by Skye Warren
Tears fill her eyes. “Is that where you were tonight? Avery said you got a call.”
I turn toward the stars. “You should go to sleep.”
A soft touch on my arm. “You’re the one who needs rest. I’m not sure when you get the time. You’re taking care of strangers like the whole weight of the city rests on your shoulders.”
“Are you going to try and psychoanalyze me?” A coarse laugh. “I should warn you it might take a few years to get through this rat’s nest inside my head. And it won’t be pretty.”
Her voice floats in the darkness. “I’m not trying to psychoanalyze you. But I’m here if you want to talk. Or close your eyes for a few minutes. You deserve a moment of peace.”
I give her a sharp glance, trying to ignore how beautiful her face looks gilded in moonlight, how ephemeral she seems in the shadows. “What if I tell you finding the bishop will bring me peace?”
A rueful smile. “Then I’d say you were lying.”
Christ. I hate that she’s right. She may not be trying to psychoanalyze me, but she’s somehow managed to hit upon the truth. Nothing about my revenge mission makes me feel calm. Only furious. It could be that taking care of someone like that is an intimacy that goes both ways. While she was half-conscious she was collecting information about me; she knows me as well as I know her.
Dark eyes search mine. There’s urgency and concern. “You don’t want the piece back, really. You want the person who… you want the person who told me to get it. Why?”
“Doesn’t matter. What matters is that I find them.”
“How do you know it’s not me? I could have wanted the chess piece for myself.”
“Not likely.” I give her a glance, acknowledging the last time we stood side by side. We were in the Den, looking at a painting then. Now we’re standing in front of the sky. Both of them dark, both mysterious. Both beautiful. “You haven’t spared a single glance at the chess set on the table. It’s worth a small fortune. A birthday present from Gabriel to Avery.”
She glances back at the unassuming set of carved ivory pieces. “That one?” Her tone is doubtful.
“A collector would know that it comes from India in the 1700s. A historian might know that it was owned by Phillip Stamma, the man who invented notation. He’s carved them right onto the board. Whereas you’re far more interested in that painting over there.”
There’s art tucked into a few different pockets of the room, even some stained glass framed in the window, but she knows immediately which piece I’m talking about. “It’s not a print, is it? That’s a real Harper St. Claire. Look at the eyes. You can see it.”
“Avery’s friends with her.”
Her mouth drops open, which shouldn’t look so adorable. My hardened criminal is awe-struck at the idea of knowing a contemporary painter. Would she be equally impressed if I told her that I’d actually gone to a Christmas party at the penthouse apartment Harper St. Claire shares with her fiancé? She’d given me a white metal lunchbox with the words Human Organ for Transplant in red block letters.
She steps closer to examine the painting, which features a Valkyrie in full headdress and armor carrying a pile of textbooks as she closes her locker in a typical high school hallway. It’s more of a sketch, not the large-scale statement paintings she’s known for. Only a true fan would recognize the artist.
In fact it’s possible even a true fan wouldn’t recognize it. I cock my head, considering the young woman standing in front of me. It’s hard for me to reconcile the different pieces of her. The sexy temptress from the Den. The stealthy criminal who penetrated Damon’s defenses. The vulnerable young woman in front of me, more excited by something torn out of a sketchbook than by a thirty-thousand-dollar chess set.
“You’re an artist,” I say slowly. “The artist. N. Lhuirs. That’s you.”
She doesn’t move. I can’t see her face from where I stand, but I can picture the surprise, maybe even the embarrassment of being caught. The fear.
I grasp her wrist gently and turn her to face me. There’s the fear I didn’t want to see. Maybe a hint of pride. That more than anything makes the blood pump heavily in my veins. A million different facets of one woman, like a diamond turning in the dark. This is the one that makes me hard—the artist who wants to paint more than anything else.
“Does it really matter?”
“That’s how you got into the preview party. You weren’t on the invite list. No one could tell me your name, like you were goddamn Cinderella. Only the valet remembered someone showing up in a cab, strange because no one takes a yellow car if they can take their Bentley.”
She looks down, but I tilt her head up. I want those dark eyes. I want those black swaths of paint overlaid with gold. They’re shimmering with tears. “I said it would never work, submitting my paintings for the auction. What do a bunch of rich people want with my work? But they said they’d consider them, and Damon Scott approved them to be included. And I kept thinking, why couldn’t this be real? Why couldn’t I really sell my paintings instead of doing it just to steal?”
Fear shines as strong as the stars above us. “What did he do to you?”
The night holds its breath while she looks at me. Darkness and light collide. There’s a trust so deep between us that it feels strange that I ever doubted it, that I asked Gabriel about it. It’s as real as the floor beneath my feet. As real as the soft touch of her skin. A dark lock of her hair falls across her olive-toned forehead. I move to brush it away, and she flinches—as if I were going to hit her.
It’s an alarm bell clanging. It shatters the moment, the trust. Whatever she might have been about to tell me evaporates into the night. She looks sideways at the chess set. “Do you play?”
“Yes.”
“I never learned. It was strictly checkers for me. Maybe a little tic tac toe.”
“Do you want to learn?”
“The truth is I’m not really book smart. I always feel better when I have a paintbrush in my hand.” She gives a small laugh. “Still life. Portraits. I’ll do it all, but I like abstract stuff the best. You were right when you said I was one of those. Who thinks art can mean anything.”
“My mother lost the ability to read, but she could still play.”
There’s curiosity in her expression, but she doesn’t ask. “Can you show me?”
A small wrought-iron table holds the wooden board. Two matching chairs are on opposite sides. I pull out one of the chairs for Natalie, glad that she’ll be sitting. She should really be resting, but I don’t have the heart to make her go back to bed. I’m too selfish to send her away. “The pawns,” I say, pointing to the row of small pieces forming the front row. “They can only move forward. Mostly one step. Two, if it’s the first time it’s moved.”
She taps the tallest piece. “This one’s the king. I know their names, but that’s about it.”
I pick up the bishop, which in this set is a rather plain dome. “He wasn’t always a bishop. He started as an elephant, like one you’d use in battle. In France he became a jester. In Italy, the one who holds the flag. Those two prongs at the top meant different things to every culture.”
“So many different sides of one piece.”
Different sides? Strange. I always thought of him being replaced in each culture. A new piece, instead of the same one being shown in different lights. It reminds me of the woman sitting in front of me, the different facets that form the single gemstone.
“In the European feudal structure he became a bishop. And the piece you took? That was the very first one in recorded history. It was found on a hill in what’s now Scotland.”
“The first one?”
“There’s some dispute about which country created him. Naturally Scotland wants credit, but there’s some evidence it came over from Norway. Ireland makes some noise about it. Then again, the map looked a little different in medieval times.”
“How did your family come to have it?”
“It was my
mother’s. She came from a family with money, but she never wanted dresses or diamonds. This was what they got her instead. Ancient chess pieces and a doctor’s degree. Trinkets, really, for a spoiled heiress. They were shocked when she actually wanted to practice medicine. The bishops were the only thing she took when she left home.”
“Bishops?” Her eyes go wide.
Of course she’d notice that slip. Then again, her surprise does look genuine. Who the hell is pulling the strings here? “Yes, there were two. A perfect pair.”
She picks up the bishop opposite mine. Her thumb rubs over the dull wood grain in almost a caress. I feel it acutely over my own skin. Heat. Desire. I don’t want to play chess with her. I don’t want to think right now. I want to feel.
“Natalie,” I say, and my voice has dropped an octave.
Her gaze meets mine, and the spark in her dark eyes shows she recognizes my tone. The way her body shifts shows she isn’t immune. Her finger rubs over the piece again—that small point of her finger running along smooth carved wood. “Yes?”
“Take me to bed.”
“Is that a request or an order?”
“I’m damn near begging.”
She looks away, and I can feel her longing like a physical pull. “Is this for the bishop? Or whatever you’re after with this auction? Like payment since you didn’t get the money?”
Hell. There are only a few loops of iron between us, a few feet of wood, but it’s too much. I shove the whole table aside. The screen resounds in the small space. Then I’m dragging her into my arms. This close I can smell more than antiseptic and memory. This close I can smell arousal. “This is because I want you. And because you want me. Fuck anything else.”
Doubt darkens her gaze. I realize it’s not me who’s the barrier to trust in this relationship. It’s her and the demons who haunt her. I had parents who loved each other. Our family was full of pain, but it had laughter, too. Feeling her worry, her pain makes me want to punch something. Someone. Whoever it is that made her steal the chess piece.
Was he her lover? Her brother? Either way, he hurt her. Made her do this instead of painting.
Which means she’s mine now.
I’m going to make sure she attends the next auction as a featured guest, instead of sneaking through security on a loophole. I’m going to make sure Damon makes a whole goddamn showcase for her work.
Later.
Right now I lead her downstairs to her room. I shut the door behind us, because I need to lose myself in her soft skin and sweet understanding. I need to lose myself in the salt of her body.
Chapter Twelve
Natalie
The conservatory held a kind of magic, as if anything were possible—as if he and I were equals without impossible barriers between us. Once I follow him down to my room, everything changes. Reality’s waiting for me, in the form of his searching gaze and doctor’s hands reaching for my chin. He wants to examine me, and after days of feeling sick, I’m tired of it.
I bat his hand away. “I’m fine.”
A raised blond eyebrow calls me a liar. “You don’t want me to touch you?”
“No,” I say, reveling in the power he gives me. “I want to touch you.”
He pauses, and I have the sense that he wants to tell me no. He wants the control. Deliberation. Weighing. He’s judging the value of my demand as surely as those patrons examined the pieces for auction. Finally he opens his hands. “Then touch me.”
It’s not precisely inviting, the way he stands there watching me—almost daring me to change my mind. Not precisely inviting the way he’s fully clothed. Maybe if I were still on campus, worried about my latest piece or my grades, I might have lost the nerve. This is another world. Another planet. I’m on Mars, where women steal priceless chess pieces and men capture them for it.
In this foreign place I can take what I need.
I place my hands on his chest, first, flush against his crisp shirt. There’s a faint scent coming from it—antiseptic or something medicinal. It’s a reminder of the violence he saw tonight. A reminder of what he is: a healer, first and foremost. That healer’s heart beats steady beneath my hands.
Deep breath. I undo a single button. Then another.
Soon a white undershirt is the only thing keeping his chest from my sight.
I pull up the dress shirt along with it—except he’s way too tall. I stand there awkwardly, holding it up, not nearly close enough to get it over his head. After a pause, almost as if he wants to emphasize the difference in our sizes, he takes it off himself.
His chest is broad and scarred like a warrior. I trace the line of muscles across his shoulder and over his pecs. My finger brushes the flat of his nipple, and his abs tense. Those rigid lines draw my attention, and I walk two fingers down the ladder. “You’re strong,” I say, feeling almost sad about it. He’s beautiful, like a caged white tiger in a zoo. “It’s because of the chess piece, isn’t it? Because of who you’re looking for? That’s why you keep in such good shape.”
He lifts one shoulder. “The places I practice medicine, they aren’t clinics on the upper east side. I don’t work in shiny hospitals where everyone has insurance.”
In other words, even his work is dangerous.
“Tan,” I say, touching the burnished skin along his arm. “And white.” The place where his waist tapers is pale, not exposed to the sun. Blond hairs on his stomach point down, where dress pants block my view. Be brave, Natalie. You started this. I undo his pants with shaking hands.
His own hands twitch at his sides, as if he’s struggling to let me do it. I don’t think this man cedes control very often. The idea lends me strength—this is hard for me, but it’s hard for him, too.
And then his pants are off. His briefs go with them.
I’m looking at a cock so engorged it looks like pain. The bulbous head is reddish, flushed with arousal, the tip glistening. “I’d paint you white and beige,” I whisper, my gaze flicking to his icy eyes. “And blue, of course. Then there’d be these faint streaks of red, almost hard to pick out, hard to identify, but there, part of you, anger and violence and passion.”
His cock jumps at the last word, and I suck in a breath. “Natalie,” he says, his voice low like it was in the conservatory.
“Yes?” I say, remembering the way he watched me touch the bishop, the way I stroked my finger over the ridges to tease him. I’m not powerless here.
“I’m going to take you now. Tell me no before it’s too late.”
No? I run my finger down his abs, over the flat beneath them, until they touch the pale fur at his groin. Then I stroke his cock—still using only a single finger—more a tease than an attempt to pleasure. “Too late for what?”
The tendons in his neck stand out. “I’m not going to be gentle. You have to understand, whatever you think about me, I’m not gentle. I’m not going to take you soft. The way I feel about you now, I’m putting my cock inside you, and I’m not leaving until I’ve come two, three—no, not until I’ve come four times.”
My breathing quickens, and I feel a clench between my legs. It shouldn’t be so appealing, the idea of being taken without regard for my own pleasure. “What if it hurts?”
He throws his head back, baring his teeth. “Of course it’s going to hurt. You’re small and weakened from your attack, and I’m a goddamn rutting animal. It will tear you apart.”
A squeeze, hard, deep inside my sex. “Please.”
Am I begging him to stop? Or to start? I don’t know anymore. He doesn’t either. “Hell.”
A goddamn rutting animal. Maybe that’s what all of us are, when it comes to something as primal as sex. It doesn’t matter what I saw when we’re both reduced to our core beings. I lean forward and press my nose against his chest, breathing in the Anders scent, feeling his chest hair tickle my nose.
And then, very carefully, I bite his muscle.
An intake of breath. A growl, unmistakable, that sends shivers up my spine.
My mouth falls open, and I rock my hips in helpless request.
He gives me what I need—a single thrust, hard enough to obliterate all thought from my head. The chess piece doesn’t exist. The fading bruises never happened. Nothing matters except the wedge of hot male flesh inside my body. I look down and realize with dazed surprise that I’m almost fully dressed, wearing only a loose sundress. It’s a stark contrast to the muscled nakedness of this man. A stark contrast to the last time he touched me, wearing a dress shirt and slacks while I was in the bath.
There’s something wild about being dressed like this when he fucks me, when he shoves himself inside me, as if he’s an ancient Nordic warrior, a Viking come to plunder me.
He moves faster and faster. It’s all I can do to cling to his broad shoulders.
“I need—I need—”
“I know what you need,” he says, his eyes blazing with certainty.
And then he’s pushing me up some invisible hill, almost dragging me against my will toward orgasm. I don’t know why I would fight it, except that it’s too fast, and this is too hard, and I’m spinning out of control with his body holding me open, unable to do anything but surrender. He shifts the angle, fucking upward, and his cock touches some place inside me that feels like a live wire. I scream as the climax blinds me, and he roars as his cock pulses inside me, claiming me but also giving in, spilling his seed in a messy, slick slide.
I pant against his shoulder, my mouth open, tears of shock slipping down my cheeks.
“You okay?” he asks gruffly, brushing a tear with his thumb.
“Yes. Just. A lot.” I pant the words, but he seems to make sense of them.
