Beyond Seduction (25 page)

Her lips curled into her freckled cheeks.

"Let me," he coaxed. "Let me make it up to you."

The growl was one he'd used a thousand times—suggestive, seductive—guaranteed to make a woman melt. For the first time in his life, the sound stuck in his throat.

"Let me," he whispered, and this time it was a plea.

Her eyes lifted to his, fathoms deep, a darkness into which a man could fall. Emotion trembled on their surface. He could barely swallow past the thickness of his throat. He ached to hold her, to cover that

soft pink mouth and make it sigh. Say yes, he willed her. Say yes.

"Yes," she said, and leaned in for his kiss.

*  *  *

"We can start another picture," he said. "There's no reason this one has to be the last."

Mary snuggled closer but did not answer. They lay before the library fire, clothing scattered, sweat

drying on glowing, rug-burned skin. Their coupling had been a quick, groaning thing, over too fast to

fully recollect once it was done. Mary's lightly boned bodice lay like a carapace on the chair in which she'd sat. He couldn't remember taking it off, but his hands still seemed to bear the imprint of her thighs. He'd shoved them apart to take her, the tendons that led to her groin stretching beneath his hold. She'd moaned his name as he'd pressed inside, and once more when she came. Now her breasts shook in the dying firelight. The pulse was strong enough to follow both up her throat and down the sweep of her shallow belly. The triangle of curls at its base was sticky, matted in tiny caramel spears. He found the sight peculiarly arousing, though he had no doubt she'd have been self-conscious if she'd known.

Then again, she might have been furious. Nic had forgotten the blasted sheath again and hadn't pulled

out quite soon enough at the end. At least one gush of seed was in her— which didn't bother him half

as much as not having taken the time to savor her wet and bare.

The reaction was unprecedented and highly irresponsible. Worse, he'd have risked it again in a heartbeat.

He wasn't handling this well, wasn't handling her well. Long minutes had passed since his searing climax and his heart still thumped in his chest. It should have been slowing the way it always did at the end of

an affair.

He told himself he simply wasn't ready to let her go. The picture had distracted him. Otherwise, he would have had his fill of her by now. Give him a few more weeks and he'd say good-bye without a qualm.

He'd be damned, however, if he'd beg for a few more weeks.

Beside him Mary stirred, her lips pressing his shoulder, her palm smoothing shyly across his chest. Simple though it was, her touch caused his shaft to thicken. Her head turned, her cheek petal-soft and cool. Her mouth found the rising itch of his left nipple. She'd never kissed him there before. The brush of lip and tongue was streaking fire. This was what he hadn't got enough of: this loss of her inhibitions, this victory over inexperience.

"When is your show?" she asked.                               

Nic fought a gasp as her teeth grazed skin. "Next Thursday."

Her hand trailed down his side to stop provokingly at his hip. When, he wondered, had these callused female fingers become the ultimate objects of his desire? Her thumb stretched to feather the edge of his pubic curls. He bit his lip, wanting her to take the leap herself. Just touch me, he thought. You don't have to ask permission. You don't have to worry you'll do it wrong. Just put your bloody fist around my cock. He held his breath in anticipation. Ridiculous, he thought, aghast at the depth his lust. Perfectly ridiculous.

"I'll stay till then," she said.

At first, he was too preoccupied with the position of her hand to comprehend. When he did, he opened his mouth to argue, then carefully shut it.

He had till Thursday. Four days to focus all his skill on her. Four days to wipe out his neglect. He rolled toward her, one hand sliding beneath her hair to knead her neck, the other stroking her silky back. She arched under his palm. She sighed.

He did not doubt he could change her mind.

*  *  *

Sebastian Locke stood, stroking his small goatee, before the finished picture. He had a tall person's

habit of slouching into his hips—though this, naturally, could have been his idea of acting Byronic.

Whatever his pose, and despite the sleepy narrowing of his eyes, his attention was keen. His lips were pursed with concentration.

"These glazes are very thin," he said.

"Yes," Nic agreed.

He'd used the sheer layers of color to create the vibrancy he desired. Though he knew the effect he'd achieved was good, he found himself biting the side of his thumb. Sebastian's eye was sharp. This was one of the reasons for his dissatisfaction with his own work: he could see what needed to be done better than he could do it.

"Left off her freckles, I see," he said, with a teasing lift of one fair brow. 'Too much of a challenge?"

Nic shook his head. "They made the picture look too busy."

"Mm." Sebastian returned to his perusal. His eyes drifted from the crown of Mary's hair to the place where her breast peeped coyly through the waves. "Mm," he said again.

Nic lost his patience. "For God's sake, Seb, just tell me what you think."

Sebastian laughed. "You bloody well know it's good, old man. I thought I'd try to give you more

response than that."

"Should have been a damned critic."

At the mutter, Sebastian's smile distorted the curve of his blond mustache. His face might have been designed for just such saturnine expressions. "Those who can't do, eh?"

"I didn't mean it that way. You can do. Very well."

"Nic, Nic, Nic," Sebastian tutted, "always the kind one." He tapped the side of his jaw. "You say you

just finished this?"

"Last night. You want to touch it to prove it's wet?"

"No, no. I don't doubt your word. I'm simply surprised." He slanted Nic an ironic glance. "Usually,

when you finish a big project, you don't send for me to take a look at it. You crawl into your bed and hibernate."

Nic juggled the handful of coins inside his pocket. 'This painting is different."

"So I see."

Knowing his friend was waiting for him to prod again, Nic stubbornly held his tongue.

"Oh, very well." Sebastian surrendered with a husky laugh. "It's brilliant. You've broken new artistic ground—for yourself, certainly, and possibly for more than yourself. These colors make me drool, as does your scrumptious little Godiva. The fact that you made that scrawny creature look so fuckable is

a miracle in itself. When Alma-Tadema finishes turning green, he's going to slap your bloody back."

Nic let his breath out in relief. Bubbling with the sudden release of tension, he rocked back on his heels. "Mary begged me to get a sidesaddle, but I just couldn't make myself do it. Ruskin will have a fit. Probably call me a menace to society."

"You've invited Ruskin to your show?"

"Of course." Nic grinned. "A man like me looks forward to being a menace."

Catching the grin, Sebastian squeezed the muscle of Nic's shoulder. "It's good," he said, his gaze for

once warm and open. "It's very good. I'm wondering though ..."

"Yes?"

Sebastian's eyes tilted at the corners as if he were holding back a laugh. "You're looking particularly

hale and glowy. So I'm wondering if your mood isn't due more to your current light of love than to the successful finish of your work."

The back of Nic's neck prickled with alarm. If his friend took it into his head that Mary was important to him, he'd pursue her with every wile he had. He'd always been competitive and the steady rise of Nic's career just made it worse. Mary might not be important to Nic the way the other artist thought, but she didn't deserve to be embroiled in Sebastian's games.

"What do you mean?" he said, forcing a casual tone. "Why would Mary Colfax have anything to do with how I feel?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the way you looked at her at Anna's, as if you were the starving wolf and she the tender sheep."

"We hadn't slept together then."

"Ah," said Sebastian. But he didn't seem convinced.

"I like her," Nic said, striving to sound reasonable. "I like women."

Sebastian pressed his thumb consideringly to his lips. "I know you do. It's the secret to your success."

"Quite. And there's no reason to think this is any different."

His friend studied him, one arm crossed beneath the other arm's elbow while his thumbnail tapped his teeth. His thoughts were hidden behind their customary veil of banked amusement, but Nic could guess what he was thinking. He fought an urge to squirm. Everything he'd said to Sebastian was true. He did like women. All women. If the sparks he and Mary struck were unusually bright, well, that was a happy coincidence of compatibility. It didn't mean his feelings were serious or that her presence had anything

to do with the improvement of his usual post-painting disposition. The picture was a personal landmark. Any artist would have been ebullient.

Finally, Sebastian broke the silence. "You should ask her to join us in
Venice
after the show. The countess has invited us to stay in her palazzo."

"Us?"

The other man's grin was devilish. Nic knew at once what it must mean. "You're taking Evangeline,

aren't you?"

Sebastian's mustache twitched. "Her affair with Gerald Hill seems to have run its course."

"Oh, Seb." Nic scrubbed his face in resignation. "You know you should leave her alone. Neither of you are good for each other."

"You have your poisons," said Sebastian, thoroughly unrepentant. He lifted a fan-ended scumbling brush and twirled it deftly around two fingers. "You could come without Mary if you prefer. I know Evangeline wouldn't mind. Be like old times."

"God forbid," he muttered, recalling how the pair liked to entangle him in their dramas.

"Now, now," Sebastian scolded, "it wasn't all Sturm und Drang."

"No," Nic admitted. It hadn't been all storm and stress. The trio—Sebastian, Anna, and Evangeline—had taken him under their wing when he first arrived in
London
. His schooling had led him all over
Europe
. He'd had passing acquaintances but not friends. After he lost Bess, he hadn't had the heart to make them. Sebastian's warmth, and that of the others, had brought him back to the human fold.

A love that generous, that lifesaving, should never cause regret.

Now Sebastian laughed. "Remember how we'd sneak into Anna's plays, then sit up all night talking in

her dressing room? Idiots, all of us, thinking we knew the meaning of life and art, so poor we had to

pool our money for a meal."

"I remember." Nic brushed his friend's jaw with the back of his fingers. Nic had been proud of his poverty, proud of never touching his father's tainted coin.

Sebastian sighed. "I miss those days."

"Well, I don't miss half starving," Nic said, though he did miss the lightness of all their demons. They'd been amusing then, more eccentricities than burdens. When one was that young, nothing seemed incapable of being healed by time. He was older now and not so optimistic. Sometimes he thought their knowledge of each other merely strengthened their power to hurt.