None of that matters, though, as the locks on the old case are flicked open.
As he lifts the lid, my eyes are automatically drawn to the contents like a moth to a flame. This right here is the other piece in the huge, distorted puzzle that is them, and it is about to be handed to me.
He reaches into the case, which is lined with what looks like red silk. He lovingly—yes, lovingly is the only way I can describe the way he is touching the instrument—cradles Chantel’s Stradivarius as he removes it from its resting place.
My mouth falls open as he turns and walks toward me. He’s cradling it as though it is his child. When he holds it out to me, I look at him as if he is insane and begin shaking my head.
“Apparently, I am going to trust you. Here, take this.”
Looking at the violin, I am very aware, all of a sudden, that I’m standing here naked. And yet somehow, that is not the most bizarre part of this equation. No, the most bizarre part is that he thinks I can and will be responsible for hanging on to an instrument that is not only worth more than a million dollars but is also reportedly a missing family heirloom. Not to mention it means more to him than the entire house we are both standing in.
Shaking my head again, I raise my eyes from the beautiful Diva. “No. I can’t use that to model with.”
“Here. Youneedit to model with,” he says, pushing it closer to me.
I step away from him, refusing to take a hold of what I know to essentially be his heart.
“No. Don’t you have a spare one?” I realize how stupid that sounds, but so does the fact that he wants me to holdherviolin.
He steps closer then takes my right hand in a firm grip and tugs me to him. Placing the neck of the violin in my hand, I have no choice but to close my fingers around it tightly. I’m afraid I might drop it, smashing it into little pieces.
“See, it won’t hurt you,” he reassures me. “You seem spooked tonight. That’s what it is.” Bending down until our noses are almost touching, he asks, “What happened this afternoon?”
Denial falls smoothly off my tongue. “Nothing happened.”
“You’re lying.”
Raising my head, I bring the violin up close to my body. “How do you want me to hold this?”
Strong, nimble fingers grip my wrist where my pulse is beating a rapid tattoo. “Once you are seated against the wall, cross your legs, rest the bottom on your calves, and let the handle nestle between these beautiful breasts of yours.” He reaches up to run the back of his fingers gently over the curve of one of the breasts in question.
I gasp. They are still sensitive from earlier. As he repeats the move, I clamp my bottom lip between my teeth.
That’s when a seductive grin appears. “I like teeth,” he tells me before turning on his heel, making his way back to the easel. He’s letting me know that, all along, he’s been aware of the sensual journal entry I read earlier, and he knows, somehow, that I’m hiding a secret.
What he doesn’t know is that secret involves a dark-haired woman with talented hands.My secret involves the woman he so obsessively loved, a woman he has admitted to wanting close byat all times.
Well, that woman has crept into my mind. Somehow, she has stolen my very sanity, because now I want her hands on me. I begged for her to touch me until I, too, lost myself in the beauty of a fantasy—a fantasy I still don’t fully understand.
She is aroused. As she sits there holding the violin, Phillipe can tell that Gemma is one hundred percent aroused. Her breasts are beautifully flushed, and her nipples are nice and tight.
When he handed her the violin, her eyes dilated, and he could have sworn that he could smell her arousal—and was reminded of the passage she must have been up to. A moment in time that changed him as a person.
He wants to talk to her about what she read.
Once he is behind the easel, he looks over to where she sits. The violin’s handle is resting against her skin, and her hands are holding it with so much care that he can’t help but feel moved by her attentiveness.
“So, tell me, Gemma, what did you learn this afternoon?”
“I’m here to ask you questions, not the other way around.”
“You are being quiet, so I’m trying to start an open forum.”
“Well, I don’t need one,” she tells him firmly. “If you weren’t so disagreeable this afternoon, I wouldn’t feel this way.”
“And how do you feel?”
“Confused,” she admits immediately.
