gravel path leading deeper into the garden. She knew from consulting the map that there were no more sculptures in that direction, but she followed him anyway. At the far end was a fountain, dry at present, and he sat on its rim and stared at his loosely clasped hands.
She sat beside him, tucking her own hands into her pockets for warmth. After a few minutes, Max started talking.
“The first time I came here was with my grandfather. I bitched and moaned all the way because I wanted to ride my bike with my friends instead. But my grandfather was determined to introduce me to a bit of culture. Then I walked in the door and saw the first sculpture and I stopped dead in my tracks.” He shook his head, smiling at the memory. “My heart was pounding. I wanted to close my eyes. The sculptures seemed so dynamic and powerful they scared me. My grandfather didn’t say a word. He took one look at my face, then led me from room to room. I think we were here for over three hours, that first visit.”
Maddy watched Max’s face as he went on to talk about the art they’d seen, smiling now and then at his passion, the way he gesticulated so energetically as he tried to evoke an image or underscore his meaning.
“I’m probably boring you into a coma,” he said after a while. “Blink for me. Prove to me that you’re not catatonic.”
She laughed. “You’re not boring me. I’m learning a lot. I’m basically ignorant about almost everything in the world except for dance, you know. I didn’t even know how a bronze was made until you explained it to me. I love listening to you talk about art.”
He rolled his eyes and she nudged him with her elbow.
“I do! You get all French and you get this light in your eyes.”
“Like a crazy man.”
“Like a man who’s found his passion,” she said.
He shrugged self-consciously.
“I’d give anything to be like you. To have something else I loved as much as dancing,” she said.
The words were out before she could edit them, and she bit her lip.
“That sounds so greedy, doesn’t it? I’ve had all these years of dancing at the top of my game, and you didn’t even get to really explore your dancing career. Now you’ve got a second chance to do something you love and I’m sitting here grouching about how jealous I am.”
“Stop giving yourself such a hard time for being a human being, Maddy,” he said.
“I just wish there was something—anything—that I wanted to do,” she said.
The despair that crept up on her in the dead of the night threatened, and she curled her hands into fists inside her pockets. All her life she’d lived through her body, but now her most evocative, finely honed tool of self-expression, therapy, exercise and solace had been taken away from her.
“Come here,” Max said.
He tugged on her arm until she allowed him to pull her into his lap so that she sat straddling him.
“Something will come up,” he said, as he had said so many times over the past few weeks. That, and variations of give it time, don’t rush yourself. She knew he was right. She only wished whatever it was would get a wriggle on. She needed something to hold on to, stat.
In the interim, she clung to Max as he kissed her.
Their bodies quickly grew heated beneath their coats. Max tugged off his gloves and slid his hands under her top and onto her breasts. She sighed into his mouth as he squeezed her nipples gently. Under the guise of ensuring she was warm, he opened his jacket so that she nestled inside the flaps. She swallowed with excitement when his fingers found the stud on her jeans.
“Max. We’re at a museum,” she whispered, even though she was slick with need.
“I can’t think of a better place for it. Think of it as performance art.”
She bit her lip as he pulled down her fly and slid his hand inside her panties. She felt him brush through her hair, then he was gliding into her heat.
“So wet, Maddy,” he murmured, kissing her neck.
“I wonder whose fault that is?”
His clever middle finger found her and began to stroke her firmly. She clenched her thighs around his hips and gripped his shoulders. At the far end of the walkway she could see a tour group turning onto the gravel path.
“Someone’s coming,” she said, trying to pull his hand away.
“I know,” he said.
She couldn’t help but laugh.
“Not me. Real people. Tourists,” she said.
She bit her lip again as he upped the pace.
“We’d better be quick then, yes?” he said.
Useless to pretend that the danger, the illicit nature of what they were doing wasn’t a turn-on. Desire built inside her and she gasped as her climax hit her. Max kissed her, swallowing her small cry.
By the time the tourists arrived at the fountain, he’d buttoned her jeans again and she had her flushed face pressed against his neck.
“Don’t think there won’t be payback,” she said when the tourists had gone. “Sleep with one eye open, because you are going down, mister.”
“And that is supposed to be a punishment, Maddy?” he said, sounding very French as he laughed at her.
She tapped him on the nose with her finger.
“Mark my words—you’ll get yours.”
“Oooh,” he said.
They stood and slowly walked back to the museum.
Max slid his arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. A warm glow spread through her—and it had nothing to do with the orgasm he’d just given her. She loved that she could make him laugh, and that he’d talked to her about his art and that even after three weeks, he still seemed to desire her. She loved his tender touch and his endless patience and kindness and optimism.
As they walked past a window, Maddy caught sight of their reflection, saw the small, private smiles on their faces, the way they were twined around each other as though they couldn’t bear to not be touching.
They looked like a couple. Lovers, in the full meaning of the word.
Don’t turn this into something it isn’t, she warned herself. Don’t mix great sex with your grief and gratitude and his kindness and come up with something that doesn’t exist.
She forced herself to release Max on the pretext of adjusting her scarf. Then she forced herself to shove her hands into her pockets to resist the lure of putting her arm around him again.
It seemed like an awfully long walk home.
A WEEK LATER, Max lay in bed, his arms behind his head. He could
