Art-Crossed Love

by Libby Rice

  “Ah, baby,” he sighed, stroking over her hair and down her bare arm, “I was.”

  Baby. The endearment melted whatever resistance she might have mustered to end this madness. He’d said it hard, then in desperation, and now soft and natural, as though calling her that were the most normal thing in the world.

  “You’re still wearing your coat, Cole.” The restraint he’d exhibited…

  Heavy arms tightened around her bare shoulders. “Yup.”

  “Your pants, too.” Though not for long if she had her way.

  “All of it, Lissa.” His voice sounded reassuring, as though she might be asking out of concern that he’d strip.

  Actually, she was counting on it. “Would you do me a favor?”

  After a pause, “What did you have in mind?”

  Was it her, or had his soothing manner grown a bit skeptical? Maybe a tad husky? Hopeful. “I thought maybe you could take them off.”

  Though she couldn’t see him, she felt his mouth tighten against her neck.

  “Yeah”—he swallowed audibly—“that can be arranged.”

  Suddenly the hands bracketing her torso released, and she scuttled forward to spin on the seat. By the time she’d turned, an awkward move considering her bunched panties and jeans, Cole had lost his jacket, a fleece, and was in the process of peeling a tight black thermal over his head. The first two must have gone fast, but with the thermal, he took his sweet time. Each crawling inch upward revealed another band of muscle on his stomach, not to mention that golden strip of hair that made like runway lights, pointing her in the direction she planned to go.

  “Mmm, Lissa,” he groaned, reaching to caress the contours of her breasts with both hands. Testing each individually, his eyes drifted closed, and he rubbed over her nipples with extended thumbs. “Unzip me now. Take me out.”

  Utterly enthralled, Lissa eased his pants apart and pulled him free of both the low-slung jeans and the snug boxer briefs beneath. That light arrow of hair certainly didn’t lead to disappointment.

  He pulsed in her hand, the crown wide and straining, moisture whetting the slit. Veins traveled the length of his velvety shaft, beginning beneath the head and sinuously working their way to the base. Lissa fought a burst of elemental need, desperate to fondle and stroke and give.

  She squeezed, then watched when his eyes flared with a look that demanded satisfaction. Earlier Cole had been careful, almost reverent. That patience had fled. “Ah, please”—his grip covered hers, upping the pressure and guiding her hand forward and back in a strong pump—“have a suck.”

  As if she responded to crass requests like that? Except, wait a minute, the rebellion only sounded nice in theory because—token as it was—she’d thought it too late, right before her mouth enveloped…

  “Holy CHRIST.” Above her, Cole thrashed, almost upsetting her balance.

  …the head of his cock.

  A smile stretched her lips around the tip. More moisture eased over the head. She lapped it up. Lissa had done this before, but not nearly as much as her smutty jokes implied. And never had she been overcome with a single thought—more. Of the feel. The clean, earthy smell. God, the taste.

  Additional broad-tongued laps set Cole to shaking. She slipped her hand from his hold and inched it downward, cupping his heavy testicles. Not Cole, though. He maintained a strangled grip on his shaft, holding himself out to her. For her.

  Let it not be said that Lissa Blanc didn’t accept help when offered. She eased him into her mouth, taking him back until her tingling lips met his knuckles. She could take more. Needed to. In an effort to gain access, she licked against the edge of his hand. Let go, she silently pleaded. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

  The message worked. That limiting hand disappeared, and Lissa surged forward in a rush, slipping toward his taut stomach until she truly couldn’t go any farther.

  “That is,” he rasped, sounding smothered, “so… fucking… good.”

  His clear pleasure made her twitch for more of the same. Wrapping her much smaller hand tightly around his base, she began to move in tandem—fist to lips and away, over and over.

  Random noises flew from Cole’s throat. Love that he adores this! After less than a minute, the moans and indecipherable words changed, grinding lower and longer. A subtle ripple rose under her tongue, telling her Cole was fighting release.

  Too soon.

  He hadn’t let her off so easily. Not in life and certainly not in love.

  Favors like that had to be repaid.

  *****

  An hour ago, Cole had been fighting his attraction. Now that Lissa had wrapped her swollen pink lips around his shaft, he realized he’d lost the skirmish, the battle, the war, and quite possibly the tenuous grip he had on his sanity.

  She whimpered, and the smell of cloves and apples mingled with her heady arousal in the warm air blowing over her skin. His Lissa liked having her mouth on him.

  When she prompted, pushing at his fist with her bossy tongue, he let go of his erection and gave her free reign. One hand plastered the rear truck window. The other fell to her nape with a will of its own. Not pushing, just stroking, assuring her she could do no wrong with that hot mouth and tight grip.

  Cole tried to relax, but he loved this too much. Every second was an exercise in suppressing an explosion. Here was Lissa—beautiful and frustrating and iron-willed—eagerly suckling his cock like she might reach a hidden candy center.

  She would. In five, four, three, two…

  The pump of her hand added to the slide of her mouth, and he knew it was over. Never vocal before, he struggled to keep his mouth shut. “This is… I… the way you… FUCK!”

  His orgasm was barreling upward. “Lissa, baby, you’re making me come.”

  But she was easing off before he could finish the words. In the beat of a moment, her hand stopped, and her mouth deserted him. His seed hit a wall that left him moaning and mentally begging. For pity, mercy, a quick lick, anything.

  Pleasure speared into disappointment, almost pain. Let her be. From the self-satisfied look on Lissa’s face, she was eager to get back to him, but in her own sweet time.

  Evil, but effective.

  She found his sensitive slit with her wet little tongue, and he lost it. “Lissa! You’re killing me.”

  “Ah, Cole.” She sighed, mirroring his earlier tone, “I know.” But then she we went to work with that blissful hand-to-mouth combo again. In seconds, he was shaking and sweating with the urge to ejaculate.

  “Don’t stop,” he grated, panting. “Not now.” Not ever.

  A mumble drifted upward—flirtatious words moaned around his desperate cock—and he struggled to tell her time was short. “Baby, now, no stopping…”

  Without a word, without the slightest lull in her rhythm, Lissa rolled her gaze skyward to meet his. Her shallow nod acquiesced in a way that was both content and expectant. Those huge brown eyes looked so happy, so sweet, that he came completely undone. Thrusting into her kiss, loving the nails that scored his ass to urge him on, Cole roared her name and let himself go in great, pulling surges.

  The cataclysmic orgasm took all his energy and, with it, some of the bile that had clung to his bones for too long. He tapered his driving hips and gently, carefully, drew Lissa off his spent arousal, pulling her upward for a soft kiss. “I don’t know what that was, but thank you.”

  He drew her into his arms and collapsed against the seat, both of them staring in dumb silence at the heavy snow now blanketing the truck.

  Lissa gradually stiffened against him, and he couldn’t help but notice her steady withdrawal, right up to the moment she broke the peace. “My easel,” she said flatly, and Cole recalled seeing it fall.

  Oh, shit.

  Her beautiful painting of the Flatirons—the one to finally break him down—was gone.

  ******

  Jeans and boots and panties still hugged Lissa’s calves, a shameful reminder of how easily she’d abandoned her Cole fast. The cr
amped space left little room to restore her clothing, but Lissa was desperate to reach the spot where she’d abandoned her easel, so she made the most of the space, yanking and pulling until she was decent. A sinking feeling made her spin on Cole. He still sat in the seat, looking limp but gorgeous and slightly bemused.

  She spoke around a developing lump in her throat. “Did you mean for this to happen?”

  Did you actually use sex to destroy another of my paintings?

  The mystified remnants of pleasure vanished from his face like so much smoke. “This?” Cole punctuated the question with a hard look and a flick of his thick wrist around the cabin.

  “Us,” she choked out, pointing at the seat, “in here.” Unable to hold back, she let her knuckles rap a harsh crack against the passenger window. “My painting? Out there.”

  Later, he’d said, pulling her away from the drying paint.

  Suddenly Lissa could hear his favorite word in her head again, only this time she wasn’t dumb enough to give drivel any connotation except the obvious. Blinking back futile tears, Lissa tried to control a quaking that started deep inside and worked its way to the surface. Face it, Cole disliked her work to the extent he was willing to go to extremes. On multiple occasions he’d set events into motion that had harmed her paintings. Each time added another clenching finger to an invisible hand around Lissa’s neck. Letting him in would strangle her self-esteem, her talent, her very value as a human being.

  Over the past few weeks, Lissa had come to see Cole for what he really was—a gateway drug to independent living. Ready to lessen her reliance on her family, Lissa had transferred some of her dependence to Cole. Like a blind, trusting fool. In so doing, she’d pegged him as the final arbiter of her success, and he repeatedly rejected the entire notion that she might ever be successful.

  Cole’s answer struck, completely unequivocal, newly angry. “Never would I mean for this to happen.”

  Did he refer to her loss or his inability to force a limp dick when in close quarters? Theirs was a viscous cycle, certainly, but at least he’d been honest. Until now.

  “Where’s your camera?” she demanded weakly. “I bet it’s not buried in the snow.”

  Cole’s reply was calm, as minimalist and logical as ever. “I finished long before you, Lissa. When I did, I put it away.”

  He’d misled her with one word. When Cole had muttered, “Perfect,” and kissed her amidst the early flurries, she’d thought he’d meant the painting currently swallowed by the developing storm. More, she’d wanted to believe he’d meant her. Now she knew he’d referred to something more sinister, like the perfect plan to seduce and drive a beleaguered point home.

  Your work sucks, baby, but while I might be emotionally stunted, I sure wouldn’t mind a quick fuck in the truck. Yeah?

  And she’d known, known that Cole still didn’t like her work and still really liked his deceased wife. He’d already demonstrated a capacity to get physical without inviting any form of emotional entanglement. The concepts of respect and intimacy and grief had tangled around her relationship with Cole, suffocating her ability to either separate or merge their professional and personal lives.

  In a weak moment, she’d let him in again—maybe because she’d misunderstood and thought him safe, maybe because she didn’t particularly care for safe and couldn’t resist a few stolen moments. Either way, her stomach pitched in protest. The warmth from the vents and the shared heat of their bodies faded to a blank, meaningless cold, the kind of cold that didn’t bite the skin, but siphoned heat from within.

  Swiveling on the seat, she glanced through the back window and saw his equipment stacked neatly in the truck bed, safe beneath the camper shell.

  Deep breathes weren’t enough to suppress the hurt, and they had absolutely no impact on the anger. “This is the third of my paintings you’ve had a hand in destroying. To think you would use…”

  She couldn’t finish. Fumbling for the door handle, she let herself out and ran, coat free and exposed. A faint lump marked where her easel and canvas might be, not to mention her paints and brushes.

  “Lissa, I didn’t. I swear to you.” Cole’s voice faded as she pulled ahead.

  Too much had been lost because she’d wanted to believe she and Cole had an unspoken agreement. They would meet in the middle of their artistic battleground, and meet on the right basis—art. Otherwise, how was she not using their attraction to sway his opinion? And how would that be any different than using her dad’s wallet or some other tool that had nothing to do with her brain and her brush? Anything other than her talent confirmed her talent wasn’t enough.

  Cole had cheated.

  Falling to her knees in the snow, Lissa brushed and scraped, letting whirls of white whip her face and ungloved hands. Moments of digging brought her to the doctored wooden leg of her easel. The sight of ineptly-applied duct tape only reminded her of the first time Cole had pulled a stunt when he hadn’t liked the results of her efforts. She jerked the leg and flung the tripod to the top of the snow.

  In the space left behind, she spied a sheen of hot pink in a state that made her see red.

  Smeared. Not frozen. Oil paints demanded more than a snow day to freeze, but the sweep of rock that moments ago had jutted into an ominous sky now curved in weakened streaks to the ground. The flash of bright pink that had lent the collecting snow a majestic edge now appeared accidental, like her canvas had run up against a half-eaten pomegranate in the dumpster. The future didn’t hold an edgy leopard-print matte like she’d imagined.

  Her best work since setting foot in Colorado was destined for the dump.

  Chapter 23

  Kent shifted in his easy chair, stifling a pleasured sigh that told of a steak in lap and a beer in hand. What the boys and the doctors didn’t know…

  Besides, this was a medicinal beer, drunk for a specific purpose. He figured the next one would go down for the same cause, and, well, if he had to, he wasn’t above a third in the name of family.

  Usually he’d be watching reruns by this time in the evening, but not tonight. Tonight Kent was on a recollection mission of sorts. Happy and relaxed had to be the first step in revealing the most elusive of the shadows in his head, thus the fine meal, a fire burning on the nearby grate, and a table lamp to cast both him and his food in a warm, but decidedly low glow.

  His short-term memory had returned, thankfully. At first, a steak would have been out of the question. Kent would have forgotten the meat sizzling on the grill mere minutes after putting it there. Now he might be more forgetful than before, but nothing beyond what he figured were the natural frustrations presented by the aging mind.

  Setting the beer aside, he sliced into his steak with his sharpest knife. Cholesterol sucked. Not eating filet mignon sucked more. And the pulling need to understand what he’d forgotten could no longer be ignored.

  Good old Uncle Kent was officially willing to die to remember.

  Booze and red meat could be the final shovel of dirt on his waiting grave, or they could be the right tools for the task at hand. Good thing Kent had always been an optimistic sort.

  Happily patting the small, round container of nitro pills in his breast pocket, Kent downed his first bite. Then he eased back into the cushions of the recliner and let his mind wander. Not trying to remember—Kent resisted the urge to force his brain to go places it remained hesitant to venture—but trying to create an environment conducive to remembering. The doctors said some of the months leading to the attack would return, which they had, and some would be forever lost. The more he struggled, they scolded, the more his brain would lock down.

  So he chased his first perfect bite with a swig of beer and floated on a sea of endorphins, convinced that a person can never know the true pleasure of the life they enjoy until deprived of the very same. Traversing that little epiphany, he let his conscious mind cajole his subconscious one.

  No pressure, nonfunctioning brain cells. I’ve got all the time in the world. In fact,
the more you hold out, the more nights I’ll have like this—juicy, delicious evenings of relaxing silence—so test me. Please.

  Kent chuckled into the night. Hard not to laugh at a man who sat alone in the near dark, eating a slab of meat the size of a guinea pig while fostering a silent conversation between one part of his brain and another.

  All necessary, though, because he’d been after something.

  Before.

  Now he grasped little more than a burning desire for answers to an unknown question. The same feeling had dogged him since coming around to beeping machines and two terrified nephews.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Speaking of…

  Palpable irritation lacerated Kent’s peace as his eldest nephew walked into view. “Do not touch this plate,” he told Trevor with more ferocity than he’d imagined himself capable. “Don’t even think about getting near this food.”

  Trevor sighed. “You’ve lost your mind.”

  Literally. “I am, in fact, working to get it back.”

  “By inviting another coronary event? Smart man.”

  Trevor reached an enormous arm out for the beer balanced on Kent’s armrest, but Kent beat him to the bottle. “Don’t touch that either.”

  Trevor reared back, surprise evident in every line of his huge body. “You’re beyond forgetful. You’re fucking crazy.”

  “I’m determined.”

  “To do what?”

  “Fix my idiot relatives.”

  The flames behind Trevor hissed as though they’d chosen that moment to punctuate Kent’s sentiment. Of course Trevor didn’t notice. He grabbed the poker and stoked the logs. Threw another on the pile. Then, in a quiet voice filled with doubt and disappointment, he asked, “By dying?”

  Some of Kent’s righteous indignation dissipated, and he tried to explain why he couldn’t follow the rules. “Boiled broccoli without salt has me so tense and pissed off I’ll never recover my past. To get my health back, I have to torture my mind. To get my mind back, I have to be a little lax on my health. Guess what?” Trevor shrugged, and Kent finished around another bite of his cooling steak. “I choose my mind.”