Gateway to Heaven (5 page)

His gaze shifted to the window. “You know…stuff.”

She laughed. “
Stuff
? What sort of stuff?”

Surely Christian, who had epitomized the definition of confidence since she’d first met him couldn’t be shifting around self-consciously in his chair.

“
Up until now, a lot of crap, no doubt,” he finally muttered under his breath quietly enough so that Emily didn’t hear as she fed her doll.

She reached out and touched him. The sudden lost expression on his face had made it an imperative.

“
It’s not. Whatever you’ve written, it’s good. I know it.”

“
How would you know? I’m no Walt Whitman, I can tell you that,” he said bitterly.

Megan’s eyes widened. She’d been right. Christian didn’t miss much. The tone of his voice had been cutting and sarcastic. She pulled her fingers away from where they had been touching the back of his hand.

“
How did you know?” she asked after a moment, referring to the fact that he knew something as personal as the identity of her favorite poet.

“
It doesn’t take a genius, Megan. You have two copies of
Leaves of Grass
alone, the one opened on your coffee table had a broken spine from being read so much,” Christian stated in an emotionless voice, but his hand flicked irritably at the lacy flounce on the tablecloth.

Megan didn’t know how to respond to his acute observation and changeable mood, so she didn’t say anything at all. They’d both focused on Emily until it was time to leave, speaking politely but irrelevantly to each other.

Megan was an artist herself, and had spent enough time around other artists to know that they could be some of the most sulky, temperamental individuals in existence. She wouldn’t have guessed that Christian would fall into that category, but what did she really know about him, after all?

* * * * *

Later that afternoon after she’d put Emily down for her nap, Megan entered her living room to find Christian sitting on her couch with her well-read copy of
Leaves
of
Grass
resting in his lap. His long legs were bent at the knee, thighs casually spread.

He’d removed his jacket and unbuttoned the top few buttons of his white shirt. Megan could see some springy, dark brown hairs on his chest at the lowest portion of the opening. A short gold chain was also in evidence, but Megan couldn’t make out the amulet. His unruly, burnished hair had heedlessly fallen across his forehead while he read with complete concentration.

For a minute Megan stood and watched him silently. Despite his size and solidity, his presence in her home seemed a little unreal to her. Surely he was temporary, ephemeral…like glimpsing a shooting star or having an especially good dream from which you were destined to awaken.

Megan’s life felt too small to contain Christian Lasher for long.

“
Are you doing a study of me for a sculpture or are you waiting for me to apologize for being such a jerk earlier?”

She blinked in surprise at his muttered words.

He turned toward her. His hair fell back from his brow. The book dropped to the sofa cushion. His voice had sounded, gruff, slightly amused…self-deprecating.

Megan’s eyebrows rose in speculation as she moved over toward the other end of the couch from where he sat. “
Were
you a jerk earlier?”

He nodded slowly. “People tend to act like asses when they’re insecure about things. I’m not too secure about my writing—or my career—at this point in my life.”

“
Why?”

He leaned his head back on the couch and raked his fingers through his burnished hair restlessly. “I want to make a change in…what I write, but it’s hard to change what’s been a success. People keep demanding I do the same thing over and over again but it’s old and it’s dried up and I’m sick to death of it.”

At the last, his facial muscles tensed noticeably.

Megan didn’t speak, waiting for him to continue. After a moment, the tension in his body lessened with an exhaling sigh. He seemed a little defeated, if resolute.

“
I feel like I’m disappointing people who I care about, especially one person. I feel like I’m betraying him. But I just can’t keep doing what he’s asking of me. I won’t,” he added with a fierce glance.

Megan empathized with the pain and conflict she saw on his face. “Creativity is like that,” she said softly. “Once a vein has been mined until there nothing of worth left, you have to abandon it and let your spirit prospect elsewhere. To keep going at the old source is not only useless, it’s somehow hurtful…harmful to yourself…” She trailed off, deep in thought.

“
But you have to find a way that takes into account both your creativity and the important people in your life,” she continued after a moment. “Some compromise.”

She realized that Christian watched her with eyes as sharp as drilling blue diamonds.

“
I’m not much of a compromiser.”

“
Oh.” Megan shrugged uncertainly.

“
It’s happened to you, hasn’t it?”

Megan hesitated before she answered. Were they talking about the same thing? Megan doubted that she’d ever fully plumbed the depths of her own creativity or passion in the way that Christian had. Although she didn’t know him that well, she intuitively understood that he was the type of man that had lived life fully and without restraint. Maybe the only thing that they had in common as artists, and as human beings, was that they both felt like a change was in the offing, threatening terrible uncertainty, promising untold riches…

“
Probably not. I’m speaking more from a teacher’s point of view than from someone who has actually traveled the tortuous pathway of the artist,” she admitted with a shaky laugh. “But I know what it’s like to care deeply for those around you, to hold dear the organizations, the routines, the established relationships that have taken years or lifetimes to build…and at the same time…to want to shatter those structures, too, so that you can make a whole new mold for yourself.”

“
Spoken like a true sculptor.”

She returned his smile.

He brought his knee up onto the couch and turned toward her. He took her hand. Megan glanced over at him in surprise. His movements had been minimal, but suddenly the couch seemed smaller and the space between them had shrunk. The rough pad of his thumb stroked her inner wrist gently.

“
What would your new mold be like?”

Her body sprung to life at the rumbling, intimate quality of is voice. She laughed to cover her uncertainty.

“
I don’t know. Maybe I’d be a little freer, less doubtful about myself, less unsure.” When Christian didn’t immediately reply, she added. “I know that’s not very original. Most people would probably say the same thing.”

“
I don’t know. I think I understand the gist of your meaning, not just from your words, from what I’ve learned about you so far. You know I’m not very convinced that you see everything from the cold, passionless position of the teacher’s podium.”

“
No?” she murmured, her stare fixed on his chest. A languorous spell seemed to be falling over her at the sound of his deep, resonant voice. Her head fell back to rest on the back of the couch. She felt relaxed and excited at once, a paradox that she’d never had in her life and yet continually experienced with Christian. She wasn’t alarmed or anxious when he shifted his weight even closer to her or when his other hand came up to span the side of her neck, lightly massaging the appreciative muscles there.

He shook his head. “You read Walt Whitman religiously, which means you’re a closet sensualist. Most people wouldn’t guess that you and old crusty, lusty Walt were soul mates, but against all logic, it makes sense. I can see the passion in your art, too, although it’s nascent.”

His thumb came over and pressed lightly into her full lower lip. He watched his finger rub the firm flesh with slow, hypnotic circles. When her lips parted and a small sigh drifted across his knuckle, his eyes met hers.

“
I see passion in your eyes when I touch you,” he murmured huskily.

He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. His mouth was insistent, but patient and unhurried.

Megan sighed with satisfaction and let her fingers sink into his soft hair, then beneath it, glorying in the sensation of corded neck muscles and warm skin. Liking the feel of him so much, she sent her fingers beneath the collar of his shirt, lightly touching the bare skin of his back and shoulders.

Christian groaned and deepened the kiss. Even while his tongue sought out the mysteries of her mouth, he resituated their bodies on the couch, encouraging her to recline, bringing her beneath him. The kiss went on, at times lazy, exploratory, at others bold, relentless…reckless.

Megan was lost, but she had never cared so little about finding her way home.

Her lips turned blindly to caress Christian’s cheek and ear when he buried his face in her neck. His mouth there felt hot and hungry on her sensitive skin. His head and tousled hair felt wonderful pressed against her cradling hand…surprisingly dear. She felt the increasingly familiar pleasurable pull at her breasts. When he covered her lower body with his own, she welcomed his weight, sighing at the way the pressure both gratified the ache at her core and increased it.

She experienced a strong desire for more of his weight, a need to create more friction with their bodies, a mandate to absorb even more of this man onto her, into her.

He settled into the juncture of her thighs with a groan of satisfaction. She opened her thighs to accommodate him; he pressed into her softness. All thought flew from her brain as sensation took center stage.

Despite being caught in the web of passion that he weaved around her, Megan’s eyes opened in amazement when she felt him place his cheek and mouth beneath the lower swell of her left breast and nuzzle upward. Her hands rose to tangle in his thick, silky hair. She pressed his head closer despite the sluggish doubts that started seeping into her awareness.

“
Christian.”

“
Hmmm?” he asked absently, fully absorbed in his task. His hands were placed innocuously enough—one of them on the couch, bracing him up so that he could reach her while the other delved into her hair. But the motions of his mouth were far from innocent. He continued to nuzzle the weight of her breast with his mouth and nose. He made small, hungry kisses, first on the underside of her breast, then around to the fullness at the top. Megan gasped as heat flashed through her and pooled between her thighs.

“
Christian…I don’t think that—”

Her half-hearted protest was cut off mid-sentence when Christian placed his mouth directly over her nipple and suckled gently but insistently.

Even through the fabric of her sweater and bra, Megan felt that hot, sweet tug all the way to her womb. She arched her back, her body granting him access even when her brain was stingier with its consent.

Christian lifted his head and held her gaze. He pulled the bottom of her sweater upward, exposing her pale midriff. He lifted the material over her breasts, allowing his fingers to caress the swells of flesh above her bra. “I just want to look at you,” he assured gruffly.

Megan forgot how to breathe for a few seconds.

“
God, you’re so pretty.”

His eyes praised and his fingers worshipped. Megan closed her eyes at the intensity of the sensations that rocketed through her. She bit her lip when she felt his gentle fingers scoop one breast from the lacy confines of her demi-bra and rub his palm along the underside.

She cried out brokenly when he whisked his calloused thumb over the sensitive pink nipple.

“
Okay?” Christian asked in a gruff whisper.

She nodded but her eyelids scrunched closed tightly. He brushed a light kiss across her lips.

“
See?” he teased gently. “More evidence for my theory. Who would have guessed that you were wearing such sexy underwear under those conservative clothes? You’re full of pleasant surprises, lady.” He molded her breast to his palm. “Open your eyes, Megan.”

She complied dazedly.

“
It feels so good,” she said.

His small smile went all the way to his eyes. “
You
feel so good. Look at how pretty you are, honey.” Megan glanced down. She inhaled raggedly. Her pale breast contrasted starkly with the dark, masculine hand that held her so possessively. The image was potently erotic. Christian caressed her erect nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and then bent down to taste her. She moaned in pleasure when he surrounded the taut nipple with his warm mouth and applied suction.

“
Sweet woman,” he murmured huskily after a moment. He lifted his head and admired the effect his mouth had on her. He bent again and soothed her with a warm, laving tongue. After a moment of quieting her, though, he plumped her flesh into his palm and sucked on the aching tip again, this time with more greed. Her fingers tightened in his hair. She lost herself. She moaned and moved restlessly, pressing against him, trying to alleviate the delicious friction at her core.

He kissed her wet, erect nipple chastely and glanced up at her with blue eyes blazing.