by Lauren Smith
“Wes!” she said and whimpered, but the way she shoved her hips back told him it was from pleasure not pain.
“Fuck, that’s good,” he growled against her neck as he gave into his need to possess her.
Have to mark her, show her and the world she’s mine. Only mine. He sank his teeth into the back of her neck in a gentle but firm love bite, leaving a mark on her skin as he sucked on the tender flesh. Soon he would put a collar on her neck, a permanent mark of his ownership, a chain to bind her to him. What a surprise it would be! He would have laughed but the little sounds of pleasure she was making drove him over the edge and he pinned her to the couch and fucked her hard until she came screaming. He only had a second to clamp a hand over her mouth to muffle the delicious noise of her pleasure before his body went rigid, his balls drawing tight as he shot deep inside her. The world blew out around him, his vision almost blacking out as he shouted and then relaxed, his chest pressing against her back.
“Holy hell,” Callie said and breathed out after he’d removed his hand. She dropped her chin onto the top of the couch, and he could see her face in profile as she tried to catch her breath. A kittenish smile, drowsy, sexy, and adorable, curved her lips and he twitched inside her. Her inner muscles clamped around it in response and little waves of aftershocks rippled through her and into him.
“Hell? More like heaven,” Wes corrected as he curled his arms around her, embracing her from behind, and rolled his hips, coaxing a little moan and a husky laugh from her.
“You’re gonna kill me if you keep this up.” Her sensual tone said she wouldn’t mind dying that way and he swelled with pride.
There had never been such a strong sense of pleasure with any other woman before. When he was with Callie, it was like his past encounters were shades, mere flickering shadows or echoes of this wild, explosive, all-consuming need to be with Callie and no other. What he couldn’t understand was why? Why her? Not that he was complaining, but he always knew his own motives, and this obsession with Callie was puzzling. Wanting her was dangerous on more than one front.
Her emotions, so easily turned to love, could deepen and he’d run the risk of hurting her when this affair ended. Not that he wanted it to end, but all things ended at some point, didn’t they? Lust didn’t last forever. His parents’ desire for each other hadn’t. That dark thought brought him up short. His parents had been passionate with each other, but things had turned south quickly. How did that old poem go? Nothing gold can stay?
He hugged Callie tight for a moment longer, hating the fact that someday they’d go their separate ways and some other man would touch her, kiss her, take her to all the places he wouldn’t get the chance to.
“Come on,” he urged gently as he withdrew from her. He pulled a handkerchief from his trousers and cleaned them up before they straightened their clothes.
“You destroyed my underwear?” The ripped cotton panties dangled from one of her elegant fingertips and a mocking scowl twitched into a quick smile.
“A hazard of being sexy, darling. None of your panties are safe.” He raised his hands into a mock monster pose as though he had claws and he gnashed his teeth together in an audible bite.
Callie burst out laughing, just as he desired. He didn’t know where the urge to be silly came from, but she brought out a soft, funny side to him he hadn’t thought he possessed. She stuffed the ripped underwear into her jeans pocket and then threw her arms around his neck, covering his cheek with little kisses. He gripped her waist, surprised and delighted at the display of affection from her. Normally he wasn’t interested in the small, tender touches or kisses after sex, but something about Callie made her irresistible. He couldn’t get enough.
“Are you up for a polo match tomorrow morning?”
Callie nodded. “Yes, definitely.” Her eyes glittered with a new life he hadn’t seen since he’d first met her in Colorado. The woman loved horses, belonged on the back of one. He’d almost forgotten that when they’d been in Paris. She must miss her ranch and her horse. He knew she’d been homesick but she had seemed to recover. That didn’t mean she didn’t still miss riding. It didn’t sit well with him that she might be unhappy. He’d have to change that first thing tomorrow.
“Good, polo it is. I’ll take you riding tomorrow before the match.” He patted her bottom and she snuggled into him.
“Sounds perfect.” She sighed and the sound flooded him with a soft cottony warmth starting in his chest.
“I have a surprise for you, too. Something for tonight.”
“Oh?” she replied in a low husky tone that made him grin.
“Yes, and you can’t seduce any answers out of me,” he vowed.
She wrinkled her nose. “Me seduce? That’s your area of expertise.”
He gave her a harrumph to show her just how wrong she was. He was beginning to figure out that she had some power of manipulation over him, but he’d better hide that or he’d be in trouble. He’d be the butt of every joke if it ever got out that a sweet little innocent woman like Callie had him wrapped around her little finger. It was his own fault. Staying distant from her emotionally was nearly impossible, especially when he spent half the time buried in her hot little body.
“What are you thinking about?” She’d fixed her clothes and was watching him with avid interest. For one so young, who had seen so little of life, she had an uncanny way of reading him and people in general. His grandfather would call her an old soul. Wes didn’t believe in things like that, but damn it, her soft warm hazel green eyes did seem to reveal a century of understanding.
“Polo, I most certainly am thinking about polo.” He winked at her, but she flashed a look of barely concealed disappointment. She’d admitted to thinking about him. He knew that, but he didn’t want to admit she had such an effect on him. As the dom, he had to stay in control of himself and this relationship.
“Oh.” That one syllable was so broken and soft that he cursed inwardly.
“Why don’t you go find Bradley. He has a present for you.”
The sadness was quickly buried beneath a smile and a shrug. “Why would Bradley give me a present?”
Wes caught her by the waist and held her still so he could swat her delectable ass in a light punishment for her sarcasm.
“You know damn well it’s from me. Now off you go. It should keep you busy for a few hours. I have some work to do but will find you later.”
Callie nibbled her lip, watching him a moment longer. “Okay.” She turned on her heel and headed for the door. She had to unlock it, but she didn’t look at him again as she left. How could she make him feel so villainous? He’d never cared before about a woman’s feelings outside of a submissive’s needs during a moment of passion and the recovery period afterward. This was new territory for him.
Wes waited, counting the seconds before he straightened his own clothes and checked his hair in the mirror. Callie’s hands had mussed it up. Raking his fingers through his hair to put it back in place, he nodded at his reflection in the little hanging mirror by the door before he exited the room. The unstoppable force that was his little sister stood right in front of him, hands on her hips, eyes spitting sparks.
“You’re really sleeping with her?” Hayden accused in a low feminine growl of warning.
“It’s none of your business.” He straightened his tie and smoothed it down the front of his coat as he buttoned it closed.
“Oh, that’s rich. You’re all for beating Fenn to a pulp for touching me, but when he returns the favor, suddenly it’s none of our business?”
“Hayden, she’s an adult and she can make her own choices.” He tried to nudge her aside but she slapped a hand on his chest, halting him.
“Sure she is. I’ll give you that, but she’s not a sub for you to play spank and fuck with. She’s a real person with a heart that was recently broken. She’s not a toy.”
Wes’s irritation flared to real anger. He removed his sister’s hand and responded as coldly as h
e felt in that moment.
“I know she’s not a toy, but she doesn’t seem to mind the ‘spank and fuck’ as you call it, and as long as she wants me and that, she has me.” This time he didn’t bother to be gentle as he forcibly moved Hayden from his path. That didn’t stop her from delivering a parting shot at him, however.
“She’s too innocent for you, Wes. You’d be better off with that bitch Corrine if you plan on acting like such an asshole.”
He didn’t deign to reply to such a remark, no matter how true it might be. Callie was innocent, and far too good for a man like him. But he couldn’t stay away from her. He couldn’t let her go.
Chapter 19
It was the most amazing thing she’d ever done. One painting on an 18" x 24" canvas in just eight hours. After Callie had located Mr. Bradley, he’d taken her to a bedroom that had been turned into an art studio. It was obvious Wes had planned the room with her in mind. It was full of blank canvases on easels, fresh palettes, and an assortment of brushes and paints. Callie had chosen acrylics for this piece because it needed fewer layers of colors.
The oversized dress shirt she’d gotten accustomed to wearing was covered in smatters of paint. The rich scent that was uniquely Wes’s clung to the fabric and deepened her longing for him. It was a growing sense inside her that she hadn’t felt for anyone else, not even Fenn. The need to see Wes, to be near him, to belong to him was overpowering. Even when she was lost in her painting, she still felt that pull toward him.
But it’s not love. I won’t let it be love. It was a promise she had to keep. She had to stay safe, keep her heart out of the picture.
A sigh broke from her lips and she studied the canvas, her finished work. The Lantern’s Glow she called it. The entire background was black, fading only to a dark forest green around the center where she’d painted a lantern. Inside the lantern a scene of four little boys around a campfire glowed like a memory trapped in a fortune-teller’s crystal ball. She’d turned the lantern into the object that showed the past.
The circular green-yellow light pooled outward in a luminous glow around the lantern and in that glow she’d painted four adult, masculine faces. Wes, Royce, Emery, and Fenn. Each of their somber gazes was turned toward the lantern and the image of the innocent children they’d been. In a way, their faces, half shadowed, were not unlike the boys before the campfire, a reflection within a reflection. Ever since Wes had told her about the lantern-yellow color, she’d had a haunting image in her head. She wanted to show it to Wes, but she was nervous about his reaction. Would he understand that she meant it as a tribute? Not a way to remind him of the pain of his past.
Soft booted steps behind had her spinning around on the stool. “Wes!”
Only it wasn’t Wes, but Royce. He wore jeans and a leather motorcycle jacket and black boots. He’d snuck in through the partially open door and was staring straight at her painting, not her.
“That’s me,” he murmured, his voice low and rough with emotion. “Why did you paint this?” A flash of fire in his eyes warned her she was on dangerous ground.
“I…” She swallowed hard. “It’s a gift for Wes. He told me about how you used to go camping.”
Royce’s intense features softened slightly. “He told you about that?” With slow steps, he reached the painting and studied it. One of his hands raised as though to touch the lantern but he stopped a mere inch from the canvas. His brown eyes were dark, like burnt umber.
“He said you were talented, but this…you’ve painted our souls.” Royce finally turned his gaze toward her.
“Really?” The idea that she’d touched him that deeply, and that Wes would have such faith in her talent to tell one of his closest friends, made her light-headed and excited.
“Yes.”
A collection of emotions fluttered through her like a rush of doves from a tree.
Royce slid his hands back into his pockets and gazed at the painting. This hardened seducer, a dom, a professor, instantly transformed. The boy from the photographs Bradley had collected for her to study shone through. But it wasn’t the innocent child she glimpsed now. It was a boy ravaged with horror and tragedy. Even knowing Fenn was alive hadn’t erased the monstrous taint of twenty-five years of believing he’d been murdered. Only time could ease such a deep wound. It lingered, like shadows late in the fall.
“Do you think Wes will like it?” Callie asked. Her hands clenched in her lap as she waited with bated breath for Royce’s reply.
The man stepped back and shook his head, as though waking from a dark dream.
“I think he won’t like it, but he will see it for what it is, a beautiful tragedy. A work of genius done by the woman he loves.”
“Loves?” Callie barely got the one word out.
The sadness in Royce’s eyes faded.
“He beat the shit out of Fenn over you. Wes doesn’t lose control, not like that, not unless his heart is involved. He always keeps his cool, stays distant. But with you, he’s broken every one of his rules. Trust me, I know him better than he knows himself. He loves you.”
He loves you. The words settled so deep into her heart that she knew that hope would grow from those words. If only it were true that Wes loved her, because in that moment, sitting on her stool, having painted one of Wes’s tragic secrets, she realized she loved him.
No. I can’t love him. I swore never to fall for another man again. But she had fallen, so slowly, so softly, she’d never seen it coming. Like rolling down a gentle sloping hill covered in wild flowers. She’d been distracted by the beauty, the scent, the colors, the wonder of the rolling sensation and never realized that she had been falling.
She loved Wes. Not in the way she loved Fenn. The two emotions were worlds apart. How had she ever thought she’d been in love with Fenn? Sure, she loved him, but she hadn’t been in love. The vast difference was startling. Wes had been so right about love, even though he’d never been in love himself. He said she’d learn the difference someday. It had just come sooner than she’d expected.
Royce chuckled. “You think he isn’t in love with you? Fine. How about a little wager, cowgirl?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. What was it with these billionaires and their wagers? First Wes, now Royce? “Only if you stop calling me that. What kind of wager?”
“Whether Wes loves you or not.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall close to her.
“You want to bet on something like that?” She hopped off the stool and turned away from Royce to quickly clean her brushes in a water-filled jar.
“Honey, I’m the king of bets. So, are you in?”
When she turned back around, she noticed he was eyeing her ass.
“Ahem,” she said, coughing pointedly. “Do you want Wes to punch you, too?”
He continued to appraise her body with open appreciation for a moment longer than he should have before his eyes met hers.
“So, honey, what will it be?”
Callie raised a brow, a habit she was inheriting from Wes, but she grinned, too.
“What sort of wager? Because I think I’ll win.” There was no way Wes was in love with her, and while that made her smile a little bitter, she would enjoy putting this playboy professor in his place.
“Your painting.” He inclined his head toward The Lantern’s Glow. “If Wes isn’t in love with you, I get the painting. If he is, you give the painting to Wes.”
“But I thought you thought he loved me. Wouldn’t you want a bet that favors your opinion if you want the painting?”
Royce, the devil, only laughed. “That’s the point of bets. They’re more fun when you have something to lose.”
“Okay. Deal then.” She held out a hand and Royce, rather than shake it, raised it to his lips. He winked at her, and then headed for the door. He paused and turned back, tossing something at her.
She caught the small metallic object in her hand. It was a silver key.
“What’s this?”
>
“Belongs to Wes’s black room. The door is behind the Seine River painting in the hall by the kitchen. You should check it out, when he’s not around, of course.” Royce grinned and waved before he left.
Callie stared at the key, then curled her fingers around it. A black room? What the heck was that? Knowing that Royce had suggested she check the room out gave her pause. He was trouble, and from what she’d learned of him from Wes’s conversations, Royce was a prankster. It wouldn’t be too far of a stretch for her to believe he’d set her up to get caught by Wes, and she’d likely end up with a sore, well-spanked ass.
Still…her curiosity was piqued and she slipped the key into her jeans pocket. Then she covered the canvas of The Lantern’s Glow and lifted it off the easel. She wanted this to be a surprise, so she slid it under the bed. After she’d carefully secured the painting, she cleaned up her supplies and was in the process of pocketing her phone when Wes came in through the door of the studio.
“There you are.” He strode over to her and caught her by the waist, dragging her into his embrace. After a ruthless, almost bruising kiss that left her lips swollen and her head foggy from weak-kneed desire she realized he was speaking to her.
“We have to attend a gala tonight. Emery is hosting, so we’ll be among friends.”
“A gala?” That was a fancy party…Damn, she wasn’t ready for something like that. She barely had made it through the small dinner party a few weeks ago.
“Yes, a fund-raiser for the local university, the one you are applying to for art school. Royce invited the head of their art school to meet you.” Wes’s smug grin vanished after a moment. “What’s the matter?”
Callie sucked in a pained breath. Her stomach pitched straight south to her feet.
“Head of the art school? Oh my God, I’m not ready, Wes. I can’t—”
He gripped her face in his palms, his eyes mesmerizing her until she calmed down.