“You’re an arrogant son of a bitch,” Grace said, her lovely mouth flattening.
He ignored that, ignored the way his body was hardening in response to her nearness and that delicious, faintly apple scent. “And you’re a liar.”
Her gaze flickered and she straightened, drawing away from him. The movement pulled the silky fabric of her tunic tightly across her breasts, outlining the hard points of her nipples. Another giveaway.
“Not that it matters” he added. “I simply want you to be clear.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then her gaze dropped to the open neck of his shirt. Slowly, she leaned over him again, more deliberate this time, her hair a scented curtain around them. Christ, what did she wash her hair with? It smelled of apples too.
You’re thinking about the way her hair smells? What the fuck is wrong with you?
“Thanks for telling me all of that.” She lifted those long, cool fingers, taking the cotton of his shirt between them. “And I’m sorry about your family. That must have been terrible, and I’m sorry about your foster father too.” She slid the button out and he felt the electricity of her touch as her finger grazed lightly against the bare skin of his throat. It was the merest brush, yet he felt it move like lightning through him.
Her breath caught, the delicate flush in her cheeks deepening, making her freckles stand out. She hadn’t meant to touch him, it was clear, yet when her gaze lifted to his there was nothing but challenge in her amber eyes. “But all of that doesn’t give you the right to assume you know jack shit about me or what I want.”
There was a roaring in his ears, his heart rate beginning to climb. She was leaning against his knees, her long, willowy body stretched out over his, and all it would take would be a small nudge and he’d have her over his lap. Then he’d take her down onto her back on the couch, crush her beneath him …
Jesus Christ, he was cold. And she was so fucking hot.
He stared back at her, unmoving, looking into her eyes because he couldn’t bring himself to look away, reading challenge in them loud and clear.
Ah, yes. Like he’d challenged her to undo his tie, now she was giving that same challenge back to him. Fuck, what did she think he was going to do? Run away? Didn’t she know that a man like him would always answer a challenge like that? And he’d fucking win too.
Yeah, and you should stop fucking panicking too. This is a test, remember? You’re a goddamn SEAL. If the test isn’t hard maybe you should join the Army instead.
That was true. Also, he wasn’t thirteen anymore, battling a rage that seemed to have no end, a rage that didn’t have anything to do with the gun he’d been denied but something else. Something he didn’t understand and didn’t have a name for.
He was stronger now. He’d been in perfect control of himself for years. He’d been on missions that had broken lesser men, and this woman, the widow of his best friend, wasn’t going to make him lose it no matter how warm and elegant, no matter how smart or fascinating or downright desirable, she’d become to him.
He’d never been a weak man and he wasn’t about to start now.
A test.… Time to make this test harder.
Lucas didn’t say anything. Instead, keeping his gaze on hers, he lifted his hand, moving slowly so she could see what he was doing. With extreme deliberation, he pushed his fingers into her hair, curling them around the back of her fragile, beautifully shaped skull. The red-gold locks were as soft and silky as he’d imagined they’d be, softer even, and warm against his palm.
Her mouth opened soundlessly, her eyes going wide in shock.
She hadn’t expected this, clearly.
Excellent. This would be a test for her too.
Keeping one hand on the back of her head, Lucas gently skimmed one finger across her cheekbone. She didn’t speak, her breathing getting faster and faster, her small gasps audible in the dense silence of the apartment. Her eyes had gone black, only a thin rim of gold around the outside of them.
She looked … exposed, the vivid, compelling planes and angles of her face vulnerable.
Who else got to see her like this? Griffin, obviously, but Lucas was betting no one else ever had. Only him. The thought was vaguely satisfying.
He held her darkened gaze with his as he tightened his fingers on the back of her neck, drawing her down with aching slowness until at last—at last—her mouth was on his.
Electricity ran the entire length of his body, looking for a place to ground itself and finding nowhere, and it was only through sheer force of will that he managed to hold on to his control. To resist the urge to ravage that soft, vulnerable mouth, pull her to the floor, and get inside her any way he could.
His heart was racing and refused to slow, none of his usual exercises were working, the beat of it loud and insistent in his head. But he didn’t stop what he was doing. He’d had harder tests than this in his training. One soft mouth wasn’t going to get the better of him.
And it was soft. So fucking soft. And trembling slightly.
He began to explore the seam of her lips with his tongue. Gently, with care. Coaxing her to open to him.
She shook, a husky noise escaping the back of her throat as her mouth opened gradually to him.
So much heat. She tasted like coffee and something else, something sweet, and that heat was roaring up inside him, like a smoldering fire bursting into life with a breath of wind. No, scratch that. This was like someone had poured gasoline directly onto an open flame, turning it white-hot, bright and consuming.
If this is a test you’re failing it.
No, he fucking wasn’t. He could control this and he would.
Lucas made himself go very still, every muscle in his body tight, trying to force his heartbeat to slow the fuck down. At the same time, he began to kiss her with deliberate slowness, pushing his tongue into her mouth and exploring deeper, letting the flavor of her go straight to his head.
Testing himself. Testing her.
She trembled again, one hand coming down on the back of the couch near his shoulder while she put the other on the arm, as if she needed to lean against something for balance. But she didn’t pull away, her mouth open and so damn sweet, and her hair was like the softest silk thread. She was leaning into him now, her body pressing against his legs, and the warm, musky smell of her was making his head swim. Then she touched her tongue to his, tentatively, as if she had no idea how to kiss, and he knew if this went on any longer he was going to fail this test, and spectacularly.
He began to pull away, gripping the back of her head when she tried to follow, holding her still until there was space between them and he was staring up into her eyes. They were smoky and dark, her cheeks deeply flushed, and she looked half-dazed. Her mouth was full and red and all he could think about was pulling her back down and kissing her again, harder, deeper.
But he didn’t.
“Tell me again you don’t want me, Grace,” he said instead.
She stared at him, her breathing fast and shallow, and he could feel how she was shaking under his hand. Shock crossed her face and then a bright flash of pain.
Then before he could move, she jerked herself away from him and turned, fleeing the length of the room and disappearing up the stairs.
Lucas didn’t go after her. He remained exactly where he was, his body tight, his cock hard as a fucking steel bar. It was a shitty thing to do to use a kiss like that against her, to merely prove a point, but there was no other way to do it. To test himself and her.
Of course she wanted him, and now he’d proved that to her. He’d also proved that his control was as rock solid as it ever had been. Sure, she pushed it, but he was master of himself. He could handle it.
He should have felt good about that, about passing his own little test, but he didn’t. He felt like shit.
You shouldn’t have used her. And now you’ve made the whole situation worse.
Maybe he had. Still, it had to be done. And now since he’d had a tast
e of her, perhaps he could concentrate on what he was supposed to be doing, which was finding out which assholes were after her and taking them out.
It all sounded good, but it was a long time before he got himself to move.
And the taste of her lingered in his head even longer.
He had a horrible feeling it wasn’t ever going to go away.
CHAPTER NINE
Grace stood in front of her painting of Griffin, tears slipping down her cheeks, a thousand and one different emotions all tangling inside her and not a single one making any sense. Except maybe the grief and the guilt, she could understand those, but the anger? The regret and the hurt and the disappointment? No, she didn’t get why she felt those.
She was alone in the apartment—again—but she didn’t mind that. She didn’t want to see Lucas or be around Lucas. She didn’t even want to hear Lucas.
If he was gone he could stay gone, because she’d decided that she hated him. Quite literally hated him.
That kiss he’d given her had hurt in ways she’d never expected, a hurt that she was still feeling even now, a day later as she stood in front of the canvas of her husband.
A husband who’d never kissed her the way Lucas had kissed her. Who’d never made her aware of how hungry she was. Who’d never made her realize what she’d been missing all this time. Who’d never made her burn.
But she’d burned yesterday and she’d burned for Lucas. He’d been the one who’d made her realize what had been missing from her marriage. He’d been the one who’d made her hungry. And that’s why she’d decided she hated him.
She hadn’t wanted to know any of those things. Hadn’t wanted to feel any of those feelings. She’d been quite happy thinking of herself as relatively nonsexual, a woman who was much happier putting all her emotions and her passion into creating. She wasn’t like her father, whose bitterness and anger at his artistic failure had played out in a string of affairs that her mother turned a complete blind eye to.
Yet the moment Lucas’s mouth had touched hers, she’d been shown just what all those lovely little justifications were: lies.
He’d kissed her so slowly, so carefully. Tasting her like she was a fine wine, waking every sense she had into full aching awareness of what her body wanted, no matter what her head told her. Making her understand fully the depths of her own inexperience. Ripping away the comforting veil that she’d drawn over her own hungers and the relationship she’d had with Griffin. Showing her how completely different this was and, worse, what she’d been missing out on all this time.
What she’d been hungry for, for years, and yet never knowing.
Not to mention demonstrating how completely unprepared she was to handle a man like him.
Another tear rolled down her cheek, but she made no effort to brush it away.
Yeah, she hated him for showing her all these things. And most especially she was angry with him for turning all that intensity into a point he was proving, exposing her own desire for him, and making her run from the room like a scared virgin.
Asshole. Prick.
She didn’t even know why she was crying, because she sure as hell didn’t want to.
He showed you what you wanted. And then he took it away.
Yes, he had. He’d shown her everything in that deliberate, cold way, even as his mouth had give her a taste of the burning heat he kept so contained inside him. Made her realize how completely he saw through all her lies and her justifications, and that he knew she wanted him. Had recognized it even before she’d fully admitted it to herself, making her feel exposed and vulnerable. As if he’d been rummaging around in the depths of her soul while keeping himself safely locked away.
And even though he’d told her those things about himself—shocking things—she didn’t make the mistake of thinking those were confessions or that they’d been given to her as precious secrets. No, they’d been all part of his point.
Not that she wanted his secrets anyway, asshole.
On the canvas in front of her, Griffin stared into the mirror, his mouth lifted in that achingly familiar lopsided smile. Sharing a joke. She was starting to think that maybe the joke was on her.
Abruptly she wished she had someone to talk to about this. Someone she could pour her heart out to or who could give her some advice. But she didn’t. She had friends, but they weren’t particularly close, and now her grandparents were dead, the only other family she had was her mother. And she hadn’t spoken to her for years.
Did you ever have anyone to talk to?
That was a good question. Once, before he’d become mired in bitterness and anger, she used to tell her father everything. Back when she’d been small and his paintings had been selling and she’d still been his precious little girl. And after that had all gone bad and she’d left home before he could take out that bitterness on her with his fists, she’d been able to talk to Griffin. It had been part of the reason she’d been drawn to him, because he’d listened to her the way her father used to. But now Griffin was gone.…
She sniffed and belatedly wiped the tears away, trying to ignore the sudden sense of loneliness and the exhausted wrung-out feeling. She hadn’t slept much the night before, tossing and turning in her bed, and right now the thought of taking a nap seemed like the perfect idea.
Except that blank canvas was still blank and she only had another week and a bit to go before her exhibition and if she didn’t start soon she was never going to finish. And she was still stuck inside, in this damn apartment, unable to go out because of the choices her dead husband had made.
And because of Lucas Fucking Tate.
The anger that the tears had dampened flickered back into life, smoldering sullenly, getting hotter, leaping higher.
Her jaw tightened, her hands curling into fists. She turned sharply away from Griffin’s painting and went to stand in front of the blank canvas instead, staring fiercely at it, her anger simmering like a pot of hot water on a stove.
That miraculous light from the stained glass was lying over the expanse of white, a brilliant splash of color, and she knew in that instant exactly what she wanted to paint.
Something had always been missing from this series of paintings and she’d had difficulty pinning down exactly what it was, hoping it would come to her in the end. Now she knew.
Lucas had told her he couldn’t give her what she wanted, but he didn’t need to give it to her. She could create it for herself, pour all that sharp, raw hunger onto the canvas in front of her. Bring it to life in a way that wouldn’t involve him physically and that would finally get it out of her.
And perhaps once it was, she could finally kick this fascination with him once and for all.
Grace stalked over to the corner where she had all her art supplies and picked up a couple of brushes and a few tubes of paint. Taking them back to the canvas, she put them down, then lifted her hands to her hair and wound it in a tight knot, sticking a brush through the center of it to keep it in place. Then she picked up one of the tubes of paint.
Okay. It was time to start.
Time passed, she wasn’t aware of how long.
She painted with brushes, with sponges, and with her hands, liking to get tactile with her colors, layering one shade on top of another, sometimes blending, sometimes smudging. Pouring out the tangle of emotions inside her onto the canvas, letting the art take her where it wanted to go.
After a while, she became aware of a loud, electronic buzzing sound that rang throughout the apartment, and it took her a minute or two to remember that it was the buzzer for the front door.
Crouched down before the canvas, Grace sat back on her heels and frowned. Who the hell was at the front door? No one knew they were here.
The sound rang again, more persistent this time.
She rose to her feet, irritated at being interrupted, and picked up a rag to wipe her hands on. Then she went out of the studio and started down the stairs, getting halfway before she remembered that anyone ringin
g the buzzer on Lucas’s front door was unlikely to be anyone friendly.
Because, of course, she was currently being hunted by international arms dealers who wanted their money back.
The buzzing sound came a third time, making unease coil in her chest.
Okay, no need to panic. Lucas had told her not to let anyone in who wasn’t him, so she wouldn’t. She probably shouldn’t answer the door either. Then again, maybe it was Lucas and he couldn’t get in for some reason. The front door had a camera, though, which meant she could check to see who it was without giving away the fact that she was here at least.
The screen was in the entranceway by the elevator, the buzzing noise of the doorbell coming again as she approached. Trying to swallow past the icy knot of trepidation, Grace flicked on the screen.
A cop was standing on the doorstep.
She blinked, the knot untying itself and relief filling her. All right, so it was a cop, not some insane arms dealer bent on taking her hostage. She could cope with that.
Then that damn knot tied itself up again as she realized there was probably a reason there was a cop standing on Lucas’s doorstep and it was unlikely to be anything good.
As if on cue the cop raised his hand and pressed the button yet again, glancing up at the camera as if he knew she was watching.
Her pulse began to get faster. God, what if something had happened to Lucas? What if he was hurt or worse? What if he wasn’t coming back?
A peculiar feeling turned over inside her. Fear and a strange kind of grief, which was weird, since hadn’t she decided she hated him?
She swallowed again. Lucas had been clear with his warnings. Don’t open the door to anyone who wasn’t him. Yet this was a cop and what if something was wrong? What if Lucas had had an accident on his bike?
The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance Page 13
