“Have you been back to your family’s farm since you left?”
“Only once, seven years ago. I wanted to see the bulldozers roll in and knock every building down. I stayed until they had plowed the whole damn place under.”
She goes utterly still in my arms. Then she carefully lifts my chin, coaxing me to look at her. “Who did that to your home, Jared?”
“I did.” I think back on that day, all my anger. All the pain I wanted to bury along with the barns and the beautiful, rambling house I once loved. “After my first multi-million dollar auction for one of my paintings, I used most of the proceeds to buy back the farm from its new owners. The ink wasn’t even dry before I arranged for the wrecking crew to come in and raze the whole property. I didn’t want the reminders. I didn’t want to think about someone else living in a place that should have been ours. I left as soon as it was done and haven’t been back.”
“Jared.” Melanie’s gaze has never looked so sad, so bleak. She’s shocked at what I’ve done. Appalled, even. But there’s an anguish that goes deeper than that. Anguish for me. “I hate Denton Sweeney for everything he did to your family, and the others he bilked. I hope he’s rotting in the worst kind of hell.”
Her voice is filled with quiet fury. There is a fierce protectiveness in her words and in her beautiful, sad eyes, as if she would defend me to her last breath—or burn down the world before she’d let anyone do me harm.
I’ve never seen anyone look at me like she is now. Her caring rocks me to my core. So does her strength. She’s a lioness, a warrior queen.
And she’s mine.
At least, I want to pretend she is. I want to pretend I’m worthy of the devotion I see in Melanie’s lovely face. That I might one day be deserving of her.
A low rumble of thunder in the distance warns of a coming storm. The clouds are darkening overhead, the winds kicking up from the water.
“We can’t stay like this,” I murmur, wishing I could hold her in my arms forever. I reach up and smooth some of the bright copper tendrils of her hair away from her cheek. “We should go inside.”
She nods silently, her gaze still holding mine with a tenderness that nearly breaks me. “I’ll get the plates and glasses.”
We clear the table and take everything into the house just as the rains begin to sweep in from the horizon. She puts the condiments away while I load the dishwasher and turn it on. Without speaking, she briefly caresses my back, then places a warm kiss between my shoulder blades.
The air stirs as she moves away, but it takes me a minute to realize she’s no longer in the kitchen with me.
“Melanie?”
I step through the empty living area, hearing nothing but the sound of rain pattering on the roof and against the windows. My bare feet carry me to the studio at the back of the sprawling beach house, and there I find her.
Standing in the center of my workspace, she’s just taken off her white jeans. My mouth waters at the sight of her long, bare legs. She pulls her top over her head and lets it fall from her fingertips to the floor.
I step inside, drawn as surely as a moth to a flame. “What are you doing?”
“Making the most of a rainy day.” Smiling, she removes her bra and panties, then closes the distance between us. “You’re overdressed.”
She unbuttons my shirt, then peels it off me. I can’t resist the urge to kiss her. Wrapping my hand around the back of her neck, I pull her against me and cover her mouth with mine. Our kiss is unhurried and tender, despite the rising demand of our mutual need for each other.
When we part to catch our breath, there is a gleam of mischief in her eyes. She reaches down to the work table next to my easel and picks up a paintbrush.
“I’m feeling creative,” she says, unscrewing the cap from one of the jars of paint.
I arch a brow, but watch without resistance as she dips the brush into the black acrylic then brings the soft bristles up to my bare chest. Her little hum as she paints a large circle around my pectoral makes my cock go hard. When she leans in and traces a tighter circle around my nipple with her tongue, the low, carnal growl that rumbles in my chest is as deep as the thunder rolling outside.
I take the brush out of her loose grasp and paint a small heart around one of her perfect nipples. “Exactly how creative are you feeling, Ms. Laurent?”
“Extremely.”
I grunt, hunger in the sound. “That’s a dangerous thing to say. I might just decide to test your limits.”
She gives me a saucy smile. “I’m not sure I have any limits with you.”
With nimble fingers, she unfastens my jeans and sweeps them over my hips along with my boxer briefs. My cock springs loose, jutting upward like a spear. Aching for her attention.
She doesn’t disappoint.
Pushing me down onto the stool behind my easel, she removes my pants then sinks to her knees in front of me. She teases my erection with a flick of her tongue, wrenching a desperate moan out of me. Then her hands cup my shaft like an offering before she takes the head of me into her hot, wet mouth.
