Lost With Me (Stark Trilogy 5)

“Why don’t you take a look around,” Emily says, and I nod in gratitude, certain that she’s seen my distress and is giving me an easy out.

“I will. You’ve got me curious now.” That’s the truth, and though I’ll have to hurry to my meeting, I can spare a little time.

I walk along the wall, taking in Wyatt’s prints, a couple of which I saw at his studio the last time I was there. Then I reach the end of the freestanding wall, round the edge, and stop short. I know these paintings.

Not these paintings, but ones so similar that my legs feel weak simply from the memory of it. Because these are Blaine’s paintings, so like the ones that hung at Evelyn’s house the very night that I met Damien in LA. The night that started it all.

I take a step forward, realizing that I’ve wrapped my arms around myself. Not in protection, but in an act of pure selfishness. I want to hold these images close with my memories. As if the taste and texture of those past moments could be lost if I don’t hold tight to them.

Never. Those moments are burned into me. Seared on my heart. And I want nothing more than to have Damien beside me right now.

Since that’s not possible, I let myself slide into the desire that these paintings have sparked. Memories of those moments with Damien, before we were together, but when our attraction burned like wildfire—hot, dangerous, and out of control.

The painting in front of me reflects a different type of desire. While Blaine’s earlier work focused on reds to accent the often black and gray images, this canvas is dominated by bold strokes of stormy blue—ribbons tied fast around the nude woman’s ankles and wrists, binding her tight to a chair. She is arched back, her torso shadowed by the lines of her ribs. Her face is tilted up toward the ceiling. Her long hair falls backwards, a few strands trailing over her shoulder and curling over one bare breast.

Her sex is hidden in shadows, the brush strokes subtle, and with her face raised, there is no way to see her facial expression. Is she aroused, waiting for a trusted lover? Nervous, playing sex games with a man she hardly knows? Is she there of her own volition, or is this an image of fear and violation?

I tremble at the thought, then jump when I feel the pressure of a man’s hands cupping my waist as he steps close behind me. My body tenses, a fight or flight reaction that I can’t control in the split second it takes for my mind to send the message to relax. Because there’s nothing at all to fear.

Damien.

I start to turn, but he increases the pressure, keeping me firmly in place.

“D—”

“Shhh.” I feel his breath on my hair. “Stay just where you are, baby, and don’t turn around.”

7

His name dies on my lips, but I hear it all the same in my head. Damien. My voice breathy. Full of need.

He eases me back so that my body is flush against his, and I close my eyes, losing myself in the way his touch makes me feel even while fighting the urge to step away. To tell him to stop. That we’re in public, and we can’t do this.

But I don’t. I stay, and as I close my eyes in acceptance of my own desires, I hear his low, soft moan of satisfaction and feel the swell of his erection against my lower back, his arousal growing with my acquiescence.

Mine, too.

Because while I may not want to be the kind of woman who gets turned on by her lover’s touch in a public gallery, I can’t deny the heat building between my thighs any more than I can deny the basic truth that where Damien is concerned, there are no limits. Not because I have none, but because he knows how to take me right to the edge. To make me breathless and needy and desperate. But never to push too far.

I’d changed before meeting Jamie for lunch, and now I’m wearing a knit tank that hugs my body and a wrap style skirt that fastens with a single button at my hip. His hands are pressed against the curve of my waist, the heat of contact burning through the black knit of my top. I make a small move as if to turn around, but he tightens his grip, his utterance of no so soft that I may have only imagined it.

But I know I’m not imagining the motion of his hands as he slowly eases them up my body, making my heart beat faster with each millimeter of progress higher and higher. My breath is shallow, and I whisper his name, “Damien,” not certain if I’m acknowledging the moment, pleading with him to stop, or begging him to continue.

His hands curve under my breasts, his palms lifting them as he presses his thumbs down until my nipples are pinched tight between his thumbs and forefingers. He increases the pressure, and I suck in air, squeezing my legs together, my clit throbbing as I bite my lower lip and fight the urge to surrender to the heat that is building inside me.

“You’re wondering if it’s pleasure she’s feeling,” he says, and my mind has traveled so far from these walls that it takes me a moment to realize that he’s referring to the woman in Blaine’s painting. “Pleasure or embarrassment,” he adds as his right hand eases lower, his fingers finding the flap of material where the ends of the skirt overlap.

He slips his hand in, his palm sliding over the brushed cotton, his fingers slowly tugging the interior layer toward him. It bunches within his hand, and I bite back a gasp when his fingertips graze the bare skin of my thigh. “Was she turned on by the knowledge that so many would see her portrait?”

His fingers slowly ease higher, closer and closer to my bare sex. I bite my lower lip and close my eyes, my entire body aching with need, craving his touch. I can imagine his hand cupping my sex, his fingers sliding inside as his lips brush my ear while he whispers to me, his sensual words making my imagination soar as my body quivers and tightens and explodes around him, and I taste blood from biting down so hard to keep from crying out.

I imagine all of that. Craving it. Desperate for it.

And at the same time terrified of it.

“Not here,” I murmur, resting my hand over my skirt. Over his hand. “Not now.”

His fingers still, but he inches closer, his heat burning into

my body, the beat of his heart reverberating through me.

“I got your note. And your present.” His whisper rumbles through me, his words making me even more aware that I’m bare beneath this skirt. “I missed you by just ten minutes.”

“How did you find me?”

“I have my ways. And I’m willing to use all my resources to get what I want.”

There’s a tease in his voice, and I smile in realization and amusement. Because it didn’t take too many resources. Just the app that’s installed on both our phones as well as our cars—and Bree’s, of course, in case we need to find her and the kids.

He would have checked his phone, seen that I’d parked in Beverly Hills, and remembered that I was going to check on the girls’ cakes today. Presumably he was following my route and saw me step in here.

“Do you really think I need a tracking device to find you?” he counters, after I tell him all that. “Don’t you know that you’re always in my heart, and how can I lose track of that?”

I smile and sigh happily, his words delighting me. And, who knows? Maybe it’s true. My husband is a remarkable man.

“I wanted to see you.” There’s a tone of finality in his voice. As if the details simply don’t matter. As if his will alone is enough to find me.

Maybe it is.

“To touch you.” The fingers of his hand that still cup my breast tighten on my nipple, sending a new shock of desire running down to my core.

“I wanted to know if you’re still bare, or if you’ve put on a fresh pair of panties.” His hand stays perfectly still, but, damn me, I relax the pressure of my own hand that’s been keeping his in check.

“We can’t.” It’s a public gallery. Anyone could come in. But even as I think that, my eyes scan the room. The section we’re in has no windows. And the gallery is empty and echoey, with a bell over the door. We’re alone, except for Emily. And if she comes this way, her heels will undoubtedly click on the floor, giving us plenty of warning.