If I Were You(Inside Out 01)

Chapter Sixteen

Description: butterfly

Chris has just set plates and two bottles of water on the table when a strange buzzing sound fills the room. I frown. “What was that?”
“My version of a doorbell,” he says with a boyish grin that is a complete contrast to the dark, edgy man who has just done wonderfully wicked things to me. “If a visitor manages to get past the elevator code, I still have to let them in from this side.”
“That can’t be the pizza, can it? They called about ten minutes ago.” He glances at his watch and the thick silver and black leather design has become somehow erotic to me.
“Right at ten minutes,” he confirms. “But I’m guessing they gambled and made my usual before they called me.” He pushes to his feet, running strong hands down his legs.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I ask, and stand up.
He motions to a door beside the fireplace and heads to the elevator. I watch him, trying to imagine how I’d react as a female delivery person if Chris answered the door, or elevator, with no shirt on. His tattoo. I never thought I was a tats kind of girl but his are hot, maybe the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. Or maybe Chris is simply the man who hits all my hot buttons.
He punches in a code in the panel by the elevator and I can’t see if there is a blushing female inside, but I do hear Jacob’s voice and Chris’s sexy rumble of laughter. The sound does funny things to my chest, the kind of funny feeling attached to unwelcome emotions. Oh boy. Don’t go there, Sara. Don’t start falling for Chris. This is an escape from reality.
He turns and heads back toward me, two pizza boxes in his hands, and all I can think of is being pressed against the window with him doing naughty things to me. I amend my prior thought. He absolutely hits all my hot buttons times ten. I refuse to clutter up a good thing with emotions and thoughts of tomorrow. When I was in this man’s arms, he pushed my limits and left no room for anything but what he was making me feel. I am instantly hungry and pizza isn’t what I crave. It’s him, and a desire to feel what he made me feel not so long ago.
He lifts the boxes in his hands. “They brought us two. If you’re going to the bathroom, go now. Trust me. It’s the best pizza on the planet when it’s scorching hot.”
I grin. “On the planet?”
“You bet, sweetheart, and I’ve done a lot of eating in Italy.”
Laughing, I quickly scurry away, and dart into a spare bathroom where I flip on the light to reveal a room so luxurious it makes my master bath look like a porta potty. The darn thing even has a sunken tub. Out of the blue, my chest tightens and I lean against the door, forgetting my hunger and my urgency. This life, Chris’s life, the expensive everything around me, was my life when I was growing up, and I’m apparently having a rare flashback to the past. A part of me misses the girly things like a fancy bathtub, soaps, and perfumes, but I quickly remind myself, there’d been a price for those things. Chris is a different story. He earned this life, he owns it and deserves it, and I know my desire to do the same has the Riptide ‘carrot’, as Chris had called it, enticing me. It’s my chance to ‘earn it’, or a tiny piece of this life Chris lives, myself.
I shake off my thoughts and quickly use the bathroom and wash up, checking myself in the mirror in the process. My lips are bare and swollen and my brown hair a wild mess. Not surprisingly, I look thoroughly f*cked, but remarkably better than I remember looking in a long time. F*cked. Not made love to. I smile into the mirror. I like the freedom this new me is experiencing. It’s sexy. He’s sexy. I feel sexier than I have felt in my entire life.
“Hurry, woman!” Chris shouts out and I laugh and exit the bathroom.
“Why do women do hurry so poorly?” he asks, as I join him on the couch.
“Why do men do impatient so well?” I counter, and my nostrils flare with the wonderful scent of baked bread, spices, and tomato sauce.
“Because you teach us impatience.”
I snort. “Like you men are teachable? I don’t think so.”
He opens the lid of one of the boxes and the cheese is bubbly and yummy looking. “That looks and smells so good. I’m not even going to be embarrassed to let you see how much pizza I can put back.”
He offers me a plate and I happily fill it will a large slice. “You don’t look like you can put down more than a slice or two.”
“Obviously, you know the right things to say to a girl, especially after she’s, ah, been naked.” I smile, less embarrassed with this man than seems possible considering his hot, famous, status. “But I assure you I can.” I take a bite and moan. “Oh…hmm.”
“Good, right?” he asks, and takes a bite of his own slice.
“So good,” I agree, snatching a napkin from the roll he’s set on the coffee table. “I’ll be jogging a few extra miles this week but it will be worth it.”
“You’re a runner?”
“It’s my cardio of choice and I can do it at home. I’m not much into group activities and I hate the gym crowd.”
“There’s a private gym on the fourth floor. It’s one of the reasons I picked the building.”
“You have the whole floor. I’m shocked you don’t have a gym here.”
“I use the space for my studio which I’ll show you when we finish eating.”
I’m going to see Chris Merit’s studio and I am reminded of what a superstar is. “You don’t act like a famous person.”
“I don’t think of myself as a famous person.”
I finish my pizza and set the plate down, my hunger curbed enough to find him far more interesting. I pull one leg onto the couch. “But you are. You have to know you are.”
He shrugs and grabs another slice of pizza for both of us. “I’m just me.” He hands me my plate.
Absently, I accept the pizza. “You are one of the youngest, most successful living painters in the world. You’re brilliant, Chris.”
“And because I know you truly admire my work, that matters to me. Believe me, there are plenty of people who want to be close to you for the wrong reasons when you’re in the spotlight.”
I take a bite of my pizza and consider him. He’s already reaching for another slice. I’m still considering him when he takes a bite.
He arches a brow at my attentiveness. “What are you looking at me like that for?”
“You don’t like people to know you’re famous.”
“I don’t go around announcing it.”
My brows knit together as I start to piece together something. Or I think I do. “Wait. Do you intentionally use your father’s photo for public forums?”
A slow smile slides onto his lips and he disposes of his plate and motions to the box. “More?”
I set my plate on the table. “Not yet. You didn’t answer my question.”
He turns to face me, his leg on the couch as well, and scrubs his jaw, looking busted. “Yes. I’ve been known to slip in his photo here or there.” He winks. “Fooled you, didn’t I?”
“Your father looks like he’s in his forties in the photo. I assumed you’d aged poorly.”
“In other words, I fooled you.”
I purse my lips and concede. “You fooled me.”
We stare at each other and our lighthearted mood shifts, the air thickening with the mutual attraction our hot window encounter has done nothing but sate and everything to expand.
Sitting here, studying him, I’ve officially confirmed in my mind what I’d thought earlier. While I don’t doubt Chris really is lighthearted and fun, it’s not effortless either. He buries whatever he doesn’t want me to know about. This man is far more than he appears to be on the surface and the glimpses beneath intrigue me.
My gaze drops to his arm, to the red, blue, and yellow of the dragon tattoo. I scoot closer to him, and my leg presses to his, sending an instant charge over my skin.
I swallow hard, and I reach out, letting my fingers caress the dragon design. His muscles flex under my touch and it is incredibly powerful to think I might be affecting him.
Slowly, my gaze lifts to his, and his is hot coals with simmering embers. “It’s very…sexy.” I’m surprised at how easily I say the words. I suck at flirting but there is something different about me with this man.
“I’m glad you think so.”
My palm glides down his forearm and he catches my hand in his, as if he doesn’t want to break the connection. “Why a dragon?”
“It represents power and wealth, two things as a very young man I knew I wanted.”
“And you wanted money and power at such a young age?”
“Yes.”
I want to ask why, but it feels too probing. “And now?”
“I have those things and with them comes security.”
I think of how he’d used that power with Mark, about the darker side I’ve seen of him tonight. He does like power, not in the abstract way Mark does, but he owns it in his own right.
“My first paintings were dragons. They’re in my personal collection. I never sold any of them, or even tried.”
“Here?” I ask eagerly. “I’d love to see them.”
“Paris.”
“Oh.” Of course. Paris is his true home. I glance at his arm again. “The artist is quite talented.”
“She is.”
My chest tightens. A woman who he let create art on his body, who seems to have inspired him to create some of his own.
Gently, he brushes hair behind my ear, and I barely contain a shiver. “What do you want to know?” he asks.
About her. I want to know about here. “You’ll tell me what you want me to know.”
Surprise flickers in his eyes. “You are never quite what I expect, Sara McMillan.”
“Neither are you.”
His voice softens. “The tattoo artist was someone who got me through a hard time.”
I’m holding my breath, and I don’t know why.
“She’s the past,” he adds. “You’re right now.”
Air trickles slowly from my lips. I think he means this as a good thing but the words ‘right now’ don’t sit well. I have no clue why they bother me or why my stomach has knotted up. Right now is all that matters. I’m thinking too much. I don’t want to think. I climb onto his lap and he shifts to sit with his back against the couch. Boldly, I straddle him, my hands on his shoulders.
“I’m here now. What are you going to do with me?”
For several seconds he sits there. He doesn’t touch me. Tension radiates off of him, seeps into me. He doesn’t react and I begin to feel self-conscious for the first time all night.
Suddenly, the fingers of one of his hands curl around my neck and he pulls my mouth near his. “Do you know what happens when you push a Dragon? They burn you alive, baby. You’re playing with fire.”
My fingers curl on his cheek and all self-consciousness is gone, forgotten. “I’m not afraid of whatever you’re talking about. I think you keep warning me away because you’re the one who’s afraid.”
His fingers knot in my hair and I gasp at the unexpected bite of his grip, holding me steady. “Is that all you got?” I demand, shocked at how much I want more. How much I want whatever is beneath his surface. I’m not scared. I’m aroused. I’m ready.
His eyes probe mine, his expression hard, intense. “I thought you were a good little school teacher.”
“You’re corrupting me,” I declare, “and I seem to like it.” I barely issue the challenge before he’s pulling my mouth to his, and he is kissing me with unrestrained, burning passion. I taste the part of him I want to know, the part he’s afraid of, and I burn to know more. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am playing with fire, but I cannot stop myself. Beyond reason, I will push him until he reveals everything.