Silence hung between them, broken only by the buzzing of an incoming text message.
She tilted the phone back and bit her lip when she saw who it was.
BRODY: I can’t fucking wait to see you tomorrow night.
That, she almost said out loud. Doug wanted to know what was missing? Well, that was what was missing. Brody’s text was like a neon sign displaying the answer. Not once, in the two months they’d been together, had Doug texted her something like that. Maybe a quick message to confirm the time and place for dinner. Maybe a brisk, “How was your day?” But he’d never seemed overly eager to see her. He’d never been in any rush to take her clothes off. Hell, he hadn’t even seen her naked—and didn’t seem at all bothered by that. There was taking it slow, and then there was Doug.
One short text message from Brody Croft was more flirtatious and passionate than any message Doug had ever sent her.
He interrupted her thoughts, a newfound intensity in his voice. “Hayden, I don’t want to lose you. I care about you too much to let it end like this. So I’m going to give you all the space you need, but I’m not giving up. I need you to know that.”
He promised he’d call her again in a few days, and she ended the call feeling the weight of the conversation pressing on her.
She was still thinking about it the next day, running through the two months she’d spent with Doug. There was a reason she’d started dating him, and a reason she’d kept dating him despite the lack of physical intimacy.
Truth was, she’d placed a lot of importance on sex in previous relationships. And somewhere along the way, she’d convinced herself that off-the-charts chemistry was the most important factor. That without it, a relationship was doomed. Turned into one of those dead-bedroom situations that led people to have affairs.
She and Doug didn’t have explosive sparks, but she enjoyed his company. She liked how compassionate and generous he was. His dry art jokes made her smile.
And that was why she couldn’t fully close that door. She’d hoped that asking for space would help her pinpoint what was lacking between her and Doug, but all she’d done with that space so far was fall into bed with another man. Fall right back into old patterns of prioritizing chemistry over stability.
And yet, when Brody messaged that afternoon asking if she still wanted him to come by later, she wasted no time responding with one eager word.
Yes.
“Let’s order room service,” Brody said later that night, slipping his boxers on.
He watched as Hayden put on her tank top and then attempted to fix the ponytail that had seen better days. Wayward strands of dark hair fell into her eyes, and he smiled at the knowledge that her disheveled state was the result of rolling around in bed with him. She looked rumpled and beautiful and so damn cute he marched over and planted a kiss on her lips.
With a little whimper, she pulled his head closer and sank into the kiss, flicking her tongue against his in a tantalizing way that made him hard again.
Just as he lowered his hands to her breasts, she pushed him back. “What happened to room service?” she teased.
“Screw it.”
“Knock yourself out. I, for one, am starved.” With a grin, she brushed past him and left the bedroom.
He stared down at the erection poking against his boxers. Fuck, how did this woman turn him on so fiercely? He felt like a horny teenager again.
He put on his jeans, then drifted toward the living room.
“How do cheeseburgers sound?” she called when she spotted him lingering in the hallway.
His stomach growled with approval. “Great.”
He joined her on the couch. As she dialed room service and placed their order, he noticed a stack of papers sitting on the table. Curious, he leaned forward and examined the first sheet. It looked like a biography on Rembrandt, neatly typed. The margins were full of handwritten notes.
“What’s this?” he asked when she hung up the phone.
“Ideas for the Color Theory class I’m teaching in the fall. I plan to focus on Rembrandt for a few lectures.”
“Rembrandt, huh? I thought all of his paintings were pretty dark and foreboding.” The snippet of information stored in his brain came as a surprise to him. He hadn’t thought he’d paid any attention during art history class his senior year of high school.
Hayden also looked surprised, but pleased. “Actually, that’s what I want to focus on, the misconceptions about certain artists and their use of color. Did you know that Rembrandt’s Night Watch is in fact a day scene?”
A vague image of the painting surfaced in his mind. “I remember it being very dark.”
“It was—until the painting was cleaned.” She grinned. “The canvas was coated with loads of varnish. When it was removed, it turned out to be daylight. A lot of his paintings ended up looking very different once they were cleaned or restored, proving that he definitely knew what he was doing when it came to color.” She grew more animated as she hurried on. “Same with Michelangelo. People didn’t view him as much of a colorist, but when the Sistine Chapel was cleaned, it was so vivid, the colors so vibrant, that everyone was shocked.”
“I never knew that.”
“It took longer to clean that ceiling than it did to paint it,” she added. “It was covered in so much soot and dirt that when they were removed the entire scene looked different. That’s one of the things I want to talk to my students about, how something as simple as cleaning or restoring can change your entire view of a piece of art.”
He nodded. “Sort of like when the Zamboni cleans the ice during second period intermission. Changes the entire playing surface.”
He saw her mouth quirk and suspected she was trying not to laugh. “Yeah. I guess there’s a similarity there.”
Setting down the papers, he said, “You’re really into art, huh?”
“Of course. It’s my passion.”
A smile reached his lips. He hadn’t spent much time with women who were passionate about anything outside the bedroom, and the light in Hayden’s green eyes tugged at something inside him. He realized this was the first time she’d opened up to him, engaged in a conversation that didn’t include ground rules, and he liked it.
“So do you paint, or just lecture about painters?” he asked curiously.
“I used to draw and paint a lot when I was younger, but not so much anymore.”
“How come?”
