Page 54 of Shark’s Pride

“I’ve learned more about the world—and about myself—through that child’s eyes than I ever thought possible,” he confessed. As punctuation, he raised a negating hand. “Before you even ask me to cite examples, I don’t have specifics. I just know I’ve felt like I’ve been kicked in the nuts on so many occasions from experiences with that kid. It’s a special kind of terror.”

His grated words wove even deeper into my spirit, making me glad for the moment he took to simply shake his head. A faraway look took hold across his face, and I took a secret stab at nailing the motivation. Wonder? Bemusement? Disbelief, maybe? Or perhaps it really was what he claimed. Sheer terror.

“Do you think this is dry enough to do the other side?”

His subject change, erratic as it seemed, couldn’t have been better timed. I needed neutral conversational ground right now. My heart was ready to file a whiplash claim with my psyche, dealing with his switch-ups between silken lover and conniption-fit control freak. But his artistic confusion was doable to deal with, as he looked from my project to his and then back again, maybe gauging if we were progressing at the same pace.

“I think so,” I answered him, touching a fingertip to the surface of his plate. “It looks and feels like it is. Are you really doing the backside all black as well?”

“Yep.”

“I like it,” I said slowly. “It’s very…black.” I tried keeping a straight face as the words came out, but when he stared at me for two seconds too long, we both burst out laughing.

“You’re a terrible liar, Abbigail.” He laughed it out and then continued with the sound. With a start, I realized I’d never really heard him make the noise before. Not like this. An actual, unguarded, thoroughly genuine laugh.

“I was honest!” But he clearly didn’t buy my plea. I looked back at my pink caddy, realizing I wasn’t any more impressed. The flowers were going to be the tricky part, and I wasn’t feeling confident they would be recognizable as peonies when I finished.

“I’m going to get a bottle of water up front. Would you like something?” Just as I asked, Sebastian’s cell phone vibrated between us on the table.

“I need to take this. I asked Elijah to check in on Tawny,” Bas said, looking at the caller ID.

“Water?” I asked again, leaving to give him some privacy. He gave me a quick nod, and I headed toward the front of the store where they sold light snacks and drinks for their patrons to enjoy while they painted. I lingered a bit longer than necessary, checking out finished projects the store displayed for inspiration and trying to give Sebastian time to take the phone call with his private investigator.

By the time I returned, he was off the phone and back to work on his dinner plate. “Everything okay?” I asked, setting a bottle of water beside him.

“Thank you.”

Sebastian cracked the seal on the lid and tilted the bottle up to his lips, capturing my full attention. How did the most ordinary acts become so sensual when he was the one doing them?

Noticing how he basked in my blatant attention, I flipped my regard back to the unfinished piece in front of me. It needed at least two more peonies, but I was seriously more interested in the fresh subject at hand.

“So what’s up with Tawny? Have you seen her around the house?” This weekend marked two weeks that she’d been staying in Bas’s pool house, and as far as I knew, Elijah was no closer to knowing who’d threatened her—and, if her assertions were right, who were still after Sebastian, as well.

“Not really.” Bas was back to studying his plate as a convenient focal point for his gaze. I wasn’t surprised, given the traces of tension beneath his tone. “I think she’s trying to stay out of the way. Elijah keeps track of her comings and goings, of course. He said she only leaves the property a couple times a week.”

An extended breath left my lips. “Normally, I’d call his spying a little creepy—but right now I’m glad he’s keeping an eye on her.” I frowned while mixing some white and fuchsia shades, creating a silky carnation color on my palette. “Shit, I don’t know how I feel about the whole thing,” I confessed. The soft paint hue wasn’t wrapping my nerves in a drop of its pretty serenity. “It’s all so strange. Have the police come up with anything?”

“No,” Bas responded. “I don’t expect they will. And even if they do, I doubt they’ll share it with me.”

I compressed my frown tighter. “Why do you say that?”

“Baby, I’m not exactly their favorite citizen.”

“But you still have the civil right to be kept safe.” I huffed hard, incensed by the idea that the police would discount his safety because he may have pissed them off in the past. That was a tiny effort compared to staying even about his follow-up: a grin that quickly turned into a full chuckle. “What’s so funny?” I challenged.

“Nothing.”

“No. Tell me.”

“It’s not ‘funny,’ necessarily,” Bas explained and lifted my knuckles to his lips. After bussing them thoroughly, he let the open affection spread across his face. God, how I wanted to freeze-frame the moment and cherish it for a bit longer. Just an hour…or five. “I just lo—uhh, admire—your idealism,” he went on. “It’s so endearing. So purely…you. It’s one of the things I adore about you. You can’t recapture that once it’s gone, and I think I envy you for still possessing it at your age.”

While talking, Bas wasn’t sitting still. He flipped over his dry plate with one hand and used the other to squirt white paint into one of the palette divots. The sight of the stuff was so surprising, I wasn’t shy about my curious gawk.

“I need a pencil. Be right back.”

“A pencil?”

But he’d hopped off his stool and bounded away by a few steps before I was done blurting it. I watched him cross the shop with the same authority he traversed his own office, his steps effortless and effectual, before he paused at the supply area. The young woman in charge of the station was back from helping another customer and seemed especially happy to lend a hand. I rocked back a little, watching with amusement as Bas gave the girl the usual abrupt treatment he gave most strangers. Who was I kidding? He acted like that toward people he knew, too.