Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“I’d like to have this one to hang above the fireplace in the great room. The colors match perfectly with the room, and this happens to be one of my favorite places to go. Let me have it, Sonia. Name your price.”
“I’ll give it to you.”
“I can’t let you do that.” He looked around the room. Paint and paper were peeling from the walls. “You’re fixing up your home. Think of it like sheets of drywall, or roofing material. I’ll pay you what I paid for the picture in the dining room.”
She’d seen that picture. It was the real deal, no copy. And it was painted by an artist long dead whose work commanded hundreds of thousands of dollars. Which hers did not. She shook her head. “I don’t have a name. I don’t sell my work. If you want the painting I’ll gift it to you.”
He could see she was going to be stubborn about it. He could “gift” her whatever she needed in the way of material to renovate her home – not that he wanted her living there much longer. He wanted her with him.
“Thank you,” he murmured, seeing she was braced for an argument. “I would love to have it. Is it signed?” He stepped closer to look.
She touched the right-hand corner of the canvas. An intricately intertwined S and L were very small right at the bottom inside the tangled roots of a tree. “That’s it. That’s my signature. I always use that.”
“Not your name?” He had to admit, the small signature fit into the painting, making it look part of the root system.
She shook her head. “When I was a child painting, I thought it was cool and mysterious. I practiced painting that S and L together for months before I put it on my canvases. Now it suits me. I like just adding that into the foliage somewhere. It fits most of the work I do. I can hide it in vines draping down, or flowers, even the water. It just works.”
“I’ll send for the painting tomorrow. Or you can bring it with you when you come back.”
“I’d rather do that. I prefer strangers not come around too often.”
He resisted asking questions. He had to take it slow with her, and this next, nonnegotiable demand was not going to be taken lightly. “That’s fine. Bring it when you come to work. I’ll be staying nights with you, Sonia, so I can always drive over tomorrow, but I prefer no one knows I’m here so if they think they’re getting away with an attack on you, I’ll be a surprise.”
6
Sonia’s breath caught in her lungs and she gave a quick shake of her head. Joshua couldn’t stay. Not in her house. Not in her bed. Panic set in. His scent would be all over her sheets and pillows. She would lose her mind when he left her. For all his promises, men like him didn’t stay. If they stayed, they strayed – that was if they didn’t kill you first.
He ignored her head shake and continued walking through her studio right to the master bedroom. He flicked off the light as he went by the switch, taking her with him. She didn’t know why she just followed, why she couldn’t tell him no verbally. Maybe because he was the kind of man who would listen to her if she meant it. Did she mean it?
Her gaze strayed down his broad back to his narrow waist and hips. His backside. Her breath hitched in her throat and she nearly stumbled. Who wouldn’t want that in her bed? She stroked a hand down her throat and followed him. He was already at the double French doors, opening them wide and walking out onto the gallery. She loved the upper-story balcony even more than the lower one.
Branches extended toward the gallery so a leopard might easily make the short jump to the house. She knew she had an escape route. Now he had another entrance.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea for you to stay?” She wanted to go up behind him and slide her arms around his waist to feel his warmth against her body, but she made herself stay right where she was. She was falling for a man she knew nothing about.
He turned his back on the moonlight and swamp to study her face. His eyes gleamed that crystal blue as his gaze moved over her face, dropped lower to slowly, lazily drift over her body and then just as slowly come back up, first to her mouth, making her lips burn, and then her eyes. He focused there, holding her captive, refusing to allow her to look away.
“Staying here with you is as necessary as breathing.”
“We could have sex, and then you could leave,” she offered. She knew she sounded panicked, and it annoyed her, but who wouldn’t panic? Once Joshua shared her bed she’d always want him there. She was getting in over her head.