Now That I've Found You

by Bella Andre

  "Do you see your father much?"

  Finally, the brush stopped, hovering just over the canvas. "Not recently. He doesn't get out to the city much."

  "And you don't go to the Adirondacks to see him?"

  "Not as often as I should." Drake suddenly looked tired, as if his all-nighter had just caught up with him. "That's why Suz came--to see if I wanted to drive out there with her." He paused as if he was trying to decide whether to say more. Finally, he said, "He says he's got some paintings of our mother to give to each of us if we want them."

  The last thing Rosa wanted was to hurt Drake. But something told her he needed to talk to someone about what was going on with his family without risking judgment. And if anyone knew about weird family dynamics, she did. Lord knew she was certainly in no position to judge.

  Which was why, instead of backing off, she decided to step closer to the fire she could see burning inside of him. "Do you want the paintings?"

  "My father is a true master painter, and collectors consider the paintings to be priceless, but--" He put down his brush and ran a paint-smeared hand over his hair, leaving it standing on end. "When she left us, she left him so broken that he left us too. The paintings have always felt like a brutal reminder of how having me must have pushed them both over the edge."

  Rosa didn't think, just crossed the room and put her arms around him. "They were wrong. Both of them were so damned wrong to hurt you." He'd been angry with her mother, and now she was just as furious with his parents. She held him tighter as she said, "It doesn't matter how much the paintings are worth. If you decide not to take them, it's entirely on your mother and father, not their innocent kid who got caught in the crossfire."

  "How can you see my innocence so clearly," he said as he drew back to cup her face in his hands, "but not your own?"

  "If you have an Internet connection here, I'll show you why. It will take me less than five seconds to find dozens of pictures I've posed for where I'm wearing next to nothing. Where I'm deliberately flaunting my body."

  "You have every right to flaunt whatever you want to. And you have every goddamned right to strip off your clothes in front of the entire world if it makes you happy. But just like I didn't ask my mother to walk out on me and my family, you sure as hell didn't ask some creep to take those pictures of you."

  He'd been passionate and intense before, but this was a whole other level. One where it felt like he'd go to the ends of the earth if that's what he needed to do to make her believe that what he was saying was true.

  "You're not only innocent, Rosa, but I don't need to see any pictures of you on the Internet to know that you don't have one single thing to be ashamed of in your past."

  Again, Rosa didn't think through her next move, couldn't possibly do anything but feel how full her heart was. She simply went to her tippy-toes, pressed her mouth to his.

  And finally gave him the kiss they'd both been waiting for.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Drake didn't lose control as Rosa kissed him. Because how could he lose something he'd never had when it came to the woman in his arms?

  In the span of a heartbeat, her sweet kiss went deep. Wild. And so hot that he wouldn't be surprised if his cabin caught fire right where they were standing.

  "Love me," she whispered against his lips. "Please love me, Drake. Here. Now."

  "Anything you want," he promised her. "Anything you need. It's yours."

  All night long, as he'd painted her from memory, he'd drifted in and out of a semi-dream state where reality and imagination overlapped, blending until he could barely see their edges. Now, as Rosa's heart hammered out a fast beat against his, those edges blurred again--the real world outside his cabin disappearing until it was only the two of them and the new reality they were creating together.

  One where desire ruled...and any cries were those of soul-deep pleasure.

  He wound her hair in his fist and tugged her head back so that he could feast on the feather-soft skin at her neck, laving her throbbing pulse point with his tongue before nipping at the curve of her shoulder so that she shuddered and thrill bumps rose across her skin. He'd never wanted to love anyone so much, or so well--had never known what it was to truly lose himself in another's pleasure. Not until Rosa had walked out on his cliffs in the rain and changed absolutely everything.

  From the corner, Oscar let out a long, low howl. And when Rosa stilled in his arms, Drake worried that the spell would be broken the same way it was in the motel when she'd stopped and told him she was making a mistake.

  But all she said was, "I think we're scandalizing him."

  "That's his happy sound," Drake told her as he scooped her up in his arms. She instinctively wound hers around his neck as he added, "He loves having you here." They both did. "But we don't need an audience. And I want you in my bed." Hell, he wanted her everywhere, but the bed would be a good place to start.

  "I want it too." She played with the ends of his hair against his neck, almost shy as she said, "More than I've ever wanted anything else."

  They were halfway to his bedroom when he had to stop to devour the mouth that was driving him crazy. Heat spiked even higher as he took her lower lip between his teeth and her moan reverberated through them both.

  A split second from taking her right there in the hall, he forced himself to walk the final dozen feet to his bedroom. Kicking the door open, then shut behind them, he all but threw her down on the bed.

  "I should be gentle with you." He hoped saying the words aloud would make it possible. "I need to be careful our first time."

  "No," she said as she reached for him and pulled him down on top of her, "I don't want gentle. I don't want careful." Her eyes were so big, so honest. "I want dangerous."

  The floodgates of desire had already been yanked open by her kisses. But now?

  Now the last wall of the dam exploded as he slid his hands beneath her sweatshirt so that he could take greedy fistfuls of her. But even then it wasn't enough just to touch--he needed to see, needed to taste.

  Thank God she was already tearing off the thick cotton sweatshirt and her bra, baring herself to his gaze and his mouth as he licked out against the swell of one gorgeously aroused breast, then the other. But this back and forth still wasn't enough--he needed all of her at once, needed to cup her in his rough hands so that he could suckle both breasts at the same time.

  "God, that's so good." She thrust her hands into his hair and urged him closer as he pressed her breasts together and let his hunger for her take over. "More," she urged him, "take more of me."

  He felt her arousal climb higher and higher as he used tongue, teeth, and hands all at once, her hips bucking up into his as he ground himself against her. Lust clawed at his insides, driving him half mad as he yanked off her sweatpants and panties, then threw them across the room. He pressed his lips to her belly, then thrust his hand between her legs to find her gloriously wet and ready for him.

  Rosa's scent, the feel of her soft skin beneath his hands, her passionate response--every part of her intoxicated him. But it was the way she looked lying in his bed with her long hair wild on his pillow, her head thrown back in ecstasy, and her eyes closed, her breasts wet from his tongue and slightly abraded from his whiskers, that made time actually stop.

  All his life, Drake had seen beyond the actual, then sought to capture his hyper-vision on canvas. But he'd never, not once in his entire life, seen anything as beautiful as the woman in his bed.

  "Drake?" Her eyes were open again now, sparkling with so much life and heat and passion that he knew he could paint her a million times and never manage to show it all. Never even come close. "Don't stop." She licked her lips, and he had to taste them too. "Please, I'm--" She suddenly looked shy again as she whispered, "I'm so close."

  "Good." He pressed his mouth to the hollow of her neck as he slipped his fingers from her wet heat to skim them over her sex instead. "Close is good." He licked her collarbone, then lightly sank his teeth
into the sweet curve of her shoulder. "I love knowing you're nearly there. That I've taken you right to the edge." He circled the wet flesh between her thighs. "Just think how it's going to feel when you finally fall all the way over." With his other hand, he lightly rolled her nipple against his thumb. "So much better than good you're not going to believe it."

  Her breath was coming in hard pants now, her pupils dilated so wide her eyes were nearly black. "It already feels like that," she said at the exact moment he found her breasts again with his tongue and teeth. "Better than anything has ever been."

  He had to lift his mouth back to hers, needed her to know that it was the same for him. But soon, he was running his free hand and his mouth back over her breasts, and then farther down, over her stomach, pressing kisses to the tops of her thighs before putting his hands on them so that he could marvel all over again at just how beautiful she was. And so aroused that even blowing lightly over her sex was almost enough to send her tumbling into climax.

  Drake wanted to savor this moment, wanted to draw out every single second with her so that it never ended.

  But how could he resist the need to taste her?

  Only, when he finally covered her with his mouth, he needed a hell of a lot more than just a taste. He needed to devour her. Needed to plunge deep with his tongue as arousal spilled. Needed to plunge his fingers back into her to feel her clench tight around him, his name on her lips as her orgasm peaked, then ripped through her.

  Something snapped in him--and dangerous was the only way to describe the way he shoved off his clothes, put on protection, and leapt back over her on the bed.

  Her eyes were wide as he grabbed her wrists in his hands and pushed them over her head. Not with fear, but with an arousal that matched his own.

  "Yes," she panted, pleaded. "Take me. All of me. Don't hold back."

  But he was already there, dropping one hand from her wrists to reach down and push one leg up and open for him, then reaching around to grip her hip in his hand. He stopped only long enough to take a mental snapshot of her aroused perfection before he thrust home.

  One hard, perfect charge forward into heaven.

  A gasp of pleasure sounded from her throat as she bucked against him, using his grip at her wrists and thigh for leverage to get closer, to take more of him.

  "Oh God. It's so good. You feel so good."

  Though her eyelids fluttered as bliss washed through her, she never looked away. And neither did he, unable to stand the thought of missing even one second of loving Rosa.

  The sight of her flushed skin, the sexy sound of her moans of pleasure, the scent of her arousal--he'd never forget any of it. Would never be able to find anything, or anyone, to rival it. Sex had never been like this before, had never felt this intense. This mind-blowing.

  This meant to be.

  He crushed her mouth beneath his as he let go of her wrists so that he could pull her even tighter, while she wrapped her arms and legs around him as if she wanted him just as close. The way they fit together, inside and out, he swore she was made only for him.

  "Mine." He left her lips only long enough to tell her the one thing he now knew for sure. "You're mine."

  He didn't leave her breath to reply, but he didn't need to. Not when the press of her damp skin, the passion with which she urged his kisses and his thrusting hips deeper--and the staggering pleasure that took them higher and higher before finally sending them flying out over the edge together--told him that she felt the same.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He'd nearly killed her with pleasure.

  But even if he had, it would have been the perfect way to go. Nothing in her life had ever been so extraordinary, so all-consuming. Especially not sex.

  After playing the sex symbol for so many years, everyone thought she was so sexy. They assumed she ate men for lunch and spit out their bones before dinner. But they couldn't have been more wrong, couldn't have known just how uncomfortable and fake sex had always felt for her. In large part because the men she'd slept with had always wanted--and expected--her to be as glossy and camera-ready in the sack as she was while filming with makeup artists and hairstylists standing by.

  Rosa had been a virgin until after they'd signed on to do the show, so she'd never had sex without that pressure right alongside it. Which meant that she'd never really been able to enjoy it.

  Right now, however, she was anything but glossy. Miles from camera-ready. She was sticky and sweaty, and her hair was knotted from where Drake's hands had tangled in it, a thick fog of sensual bliss lingering while she worked to get some oxygen back into her lungs.

  In his arms, she'd temporarily forgotten to be afraid. Passion, desire, and pleasure had taken over every cell, inside and out. But now that she was starting to overthink everything again, the fear that he wouldn't be able to appreciate her like this came rushing back.

  She knew just when he sensed her shift from languid to stiff by the way he drew back to lever himself over her, then gazed down at her with obvious concern. "Something's wrong."

  Knowing she was only making things worse by getting all weird right after they'd just had amazing sex, she made herself say, "How could anything be wrong after that?"

  "I don't know," he said in a gentle voice. Even when they'd been totally swept up in passion with her wrists in his hands as he took her deliciously hard and fast, he'd been gentle at his core. "But something clearly is."

  For so many years, she'd been able to bank her true thoughts and reactions. But with Drake, she couldn't seem to hold herself back. She kept telling him too much--feeling too much around him. Which meant that when whatever they were doing together came to its inevitable end, her heart would not only rupture into a million little pieces, but it would never grow back whole again.

  "Why can't you just be a clueless guy like the rest of them? Why do you have to notice every little thing?"

  "I don't notice with everyone, Rosa."

  She'd felt appreciated--treasured--in his arms. But while she could easily have chalked that up to endorphins, she couldn't deny that his words could mean only one thing: She was important to him.

  And it scared her. So much that she blurted, "I'm tired of feeling scared."

  "I was too rough." He reached for her wrists, ran his fingertips over them as if to check for bruises. "You asked for dangerous, but I took it too far."

  "No, the way you took me...that's not what scared me. You were perfect. You are perfect." A rough breath shook through her. "I'm the one who isn't. Not even close. Men always expect me to be, especially in bed. But no matter how hard I try, I can't do it. I just can't."

  "That's why you're scared?" He looked as though he not only couldn't believe what she'd just said, but that it wouldn't compute inside his brain. "Because you think I expect you to be perfect?"

  "For five years, I've had one job: to look pretty and polished all the time. It didn't matter if I'd just woken up or was coming out of the gym." She sat up, needing a little space to try to make sense so that he'd understand where she was coming from. "So even though I know I haven't looked great since we met, I've never looked like this. All knotted up and sticky. I don't want you to think--" She swallowed hard. "To think that you've made a mistake sleeping with me."

  Even as she said it, Rosa knew that she was making a huge mistake by letting herself get closer to him like this. A mistake for which she was soon going to pay dearly. Because when she had to force herself to leave him before he was ruined by being linked to her--romantically or otherwise--it was going to rip her heart in two.

  "Jesus, Rosa." He pulled himself into a sitting position too. "The only mistake is if you think the reason people all over the world are mesmerized by you is because of what you look like. There are plenty of beautiful women out there, but no one wants to follow their every move. Do you know why that is?"

  Her throat tight from the realization that their lovemaking hadn't changed anything in the long term and that the clock was already ru
nning out on how long she could stay here with him, she could barely get the words out. "Because they don't understand how Hollywood works like my family and I do."

  "You're wrong. So damned wrong." He pulled her onto his lap, clearly not giving a damn that she was still sticky with sweat. "The real reason people can't get enough of you is because you're smart. You're funny. You're talented. It's because you're soft and you're strong, all at the same time."

  Her throat grew even tighter as it swelled with yet more emotion. "Only you see me this way." And oh, how she wished she could stay with him. How she wished that she could love him the way he deserved to be loved. Not in the shadows, but for the whole world to see. And with a whole heart, rather than one that had been shredded to pieces one too many times.

  "Everyone sees you that way, Rosa." He pressed the words against her lips in a sweet, soft kiss that made her want so many more, especially if they could actually erase the dark clouds that had been hovering over her for so long. "You're the only one who doesn't." His lips whispered against hers. "How many paintings am I going to have to make of you until you see the truth?"

  "I--" She shook her head, let out a frustrated breath, one that came from way down deep in her soul. She wanted so much right now, wanted all the things she knew she could never have because of a decision she'd made to film a TV show when she was eighteen years old. "I don't know if that's even possible."

  "It is." He spoke with perfect certainty. "But maybe it's not seeing that will help you believe." He tangled his hands in her hair to pull her closer. "Maybe it's feeling. Feeling so much that you can't deny it anymore." He took her lips in a deep, passionate kiss, one that had her head spinning and her body tingling all over. "I'm going to make that my purpose from now on--to make sure you're feeling all the time. Starting right now."

  She knew he wasn't saying the words as a warning, but so that she could anticipate. So that she could pant with renewed need as he ran his big hands over her naked skin, cupping and stroking until she was actually writhing on his lap.

  And even though she knew better, even though she knew this perfect idyll in Drake's secret cabin in the woods couldn't last forever, no matter how much she wished it could, she was here with him now. So she would make the most of every precious second.