Drake put his arm around her waist.

“You can go right up to the window, you know. The outside is coated with a strong, reflective surface.” Not to mention a thick polycarbonate film. “There is absolutely no chance of anyone seeing you. None.”

“No one can see me?” Her head whipped up to him so fast a fall of hair lashed across his chest. She blinked. “Are you sure?”

“Come with me.” He tucked a lock of shiny hair behind her ear and walked forward, his arm around her waist. After a second’s hesitation, she followed his lead.

He walked her right up to the window, inches from the pane. The lights behind them were low, the ambient light outside brighter. They had all Manhattan before them.

Drake placed himself right behind her, left hand holding her breast, the other arm angled downward, cupping her. He felt her tremble once as his fingers touched the soft labia, then settle against him.

“Look out across the street. What do you see?”

“A—a building,” she said hesitantly. He could feel her heartbeat against his hand, quickening at his touch. “A few stories taller than this one.”

“Uh-huh. Now look carefully at the windows of that building. They’re reflective, too.”

She nestled the back of her head against his shoulder. “I don’t see what you—”

And then she saw it.

The entire building across the street had slightly reflective windows. Drake’s building didn’t, except for the top floor. Mirrored across the street, he could see a number of offices still open in his building, people moving around, a cleaning crew in one, a late evening meeting in another, twenty people around a long oval desk. The traffic of a busy commercial building.

Except on the top floor, his. Nothing was visible of what was inside. The top floor was like one long mirror. You couldn’t even see if the lights were on or off.

“See?” he said softly into her ear. “You’re completely invisible.”

They were so close to the floor-to-ceiling window that he could feel the cold coming off it. “Are you cold?” he asked.

She shook her hair, soft, warm waves of it swishing across his chest. “No, how can I be cold with you at my back? You’re like a furnace. And it’s sort of…exciting to look out over the city through a window like this and know that no one can see me.”

“Except me,” he growled in her ear.

It was true. They were lightly reflected against the window, the merest ghosts of themselves. She was like a slim line against his breadth, pale skin glowing against his darker tones.

In the window, she smiled, eyes on his. “Except you,” she agreed warmly. Then her gaze shifted to the scene outside.

The snow was still relatively light, just small icy flakes so light the wind sometimes blew them up. Every once in a while the snow fell in soft drifts. Drake had no idea what the weather forecast was, which was just one more sign of how out of synch his life was at the moment. He always knew the weather forecast. It was an integral part of him, to know what the weather would be, what the Dow Jones was doing, to be one of the first to know of any shifts in the geopolitical situation, to know where his men were at all times. To be taken by surprise by snow was unheard of.

Many a time his life had depended on whether it would rain or snow.

Grace’s eyes were tracking the light drifts. “So beautiful,” she murmured.

“Hmm.” He’d buried his face in her hair, nose next to the soft skin behind her ear. Why look outside when he could watch her in the dark glass? It was just snow, for fuck’s sake. He’d once nearly died from exposure in a snowstorm when he was still living on the streets. Snow was cold and wet.

Better to be warm and dry.

She shook his arm a little. “Look, Drake. Look out.” He reluctantly dragged his ghost eyes from her ghost eyes to focus on the scene outside.

She held her hands out, as if to encompass the entire scene. “I want to paint it, just like this. All silver and midnight black, the buildings gleaming mysteriously in the darkness. Look down, Drake. See the fog rising? It makes the buildings look like islands in the sky, doesn’t it? I’ll paint it with the contrast between the billowing fog and the slanting snow with a monochrome palette. You’ll love it, I promise.”

Drake froze.

For a second, something terrifying happened. All those hours over the past year simply staring at her paintings caused a shift in his perception. For a second, he saw the scene through her eyes. Not merely snow, which he hated and considered a nuisance at best, even life-threatening at times. He’d seen past his hatred of snow to the landscape beyond.

It was magical, this landscape, seen through her eyes. A rich fantasyland of silvery darkness. Her eyes were tracking the snow and he followed her gaze in the reflection of the dark glass. She was imprinting what she was seeing, and sometime in the future—maybe tomorrow or next month or next year—a masterpiece would form beneath her clever hands and he would look at it forever. Only this time, he would look at it and remember the exact instant she got the inspiration.

By some mysterious alchemy, she was changing him. Opening his heart to the beauty of the world. It was frightening and he wasn’t altogether certain he liked the thought, but there it was.

He was looking at the black and silver shapes, the misty fog, the slanting snow and finding them fascinating instead of calculating how much the bad weather would impact his business.

The world was vastly more mysterious and beautiful than even he knew.

For the past fifteen years, he’d lived in locked-down conditions in his homes, traveling only under the tightest security he could devise, from car to plane to hotel and back. His life was work and sleep, with little in between; he lived in sterile and controlled surroundings. His world had narrowed to walls, whether of a hotel room or a car or a plane didn’t make any difference. The outside world had become an abstraction, a mere construct to include in his calculations.

She met his eyes again in the glass, a small smile on her lips, as if she understood what she’d done to him.

She’d fucking changed him, that’s what she’d done.

This woman had reached down inside him, with her art and her beauty and her kindness, and pulled him inside out. He didn’t much like it, but he couldn’t deny it. He was changing, feeling the ground beneath him shifting in a terrifying and exhilarating dance.

His hands moved fast and in a moment she was naked.

“Lean forward,” he said, his voice suddenly guttural. “Brace yourself against the window.”

Startled, Grace watched him in the window as she leaned forward. He felt her narrow rib cage arch as she placed both hands on the pane. He put a foot between hers and forced her to open her legs, fitting himself more snugly against her.

He’d been erect the whole time, but now she could feel him surging against her, his cock swelling as he pulled her tightly against him.

He couldn’t wait one second more. She was in his head. He had to be in her body.

He watched her carefully in the window. She was pressed against the pane. Her breasts would be cold, but he was keeping her warm from behind. And his cock would warm her up.

He undid his loose cargo pants, grabbed a condom from a side pocket, then kicked them away when they fell to the floor. He whipped his sweater up and off, eyes never leaving hers in the reflection.

“Open your legs more, Grace,” he whispered.

She obeyed immediately, kicking his excitement up, making his blood flow hot and thick through his veins.

It was going to be rough.

Oh God. It was going to be rough.

Grace watched her lover’s face in the dark window, the image more ghostly than if it were a mirror, as if he were insubstantial. Yet Drake wasn’t insubstantial at all. He was male power and male muscle, treading this earth more heavily than most.