Marble isn’t the only thing that’s hard at this museum.

His body is as chiseled as Adonis. His lips are as sculpted as David. And his ego is the size of the Guggenheim.

You know the type—wolfish smile and the gravity of a black hole. The kind of man who sucks all the air from the room the second he enters it. My cocky boss thinks this internship was wasted on me, and he doesn’t hesitate to let me know.

But he’s wrong, and I’m going to prove it to him. If I can stay away from his devil lips, that is. Lips that cut me down and kiss me in the same breath, leaving me certain he’s on a mission to ruin my life.

And maybe my heart.

Book Type:

Romantic Comedy

Excerpt: Piece of Work

Court

I couldn’t stop staring at her legs.

Rin sat in one of the chairs in front of my desk as she had every day for the last week, awaiting instruction on the extended Medici research I’d assigned her. And her legs—those fucking legs—scissored as she recrossed them, their porcelain length drawing every bit of my attention.

I forced myself to meet her eyes, but they were turned down to her notebook.

“I want to get into some of the artists Medici bankrolled, so work on a list of five or six prolific artists to use as examples.”

“Any preference on who?”

“Dealer’s choice.”

“Got it,” she said, eyes still down, pausing to tuck her dark hair behind her ear.

I tried not to watch her long fingers slip into her inky black strands. I tried not to notice the way her full bottom lip occasionally slipped between her teeth. And I really, really tried not to look at her legs, but it was damn near impossible.

“Anything else?” she asked, finally looking up.

You. With those legs around my waist. “No, that will be all for today.”

Rin smiled, closing her notebook. “I’ll have it for you by the end of the day.”

I nodded. “Don’t let it interfere with whatever Bianca has you working on.”

Her smile flattened by the smallest degree. “Oh, I won’t. Thanks, Dr. Lyons,” she said, grabbing her bag before standing to leave.

I scrambled for something else to say to keep her there, but shut the impulse down, allowing instead for her to walk out of my office and disappear for the library. The truth was, the project should have been finished by Friday, but I’d stretched it to Monday, then gave her an emergency project on Tuesday that had brought her all the way to today—Wednesday. And when she finished that yesterday, I devised more work to keep her in my space.

I wouldn’t even be able to use it all. But that hadn’t stopped me from assigning it to her.

What a masochist I was to indulge myself in her company knowing I couldn’t have her. To endure her presence when every word, every motion, every mundane part of her body was sensual. Yesterday, she wore a shirt with capped sleeves, and the sight of the snowy crease of her elbow had me salivating.

You cannot touch her fucking elbow. You cannot touch any part of her. Not her neck. Not her wrist. Not her little fucking finger.

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. But I’d fantasize. I’d imagine. There was no harm in that.

But I really needed to come up with a new project for her before I caved under the stack of useless Medici facts I’d accrued in my pursuit of torment.

Uselessness aside, I had discovered that every day, I found myself curious as to what she could come back with. We’d talk briefly before she left, and I’d spend an hour or two every night reading over what she’d sent. And then each morning, like clockwork, we would discuss all my thoughts that had been triggered by her notes. Which I’d then use to fuel more research.

It had become my favorite parts of every day. Topics would coalesce in my mind on my way to work, expressed to and returned by her.

And when she walked out of my office every morning, I wished she’d have stayed.

It’s not healthy. Cut her loose.

Aversion twisted through me at the thought. I had one rule—no employees. And yet I found myself displaying my temptation, welcoming it to sit with me, to talk to me, to grow. I reassured myself that I could maintain the boundaries between us and my position over her, the position that barred me from the position I really wanted to be in.

But the stimulation of my mind was more dangerous than the one of my body. Bodies could be satisfied easily.

Minds couldn’t.

And hearts were impossible to slake.

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