He breathed out heavily, making an effort to concentrate. "You'll have to get up and come with me," he said tautly. "Please?"
She took her hand down, looked at him through a shutter of lashes as if the light were still too bright. "Where? Why?" At least he didn't want this "help" here in her bedroom. She was grateful for that.
"I need you to hold a canvas for me. Just for a minute or two. Please. It's important, B.J., or I wouldn't have disturbed you."
His voice throbbed faintly, and she almost looked at him fully but caught herself in time. Two-tone eyes. If he saw them, surely he'd remember fat, ugly Janie. You have the most beautiful blue eyes. . . . She stiffened as if he had just said the words aloud.
"Please," he said once more, and she nodded.
"All right, but give me a couple of minutes." What are you doing? she asked herself with desperation. There was no answer, and she glanced at him again as he hesitated in her doorway. It was impossible not to notice his bare shoulders and chest, and just as impossible not to respond to them. His hair, so dark it looked almost blue, was tousled, as if he'd been in bed.
You are out of your mind, she told herself two minutes later, standing in the bathroom, blinking to rid her eyes of the tears caused by her lens solution. Lock your door. Go back to bed. Better yet, go out to that shed, get on your bike, and hightail it out of here, fast, B.J. Fast!
She wasn't dressed when she came out of her room, Cal saw, though the time she'd taken, she could have changed six times. Her hair had been brushed and she wore a knee-length white terry robe belted tightly around her slim middle, the lace trim of a yellow nightgown visible between the lapels. An involuntary smile of delight curved his mouth, then a surge of heat struck his loins as he stared down at her bare feet.
They were so small, so slender, so . . . Dammit, she had the cutest little feet and the sexiest toes! That was crazy. He'd never before seen anything erotic about women's feet, yet hers, with their toenails polished pale pink to match her fingernails, were sexier than anything he'd ever seen before. He knew he was in danger of forgetting himself, but he fought down his desire, buried it deep within, telling himself to get his mind back on his work.
There was nothing sexy about toes! There never had been and there never would be. He was overtired and worried about his painting, and for that reason he was overreacting. It had nothing to do with her smelling like a garden of wildflowers, earthy and sweet, but still he wanted to hold her, kiss her, and wanted to do a lot of other things to her, and— Dammit, cut that out! he told himself sharply, swinging open the door to his room. "In here," he said, wondering if he'd follow anyone who barked like that at him in the middle of the night.
6
B.J. followed Cal, wondering why she didn't just tell him to take his ill humor and paddle it back down to the other end of the lake. Then she halted abruptly in the doorway when she realized he'd led her to his bedroom, not his studio.
"Excuse me, but is this necess—" She broke off, realizing he was intent on a painting propped against the foot of his bed. As far as he was concerned, the painting was the important item in the room, not the bed. She doubted if he was half as aware of the bed as she was. Determined to be as detached from the sight of that huge expanse of tumbled sheets and blankets, from the sensations it sent through her body, she asked, "You want me to hold that?"
"Please," he said. "I have to get back from it to gain the right perspective. Put your hands down in front of you and turn them over . . . palms out."
He placed the painting in her arms. Her fingers wrapped gingerly just over the bottom edge Of the canvas as she tilted her head back to make room for it to rest under her chin.
"Great," he said. "Now, turn this way. Face the mirror. Good. Hold still."
They both looked, she with curiosity, he with a depth of concentration that told her she hardly existed to him at the moment. She bit back a wry smile. So much for her worries. She was an easel, one that could be positioned correctly, she realized as he turned her an inch to one side, then tilted her forward a bit. He stepped back and gazed into the mirror at the image of his painting.
It was an eagle standing on a gnarled limb, the darkness of a pewter sky behind, an angry slate of water below, with rolling clouds and wind-whipped trees conveying a sense of impending doom that made goose bumps dot her arms. Something, the bird, maybe, but perhaps just the general tone of the painting, was threatening. Then she saw it. On a narrow strip of brown, wintery land edged by icy water, a small creature—a mouse?—hid under a leaf. The viewer had to guess whether the bird knew it was there and was about to attack, or if the little rodent was safe—for the moment. It was a menacing picture in one way, yet one in which she could find hope! It made her want to ask, "Who wins?" and she knew she was cheering for the mouse.
"That's it," Cal said softly, the tension seeping out of him. "There it is." He smiled. Not at her, but at the painting, at... a ghost? she wondered when he whispered, "Thanks, Piet."
"There what is?" she asked as he took the canvas from her. She rubbed her arms.
"What I couldn't see. It was all in the bird's expression. It was too . . . passive. I wasn't able to convey its hunger, its ferocity and need. But now I think I can."
"Could I. . . could I watch?" she surprised herself by asking.
"Sure." He smiled and gestured for her to leave first. As they entered his studio B.J. wondered what in the world she was doing there at half-past one in the morning when she should be asleep. But nothing, she knew, would have stopped her being with him just then. She was fascinated, not only by what he was doing, but by the man himself. She knew she was risking much, yet she wanted to be with him, to learn more about him.
B.J. had never been in a working artist's studio before, and was amazed at the brightness of the lights and by the clutter. How could he work in such chaos? Stretched canvases leaned haphazardly against walls, in corners, on shelves. Paintings in various stages of completion stood here and there; tubes and pots and brushes and oddly shaped implements littered a long counter. From that clutter, Gal picked up a tube of paint, scrutinized its label, set it down again. He chose another, contemplated it while chewing his bottom lip, then nodded. He squirted a glob of it onto a palette, mixed a tiny dab from a different tube, then faced the easel.
Picking up a fine brush, he added a touch of those mixed red shades to the gleaming yellow eye of the eagle, then changed brushes and dabbed in some smoky gray. Suddenly there was an impression of hooded violence that hadn't been there before.
Incredulous, B.J. leaned forward. Never had she seen so vast a difference made with only a few flicks of a paintbrush.
"How did you do that? I mean, how did you know to do exactly what you did?"
He gave her a quick smile over his shoulder. "I can't tell you how I knew to do it," he said as he continued to work, using a different brush this time, and another color, touching up the underside of a branch of a tree. "I just did. But I couldn't see it before, until I got that new perspective."
"Backward?" she asked, intrigued. "In the mirror?"
"Yes. It's a trick I once saw my teacher use. I couldn't see what he saw when he did it, but I knew there was something going wrong with this, and I thought it wouldn't hurt to try it. When I saw it reflected, I saw that it was in the bird itself where the soul of the painting must lie. I had thought I could achieve it purely through the anger of the water, the menace of the sky."
"But you did," she said, walking away from him, so that she could no longer see the painting, but could see his face. She sat on the one chair the room offered, curling her legs up beside her, watching him paint. She forgot that she didn't want to be fascinated by him. She forgot everything but being there with him, watching his large, competent hand holding the brush with such delicacy. The intensity of his eyes, shadowed by his heavy dark brows, was thrilling to see—as long as it was directed toward his work and in no way threatening her. His mouth was firm and chiseled, held straight as he
worked, but now and then twisting to one side or the other as if he was considering something. He bit his lower lip, tilted his head, then shot a sidelong glance at her, telling her that he hadn't forgotten her presence. "I did what?"
She hadn't wanted him to talk, to notice her. She wanted to watch him work for the rest of the night, the week, her life. . . . She brought her thoughts to a quick halt and said, "You made the threat so real it almost terrified me, made me feel as if I were under attack. Until I saw the mouse, and then when I did, I wanted it to be safe. I thought it was."
He looked startled and pleased as he turned to face her fully. "You saw that? I thought the mouse was a detail that the viewer would become aware of only slowly, after seeing the menace."
"I saw the menace first, believe me. It wasn't until I looked more closely that I saw what was being menaced. And now . . . now that you've changed it ..." Her voice trailed away, and he thought she was too polite to say what she really felt.
"Now that I've changed it . . . what?" he asked softly, leaving the painting. He crouched before her, his hands on the arms of the wicker chair, his eyes intent on hers. "Do you like it better the way it is now? Or the way it was then?"
She felt, for just a moment, like a mouse, and wished she had a leaf to hide under.
"Now," she said in a faintly tremulous voice, "I can see that the eagle knows where the mouse is, and is just. . . waiting, and ..."
"And?"
"And the eagle is going to swoop at any moment."
Cal heard the quaver in her voice and noticed that her breathing was slightly ragged. He noticed, too, that crazy little pulse in her throat.
"You don't want it to?" he asked. Her answer, he knew, was of great importance, that they weren't just talking about a painting now.
She shook her head, and he held his breath as golden fire shot from her hair into his eyes, dazzling him. "I. . . don't know," she said. "Part of me wants it to. And part of me fears for the mouse."
"If I told you there was nothing to fear?" he asked, dropping one hand to where her feet were tucked up beside her. He covered them with the warmth of his clasp and still felt her shiver.
Her laugh was breathless. "Nothing to fear? The mouse is going to be devoured."
He smiled. "But what if the mouse recognizes that as its . . . destiny? What if it wants what is going to happen because it knows it will go on to another, maybe better, plane of existence?"
"You're getting too—too metaphysical for me."
His chuckle was warm, as warm as the hand on her feet. "You'd prefer me to get physical, instead?"
"No." She said the word, but there was so little conviction in her voice that neither of them gave it much credence.
"Why not? What if I told you that you, like the mouse, have nothing to fear?"
B.J. drew in a sharp breath. What was he doing? Why was he stroking her ankle like that? It was as bad—no, worse—than when he'd touched her face and neck when they'd kissed. And just as good. "Maybe I wouldn't be able to believe you," she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze.
"Why not?" he said again.
"Because you, like the eagle, are a predator." His hand encircled one of her ankles, and he pulled gently, drawing her foot out to rest on his knee. Reaching out a long arm, he plucked a clean paintbrush from a nearby shelf, then stroked its feather-soft tip from her arch to her toes.
"Predators have needs," he murmured. He lifted her foot and placed his lips on the toes he had just stroked. Glancing up at her wide, startled eyes, he said, "I wanted to do that today, when you came over to my side of the argument with Laura. I want to tell you how much that meant."
She licked her lips. "You . . . thanked me quite nicely then."
He lightly brushed her instep with those soft bristles, then followed up with a strong, steady pressure of his fingers. She felt heat begin to rise in delicate spirals all the way up her leg to the top of her thigh. It took up residence in the lower part of her belly and she quivered, her toes curling on his thigh.
"Cal. . ."
The brush made tiny circles as it traced a path up her calf, flicked in behind her knee, and then approached the hem of her robe. "What?" He didn't look at her, intent on following the trail of the paintbrush up her leg.
"Stop." It was a hoarse little sound, and at that, he did look up, his eyes unsmiling, dark, hungry.
He reversed the brush, and reversed its direction, drawing the pointed handle from her thigh back to her foot, slowly, teasingly, right out to the tip of her big toe. Gently, he placed her foot on the floor and she lowered the other one to cross over it, rubbing, trying to negate the tingling sensations that continued to race across her skin.
He sat back on his heels, letting his hands dangle between his knees, the brush swaying from side to side as he held it between finger and thumb. Then, smiling at her, he got to his feet and held out a hand to help her up. For a moment they stood close together. She felt the heat emanating from his body, saw the hunger in his eyes, and knew that he must be reading the same in hers. Her cheeks were flushed, and she wished her skin didn't always betray her so.
How had it happened? she wondered. Where had it sprung from, this mutual wanting of theirs? And where would it lead? With just a look, just a touch, he could make her crave things she knew she was better off not having. Not when wanting them meant needing him in order to get them. If this was what falling in love was all about, then she wasn't certain she wanted to go on with it.
"Cal ... I think I'd better go."
"Please, not yet," he said, and caught her upper arms in those large, competent hands. They held her, she thought dimly, as delicately as they held a paintbrush, but then her thinking apparatus went completely on the fritz because he was kissing her.
The warmth of his lips overwhelmed her, beguiled her, and she parted hers for the inquiring tip of his tongue, her senses filled with him. There it was again, that scent, that taste, and she wanted desperately to know what it was because it was his. She ached to be closer to him, to press her body to his, because maybe, her whirling mind thought, in greater closeness she would be able to name what was just on the edge of her consciousness. A delicious, quivery, wonderful feeling stole over her as she lifted her hands and placed them on his bare chest, running them up the narrow strip of silky hair that widened toward his collarbone.
The hard jut of one pebblelike nipple came under the tip of her finger, and she pressed experimentally, feeling him shudder in response. His mouth hardened over hers as his hands tightened on her arms, holding her back from him. She ached deep inside, wanting to be closer, but he continued to hold her away, keeping her several tantalizing inches from the full embrace she yearned for. When she felt one of his knees brush between hers, sliding in at the hem of her robe, she swayed, rubbing her burning skin against the smooth denim. He caught her against him, bending her head back as his arms swept fully around her. At the strength of his embrace, she moaned, and he lifted his head at once.
"I did it again," he said hoarsely. "I said I wouldn't do that, and yet I did. Twice. And I hurt you."
She shook her head, breathing out a soft denial, but she couldn't look at him. Her chest was heaving and her heart hurt with the force of its hammering, but he hadn't caused her any pain. Except by breaking that kiss so abruptly.
"We were both . . . involved in it," she said.
"Involved? That's a good choice of word. When I touch you, something primitive happens to me." He captured her arms again, his thumbs making little circles on the sleeves of her robe. "Total involvement." Within the confines of the heavy terry cloth, her nipples were as taut as if those thumbs were circling there. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his face and just looked.
"Ah, B.J."
Cal drew her tightly against him, rocking her from side to side, and tangled one hand in the back of her hair. He smiled into her eyes and saw hunger there, but fear, too. He suspected it was the same kind of fear he felt; fear that maybe this was too big, to
o unmanageable. If he had any sense, he'd get her out of his life before it was too late, but he didn't think he could stop what was happening, or that he wanted to. The intensity of what she could make him feel was foreign to him, yet even though he knew he should proceed with caution, the very unfamiliarity of it made him want to explore it to the end.
So why was he standing here, looking at her, and not embarking on that exploration? Because there was something about B.J. that warned him she wasn't as sophisticated as most women at the age of thirty. A woman with her looks must have attracted men like nectar did bees, but she didn't act like a woman who knew how to handle such attentions. Nor did she kiss as if she had spent the last ten years or so exchanging embraces with willing men. Why it was so, how it could be so, eluded him, but long ago he'd learned to listen to his instincts. Right now they were screaming at him, Go easy!
Only, how could he, when he wanted her so much? But he wanted, also, to reassure her.
"You're afraid of me, I think," he said, sliding his hand around her cheek as he gazed into those blue, blue eyes. "Don't be, B.J. I'm not the predator you think I am."
She met his gaze, a tiny, forced smile curving her lips. "Aren't you? I think you are."
Though he shook his head in denial, he knew that in many ways her assessment was true. Or had been, once. But that was a long time ago. He liked to think he'd not only learned discretion, but had acquired patience and a lot more integrity since the days of his youthful excesses.
"All right," he said finally. "I guess I sometimes acted like a predator in the past. Or maybe I simply took what was freely offered and didn't look any further. I don't really know. I've never analyzed it. I just know that things are . . . different now."
"Why?" she asked. The tinge of bitterness in her tone made him frown. "Why should anything be different this time?"
Judy Gill Page 8
