“I did,” he said after a pause. “My sister-in-law. She’s gone now.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured sincerely.
“It was much more of a loss for my niece. Alice was all Joy had. Except me.”
“That’s no small thing, I’m sure.”
She forced herself to break his steady stare and face forward again. She heard him set aside the breastplate and move behind her.
“So . . . you know Cecilia Arends?” she asked, mentally damning the tremor in her voice. She was entirely too aware of Seth Hightower. The air around them seemed thick and charged.
“Why would you ask that?” he asked. For a second, she struggled to recall what they were talking about. He’d slipped long fingers beneath the waist strap of the costume. Pieces of armor were fastened over the pants and had to be removed, one part at a time. She felt the give in the armor, and he placed the hooplike pannier that covered her hips on a nearby chair. She jumped when he placed one hand on her inner thigh a second later.
“Spread your legs,” he prompted gruffly.
Her eyes widened. She could tell by the location of his voice that he’d knelt behind her. An invisible tendril tickled her clit and a rush of warmth went through her sex. She strained to catch the thread of their former topic of conversation.
“It’s just . . . you spoke earlier like you knew Cecilia,” she said, gulping as she parted her thighs. When he didn’t speak immediately, she turned cautiously and looked over her shoulder. He was kneeling behind her, his head at the level of her lower back. His bent legs looked long and very powerful. She could clearly see the pair of blue-tinted glasses on top of his dark, silky hair from this angle. He glanced up and met her stare as he tossed aside the armor plate he’d just removed from a thigh.
“I know her.”
“Do you know her well?”
“Well enough,” he said, reaching for the fastening on her other thigh.
Her brows creased as a thought struck her. “Were you hiding from Cecilia? When you heard her coming down the hallway. Is that why you helped me? Because you didn’t want to be found either?”
“It wasn’t the only reason.”
“I see,” she sa
id slowly. “So you’re laconic on topics outside of your work and accomplishments.”
He glanced up sharply. “I’m not involved with Cecilia Arends,” he said, holding her stare levelly. “Or anyone, for that matter.”
Warmth rushed through her. He had understood what she needed to know. She turned back around. Cecilia Arends was beautiful and successful. She was polished and experienced, and closer to Seth’s age. It wouldn’t surprise her at all if there were some kind of history between the two of them. Lots of women must lust after Seth Hightower. He was very good-looking, true, but there was something about his stoicism and sheer male power that was like waving a red flag of challenge at a female.
“Why not?” she wondered, a little stunned to realize she’d spoken the thought out loud.
His hand slid beneath the fastener at her lower leg. Her eyes sprang wide when he palmed what felt like her entire calf with his big hand. “Why not what? Lift your heel a little,” he requested.
She followed his urging, cursing the lurch of her heart inspired by his touch. He slipped the bootie attached to the foot covering—the sabaton—off of her.
“Why aren’t you involved with anyone? I mean, is it by choice or circumstance?” she persisted.
“Circumstance. The one called I’m-too-damn-busy.”
She laughed softly. “I can imagine. Have you ever done a Rill Pierce film?” she asked as he touched her other calf and she tracked every subtle nuance of his long fingers on her flesh.
“No. But I’d like to. What makes you ask? Foot up,” he directed. She lifted her foot obligingly. He slid off the bootie, but then his fingers returned, briefly cupping and stroking the naked heel of her bare foot in a fleeting caress. Electricity tingled through her at the unexpected, shockingly erotic touch. He urged her to put her foot down.
“Oh . . . because I knew someone who received his scholarship while I was at UCLA, and I went and heard Pierce speak once. He’s very talented. Both of you are sort of . . . men’s men. I was thinking you two might work well together.”
When he didn’t immediately speak, she twisted her chin around anxiously. He came up behind her, going from kneeling to towering over her in a second. The vision of him rising behind her like some kind of intimidating, steely phantom ascending fast from the floor froze her breath in her lungs.
No. Seth Hightower was no ghost, nor was he just a favorite sculpture. He was a vibrant, primal, flesh-and-blood man.
“Men’s men?” he repeated, standing close enough that she could see those thousands of pinpricks of amber that made his eyes whiskey-colored instead of just brown.