the studio was firmly closed.
“Well,” a disgruntled Professor Angeli intoned to the group, “our esteemed instructor seems intent on keeping the young Antonio to himself.”
Mr. Wilde smiled beatifically, his large bulk snug in his expensive overcoat, the polished leather portfolio clasped tightly to his expansive chest. “Young Antonio was truly inspiring. I do think I’ve done my best work so far.”
The youngest member of the group, a young man who considered himself the art world’s answer to Marlon Brando’sThe Wild One, punched an annoyed Christine lightly on the shoulder. “Ha! Didja hear, guys? ‘Enlarge your horizons,’ babe! Didja see how this one whipped through a whole sketch pad never getting above our hot stud’s navel or below his knees.”
Christine tugged her fur tightly under her chin and adjusted the strap of the portfolio hanging from her shoulder. “I’ve never seen a better developed set of six-pac abs. It deserved all the attention I could give it. And you, fat boy,” she said, as she firmly slapped the back of her gloved hand against the tight, button-fly denim below his short leather jacket, “might take a lesson, if you would ever learn to recognize the fact that someone else inhabits this planet other than your self-centered self.”
Haughtily, she pushed her way down the steps onto 57th Street, the small group regrouping around her.
“Now, Christine,” Professor Angeli soothed the waters, “young Nathan was more than likely a bit intimidated by our rather spectacular model. The peripatetic Maurice and the fulsome Pauline have not exactly led us to expect such a beautifully developed specimen to sketch.”
“Yeah. Specimen,” grunted a scowling Nathan, settling his leather cap over his lank, unkempt hair. “C’mon, cutie,” he grabbed Amanda’s arm. “Let’s go for a brewski and let these bozos slather over their wine spritzers about Mr. Hot Nuts. You didn’t seem so damned impressed.”
Amanda felt as if her life had been put into fast-forward. Absently, she pulled the bandeau from her head and pulled on a knitted cap. She wanted to hit the pause button, to be back in ancient Greece, to be greeting the steel worker, to be crouched at the foot of the Messenger of the Gods. It took a moment to will herself to hear what Nathan was saying.
She pulled her arm away. “Thanks, Nathan, I don’t think so. Not tonight.”
Wilde peered at her carefully. Recognizing a kindred reaction, his beaming countenance was suddenly replaced with a scowl as he turned to face Nathan. “You see,” he stated, pulling his fine white eyebrows together tightly, “our junior executive was more than impressed. And needs, I believe you call it, space. Back off, young Angry One.”
Professor Angeli chuckled, knowing the young man revered the young Brando and that Wilde’s reference would more than mollify him.
“Do you want to come with us, Amanda?” Christine asked. “Or are you more in the mood for your famous wandering the streets of noire New York.” Nathan snickered. Christine’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll miss my using a perfectly good martini to dash the smile off this surly stud’s kisser.”
Amanda laughed. She could use some air. She did need…space. The early spring night was cold and crisp and hopefully would be just what she needed to snap her back to reality.
She hugged Professor Angeli, her healthy body enveloping his thin frame.
“You will be careful, my dear…this city, you know.” He glanced around the mobbed nighttime street warily.
“Of course.” Amanda hugged Mr. Wilde, stretching to envelop his large bulk. The group knew that her nocturnal forays were very carefully planned, sticking to well-lighted and well-filled streets. She was too much of a city girl not to be careful.
Knocking fists with Nathan, she said, “Belt one back for me, graphic genius. And don’t be late for work in the morning.” She waved goodbye. Christine came close as the men moved away.
“Something really got through to you tonight, didn’t it?”
Amanda looked into Christine’s shining eyes. “Yes.”
And what she needed was time and space to figure out just what it was.
Amanda watched the group disappear east on 57th Street, headed for the tratorria where they would gripe and admire and complain and discuss art theory until Nathan would say something to enrage Mr. Wilde or Christine and send them all into the night to their respective parts of Manhattan.
She walked toward the Coliseum Bookstore past the chaos of the Hard Rock Cafe and, after a pause trying to decide whether to cross Broadway or not, swung back and returned to the door of the Art StudentsLeague. The physical proximity of the earlier events of the evening seemed to sharpen all her senses anew. She admired the examples of instructors’ and students’ work displayed in the high windows of the venerable institution, imagining the young model’s powerful presence captured there.
Abruptly she turned away and jaywalked across 57th, her heart pounding in her chest. As she stood outside the art supply store window, the implements of her avocation floated before her eyes: easels, portfolios, drawing pens, crayons, papers, wooden manikins.
Smoothly turned sections of hard wood bolted together to form a flexible human shape were capable of being manipulated to achieve any pose an artist might need. The gleaming wood erupted into the musculature of perfectly-sculpted living flesh. The round faceless knob sprouted a dark mass of curly hair.
On the cool New York nighttime street, Amanda felt a great longing for heat, for the noise of masculine voices shouting in her ears. She longed for her eyes to once again see him.
In a nearby upscale diner she downed two glasses of wine so quickly the bartender looked at her with concern. “Rough night?”
She shrugged. He held up a bottle of whisky and she laughed. “Not that rough. Yet.”
The wine warmed her chest, working its way comfortingly into her solar plexus. She wanted to keep the memory of being brightened by his quick glance in her direction, the radiance of his smile, the aura of his presence.
“Foolish,” she muttered to herself with disgust and, with a resigned sigh, headed for the subway.
Her train was pulling into the station as she pushed through the turnstile. Dashing through the crowd of disembarking passengers, she slipped inside the closing doors and eased into a vacant seat near the center of the car.
Amanda glanced around at the late-night passengers. Her breath caught in her throat. Seated toward the other end of the train was the man who had sent her head whirling.
MARC SAT grumbling to himself, his jaw tense. What the hell did David mean, hustling everybody out of the drawing class. Wasn’t “Antonio” supposed to get to know the artists who seemed the most likely suspects? Wasn’t the model guise supposed to shock someone into a fatal revelation?
Marc wanted to get back to the girl, Amanda Emerson, to talk to her, see what was in her eyes. See the color of her eyes.
Maybe she was the one. No one else had reacted the way she had. That’s what they had wanted, right? To trigger something that might give the perpetrator away. Perpetrator.He sounded like some TV cop, for God’s sake.
He opened the art book on his lap and stared at the pages.
Angry. Still angry. He thought he had a handle on it.
He and David had gotten into a heated argument after class. He should have known they couldn’t work together on this job without squaring off at each other. Marc sighed deeply. A lot of bad history. A lot of garbage left to clear up yet.
Meditation. Tai chi. I gotta get back to those damn classes. Concentrate.
He focused on the open book. Concentrate on which picture, which pose might trigger a revealing response.
And not on wondering whether her eyes were deep brown or inky black.
AMANDA felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She didn’t like what she was doing: watching someone who had no idea that every move was being scrutinized, every gesture analyzed. She shook herself and turned away. He drew her back.
Underneath the down parka and worn jeans was the naked body she had all but memorized earlier that evening. Wide, strong shoulders stretched above the smooth, flat pectoral planes. Powerful thighs pressed tightly against denim. The chest, firm and hard, slowly rose and fell. She remembered the nipples, the darker circles of pebbled flesh that the taut nubs sprang from.
She swallowed and looked away, feeling her body flush. She smoothed her hands over her slacks, the heat from her own thighs radiating into her moist palms. She could feel his flesh under her hands, lean muscles contracting and elongating, stretching and undulating under her firm fingers. She ironed her slacks with her palms harder, beginning to feel the heat of the Greek sun on the back of her neck.
She pressed more firmly, imagining the imprint of his naked skin pulsing against her pressing palms. Dreamily, her eyes drifted over the landscape of his body. Every inch golden toasted. Every muscle sharply defined. His body scraped clean. Except for the puff of dark, shining pubic…
At the other end of the subway car the model shifted in his seat, the muscular buttocks and powerful legs straining the fabric of his faded jeans. He glanced up from the book he was immersed in and looked right at her! Even from this distance the rich darkness of his eyes shot through Amanda with a physical force. She turned away, her hand quickly reaching to prod at her knitted winter cap. She felt instantly foolish.
What could she say to him? He would think she had followed him from class! An infatuated art student with a silly, school girl crush. She fumbled awkwardly with her portfolio, unzipping it and blankly rearranging drawings inside.
Damn it!Amanda zipped the portfolio closed with a rush of meshing teeth. She may just be an infatuated student struggling to capture three-dimensional magnificence in scribbling two dimensions, but the fully-round male at the end of the subway car was what she wanted to learn more about more than anything she had ever wanted before. She raised her head and looked firmly back at those staggering dark eyes.
He was focused on infinity, staring vacantly in Amanda’s direction. He sighed, reached to tug at his hair and absently scratch his scalp through the tangle of black curls.
He looked back at his book.
He hadn’t even seen her.
AT THE opposite end of the car from the object of Amanda’s careful observation, a pair of steely eyes was taking their own careful note of the young woman: her tentative touches to her cap and hair, her furtive glances to keep the model in her sight through the late-evening subway crowd, her odd smiles as though responding to some inner directive. The young woman was being more carefully watched than she was watching.
Suddenly, Amanda realized she had no idea where she was. A local station whizzed by the windows of the train, the station designation meaning nothing. She must have passed her stop long ago. A wave of unsettling disorientation washed over her. She quickly looked around for a subway map.
How could she have been so foolishly distracted by a Greek Olympian, a Roman god-by naked flesh? Rising young executive Amanda Emerson was not pleased with herself. She hadn’t finally gotten away from a house full of overbearing males in Pittsburgh to get tangled up with a bare-assed New York model.
The subway train pulled into a station.
Canal Street? That’s somewhere in lower Manhattan, isn’t it? She paused at the doorway.
“Hi, remember me? You okay? You look lost. Can I help?”
The deep, concerned voice shot through her like a velvet cannon. Amanda whirled. The amazing model was mere inches away. Even swathed in his late winter clothes, his aura bathed her in a flush of warmth. His eyes were the deepest, darkest brown she had ever seen. And with those cheekbones he must be Northern Italian or…geography swirled in her head…Black Irish maybe.
“I forgot to get off at my stop. I don’t know where I am.” She stammered. So much for the in-charge, rising young executive.
He laughed, his teeth blindingly perfect. As well they should be in that perfect mouth…perfect lips…perfect chin…
“Welcome to the club. So did I. Good.” He chuckled. “Now I don’t feel quite so dumb myself. I don’t know where my mind was. Well, yes, I do know where my mind was,” he said with a mischievous grin. “But it obviously wasn’t on where I was going. Do you live in the Village, too? We can go back together, okay?”
“No. I’m in Chelsea. I’ve been meaning to get to the Village, but…” She took a deep breath. She needed more air.
The car doors closed on them and within seconds the train was charging deeper and deeper into the depths of Manhattan.
“No big deal. When I asked David about you tonight…” He stopped himself. For a moment his look froze, then he turned a relaxed smile on Amanda. “He said he believed you were new to the city.” He glanced at the subway map. “We can change back to the uptown train at Chambers Street.”
Next to her, his body heat was like the spring sunshine that would flood the city in a few weeks, reawakening life.
As she scrutinized his face, he seemed more mature than she had at first thought. Fine lines gathered at the corners of his dark eyes.
“I can see you back to your place if you like. Or we could stop in the Village and have a bite.” He smiled. Relaxed. At ease. “Or both. I’ll even take you on a little tour of the Village, if it’s not too late for you. I can point out the really seedy places to avoid, when you finally get down our way…or head for,” he cocked a knowing eyebrow, “if you’re feeling adventurous.” His grin was teasing.
Amanda was trying hard to remember they were deep in the bowels of present-day late-winter Manhattan, for the heat of an Olympian sun was beginning to color her cheeks again.
Farther down the car, buried in a winter great coat under a pulled-down hat, the watcher noted how warmly the two seemed to be getting on. A frown furrowed an anxious brow.
The model was pouring on the charm. “I’m offering to take you on a semi-date and I’m not even sure of your name. David seems to be taking great pains not to let me too near any of his students.” He laughed. His gaze held on her eyes for a long moment then the sweep of dark lashes shadowed his cheeks as he dropped his look to contemplate his hands, suddenly seeming ill at ease. Or shy.
“I would like very much to have a bite to eat, and a quick walk through the Village sounds terrific.” Amanda smiled as openly and charmingly as she could manage, hoping the pounding of her heart was at least muted by the subway’s roar. “And since I have to get up early and go to work in the morning, maybe we could continue the tour later?”
She felt her cheeks flush at her obvious hint for another meeting with the handsome model. She couldn’t be much more straightforward than that, she thought. Well, she could, but she didn’t have the experience to fling herself at him more forcefully than she already was doing.
She held out her hand for a proper introduction. “I’m Amanda Catherine Emerson and you can…”
“ACE! What a great set of initials. I’ll bet everyone’s called you that since you were a kid. May I, too, or are you sick of it?”
No, no one has ever called me that. Except me.Her heart skipped a beat. “That would be great. Most people just call me Amanda, but Ace would be…fine. Uh, Antonio?”
For an instant he looked blank, then suddenly brightened, “Yeah, sure…Antonio. If It’s not too much of a mouthful. Most of the time I’m, uh, just called Tony.”
“Antonio seems to suit you. Like Anthony or Angelo. You seem to require multi syllables.”
Multi syllables!Poetic…to a man she barely knew.Oh, please.
Of course, bare was what she did know of him.
“Antonio never sounded so right.” He continued to look into her eyes until Amanda felt as naked as he had been posing in front of the class.
But, amazingly she felt no unease. She was as comfortable and contented in Antonio’s gaze as if the two of them were alone on a secluded postcard-perfect beach of a warm tropic isle or in an ancient Grecian courtyard.
Toward the center of the car, hidden behind people getting up to get off at the next stop, their watcher frowned at their intimacy.
The subway car’s brakes squealed, the doors whooshed open and Amanda and the model scrambled out onto the platform, Amanda clutching her portfolio, Antonio clutching Amanda. Taken by surprise, their observer leapt off the train by another door and followed from a distance, keeping the crowd between them.
Antonio led Amanda upstairs as a train going in the opposite direction pulled into the station. He put his arm around Amanda’s waist and guided her into the car.
The great-coated figure following them slipped into the next car and watched the couple through the glass of the connecting doors.
“The good, old, New York subway system, sometimes it works like a charm.” The young man’s dark eyes danced over Amanda. “And tonight things seem to be working really well.”
With a deep electric hum, the train moved forward. Antonio settled comfortably next to Amanda, stretching his arm to rest behind her shoulder.
“In a few minutes we’ll be back in the Village. I know a terrific little place…”
He chatted casually about his favorite Village restaurants. People in New York always seemed to be concerned about where to eat, Amanda dreamily thought.What a perfect night.
What a disaster!Face glowering under the concealing hat brim, hands clenched in leather-clad fists in the pockets of the great coat, the grim observer of the happy couple contemplated the next move.