I park and I’ve just killed the engine when there is a knock on my window. I roll it down to find Josh in view, his dark hair trimmed neatly as always, his handsome face clean shaven. “They’re waiting on you to make announcements.”
“Oh no. Oh God. I shouldn’t have taken the photos tonight.” I click the locks and he immediately opens the door, offering me his hand. I snag my purse and flatten my palm in his, struck by how good looking he is in his tuxedo, and how unaffected I am by his touch, even before I’m standing and under the full impact of his dark brown eyes giving me a once over. “You are stunning, Faith Winter.” He releases me and waves a hand in the air. “I see it now. You in a bathtub on the cover of a magazine with a headline: sexy, successful and talented.” He doesn’t give me time to reply. He shuts my car door and snags my arm. “Let’s go.”
I double step to keep up. “I’m never going to be naked on a magazine.”
“Not if you keep smashing grapes instead of painting.”
My heart sinks. “You hated the photos. You think I lost my touch.”
He stops walking and settles his hands on my arms. “They’re magnificent like you are. Go in there and be a painter because I don’t represent wine makers.”
The door opens and a woman steps outside. “Josh. Now.”
“Let’s do this,” Josh says, taking my hand and leading me into chaos. There are greetings and handshakes and before I know it, I’m sitting in a chair on a spotlighted stage with two other artists I don’t know but admire on either side of me, the gallery around us in darkness, the crowd standing around us.
“Welcome all,” the announcer says, from the podium in front of us. “As you know, we have three new artists to introduce you to tonight, but because I know you are all anxious to see the Chris Merit release, I want to explain how this works. We’ll unveil the painting in exactly one hour. Highest bidder wins and all proceeds, one hundred percent, are donated to the Children’s Hospital. In the meantime, we have our three featured artists here tonight. They will be donating twenty percent of all sales tonight as well to the Children’s Hospital. Please visit them in the crowd tonight. Please visit their displays and our many others.” He has each of us stand and after a few more words the lights come up. I stand and look left to find Josh waiting for me at the steps, but something intense, something familiar compels me to look right, and I suck in air. Nick Rogers is standing there, looking like dirty, sexy, delicious lust in a tuxedo.
I DON’T LIE. I MEANT that when I said it to Faith earlier today.
She does intrigue me and the reasons are many. For starters, I like a challenge and she is that, both in character and physical perfection. She doesn’t look like a killer, but rather a beautiful woman, who is somehow delicate and strong at the same time. She doesn’t smell like a killer, but rather like the garden where I’d first touched her. She doesn’t even read like a killer on paper, but then I knew that when I sought her out. And right now, standing on the stage, staring at me, stunningly beautiful in a blue dress, I vow to know her body as well as her mind, vowing to feel every curve that dress hugs, of which she has many next to me before this night is over. Right after I find out if she tastes like the killer, and enemy, I still, regretfully, suspect her to be.
I watch now as she recovers from the surprise of my appearance, the shell-shocked look on her heart-shaped face fading, her composure sliding back into place, remarkably fast. She walks toward me, grace in her steps, those long legs of hers peeking out from the slit in her dress, teasing the fuck out of my cock in the process. Legs I want wrapped around my hips, but not before I’ve licked every last inch of them and her. She stops at the edge of the stage, at the top of the stairs while I’m at the bottom, those full, lush lips of hers painted a pale pink, subtle and yet beautiful, the way she uses a brush on a canvas. She’s talented, gifted as few are, and capable of making a living on her own, without involvement in blackmailing my father or killing him.
“You look beautiful,” I say, and I allow my desire for this woman to radiate in the deep rasp of my voice. “You are beautiful.”
To my surprise, her cheeks flush red, shyness in the lowering of her lashes, as she says, “Thank you,” and once again proves she’s a contradiction, a beautiful, complicated fucking contradiction that I have to understand. But I’m adding another level of complication of my own that I want to understand.
I take the bottom step, leaving only two between us and offer her my hand. She looks at it and then me, and when those green eyes lock on mine, the connection delivering a punch in my chest. I’d revel in how alive this woman makes me feel, in how much I want to fuck her, if I didn’t think there was a ninety percent chance that she’s a blackmailer and a killer, but the facts are clear. Her chin lifts defiantly, but she offers me submission, settling her palm on mine, her eyes flickering with the contact. My cock twitching with the contact. Her hand slides against mine, delicate and small, and I close mine around hers.
“Free will,” I say. “Exactly what I wanted from you.”
“I didn’t want to make a scene,” she counters, allowing me to walk her down the stairs, to stand at the side of the stage.
“That’s a coy response,” I accuse, daring to settle my hand on her slender waist, pleased when her hand settles on my arm, rather than pushing me away. “It’s beneath you,” I accuse.
“You’re right,” she surprises me by saying. “It was coy and I don’t do coy. Your touching me because I let you.”
“That’s true,” I say. “You are letting me. Why?”
“Because you touching me is better than you not touching me.”
Heat courses through my veins, perhaps because I’m playing a dangerous game with a beautiful woman who might just kill me, too. Or perhaps simply because I want Faith Winter in a way I don’t remember wanting anyone in a very long time.
“How are you even here?” she asks. “The tickets were sold out.”
“I know Chris Merit.”
“Of course you do.”
I arch a brow. “What does that mean?”
“You seem to know everyone or they know you.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“It’s not.”
And yet, I can almost hear that wall of hers slam down between us. I step closer to her, my free hand settling on her waist as well. “What just happened?”
“Nothing that matters.”
“And if I think it does?”
“Then I’ll rephrase. Nothing that I plan on explaining.”
“I don’t like secrets.”
“It’s not a secret just because someone doesn’t choose to share it with you,” she says. “It’s simply that person’s right to privacy. Besides. You want me naked. That doesn’t require deep conversation.”
“I didn’t say I wanted you naked,” I counter. “I said I want you stripped bare and not just exposed. Willingly exposed. The two are vastly different.”