He was so beautiful. Greek-god beautiful, scars or no scars.
The thought sparked the urge to draw, never far from her fingertips. He'd given permission, after all. He'd asked her to. Begged her, even. She didn't have to feel guilty about it. Or even particularly sneaky. Who knew? Maybe if he was asleep, their mutual lust vibes wouldn't be clouding the airwaves, distracting them. She might even sense something that could be helpful for him. She'd never drawn a sleeping person before. Maybe she would see his dreams.
She tiptoed into the other room, avoiding the squeaking floor-boards. She grabbed her big sketchbook, and some pencils. Big man, big page. Lots of space. Her fingers twitched with eagerness.
She'd drawn naked men in her classes back in school, but this was no exercise in human anatomy. He was so long and lovely, every fluid line of him. The picture grew and changed as she lost herself in it. The lines of his sleeping face looked so different in repose. Younger.
She tried to capture the muscles over his ribs, the muscular swells and dips of his flanks. His prodigious member was draped across his thigh, still sheathed in latex. She'd take the condom off herself, but she might wake him, and she didn't want to miss the chance to catch the details. There were newer scars on the swell of his thigh. Bright red, crosshatched from stitches. Surgical scars. The waterfall incident.
She realized that she'd started drawing a background behind his reclining figure, but it wasn't a room, or a landscape. It was a web of interconnecting lines. She'd filled the page before she recognized it.
A spiderweb. Oh, God. Chills began to shake her, but she did not stop drawing. He'd asked for this. She had to see where it took her.
She could always rip it up before he woke. If it was really bad.
Her pencil was going faster. Sketching quickly, filling in the huge ovoid shape, the hairy, jointed legs. A spider, gigantic in proportion to his sleeping body. She lurked, black abdomen gleaming, the image of gloating malevolence. Kev stretched out before her, unconscious. His face, in her inner vision, was deathly pale, but he did not seem dead.
He seemed drugged. Helpless. And doomed.
As a graphic artist, she knew instinctively how to make the the picture work. The light, the shadows, the proportions, the perspectives. She knew how to make it spooky and evocative, how to invoke dread. Her pencil worked fast, did its job. She finished the horns of the spider, the hot, mad gleam of its little eyes, and the pencil dropped from her cold, numb hand. The sound of it hitting the floor woke him.
Kev jerked up onto his elbow and read the scene in one quick glance; the sketchbook, the fallen pencil, the stricken look on her face.
"What did you see?" he asked.
She closed the sketchbook. What she'd just drawn would send any guy with half a brain running to get away from the spooky, possibly psychotic girl. "Nothing much," she hedged. "Just, you know, the usual hooey. Disaster, scorched earth, apocalyptic doom. Standard, for me. I didn't see anything in particular."
"Bullshit." He swung his legs over the bed. "I saw the look on your face. It was a bad one, right? Come on. Show me."
He seemed so unperturbed, for a guy who'd just gotten his fortune told in the worst possible way. He held out his hand.
She shook her head, clutching the sketchpad to her like a shield.
"Don't be upset," he urged. "Try not to worry, Edie."
The words, juxtaposed against the image of a gigantic venomous spider made her shake with hysterical laughter. "Don't be upset?" she gasped out. "What, does doom just not bother you?"
He shook his head. "It's not like it's a surprise. Somebody's out there gunning for me. It's written all over my body. I wish I knew who, and why, but I don't, so I don't bother worrying about it. They'll find me, or they won't. They'll finish the job, or they won't. Why sweat it?"
"So you just don't mind pesky issues like mortal danger?"
"You get used to it." One smooth lunge brought him from the bed over to her, on his knees. He plucked the sketchbook out of her hands.
Yanking it back would be a losing battle. She braced herself as he rifled through the pages. He found the picture she'd just drawn.
She looked away, dreading the look she had seen too many times before. The look that said, this chick is more trouble than she's worth.
But he didn't look up. He gazed at the drawing, brow furrowed.
"Hmm," he murmured. "A giant spider. And I'm her lunch. Yeah, it's creepy. I can see how that might upset you. Sorry about that."
The shudders were edging closer to a screaming sobfest. She'd been weepy enough during the sex, and thank God he'd been mellow about that, but enough, already. "You're the king of understatement," she snapped. "And why should you be the one to apologize? You're not the one who drew it!"
"Yeah, but I'm the one being hunted by the spider, right? I wonder what the spider vibe is all about," he mused. "Looks like a black widow. The dangerous ones are female, so is it a female to look out for? The danger comes from a woman? Strange. What I remember of the stuff that happened to me didn't involve women. Only men."
His tone astonished her. Calm, practical. Is it going to rain today and should I take my umbrella. Trying to logically analyze the giant spider she'd drawn for him. To extract conclusions from it.
After all the thundering drama she'd taken all those years for her psychic drawing, it knocked her right on her ass. She burst into tears.
Kev tossed the sketchbook aside, alarmed, and reached for her. "Oh, God! Edie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you!"
"You? Upset me?" That made her laugh and cry at the same time. "I'm just...it's so strange, that you take it so well. This is the part where everybody's yelling, and I'm climbing out a bathroom window and shimmying down a drain pipe before I get hauled off to the psych ward."
He dropped a warm kiss on top of her naked thigh. "I asked you to do it for me," he said. "Hey, are you hungry?"
It was such a weird non sequiteur, she stared at him stupidly for over a minute before she could organize her thoughts to reply. "Ah," she said at last. "I don't know. I hadn't thought about it. Why do you ask?"
"We could go out," he suggested. "Dinner. Like a normal couple."
That phrase made her shake with giggles. "A normal couple? How do normal couples act? You'd have to coach me. I don't get out much."
"Me neither, but we could fake it. It would be nice. Hell, it would be fun. We can...I don't know. Find a nice restaurant? Catch a movie? Find some music, in a jazz club? Whatever you want to do."
A date. Wow. It did sound nice. It did sound like fun. In fact, it sounded incredibly, supremely wonderful. She was so moved, it prompted another surge of tears, which she fought down savagely.
"That's sweet, Kev, but I can't," she said, with huge regret. "I have to go to this hellish corporate banquet for my dad's retirement from Helix tonight. I hate these things, but I can't afford the price I'd pay if I didn't go. Plus, it's a chance to see my little sister, which I'm usually not allowed to do. So I can't miss it."
He looked crestfallen, and then glanced up again, a speculative gleam in his eye. "What about after?"
"After?" She was startled. "It'll be late. After midnight, at least, by the time all the speechifying and schmoozing is done. I'll have to stay to the bitter end, since my dad is the star of the evening."
He shrugged. "So? I don't sleep. I certainly won't be able to tonight. Especially not if I have a chance in hell of seeing you again." He hesitated, looking uncertain. "Of course, if you need sleep yourself--"
"No, I don't," she said hastily. "Not at all. It's not like I have a day job, or anything." In fact, she usually worked at night, when the air waves were least polluted, and it was easiest to concentrate.
He grinned. "Excellent. I'll pick you up after the banquet."
She wiped her eyes, and gave him a tremulous smile. "And I'll try to find a moment to ask my father about your--"
"No," he said firmly. "Don't."
She was taken aback
. "But don't you want more information?"
"I don't want to make trouble for you. You've got enough problems. I'll take care of it. We'll keep our thing separate, and private."
She hesitated, but there was no point in not coming clean. "There's something you need to know," she said. "Nothing is private in my life. My father is probably studying photos of you as we speak."
He looked startled. "How's that? We just met!"
"He keeps tabs on me, 24-7," she said. "I'm so used to it, I barely notice anymore. My dad is heavy into control."
He digested that. "Your father will recognize me if he sees photos."
"I imagine so," she agreed. "If I did, he will. He'll be hysterical. In fact, now that I think about it, it might be tricky for me to slip away and meet you tonight. I'll try, but don't take it personally if I don't show up. It just means I'm trapped in a limo, being scolded and lectured."
He smiled. The heat in his eyes made her reach up and give him a playful shove. "Stop smoldering at me," she said. "I have to go to the salon to meet my cousin and my aunt. Wild sex is over. Duty calls."
He jerked his chin toward the dress that hung from the wall sconce, wrapped in billowing yards of clear plastic. "Is that your dress?"
She nodded. He touched the finely pleated champagne pink chiffon frill at the hem. "It's pretty," he said.
"Thank you. I have a closet full of these dresses in my bedroom at my family's house. Used for one night, and then into the closet. God forbid anyone photograph me in an evening dress that's been seen."
"I like it." His voice was a sensual rasp. "Put it on."
She was charmed, but suspicious. "Don't get any ideas, because it wrinkles if you frown at it. And it won't fit without the strapless bra--"
"By all means, model the lingerie, too. Can't I just watch you dress? Watch you do your hair and makeup?"
"I'm not dressing here," she said, regretfully. "I'm not trusted to do my own makeup and hair. In about, let's see--" She leaned over, and peeked at a clock on her bookcase. "Holy shit! I'm thirteen minutes late! The car's waiting already, and my aunt's going to kill me. I have to jump into the shower. Excuse me." She lunged for the bathroom.
Once alone with the latch hooked, she tried to release backed up emotion in a sigh, but her chest was too full, too tight, to let air in or out. Her legs shook. Her tender inside parts were so sensitive, sending shockwaves of pleasure down her legs with every movement.
She twisted her hair into a loose, fuzzy knot and anchored it with a hair-stick, since Philipe the stylist from hell would insist on washing it himself even if she came in dripping wet. But a shower could not be foregone. Not after the marvelously juicy events of the last hour or so.
He was waiting patiently, fully dressed, when she came out, swathed in the towel. She forced herself to be businesslike about being naked in front of him. He'd seen everything she had. At close range.
Still, it was hard to pull on the cream colored thong while he watched every move like a hungry cat watching a mouse. She hoiked her C-cup boobs into the strapless bra, engineered to immobilize cleavage to discreet china-doll firmness, and control indecorous bouncing not fitting for a Parrish, and he didn't miss a move. A flush was burned onto his cheekbones. A visible, prominent erection pressed against the jeans that he had discreetly redonned. What a scorching turn-on it was, to be a turn-on for someone else. Who knew. Revelation after revelation. She reached for her jeans. Kev looked betrayed.
"Wait a goddamn minute!" he protested. "What about the dress?"
"Kev, I'm already so late--"
"Please, humor me. Just slip it over your head. I want to be able to imagine you there. All dressed up. Your hair, swirling down."
The intensity of his gaze made her fingers clumsy, and her breath catch. She heaved up the billowing sheer plastic to pluck the gown off the hanger. Slid it over her her head, let it slither over her torso.
She turned her back to him. "Fasten the hooks for me, OK?"
He was on the task before she finished saying the words, deftly doing her up. He turned her back toward the mirror, and loomed behind her, his big hands spanning her waist, his body heat burning through the delicate fabric. His eyes burned. She gulped, shivered.
"A princess in a fairy tale," he said. He swept her hair to the side and tenderly kisssed her throat. "I wish I could sneak into the ball and abduct you." The seductive touch of his lips made her shiver. Pleading silently with his body, for something he knew she could not grant him.
Manipulative bastard.
"Don't," she whispered. "Please. I'm already late, and I'm going to pay for it in chunks of bleeding flesh."
"I'll write you a note," he suggested.
Giggles burst out before she could stop them. "I can't risk messing this dress up. Maybe later we can, ah, use it. As a prop."
He grasped the skirt, and hiked it up, over her knees, her thighs. "You'd let me fuck you?" he asked, sounding fascinated. "In this dress?"
"Why not?" She plucked the fabric from his hands, let the skirt drop. "I won't be allowed to wear it again. Would it turn you on, to toss the skirt of an eight thousand dollar evening dress over my face?"
His eyes widened. "Eight thousand? Really? Holy shit!"
"Really," she said, glumly. "Egregious waste, I say. I don't approve. I was bullied into it."
"Ah." He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. "Yeah. OK. Just, ah, tripping out on erotic footage in my head. The part after I abduct the princess and lock her in my apartment. Maybe we should forget going out tonight. Just go straight to my place, and order in."
Her face must be red as a plum. "That would be fine with me."
"But I won't throw the skirt over your face," he said. "Talk about an egregious waste."
Aw. What a sweet thing to say. She couldn't bear to look at him, she was so flustered. "Unhook me, please."
"Wait." He held up his cell, and snapped a picture of her. Then he slid it back into his pocket. "To keep me company while I wait."
He took his time unfastening the hooks, fingers lingering over her back, each touch of his fingers echoing through her nerves.
She hung up the dress and threw jeans and a loose sweater over the lingerie. Aunt Evelyn had opted to keep her niece's stole, evening bag and shoes in her own possession, since Edie lived in such a dangerous, disgraceful dump. Edie only had the dress herself because it happened to have required fittings. A necessary risk.
She shrugged her sweater jacket on, and abruptly remembered her contacts. Oh, God. Her hideous horn-rimmed glasses were persona non grata at family functions. She shoved the bottles that held the lenses and the saline solution into her purse, and turned to Kev. "So, um. If you want to avoid the bodyguards, go around to the back--"
"Why would I want to do that?"
Her mouth worked. "Well...I...I--"
"I want to check them out," he said. "I want to see if they're worthy of the job of protecting someone as special as you. I'd like to take note of their faces, their cars, and their license plates. Here, I'll carry the dress down for you."
He grabbed the garment bag, and opened the door for her.
Wow. That was a shift in focus. Talk about accentuating the positive. The happiness blazing out from deep inside her was scary.
Calm down. She had to put this experience in perspective. She'd had a one-afternoon stand. That might be all. He might disappear. She had to be prepared for it. It had been worth it. He'd been wonderful.
She was a big girl. She could handle it.
They exchanged numbers, established meeting plans, and he slid his arm through hers. Floated her out her door. Wafted her down the stairs, inches above the ground. Puffy pink clouds bore her feet along.
The limo was waiting. Paul was driving, as luck would have it. A humorless, three-hundred-pound ex-Ranger, Paul was Daddy's man, through and through. He considered Edie to be an ungrateful, pinheaded piece of fluff for not toeing the Parrish line.
When Paul saw Kev, he
straightened up, put his hand under his coat. His face was openly hostile as he jerked the limo door open.
Edie slid into the limo, took the garment bag Kev handed to her, and watched the silent showdown after Paul slammed the door. Paul, swaggering and scowling. Kev relaxed and alert, taking it in.
Paul lifted his cell, framed a shot, and snapped a couple photos of Kev. He got into the car without a word. Edie stared over her shoulder as the limo pulled away. Kev lifted his hand, smiling at her. The look in his eyes was so soft. He looked so...God, he looked so happy.
An impulse seized her, swelling into something uncontrollable.
"Stop!" she yelled.
Paul jerked to a stop. Horns blared. "What is the matter with you?" he snarled.
Edie shoved open her door, leaped out of the vehicle and almost fell on her face. Kev caught her headlong rush, looking startled.
"Hey," he said. "What's wrong?"
"There's something else," she confessed. "I didn't want to say anything, because I don't have any info, or proof, and I was afraid to get your hopes up and then be dead wrong and make things worse for you, but...but I just want to...to..." Her voice trailed off, in an agony of doubt. "To give you something," she finished.
Kev's face looked stark and taut, braced for anything. "Tell me."
Paul slammed the limo door shut, with the force of pure disgust.
Kev's eyes flicked up and looked over her shoulder. He lifted his hand in silent command, indicating that Paul keep his distance.
Amazingly, Paul stopped.
Edie glanced around, startled. Paul looked like he'd swallowed a lemon, tricked into obeying an unspoken order, but he stayed where he was, shifting from foot to foot, beefy arms folded over his big chest.
The words came out in a rush. "I had dinner with my father a few weeks ago. He told me three years ago he got a visit from some men who were looking for you. They said that they were your brothers."
Kev's hands had been resting on her shoulders. They suddenly tightened, to a painful grip. His lips went white. "Brothers?"
"Your brothers," she repeated. "They're out there, Kev. Looking for you, thinking about you. Missing you. My dad said they were very, um, intense. The way they questioned him. He had nothing to tell them, but he said that one of them actually, ah...threatened him physically."
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