Body Check

She made an unintelligible sound.

He chuckled. “What was that?”

“Yes,” she choked out.

With a satisfied nod, he plunged into her, hard, rough, stealing the breath right of her lungs. He reached down and stroked the place where they joined, continuing to pump inside her until she finally exploded again.

She gave herself to the orgasm that raced through her body. In the heavenly haze she heard Brody’s deep groan, felt his fingers dig into her hips as he jerked inside her.

Struggling to steady her breathing, she ran her hands up and down his sweat-soaked back, enjoying the hard planes and defined muscles under her fingertips. “God, that was…” She trailed off.

He touched her chin, lightly dragging his thumbnail over her jaw. “That was what?”

“Incredible.” A laugh flew out. “And to think I was going to spend the evening watching a documentary on a guy who cut his own ear off.”

7

“LET’S ORDER room service,” Brody said a few minutes later, 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 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. She tasted of toothpaste and popcorn and something uniquely Hayden.

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. Damn, how did this woman turn him on so fiercely? He felt like a horny teenager again.

He put on his jeans, used the washroom 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’d 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.