She stepped aside, and he got out of there, fast. When Irina gave her attention back to me, she was as perfectly pleasant as she’d always been.
“Celeste – you look absolutely beautiful tonight – what brings you by unexpectedly?”
I cleared my throat a bit as I tucked the pepper spray back into my bag. “Uh… I just wanted to check the place out before I confirmed the catering contract for the event.”
“Understandable,” she nodded. “Let me give you a tour — did you know there was a full kitchen?”
She didn’t wait for an answer before waving for me to follow her – which I did.
I quickly discovered thatfull kitchenwas an understatement.
It was the sexiest commercial kitchen I’d ever seen, done in all black stainless steel. As much as I wanted to touch it, the drive to not put any smudges on the pristine surfaces made me keep my hands to myself.
Ihadto open the fridge though.
I frowned at the clear containers full of metal tubes my eyes landed on first, narrowing to understand what I was seeing.Before that could happen, Irina had pushed the door closed, and started ushering me out of the kitchen, towards a tucked away hall, and an elevator.
“That leads up to the offices,” she explained. “There’s storage space, studio space back here as well, that local artists use sometimes. And a couple of studio apartments upstairs. For when we have an artist-in-residence.”
“Oh wow, that’s really cool. How do they get chosen? Is it an application, or…?”
“Yes, an application,” she smiled. “Why, are you interested?”
“God no – I can barely straw a stick figure,” I laughed. “Just curiosity.”
“Got it – let me show you the exhibit from our most recent one,” she said, leading me back into the gallery. We stopped in front of a breathtaking wall of canvases – a set of nine in total.
They were beautiful for sure, but somehow also… terrifying.
Each of the hyper-realistic paintings were done in mostly black, but various hues of brown represented different skin tones. They were incredibly close up – an eye, a neck, half of a face, the arch of a back, a nose and lips.
Tongue, teeth, and…fangs.
A shift in the atmosphere made me whip around, eyes traveling wildly for the source of the sudden disturbance I felt deep in my spirit.
When I locked eyes with Elias, it made sense.
What are you doing here?
I blinked.
Hard.
That question had happened in my head, butIhadn’t done the asking.
It wasn’t even my voice.
It was…his.
What?
I was distracted by my confusion long enough that Elias could approach without me really noticing until he was damn near on top of me, staring like I was something to devour.
“What are you doing here dressed like this?” he asked, in this highly possessive tone I didn’twantto like, but… it made me squirm.
“Do I look bad?”
No.
