Chapter 2 The First Taste

Then he left, leaving behind only the lingering heat of him where he once stood like an echo.

Savannah stood stone-still, her fingers tingling where he'd touched her. Her body felt alive; every nerve alert, every shallow breath a quick dash toward the exit. She had walked into Blackwood Manor, thinking she was firmly in control.

But Damien Blackwood was a different kind of storm.

And she was already being sucked into his pull.

Savannah hadn't intended to hold much.

She literally collapsed into the sauna that was their encounter and scurried back into the city. It was the space she wanted. Time to think. But as she gazed out of the enormous arched-windowed guest room at the moon dancing across the waves below, she realized one truth.

Damien Blackwood had unwound her.

This terrifies her.

The knock was the quietest knock imaginable, yet it commanded attention.

She turned and skipped a heartbeat.

"Come in," she said, wavering a little under the fluttering but trying to be steady.

Damien came in holding a glass of wine in each hand, no longer in his jacket, sleeves rolled up, exposing strong forearms dusted with dark hair, and veins hinting at control and power. His shirt hugged the broad chest and from the open collar revealed more of the tattoo creeping over his heart.

"Thought you might want this," he extended a glass of dark red wine. "Something to calm your thoughts."

Savannah took it, fingers brushing his. A tremor shot down her spine.

"Is that what this is?" she asked, lifting the glass to her lips. "A way to lower my defenses?"

He smirked. "Are they up?"

"Do I seem like the kind of woman who lets them down easily?"

Damien stepped closer. Not touching, just... invading. Heat from a fire wrapped around her.

"No," he murmured. You seem like the kind of woman who needs to be seduced slowly. Thoroughly. Until she forgets where the lines are.

Her breath caught on the rim of the glass.

"Assumptions," she said, "too many."

"I observe," he replied. "It's what I do." I study people. "I like to find the cracks." "The soft places they try to hide."

He took himself a gulp from his glass, never again leaving her gaze.

"Are you studying me right now?"

"Every second."

The silence between them thickened, weighed with unspoken things. He needed not touch her to make her feel undone with his voice-it was low, glorifying, and wickedly promising.

"Your flirting doesn't resemble that of most men," she said, moving toward the sideboard to set her glass down. "You circle, provoke, and wait for the prey to come to you."

He followed, but slowly, "That is because I don't chase what's not worth catching."

"And am I?"

"More than worth it," he said simply.

Savannah turned to him. "Then why haven't you kissed me yet?"

He was directly in front of her, so close that she could feel the heat of his body, the slight rise and fall of his chest, as he reached out slowly, tracing one finger from her collarbone to the bare skin just above the swell of her breasts.

Her breath stuttered.

"Because I want you to crave it," Damien whispered. "I want it to haunt you."

She stared up at him, pulse hammering. "You're playing with fire."

He leaned in, nose brushing hers, lips just an inch away. "No, Savannah. I am the fire."

Then he backed her against the wall without warning.

Her back hit the cold stone with a soft thud, and he planted one hand beside her head.

Savannah was stunned and panting, still with her wrists held high, somehow carrying the heavy feeling of his touch in the air. Her chest rose and fell desperately; sensations were running up and down her lips, and her lower body was alive with a strong ache of desire.

He walked toward the door, stopping only to say, "Dinner is still on the table, if you care to join me."

Then he was gone.

And Savannah slid down the wall, her legs weak, lips parted that completely ruined her without ever being touched.

She'd come to curate a collection.

But she was being undone piece by piece.

And Damien Blackwood wasn't finished with her yet.

Chapter 3: No More Pretenses

The thick smell of varnish filled the studio air, but something else, too-something more primal.

Savannah followed Damien further into the space, the soft clicking of her heels against the polished concrete. Moonlight poured inside from the high glass panels above, bathing the whole place with silver light.

Brushes were strewn on the floor, nearly-finished canvases leaned against the walls, but it was one big canvas draped with a black silk cloth in the middle that seemed to suck the air out of the room.

Damien stood next to it in silence.

"You made something?" Savannah asked.

His dark gaze flickered toward her, stormy and inscrutable. "For you."

Heat rushed down her spine at the statement. "You're not the type who lets anyone see his work."

"Not usually," he said. "But tonight... no more pretenses."

He threw back the cloth in one brutal motion.

Savannah walked forward.

And forgot how to breathe.

The canvas was large, almost door-sized. Black and crimson bled into each other in sweeping strokes, fierce and violent. In the center, a female figure, bare and ethereal, arched her back in surrender, her head thrown back, lips parted. The details were not exact, but the likeness was unmistakable.

It was her.

Rendered in oil and desire.

Trapped in a moment of exquisite abandonment.

"Oh, my God," she breathed. "Damien..."

"What I see when I look at you," he said in a low voice. A woman is poised on the edge of breaking. Fighting herself. Daring me to push.

She turned toward him, heart hammering. "You painted this after just meeting me a single time."

"I need no time to see the truth in someone."