The Sculptor's Seduction (The Gentlemen's Guild Book 2)

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  He’d pulled a small coffee table over from the other side of the studio onto the rug in front of the couch and set the to-go boxes on top of it. He’d just started to open them when he felt a jolt of electricity run up his spine just before her voice spread over him.

  “What is going on here?”

  He stood and turned to face her, his hands diving into his pockets. “I… ahh… ordered us some food first since I asked you to come a little earlier today.”

  He watched as she bit that luscious lower lip, trying to stop the soft smile that spread onto her face.

  Shit, she was reading so much into this… and he was fucking happy about it.

  She walked slowly into the room. “So, what are we having?”

  He glanced down at the table. “Well, nothing fancy. I just ordered some Italian food… I hope you like pasta…”

  “Love it,” she said with a vibrant smile. “Sitting on the floor?” Her eyebrows raised.

  “I told you… nothing fancy.” He smirked. “Do you want red or white?”

  “Red, please.” He poured her a glass and handed it to her, twitching as her fingertips brushed his. “Are you not drinking?”

  “Ahh…” He hadn’t thought about that. “I’ll have a little.” He poured himself a small glass, determined to only nurse it; he was already courting danger. He didn’t need anything else to lower his inhibitions.

  “How was your meeting?” Cyn asked as she sat down, crossing her legs in front of her, examining the spread of comfort food that was on the table.

  Sloane stared at her. “What meeting?”

  “The one you left to go to on Saturday…” Her brow furrowed as she looked at him.

  Shit. Now, she probably thought that he’d made that up as an excuse to not be there when she woke up in the morning.

  “Not good,” he answered honestly, figuring the best way to allay that concern was to give her as much of the truth as he could. “One of my business partners… had something very valuable stolen and so now we are trying to figure out the best way to get it back.”

  “Oh no,” she replied, putting a large forkful of spaghetti into her mouth. “Did you go to the police?”

  “Ahh... no. It’s not really something we can go to the police about. It has to do with a piece of art that no one really knew he had, but now, no one can know that he lost it.” He stopped realizing that he’d maybe said too much, but also not enough for her to really understand. “Sorry. It sounds confusing – and it is. But, we’re going to start working with a law enforcement agency to help us figure out who has it.” Sloane grabbed the box with the veal parmesan, cutting into the tender meat. “It’ll work out, but that’s why the meeting was so unexpected.”

  She just nodded, her mouth full of food. He could see she wanted to know more, but that was all he could give her.

  “How was work?”

  “Not too busy this week. I had a few showings in Tribeca, but nothing very exciting.”

  Sloane nodded. That wasn’t what he meant. “I meant at the Paradise on Saturday night.”

  Her eyes darted to his now realizing what his question was really getting at. Sloane watched her take a painful second to savor the possessiveness that projected off of him before she responded.

  “There was a private event Saturday so I had the night off.”

  Sloane felt like a fifty-pound weight had been lifted off his chest; wondering what she’d done Saturday night – and who had seen it – had been a frequent torment throughout the week.

  “I see.” He took another bite of the meat. “And now you’re off this weekend again…” He felt guilt wash over him; he knew she didn’t have money like he did, where taking off wouldn’t affect her; every night that she didn’t work at the club meant she had less money to put towards her dreams of opening a school.

  He hated feeling like his desires were compromising hers. Which was why he had a plan to make it up to her tomorrow.

  “I have a lot of vacation days saved up, so it’s ok…”

  He watched her eat a few more bites, wondering how it was possible for someone to literally do everything so gracefully. Tonight, her thick, dark hair was pulled back in a braid that ended just at the top of the curve of her ass. She’d worn a fitted V-neck t-shirt that couldn’t help but reveal the edge of the swells of her breasts. Instead of yoga pants, she’d chosen a pair of jeans; in reality, the way that they hugged her figure meant that there was barely a difference between the two, at least in his eyes.

  She sat there eating comfortably in the momentary silence, taking in the taste of the food, as if this was something normal that she did every day. On his side, when he’d walked into the studio earlier to set everything up, he’d been struck by the sudden emptiness that he felt without her in it. Annoyance had set in, wondering how someone who he’d only known a very short time, who’d only been in the space a handful of times, could make that same space feel small and desolate without her.

  He should have waited… maybe made more small talk or something like that, but he wasn’t Tristan and he certainly wasn’t Pierce; he didn’t have extensive practice wooing females or even making standard conversation with them because any interaction was a risk. Which meant that the longer he watched her, the more one question bubbled to the surface and out of his mouth before he could stop it. It was what had plagued him all week and he should have been smoother about it, he should have worded it more gently, he should have let her finish chewing her food first, he…

  He should have done a lot of things – like never gotten involved with her. But, it was far too late for that.

  “Why do you do it?” His eyes bored into her as he bluntly asked her to bare her soul.

  She sighed, her eyes locked on the food for a moment before her gaze rose to meet his. “I told you – it gives me control.”

  His hands gripped his fork so hard he thought he might break it as he dug deeper into the real crux of the problem. “Why do you need control?”

  She knew this question was coming; Cyn took another bite of pasta, chewing over the food and her ideas with a thoughtful patience. She just hadn’t expected him to ask her so soon. She wasn’t sure why she paused, why she made him wait for her answer – a story that she’d told many times. She glanced in the mirror to see her own tortured face. It wasn’t like she hadn’t told this story before; she wasn’t trying to hide anything.

  Just tell him, Cyn. Since when has this been a big deal?

  For some reason though, the thought of telling him made her heart heavy. She knew he would hate to hear how weak she had felt and she knew how angry he would feel knowing what Marcus had done to her. Her eyes returned to his, setting her fork down and pushing herself away from the makeshift table to rest her back against the edge of the couch.

  Since when were these words so hard?

  Since Sloane. Since he’d raised her to an unreasonable level of respect that she didn’t deserve. Since he made her want to be weak for him, when all she’d asked for… worked for… prayed for… was the strength to not let herself be hurt again.

  “Do you really want my sob story?”

  His eyes flared. “I just want your story, Cyn.”

  She sighed and finished the glass of wine he’d given her. “Why don’t you drink?” she blurted out, noticing that his glass looked untouched.

  “Because it takes away my control,” he replied with a frown.

  She leaned forward to pick up his glass, taking a defiant sip of it before she finally let her story spill.

  “While I was at Juilliard, I ended up in a relationship with one of my instructors—”

  “How?” He asked before she had a chance to gloss over the painful details.

  “What do you mean how? How it always starts…” She let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I was a good dancer and I was beautiful, so he started to pay more attention to me. I didn’t mind because I was learning more and getting more tips than the rest of the class. And then I began gett
ing more important parts in our performances; he offered to give me one-on-one coaching outside of class. Of course, I said yes. He was younger, had just left the NYC Ballet to take a break to teach, he was handsome, and he was paying special attention to me.”

  She watched Sloane set the fork down since he looked like he was about to snap it in two. He wanted to know…

  “Things began to heat up and, well, yeah.”

  “How old was he?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know… maybe mid-thirties? He was married, too, which I knew.” Cyn shook her head at the memories of her foolish, younger self. She raised up onto her knees and began to clean up the cartons of mostly-eaten food that lay strewn across the table. “I should have known better, but I was living in my own world. All I knew was that I was dancing, I was getting every role in every performance that I could want – which meant getting myself out in front of people who could help my career – and I was in a relationship with someone who was handsome, who put his every effort into helping me succeed, and who was already established in the industry.”

  “What happened? Did his wife find out?” Sloane ground out.

  “No.” She laughed. “What happened was that I was too confident in myself which meant that I was all too willing to believe every lying word that came out of his mouth when he said that he loved me and that he was going to leave her for me after graduation. What happened was that I became weak and foolish.”

  She stood and walked over to the mirror, looking at herself in its reflection, and watching his eyes on her.

  “How did it end?”

  “I went to his office the day before graduation because I had left some paperwork in there earlier in the week. It was locked which was fine because he’d given me a key a while ago. So, I unlocked the door and walked in to find him fucking a first-year student over his desk.” She turned back to face him. “I think I’d like to stop talking about this now.”

  The urge to cry had come on swift and suddenly and his eyes widened at her confession. He stood and nodded, anger etched into his handsome features.

  He couldn’t tear his gaze from his beautiful, brave ballerina. All he wanted to do was comfort her… and rip this teacher of hers to shreds for what he’d done.

  “Should I get into the same pose as the other night?” Her words froze him as he began to slide the table off of the rug. A pose flashed before his eyes from the other night – the one with her thighs spread wide and his head buried between them; but that wasn’t the one she was talking about.

  “For now,” he murmured, turning away from her in an attempt to conceal his arousal for as long as possible.

  He walked over to the sculpture, his gaze repeatedly straying back to Cyn as she began to take off her clothes. Her eyes were closed as though she were trying to escape from the thoughts he’d provoked. She moved back into almost the exact position he had placed her in – which was good for him because he wanted to keep his distance and his restraint for as long as possible. The only thing that was off was her expression.

  “Cyn,” he said, her eyes fluttering open to meet his. “Stop thinking about him. I want you to think about when you danced for me. I want you to think about how your feet moved across this floor to the music from the street. I want you to think about how your movements completely mesmerized me.”

  As though he’d unlocked a gate, he watched happiness flood back into her features. Aside from the sounds he made while working, the room stayed in a peaceful silence as he put the finishing touches on her arms and legs. Her feet, he’d realized, she automatically placed in ballet’s fifth position and he didn’t correct her; instead he’d incorporated it into the work. Running his hands down the side of the statue’s arms, he finally turned to the real Cyn – the far more beautiful, warm, and exquisitely naked one standing in the middle of the room.

  He couldn’t keep his eyes off of her face though – hating to think that someone had taken this happiness from her for three years.

  “Cyn, why did that make you stop dancing?” He had to know.

  Her eyes flew open, his question completely changing her demeanor. She stood agape for a few moments before answering.

  “Everything that I had done there… that I had accomplished… had been with him or because of him. When I realized that what I had with him wasn’t real, I suddenly no longer knew if any of it was; I’d given him complete control over not just my body, but my dream. And in an instant, I couldn’t be sure if I was really any good or just good-looking. I didn’t know what to believe… so, I chose not to believe any of it.” She looked to the side. “And then I met Tash… and her lifestyle… and the control it gave me; and that was all it took.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Sloane cursed. Turning away from her and the sculpture because hearing what that fucker had done was debilitating. He wanted to murder him… more than Pierce… more than his father… He wanted to choke the life from the motherfucker who’d strangled Cyn’s dream from her.

  “You made me believe.” Her soft voice swept over him, a balm on his rising anger. Sloane turned back to face her, his expression just as tortured as hers. “You asked me to dance and for the first time, I wasn’t reminded of him or anything that happened; for the first time in a long time, I was finally free.”

  He swallowed hard. God, he hoped he’d done that for her; he’d do anything to take that asshole’s memory away.

  He watched her lids get heavy and he knew he was in trouble. “You made me feel worshipped,” she practically whispered, as a tear dropped down her face. “I need you…”

  Sloane gripped the back of his chair, his knuckles turning white as he held the damn thing between them like a shield trying to protect himself from her heady assault.

  “What do you need, Cyn?” He rasped. “Where do you need me?”

  Apparently, he liked to torture himself.

  Her irises deepened as she looked at him. “I need you around me, on me… inside of me,” she whispered heavily, her body beginning to shift in place. “I want to feel you here…” She trailed off as the hand he’d had her place covering her sex moved as her fingers slipped into her folds. Cyn moaned as her fingers began to pleasure herself. “You don’t know how many times I’ve had to do this this week because I can’t get you out of my mind.”

  He saw her jump as he threw his chair down onto the ground and out of his way. Growling, he stalked over to her and gripped her right wrist, preventing it from moving. Her eyes locked with his as he slowly pulled her hand up in front of them, taking in the sight of her fingers glistening in the light, coated with her arousal.

  “I will do anything to keep you dancing, beautiful. I will worship you on my knees all night long if that’s what you need.” And then he took those two moist fingers into his mouth, groaning as he tasted her sweetness.

  As he sucked on her, her mouth parted slightly on a gasp and desire roared through him.

  He needed to taste every inch of her.

  He pulled her fingers from his mouth as he bent down to capture hers, taking advantage of that slight opening to dive his tongue inside.

  God, she was so damn sweet.

  Nothing would ever be as sweet as Cyn.

  He took her mouth hungrily, his hands on either side of her face, holding her steady under his assault. Her arms came around him, pressing her delicious softness flush against him. His hips jerked against her before he could stop them; he wanted to be inside her so damn bad, but this would have to do.

  For now – the devil inside of him whispered.

  He tore into her mouth as his hands began to roam down over her, over the velvet softness of her shoulders, down her back, and spreading his fingers wide to grasp the firm flesh of her ass pulling her even harder against him; he’d never wanted to fuck a woman so badly in his entire life.

  But with Cyn, he felt like this every damn time she was near.

  Her head tipped back, giving him access to the length of her neck. He kissed his way down t
o the pristine skin, gently marking the flesh as his own.

  His hands dropped and he pulled away from her. Cyn’s eyes flew open, afraid he was going to leave her, when in fact, he’d just moved so that he could see all of her.

  Her breath came in sharp pants as his hand reached out, his fingertips gently grazing down over the slope of her shoulder and onto her chest. He traced around the curve of her breast, feeling her entire body shudder at his slight touch. His fingers gently cupped the large mound, weighing it in his hand. As his thumb brushed over her nipple, he saw her thighs squeeze together out of the corner of his eye.

  Every inch, Sloane.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  The crystalline desire in his eyes met the fire in hers, holding her gaze as he dropped to his knees – like he promised – before her. His other hand raised, doubling the torture on her sensitive nipples, toying with the aroused peaks until she began to shake.

  He stared at the beautiful sight in front of him, unable to remember the last time he’d touched a woman like this. His face drew in towards her breast and Sloane let out a hoarse curse as he took one aching bud into his mouth. His hands immediately gripped her waist to steady himself as his hips spasmed forward.

  Christ, he was going to come just from tasting her.

  He let her moans guide him. Taking her nipple deeply into his mouth, he sucked hard; each pull on her flesh, each moan from her mouth, was like a stroke on his arousal bringing him closer to release.

  Her fingers threaded through his hair, pulling him hard against her. Sloane teased that bud, lapping and swirling it with his tongue – her moans music to his ears. He placed open-mouthed kisses along her breastbone over to the other begging peak. As he engulfed that one, his right hand began to skate from her waist, down over her lower stomach, straight to her core.

  He was so on edge, his desire for her exploding through his body. Sloane knew he was going to orgasm just from touching her. His fingers drifted hesitantly down to her core. He bit down gently on her nipple as his finger slipped easily into her folds; she was drenched.