Hot & Heavy (Lightning 2)

“Told you it’s a work in progress,” he says when he catches me staring at the painting. “I still haven’t found anything I want to put in here. Except that.”

“It’s…” “Beautiful” seems too tame a word for the feelings it evokes. “Captivating. The abject power of it—and the utter solitude that comes with that kind of power. I can’t take my eyes off of it.”

I glance back at Shawn, watch as a series of emotions—astonishment, discomfort, acceptance—flit across his face. He settles on a rueful little grin as he says, “Yeah. That’s how I felt the first time I saw it, too.”

“You didn’t have it commissioned?” Surprise is evident in my tone. “It fits so well here.”

“It does. But no, I wasn’t smart enough to have a piece like that commissioned. I actually found it a few blocks from here. I went for a run one morning and ended up in front of one of the galleries on the other side of the island. I was…captivated.” He inclines his head as he uses the same word I did. “Couldn’t look away from it for the longest time. I went back two hours later, when the gallery was open, and bought it.”

“You’ve got an incredible eye.” I glance around the rest of the house that I can see—which is actually quite a bit, considering how open the floor plan is, rooms flowing into each other without the formal definition of walls to set them apart. “This place is going to be amazing when you’re finished.”

“I hope. I feel like I’ve been working on it forever, even though it’s only been a few months. Emerson keeps trying to get me to hire an interior decorator, but I did that in my last place. It was fine, but it never really felt like home. When I’m home, I want this place to feel like me.”

I don’t tell him that it already does. But every inch of the space conveys openness, warmth, elegance, with an underlying wildness and ferocity that is both thrilling and terrifying. It’s the same feelings I get from him, the same feelings I have for him. Acknowledging it makes me wary, has me thinking about taking another giant step back from all of this. But if I take too many more of those I’ll be out the door and I can’t do that. Not when I owe him a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of yoga lessons.

“I think you’re doing a wonderful job with it,” I finally manage to say, because it’s the truth and because it seems a lot less intimate than my thoughts. I’ve already given too much away to this man. My thoughts and feelings belong only to me.

“Really?” he says with a surprised grin. “I thought it’d be a little…”

“Wild for me?” I ask, brows raised.

“I was thinking lacking in structure, but sure. We can go with that.” He gestures for me to follow him as he moves toward the back of the house. “Want a tour?”

I do, more than I want to admit. Now that I know Shawn is decorating this place all on his own, I want to see the rest of it. Want to spend hours examining every nook and cranny so I can have a better idea of what’s going on inside that slick and sexy exterior.

But it’s precisely because I want all that that I say, “Maybe later. We should probably get started before it gets much later.”

Something flashes in his eyes at my answer, but it’s gone before I can figure out what it is. And then he’s smiling easily as he leads me into the kitchen. “Sure. Just let me stir this sauce, and I’ll take you down to my workout room.”

“What are you making?” I ask, following him to the stove where he lifts the lid on the large red Le Creuset Dutch oven that’s simmering there. “It smells amazing.”

“Spaghetti sauce. I thought I’d feed you after our session, if you’re up for sticking around.”

“You made homemade spaghetti sauce for me?”

“It’s not like it’s hard,” he tells me with a laugh.

“It’s hard for me.”

“Oh, yeah?” He picks up a wooden spoon he’s got laying on a spoon rest on the counter, stirs the sauce a few times. “Not a cook?”

“I can follow a recipe, if the instructions are very rudimentary. But nothing I make is exactly inspired. And none of it smells like that.” It smells so good that my mouth is actually watering, and I lean closer to the pot to get more of the scent.

“I could get out of the way and you could just climb in if you want,” he teases.

“Make fun of me all you want. That smells better than anything I’ve eaten in a really long time.”

“That’s because yoga instructors subsist on nonfat yogurt and stale granola.”

He’s not wrong, so I just laugh and say, “Don’t knock granola.”

“I’ll knock it all day long,” he answers as he reaches into a nearby drawer for a spoon. Then he scoops up some sauce and holds it out to me. “Here, taste.”

“I’m afraid if I do I might just say to hell with yoga and decide to climb into that pot.” I’m leaning forward even as I say it, blowing on the spoonful of hot sauce a few times before obediently opening my mouth.

He laughs as he slides the spoon into my mouth, and flavor explodes on my tongue.

“Oh my God. That is so good. So, so good.”