Provocative

by Lisa Renee Jones

  At the last step, I turn right under an archway, and find myself, in a room with a steepled ceiling, that literally stretches the entire top level of the house. The wood floor has been glossed with some sort of finish I assume is easily wiped clean. There are two arched windows consuming the wall in front of me and both ends cap to the space. And there are random easels sitting around the room, all uncovered, all demanding attention I can’t give them. My gaze lifts to a door to my left, which I hope is an office. Moving in that direction, I enter and flip on the light, and sure enough, I find a heavy dark wood desk, a deep leather chair in the corner and random works of art on the wall that are absolutely Faith’s signature strokes and colors. And damn, there really is something sexy about a talent I’ll never have.

  Another arched floor-to-ceiling window sits behind the chair and illuminates the room, allowing me to round the desk and sit down without a light, and to quickly locate random financial documents. I pull out my phone, set my alarm for five minutes, and start snapping photos. It goes off right as I find her father’s will, and I risk the extra minute to click shots of it. Out of time, and nowhere near done, I stand up and exit the office. I fully intend to hurry to the archway, but I notice the table and color palette sitting next to one easel, which means it has to be what she was painting yesterday. I take two steps in that direction and stop myself, some instinct in me telling me that looking at that painting is far less forgivable than searching her house, at least now that I have every intention of saving her from the hell she’s in.

  I turn back to the door, and that’s when I hear the front door open and Faith’s footsteps downstairs. Fuck. I run a hand through my hair and make an instant decision. I have to own up to being up here and if I let her walk around looking for me that’s only going to make this worse. Inhaling a jagged breath, I walk to the archway and step to the landing above the steps. As if she sensed I was up here, she’s at the bottom of the steps, looking up at me, her blond hair tousled from the wind, her hand on the railing.

  She doesn’t speak. For long seconds, she doesn’t move. And then suddenly she is walking up the steps toward me, her pace steady, controlled, anger crackling off of her. She stops in front of me, her eyes meet mine, and it’s not anger that gets me. It’s the wounded look of betrayal. “This is not my house. This is my private work place. This is my sanctuary.” She doesn’t give me time to reply. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

  “Faith-”

  “I knew it.” She cuts away from me and walks into the studio.

  Fuck. What does she think I found? What the hell am I about to find out about this woman that I don’t want to know. I follow her inside the room, but she isn’t headed to the office. She’s standing at the painting she started last night. She stares at it. “Do know why I painted this?”

  I walk toward her. “Faith,” I begin again. “I didn’t—”

  “Look at this?” She waves her hand in front of it and turns to face me. “You came up here and you didn’t look at my work?”

  “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.

  I reach down and take care of the other one before she slides her hands into my pants again. “We’re going naked,” she says. “I want naked.”

  “Naked it is,” I say, kissing her hard and fast before I undress and pull her to my lap, her long, sexy legs straddling me and she is sliding down my naked cock, the wet heat of her naked body gripping me, that is pure fucking bliss.

  But more so is the moment that I’m kissing her, and then I’m not because we’re just breathing together. I feel this woman in ways I didn’t know it was possible to feel a woman, and I just met her. I feel her everywhere, burning me alive. And maybe I’m making the biggest mistake of my life with her, but if I die, I’ll die happy. And when we do kiss again, it’s slow, sexy kisses. And slow, nerve-stroking slides of our body, that meld our breathing, our tongues, our bodies, until we both shatter into release. Until I release inside her as I have with no other woman since I was a young fool, and I bury my face in her vanilla and amber smelling hair.

  And I hold her.

  When I never hold women.

  It sends the wrong message.

  And yet, I hold Faith now. I inhale the scent of her hair.

  “Tell me you don’t regret that,” she murmurs against my neck.

  I lean back to look at her. “What the hell am I supposed to be regretting?”

  “Not using a condom.”

  “No man or woman has a regret over a missing condom unless the result is later regrettable, but since I don’t fuck without a condom, you’re safe.”

  “I don’t either, Nick. Never with Macom. I…he liked…I didn’t.”

  I want her to fill in those blanks but I sense that this is another one of those moments where pushing is the wrong choice. “We’re naked in every way and safe,” I say softly. “Except that now we have to get you off me and save your chair from our mess.”

  “Kleenex on the table,” she says, and without warning, she leans over and she starts to tumble. I catch her but not without a lean that puts us both on the floor, her on her back, me over the top of her, and us both in an eruption of laughter.

  And when that laughter fades, we don’t move. We stare at each other, and I have this sense that we both are trying to read the other, I damn sure am her. That we both are trying to understand what this is between us. Sex? Really damn good sex? Or…what? I don’t know what the hell it is, but it’s a powerful force between us, a magnet with a pull that won’t be escaped. Seconds tick by and I pull her to her feet, our gazes colliding before we both dress. And as we do, the reason for the explosion that led to taking our clothes off in the first place, comes full circle, expanding in the air between us. The minute we’re dressed, I pull her to me. “Faith.”

  “I probably overreacted,” she says, reading where I’m going.

  “You didn’t,” I say. “I had no right to come up here. And I repeat, I didn’t look at the painting. I am, however, as intrigued by your art as I am you. It is you. It’s a gift you alone possess.”

  Her lashes lower, her expression etched with torment before she looks at me again. “Thank you for saying that.” She covers my hand with hers. “Let’s go heat up the food.”

  She’s slammed the wall down again, evidence that I’ve hit a nerve. And as much as I want to push and know this woman, for right and wrong reasons, I let it go. But I’ve made my decision. I’m not letting her go. Guilty or innocent, she’s mine now, even if she doesn’t know it. And guilty or innocent, wherever that leads.

  ONCE WE’RE DOWNSTAIRS, FAITH STICKS our food in the microwave, while I unpack the groceries she’s bought, which includes milk, eggs, and… “Pancake mix?” I ask, holding up the instant mix. “I don’t get your famous pancakes?”

  “I guess I didn’t mention that they’re famous because that’s all I ever make.”

  I laugh. “No, you didn’t.” I walk to the pantry and find the proper spot to stick them before turning back to her. “I might have to make you pancakes.”

  “You cook?” she asks, setting bottles of water on the island where we plan to eat.

  “I picked up a few tricks from one of my many nannies who had a thing for cooking contests.”

  She opens the microwave. “The food should be ready,” she says, inspecting it and then removing the container. “We’re good to eat.” She sets our sealed containers on the table, and I move to the spot directly across from her, both of us claiming our seats before returning to our prior conversation. “As for cooking,” she says. “I don’t. Neither of my parents cooked and I didn’t have to learn. Growing up at the winery, there’s two chefs on staff. One for the restaurant and another for the staff.” She lifts the lid to her food to display spaghetti and meatballs and I do the same.

  “Looks and smells amazing,” I approve, the scent of sweet and spicy tomato sauce almost as good as her amber and vanilla scent right about now.

  “It is,” she assures me. “An Italian family owns the place. And I’d offer you wine, but I don’t keep it here.”

  I arch a brow. “Aren’t you supposed to be a wine lover?”

  “I like wine,” she says, “but when I’m here, I just want to escape everything to do with the winery.” She picks up her fork, and clearly makes a move to change the subject by adding, “I’m starving and real women eat everything on their plate.”

  “Sweetheart,” I say, wrapping pasta around my fork, “you keep up with me on everything else. I’d be disappointed if this was different.” I take a bite.

  Faith watches me with intense green eyes. “Well?” she prods.

  “Damn good,” I say. “And I’ve eaten my share of pasta in Rome.”

  She sighs. “Oh how I’d love to go to Italy. My parents went a good half dozen times for ‘wine research’ as they called it. My father loved those trips. My mother was all his then. I can’t imagine wanting someone so badly that you’d allow yourself to be treated that way. I never understood.”

  Which, judging from what I know of her, is why Macom got kicked to the curb after only a year. “There’s a fine line between love and hate,” I assure her. “Lovers become enemies. I see it all the time with my work.”

  “But you do corporate law, right?”

 
; “Personal relationships are common disruptors to business. The worst kind because they get emotional and dirty.” I stay focused on her past. “Who stayed with you when your parents were traveling?”

  “A friend of my parents who passed away a few years ago. And Kasey, the manager at the winery, has been there for twenty years.”

  I study her a moment. “Why, if he’s good at his job, can’t you paint, Faith?”

  Her answer comes without hesitation. “Kasey and my father were a team. A few years back, we were just getting by, but they’d built our retail sales to a huge dollar figure the year before my father died. That’s why I was able to buy this house with my inheritance.”

  “And your mother inherited well, I assume?”

  “He had life insurance and money from the winery, which is why I need into her bank accounts.”

  That Beck tells me are empty, I think.

  “When my father passed,” she continues, “my mother insisted she was taking over that role my father held, but it was, as expected, a disaster. My mother angered customers and made rash decisions.”

  “You lost business,” I surmise.

  “A ton of business.” She stabs a meatball. “That’s when I took over and tried to earn the deals back. But it got worse before it got better. We lost one section of our vineyard to a bad freeze because she declined normal procedures as too costly. Kasey was at his wit’s end and I convinced him to stay. That freeze,” she says, stabbing a meatball, “makes the forty thousand a month a real accomplishment.”

  “Don’t artistic types hate the business end of things?”

  “I know this place,” she says. “I bring knowledge and the name to the brand.” She waves that off. “Enough about that place. Did you always want to be an attorney?”

  “Yes. My father was an attorney and I wanted to be better than him. And I wanted him to know I was better than him.”