“Ahhh . . .” He reached, brushed his fingers through the pale strands of her hair. “Blonde. I like it.”
“It’s boring. I haven’t done anything this boring in ages.” She rolled her eyes. “It will work for now. It’s . . . ah . . . well. Pretty much my natural color. They had to bleach all the other color out, but I might keep it this way. Who knows?”
He pushed his fingers into the strands. It was so short now that was all he could do. “There’s nothing boring about you, angel.”
When he tugged her closer, she came.
He didn’t kiss her, just wrapped his arms around her. She made a soft little sound in her throat that hit him square in the chest.
Closing his eyes, he pulled her into his lap until her knees settled on either side of his hips. Now he let himself say some of the words trapped inside. Mouth pressed to her neck, he said, “I missed you. You were gone too long.”
“It was only six days.”
“Too long.”
She lifted her head and lifted a hand, pressed it to his cheek. “Yeah. Too long.” Then she winced. “I’ll have to leave again. The trial. All of that.”
“I’ll go this time.”
“Yes.” She leaned in and pressed her mouth to his. “You’ll go this time.”
She nibbled at his lower lip until he opened for her and the hungry little moan went straight to his dick.
He had a desperate need to get her naked. Once he had her naked, tucked under him, he’d feel a little better, he decided. Well, a lot better, if she was wrapped around him, wet and hot and as close as they could possibly get.
But even as he went to push his hands under her shirt, she slid back, easing off his lap and holding out a hand. “Can we go for a drive? I want to show you something.”
He eyed her hand. It was painful standing up, his cock already a pulsating ache in his jeans. Grimacing, he glanced down and then back up. “I had other plans . . . but for you, anything.”
“Why does it seem like you really mean that?”
He hooked one arm around her waist and tugged her against him. He took her mouth, too hungry and impatient to be gentle, and she was panting when he lifted his head.
“Because I do. I’ve all but been your slave for the past three years, Keelie. You just never noticed.”
* * *
Her hands were slick on the steering wheel as she drove.
Did he really think she could concentrate now?
Really?
I’ve all but been your slave . . .
With her heart rabbiting in her chest, it felt like she was breathing in syrup, the air thick, heavy. And full of him.
Her VW Bug was too small for him. She’d already started trying to figure out what kind of car she wanted to get—the Bug had been yet one more way to live a life as far apart from the one her mother had lived as possible and she was done with that, but now, with his large body taking up all the space, she had to wonder.
Cramped as it was, driving in this car with him was actually . . . nice.
He grunted as his knee banged the dash and she bit back a smile.
Maybe not for him.
“Where are we going?” he asked after a few more minutes.
She glanced over at him. “Almost there.”
He stared out the window, oddly tense, almost strained, ever since they’d left the loft.
Feeling like she had to do something, offer something, she said softly, “I’ve got some of your pictures in my work area.”
Now he slid a smile her way. “I’ve noticed. The one of the Borealis . . . ?”
Her heart had sighed in wonder when she saw that one. “It’s my favorite.”
“I took that one thinking you’d like it.”
An ache settled in her heart. “Damn it, Zane.”
She sniffled.
“Now, what you’re supposed to say is thank you.”
She sniffed again. Slowing down at a red light, she shot him a look. Then, she reached across the nonexistent console, hooked her hand in the front of his shirt.
As he came to meet her halfway, the light turned green. She didn’t care.
“Thank you,” she whispered against his mouth.
He smiled. “You’re welcome.”
The rest of the drive was in silence, but it only took another ten minutes.
When she pulled up in front of the big, sprawling old house, Zane studied it with some level of bemusement, his gaze lingering on the For Sale sign before he looked back up at it.
She wondered what he was thinking, although she doubted he’d have any idea what was in her mind.
“I love this house,” she said softly, as they both got out of the car.
He looked over at her.
Tucking her hands into the back of her jeans, she rocked back on her heels and just stared.
“Sometimes, I’m out driving and I’ll just come here and look. It’s big . . . almost too big, but it feels like a home, ya know?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, just started toward it.
He was right behind her and when she took the paved walkway that led around the side, he moved to walk along with her. “I haven’t had a home since my father died.” She accepted that ache in her chest, accepted it, and realized for the first time she could maybe even learn to let it go. He hadn’t left her on purpose. “There were a few times when I was almost there, but every time I came close, something went wrong. So I stopped letting myself try to find anything that might be home. Even when I left Kentucky, even when I was on my own. I didn’t want anything that might be taken away again.”
She stopped as the walk opened into a large courtyard.
It wasn’t so beautiful now.
But the home had stood empty for more than a year.
She could see it as it should be, as she wanted to make it.
“So I didn’t let myself look for a home. I think . . .” She blew out a breath. “I think I’m ready to be done with that.”
* * *
The house was something, Zane had to admit.
It was also huge, and sitting on what he suspected was prime real estate.
He had money in the bank—or would—from the sale of his house, but that didn’t mean he could afford something like this, nestled in the foothills of the mountains, with a view that faced out over the desert.
Unless, of course, he gave up on the idea of buying the photography studio instead of renting it. He could own it, outright. He’d been tinkering with the idea. He could do it, with the money from his place, the business loan. It would be tight, but he could make it.
Yet looking at the house that filled Keelie’s eyes with such longing, he realized there was no contest.
He didn’t need to own a big place for his studio—didn’t need to own, period. He could rent. Might have to start out smaller, cheaper. He’d have to juggle the figures. The place near Abby’s might not work now, but he could find a way to make everything work.
For her.
For her.
Reaching out, he rested a hand on her spine.
“You want this.”
She glanced at him, a gleam in her eyes.
“I’m getting this,” she said.
Then she turned to face him, even as he tried to process that comment.
“I think some part of me knew,” she said, her head cocked as she studied him. “Every time you kept asking, and every time I pushed you away. I spent a long time punishing myself.”
Fury whipped through him. He tried not to let it show as he reached up and cupped her cheek. “You weren’t to blame,” he said, his voice hot despite his best intentions.
“I know.” She covered his hand with hers, pressed lightly. “I know. But that didn’t stop me from believing it. For a very long time. I kept myself isolated. I convinced myself I was in love with a guy I knew belonged to somebody else . . .” A smirk twisted her lips. “And then, just to twist myself up even more, I threw myself between them, because hey . . .
why settle for being miserable, if I can be utterly miserable? And you . . .”
Her eyes moved to his.
“You.” She moved her hand to his cheek, stroked her fingertips along his cheekbone, his jaw, across his lips. “You looked at me like you saw me. I hated it. Even as part of me wanted to be around you more, just because it was nice not to have to hide, or wear a mask, or throw up a wall just to keep people away.”
Her eyes roamed across his face and then she turned away. “I think I always knew.”
His heart twisted, shifted. There was something burning deep inside, but he was afraid to look too deeply at it just yet.
Not yet.
She went back to staring over the courtyard. He followed her gaze because if he kept staring at her, he was just going to haul her up against him and . . . do what? He didn’t know.
The courtyard might look desolate and deserted, but he saw it with a practiced eye, saw the promise of what waited.
He could do this. If he could get the loan. If he couldn’t get it on his own . . . he braced his shoulders. Hell. He’d do what he had to. He’d talk to his folks. Zach, if he had to. Pride wasn’t shit when it came to her. This was the one thing she’d let herself want—
“I need to tell you about my father,” she said quietly, moving deeper into the courtyard.
Her words sliced through his own brooding thoughts and he jerked his head up, stared at her.
She wasn’t looking at him, her gaze focused now on the slowly darkening sky. “My dad was . . . well. Brilliant. Studied engineering. Wanted to make things. The problem was he didn’t have a focus on the things he wanted to make. He’d come up with a couple of different ideas—or improvements on current inventions—technology . . .” She glanced over at him. “I don’t have his brain. I don’t even completely understand the stuff he did. But he was smart. He’d already made his first million before he married my mother. That was why she went after him. She saw that he was going to be rich and she set out to twist him up. She did it. But then she got pregnant . . . she hadn’t planned on how not fun that would be. She wanted a nanny. He wanted a family.”
She turned to face him now. “She left before I was even two. She wasn’t happy about it, either. But she’d cheated on him and there was a prenup. Apparently, he’d offered her a lump sum if she just left. There was . . .” She paused, looked down. When she looked up at him, her eyes were vulnerable. “Seems he came home early from a business trip and I was locked up in a closet somewhere. I’d been crying, interrupting her me time. Rude of me, right?”
Zane curled his hand into a fist.
“After that, he told her she could take the money he’d offered her, or he’d see her in jail. She left, signed over custody. If he hadn’t died . . .” She shook her head. “Anyway. Right around the time my mom left, my dad and his partner came up with something pretty revolutionary. They’d founded a small camera manufacturing company and it was gaining a lot of attention.”
She walked closer, stopping to nudge at a loose stone with the toe of her boot. “They had a lens design that was apparently unique—something my father and his partner had helped come up with.”
Lens—
She looked up at him, a faint smile on her face. “My father’s name was Michael Lord.”
Michael Lord.
Otto Leonard.
Leoto—Zane felt poleaxed, standing there staring at her. “Son of a bitch.”
Now the smile split across her face. “Yeah.”
He turned away, swiped a hand down his face. “The first camera I ever owned . . . it was a Leoto. That was the one that had belonged to my grandpa. I used it when I took that picture of the owl. I still have it.”
“They last forever,” she murmured.
“The lenses . . .” He stopped. Then he narrowed his eyes. “The lenses were unique to that company—they held the patent.”
“Yep.”
“And Leoto was bought . . .” He stopped, scrubbed his hands down his face. “It was bought about ten years ago. For a very fat chunk of change.”
When he lowered it, she’d gone back to studying the house.
She glanced back at him. “I didn’t get it all. Otto was a full partner. They had bequests. But . . . yeah. I inherited. He’d left his estate to me. It’s why my mother came looking for me. She didn’t know he’d died until a few years after the fact. Paul Jenkins—I told you about him—he was the lawyer who handled the estate. She fought to get her hands on the money for a long time. It was a losing battle. My dad knew her very, very well.”
Zane looked up at the house, then back to her.
“So you’re buying this place.”
A serene smile curled her lips. “I am buying this place. And all the land surrounding it, if I can manage it.”
He squinted, decided he was glad he hadn’t mentioned any of the thoughts running through his head. As she came toward him, he went to pull her close, one hand coming around her waist, the other molding the back of her skull. “So I guess I get to be the first to hear the news, huh?”
“Yes.” She smiled and leaned in, pressing her mouth to his. “Although that’s not the only reason I’m telling you.”
She caught his hand and drew him over the patio that led up to the house. There, she leaned up against one of the columns, crossing her long legs at the ankle. Zane tried not to notice just how much leg was left bare under the hem of her snug black skirt, or how the boots rose to hug her legs to the knee. Only Keelie was crazy enough to keep wearing knee-high boots all throughout the year in Tucson, he thought. And able to pull off the look, too. He slid a hand down the satin length of her thigh—he had to touch her. Just touch, that’s all.
“I’m telling you,” she said quietly, “because this is the start of the life I want . . . for me.”
She bit her lip and tipped her head back to look at him.
The last, lingering rays of the sun gilded her skin gold. “I want this place. And I want you.”
His hand tightened on her thigh.
His heart tightened in his chest.
Blood crashed and roared in his ears as he stared at her and, for the longest time, he couldn’t think, couldn’t even breathe.
“Keelie . . .” he whispered. He didn’t even know where to go from there. What to say.
What was she saying?
He curved his hand over the side of her neck.
“I want a life.” She wrapped her hands around his neck. “I want to make a real one. And I want to try to make it with you.”
Her eyes searched his. “Is that okay?”
Shuddering, he lowered his brow to hers.
“Okay?” He gripped her waist, his hands spasming on the narrow curve. “Is it okay?”
Then he hauled her up against him. She wrapped her legs around him and he couldn’t help but notice how her miserable excuse of a skirt rose to the very tops of her thighs. “Okay?” he said again, his face against her neck. “I already told you I was your slave. Being a part of your life was the main reason I came here to begin with.”
She turned her face to his and he caught her lips, but she didn’t let him kiss her. Her fingers rested on his chin. “You came here because you wanted to set up a studio.”
“Keelie.” He cupped her head in his hands, stared down at her before he slowly, so slowly, lowered his mouth to hers. “I can do that just about anywhere. I came here because you are here. I love you, Keelie.”
She went tense.
“It’s okay if you’re not ready to tell me yet. You will be. And I’m going to be here. Waiting for you.”
He dipped to kiss her and her mouth opened on a sigh.
“Waiting. For you . . .” He said again, after they broke the kiss. “Always for you.”
Chapter Twenty
Courthouses were cold.
Keelie remembered that from her youth.
Stupidly enough, she hadn’t brought a jacket.
But after another shiver rocked her, some
thing warm, and smelling of Zane, wrapped around her.
She looked up as he sat down next to her.
“You look like you want to puke,” he said, a faint smile twisting his lips.
“I feel like it.” She grimaced, glad she hadn’t let him talk her into eating anything at lunch. Experience had taught her better, though. She’d grown past it, mostly, but in the years after she’d left her mother’s house behind, she’d spent months emptying her stomach anytime she got upset. Just one of the many neuroses Katherine Vissing had left her with.
Katherine . . . and Price.
But she was getting better, growing past them.
And once this was over . . . ?
Zane took her hand. “It won’t be much longer.”
She shot him a look. “I know.”
Then she lifted his hand to her lips. “I still want you to tell your parents. I think if I get through this without throwing up, or crying, you should have to. Fair is fair, right?”
He shot her a dark look. “You play dirty.”
“They should know.” She touched his mouth. “You didn’t do anything wrong, either . . . except hide it from them.”
“I know that.” He sighed, looked away. Then he looked back at her. “You still play dirty.”
“I do what I have to.” Unable to stay still, she came off the bench and started to pace. It had been almost two months since she’d come here the first time, and she still didn’t want to be here.
Those past two months had been a blur.
Zane was almost ready to open his studio.
He’d helped her moved.
They spent more nights together than apart.
She slid a hand into the narrow little pocket of her tailored suit jacket and shot him a look. She had a gift in her pocket, something she’d wanted to give him for weeks.
Now, as he slid off the bench to meet her on the marbled floor, she pulled it out.
She looked down, nerves a tangle inside her.
Then she shoved it at him.
“Here.”
He took it, staring down at it for a long moment. He shifted his gaze to her, staring at her through his lashes.
“It’s a key,” she said helpfully.
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