“I am intrigued by your work, Faith. I was drawn up here but I got here and realized it was a mistake. I knew this was your private domain and I—”
“A liar is not a better shade for you than fear, Nick Rogers. No. Tiger. Because that’s who you are.” She grabs the easel, struggling with it, and I move toward her, but before I can get to her, she’s flung it around until it lands in the space left between us. My gaze lands on the painting of myself, and I suck in air, a reaction I’m not sure I’ve had more than a few times in my life.
“Do you know why I painted that, Tiger? Because I was trying to figure out why I want to trust you but can’t.”
THE PAINTING OF ME LAYS between Faith and I, our eyes meeting, hers still alight with anger and betrayal. And I want to call her reaction over the top, but she clearly senses I came to her without pure motives. “Faith,” I begin, and for once in my life I’m not even sure how I’m going to finish the sentence. But I never get the chance.
“Leave,” she orders, her voice as strong as her evident will. “I want you to leave.”
I reject her demand not in words she won’t hear, but actions. I’m around that painting before she can blink twice, pulling her against me, all her damn soft, fuckable, perfect curves pressed to my body. “You want to know me? Look into my eyes, Faith. See what’s there, not what you choose to paint.”
Her hand settles on my chest, elbow stiff. “You are such an asshole, Tiger. You are—”
“I know what you think of me,” I say, cupping the back of her head. “But I don’t accept it anymore.” I lower my head and kiss her, licking into her mouth, the taste of anger and the betrayal I’d seen in her eyes on her lips, and it guts me. I am betraying her, and I have no way out of where I’ve gone, or why I can’t tell her the truth. “And my name is not Tiger,” I say, tearing my mouth from hers. “I’m Nick to you, Faith.”
“You had no right to come up here, Tiger. You had no right—”
“You’re right,” I say. “I was wrong, Faith, but I swear to you, I didn’t look at any of your paintings.”
“Liar.”
She’s right. I am. Just not about this. “I didn’t look.”
“The best liars are the best actors.”
That play on Beck’s words hits a nerve that I reject like her command for me to leave, cupping her face. “I didn’t look at your work, Faith,” I say again, and because I won’t lie where I don’t have to lie, I add, “But I wanted to. And I wanted to because I too want to know who you are. I want to know your secrets. I want to know what the hell you are doing to me that no other woman has done.”
“You barely know me.”
“But I want to. That’s the point.”
“You are—”
“Obsessed with you,” I say, and this time when my mouth closes down on hers, I let her taste those words on my tongue. I let her taste my hunger for her. I let her taste how much I want her and how much I don’t want to want her, and yet, how high I am on this addiction. Maybe it’s the forbidden. Maybe it’s her. I don’t know. And in this moment, I don’t care. And this time, she doesn’t either. She answers every unspoken word I deliver on my tongue with conflicted need.
I pull her shirt over her head, and I have her bra off in seconds, touching her breasts, teasing her nipples, my mouth devouring her mouth. And her hands, talented, gifted hands, are pressed under my shirt, burning me where they caress my skin. I unbutton her pants, fully intending to strip her naked. “Your meeting,” she pants out, grabbing my hand.
I pull back to look at her. “Are you actually thinking of my meeting right now?”
“Yes,” she murmurs. “But with regret.”
“I moved it to two,” I say, scooping her up and carrying her toward the office, my steps tracking a path that doesn’t stop until we’re at that oversized chair where I sit her down.
I’m on a knee in front of her in an instant, and we’re both removing her boots with hurried hands. The minute I’m over that obstacle, I pull her to her feet, unzipping her pants. My lips on her belly and the male in me, the man who is obsessed with every inch of this woman, revels in the trembling that quakes her body.
I pull down her pants, panties as well, wrapping my arm around her waist, before tugging them away. One hand at her hip, the other cupping her sex, two fingers sliding into her wet heat, where I press them inside her, a tease I quickly remove. She moans in protest, and I stand up, cupping her face again, and swallowing that tormented, delicious sound.
“Hurry,” she pleads, reaching for my pants. “I need—”
I kiss her again. “I need,” I murmur, reaching into my pocket for the last condom I have there, but come up dry. I search the other. I’ve got nothing and her hand has just made its way into my jeans and into my underwear, her fingers wrapping my cock with delicious pressure.
I reach down and cover her hand with mine. “The last condom I had fell out somewhere.”
She pulls back to look at me. “Oh,” she says, regrettably easing from my body.
My hands go to her waist, eyes raking over her naked breasts, before I promise, “We’ll improvise.”
“I have one,” she says. “I have a condom. A birthday prank at work. They said I—it doesn’t matter. It’s here.” She slips around me, and hurries to the desk, naked, beautiful and suddenly pulling the papers I’d shot photos of from a drawer, flinging them on top of the desk. And as hot and hard as I am, I can think of one thing in this moment. She has zero concern about something in those files exposing a secret or a lie. And I feel her actions as both a relief and a punch of guilt. “I can’t find it,” she announces, pressing her hands to the desk, her head lowered, long blonde hair draping her shoulders. Her back arches, backside in the air. Her beautiful body is exposed, but there is so much more of herself she’s showing to me right now without knowing. “This is wrong on so many levels.”
I move toward her and turn her to me, hands shackling her waist. “Back to improvising.”
“I’m on the pill,” she announces. “I stayed on despite Macom—okay. Why did I just say his damnable name?” She presses her head to my shoulder and raises it again. “I know you probably don’t want to without one and I shouldn’t, but I just—”
I kiss her, and no, I do not have sex without a condom. Not ever. But there is trust in what she just offered me that I have not given her. And the sweet taste of her tongue on my tongue is now a part of my new obsession, as is her body pressed to mine, and her—just her—I forget the condom. I forget everything but touching her, kissing her, and then there is that moment that I end up on the chair but she slips away, kneeling at my feet.
“My turn,” she says, yanking at my boot and if the woman wants my boots off, they’re coming off.