by Stacy Gail
The concept that Payne could ever become emotionally entangled with someone like her was so impossible to take in, she actually laughed. “That’s not a concern. Now… not to put too crude a point on it, but are we going to have sex or not?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. At that moment, he looked fully capable of biting a steel I-beam in half. “Still going for the wham-bam, Becks?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Oh, but there is.”
That wiped out all traces of humor. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I won’t get what I want.” He leaned forward, his mouth hovering over hers, and as his hands came up to her lapels her heart stuttered to a breathless stop. “And I always get what I want. Always.”
The hands that bunched on the fabric of her robe pulled her up with sudden sharpness to meet his mouth, passion for passion, heat for heat. His kiss was like a hurricane, all flash and fury and wild exhilaration. Becks didn’t even realize he’d dragged her to her feet until she was hauled up hard against him and held there as if he had every intention of crushing them together into one solid mass.
The savagery of his kiss unraveled her mind at the seams. It resonated with a soundless roar of emotion, from tightly leashed fury to an unending need, to all things untamed. She tried to remember when she had ever been so devoured by scorching, unapologetic passion, and came up blank. She couldn’t remember. Didn’t want to remember. Whether anyone had or hadn’t blistered her with this fire before was irrelevant. All that mattered was that Payne had brought that heat to her now, burning away all other memories. His flame was so bright, so hot, it lit up even the darkest corners of that deadened thing she called her soul.
It was indescribably beautiful.
His tongue licked at hers, both invading and coaxing hers to do the same, and it made her mind fog over. The need for him to fill all the empty places inside her ballooned so quickly it bordered on painful. Her arms had somehow found their way around him without her being conscious of it. As she clung to him, the aroused, rock-hard length of him pressed against her abdomen. Giddy delight spun through her at the physical proof he was as hot for her as much as she was for him, along with a feminine rush of power that made her smile. Without breaking their kiss, she slid a hand from his back to latch onto the fastenings of his pants.
Strong fingers wrapped around her wrist, wiping her smile out of existence.
“You need to understand something about my definition of seduction.” His breathing was ragged as he lifted his head to stare down at her. His intense gaze smoldered with such lust, it had the muscles in her legs threatening to liquefy. “Yes, I want to fuck you. I want to be inside you so bad I’m shaking with it, and I want you to want that as well.”
“I do.” Dear God, if the need tightened any more, it would double her over. “You have no idea… I want you now.”
“But that’s not enough, and it won’t get me what I want.” With his free hand, he caught the ends of her hair and pulled, until she had no choice but to hold still while he forced her gaze to lock with his. “I don’t just want your body. I know I could be inside you right now, fucking you so hard the neighbors across the street would feel the afterglow. But I told you, I’m selfish. I want to seduce every part of you. The passion, the darkness, the vivid emotion that seethes in your work… I’ve seen it all in everything you create. That’s the Becks I will seduce. I know she’s there, so there’s no point in trying to keep her from me. She. Will. Be. Mine.”
“You’re crazy.” Cold skittered into her heated world, and the fog that shrouded her brain lifted with an unpleasant jolt of clarity. “Either that, or you’re overthinking it. Let’s just do this and work it out of our systems, okay? Don’t let that good bed behind you go to waste.”
“And there’s my point. I refuse to be something you just want to work out of your system. I won’t tolerate that.” He rubbed her against him, and her small gasp was audible when her breasts flattened against his rib cage. The friction they created was so hot she wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke rise between them. “I want you to catch your breath just like that whenever you see me.” His head lowered to again capture her mouth with his, her lips now so bruised by the pressure of his, they thrummed with hypersensitivity. “I want you to crave the taste of me even when we’re on opposite ends of the city.” Before she could guess at his intention, he delved a hand between the front panels of her robe to wedge it boldly between her legs. A moan ground out of her as he stroked her desire-slick folds, and her body bucked helplessly when he pushed without mercy against the swollen nub of her clit. “I want you to get this wet whenever we’re in the same room together. And, Becks.” He once again gave a light tug on her hair to bring her eyes to the fierce intensity of his. “I won’t stop until I get all that I want. That’s just who I am.”
He kissed her one last time before he abruptly pushed away and stalked out of the loft, leaving her shivering with unfulfilled arousal and an alarm she couldn’t ignore.
Chapter Five
If Becks was wrong to hope that Payne suffered the worst case of blue balls the world had ever seen, she didn’t want to be right.
She’d had no clue a person could be so… infuriating. Yes, that was the perfect description for Sebastian Payne. Infuriating. Frustrating. Impossible. They all fit, so she tagged him with those labels as she raged around the loft in a frenzy to remove every shred of evidence he’d been there. What the hell did the man want from her? Any guy with a heartbeat would have done back flips through burning hoops if it meant he could get some no-strings-attached nookie. What the hell was his damage?
The worst part of it was that Payne hadn’t even rejected her. Not really. He’d just said no to what she had been willing to offer, which was basically what he’d become famous for—or infamous, depending on how you looked at it. Apparently, though, while he had no hang-ups about banging some TV star has-been in front of a camera and posting it all over the web, he had huge issues with getting it on in the privacy of her loft.
Maybe live-streaming video was what it took to get him worked up enough to do the job.
The only good thing that came out of Payne’s visit was a feverish need to create. After Becks had burned off the initial frustration by madly clearing out her space of all things that reminded her of him, she settled at the drafting table and went to work. The initial charcoal or ink sketches she created were the bones of the project, and the more detailed she made it, the better the overall piece became. Hours flew by as she brought to life an image of a woman, curled in a fetal position emerging from a transparent, cocoon-like structure. The cracks in the cocoon turned out particularly well, and she could imagine layers of light spilling out from some of the cracks, glowing from yellow to an intense, heavenly white. The woman’s face itself was dormant, lifeless, and clearly unaware of the change coming to alter every facet of her existence. The sense of trembling on the brink of emergence filled Becks with a sense of excitement she couldn’t explain, but she was satisfied with the image when she finally scanned it into her computer. No doubt she’d be up until the wee hours of the morning to perfect the layers of coloring, and it was a long way off from being completed. But it was good. Really good. It might even be something Payne would be interested in…
“Gah.” Frustrated all over again, this time with her inability to shut that man out of her head, she stretched her back while her stomach grumbled. With a quick glance at the clock, she grabbed up her jacket and bag before heading out the door. That would teach her to forget to eat, getting swoony from hunger before five in the afternoon. It was early, but she could still walk to Chuy’s for a quick taco. Since the accident four years ago, she hadn’t been able to get behind the wheel of a car, so her options were generally limited to her neighborhood or delivery, but that was okay. She was so hungry, a taco for starters sounded great. Maybe she’d also pick up a midnight snack for later, just like Andreas said Payne usually had…
>
“Shut up about him already, stupid,” she muttered, pushing out of the building’s front door.
“What did you just say to me?”
Mortified, Becks froze in the act of flipping the jacket’s hood over her head. Then she turned to the building’s landlord, huddled in a Chicago Bears stadium jacket off to one side of the building’s entrance. Herb Janek was a shorter, rounder version of Mr. Rogers, at least in the looks department, right down to the loafers and cardigan habit. Sadly his disposition wasn’t nearly as sunny. He reminded her more along the lines of Eeyore post-tail loss, but she would forever hold a warm spot in her heart for the man. When she’d had nowhere to live and was still suffering from the broken back she’d sustained in the accident, he’d taken pity on her by allowing her to have the then-unfinished and virtually uninhabitable loft space.
She’d come a long way in four years, and she owed a large part of it to Mr. Janek. Had it not been for him giving her the time and space she’d needed to get her feet under her, she could have easily died.
“I was talking to the voice in my head, Mr. Janek, not you.” Then she realized how that sounded and tried not to cringe. “Artists. You know how crazy we can be.”
“I suppose that sort of thing is unavoidable when you’re the creative type.” It was cold enough for his long sigh to make a vapor trail in the late afternoon breeze. “Just yesterday a tenant told me the composition he’s working on filled his head so much it crowded out everything else, including the fact that his rent was due. It was embarrassing for the both of us, so I gave him a few days to work his way out of the fog.”
It took all her strength not to hug this glum softie, knowing it would only be hopelessly awkward. Instead she beamed at him. “Maybe he’ll dedicate the composition to you.”
“Oh, I don’t expect him to remember me. I just hope he won’t be bothered by the people coming to install the new security intercoms. But they’ll probably make so much ruckus he won’t be able to concentrate.”
Her brows shot up. “New security intercoms?”
“Isn’t that what they’re called? The ones with the view screens so the tenants can see who’s down here buzzing to be let inside? That’s what I’m doing down here now.” Mr. Janek nodded dubiously at the ancient buzzer pad by the door, his hangdog expression more troubled than ever. “Your boyfriend was right, I guess. This system is pretty outdated, and there’s no way I’d ever be able to afford a doorman. We should all be grateful we haven’t been slaughtered in our beds before now. With useless security like this, who knows what’ll happen next?”
“My boyfriend.” Like a homing pigeon, her mind flew straight to Payne. Heaven knew why. He’d already told her he was no boy, and considering how they’d parted, she was in no mood to give him the gift of friendship. “Ah… who?”
“The guy from this morning. He was out here unloading a truck with some friends, and I helped out after he explained he was here to wine and dine you. He even had a rose for you. I thought that was nice.”
Holy crap. Who would have guessed Herb Janek was a romantic? “He’s not my boyfriend.”
Her landlord gave her a chiding look. “Becks, it’s fine. You’re young, he’s young, so go ahead and live a little. You’re too serious.”
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. “I’m too serious?”
“You know you are. What you need to do is loosen up and go with the flow. And who knows? Maybe your relationship won’t end up going down the crapper like everyone else’s.”
“Now there’s some positive thinking.”
“Exactly.” Clearly deaf to all shades of irony, he patted her shoulder. “At the very least, you know he respects you. That’s a big plus in my book.”
Curiouser and curiouser. “Why do you say he respects me?”
“I wasn’t sure who he was at first or what his interest was in you. Since he wanted to get into my building, I figured I had the right to ask him a few questions.”
“I see.” And now she understood why Payne had leaned on the buzzer like he had.
“That guy referred to you as one of the greatest artists in Chicago. And he should know, because I finally recognized him as that guy… oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue. He’s what’s-his-name. You know, the guy who makes the homemade porno movies?”
“Payne.” Becks struggled mightily to stamp out the mass of conflicting emotions her landlord’s statement unleashed. Pleasure that Payne thought she was good at her art, and mortification that he hadn’t deemed her worthy of screwing without a camera there to document the proverbial ins and outs of the occasion. “Sebastian Payne.”
“Right. The tattoo guy.” A rare almost-smile quivered Mr. Janek’s cheeks as he pushed up a sleeve to display his forearm marked with a bluish design that may have been something nautical. “When I realized he was that guy, I showed him what I had. I’ll be damned if he didn’t recognize it as something that came from the Philippines. I got this when I was stationed in Subic Bay about a million years ago. Nearly died of blood poisoning because of it.”
“Yikes.” Good grief, maybe her landlord had good reason to be a Negative Nancy.
“Yeah.” He nodded as if she’d said something earthshaking. “Before today, I’d assumed that Sebastian Payne guy might not know a lot about the world of tattoos, but I think he really does know his stuff. Isn’t that something?”
Actually, it was. “So… how did your tattoo lead to your decision to update the building’s security system?”
“It didn’t. While he was waiting for you to answer the door, he mentioned the building’s setup seemed to be unsafe, and I agreed with him. This world is a crazy place, Becks.”
“It’s none of his business what our building’s security is like.”
“It is now. Even though I told him he shouldn’t bother, he’s already paid for the new system to be installed.”
“Wait. What?” Stunned, Becks pushed the hoodie off her head in the hope that she’d hear him better. “Mr. Janek, what are you talking about?”
“Your guy. He bought the building a brand new door security system. I know,” he added when she simply stared at him, thunderstruck. “I was just as shocked when he offered. Then again, I don’t think he was too happy with how the system worked this morning when you didn’t answer the door.”
“The system worked fine.” Belatedly she remembered how to pull a coherent sentence together as she tried to make sense of it all. “I just didn’t know what the buzzing was. No one comes to visit me, so I didn’t recognize the sound.”
“Yeah. Well.” With an uncomfortable grimace, her landlord shuffled his feet. “For the most part, life does its best to knock you down face-first into the mud, and that’s something you’d know better than anyone. But just when you think there’s no goodness left in the world and people are only out to make you miserable, someone comes along who isn’t quite as awful as all the rest. Like your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s…” She put a hand to her forehead to see if it would put the brakes on her racing thoughts. “He’s buying my art.”
“Oh? So he really meant it when he called you one of the best artists in Chicago? Isn’t that something? Then again,” he said with a sudden look of horror, “maybe that’s the problem.”
Only Herb Janek could turn a compliment into a raincloud. “Sorry, but how could that be a problem?”
“Think about it, Becks. You’ve probably got priceless works up there, and you don’t even know it.” He frowned at the building as if it had let him down in a deep and personal way. “That must be why your guy is thinking this place isn’t secure enough.”
“He’s not my guy, and everything is fine, honest.”
“It’s far from fine, especially if you’re about to get famous and everything. I’ve already received a call from the security company he hired, so obviously this is something I need to worry about.”
Oh, geez. “Mr. Janek, please believe me, there’s n
othing to worry about.”
“There’s nothing for you to worry about, and your boyfriend and I are going to keep it that way. The security company’s already called to arrange for a time to install the cameras out here and get everybody their new video intercom units. No matter how dangerous things might get, we’ll keep you and your art safe.”
Apparently it was a waste of breath correcting him about the whole boyfriend thing. “Mr. Janek, we’re not about to be attacked, I assure you. The only reason Payne did this is because he’s obviously the kind of man who likes to get things done, if only so they can be done his way. Once he decides on something, that’s it. It’s a done deal.” As she spoke, her own words echoed back to her with an unmistakable ominous ring. With a suddenness that dropped the ground out from under her feet, she realized that for whatever reason, Payne had chosen to focus his single-minded determination on her.
And according to him, he always got what he wanted.
“Not that I’m complaining, but I think that from this point on, you should be the one to answer every client who calls up demanding Missing Piece for their next tat.”
Trapped behind his desk with a mountain of paperwork that refused to shrink, Payne shot Scout and her ever-present tablet an evil look. “Whenever someone begins a sentence with ‘not that I’m complaining.’ it’s always a complaint.”
“No. Okay, maybe.” Theresa “Scout” Upton, his assistant and office manager at House Of Payne, patted her ebony and violet hair pinned up in her usual rockabilly barrel roll. “I’m just pissed I didn’t think to keep track of how many requests we’ve had for that piece. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s over a thousand, which means over a thousand potential clients have walked away, dissatisfied with House Of Payne.”
“It’ll die down eventually.”
“Not if you keep blabbing about it like you did this morning on Good Morning Chicagoland. Can’t you talk to the artist?”
“I have.” Mainly through emails since he’d dropped in on Becks a week ago, but he didn’t have much choice. He didn’t trust himself to be around her without wanting to push her up against the nearest wall and fuck her brains out.