Ignited (Most Wanted #3)(15)
Author: J. Kenner

“No,” he said. “I can’t.”

I cringed from the resolve in his voice.

“I can’t,” he repeated. “I can’t choose when, or where, and certainly not how. But when I look at you—when I paint you—”

His voice had taken on a lyrical quality, and I held the words close, wanting to soak in this moment, because who knew how many more I would get? “Tell me.”

“Put your phone on speaker,” he said. “Set it beside you.”

I pressed the button to turn on the speaker. “All right.”

“Good. You need to understand that when I paint you, it’s not just an image of you that is in front of me. It’s flesh. It’s blood.”

“It’s me.”

“Yes. The spill of your hair. The curve of your neck. The swell of your breasts.”

Gone was his earlier hesitancy. Instead, each word held masculine power. As if by painting me, he had claimed me, and I had no other choice but to submit.

“Go on,” I whispered. My eyes were still closed, but in my imagination, I saw myself sitting on a blanket at the Oak Street Beach. I was looking out at the water, but Cole was there, too, off to one side, so that I could see him only in my peripheral vision.

But though I could barely see him, I could feel him. Every scrape of pencil over canvas was a tease, every stroke of paint from his brush was a caress.

“You’re mine when I paint you, Kat. Mine to touch, mine to stroke, mine to see.”

My pulse pounded in my ears and my skin felt hot. I pulled up my T-shirt to expose my abdomen, then sighed from the caress of cool air upon my overheated flesh.

“And I do see you, Kat,” he said. “My brush doesn’t lie, and when I trail it over the curve of your waist and the swell of your hips, it’s not just lines and form that I’m bringing to life on the canvas, but you. Tell me, Kat. Tell me you understand that.”

“Yes,” I said, because right then I couldn’t seem to think of any other word.

“When I paint you, I capture you. Light. Shadows. I see more than I put on the canvas, Kat. I see everything. The face you show the public, the most intimate parts of you that you keep hidden.”

I made a small noise that might have been a protest, because that couldn’t be true. He couldn’t know me that well; he couldn’t see my secrets.

“Don’t you feel me, Kat? Don’t you feel my eyes exploring, assessing, deciding what I am willing to show to the world and what I want to keep to myself?”

My body, I thought with relief. He doesn’t mean my secrets, but my body.

“I feel you,” I whispered, my voice like air.

“My brush moving softly over your lips,” he said, as I drew my fingertip gently over my mouth. “Then down, lower and lower until I can tease your breasts. Until I’m exploring the shadows that fall between them and the way your skin glows, almost translucent when the sun teases your nipples. Are they hard now, Kat?”

“Very.”

“Take your nipple between your fingers and pinch it. I want it harder, a deep, sensual red. I want to paint you aroused, Kat. The glow on your face and the flush of your skin. Do it, Kat. Do it and let me see.”

“You’re not here,” I protested, though I willingly complied.

“I’m always there,” he replied, and those words combined with the tight pinch of my own fingers against my sensitive nipples brought a moan to my lips.

I arched up, then whispered his name and was rewarded with a low, masculine groan.

“I want to paint you while you come,” he said. “I want to capture ecstasy, Kat. Let me do that, angel. Let me do that now.”

“Cole . . .” I heard the protest in my voice. An unwelcome, unexpected shyness.

“No,” he said. “No argument, no denials. I want to see you. I want to watch your body tighten and then explode. I want to see it, Kat, even if only in my imagination.”

I licked my lips, wanting it, too, but unsure if it was even possible. I’d never come with a man calling the shots in my bed. Not since—not in a very long time. But this . . .

Maybe this . . .

“Where are you?”

“My house.”

“Alone?”

I thought about the words he’d been saying to me. “Well, duh.”

He chuckled. “Some women like an audience.”

“Oh.” I considered what he’d said earlier about me being innocent. Maybe he wasn’t so far off the mark. “I’m alone.”

“What are you wearing?”

“Jeans. A T-shirt.”

“Take off the jeans. Leave on your panties.”

“I—”

“No,” he said. “You don’t argue. You simply do or hang up.”

I felt my mouth curve up in pleasure as I kicked off my sandals, then shimmied out of my jeans. “All right,” I said.

“In your house,” he said, his tone musing, “there’s a row of windows overlooking the front porch, and it’s a gorgeous day. The sun should be streaming in.”

My gaze flicked to the checkerboard pattern that the sunlight made on the battered wooden floor, blocks of light intersected by the dark shadows made by the frames that held each small pane of glass in place. “How did you know that? You’ve only been here once.”

“I paid attention,” he said.

“Because that’s what you do? Or because this house was going to be mine?”

“Move to the light,” he said, and though it wasn’t an answer I heard the truth in his voice. Maybe he did pay attention out of habit, but he’d noticed this house because it was my house. Because he noticed me.

How could I have been unsure before? How could I have feared that whatever attraction I saw on his face was only a reflection, especially now that it was becoming so obvious that he had seen me—wanted me—long enough to make me mourn the lost opportunity of all the months that had passed in silent longing?

“Kat,” he said, his voice firm. “Now.”

“Oh.” I shuffled into the stream of sun, then sighed as I felt the intensity of the warmth across my body. There was no air-conditioning in the house—not with the tenants having moved out—and so my body was already close to melting. But now, with the sun tickling my bare legs, I felt logy and sensual, soft and sleepy.

At the same time, I felt turned on.

It was an interesting mix, and I couldn’t deny that I liked it.