by Shelby Reed
“Day six,” he said softly, a reminder to himself more than a greeting.
Sydney’s head jerked around and she uttered a breathless laugh. “Oh! The door didn’t squeak. You scared me to death.”
“Sorry.” He closed it behind him.
Today’s choice of music was Coldplay. The vague melancholia that seemed an inherent part of her persona made him smile. She was an artist through and through. And despite her current cheerfulness, she didn’t easily let go of things. Humiliation radiated from her across the studio, and he knew damn well she was thinking about what had happened on his bed that morning.
The room was chilly, the air scented with fresh paint. “How’s the ménage picture?” he asked, knowing better than to broach the subject of the latest kiss.
“It’s coming.”
When he sauntered down the ramp to take a look at it, she stepped in front of it, her cheeks flushing a faint pink. “I’m taking a break from the ménage right now. Working on something else.”
He spied a naked shoulder and knew it was his portrait, and that she felt like she’d been caught doing something taboo. A smile threatened to creep across his lips. “Need me to pose?”
“Yes.” She paused. “No. Oh, hell, I don’t know.”
Without another word, he headed to the stage, crossed his arms to grab the hem of his Henley shirt and drew it up and off, taking his T-shirt with it.
Sydney set the space heater close to the platform and returned to sit at her easel. They fell into a silent partnership as she resumed painting, she with her blue eyes darting between his form and the canvas, he standing in the simple pose she favored, drinking in her features.
“Tilt your head a little more to the left,” she said at one point.
He followed her direction. He was stiff from last night’s ménage pose, but he held perfectly still. “I’m curious about something.”
“What’s that?” Her attention dropped to his abdomen, then lower, and up again to meet his gaze.
“Posing for the ménage last night. It wasn’t what I’d thought it would be.”
She dabbed her brush in paint and applied it to the canvas. “What did you think it would be?”
“More of a threesome. But you kept me separate from Garrett and Cherise by several feet during most of the poses.”
“Not most of them. Just some.”
He didn’t reply. He was baiting her, and waited while she slowly swirled her brush in water.
“I was trying to tell a story,” she said finally, straightening. “One of a woman who’s with one man, but also of a second lover who would do anything to please her, if only the woman would reach for him.”
“Does she reach for him after your story ends?”
She glanced at him, then at the neglected ménage canvas leaning against the wall. “I think . . . she doesn’t know what to do.”
Colm climbed off the platform and wandered over to her workstation to study the painting she’d set aside. “She’s looking at me. The rejected lover.”
She turned to stare at it. “You’re—he’s—not rejected.”
“Then what is he?”
“Forbidden.”
He moved closer to her from behind until his lips were nearly against her ear, and she didn’t shy away. She sat with her back ramrod straight, but her breathing came fast and strident, the way it had that morning when she decided to kiss him.
“He’s forbidden because she feels trapped by her situation?” he asked, the words touching her silver hoop earring.
“Because . . . because she’s waiting, and I have no idea for what.”
A near-confession. The time was now. Colm’s fingers gently swept her hair behind her ear and he nuzzled her cheek, her earring, waiting for her to turn her head and meet his mouth.
“You’re going to kiss me,” she said in a low voice.
“You’re right,” he said. “Ask me to.”
“Ask me to, damn you.”
“Kiss me.”
She swiveled on her barstool to face him and nearly leaped to reach his lips, her knees bracketing his hips. He caught her around the waist and opened his mouth over hers, kissing her until she whimpered, until her palms wandered restlessly over his naked back, then his naked chest. He slid his hands under her thick hoodie and filled them with her breasts, and she didn’t stop him. She opened her knees wider, he pressed closer, pelvis to pelvis, and she touched her tongue to his, withdrew and thrust, teased and tangled with him until he slid his fingers into her hair to hold her head, to hold her still and devour her.
The sound of Mozart rang from the worktable, and the world shattered.
“Don’t,” he whispered, nipping her chin, her throat. “Damn it, Syd, don’t answer it.”
“I have to. You don’t understand what I—”
“You’re right.” He released her. “I don’t get it.”
Mozart played on like a sick joke.
She swung away from him and picked up the phone. “Max.”
Colm stalked to the cabinet, withdrew a bottle of water and guzzled it, then paced an agitated distance beyond the stage as he tried not to listen to the conversation and hated every word that reached his ears.
Sydney sounded falsely cheerful as she asked Max something about the new artist’s shows and how well the woman had been received. Then she said, “I’m working right now, but can I count on you to be home within a week?”
Her head lowered, a wave of blond hair shielding her profile as she cradled the phone close and listened. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll look for the photos tonight in my e-mail.”
After that, the conversation was polite, strained. Colm felt like he was eavesdropping on the end of a relationship. It promised double the money, but it didn’t help the ache in his chest or the hard-on in his jeans.
When she hung up, he returned to the platform, but she cleared her throat and climbed off the barstool. “I think we should stop.”
“Tired?” he asked grimly, snatching up both his shirts. “Because I sure as hell am.” The practiced gigolo in him had disappeared again, fickle bastard, and he was acting like a high schooler with blue balls.
She sighed and stuck her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. “Can we start over?”
That stopped him. He shoved his arms through his T-shirt sleeves and slowly pulled the hem down over his stomach. “What are you asking?”
“For your friendship.”
“For my . . . ?” He burst out laughing. Hell, he hadn’t seen that one coming. “Sure.” He drew on the second shirt, pushed the sleeves to his elbows, and met her in the middle of the room. “What do you really want, Sydney? Don’t lie to me. I know dishonesty when I see it.”
Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen from his kiss. All he had to do was slip an arm around her waist and pull her against him, and it would be over. He took a step closer and started to do just that, when she swallowed and said, “I want pizza.”
Colm stilled. “Are you serious?”
“Why? Did you have lunch yet?”
She was completely serious. And slamming doors faster than he could open them. His hands flexed at his sides. Screw this. “I’m not hungry.”
“You’re off until tomorrow,” she said flatly. “I’ve lost the desire to work today.”
“We’re wasting time,” he gritted out.
“I don’t care! It’s my call, and I say I’m not in the mood.”
Colm closed his eyes and tried to compose himself. “Fine. I’m going into the city.”
“Fine.”
They were both breathing fast. The mental echo of time ticking away burned a hole in him. Another afternoon off when she didn’t want him near. And God help him, he had to have her.
First, though, he had to get away from her before he ruined everything again, leaped at her and took her down like a lion with a wayward gazelle. He stalked to the door and without turning around said, “Enjoy your pizza.”
“I will
,” she shot back.
He stepped out of the studio and closed the door too firmly behind him.
* * *
Long time no see.” The woman in the wheelchair studied Colm carefully as he found a seat on the patio and took one of her hands. “When are you coming home to stay?”
Colm reached to brush back the dark hair from her forehead and smiled into her eyes. “Soon. Isn’t it too cold out here for you?”
“I love the fresh air, even though I have to fight the nurses to get my way.”
“And you win.”
“Every time.”
In the dappled sunlight, Amelia looked so much like her old self—if not for the frail frame of her body, which could no longer support her. She’d been an athlete once, played soccer in high school, then became an avid bicyclist in her early twenties. She had lived with spirit and wild, reckless joy. And Colm’s mistake, his inability to see the world beyond his own emotions, had—in the blink of an eye—cost her all that and more.
Yet she’d never shown the slightest sign of blaming him. Right now he wished she would.
They talked for a while, casual conversation about nothing in particular, where Colm gave little away and Amelia sat there with no secrets. She’d never kept secrets, even as a kid. Colm was the dark one. When they lapsed into companionable silence, he took note of the freshly fallen leaves and branches on his lawn. His brick bungalow in Silver Spring needed attention.
No, Sydney needed attention. But right now it was his sister’s turn, and with her he could breathe again.
Birds tweeted and played tag overhead; the early afternoon sun offered bone-soothing warmth from a sky the shade of Sydney’s eyes. Everything seemed bucolic, if not for the wheelchair, and Amelia’s nurse lingering just inside the kitchen’s door.
“So what’s going on, Amie?” he asked, as though everything were normal, as though she wasn’t a quadriplegic and he a prostitute, both of them having left precious normalcy in the wreckage three years ago.
“I’ve been busy,” she said. “You know, running marathons and stuff.”
“Not funny.”
“Sorry.” She paused. “I talked to someone today. You’ll never believe who.”
An odd foreboding crept along his nerves. “The president of the United States?”
“That was yesterday.”
He smiled. “I don’t know. Who?”
“Roger.”
Instantly he stiffened. Roger Hatch. The wealthy, useless coward who’d put a ring on Amelia’s finger when she was a wild beauty, then broke every promise when Amelia broke every bone. Unable to deal with the changes in her, Hatch had left her six months after the accident, and Colm had thought it would kill her. Her grief—Christ. Even now, he wanted to wrap his hands around Hatch’s neck and squeeze.
“Did you tell him to go screw himself?” he demanded.
“He’s coming over for a visit tonight, James.”
Colm shot to his feet. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I think he’s changed. He sounded so different on the phone. He—”
“Someone who abandons people doesn’t change, Amelia. I can’t believe you’d—”
“Shut up!” Her cheeks had gone pink, her thin shoulders tight. “Stop talking. I don’t want to hear it. I’m allowed to have a life, and my own friends.”
“And I’m allowed to say when I think your taste in ‘friends’ sucks!”
“No, you’re not, you asshole!”
Colm’s jaw dropped. “I’m the asshole? Hatch is the asshole.”
Before she could fire back, the French door opened and Jane, the nurse, stuck her head out. “You two okay?”
“We’re fine,” Amelia said without hesitation. “Just having a little sibling scrap.”
Jane harrumphed and shot Colm a warning glance. “Don’t scare the neighbors.”
“Shut the door, Jane,” he snapped.
She made another scolding sound, but did as he’d told her.
In the silence, Amie blew into the oral mechanism that controlled the chair and wheeled around to look at him. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Then tell that son of a bitch not to come sniffing around. He’s not welcome in my house.”
“James, just . . . please. Let’s not do this.” Tears shone in her eyes. “I don’t want us to be mad at each other.”
Ah, Christ. He couldn’t stand to see her cry. But he couldn’t help himself. “He’d better pray I don’t run into him.”
“Stop! Please stop. Let’s talk about something else. The Virginia project. Tell me about it.”
Her desperation pierced his anger. He drew a deep breath and reached to adjust the blanket the nurse had wrapped around her, mainly to give himself something to do short of punching the nearest brick wall. “It’ll end next Friday, and then I’ll be home.”
“Are you having any life at all?” she tried again with a note of forced cheer.
He was so agitated, he couldn’t think straight. Jesus—Roger Hatch? Amelia had been so devastated when the man called off the wedding. More than losing the use of her limbs, it seemed, losing Hatch had shattered her. What did he want with Amelia after three years? He was made of money; he could have any woman he wanted. Even before her injuries, Colm had never thought her relationship with Hatch was anything more than a walk on the wild side for him. The straitlaced bastard had shocked the hell out of Colm when he’d put a ring on Amelia’s finger a few weeks before the accident.
“James?” She was watching him with such anxiety, he finally swallowed his anger.
“It’s a life,” he said.
“A good one?”
Colm wanted to laugh. He moved away from her and paced the patio, dumped gathered water from the drain plate of a potted plant, and didn’t speak for a long time. Then he exhaled, and his frustration folded in on itself, shifting him back to Sydney, to what he had to do. “It’s a pain in the ass.”
“What’s her name?”
Jesus, his sister was as bad as Azure with her intuition. How did she know there was a woman?
Amelia’s long lashes blinked. She was waiting for him to spill it, and he wished he could. He wanted to tell her everything, to fall down on his knees in front of her and beg her forgiveness, beg her permission to continue on the road to damnation he’d carved from the stony terrain his life had become.
“Her name,” she repeated, dark eyes filled with humor now instead of anxiety.
“Isn’t it getting colder out here?” He zipped his jacket and reached for her wheelchair handles.
“James,” she said with as much acid as she could muster, “stop. Come down here.”
With a sigh, he knelt by her chair. The flagstone dug into his knees through his jeans, and he deserved the pain. He should be bleeding outside as well as in. “There’s nothing to say. She’s no one I should be involved with.”
“Why not?”
“She’s too good.” If Amelia knew how good, she would hate Colm as much as he hated himself.
Amelia released a huff of laughter. “When a man says a woman’s too good for him, she’d better believe him.”
“It’s almost over, and then none of it will matter anymore.”
“Except you look damned miserable.”
“It’s just the job,” he said grimly.
“Liar.” But when he gave her a hard look that said he was finished with the subject, she smirked. “What’s so bad about the job?”
“I don’t know. The guy I’m working for, to begin with.” He rose and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I need to get going.”
“You don’t want me to do your tarot cards today?”
Hell, no. Amelia had always believed in that crap, and usually Colm humored her, but lately he wasn’t in the mood to have anyone read his insides. “Not today.”
“You’ve got more darkness around you than usual,” she said. “Sit back down and let me read your aura.”
“Jesus, Amie.�
�
“Then your palm. Let me do that. I’ve been studying up on the methods—”
The nurse rescued him when she came out of the house and with a bright smile announced, “Time for a bath, Amelia.”
“Saved from the crazy woman,” Colm muttered, and darted aside when his sister lurched her chair at him.
“You two are worse than my kids,” Jane said. “Are you staying for dinner, James?”
“Not tonight. I have some work to do in the city.” He walked slowly alongside Amelia as the nurse pushed her toward the house, pulling dead leaves off plants as he went. “I’m sorry I’m gone so much right now. Take care of her, Jane.”
“You know I always do.”
He paused at the doors and lifted Amelia’s hand, studying the thin veins beneath her translucent skin. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“You didn’t yell. You spoke sharply. And you worry too much.”
He looked at her for a long time, then kissed her knuckles and laid her hand gently in her lap. “Be careful, Amie.”
“I will. It’s just a visit, nothing more. And I could use a little male company, because yours doesn’t count.” She winked at him. “Love you, James.”
At that moment, he could barely stand to hear it. He let himself out through the gate, once again bent on his mission of lies.
Chapter Thirteen
Sydney’s pulse picked up speed when Colm walked in at nine o’clock sharp the next morning and headed straight for the platform. “Did you have a nice afternoon off yesterday?” she asked with a smile, determined to return them to a place of camaraderie where no kissing, groping, or arguing had occurred.
“I did,” he said politely.
“Where did you go?”
“I went to see my sister.”
“I didn’t know she lived close by.” When he didn’t say anything, she added, “So how is she?”
“She’s fine.” He shrugged out of his jacket and stripped off his shirt, found his pose without her guidance.
The boom box sat silent as she began to paint; no Sade or Coldplay this time. She and Colm didn’t talk, but things weren’t tense between them now; he seemed to understand she needed quiet—maybe he did, too—and she was grateful for once that he might know her so well.
