by Libby Rice
Her voice took on a fine-with-me tone when she whispered, “Can’t prevail at sparring, so you’re taking it out on my neeeedy, little body?”
Maybe. Her breathy quip rushed along his cock, and he lost track of his agenda.
Oh, yeah. Lick her into submission.
She felt so soft and small and willing against his chest, he could hardly believe the same woman regularly flayed him alive with that pink tongue that, right now, licked the front of her teeth, the physical equivalent of sharpening knives.
Time to flay back. He trailed open-mouth kisses up the side of her throat, gently nibbling each time she made a noise. Their guests surely hadn’t retreated farther than the other side of the closed door.
Heady scent infused the air around them—always a different embodiment. The woman went for variety in her soaps and lotions. So far he’d separately detected flowers and fruit and then spicy peppermint. The best had been last Tuesday—coconut—but today’s almond was even better.
Of course he favored the edibles. Just one taste. Each night he imagined whether she could possibly deliver on the succulent promise of her milky skin. If she didn’t, he could walk away.
He brushed his tongue over the pulse that fluttered below her jaw. Flicking back and forth, her taste hit—a jolting buzz in the back of his throat—along with a sweet little moan that escaped her lips.
“Were you planning to fight me every step of the way?” he murmured silkily. “Nothing has seemed to work, but I see pleasure subdues you.”
“Not fair,” she breathed.
He looked down and saw the hem of her sweater bunched in his shaking fist. Deny it all he wanted, but his body was ready for another glimpse of the high breasts he’d seen dripping on his carpet days ago, and he welcomed the hands that scrabbled for purchase against his taut stomach.
“Do you want me to lift this shirt, touch your pretty little breasts?” he growled against her ear. “Because I will. I want to.” Despite himself, he so fucking wanted to.
When her answer came out a mewling, unintelligible rasp, he moved his hand to cup her between the legs. Through her jeans, he rubbed along the seam, pressing a little harder on the upstroke.
Above, he moved to her lips. Her mouth was hot and welcoming when he slipped inside. She batted his tongue with hers, tangling against him in wet strokes that ripped a groan from deep within his core.
“Do you, Lissa?” he grated against her open mouth. “Say the word.”
With a wrenching cry, her hand landed on his forearm. “No.”
No?
“You don’t want this,” she added weakly.
Incorrect. He’d never wanted anything more, never been strung so tight—
A rough shove against the table flung him away, not because she was right, but because she wasn’t. He wanted and wanted and wanted her some more, which made him wrong in a whole different way. The two of them faced off, heaving but still fully clothed, separated from their spectators by a thin wall. He’d never been so turned on in his life.
He wouldn’t have stopped. If Lissa had let him, he’d have pounded her into the table within a minute, letting her long, graceful body steal the memory of the only perfect thing he’d ever had.
And lost.
Lissa had been the one to see reason, the only one in the room who’d proven worthy of his wife’s memory.
Motherfucker.
Cole pulled both hands through his hair, squeezing his scalp on each pass. The movements calmed him to the point of speech. “I told you to keep us above the belt. And then I—”
“I’m sorry,” he said in a whoosh of emotion, then fled before he broke down and finished what he’d started.
Chapter 10
Shock hit Lissa in breaking waves, the lust Cole had fired along every nerve ending refusing to abate. Sucking air, she flattened her palms against the table crowding her ass and closed her eyes, grappling for simple things—like physical mastery over her quivering thighs.
“Goddamn,” she muttered under her breath. Focus. “Spontaneous orgasm isn’t even a real thing.”
In front of her, Lissa caught the telltale swish of the kitchen door swinging shut.
“From the looks of it, you’re about to debunk the theory.” Rhea didn’t sound particularly apologetic for the intrusion.
Summoning the insolent glare she pictured in her mind, Lissa blinked her eyes open to see all three of Cole’s overzealous caretakers staring back at her. “Jesus Christ, you people never quit.”
“Apparently, neither do you,” Rhea quipped, and Lissa detected a subtle chastisement behind the calculating gleam in the other woman’s eyes.
“Why would I?” The previous week—up to and including the last half-hour—had brought several realities to light.
First, Cole possessed a diamond-hard head, but also a brilliant talent. She would be standing next to him when the world took notice.
Second, all roads led to Kate. Unravel the Kate hang-up, and Lissa would have the key to Cole’s malfunctioning creativity.
Third, Cole withdrew when Lissa probed him, but he went mental when she turned her questions on others.
The lesson? Probe others early, and probe them often. In the end, she’d either get her answers or push Cole off a second sensual cliff.
Win-win.
Clamping down on the heat still simmering in her veins, Lissa used her outside voice. “I want to know everything. Who was Kate Rathlen? What did she hold dear in this life? Most importantly, what changed to make such a beautiful, successful, well-loved woman kill herself, and why would Cole decide his penance must come in the form of hiring Kate’s favorite artist but completely stifling his own artistic expression?”
All three of them looked shocked at her outburst. If they’d believed Cole’s mouth-to-mouth reprimand would send her running, they had much to learn. Lissa had backed down in her past. She had learned never to run again. Or to hide. Or to change. Or to give in.
Lissa merely cocked her head, seizing the deafening silence to listen for Cole’s return in the face of her purposefully loud string of queries.
The house was quiet. Cole wasn’t racing across the upper floor in a bid to shut her up.
Eventually Cole’s guests settled into a kind of collective acceptance, with Kent leading the way. He slowly crossed his arms over his chest and winked. The approving expression passed unnoticed by the others, a private congratulation.
Rhea stood between Kent and Trevor, hands fisted at her sides, jaw ticking. The woman couldn’t hide her frustration, and for a moment, Lissa felt like a trespasser, one who didn’t belong and shouldn’t butt into family business.
But she sucked it up. The questions might be nosy, even irritating, but they shouldn’t engender true anger. With her future livelihood hanging in the balance, these people owed her answers.
Rhea had yet to loosen through the shoulders when she addressed Lissa’s litany of queries with three clipped words. “We. Don’t. Know.”
The unrealistic denial triggered Lissa’s inner alarms. “Yeah, and Bill Clinton ‘did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,’” she drawled. “I know you have a hunch.”
A drawn-out exhale blew Rhea’s bangs from her face, and Lissa suddenly sensed the other woman’s budding need to share. Yeah, girlfriend, let’s chat. Red played at outrage with her bristling posture and terse evasions, but deep down, Trevor’s wife wanted to talk.
Her kind always did.
Which was sweet because Lissa wanted to listen. “I know you loved her like family,” Lissa coaxed, meeting Rhea’s gaze and holding. “And that you want to respect Cole’s privacy. But I can’t make this work unless I understand his motivations. Kate’s death was heartbreaking—a misfortune you want and deserve to forget—but it’s also the key to how and why Cole clings to antiquated and uninteresting artistic ideals.”
Rhea jerked, then narrowed her eyes in a look of universal contempt.
Jackpot, Lissa silent
ly gloated.
“Earlier you called Kate a ‘perfect specimen,’” Rhea began. “Now you presume I ‘loved her like family.’” A slug could have deciphered the undertone: You don’t know shit.
Next to Rhea, Trevor went completely still. Not even the twitch of an eyelid gave him away. Lissa had never seen that kind of purposeful, rigid control.
Yet Rhea went on, either not noticing, or not caring, that her husband had gone dark. “Most people did.” Her stare slid sideways, pinning Trevor. “Love her like family, that is. But Kate wasn’t perfect. She taught Cole all about—”
“Check the basement,” Trevor interrupted, his voice low and smooth. The man might have been ordering a cocktail rather than engaging in subtle verbal warfare with his wife. “That’s where Cole archives his work—old portfolios, magazine shoots, personal albums, the works.”
Lissa nodded. Cole’s past might hint at his present. Lissa would pursue the lead, but she didn’t speak, didn’t thank him or even nod in a way that might distract Rhea from her musings. Gut churning with the knowledge that Cole’s sister-in-law teetered on the cusp of a critical admission, Lissa willed Rhea to finish what she’d started.
“—Betrayal.” The harsh word flew from Rhea’s mouth like a lash. “Kate’s pretty face and fractured mind hid a wandering eye. If only she’d strayed further afield.”
Chapter 11
Trevor gripped the steering wheel and turned right onto Highway 72. Low-hanging clouds dimmed the usually brilliant night sky so that the road ahead disappeared into blackness beyond the reach of the headlights. Focusing on the edges of the pavement, Trevor tried to appear impassive.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he began evenly.
More and more, Rhea joined his visits to Cole’s. Tonight she’d wanted a glimpse of Lissa. The curiosity had coincided with a scheduling conflict of Kent’s. Instead of carpooling from Boulder, Kent had driven to Cole’s alone, a good and bad change of pace. Good, because Kent’s absence on the return trip meant Trevor and Rhea could privately pick over the evening. Bad, for the exact same reason.
“You shouldn’t have wanted your brother’s wife,” Rhea said with equal calm, leaning forward to turn down the radio.
He hadn’t. Kate had been a friend. Trevor’s nails bit into the hard rubber of the steering wheel. Nothing would come of rising to Rhea’s bait.
After her jibe had settled into anticlimactic silence, Trevor asked, “Betrayal, huh? What do you suppose Lissa will do with that kind of cliffhanger?”
Trevor didn’t need to know Lissa well to understand the woman would prove persistent. Before, he’d been happy to see her digging at Cole, daring his brother to evaluate his choices. In opposing each of Lissa’s keen observations and witty accusations, Cole took another baby step out of the abyss he’d been courting for months.
Whether Lissa knew it or not, her psychology was simple. She wanted to know why Cole was being such a pussy about his photography. Call a man a pussy enough times, and he’d eventually prove you wrong.
Even better? Lissa didn’t appear to be playing mind games. She’d simply happened upon certain facts in her bid to secure Cole’s cooperation, and she wasn’t the type to internalize. It was shock-therapy problem solving he had to respect.
Instead of derailing the search, Rhea’s flippant comment had highlighted the already-suspect connection between Kate’s death and Cole’s artistic rigidity. The second the word “betrayal” had fallen from Rhea’s lips, both of Lissa’s brows had shot up her forehead in unabashed interest. Now Lissa would be all the more curious.
All the more dangerous to Cole’s attempts to forget.
Rhea shifted in her heated seat. “For starters, Lissa might ditch the hero worship for ‘Kate of the tragic death.’”
“Who cares?” His question fell cold and flat. Once, Kate and Rhea had been close. After their bond had fractured, there’d been no fixing it. It didn’t help that while Rhea was a stunning woman, Trevor suspected his tall, athletic wife had forever felt ungainly around the softer, more petite Kate. “Now Lissa will chase your juicy tidbit. She’ll do nothing but remind Cole he hurt his wife—”
“After his wife fucked him over,” Rhea said mildly, “with you.”
He saw her watching him carefully out of the corner of his eye, but this time he didn’t bother to engage, unwilling to let an imaginary affair take up one more inch of space in their lives. Cole’s mistake, though innocent, had cost one life and too many portions of others. What Trevor wouldn’t give to extinguish the myth that, over time, had grown roots of truth in his wife’s malleable mind.
Watching fall’s first snowflakes bombard the black pavement that wound downward toward home, Trevor steeled himself for an equally cold reality. The Rathlen family saga, marred with wounds both real and imagined, all bone deep and barely healed, was primed for a new episode.
Chapter 12
A thin seam of light shone beneath Lissa’s bedroom door. Cole crept up the main staircase, careful to avoid the two steps that creaked year-round. Other than Lissa’s dim beacon, he couldn’t see a thing. The night was completely black, without a hint of moonlight slipping through the high windows of the foyer.
The dark didn’t matter. Cole knew every centimeter of the house—each corner, piece of furniture, wall hanging, and knickknack. He’d gone downstairs to sweep and scrub and polish after Lissa’s noisy clash with his slow-to-leave relatives. Certain aspects of his life had suffered neglect after Kate’s death. Melina wasn’t one of them. With the help of a weekly cleaner and a compulsive need to maintain Kate’s brainchild¸ he practically kept the place spit shined.
Lissa’s final face-off against Kent, Trevor, and Rhea had been short, but revealing. When she’d raised her voice to a dull roar, he’d known she wanted to draw him out. A nicer man might have relented and gone downstairs to answer her not-wholly-unreasonable questions. His instinct had been to stay put.
Listening. Piecing her mind together.
Lissa had obviously linked his current views on artistic realism to the loss of his wife. Now she wanted to know everything about Kate’s death and what Cole had been like before. If he were inclined to make bets, he’d say Lissa aimed to connect all the pre-and-post-Kate dots so she could better plan the trajectory of her eraser.
Make him forget, so he’d give in to her whims.
Frustration tugged at him, but he shoved it aside. Lissa had been onboard for less than two weeks, not enough time to understand he was the boss. Tonight that would change.
At her door, he reached forward to rap out a demanding, “Let me in, or else.” The woman barred her room like she couldn’t stomach a chance encounter, probably because she knew he wanted her, simultaneously on his body and off his property.
Kissing her had been the kind of mistake he couldn’t make just once.
Right before his fist crashed into her door, he heard voices. Plural. Snapping his hand back, he leaned in to listen.
“Yes, now,” he heard Lissa say. “It’s been a lick it, slam it, suck it kind of day.”
A response followed, but the voice sounded garbled, an indistinct jumble that made Lissa chuckle under her breath. Intent on hearing more, Cole pressed his ear flat against the wood and tried to play dead with his shallow breathing.
“You better do a whole one, too,” Lissa ordered. “Last week I know you went halfsies.”
This time he heard a high, but muted, “Did not!” The volume grew. “Stop questioning my ABV or drink alone.”
What the hell?
“Mmmhmm, I believe you,” said Lissa. An unspoken “not” punctuated her reassurance. “By the way, I’m shooting vodka instead of tequila. From what I could find in the kitchen, Cole’s solely devoted to distilled potatoes in his hard liquor.”
Impossible. Lissa couldn’t be in there shooting his booze with some chick. For fuck’s sake, who?
“Look, Scarlet, call me back. You’re cutting out.”
On speaker with Sca
rlet. For shots.
Not normal. Or fun. Or sexy. Or like an activity he’d trade his best zoom lens to be a part of.
Figuring it wasn’t possible to encroach in his own house, Cole stayed for the teleparty, ears peeled and feet shifting. Once Lissa and her friend scavenged a better connection—cell coverage was generally fine in the house, but there were occasional mountain glitches—he eavesdropped with ease.
“Was this week any better,” Scarlet asked, “or are you still struggling?”
Cole tensed.
“Struggling,” Lissa replied dryly, “with the delusion of not wanting him to bone me into next week.”
An indelicate snort muffled through the phone.
“Even if I knew my own mind,” Lissa continued, “he’ll never be able to deliver, not artistically and definitely not romantically. One minute he’s aloof. The next I have to stop him from giving me a raging orgasm on the kitchen table while his family stands by listening for a telltale squeal. In a word—hang-ups.”
Peals of laughter interrupted Lissa’s tirade. His little guest hadn’t slurred, but she was getting to the honest part of the drunk. True to form, Lissa compensated for Scarlet’s hilarity by talking louder, drowning her friend out. “Worse? Those hang-ups are mine. I really need this to work.”
Suddenly Scarlet grew serious. “No, you don’t.”
A pause. Then a quiet, “You aren’t supposed to agree with them, Scarlet.”
“I don’t agree with them. I love your work—true love—and you know it. But a permanent gallery is a hard thing to waste. Maybe that’s the way to go. Take your dad up on the offer, and build it slow and steady. In a few years, you’ll get there.”
“Not on my own.” Cole didn’t like how her tone implied she couldn’t succeed without help. He especially didn’t like the hollowed out pinch in his gut that reminded him he’d played a part in cultivating that opinion.