She lifted that stunning face. “I think I might have forgotten.”
I took a step forward. The air trembled and shook. “It’s all I see when I look at you. Beauty. You’re the definition of it. You don’t have to be shy. Don’t have to be afraid. You’re safe with me, darlin’。”
The savage promise stoked the flames. Truth that I wanted to erase that fear from her eyes.
The truth that I was asking her for some of that trust I didn’t deserve but wanted right then, anyway.
I should run from the fire.
But I took another step deeper.
Salem swept her tongue across her plump lips as those eyes were doing that thing that slayed me through.
Intense and wild and seductive.
Girl became a vixen in a beat.
Alive under my stare.
“I want to see, Salem, how you feel when I’m looking at you. Show me.”
Attraction blazed through the dull, dusky light.
Sparks and flames.
She hesitated—contemplated—then she stared me down as she reached around to loosen the zipper at the back of her skirt.
She let it go and it fell to her ankles.
Motherfuck.
I gulped. Tried to breathe.
She kicked the fabric aside, and the girl stood there in that loose, flowy, knit blouse and a pair of white underwear.
Those legs were bare.
Curvy and luscious and…fuck.
My mouth went dry.
Had to physically restrain myself from going for her.
She adjusted the swoop of the neckline, letting it drape off one delicate shoulder, and she slowly sank to her knees on the floor. She spread them apart, and a pant rasped from her mouth when she did, like the girl was impaled by the same bolt of lust that skewered through me.
“Shit.” It curled from my mouth hard and low.
She angled her head just to the side so that scar was exposed, her hair rolling down her shoulders like a river of black.
I felt held.
Compelled.
A spell rippling through the shadows that took me hostage.
Black-fuckin’-magic.
Salem smoothed her hand over her stomach, those eyes piercing as she stared at me from across the space. “This, Jud, this is how I feel when you’re looking at me. Like I matter. Like I don’t have to hide. Like for the first time in years, I am seen. Like I exist.”
SIXTEEN
SALEM
My throat locked with anticipation as I rested high on my knees.
Held.
Enthralled.
Enraptured.
Caught in a violent storm that had come from out of nowhere. A tsunami that had hit unaware.
Where both of us would drown.
Where I had become a piece of the torment written in the bold strokes of paint that covered every surface of his studio.
A piece of the agony weaved into the canvas.
The thickened air strained in and out of my lungs as I remained as still as I could. A picture for him to see. An element for him to piece together.
To carve and shape and mold me into an abhorrent beauty that matched his walls.
The man stood by the door.
His massive shoulders heaved with each harsh, hot breath that rocked from his wide, wide chest.
A monster.
A wraith.
A tower.
A fortress.
A dark, dark sanctuary where I wanted to disappear.
I was still struck by the images.
By the suggestions that swirled and whispered and screamed from the walls.
As if they were alive and crying out to be heard.
The chaos that littered this bad boy’s mind was written in blacks and whites and reds.
But I’d recognized it before, hadn’t I? Hell, I’d had the intuition that the paintings out in his living room had been more than personal the first night we’d met.
He was an artist, but I hadn’t been quite prepared then for what that really meant.
“You matter, Salem. You matter. Look at you, darlin’。”
There was the charm all mixed up with the disorder that was at the heart of this man.
My chest squeezed and the blood thundered through my veins.
“Beauty. The meaning of it.” The words fell on a harsh exhale from his lips, and the air that was barely skating up my throat died right there when he slowly toed off the dress shoes he wore.
Obsidian eyes flashed like a rush of the darkest night, rough as they devoured me from across the space.
Without looking away, he leaned down and peeled the socks from his feet.
I gulped, then I was nearly passing out when he ticked through the buttons on his shirt and peeled that off, too.
The man was nothing but wide, wide shoulders. Muscle everywhere, bulky on his arms and chest, his abdomen packed, tapering down and narrow at the waist.
Most all of his skin was covered in ink that seemed to scream the same as the walls, though it remained indistinct in the minimal light cast down from the rafters.
But I could make out enough to get the intonation.
The pure intimidation.
Menace and peril and life.
The mountain of a man stood there for a moment, then he took a step forward.
Energy rushed across the floor.
He approached like a phantom. Like a painting that had come to life.
It covered me whole and caressed me in shadows.
I was right. This man was definitely, definitely dangerous.
There was no question about it then.
And still, I remained there, held in his gaze, feeling the safest I’d ever felt.
I thought he was coming for me, only he slipped by on his bare feet.
Desire rippled through on his wake.
God, that was sexy, too.
Jud Lawson was an anomaly.
Conflict and peace.
Harmony and dissention.
A blinding light in the longest night.
Stealer of heart and sanity and good sense.
Because remaining there on the ground like an offering?
Posing for him?
There was no question I’d lost my mind.
His aura rippled through the room as he moved over to the wall that I faced. He pulled an easel closer, and the canvas he set on it looked like it’d been painted over a thousand times. He knelt to open a few jars of paint.
He picked up a brush and studied me.
I trembled beneath his watch.
“Beauty,” he rumbled. “Second I saw you out in the rain. Thought I had to be imagining things. Hallucinating.”
“I was terrified,” I admitted, our voices dancing through the condensed air.
Louder than they should be.
The thrumming of our hearts was palpable.
Frantic beats that echoed against the other.
A smirk ticked at the corner of his sexy mouth, then it slipped when he glanced at me then to the canvas. He began to paint. Quick, sweeping strokes, as if the images fell from him without thought. “I felt your fear, Salem. I felt your desperation. Wonder if I felt it then, that we were bound to be more than strangers. Wonder if I knew you were supposed to be on the back of my bike that night. Wonder if I knew you were going to become something that mattered in my life.”
I struggled to remain still, to swallow, to breathe. But the walls spun and gathered. Jud didn’t move, but it felt as if the walls had enclosed and pushed us closer.
He kept sweeping his brush over the canvas in long, frenzied strokes.
“I’m so tired of being afraid.” The confession slipped free. “I’m so tired of running.”
Those walls shook around me. A warning they might crumble and fall.
I had to remember. Remember to be careful.
Trust no one.