Page 12 of By Firelight

He cupped her breast, making her whimper. “Are you sure?”

His gentle tug on her nipple nearly made her cave. She ached to feel his hands on her bare skin. “I’m sure,” she said, trembling and hot. Lord help her when he finally decided to make love to her in earnest.

He eased back, allowing her to sit up. She tried to shift away, but he pulled her close. “No distance,” he muttered.

They sat, twined in each other’s arms while their breathing steadied. Maddy probed, unsure if he would volunteer anything on his own. “Tell me about your marriage.”

He sighed. “I’m thirty-five years old. It all seems like so long ago.”

“I’d like to hear about it,” she said softly.

“She was my girlfriend in college. Right before we graduated she told me she was pregnant. I did the honorable thing and married her.”

“But she wasn’t?”

“Nope.”

“Did she lie on purpose?”

“Yeah. She admitted it later. I was angry and she was remorseful. We tried to put it behind us. We had been friends for a long time, and we did have physical attraction going for us.”

“But you didn’t love her.”

“No,” he said quietly. “Not really.”

“So when did you divorce?”

“I ended up working as an investment broker. Turns out I was pretty good at it. I made other people and myself a pile of money. But one day it started to bore me. The thrill of winning was gone, and I told Jillian I wanted to see if I could paint.”

“Did you have any artistic background?”

“I took art classes in high school . . . wanted to major in it at college, but my dad was pretty skewed in his thinking. He thought all artists were flaming homosexuals. So I played football and baseball, and I went to college with his money and I majored in business.”

“Then what happened?”

“When I quit the firm, Jillian and I split. She hadn’t signed on to be the wife of a reclusive artist. She liked the trappings of my job and the endless flow of money. She was angry. That was when it ended, eight years ago. I have three galleries in Virginia and one in D.C. I’ve done okay.”

“Has it been everything you thought it would be?”

“Yes and no. I’ve been unsettled lately, wondering if I should go back to my old job part time—not for the money, but for the challenge. Apparently I have this whole left brain/right brain split, and I’m needing to feed the other side for awhile. Or maybe I’m just getting stale.”

“Was that why you came up here? To think?”

“Yep.” He squeezed her. “And look what I got instead.”

She choked out a laugh when he hit a ticklish spot between her ribs. “I resent the implication that you can’t think with me around,” she said primly.

“Oh, you make me think,” he said, sliding his hand between her thighs. “But it’s mostly with my cock and not with my brain.”

The pressure of his finger on the center seam of her jeans made her crazy. “Is this foreplay or torture?” she asked, panting slightly as she twisted to get a better angle. He seemed to be getting way too much enjoyment out of making her beg.

His teeth raked the shell of her ear, sending shivers down her spine. “I was thinking of it as foreplay, but torture could be fun, too.”

She had a sudden flash of being tied up and at his mercy, and she groaned.

He shifted their bodies until she was flat on her back and he was half on top of her. The heavy ridge of his erection pressed her hip. He found her mouth, no teasing this time. His tongue thrust deep, mimicking the ultimate goal.

She felt herself melting in a million different ways. Nothing had ever felt this good. Nothing ever would.

He nuzzled the sensitive skin beneath her ear, his breath hot, his whisper unsteady. “There’s only one thing I want almost as much as I want to make love to you,” he said, his large body trembling.

“What?” she cried softly. “What?”

He pulled back just enough for their eyes to meet, hers cloudy and unfocused, his hot and determined. “I want to paint you . . . in the nude.”

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