Scandal. Julie Kistler
out or have her arrested for breaking and entering and skulking suspiciously around a museum full of priceless objets d’art.
She inhaled, trying to get her breathing back to normal. If only the air weren’t so hot and heavy in this place. Her silk camisole was sticking to her skin, and she felt as if she were suffocating. “I’m so sorry. I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I—”
“No, please, don’t worry.” His smile widened, and there was a definite twinkle in his bright blue eyes. ‘“Sex Through the Ages’ is a very unusual collection, and not everyone’s cup of tea. So it does my heart good to run into someone so eager to see it that she couldn’t wait for the official opening.”
“That’s true, I suppose,” Jordan managed. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“I’m here to help,” he said in a conspiratorial tone.
“Okay, well, there’s one piece in particular I need to find.” She scrambled to pull her bag around to the front, quickly tugging out the flyer for the “Sex” exhibit and opening it to show him the tiny picture of the arch.
“Oh, that’s a spectacular piece,” he said with hushed awe. “One-of-a-kind.”
“Do you know who the sculptor is?” she asked quickly, but he didn’t answer.
Without another word, he turned and marched from that room, motioning for her to follow. She did. She didn’t have much of a choice.
Down the hall, around a corner, passing several dark rooms, he led her into a narrow hall lined with statues. If possible, it was even more stifling and confining in this small space, even harder to breathe. The curator was wearing a long-sleeved jacket over a shirt and tie and he had set a brisk pace to get to this corridor, yet he looked immaculate, without a hint of perspiration. It was freaky.
“Here it is,” he said quietly, flipping a switch.
Jordan blinked. Holy hell in a handbasket .
With one lone light bulb shining directly above it, the marble sculpture gleamed like a beacon in front of her. Isabella’s arch?
Isabella’s arch.
Six feet tall, Greek gods and goddesses entwined in eternal embraces, oozing sex and sin from every marble pore…She took a deep breath, exhaled and then just stared. She dropped her messenger bag next to her feet with a thump, edging closer, wiping her sweaty palms against the fabric of her denim skirt.
She’d never really believed she would ever see it. But this had to be it. Even without authenticating the marble or the signature or anything else, Jordan knew in her heart that this was Isabella’s arch.
“Wow. Just…Wow,” was all she could get out.
In person, it was so much more than she expected. So much more everything. It was powerful and beautiful and overwhelmingly sensual. All Jordan could do was gape. Even in the midst of “Sex Through the Ages,” with flesh and passion depicted at every turn, she could feel the erotic power of the arch reach out and wrap around her, pulling her closer.
Leaning in, mesmerized by the sensuous figures carved into the cool, creamy stone, she couldn’t seem to breathe or move. Her skin was glazed with sweat and there was a haze in front of her eyes.
She couldn’t get her fill of gazing at it. Just taking it in.
The people on the arch pulsed with life and vitality, wound together with their blatant sexuality. It felt like an invasion of privacy even to look at them.
Jordan blinked again, seeing stars dancing in the air between her and the statue. But she couldn’t glance away.
Her fingers ached to feel its surface. If she touched the piece, she was afraid she might combust right there. One touch and poof, she’d be a pile of dust under winged Eros’s foot, down there at the base of the arch, where he was making love to blindfolded Psyche as she twisted with an orgasm so real that Jordan was surprised not to hear Psyche’s cries of pleasure echoing right there in the Beckwith Gallery.
Her gaze trailed over Psyche and Eros, the back of Pygmalion’s head between Galatea’s marble thighs, Aphrodite and Ares, tangled in a net but more entangled with each other, Narcissus with Echo’s eager mouth hovering near his erection…
Fighting against an arousal of her own, so sharp it threatened to topple her right over, Jordan glanced away. Was it just the effect of a stuffy room, too many oversized penises back in the Pompeii room, a day already marked by memories of Nick in her dreams, or was the erotic lure of Isabella’s arch driving her mad all by itself?
The curator’s voice puffed soft near her ear. “Would you like to touch it?”
She was dying to. But she still wasn’t sure.
“Touch it,” he whispered.
The statue was mesmerizing. Impulsively reaching out, she filled her hand with the marble curve of Apollo’s sinuous buttock, three-dimensional now instead of merely sketched, flexing as he pressed himself into Daphne.
Her fingers closed over his flesh. Jordan gasped. How was it possible that marble could feel warm and alive against her skin?
She pulled back, shocked, burning, at the exact moment the curator said intently, “Don’t forget, Jordan, you must come back the same way you go.”
“What? I don’t underst—” But there was no time to finish her words before he inexplicably shoved her. Hard.
One minute she was gazing spellbound at Apollo, and the next she was tumbling under the arch. She tripped, skidded, reached out to catch herself and…
And fell headfirst into open space.
5
How to Be a Scandalous Woman, Rule 5:
If you want him, grab him. You can worry about the consequences later.
1893
N ICK WAS HAVING a devil of a time finding his sister’s outrageous artwork.
“She wouldn’t have lied to me about where it was, would she?” he muttered. “Damn Women’s Building, anyway.”
Like most everyone else in Chicago, he’d visited the fair several times, but he hadn’t set foot inside the Women’s Building. No wonder. The place was full of the silliest items imaginable.
To try to find Isabella’s arch, he’d had to traverse a model kitchen and kindergarten, exhibits ranging from the latest in egg-beaters to frying pans, and an entire gallery crammed with dainty, hand-painted china cups and saucers. That was a lot more china than any man should have to encounter in a lifetime.
After the cups and saucers, he’d somehow wandered into an auditorium where a cadre of angry women, half of them wearing trousers instead of skirts, were carrying on a lecture about the evils of corsetry, complete with diagrams and a half-clad model who looked every bit as fearsome as the ladies in bloomers. He could see why she wouldn’t be anxious to strap a corset on over that mountain of flesh. He’d barely escaped with his life, as the ladies of the Anti-Corset Brigade made it clear men were not welcome.
“What man would want to be welcome for that sort of thing?” he grumbled. “Teacups and lace doilies. Lectures on corsets. Talk about your bull in a china shop.”
Finally, he took a path away from the general public, searching the second floor, away from the main atrium. Women were milling around downstairs, but absolutely no one was up here. After passing “Kentucky Home,” which appeared to be a recreation of an entire rural household from some not-too-distant past, and “Women in Savagery,” whatever that was, he saw a gallery that looked more promising. This one said it was “The American Sculptress,” which sounded as if it fit Isabella. Better than “Kentucky Home” or “Women in Savagery,” at any rate.
Although the room was crowded with display cases and small statuary, there wasn’t