Tempt Me (22 page)

“I’ll hold you to that.” He looked around, pretending interest in his surroundings. The crawling sensation at the back of his neck had nothing to do with the temperature.

They were being watched.

By whom? From where? They were surrounded by trees, bushes, buildings, milling people and random foliage. The possibilities were endless. Well, whoever was freezing their ass off spying on them in the dark would see, and report back, exactly what he wanted them to see—him, cozying up to Cheyenne Winterbourne.

His cell vibrated in his coat pocket. Plucking it out, he glanced at the screen, gave it a couple of taps. Bailey’s car was on the move, and so was Rafe Sebastiani’s. He stared at the two red dots, slowly traversing the city streets. Both took a turn that would lead them to the West Bank.

They were on their way to Rafe’s place. Together.

Finally.

Bailey’s car hadn’t moved from Sebastiani Security’s parking lot for days, except for the time when a tough-looking Hispanic dude had moved it for the snowplow. Despite his fun-time reputation, Rafe Sebastiani had spent the last few days alone, his car not moving from his garage. The only sign of life had been the second floor studio lights, burning for two days straight.

He’d used the time to supervise his team’s careful and methodical exploration of Sebastiani Labs’ network from a safe, virtual distance. Though he fumed at the glacial pace, he recognized it as necessary to achieve their ultimate goal. While the techs did their work, he’d done his. His detailed analysis of Sebastiani Labs’ entrances, exits and escape routes revealed them to be largely theoretical, because actual entry, exit or escape would be nearly impossible to achieve. There was no lobby receptionist to flirt with. When he entered the building and approached the desk, a monitor on the desk blinked to life, and a sophisticated, androgynous avatar had politely asked him who his appointment was with. He’d blurted out Cheyenne’s name, but she hadn’t answered her phone. He’d left the campus, made a quick clothing change, and, disguised as a satellite dish repairman, installed surveillance equipment outside Rafe’s living room and bedroom windows. He’d had his equipment upgrade story all ready, but Sebastiani hadn’t even noticed him.

He couldn’t wait to access the bedroom feed, to mentally superimpose his face over Sebastiani’s as Bailey’s lithe, nude form writhed beneath him.

A sudden cheer went up from across the park.

Cheyenne threw down her garden spade in disgust.

A little girl wearing a pink snowmobile suit, hat, scarf and mittens, and so bundled up she couldn’t lower her arms to her sides, held the medallion in one hand and a White Castle burger wrapper in the other. She jumped up and down in her tiny matching boots.

“A kid found it? In a Slider box? You’re freaking kidding me,” Cheyenne said. Nonetheless, she stood, brushed the snow off her knees, and joined in the clapping. Reporters and their camera crews rushed to the little girl and her beaming father, catching the cuteness for the ten o’clock news. “Not enough time for reconnaissance, damn it.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, but he could barely feel it through layers of heavy coats and clothing. “They published the clue in this morning’s paper, but I couldn’t get away from work any earlier than I did.” She sighed, her breath a misty white cloud. “Busy day today.”

Yeah, his team had kept her hopping all day long. He probably should make it up to her. “My place?” he invited, brushing a whisper-soft kiss on her lips.

She increased the pressure, sending pleasure streaking down his spine. Cheyenne wanted him, and wasn’t afraid to show it.

He liked that in a woman.

“How about mine instead? Cool white wine, hot whirlpool tub?” She grinned. “I did promise to warm you up.”

“Sounds great.” After they collected her gear, he took her by her mittened hand and started the long walk back to her SUV, their boots crunching against the snow.

He wouldn’t stay the night. After he got home from Cheyenne’s, after he slaked his initial hunger, he’d settle in and watch some home movies. 

***

“D
elicious.” Bailey scooped the last of the wild rice soup out of a chunky pottery bowl Rafe had likely made himself. “You could give Chadden a run for his money with this recipe.”

Sitting across the butcher-block island, Rafe snatched another breadstick from the basket. “Someone else already did. It’s from the Byerly’s cookbook.”

She nodded as he named the beloved local grocery store chain. She had the same recipe book packed away in a box at her condo someplace.

“I made a double batch last Saturday, after you left, and I’ve pretty much been living on it ever since.” Setting down his wineglass, Rafe reached across the island and took her left hand, stroking his fingers over her ligaments and tendons, shifting her wrist to check her range of motion.

Her brain stutter-stepped. How could such a gentle touch sizzle so much? “You’ve been eating nothing but soup for days? That’s not enough fuel for a big guy like you.”

He picked up the Chianti bottle, refilled their wine glasses, and took her hand again. “I’d say we’re both overdue for a meal and a break.”

Though he looked more relaxed now than he had when they’d left The Bunker, the bright kitchen lights revealed how tired he was. The skin under his eyes was smudged with shadows, but seated across from her, wearing jeans, a white T-shirt, an ancient V-neck sweater with a hole in one elbow and sleeves pushed up on his forearms, he still looked tasty enough to gobble up with a freaking spoon. With his hair pulled back into that saggy, ridiculously sexy bun again...Holy flying monkeys, no wonder he had to beat lovers off with a stick.

“Did I hurt you?” He loosened his grip on her hand. “You just tensed up.”

“Nope. I’m fine.” She made a conscious effort to relax, to stop her feeble mooning. Pretty soon she’d be writing their names together in a hand-drawn heart, dotting her i’s with smiley faces.

“Your hand is shaking.”

“So it is.” Giving into impulse, she twined her fingers with his, fighting back a smile at a miniscule bit of clay she saw underneath his thumbnail. For some reason, the tiny imperfection felt like a gift. “So, when am I going to see this studio of yours?” She was dying to see where he worked.

“Are you sure you’ve had enough to eat?” He lifted their joined hands to his mouth and nibbled on the tip of her index finger, turning her knees to noodles.

She nodded. “You?”

“Of this?” he mumbled around her finger. “Never.” He gave the fingertip a sharp nip that sent a bolt of lightning up her arm, then released it. Rounding the island, he picked up their wine glasses. His luscious scent made her dizzy, made her think of him striding across the hot desert sands, his white robes flapping in the wind...Rafe of Arabia.

She’d popped half a pill during the drive over. Why hadn’t the thing hit yet?

“You might want to put on your shoes,” he said as they walked to the door leading to the stairwell. “The studio floor will be cold.” When he turned, slipping into a pair of clay-specked suede moccasins, she rooted around in her purse, grabbed another half a pill from her pillbox, and slipped it under her tongue, trying not to wrinkle her nose.

At some point, she’d tell Jack’s Sebastiani Labs contact that the pills tasted like ass.

Stepping into her own short boots, she followed Rafe one flight down. The combined scents of chemicals, glazes, paints, and damp clay grew stronger, more pungent, as they approached the fire door leading to the studio. The aromatic stew was...oddly pleasant.

Rafe watched her carefully. “Let me know if the smell gets to be too much for you.” At her nod, he opened the door, walked in, and beckoned her to follow.

Despite his earlier comment about the lack of heat, the shadowy, cavernous space felt comfortably warm. When he flipped on the huge overhead lights, her preconceived notions about what an art studio looked like—austere and antiseptically clean, like a gallery—were flipped upside down.

It was messy, with metal shavings and blobs of clay on the floor. Stiff rags were thrown on the floor next to an industrial-strength washing machine, and the dryer sat with its door ajar, clean rags at the ready. There were sketchpads and easels, and wadded-up pieces of paper, and what looked like a portable blowtorch unit sitting in the corner. Chico had told her that Rafe had his own kiln, and that there were blocks of stone, and sheets of metal, stored down on the first floor. The shelving units held a healthy collection of paints and glazes. Metal picks, wooden dowels, and other tools stood upright in containers.

Though she was curious about the plastic-shrouded figures, she couldn’t resist walking over to the potter’s wheel in the corner. How many women had he seduced re-enacting that famous scene from
Ghost
? Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore had turned throwing a pot into slick, slippery foreplay, an expression of love that even death could not deny.

He wrapped his arms around her from behind, his tall frame cuddled against hers. She shivered as his wine-warm breath sheeted across her neck, and she shifted her hips in welcome. His cock was as hard as the concrete floor where they stood.

He cleared his throat. “Let me show you what I’ve been working on.”

As he led her to the floor-to-ceiling shelving unit dominating the entire north wall, she glanced down at his groin. Wyatt had always treated a hard-on like a Sev 1 showstopper, an issue that needed immediate attention. But Rafe not only walked, he spoke in full, coherent sentences, describing his work process as he uncovered the sculptures.

A man who could think with both heads at one time.
She snickered, an unladylike sound that would no doubt horrify her mother.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” Her eyes widened as she took in the figures he’d unveiled. “Are all these—”

“You? Yes.”

It was her, all right—her nude body, in various poses, oozing frank sexual satiation. She slapped her hands to her sizzling cheeks.

He raised a finger to his lips and assessed the sculptures he’d uncovered. “I’d like to work in something other than clay, but I don’t have a lot of time before the showing. There are so many other poses I’d like to capture.”

A primitive thrill shot through her as she stepped closer to the shelves. Instead of feeling exposed, or even self-conscious, she felt an odd sense of pride. Of power. Her father would call it sin. “Can I touch?”

He nodded.

She reached out and stroked the nearest figure—of her, stretched out on her back, one knee raised, arms thrown overhead and head tossed back. The individual features of her body were abstracted rather than realistic—no pubic hair at the junction of her legs, and her nipples were suggested rather than specifically sculpted—but in the lines of the sculpture, he’d captured exactly what she’d been feeling at that moment: the abandonment, the freedom, the utter sense of release. Uncanny. “It feels like leather,” she said, stroking again.

“It hasn’t been fired yet.” He wrapped his arms around her from behind again, his hair-roughened forearms resting just under her breasts. His breathing was faster, rougher, as his lips caressed the tender patch of skin under her ear.

She locked her knees so she could remain standing. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Anything, sweet girl.”

She swallowed, grabbing onto her courage with both hands. “Sometimes I think of you here, all alone, skimming and gliding your hands over the clay. Over an inanimate me.” She paused. “It turns me on. A lot.” Heat bloomed between her thighs, made her slicken with need.

She wanted to drag him down to the nearest horizontal surface. Now.

Against her back, Rafe’s chest expanded and contracted. “Whatever’s going on in that brain of yours, I like it.” His hands moved north, cupping her breasts. A tiny noise escaped from his throat. “You’re not wearing a bra.”

She shrugged. “It’s not like I need one.”

“Jesus, you’re killing me.” Stepping back, he looked at her closely. “Are you sure you’re okay with me showing this work publicly? I don’t want to cause any problems with your family.”

Like her family would care. Well, Mel would care, but her sister would think it was freaking awesome. “It’s not as if anyone will know it’s me.”

Rafe’s dark, sensual chuckle stroked over her like heavy silk. “You keep telling yourself that, honey.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “The people who know us, who know we’re—” she swallowed — “sleeping together, might figure it out, but...” She took the two steps that brought their bodies together again. Tipped her face up to his. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for making me look—feel—so beautiful.”

He cradled her face in his hands. “I sculpt what I see.”

She glanced back at the sculptures. They were unmistakably sensual—even sexual—but somehow not lewd. His ability to capture an emotional moment, to express it in clay, was uncanny. Despite what Rafe said or thought, no one would ever guess that she’d been his model—or if they did, they’d marvel at his genius for seeing the extraordinary in such ordinary raw material.

Imagine...her, Bailey Brown, an artist's muse. A
sex demon’s
muse. The idea was deliciously naughty, as intoxicating as his drugging scent.

Had the other pill hit yet? Her thoughts were razor blade sharp, perfectly able to register and appreciate the precise level of havoc Rafe’s hands, body, and mouth wreaked on her hungry body. She could write a scientific paper on the subject. She giggled as Rafe dragged his lips along her jawline, behind her ear, nibbling along the precision-cut border where her hair met the nape of her neck.

“Have I ever told you how much I love your hair?”

The vibration of Subject A’s lips against Subject B’s skin stimulated Subject B’s autonomic nervous system such that—

“Hiding those ears would be criminal, and the nape of your neck is a bloody poem.”

Subject B exhibits classic autonomic response. Galvanic reaction causes body hair to rise. Mammary papillae are erect. Shivering is noted.
“I’ll pass that along to my stylist.”

She could barely talk. He was melting her down from the inside out.
Touch of Subject A’s lips against Subject B’s ear causes a rhythmic clenching of pubococcygeus muscles. Increased blood flow engorges the vaginal walls, producing sexual lubrication...