Lucas (31 page)

“Let me get the show catalogue for you,” she said breathlessly.

It’s a wonder she can speak with her tongue hanging out like that,
Kathryn thought viciously
.
She watched Francoise mince her way over to pick up one of the glossy catalogues.
And what’s with the ‘Francoise, love’ crap? Lucas was such a fucking dog. She’d absolutely done the right thing in—

“The dress looks much better without the leggings,” Lucas observed from right next to her.

Kathryn cursed her stupidity. She’d been so focused on Francoise that she’d forgotten the biggest threat in the room. She should have slipped out the back door the moment she recognized Nicholas coming around the SUV. Assuming this stupid gallery had a back door. But it had to have one somewhere. There was a fire code. Not that it mattered, because she’d let herself get so distracted that Lucas had somehow managed to sneak up on her.
Fucking vampire.

“Lucas,” she managed to say. She turned to face him, meeting his gaze head-on.
Which was her second mistake of the evening.
His eyes were more gold than hazel tonight, and they were filled with a mixture of hurt and reproach. The reproach she could have dealt with, but the
hurt .
 . . Damn him.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said.

“Obviously.
Who’s your friend?”

“Friend?” she repeated, puzzled,
then
remembered the art lover. “Oh.
That guy?
I have no idea. Someone who doesn’t understand color, that’s for sure.”

Lucas gave her a smug smile, and she realized belatedly that she should have lied, should have let him know he wasn’t the only handsome man in the world who was interested in her. And in the next breath, she cursed herself for the traitorous thought. What did she care if Lucas was jealous or not?

“Kathryn,
a
cuisle
, you forgot to mention
when you left my bed
yesterday that you were departing immediately for
Minneapolis
. Isn’t that odd?”

Kathryn narrowed her eyes at him. No, it wasn’t fucking odd, and he knew it. “Something came up,” she said tightly.

“Really?
What?” he replied, his anger rising to match hers.

“Why do you care?” she demanded.

“Why don’t you?”

Kathryn caught her breath. The question struck her to the heart, and she could tell by the satisfied expression on his face that he knew it. She looked away from his accusing gaze and focused on the expensive art instead.

“A big fan of cubism, are you?” Lucas murmured in her ear.

He was standing far too close, but Kathryn refused to move and let him know it bothered her. “What do
you
know about it?” she muttered.

He laughed softly. “Probably more than you do. I’d wager your brother’s the only artist in
your
family.”

“Why do you say that?” she demanded, vaguely insulted, even though he was right.

“Because
you
are far too buttoned up to be an artist.”

“I am not buttoned up,” she snapped, still staring fixedly at the poor distorted women in the painting.

“Please. You’re the very poster girl for buttoned up.”

“You have no idea—”

“Oh, I think I do. I also happen to know that you unbutton very nicely when motivated.”

She shot a sideways glare in his direction. “It’s hardly appropriate to discuss that—”

“Really?
But it’s okay for you to discard me like a used condom and leave town without even saying good-bye?”

Kathryn’s mouth dropped open in a gasp, and she turned to stare at him. “I can’t believe you said that!” she hissed furiously, her gaze darting around to see if anyone was listening.

Lucas faced her, his eyes snapping gold sparks. “And I can’t believe you left me.”

They were standing toe-to-toe, so close that all Kathryn would have to do was raise up on the balls of her feet, and their mouths would meet. She knew what he would taste like, knew the feel of his hard chest against her breasts, the span of his hands as they circled her hips while he drove himself between her thighs.

She drew back, shocked at her own thoughts. Thoughts she could see mirrored in Lucas’s fierce gaze.

“Where’s your truck?” he growled.

She swallowed on a dry throat. “I took a cab.”

“Fine.
We’ll take mine.”

“Lucas—” she started, then stopped when he turned to stare at her as if daring her to protest.

When she didn’t say anything, his expression softened. “We’ll talk.”

Kathryn nodded and didn’t object when he took her hand and headed for the front door. Her fingers slipped into his as naturally as if they’d been holding hands for years instead of a single day.

She was doomed.

Chapter Thirteen

They barely spoke on the ride to Lucas’s penthouse. Kathryn was painfully aware of Nicholas and Mason sitting in the front seat, and she didn’t know what to say anyway. Lucas was still holding her hand, pressing it against his thigh, which struck her as terribly intimate. But then, what was more intimate than what they’d done last night?

They crossed a bridge. She didn’t know which one. There were so many in the Twin Cities; it seemed almost every street had a bridge. She saw a sign saying they were crossing the Mississippi River, which meant they were probably now in
St. Paul
. A few more blocks, and all three SUVs made the turn toward a tall glass and steel building that sat nearly on the riverfront. Parking was underground, with the entrance protected by a human guard, as well as a solid steel barrier. Someone in the front SUV clicked the remote, the barrier rose, and the garage swallowed them whole.

Lucas apparently had some pull with the owners’ association, because they pulled into the three parking spaces closest to the elevator. As soon as they stopped, the other two SUVs emptied out, with vampires deploying throughout the garage. One of them punched the call button for the elevator, then stepped inside and checked it out before holding the door open and giving a nodding okay.

Lucas opened his door and stepped out into the garage without ever letting go of Kathryn’s hand. She frowned, especially when she had to balance herself to get out of the SUV, but he didn’t look at her, just shifted his grip and waited.

Kathryn sighed. He was going to be difficult about this. She just knew it.

He didn’t say a word until they were in his penthouse. It was on the top floor, of course, with dynamite views of the river on one side and what she assumed was the Capitol building on the other.

“Beautiful,” she commented.

Lucas still didn’t say anything, although he did release her hand to head for the wet bar on the far wall. They were completely alone. Some of the vampires in his security contingent had stayed on the ground floor. Others had peeled off on the floor just below this one. Only Nicholas rode all the way to the top with them. He’d checked out the entire condo, then gotten back into the elevator and presumably joined the others somewhere. Kathryn had studied his face covertly, looking for evidence of the ghastly wound he’d been sporting only two days ago. There was nothing. He was completely healed, just as Lucas had told her he would be.

Lucas poured himself a drink at the bar and strolled back to where she was standing in front of the window overlooking the river.

“What happened, Kathryn?” he asked quietly.

She gave him a quick glance. “I don’t know what you mean,” she lied.

“Let me refresh your memory, then. You fucked my brains out night before last—”

“I told you I had things to do. I drove all day yesterday to get here—”

“—and apparently you couldn’t wait to get out of town. I talked to the motel manager. You must have gone directly there from my bed, then packed up and left with the sun barely above the horizon.”

“And what do you mean I fucked
your
brains out?” she snapped, seizing on the one thing she could dispute, since everything else he’d said was pretty damn accurate. “I wasn’t the only one in that bed, Lucas. Brains were fucked, and fun was had by all.”

Unexpectedly, he grinned. “You missed me, didn’t you? Oh sure, the first couple of hours you were just focused on getting away, but then you started thinking,
doubting .
 . . and you missed me. Did you dream about me?”

Kathryn’s jaw clenched. “Arrogant,” she muttered.

He laughed. “Yeah, but I’m right.”

She rounded on him. “Why are you here?
Why
Carmichael
’s gallery?”

Lucas took a leisurely sip of his whiskey, eyeing her over the top of the crystal tumbler. When he lowered it, he said, “I would think that’s obvious.”

“
You’re .
 . . conspiring with him,” she accused.
“With
Carmichael
.”

“No,
a
cuisle
,
I’ve been hunting.” He turned and set down his drink on the marble inlay of a nearby table.

“What does
acushla
mean, damn it! What are you calling me?” She frowned as the rest of his words caught up to her. “Wait, what
do you
mean hunting. Hunting what?”

Lucas wrapped his long fingers around her hip and tugged her up against his body. “It’s not a what, it’s
a who
.
A certain FBI agent.”
He lowered his mouth to hers.

Kathryn intended to resist him. She wasn’t going to kiss him, and she certainly wasn’t going to grab him like a starving female and rub up against him wantonly. But that’s what happened. One second she was determined to walk away, and the next they were inhaling each other’s oxygen, kissing hungrily, biting and licking, her arms around his neck, his fingers twisted into her unbound hair, wrapping it around his fist and tilting her head back to plunder her mouth. And his other hand . . . her breath stalled in her lungs as his other hand crushed her hips against his so she could feel every inch of his erection, long and thick and as hard as stone against her belly.

* * * *

Lucas felt a curl of satisfaction as Kathryn moaned a protest against his lips. “I don’t want—” she began, even as she sucked his tongue into her mouth.

“I know,” he muttered back. “Neither do
I
.” But he couldn’t stop. There was something about her, something that drove him mad, like a hot poker stuck straight into his fucking brain. He
had
to have her, desperately needed her beneath him, her hot pussy soaking wet as it sheathed his cock over and over again.

“Damn it,” he swore softly and tugged her tight black dress up over her hips.

“Wait!” Kathryn protested weakly.
“The window.”

“It’s one-way,” Lucas ground out and stripped the dress off over her head. He hissed when he saw what she was wearing underneath. Gone was the sensible white cotton bra, and in its place, pale silk and lace, barely cupping her full breasts, with a tiny matching lace triangle between her thighs.

“You’ve been shopping,” he said, rubbing one hand over her firm and practically naked ass, while he caressed her breast with the other, thumbing her pink nipple until it poked out against its silky enclosure.

Kathryn was working determinedly on his belt buckle, ripping open the button to his pants and sliding the zipper down. He stiffened, in more ways than one, when she took him in her hand, her graceful and strong fingers gripping him tightly as she began to stroke up and down.

“That’s your fault,” she complained. “You made me feel ugly with my white bra.”

“You could never be ugly,
a
cuisle
. I rather liked it, actually, though I do like this better. Now tell me,” he tugged her long hair, forcing her to look up at him. “Who did you think was going to see this beautiful and sexy new underwear?”

She smiled innocently, but the gleam in her eyes gave her away. “Jealous?”

Lucas acknowledged the feeling. It wasn’t something he felt very often, but she was right. He
was
jealous. He didn’t know how long this obsession between them was going to last, but as long as it did, no one was touching her but him.