Page 15 of Curiosity

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.

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