Yeah, she didn’t know what to do with that either. She didn’t know what to do with any of it and she didn’t mind admitting that facing him again after what had happened was going to be a problem.
Leaving the rest of her coffee, Grace pushed herself away from the counter. She really needed to go do something, such as start that last damn canvas, and to hell with the fact that she didn’t know what she was going to paint. Maybe she just needed to get some paint on there, see what happened.
Or you could go and look at that sketch of him you did yesterday.
“No,” she said aloud, just in case her stupid subconscious didn’t hear. “No, I’m not going to do that.” The last thing she needed was to feed the fire burning inside her, and she had a feeling that mooning around over that picture would make everything worse.
Draw him again. You want to.
Her hand closed in a fist, her nails digging into her palm, trying to ease the itch. No, she wasn’t going to do that either, because again that wasn’t helping. Maybe she should go stand in front of that picture of Griffin again, look at him. Remind herself of what she’d wanted when she was finally old enough to escape her father’s reach: safety and stability. A person who would simply love her for who she was and didn’t run her down or criticize her constantly. A person who let her do her own thing and who was supportive of her as an artist. That’s what she’d wanted when she’d first come to New York and that’s what she wanted now, even though she’d lost Griffin.
What she didn’t want was a man like Lucas. Cold on the outside, burning hot inside. Controlling. Arrogant. Demanding. There were aspects of him that were so like her father it wasn’t funny, and there was no way she was going to associate herself with a man like that again in a hurry. Basically, Lucas was the antithesis of everything she was looking for in life.
Why do you want him so badly then?
She had no idea. Maybe what she felt wasn’t desire. Maybe she’d mistaken those feelings for something else. Easy enough to do when you’d never felt them before, after all. And he was such a goddamn irritating man that maybe it was simply dislike she felt for him. Yeah, perhaps that’s all it was and she was getting all het up over nothing.
Liar.
At that moment, the sound of the elevator chiming came from down the end of the long gallery of the living area, and every muscle in Grace’s body tensed.
He was back. Which meant she was going to have to face him, talk to him. Ugh, she’d probably have to look at him too and she really didn’t want to do that. Alternatively she could just avoid him.…
Now you’re not only a liar, you’re a coward as well.
Shit.
Well, if she was going to escape upstairs she was going to have to come out of the kitchen anyway, so there was no point putting it off.
Straightening, she took a breath, then walked out into the living area.
And stopped.
Down the other end of the long gallery was Lucas. In a suit. The dark color was the perfect foil for his short blond hair, while the tailoring set off his height, his broad shoulders, and his lean waist. He wore a plain white business shirt with it, but it was the tie that pulled everything together: It was exactly the same silver-blue as his eyes.
His long fingers were pulling at it as if the thing were strangling him, even though the expression on his face was the same as it always was. Hard. Cold. Except she knew for certain now that expression was a mask he wore.
A mask to hide the heat of the man beneath it.
Her breath caught, her pulse beginning to ratchet up.
His gaze came instantly to hers, his fingers pausing at the knot of his tie.
For a second something leapt in those fascinating eyes of his; then it was gone, leaving nothing but a rime of silver frost.
He said nothing, taking a step back and slowly sitting down on the white sectional sofa that stood before the great rose window stretching above him. Then he leaned back, putting one arm along the back of the sofa, the other resting on one powerful thigh. A relaxed posture, and yet there was nothing relaxed about him. He didn’t stop looking at her, ice glittering in his eyes.
She wanted to draw him like this. Sitting relaxed, every line of his body still, yet the tension around him so tight it was like he was going to explode into movement at any second. Ice in his gaze and yet, beneath that, a deep, burning blue.
Where the fuck was her pencil and pad? Where had she left them?
“Can I draw you?” she burst out, all her earlier awkwardness at facing him dropping away. “Please? Another ten minutes, that’s all. I promise.”
Didn’t you want to avoid him?
Yeah, she did, so why the hell she was now wanting to draw him she had no idea. Sometimes the demands of her creativity were incredibly inconvenient.
Once again, Lucas said nothing.
She didn’t wait, though, racing upstairs to grab her pencil and pad from the nightstand in her bedroom, then racing back down again. He hadn’t moved, sitting exactly as she’d left him, that intense gaze of his fixed to hers.
Grabbing a cushion off one of the nearby armchairs, Grace flung it down on the floor and sat on it cross-legged, her pad on her knees. And began.
As soon as her pencil moved across the paper she knew why she was drawing him. Because it was easier to look at him when she was creating, easier to push the feelings she didn’t understand to one side and concentrate on capturing what she wanted in the sketch.
Because maybe if she kept on drawing him those hungry, intense feelings would be sated and finally go the hell away.
A dense, heavy silence fell that he made no move to break, and neither did she. Which was better, wasn’t it? Sure, she liked to talk when she was drawing, but now all she could think about was how grateful she was for the silence.
But it wasn’t a comfortable one. Not at all.
The minutes ticked by and Grace lost herself in the drawing in front of her, trying to capture the contrasts of him. His intensity. That razor-sharp quality that always surrounded him and all that lean, coiled strength.
Except … something wasn’t quite right. She was trying to capture the duality of him, the differences between his relaxed pose and the edges of all the ice she saw in his gaze, yet he didn’t look quite as relaxed as she wanted him to be.
What was the problem? Was it the tie? He’d been pulling at it earlier. Maybe if it was undone that would help, and also the top couple of buttons of his shirt.
“Can you undo your tie?” Her voice sounded strange in the heavy silence of the room, almost like an intrusion. She could feel herself flushing, much to her annoyance.
Lucas stayed exactly where he was. “Why?”
A shiver rippled over her skin, though she tried to ignore it. “Because I think it would help with the pose.”
He tilted his head, keeping that flat, cold stare on her. It was dark outside, but the light from the streetlights outside filtered through the stained glass and cast colors over his stunningly beautiful features.
“You do it then,” he said without inflection.
Grace blinked, the shiver becoming a sharp, electric thrill. “What do you mean?”
“I mean if you want my tie undone then you’ll have to undo it yourself.” Again there was no expression at all in the words and none on his face either. But the atmosphere had changed, electricity seething in the air between them.
Grace couldn’t breathe all of a sudden, the intense hunger inside her stretching out, lazy and hot. All she knew was that she didn’t want to go over there. Didn’t want to get anywhere near him, because if she did … God, she had no idea what would happen.
She swallowed. “Why? Can’t you do it yourself?”
He didn’t reply, merely raised one blond brow.
There was no mistaking that look; it was a challenge, pure and simple.
Her heartbeat thumped loudly in her head, deafening her. Why did he want her to undo his tie? What was he getting out of i
t? Yesterday it had been like he was angry with her, demanding what it was that she’d done to him as if she’d done whatever it was on purpose, and then he’d told her nothing was going to happen. So what the hell was this about?
Part of her was very tempted to gather up her pencil and pad and retreat upstairs, leave him to his exasperating silence. Yet another part of her simply couldn’t leave that challenge unanswered.
It would be a mistake.
Possibly it would. But then maybe this might be supposed to make her uncomfortable, make her stop drawing and retreat, chase her away somehow. If that was the case then there was no way she could let that happen. She couldn’t let him win. She wouldn’t.
“Fine,” she said instead. “I’ll undo your damn tie.” And she put down her pad and pencil. Rose from her cushion. Moved over to the couch where he sat, her heartbeat getting louder and louder the closer she got to him, until she was standing right in front of him.
He didn’t look away, not for one second, his gaze like a sword running straight through her, stealing any breath remaining in her lungs, which wasn’t much. So cold and yet … was that anger she saw there? If so, why was he angry? Was it this situation with her or was it something else? Perhaps it had something to do with wherever he’d been to today, which clearly had been business related given the suit.
“Don’t speak.” His voice sounded flat. “If you’re going to undo my tie do it now, because I’m not going to give you another chance.”
Her curiosity twisted and briefly she debated pushing him about what he’d been up to. Then she decided it wasn’t worth the effort, not given he might get up and leave, which would be intensely annoying, since she hadn’t finished her drawing yet.
He was sitting back against the couch, making her have to lean over him in order to start undoing his tie, and she thought he might sit forward to make it easier for her, but he didn’t. He sat there, motionless, his long, hard body stretched out beneath her. And it didn’t seem to matter that he was fully clothed, covered in crisp cotton and expertly tailored wool, she could still feel the heat of him radiating outward and into her. It made her breath catch and her hands shake as she reached for his tie, fumbling with the knot, trying not to brush against the smooth golden skin of his throat.
She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze and maybe that was cowardly of her, but she just couldn’t do it. She could feel the pressure of it, though, as if she were fathoms deep under the ocean, with the entire weight of the sea pressing down on her.
“When I was five I burned my house down,” Lucas said suddenly, each word clear and precise and cold as crystal. “A neighbor was going to pass on one of their kids’ old bikes to me, but my mother refused because she didn’t like taking charity. So I took my father’s cigarette lighter and set fire to the curtains in my room, because I was so angry with her. Then I ran out into the street and hid. I came out when I heard the sirens, and when I got to my house it was on fire, the whole thing burning.…” He paused and she realized she’d stopped trying to unknot the tie, barely aware of the cool silk beneath her fingertips. “They died,” he went on. “My mother and my father, and since they had no other relatives, I had to go into care. I went to a boys home, which is where I found Sullivan and Wolf.”
The blue silk of his tie was an intense color, with a sheen of silver. Though maybe that was the tears in her eyes.
“Lucas,” she began, his name all husky.
“Keep going.”
No denying that was an order, issued in that same hard, flat voice, and since she had no idea why he was telling her this or even what to say herself, she obeyed. This time the silk slid easily and she was able to get the knot undone, pulling it away from his throat, exposing the pulse that beat just beneath the surface of his skin.
She could smell him, that fresh scent along with a note of something warmer and muskier underneath it, making her want to bend and put her mouth right there. Taste his skin. It was shocking to her, since she’d never, ever wanted to do that to a man before. But God, she wanted to do it to him.
Lucas remained very, very still, and as she watched, the beat of that pulse remained slow and steady. As if her nearness affected him not at all. It made her want to do … something to make it go faster, to push at him, make him as uncomfortable as she was, but after what he’d told her …
“I was adopted by Noah Tate when I was six and he took Wolf and Van and me out to his ranch in Wyoming.” Lucas’s gaze was a relentless, implacable blue. “He was a strict father and I clashed with him a lot. When I was thirteen I wanted him to buy me this new rifle developed by DS Corp. It was top-of-the-line and I was good at marksmanship already by that stage, and wanted a gun that was equal to my skills. But Dad said no. DS Corp was his enemy’s company and he flatly refused.”
She kept her gaze on Lucas’s throat, trying not to breathe. Trying not to inhale that delicious scent of his. Trying not to ask all the questions that were suddenly in her head, because he was going somewhere with this and she wanted to know where that was.
Instead she watched his pulse, steady and sure. And it didn’t falter, not even when she lifted her hands to undo the top button of his shirt.
“I was angry with him,” Lucas went on inexorably. “I loved shooting targets and he was always on us to improve our gun skills. The weapon was perfect for me, and even though it was expensive, he could afford it. I even offered to save up for it myself and buy it when I had the money, but he said no. So I found a box of matches and I took it out the back of one of the stable buildings, along with a couple of Dad’s favorite shirts and his hunting knife, and I lit them all on fire.”
She had to look at him then and she felt the impact of his gaze shudder through her, like she’d been hit over the head with a bat. Because all that heat inside him was blazing, as bright as the fires he kept lighting.
“The fire caught the stable building.” His words were hard and cold, little pellets of ice like hail. “There were horses inside and they must have smelled the smoke, because they got frightened, started screaming. I tried to put out the fire myself, but I couldn’t. It was too big and too hungry.” He didn’t even blink, staring straight at her. “I panicked and ran to get Dad and luckily they managed to get the horses out before they burned. But they couldn’t save the stables. After that, Dad told me that if I didn’t learn to control myself he was going to have to send me back to the orphanage. He said I was dangerous, volatile. That I had to learn how to distance myself, be detached, or else I might kill someone else one day.”
Grace froze, unable to move. Unable to look away from the ferocity in his eyes. Her throat felt tight, a weight sitting heavy on her chest as if every word he’d spoken were a stone and all those stones were piled on top of her.
Had he told Griffin any of this? But she had a feeling she already knew the answer to that. No, he hadn’t.
Unable to bear it, she tore her gaze away, staring down at the second button on his shirt. Just two and then she’d leave him alone. His skin was so close to her fingertips, so achingly close …
“Why are you telling me all of this?” she asked when he didn’t speak.
There was a moment’s silence.
“So you know why I said what I did yesterday. So you understand that I can’t give you what you want, Grace. I can’t ever give you what you want.”
The words went down her back like a bolt of electricity and she lifted her gaze to his abruptly. “What makes you think I want anything from you at all?”
“The way you’re looking at me. The way your hands are shaking right now, and the fact that your breathing is fast.” The intensity of that blue stare was inescapable. “I know when a woman wants me, Grace. And you want me. Badly.”
* * *
Anger lit in her eyes, he watched it bloom like the flames he’d once been fascinated with. Like the fire he’d once played with because it was beautiful. Because when he was a child it looked like the emotion that burned inside h
im too, hot and bright and alive.
But fire killed, as he of all people should know.
Christ, she was so fucking close to him, leaning over him, her hair drifting over her shoulders and glowing all the colors of the sunset. She was wearing that turquoise tunic today, the one that should have cooled her and didn’t. The color only seemed to make her blaze even brighter.
Her amber eyes glowed, and he could still feel the heat from her fingertips, brushing so near to his bare skin and yet not quite touching. It made every muscle in his body gather tight against the need to reach out and bury his hands in that soft, silky hair, pull her down, and cover her wide, sensual mouth with his.
But he wasn’t going to. And now she knew why.
He didn’t like to tell his secrets to anyone—not even his brothers knew that he’d been the one to light the stable fire. They didn’t know he’d burned down his family’s house and killed his parents either. Noah had only known because he’d had Lucas’s background investigated, but Lucas had never told his adoptive father himself.
Detachment. Distance. Control. That was how he’d lived his life after what had happened at the stables and he was happier for it. The wild swings of inexplicable emotion dampened, rage and pain and guilt blunted, muted. He didn’t need those emotions anyway, and as for joy and happiness, well, they were overrated. Desire, though, that was different. That was harder to get a handle on, but he was trying.
He had no time to be distracted from his mission and especially not after what had happened today, when he and Van and Wolf had dealt with the board at Tate Oil and then, afterwards, the unexpected arrival of Van and their adoptive sister, Chloe, at Leo’s Alehouse. Lucas hadn’t even known Chloe was in New York, but it turned out that Van had brought her here from the ranch in Wyoming. Apparently, their father’s enemy, Cesare de Santis, was after her for some reason and the Tate mansion on the Upper East Side was compromised, which meant Van needed to take her somewhere to hide her. The situation was serious, so Lucas had offered them his own SoHo apartment, since he was here with Grace. Van had been grateful, which in turn had reminded Lucas of the seriousness of his own situation too. Of the danger to Grace and how he really needed to get a handle on it. Deal with it, and fast, because the longer it went on, the longer he was going to have to remain here with her. The longer he was going to have to manage the intensity of the chemistry between them.
The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance Page 12
