Chapter 23 Eliza #2
He watched as I carefully, with shaking hands, wrapped up the beautiful white orchid, replacing the covering.
I ran back up to my room before returning to where I had left Jasper and throwing my arms tightly around his neck.
I couldn’t stop myself. No one had ever done something like that for me, and it shook me to my core.
“Thank you. You don’t know what that means to me,” I mumbled against the cotton of his white T-shirt.
He wrapped his arms around me and firmly held me against him as if we were bracing for a storm, anchoring and safe.
He was all hard lines and dense muscle and only a whisper of tenderness, but I felt it.
Under the solid wall of unyielding muscle, there was the slow rise and fall of someone who cared.
I dropped my arms, needing to step away from the feel of him so close before I did something really stupid—like climb up his chest and straddle his face.
Or worse, tell him how much I was starting to care about him.
I walked past him toward the kitchen, hoping I would stumble across a large plastic bag that I could suffocate my libido with on the way.
“Where are you going?” he said, grabbing my hand until it was nestled in his palm safely. “Dinner is upstairs in my bedroom tonight—friend.” His eyes darkened for a second before a challenging, lopsided smirk appeared.
It had been two minutes, and he was already calling my bluff.
“Perfect,” I muttered.
This was not going to work. I should never have agreed to more time with him, especially not alone in a room when he looked like that.
I couldn’t have sex with him again, even though I really wanted to.
My brain was trying to override that decision, but the newly awakened beast between my thighs was currently staging a hostile takeover of my body.
We had already blurred the line, and I really needed him to stay far away so I didn’t get suckered into handing him over the keys that would take me out of my mom’s prison and into his. I was protecting myself.
He paused, waiting for me to surrender. But he should have known better.
I wouldn’t have sex with him again, but he didn’t have to know that.
If the man did nothing else, he brought out an absolute competitive demon that I’d never known possessed me.
He had since day one. It was empowering and thrilling—and dangerous.
Three things I’d recently started to crave.
He smirked as he gently pulled my hand to his side and guided me up the grand staircase to his room.
The entire way, my head spun, torn between wanting to cannonball onto his mattress and have the time of my life and wanting to lock myself in the conservatory and finish it as fast as I humanly could, so I didn’t make any more dumb mistakes.
“Are you hungry? I had an activity for us first, but if you’re hungry, we can eat first,” he said as we approached the door to his bedroom. His thumb absently slid back and forth over the inside of my wrist.
Wait, what did he just say?
“The activity is in your room?” I asked. Son of a bitch, was he not actually bluffing and really thought we were going to have sex?
“Is that a problem? When you said we were just fuck buddies…” He trailed off. Challenge was in his eyes and voice, daring me to admit defeat. There was a hint of amusement that let me believe he was still messing with me. At least, I hoped.
I spun on him; he was as fucked up as me about this, and I knew it.
“Is it a problem for you? What else would we be? I leave in three weeks,” I reminded him sharply.
The humor fell from his eyes and was replaced with something that looked a lot like determination—and something a little menacing that I didn’t quite want to name.
“It’s not a problem for me, Eliza. I know exactly what I want.”
He was not going to make this easy for me.
Goose bumps prickled up the skin of my back as I tore my eyes from his and pushed open the door to his bedroom, moving in and away from his words as quickly as possible.
The soapy-clean smell of him doused my senses as I walked into his room.
He had no idea I’d been in here not that long ago, following a little gold spider.
Here goes nothing.
I let out a breath of excitement and anticipation and peeled my T-shirt off over my head. Even thinking about having his firm grip all over my skin was enough to make me throb and salivate.
I supposed, if necessary, I could fall on my sword—or, I guess, his sword—one more time and be intimate with Jasper.
All in the name of letting him believe we were only fuck buddies, of course.
Especially if it meant I won the challenge because I had, in fact, worn a lacy bra like he’d asked me to.
I left my pants on but bent over the end of his bed provocatively, sticking my ass up. I would not be the first one to break.
“You can eat now if you want,” I said with my ass up in the air as I spoke to the black duvet cover on his bed.
“That eager, huh?” Jasper stood at the door with his arms crossed.
His gaze dropped, slow and heavy. “One taste and you’re crawling into my bed, ass up, like you’re waiting for me to take what’s already mine.
” He clicked his tongue, the sound soft and cutting.
“I said we were going upstairs. You’re the one who got naked hoping I’d eat.
” He smirked—a lethal, dismissive look. “We’re painting. ”
I looked around with wide eyes, not understanding.
He took a small step forward as he devoured me with his eyes. “We were…” He swallowed loudly. “Painting.” His eyes roamed over my bra as if memorizing it as he absently nodded toward his balcony.
Realization hit me when I looked through the glass doors and saw a small table between two easels set up with canvases facing the sky where the sun would soon be setting.
The activity in his room was painting. Not fucking.
My cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Our activity,” I mumbled with wide eyes.
“Last night, you mentioned painting the sky, but I think your activity might be better. Much better.” He leaned against his dresser and crossed his arms again, unabashedly checking out my body slowly, leaving goose bumps where his eyes trailed.
I stared back at him in awe. “You set up a painting date?” This was easily one of the most thoughtful things anyone had ever done for me. “For me? I’ve always wanted to paint a sunset.”
“You’re lucky I brought paintbrushes.” He stepped in, gaze sharp, heat coiled just beneath the surface. “Because if I’d grabbed rope instead”—a slow smirk covered his face as his eyes dragged down my body—“you wouldn’t be standing, and you damn sure wouldn’t be thanking me.”
I swallowed down the small bit of saliva in my suddenly dry mouth. I pulled my shirt back on over my head.
As we moved over toward the balcony doors, he paused. “Are you all right to be out there?” His eyes searched my face.
Needing the serious tone in the room to change, I gave him a wink. “Why? If I’m not, are you going to help me like last time?”
His face remained serious, completely humorless. I hated how he could look straight through me for the truth. “Eliza, do you feel comfortable going out on my balcony?”
I nodded. I had made a point of going out on my balcony a few times alone since he had taken me out on it yesterday, and each time, it somehow felt more freeing—though I had spent most of the day in the conservatory, hiding from him.
I nervously toyed with the locket in my pocket, feeling the chain clink around against my fingertips.
“Good. Otherwise, we would have to paint nude portraits of each other, and I am certain my lack of skills would insult you by the end of the evening.” He pulled open the glass doors and stepped onto the large balcony.
“Whoa,” I breathed.
The sky had started to turn the lightest shade of orange.
Unlike my room, which if you looked down over the edge, you could see the yard and conservatory, this view showed nothing but the other far-off cliffs and sky.
It looked like a postcard or a screensaver, and suddenly, the architectural structure of the Gothic manor made all the sense in the world.
The view was otherworldly—this view was why the manor had been built the way it was.
I sat in front of my canvas and suddenly felt so silly, like I had just put scrubs on and walked into a hospital pretending to be a surgeon. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve only ever painted in my field books,” I muttered, feeling like an impostor.
“Me either. I watched a few YouTube videos, though, so I’m probably going to be pretty good.” He smiled, confidently pouring a bottle of water into each of our paintbrush holders.
“How do you have all of this stuff?” I asked as I looked in amazement at the plethora of paintbrushes and acrylic paints on the small table between our seats.
He shrugged. “I grabbed it when I was out today. The ladies at the craft store told me what all to get.”
My expression fell for a moment—not from sadness, but from the shock at his words. I had no experience with this feeling and couldn’t find a facial expression fast enough that matched my delight and awe. This man had driven two hours into town to pick out all of this. For me.
Heaviness pulled at my chest. Under his callous, unapproachable exterior, he was one of the kindest, most thoughtful men ever to exist. His eyes were predatory as they watched me, but I knew there was softness behind them.
He cared just as much about me as I cared about him.
It was going to be so hard to leave this place and this man and move on.
A wave of emotions hit me at the thought of leaving.
No doubt sensing that I was about thirty seconds away from bawling my eyes out, Jasper spoke again. “My actions aren’t entirely innocent; I plan on auctioning off that painting when you’re done with it,” he said, nodding at my empty canvas. “I have a feeling you’re a natural.”