My hands ached to reach forward and stroke every crevice on his face, then sift through his hair and touch the dark walnut strands. I inhaled and his earthly scent caused tremors to sprint across my skin.
Hair? Dry hair? No, it should be wet. I always painted him with wet hair, and yet tonight, it was dry.
“No, this is wrong.” I shook my head back and forth. I was going crazy; he wasn’t standing in front of me. I had to be imagining him. Holy crap, they’d put me in an insane asylum if I ever told anyone I’d seen the man in my paintings.
“Danni.” His husky voice sent a shot of electricity through my body.
“You know my name.” My nickname.
“Yeah,” he whispered in a ragged tone.
Oh, God, it felt as if he’d just run his hands over me and my body quivered with desire. I had to pull my shit together. “Tell me why I know you.”
His eyelids closed over his beautiful, magnetic eyes and his brows drew over them. With his lips pulled together in a tight line, he looked like he was scowling, yet I felt sorrow emanating from him.
His head lowered and he turned away, but not before I caught sight of one glistening tear as it escaped and slid down his cheek.
My heart broke into tiny fragments, a crushing pain so controlling I had no choice but to touch him. I reached out, fingers curling into his coat. My breath hitched as heat shot through me, warmth surging and causing my cheeks to burn. It was strange, as if the encompassing warmth made me feel . . . safe.
“Not a good idea to touch me,” he said, but he remained still.
I didn’t let go. I needed from him what no one else could give me. “Please. Tell me.”
I was afraid he’d walk away, leave me again like he’d done before. Even if I had no recollection of the memory, I knew he’d left me. But whether it was my choice or his, I had no idea.
He swung around in one fluid motion, his arm hooking my waist and dragging me up against him. My breath hitched as he stared at me, one hand splayed across my lower back, the other reaching up to cup my chin and tilt my head up to meet his eyes.
“I’ve tried, Danni. Fuck, I’ve tried to stay away.” His voice was torn and uneven. “But I had to see you before . . .” He nodded to my easel with the painting of him. “This shit . . . damn it, you have to stop. You have to forget me.”
My mind screamed no, because I’d never forget him. I didn’t know who he was or why he was here. Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome and he’d been the one to abduct me.
His voice changed to a rough growl. “Fuck, no, I’d never hurt you.”
Had I said that out loud? Shit, I was losing it. The man from my painting I’d been obsessing over was standing in my gallery and could hear my thoughts. Maybe I was passed out from all the wine and this was a dream.
His thumb stroked across the cleft in my chin as if it was natural and he was unaware he was doing it at all. My abdomen tightened and my knees weakened as I reached up to touch his face. I wasn’t scared of him. Regardless of what may have happened, this man was my safe place.
Wetness clung to his cheekbone and I had the urge to kiss it, sweep my tongue across his skin and taste him. Why? Why was this man driving me insane with these emotions? What had happened between us two years ago?
His head lowered, his gaze delving into mine. “I can’t stop this.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I did know that I wanted him. “Kiss me.” It was a hint of a ragged whisper, but I knew he heard it by the way his hand at the small of my back pressed into me harder. God, I wanted him to kiss me. Touch me. Make me feel alive again. The realization I desired a guy hit me like a tidal wave crashing against rocks.
This man.
It was him.
He was the key and, yes, the lock. Because he could lock me to him just with his eyes.
He pulled me closer so I was snug against his broad chest. I felt his heart skip a beat and then take on the same rhythm as my own.
I tilted my head back and looked up at him.
Our eyes clashed, and then his mouth slammed down on mine.
UNCONTROLLED. THAT WAS HOW I felt with this woman.
I’d denied it for two fuckin’ horrible years, but having her in my arms . . . Jesus, the need to have her was like an inferno that was impossible to extinguish. It was so overpowering that it was unnatural. It wasn’t normal, and yet, at this moment, nothing mattered except kissing her.
Her lips plied easily beneath my demanding assault, opening to my tongue as I tasted what was mine. Her. This woman. I wanted to say fuck them all and take her away. Run.
But that wasn’t the answer. They’d eventually hunt me down and I’d never risk her getting hurt.
I’d tried, since the day I walked away, to forget her eyes, those fierce, resolute, cinnamon eyes that had turned into ones of torment. Every time I closed my own, I pictured her; this free spirit who’d once soared with the birds but now was ensnared in a deadly trap of her abduction. I needed to free her.
She parted my coat and laid her palms on my chest. My cock jerked and I groaned. I wanted to strip her naked and fuck her hard against the wall until she screamed my name. But that could never happen. I was dangerous; shit, I shouldn’t even be here.
Her tongue boldly swept into my mouth, and my insides erupted with an unrestrained possession. My hand pushed on the small of her back, needing to feel her tighter against me; it was never going to be enough, as if I were drowning, sucked into an abyss.
Without this woman, I was nothing.