“I don’t think I’ll be staying that long, actually.” Shelby rubbed her hands on her thighs.
Kade caught Aunt Liv’s eye. She nodded and headed back to the kitchen.
“This place is busy. These your friends?” Shelby peered around the table.
“Yeah, most of the time. The rest of the time, they’re a pain in my ass.” Kade draped his arm around the back of Shelby’s chair. “Where are you in a rush to get to?”
“Nowhere.” Shelby shrugged and snagged Kade’s beer. She took a long pull from the bottle.
Nerves.
Something about him or this situation had her uncomfortable.
Why?
Because they’d had sex?
Because of the job?
Earlier, she’d been worked up over something she couldn’t explain.
“You’ve been painting?” He swiped his thumb over her knuckles.
“Sorry.” She set his beer down and glanced at her hand. “Yeah, stuff gets everywhere.”
“Maybe I need to help you scrub it all off?”
“Pretty sure I know how to use soap and water, thanks.” Shelby folded her hands in her lap, posture stiff. “Sorry—that was a bitchy thing to say.”
“What’s bothering you?” Kade scooted closer. “Give me a hint?”
Shelby’s gaze trailed over the other guys. Most of the focus was at the other end of the table, where the guys and other regulars had divided into teams for a trivia-off. Every so often, someone would get an answer wrong or right and there would be cheers over a chorus of groans. It could get pretty intense some nights.
“This. Us.” Her answer was almost lost in the noise.
Kade didn’t need to hear it to understand it. He’d been feeling it, too.
There was an unmistakable energy binding them together. It was more than chemistry or attraction. He didn’t know what it was, but it was there. And it was unsettling to be this scrambled.
He’d forgotten trivia night.
He didn’t even want to participate.
That alone told him something was up on his side.
“What do you want to do about it?” He took a sip of his half-empty beer and set it in front of her.
“I shouldn’t be here.” She took the bottle and drank deeply.
“But you’re here, so now what?”
“I don’t know.” She picked at the label, not looking at him, but she had shifted. A little. Her shoulder pressed against his arm, her body turned toward his ever so slightly.
“Hey?” He reached over and wrapped his hand around hers. “Look at me?”
She sighed and stared up through her lashes, jaw thrust forward. Stubborn little thing.
“I think you came here, not because you wanted to, but because you had to. There’s this thing that keeps driving us together.” He tilted his head to the side, following Shelby’s gaze. “You glance away because you know I’m right, and you don’t want me to be.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” She stared at their joined hands. Did she realize she was the one holding onto him?
“But it has. So what now?” He picked up her hand and kissed her paint-flecked knuckles.
“I shouldn’t have come here.”
“We covered that already.”
“Kade—stop.” She pulled her hands out of his hands and wrapped her arms around her.
“Can I make you a deal?” It was a devil’s deal, for sure, but he wouldn’t tell her that.
“What?”
“When all of this is over, you’re leaving, going on to something else, aren’t you?”
“Probably.” She shrugged.
“Okay, so…from now, until then, how about we just accept that things are what they are?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, with everything else, why fight this?” He placed his hand on her thigh.
“You don’t want to get involved with me. I’m a thief and a con artist, remember?”
“I’m a killer and a thief. Your point?”
Shelby flinched.
“You like to pretend I’m some sort of good guy, and yeah, I try to be that. Don’t forget I went to war. I was a combat medic. That means I was on the front lines, not tucked safe and sound in the back. I went where the fighting was worst, and that meant I had to be a soldier, too.”
“That—that’s different.”
“Is it? It’s really a matter of perspective.” He leaned in until he could see the way her irises expanded, the flare of her nostrils, smell the cherry lip balm on her lips. “My point is—I’m going to kiss you now.”
Shelby sucked in a breath and her lips parted.
He leaned toward her, slowly at first, but her gaze zeroed in on his mouth. All this talk was getting in the way. He could argue circles with Shelby for hours, but when they kissed, when they touched, there was no denying that they had something. So why expend energy fighting it? Why not let it run its course?
The same electric sizzle skated through his body at the touch of her lips. He felt her body shudder and it wasn’t he who leaned in to deepen the kiss. That was all her.
An ear-splitting wolf whistle made Shelby flinch.
A chorus of cat calls reminded Kade that they weren’t exactly in private.
“Oh, God.” Shelby ducked her head, hiding against his shoulder.
Kade extended his middle finger in the air to the tune of laughter. The guys were nothing, if not obnoxious at the worst of moments.
“Should I bring dinner ‘round later?” Aunt Liv appeared, two beers in hand and a plate with at least twice the usual fish and chips.
“Now’s good, thanks Aunt Liv.” Kade straightened.
“Who’s your girlfriend?” Ian called out from the other end of the table.
“Mine, so fuck off.” Kade kept his arm around Shelby’s shoulders. She had her head down, as if that would make the guys less interested in her.
“Guess I missed trivia?” Owen slid into the chair next to Shelby. To his credit, he didn’t even blink at her presence.
“Shelby, Owen. Owen, Shelby. He’s my detective friend I told you about.”
“Oh—are we…?” Owen wiggled his fingers.
“Well, I’m not going to insult Shelby’s intelligence by pretending I didn’t do my due diligence.”
“Oh. Okay.” Owen turned, waving down Aunt Liv.
Shelby turned in her seat, the blush gone.
“No.” He pointed at her. “Stop whatever that right there is. I asked if Rusty was FBI. I asked if what you told me was correct. Did you really expect me to do anything else?”
“But… Does… Your friend…?”
“Whatever you’re worried about—stop. I told Owen I didn’t need to know more, he asked if I was sure, and that was it.”
“Dear God.” Shelby twisted, putting her back to Owen. “He must think I’m—”
“Stop.” Kade pitched his voice louder. “Owen’s not like that, are you?”
“Like what?” Owen craned his neck to look over his shoulder.
“You aren’t the kind of cop that holds people mistakes against them.”
“That’s not my job.” Owen shrugged and went back to ordering.
“See?” Kade kissed Shelby’s cheek and nudged the beer toward her. “Eat.”
Because now that she’d come to him, he didn’t plan on letting her go. They were in whatever this was together, and Kade didn’t leave anyone behind.
Shelby popped the top off two beers. Her loft had never felt like a small place, until Kade was here. Now…
“You really painted all of this stuff?”
She couldn’t see him. He was somewhere in the maze of paintings. But she could feel his presence. All around her.
“Yeah,” she answered.
Shelby’s stomach hurt from laughing. His friends were…she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had that much fun. Once she’d put back a beer and had some food, at least. It was easy. Nothing complicated
about it. She could see the appeal of leaving everything behind for a life like this. She envied Kade’s life, his strength. If things were different, she might hope to follow his example. But she couldn’t. Her path was set.
She took a deep breath and entered the maze. She’d set the easels up to make maximum use of the lights for curing the oil paint a bit faster.
“Where’d you go?” She frowned and bent, searching for his boots.
“Over here.”
Oh, no…
She darted through to the other side and froze.
Kade stood at the drafting desk peering at doodle.
It wasn’t finished.
It wasn’t good.
She scurried over and shoved the beer into his hands, then shoved the unfinished piece aside.
“Hey, don’t do that.” Kade smoothed out the sheet of thick paper, frowning at a crease she’d made.
“It’s garbage. It’s not good. Don’t look at that.” Heat clawed up her neck so intense her eyes prickled.
“Is it garbage because it’s me?” He poked her ribs.
“No.” She shoved his hand away.
“Hey, I’m just teasing.” He rubbed her back. “It looks neat to me. Why don’t you think it’s good?”
The last thing she wanted to do was talk about the half-dressed picture of Kade she’d sketched. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t right either. Her hands itched to put it away, to hide her infatuation. Except that wasn’t a secret. Twice now, she’d gone to him when before she’d have chewed Rusty’s ear for an hour about her concerns.
“The pose is stiff. See how the shoulders are in movement? The rest of the body is too rigid. You wouldn’t stand like that.”
“Are you trying to say I need to pose for you?” He was so close, radiating heat, she was going to start sweating in a moment.
“No,” she mumbled.
“Is that the only thing wrong with it?”
“It doesn’t look like you. You have a scar here and here. Your muscles are different, too. This is too…cartoony.” All things she could fix. In privacy. She hadn’t exactly seen him shirtless when she’d begun sketching. She didn’t know what he looked like, the glint in his eye when he intended to make her scream.
Shelby swallowed.
“This is different than the paintings. The…style?” He gestured to the overall look of the page.
“Yup.” She tipped her beer up and took a long pull from the bottle.
She’d tried to capture a moment in her mind, Kade turning toward someone. Hands at his hips, one, blessed second from getting rid of those jeans. It was highly suggestive and sensual. A lot like Kade, only… If she started a new one, she’d change the face. His was so much more expressive when he was aroused. Looking at him was a type of foreplay in and of itself.
“Come on, explain it to me?”
“The paintings are done in the Renaissance style. This is more realism.”
“More but not?”
Shelby shrugged.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“My style has changed over time. I think spending so much of it basically copying other people’s work has altered my ability to be original sometimes.”
“I want to say something encouraging and supportive, but I have no idea what that would be.”
“Thanks for the thought.” She patted his chest and turned away from the desk, hoping he’d follow her.
“What kind of art jobs have you done?”
“I actually started off trying to sell my own stuff. It was after Mom and Dad died and I had nothing. I figured, Dad made a living out of selling art—how hard can it be?” She shook her head. Soul crushing were the first words that came to mind. “I’ve done face painting, body painting, little carnival caricatures… All sorts of stuff.”
“Body…painting?”
“Yeah, you’ve seen internet pictures of people’s bodies painted to look like something else, haven’t you?”
“You can make a living at that?”
“I couldn’t. Why do you think I started stealing stuff?”
“How’d you make that leap?”
“Oh, boy.” She sighed. “I went to one of my dad’s galleries after it reopened. Some guys were scouting the place, feeling it out. I realized what they were doing and confronted them about it. I still had this misguided sense that it was still mine. Anyway, they offered to cut me in on it, if I helped them. I got smart and left, went to tell the owner, and—this guy was a dick. I helped them clean the place out and…I was then an art thief.”
“When did the forging come into play?”
“We had two buyers that wanted the same piece. I made a copy. I still don’t think they know.”
“Why do people steal art? Why would someone want it that badly?”
“Some are greedy collectors. Others see art as an investment. Valuable art doesn’t devalue the same way gold does.”
“You said that. I heard you say that.”
“How much did Owen tell you?”
“Nothing.” His answer was immediate, honest, and yet…he could still know more.
Kade took another step toward her and wrapped his arm around her waist.
“I didn’t want to know, because I’m guessing a lot of it is fake. Your…FBI cover, or whatever.”
“Did Owen…?” She’d gotten over her nerves enough to talk to the detective and she liked him.
“He probably did, but he didn’t push to tell me anything.”
“I’ve never killed anyone.”
“Is that in your file?”
“Yes, but it’s for this job I’m going to… I shouldn’t tell you that.” And yet, it was important that he know. To what point, though? When this gig was done, she was headed to Europe. The job with Interpol had promise, and a hell of a lot better benefits.
Kade took her beer and his. He set them on the edge of the wash station she’d set up for her brushes against the wall. Once his hands were free he wrapped his arms around her until their bodies pressed together from knee to chest.
“I don’t need to know anything else, okay?” He stared into her eyes, the honesty in them ringing so true it hurt.
“Okay.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m not curious, but I’m working on being okay with not knowing.”
Because this—whatever they had—was only temporary?
She didn’t want here and now. She wanted more. Which was stupid. With her life expectancy, more was a waste. More was spreading trouble around. She’d do better to keep her problems to herself.
Kade had a whole life set up here that was good. He deserved to keep it. And that meant in a week they were over.
It was a sobering reality.
There was no time to waffle on whether or not this was a good idea.
Before she knew it, Kade would be back to his weekly trivia nights and slapping Band-Aids on booboos. And she would be gone.
He was right, they had something. If she didn’t take this opportunity to wrap herself in it, she might live the rest of her short life regretting it.
She slid her hands up under his shirt. He took the hint and pulled it up over his head, leaving her free to explore the smooth planes of muscle with her hands.
“Is this where I ask you to paint me like one of your Renaissance paintings?” He grinned, that playful side of him batting at her.
“That was bad.” She stuck her finger in a forgotten glob of paint and drew a dark, purple line under one pectoral muscle.
“Wow. That’s some art.” He peered down at the line.
“Shut up.”
She ran her thumb along the natural groove, the paint slippery. Painting bodies meant taking into account the human figure, how each one was uniquely formed.
Kade was tall and lean. There was a smoothness to his movement and muscle tone that spoke of a healthy workout regimen. And yet, that wasn’t all he did. His arms, his shoulders, they carried the weight of a healer. Someone who regula
rly had lives depending on him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Blending.” She smoothed paint out at the curve of his side, imitating shadows.
She followed the lines of his abdominals, giving them deeper shadows, smoothing the paint down his side.
“What am I?” He put his arm up over his head, wearing his forearm like a hat.
“Trouble.”
This was silly, and a bit ridiculous, but she hardly ever indulged in what she wanted. Kade…made her want what she couldn’t have. But this? The living, breathing embodiment of her artistic vision? That she could have.
She swirled blues and white in with the purple, creating layers of shadow. She washed her hands before breaking out yellow and white, so as to not mix the highlights.
He didn’t offer any further commentary, which she appreciated.
She loved his arms. The strength of them. The tiny scars dotting his hands. He’d lived the life he chose. She wished there was a way to learn from that, to change, but her path was chosen.
Shelby stood back, considering the way he looked, how the paint accentuated the rise and fall of muscles.
“Turn toward the windows?”
She scampered across to her bed, climbing up on it to reach the old latch and swing the window open.
“Like this?” Kade’s humor laced through his words.
He was getting a kick out of this, the ham.
She heard the jangle of metal and the too-loud sound of a zipper.
Shelby swallowed and turned.
Wow.
Yeah.
That was pretty much what she’d envisioned.
Where the fuck was her camera?
“Stay right there.”
Shelby jumped off the bed and flung open the wardrobe. The camera bag sat in the bottom, tucked behind a few things.
“This stuff feels kind of weird. Is it going to dry?”
“Probably not before you wash it off.”
She pried the lens cap off and circled the bed.
The lights from outside cast a long shadow that stretched toward Kade.
“Turn to your left just a bit?” She peered at the shot through the camera.
Kade stared straight at her, his lips parted, that sensual smile curling them upward. The playful glint in his eye wasn’t at all what she’d imagined, but now that she knew him…it fit. Kade wasn’t just the product of a hard life lived well. He knew how to live it. How to smile, when to crack a joke. She’d seen him relaxed and comfortable tonight. It was a side she wanted to spend more time with.
Her Prince (Twisted Royals #2) Page 13
