by J. K Harper
Lacey's eyes half closed and she pulled in another shaky breath. Her lips slightly parted, and she leaned toward him just a bit. His attuned senses picked up her rapid pulse, which he could sense beating delicately in her throat.
It was too much. "Lacey," Sebastian said, his voice ripping out of him in a deep groan. “I know you want this. Unless,” he forced himself to add, suddenly and oddly terrified at her potential answer, “I've totally misread the signals here?"
The beautiful flush on her face was extending lightly beneath the mid cut of the dress where her breasts swelled so temptingly. Shaking her head, she answered in low voice, "No. You haven't misread anything." Her eyes deepening to that rich sapphire color that had captured his interest the first day he met her, she added in more husky tones, “Lead the way. Sebastian.”
His name on her lips, tentative yet clearly enchanted by the sound of it, shot white heat through his body. Lacey's palms smoothed against his chest, one of them already beginning to rove up to his neck. First cautiously, then with more confidence, she caressed his skin there with her fingers, bringing another approving rumble from him. Her other hand drifted lower until it found his nipple. Pausing for a long moment, clearly bolstering her confidence, she gently circled her fingers over the sensitive nub
With a soft little “Mmm,” her delight in how it hardened tightened his balls. The sensation of her small fingers touching him through his dress shirt was so pleasurable it startled him into a small gasp. She paused at that, pulling her head back and slightly fluttering open her eyes to look at him. But he shook his head at her, murmuring, "No. Don't stop."
In answer, her mouth curved up in just a hint of a smile. She reached her hands out to his chest, placing her fingers on him. First tentatively, then with more certainty, she felt the planes of his chest beneath his jacket and shirt. Even through the clothing, he could feel the heat of her hands burning down to his skin. His entire body trembling with an excitement that went well beyond what even he had imagined, Sebastian gently pulled her face towards his even as he dipped his head down toward her.
Finally claiming her soft, luscious lips with his.
The taste and sensation of soft petals, her natural scent of lilies and creamy cloves and raindrops, seemed to infuse Sebastian's every molecule with a succulent blast. Her lips moved against his with a sensuality he hadn't quite expected but yet which did not surprise him. Swallowing another groan, he lightly held her face with both hands as he allowed himself to feast upon her mouth.
Lacey tasted exactly how he imagined. Only better.
Running one hand down to the small of her back, keeping the other curled behind her head, he pressed her close to him. The lush promise of her body that had been teasing him was even more sumptuous than he had dreamed during many restless nights of imagining her softness beneath him. Murmuring against her lips, he let the curve of his fingers drop down a little farther to touch the soft roundness of her delicious ass.
Lacey gasped against his mouth in surprise, but she didn't pull away. Instead, she pressed closer to him, pushing her hips against him in a way that caused his vision to darken with intense desire.
"Like this so far?" His dragon rumbled through his voice, lending a fiery edge to it.
She nodded against him. The tiny, breathless little moans he could feel dropping from her lips into his mouth excited him even more.
"Good. I don't think I could've waited another minute." Sebastian let his tongue explored Lacey's mouth, the intense heat and openness with which she welcomed him getting him harder than solid oak.
She murmured something unintelligible against his lips, but he thought it was Me, either.
The world faded away into a soft black explosion of velvet, punctuated with shooting stars, engulfed as he was in the soft, warm feel of Lacey's curves beneath his hands. Her lush body pressed against his with as much if not more fervent desire.
Mid-kiss, the craziest vision of him flying as his dragon while Lacey rode fearlessly on his back, laughing with sheer joy, shot through his mind. It startled him so much he broke their contact, pulling back and opening his eyes to look at her. Her eyelashes fluttered open, her plush mouth a darker red from where his lips had been tenderly yet firmly savaging hers.
That was a careless moment of confusion. Although he fully intended to have Lacey, she would never know about his dragon side. That was something he would never trust to tell her. To cover up his momentary confusion, he said the first thing that popped into his head, aching and raw in its indisputably sensuous desire.
"There will be more of this, I promise.” His voice was raw. Slightly ragged from kissing her, his breath still coming fast. “You will want to feel my touch, Lacey. My fingers on your skin. Stroking, traveling along your body, dipping into every curve and rounding over every soft swell. And you won't want me to stop.”
She swallowed hard, her eyes shadowing into a blue so dark they seemed almost purple. Just as she opened her mouth to reply, the sound of a small group of people tumbling out into the courtyard made her retreat away from him.
Silently Sebastian swore. He reached for her, but the fragile, exhilarating moment had been shattered.
“I—we can't,” she said, taking a step back. Her fingers lifted up to her lips, feeling them as if they still burned. A deep breath. Another step back.
Damn it all.
Lacey shook her head. Her chest was heaving, and he knew, he knew she felt the undeniable attraction between them, but her professional walls were well up again. “I have to get back inside,” she finally said. She looked at him for a long moment before she wrenched her gaze away.
It took every ounce of self-control Sebastian had not to reach out and stop her as she left.
Chapter Nine
When the alarm buzzed on her phone, Lacey pushed her chair back from the desk, stretched her arms over her head, and luxuriated in a back-cracking stretch. She was working on an article about the exhibit. Since naturally the topic interested her intensely, she sometimes could find herself looking up a few hours later, stiff from sitting in the same position for so long. She'd learned back in grad school to set timers to make sure she got up every hour to move around a little bit and hopefully not drop dead of a heart attack from her sedentary lifestyle twenty years hence.
As she slowly brought her arms back down in front of her, fingers interlaced, leaning over in a forward bend, her eye caught the glitter of the little gold cross on her desk. Originally she thought she would take the cross home. Yet she was here the center so much more often. It also just made sense for the item to be in the building that housed so many objects from the same field.
Besides, not that she was observant, but a beautiful Catholic cross up on the wall at the apartment, in her bedroom, would make her feel pretty darn guilty whenever she had her very explicit imaginings about Sebastian. And she'd definitely had those, every single night, since the night of the exhibit opening.
Even though she hadn't spoken to him since then.
Well, she had made herself fairly clear, hadn't she? Like an idiot who apparently planned to be sex-deprived for the rest of her life.
That kiss had torched every rational thought in her head, setting off a chain reaction of thoughts that just wouldn't stop. Thoughts such as that she was just another conquest to him.
But surely, the small gift meant he was interested in her more than that, right? Not that that mattered, because he was Sebastian Bernal. Owner of the Bernal Center, world-renowned billionaire philanthropist, heartbreaking playboy of the Western world, and probably the Eastern world too now that she thought about it.
Besides, she didn't have time for something like that.
"Something like what?" Gabi had, naturally, been beside herself with excitement when Lacey had called her the day after the gallery opening to confess that she shamelessly had macked on Sebastian. "It's just going to be a fling, girl. That's what a guy like Sebastian Bernal is good for. You know I've been telling you
forever that you need a good, old-fashioned fling. Sex, fun, nothing else." Laughter burbled under Gabi's words. "He's assured you a bunch of times it's not going to affect your job. Lacey, normally I would never say this about a guy who's in charge, but I believe him. He loves what you bring to the Center."
Well, so did Lacey. Which was why she had backed away from him the other night. Sebastian Bernal was far too dangerous, with those chocolatey eyes and that provocative smile. She had to keep a grip on herself and her senses. It was a good thing Gabi was gone now, over on Catalina to begin the dive that she been looking forward to. It was still being put off another couple of days because the storm was still stirring up sediment on the ocean floor. Lacey's feisty bestie playfully would be pushing Lacey at Sebastian so hard, she knew she'd be hard pressed to keep resisting.
Unfortunately, tonight would be another test of her personal fortitude.
Sebastian had recently decided to have the museum host fancy events here. Tonight was one of several initial runs of wedding ceremonies before the Center would be opening to the public for weddings and other events beginning in the fall.
Lacey had been conscripted into attendance months ago when it was discovered the bride and groom enjoyed her area of expertise. She was actually kind of excited to be able to attend, but for one thing.
Sebastian would be there as well. The groom hailed from an important old Angeleno family that apparently socialized with Sebastian on occasion.
She would have to see him again. So soon after the other night. This time, she vowed, she would not fall for his charming lines. His come-hither expression. His utterly kissable, delectable, wildly talented mouth that could—
No. She needed to stop that line of thinking immediately. She had a paper to write and two meetings before the wedding began. Dealing with her overheated body once again wasn't going to help matters.
A few hours later, so engrossed was she in the words she was trying to write on the screen that when someone knocked at her door, Lacey about jumped out of her skin. She whacked her knee on the underside of her desk, causing her to growl an unimaginative curse, as her mother would call it.
One of the Center interns poked his head in.
"Yes?" she said, smiling as she massaged her knee.
"Sorry, Lacey. Your appointment's here early."
The dealer, here with the artifact he'd emailed her about. “Send him in,” she said, getting out of her chair just as he walked into her office.
"Lacey! So good to see you again," he said, stepping forward with a smile and his outstretched hand. “It's been, what? Since you were up in the Bay Area at that history conference over the winter, right?" Mark, whose antiquities shop was in Oakland, liked to keep up with all the latest goings-on in the state's historical world.
Lacey smiled at him. "Hi, Mark," she said, shaking his hand. Mark Edwards was a well-known dealer in the field with whom Lacey had always enjoyed working. "I can't believe it's been that long. What do you have for me?"
Mark smiled as he slung a large brown leather satchel from his shoulder and settled it on the little side table close to the door. In his fifties or thereabouts, he'd always kind of reminded Lacey of her dad, if her father had ever been remotely interested in history.
“First, I have something for you from the collector." Mark said. "A gift. Specifically for you, he instructed."
That startled Lacey. "For me? I don't even know him."
Mark shrugged as he rustled around inside his satchel for second before pulling out a small, black cloth bag. Glancing at Lacey's desk, he chuckled. Lacey followed his gaze and also laughed. Varying little cloth bags of different sizes and colors were scattered about the desk. Well, she worked and practically lived in the museum, and she was a curator. People sent her objects all the time.
None, of course, like the beautiful cross that Sebastian had given her.
"He's actually followed your career ever since you came to the center," Mark said. "You know how a lot of these collectors are. They don't want the general public to know about them."
Lacey nodded, resigned to the realities of her field.
"You mean he sometimes buys things of questionable provenance," she said in a flat tone.
Mark shrugged. "I don't ask where everything comes from when my clients tell me about them. Although you know perfectly well," his tone sharpened a slight bit, "that I only deal on the up and up."
Lacey nodded. Mark Edwards was highly respected in the field, based on a spotless career spanning thirty years. He was thoroughly vetted. No object that he ever dealt in, whether to sell or to buy, would be sourced off the black market. However, not all of his clients believed in the same thing. He didn't care about their personal ethics, as long as nothing that was illegal came into his possession.
"Anyway,” Mark continued, “he told me he's appreciated you sharing details about the Californio era with me, which I then passed on to him, during this past year. It's helped him to make some good decisions for some purchases. At any rate, he said he came across this piece and immediately thought of you. Now, Lacey," and Mark looked at her carefully. "It is genuine. I've examined the papers myself. I'm certain the provenance is authentic and totally legal. However, I can't trace the chain all the way back. That's why he wants you to have it as a gift. There's no money exchanging hands in this transaction."
"I see." Lacey paused for a long moment. Mark was trying to tell her, without stating it in bald terms, that he couldn't be certain that the piece had not at some point in its life been traded under murkier circumstances.
Her curiosity was too much, however. Twisting her lips just slightly, she held out her hand. Gently, Mark handed over the little bag. Lacey upended it to gently shake out a small gold hairpin.
A miniature dazzle of gold and jewels glittered at her, almost seeming to pulse in her hand with its bright energy. "Oh, it's gorgeous!" Lacey lifted her hand closer to her face so she could carefully inspect the object. It was small, shaped like some sort of mythical creature that seemed to be half-chimera, half-dragon, encrusted with faceted emeralds and rubies. A tiny figure rode it, defiantly waving a spear overhead. Two little bumps on the chest indicated the figure was female.
“It's definitely of Spanish origin,” she said, utterly enraptured by the artisan work of the piece. She admired it from all angles, carefully turning it over in her hands. Her scholarly training took over as she examined it. “Late sixteenth century.” She looked up at Mark. “Did he tell you anything more about it?”
“He said he didn't know much about it himself.” Mark shrugged again. “He just said something about it being a beautiful piece for a beautiful woman.” Although the words were teasing, Mark's tone was a bit wary.
Lacey cast him a curious glance. “You don't sound as if I should take that as a compliment.”
Looking slightly uncomfortable, Mark said, “Look. He's been a good client. Always pays me well to find him what he wants, doesn't give me trouble, and never passes objects of dubious origin my way. Well,” he sighed, looking at the hairpin, “at least not of immediately dubious origin. He's just got a bit of a, mm, a sort of threatening air about him.” Mark flapped his hand, curling up a lip in slight distaste. “He's just not the type for someone as nice as you, Lacey.”
Mark beamed at Lacey, reminding her yet again of a doting father figure. Laughing, she said, “Well, then, I guess it's a good thing I don't know his name.”
Rolling the beautiful little hairpin in her fingers, once again feeling an almost tangible sense of connection to it, she gently placed it back in its little bag and turned to Mark again.
“Now, let's take a look at the piece you want me to authenticate,” she said with a smile. Mark nodded as he turned back to his satchel, already starting in about the item's history.
Hopefully, this would provide hours of focused work. Hopefully, it would distract her from the coming evening spent once again in Sebastian's presence. The dark, tingling, ridiculously arousing pres
ence of a man who was driving her insane.
Right.
Chapter Ten
Doing his damnedest to focus on the conversation with the groom's father and new father-in-law, Sebastian nodded and chuckled at appropriate intervals. They were both important, generous friends of the Bernal Center, as well as men he had socialized with at various events for years now. As such, he owed them the courtesy of his attention.
But Lacey's glorious, delighted laughter kept catching his attuned ear instead, blowing his concentration. Between her laughter, her enticing scent, and the frisson of smoldering attraction between them, all his senses were wire tight.
Finally, after a last round of sincere congratulations and once more thanking them for their continued devotion to the museum, Sebastian gracefully excused himself with the excuse that he needed to circulate and be sure that everything was running smoothly. He barely registered their enthusiastic thanks for the private use of the venue as he turned to locate the burning, vexing focus of his unquenchable desire.
His dragon was going to be the death of him where this woman was concerned. The wild, ceaseless insistence that he get close to her, bury himself in her, taste all her succulent treasures and keep them to himself, was driving him half insane.
Just tonight, he silently swore his head. One night to truly scratch this itch, get it out of my system, and move on.
Nodding and smiling as he easily sidestepped small clusters of excited, happy wedding goers, Sebastian maneuvered his way across the marble floors of the great rotunda, heading with unerring accuracy to the sound of Lacey's low, sweet voice. Her exquisite scent pulled him along as it teased at him, urging him forward as if she tugged him toward her with a heated, sensuous leash.
