by Libby Rice
And then there was fire.
Now he had crackling flames and a raging hard-on without the willing woman. Cole considered waiting her out, but with Lissa that could take all night. He was halfway to the still-open door when the firelight caught the blue winking from her easel.
His Lissa had been busy.
No matter where photography had taken him—the poverty in the children or the pollution in the water—he could almost always find a patch of sky to appreciate. Blue had been his favorite.
Her painting morphed that fondness into mourning. If Lissa stood next to him, she’d ask her favorite question: What do you feel when you look at it? For once, their answers might match. Despite his well-worn affinity for the color, a burn flared behind his ribs—the trickling drain of unavoidable loss layered beneath a rush of expectation. Fittingly, he saw more of the former than the latter on the canvas, but the slight hint of better prospects, of Lissa’s hope that greatness awaited, couldn’t be ignored.
One got to understand a person when living and working together, especially when all that living and working occurred primarily one-on-one. Show Lissa the stars, and she’d fly to the moon to collect the future lying in its dust, no matter how difficult, impossible, or grim.
He ran his knuckles lightly over a corner of the murky background, testing the paint. The dryness of the smooth surface told him she’d begun before Kent’s ambulance had fully departed the front drive.
The woman thought in paint. She worried in paint, rejoiced in paint, grieved in paint, and used paint to talk to the world. Her brush was an extension of her mind. Her mouth. Her heart.
Cole could only wish for that kind of connection with his craft.
He lifted the work from its resting place, slipping it safely under his arm. He wouldn’t negligently destroy Lissa’s art again. From the hall, he checked his own room first. A man could hope. Maybe he wasn’t alone in tonight’s epiphanies.
Unfortunately, his king bed looked as lonely as ever. He kept moving, room by room. First he exhausted the upstairs, then ruled out the couch and a rug she favored in front of the fireplace in the living room. The dining room and kitchen were clear.
He found her in the basement, hunched in the corner they’d invaded together that very morning, the remnants of his twenty years with a camera spread in a semi-circle around her folded legs. The ski mask was back, along with the suffocating clothing that covered every single inch of the skin he’d gotten so desperate to see. Sasha stretched out amid the chaos, snoring in a chuffing, inconsistent rumble. She’d let the dog make a nest of glossy eight-by-tens.
Figures.
The location made perfect sense. Lissa Blanc still searched for her rocket ship to the moon. She never gave up, not even on the worst of days.
How come the poor-little-rich-girl haters clamoring after her hadn’t figured that one out?
She didn’t look up from her laptop. Every two seconds or so, she jabbed the keyboard, obviously trolling through electronic photos. “He’s okay?”
Cole shrugged. “For the next while. They cleared the blockage.” We’ll see how long that can last.
She set the computer aside and considered him at length, chin resting on bare, steepled fingers. She had fine-boned hands. Artist’s hands, some would say, the kind with delicate joints and tapered nails. He’d noticed her lack of polish and attributed the simplicity to her profession. Removing stray paint from her skin would likely strip the heartiest polish.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered simply. He stayed on the stairs under that one glaring light bulb, letting her look her fill. The eyes examining him were shadowed. She’d been waiting.
Where did he start? How did he ask?
Tell her.
Before he could wade in, Lissa turned speculative. Her eyes pinched in the direction of the painting he held, and her lips turned up mildly, only half amused, as if she doubted what she saw and tried to reserve judgment until she knew.
“If you’ve sabotaged that painting,” she said in a voice that could freeze boiling oil, “I’d call you a slow, slow learner.”
******
Triste—the French part of her mutt heritage liked the alliteration—had been a private exercise. Now Cole clutched the painting in a trigger hold, steady, but hesitant, as though he wasn’t sure whether he’d made the right choice. If his choice had been to damage more of her work, she’d let Sasha do more than sleep on Cole’s prized photographs.
Slow words rolled over his tongue, each one individually enunciated. “You’re driving me crazy. Literally, I think.”
The twists of his logic never failed to surprise. She’d anticipated some snide comment about her skill but got an admission of a sluggish decline into madness. “You were crazy already, I think.” Which was fine because Lissa liked the unexpected. Predictable meant boring.
He smiled at that, a bitter twist of lips and gleaming teeth. “I knew myself before. I knew I’d made mistakes that required amends. You make me wonder whether I’m willing to pay.”
“Good.” Someday, she’d be that introspective. She would worry about the people she’d wronged and drive herself nuts wanting to make it right. Or not. For now, she wanted to lift every ounce of self-reflection from Cole’s shoulders and fling them to the rafters for the spiders to devour. “You’ve nothing to pay for.”
Cole took a step and kept coming. He didn’t stop until he loomed over her, separated only by the albums and photos and disks she’d piled around the floor. The meat of Triste remained concealed in his long shadow. She couldn’t tell what he’d done to her latest work.
Attitude generally coated Cole in a thin veil of tread carefully. Even when he’d reached out with toe-curling intimacy, she’d sensed his internal mastery. Tonight his bruised presence felt lighter, like he prepared to ask instead of tell. But for what?
Dangle a carrot.
Reaching beneath her, she lifted a dog-eared Travel + Leisure magazine opened to a marked page with Cole’s name printed in tiny letters along the bottom edge. “I’ve never been to Machu Picchu.” She made the comment idly, like the subject wasn’t completely random. “Seems like a place certain kinds of photographers are expected to cut their teeth. I bet it’s been the subject of a million talents. Yet all the pictures I’ve seen—years and years’ worth—look the same. The camera points downward to a cliff-side ruin with a sharp, rocky mountain rising in the backdrop. That same photograph, taken by hordes of professionals, has made that lost city one of the most recognizable in the world.” The satin pages quivered in her grip. “Cookie-cutter greatness.”
Cole stilled, waiting, but not particularly expectant. No surprise there. They didn’t share a history of compliments. He was preparing for the worst.
“Yours is better,” she admitted, now holding the open magazine with one hand and tracing the outline of stone terraces with the other. “So good I want to think the clouds are computer generated. They cradle the city too perfectly, holding it up to the eye, creating depth, contrasting color—”
“They’re real.”
“Of course they are. You’re you.”
He bared his teeth without a sound, then toed a pile of DVDs out of the way and sat close. The intensity he never quite shirked settled into the space between them, charging the air with whatever Cole planned to say.
He delayed, which meant Lissa killed time enjoying the view. Across from her, his sharp, gorgeous face was serious. Unkempt hair fell over his forehead, almost blocking those suspicious eyes, eyes that mocked and caressed all at once.
“So?” she asked, ignoring the warmth spreading to her limbs. If she was going to give him a compliment, he could damn well work for it.
Cole leaned back against his palms in a smooth glide, looking too collected for their face-off. His grin was so fast she nearly missed the message, a flash of sun on steel and then gone again. “I went back at sunrise, four days in a row. Weather had settled in. The shot became a
matter of timing.”
Neither the innocuous words nor the quick smile diffused the tension. That alone said he merely humored her with his answer. Whatever he really wanted to say would come later, after he disposed of her untimely fixation on the photos.
“Not the tiniest bit of digital manipulation?” She knew the answer, but felt it best to build him up, just in case she had to tear him down.
“None.”
Honesty surged on her tongue. “Congratulations,” she whispered. The sentiment cost her. Who knew how Cole would react to her sincere admiration? He might use it as the wrong kind of fuel. Those in the know believed constructive criticism should follow positive feedback. She’d started out right, but if he attacked, if he showed any inclination to use her compliment as a concession, she’d fall back on the stack of examples sitting behind her. One photo after another proved he’d never been totally devoted to what-you-see-is-what-you-get. He, of all people, knew that waiting in one place for four days to capture a fleeting reality wasn’t the only way.
Naked Kate in the desert had been the smallest start.
Triumph kindled in the subtle incline of Cole’s head. Were he standing, she suspected he’d take a bow. “You’re learning,” he said.
So close. Her fingers skated over one of her “gotcha” photos. This one looked like tropical fish swimming in a glass-encased aquarium. A closer look—mainly at the caption—proved the picture had been taken underwater through a huge metal frame meant to impart a staid, safe impression. The fish were Amazonian piranhas in their natural habitat. The picture lied, and it was magnificent. “Listen, genius, I just reached across the aisle. You might try—”
Cole flipped her canvas out from behind him. One moment she’d faced her recalcitrant partner, the next the blue swirls of Triste. He might not take up the space of his brother, but Cole possessed whipcord strength and fluid movement and the decisive speed of a released slingshot—tense and still one moment, loose and still the next, something profound and easily missed in between.
Unexpected relief relaxed her ribcage. The painting was pristine. Cole hadn’t done any harm. She released the picture of the swimming fish, keeping it hidden for the moment. Observing her own work, she said, “I know—good, right?”
“No.” After a tick, he added softly, “Great.”
Elation whirled in an expanding ball beneath Lissa’s ribs, and she couldn’t stop her grin. Cole was instantly forgiven for invading her space. Thank God some unexplained initiative had led him to the one painting she’d decided to keep to herself.
Because her quest to belong had morphed. General acceptance—a few pats on the back or a handful of willing buyers—would no longer do. She’d take them, of course, but she wanted—needed—Cole’s respect. No more talk of drivel.
Now…
Lissa stilled. The moment she’d worked for with such fervor should have arrived with more fanfare. Cole wasn’t eating crow with the proper enthusiasm. “And?”
You’re sorry you mocked my work? My profession? My existence? You were wrong all along?
Expectation threatened to break through her sardonic façade. She shook it off, refusing to show how deeply she cared. Because she didn’t. Not at all.
“Go ahead,” he said, “ask me.”
Oh, she would. Couldn’t wait. But ask him what?
His head tilted when she didn’t jump at the invitation. “Ask me what I fee—”
Her breath caught in dawning understanding, and she rushed to get the question out. “What do you feel when you look at it?”
Feel. An industrious word. Cole sat close enough to touch. If she were to reach out, her fingertips could trail down—
“When I first saw it, I was hit with equal parts sadness and disappointment.”
Yes, when he’d been rummaging alone in her room in the middle of the night. Maybe going through my underwear drawer. One never knew when the landlord would retaliate for past transgressions. For that, she’d piled her sexiest thongs on top. Staring at Cole’s private possessions scattered around her knees, Lissa admitted most would have invaded her room far sooner.
“Then what?” Her voice was husky. She should stop focusing on Cole’s possible proximity to her lingerie and seize her progress against his closed-minded views. Concentration was a hard thing, though, when he sat inches away, looking rigidly aloof.
About to break. Or give in.
He surged to his feet, tension roiling visibly beneath his skin, and she knew her face reflected pure feminine appreciation. Scooting back against the boxes at her rear, she settled in to watch him pace.
Cole wasted little time. He crossed the room to the far corner she’d searched that morning. “I’ll show you what,” he muttered, presumably to himself. Without pausing to examine any contents, he bent at the knees and lifted a stack of four boxes, depositing them front and center. Before she could do much wondering, he pulled the top box down and set it on the floor in front of the other three, forming an L-shape.
When he reached for Triste, she understood. He’d constructed a makeshift easel at her height on the floor.
Careful hands set the base of her painting on the front box, then tilted it back for viewing. “Here”—his finger stabbed at the murky highlighting in Triste’s center—“you didn’t stop at sad or disappointed. You, like you always do, kept going.”
Her ears perked. Perhaps she should have given Cole more credit. Telling herself he didn’t “get” her work had been a consolation prize. “I do that because there’s always more to show.” Like right now. She didn’t feel mere surprise and satisfaction. She also wondered at Cole’s game and whether his praise stemmed from an honest change of heart or a drive to officially push the boundaries of their relationship. “We’ve been over this. You see emotion in black and white. I see cream and heather gray.” And pink and purple and persimmon.
“Right.” His chest heaved.
Poor man. “What does the white mean, Cole? If more complex than sad and disappointed, then what?”
“You.” His shout echoed off the concrete walls, ripped from his throat like a vile insult. “Always you.”
Lissa swallowed against the instinct to lash out. Cole’s outburst didn’t bring an iota of clarity. He sounded so angry. Yet he’d obviously come to the basement bearing an olive branch.
He stretched his arms back, clasping those big hands behind his head, breathing hard against whatever speech he wouldn’t let himself make.
Lissa blinked, then let her eyes drift shut. “I don’t understand. Tell me.”
“All this time I couldn’t tap the veins running through your work. The paintings hinted at meaning that proved elusive. I blamed you, told myself a real artist ought to be able to reach even me.”
As he talked, his rasping breath tapered to a manageable rhythm. “You never could.”
Bullshit. “I did.” She’d touched a nerve the size of the Grand Canyon.
“When I see that halo floating in the gloom of blue, I get the surrounding despair, so I’m improving. Other than that, I can only guess at what you must have felt and try to grasp it. Hope, I suppose. Hope I don’t understand or share.”
Her eyes snapped open. “But you want to.”
“Pay attention.” He scowled. “I want you.”
Chapter 16
“What, exactly,” Lissa choked, “is that supposed to mean?”
“You know, exactly.” Cole abandoned the painting and surged across the chilled concrete on lead feet. Lissa might think he’d accepted her as a partner. Or that he intended to amass more of her work. Both were true. But her parted lips and shallow pants told him otherwise. She knew he meant her, as in legs wrapped around his waist as he glided through soft, clutching tissues. As in sucking kisses to the back of her neck while she begged him to move lower.
Which he would. Because he planned to give her what she wanted, and like it or not, Lissa returned his sentiment.
He crouched in front of her, hands on her
calves, stroking.
She didn’t move away. If anything, she leaned in. “Your presumptions know no bounds.”
“Really? That must have been what you were thinking a week ago when you screamed ‘please’ and came on my tongue.”
She swallowed.
“You came in a rush, and it was the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted. Beautiful.” Another truth. In every other way, she’d fought against his control, ignoring his dictates, outsmarting him at each turn. He should have guessed her warm, wet welcome would be unusually gratifying. Physically, at least, she couldn’t resist. Like him. “I can’t stop thinking about your response. Don’t even want to.”
More convulsive swallowing and her eyes grew huge behind the silly mask. Then, “Jesus, Cole, is this what you’ve been hiding behind that tower in your head?”
In a word, “Yes.” Maybe he couldn’t embrace the emotion, at least not easily, but he’d always gotten along with the sex.
“Give me that.” He rolled the stocking gently over her lips, then pulled it free and dropped it to the floor. Without the mask, she was still swathed in clothes. He hadn’t seen her truly naked since that second morning in the hall. Yards of cotton and denim did little to mute the picture he carried in his mind.
Perfection.
Peeling away the jeans would reveal slim hips and a smooth, pert ass. Divesting her of the heavy thermal top would expose efficient little breasts that stood high without support. Nipples that puckered at the slightest provocation. His mouth watered with the urge to nuzzle through the shirt.
But not here, not in the cold and damp, a place she felt the need to cover up.
His hand found hers. “Come.” With him for now. Later, around him.
His Lissa—he couldn’t place when he’d begun to think of her that way—followed without a fight. Sasha snorted when their steps hit the stairs. Leaving the breathing throw rug behind, Cole led Lissa to the kitchen and through the dark house. Her heat coated his back all the way up the front stairs and into her bedroom.