Her breath came hard and fast, a permanent shiver on her skin.
His dark brown eyes glittered with unhidden amusement and something else. Something that sent hot little flares of need into every inch of her. “Would you like me to get completely naked?”
Yes, please...for my art, y’know...
Hot color rose to her cheeks and she looked away. She bent over and picked up the loose paper and pencil. A sharp knot in her right shoulder told her she had been sketching him for far longer than she had planned to. She clutched the spot with her left hand and turned back. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
His hands landed on her, gentle and light. He turned her around. And she went, without protest, her skin already singing to be in such close contact with him. “Here?” he whispered near her ear, his fingers tracing the tight knot in her right shoulder.
She nodded, her throat dry.
His warm breath caressed her skin as he rubbed at the sore spot with long, pulling strokes. He was like a furnace of heat behind her. Only it was the pull-you-into-it kind. The pressure was relieved by his fingers, only to flood the rest of her body.
“Relax, agape mou. Remember what we talked about?”
Lexi nodded. Because much as she puzzled about it, there was nothing sexual about the way he rubbed her shoulders. She’d seen him with the other women. He wore his sexuality like a second skin. His being sexy was like...her ability to draw. Only she had no idea how to handle the relentless assault. Her skin prickled with awareness, the rough grooves of his palm rasping against her skin.
She shivered at how much she wanted those fingers to move from her shoulders to the rest of her, how much she wanted to lean back into his body and feel the press of hard muscle.
He plucked the paper from her hand and let her go. Silence had never felt more unnerving. Slowly she turned around, every inch of her trembling.
Finally, he looked at her, turning the sheet in his hand so that she could see the sketch. “You’re extremely talented. But you drew me, not your space pirate.”
Lexi was incapable of muttering even a word. She glanced at the sketch and her gut flopped to her feet. Mortification beat a tattoo in her head. She had meant to draw Spike and yet...there was Nikos in all his glory.
There was physical hunger in his gaze, an elemental longing. The very thing she had imagined seeing.
“Are all your sketches so self-revelatory?”
He whispered the words, but the garage walls seemed to amplify them before sending them back. Unasked questions and unsaid answers pervaded the air.
Nooooo.
She stepped back, desperate to flee. “I shouldn’t have come in here. I was...was just walking around—”
His fingers closed over her wrist. “Then stay,” he said, cutting through all the confusion. “I won’t bite, Lexi.”
He tugged her gently and she followed, feeling divided within. She was pathetic enough to admit that she found him intensely interesting and yet...she was also scared.
Curiosity wiped the floor with her confusion.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked, wiping his large hands with a rag. “I informed the maids to not approach you when you are sleeping.”
Lexi nodded, a hard lump in her throat making it hard to swallow. She wanted to be angry with him for manipulating her, for thinking so little of Tyler’s feelings. And he crumbled it all with one kind thought. She understood his need to protect his sister. Just wished it didn’t come at the cost of Tyler’s happiness.
She followed him to where the vintage car stood and remembered his comments. “So this is like your Bat Cave?”
Turning around, he laughed. “You remembered.”
She forced herself to hold his gaze, knowing that he was waiting for her to drop it, shy away like a blushing virgin. “I like you here.”
He raised a brow.
“You seem nicer, calmer, less manipulative.”
He stared at her without comment, a shadow dimming the amusement. Turning around, he grabbed a wrench. “Did Venetia say something to you?”
Mesmerized by the shift and play of the muscles in his back, she didn’t answer.
He turned around and stepped closer. “Lexi?”
“What?” She colored and met his gaze. “Venetia...Venetia didn’t say a word to me. Just glared at me, you know, like she wanted to reduce me into microparticles with her laser beam.”
“Is that what Spike can do?”
“Naahhh... I think this is a new character—Spike’s demon sister.”
He threw his head back and laughed, the tendons in his neck stretching. “You’re really tempting me, thee mou. So...you didn’t get a chance to talk to Tyler then?”