Only for You (3 page)

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I grew up on the Isleta Pueblo Indian Reservation near there. My mother was an artist, and she used both my brother and me as models at various times. I’d have to see it to be sure, but given the time period, it’s more likely me than Jake. We look alike, but my brother is a lot older than me—almost a whole generation. Jake would have been long gone by the time period you’re talking about. Mom did painted wooden carvings as well as watercolors and pottery, and she sold her work at local stores.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “If you’re saying there’s an actual chance that it’s you, then it’s
definitely
you. I immediately noticed it when I first saw you, but thought it was too unlikely to be true. I didn’t think that man could be real.” She glanced away, embarrassed she’d muttered the private thought out loud. “I just met you tonight, but I’ve been looking at your face all this time. That’s just . . . weird.”

“Weird?”

“Not in a bad way,” she assured quickly.

He was handsome, but his smile transformed his hard features to drop-dead gorgeous. Her mouth hung open at the vision. Her gaze dropped over him, despite her mental command to keep her eyes in her head. His body was big, but lean, long and rangy. He exuded strength, and not only from his personality. His near-black hair was a tousled, sexy glory. Despite the finger-combed negligence of the style, the strands were smooth and shiny. It fell several inches past his chin. Her fingertips itched to touch it.

He took a long draw on his water, and Gia guiltily glanced away. She’d been gawking. Again.

“So if you decided you were a New York girl at heart, how come you came to Los Angeles for college?” he asked quietly.

“I got a good scholarship here,” Gia explained, thankful he’d offered a safe topic. “I’ll probably always feel a little out of place in California, but I had a good college experience.”

“I know what you mean about feeling out of place.”

She nodded. “I can imagine living on the reservation was a different world from Hollywood.”

“I spent quite a few years in the Army and was based in several places in the Middle East and Germany, as well. But even with all the places I’ve lived, I felt like a being from a different planet coming to Hollywood.” He smiled slightly in memory. “Luckily, I liked the work so much that I’ve adapted reasonably well to the alien environment.”

“You don’t regret it? Making your life here?” she asked him, leaning forward and grimacing slightly because the stiff breastplate pinched at her waist.

“Once in a while, but not too often. This is my dream job. To do it, I need to be here.”

“You must meet dozens of wannabe actors and models and the like every day, people who have migrated here with stars in their eyes,” she mused softly. “Do they ever ask your advice while you’re doing their makeup?”

“About betting on the ten-billion-to-one lottery called Fame?” he asked dryly.

“You did it.”

“No. I bet on my art. If fame was part of the bargain, I’d be miles away.”

For a moment, they sat in silence as his low, gruff voice replayed in her head with absolute certainty.

“You never told me what you did for a living in New York. Something to do with your major?” he asked, setting aside his empty water glass. “You lit up when you mentioned you studied history.”

Her gaze flickered across to a golden clock on a nearby table. It had taken them an hour and twenty minutes to get to the dreaded topic.

“My work does have to do with history.” She smiled at him and took the final sip out of her second glass of champagne. He arched his brows, waiting for her to continue. Silently demanding it, actually. While they talked, Gia had grown accustomed to some of his expressions. She sighed. “You can’t expect someone a few years out of undergrad to be as proud of her job as a person like you. New York isn’t the easiest place in the world to rise up the ranks—not that Hollywood is either,” she conceded.

His black eyebrows slanted. “Did you think I was bragging or something?” he asked, looking vaguely bemused.

“Of course not. I’ve had to pry every detail of your work life out of you, you’re so closemouthed about the whole thing. You’d think you were a spy or something, as hard as it is to get specifics out of you,” she joked, ignoring his narrowed stare. “I just meant couldn’t you give me the courtesy of letting me remain interesting in your eyes just a little longer by not asking me career questions?”

“There’s nothing you could say that could make you uninteresting.”

Her laughter faded at his quick, confident reply along with the frank male heat in his golden eyes.

“What do you have on under that armor?” he asked suddenly.

Her eyes widened in surprise at his unexpected question. A smile flickered across his mouth, as if he’d read her stunned reaction. “You’ve got to be uncomfortable. I wanted to bring it up earlier, but I was selfish. I didn’t want you to leave in order to change, for fear you wouldn’t come back.”

Heat flooded her cheeks at his compliment. “Oh . . . a tank top and shorts . . . along with the costume’s pants.”

He stood and set down his empty glass. He held out his hand to her. “Come on,” he urged. “Let’s get you out of it.”

His hand swallowed hers. Some of the uncertainty and strangling sexual tension she was feeling fractured when one of the joints in the armor squeaked in protest as he pulled her up off the couch. She met his stare and snorted with laughter. Smiling, he tapped on the back of her shoulder matter-of-factly.

“Turn around, Tin Man.”

She spun around, every nerve in her body attuned to his presence behind her. He drew her braid over her shoulder. Had he pinched at the rope of hair, as if to better feel the texture of the strands? The small hairs on the back of her nape stood on end, hinting to her that he had. She waited with bated breath. He found the fastening at the back of her neck. His fingertips brushed a tiny fragment of her skin.

“It’s funny,” she said shakily. “People always focus on the makeup application. Nobody ever talks about the work involved in taking everything off.”

His hand lowered and she felt him loosen the fastening at her upper back. The armor began to part.

“That’s because it’s the messy, boring cleanup after the party. Usually,” he added gruffly under his breath.

Cool air rushed across her upper back, even as a hot flood of excitement hit her brain.

Usually.
Had he meant she was the exception?

His fingertips brushed against her tank top as he pried apart the costume. She’d found the armor inflexible and awkward when Liza had pulled and pried it onto her earlier. Seth maneuvered the thin metal plates as if they were soft silk. After only seconds, he peeled the upper portion with the breastplate off her arms and chest. She took a deep inhalation of relief at the freedom, her breasts rising. It suddenly struck her just how briefly clad she was beneath the costume. It hadn’t felt like that before, when she’d stripped for Liza to dress her. She rubbed her bare arms nervously as he moved behind her again. She grasped for a safe topic.

“It’s very generous of you to volunteer for the Cancer Research Fund. Do you do it every year?” she asked.

“For the past several years, yeah.” She wanted to turn around and see what he was doing behind her, but she was worried her expression would betray her anxiety.

“It’s quite a contribution on your part, volunteering not only all of your expertise, but all the tools of your trade as well,” she said.

“It’s not just my contribution,” he said. She heard the sound of metal clinking and realized he was setting aside the piece of armor. “My staff volunteers their time and skill as well. I don’t force them to do it, but it’s a worthwhile cause. And very much needed.”

She turned her chin over her shoulder. She’d heard something in his voice just then.

“Do you know someone with cancer?” she asked tentatively. His stare burned into her.

“I
did
,” he said after a pause. “My sister-in-law. She’s gone now.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured sincerely.

“It was much more of a loss for my niece. Alice was all Joy had. Except me.”

“That’s no small thing, I’m sure.”

She forced herself to break his steady stare and face forward again. She heard him set aside the breastplate and move behind her.

“So . . . you know Cecilia Arends?” she asked, mentally damning the tremor in her voice. She was entirely too aware of Seth Hightower. The air around them seemed thick and charged.

“Why would you ask that?” he asked. For a second, she struggled to recall what they were talking about. He’d slipped long fingers beneath the waist strap of the costume. Pieces of armor were fastened over the pants and had to be removed, one part at a time. She felt the give in the armor, and he placed the hooplike pannier that covered her hips on a nearby chair. She jumped when he placed one hand on her inner thigh a second later.

“Spread your legs,” he prompted gruffly.

Her eyes widened. She could tell by the location of his voice that he’d knelt behind her. An invisible tendril tickled her clit and a rush of warmth went through her sex. She strained to catch the thread of their former topic of conversation.

“It’s just . . . you spoke earlier like you knew Cecilia,” she said, gulping as she parted her thighs. When he didn’t speak immediately, she turned cautiously and looked over her shoulder. He
was
kneeling behind her, his head at the level of her lower back. His bent legs looked long and very powerful. She could clearly see the pair of blue-tinted glasses on top of his dark, silky hair from this angle. He glanced up and met her stare as he tossed aside the armor plate he’d just removed from a thigh.

“I know her.”

“Do you know her well?”

“Well enough,” he said, reaching for the fastening on her other thigh.

Her brows creased as a thought struck her. “Were you
hiding
from Cecilia? When you heard her coming down the hallway. Is that why you helped me? Because you didn’t want to be found either?”

“It wasn’t the only reason.”

“I see,” she said slowly. “So you’re laconic on topics outside of your work and accomplishments.”

He glanced up sharply. “I’m not involved with Cecilia Arends,” he said, holding her stare levelly. “Or anyone, for that matter.”

Warmth rushed through her. He had understood what she needed to know. She turned back around. Cecilia Arends was beautiful and successful. She was polished and experienced, and closer to Seth’s age. It wouldn’t surprise her at all if there were some kind of history between the two of them. Lots of women must lust after Seth Hightower. He was very good-looking, true, but there was something about his stoicism and sheer male power that was like waving a red flag of challenge at a female.

“Why not?” she wondered, a little stunned to realize she’d spoken the thought out loud.

His hand slid beneath the fastener at her lower leg. Her eyes sprang wide when he palmed what felt like her entire calf with his big hand. “Why not
what
? Lift your heel a little,” he requested.

She followed his urging, cursing the lurch of her heart inspired by his touch. He slipped the bootie attached to the foot covering—the
sabaton
—off of her.

“Why aren’t you involved with anyone? I mean, is it by choice or circumstance?” she persisted.

“Circumstance. The one called I’m-too-damn-busy.”

She laughed softly. “I can imagine. Have you ever done a Rill Pierce film?” she asked as he touched her other calf and she tracked every subtle nuance of his long fingers on her flesh.

“No. But I’d like to. What makes you ask? Foot up,” he directed. She lifted her foot obligingly. He slid off the bootie, but then his fingers returned, briefly cupping and stroking the naked heel of her bare foot in a fleeting caress. Electricity tingled through her at the unexpected, shockingly erotic touch. He urged her to put her foot down.

“Oh . . . because I knew someone who received his scholarship while I was at UCLA, and I went and heard Pierce speak once. He’s very talented. Both of you are sort of . . . men’s men. I was thinking you two might work well together.”

When he didn’t immediately speak, she twisted her chin around anxiously. He came up behind her, going from kneeling to towering over her in a second. The vision of him rising behind her like some kind of intimidating, steely phantom ascending fast from the floor froze her breath in her lungs.

No. Seth Hightower was no ghost, nor was he just a favorite sculpture. He was a vibrant, primal, flesh-and-blood man.

“Men’s men?” he repeated, standing close enough that she could see those thousands of pinpricks of amber that made his eyes whiskey-colored instead of just brown.

She nodded, temporarily speechless. He quirked a brow in a silent query.

“Big. Reserved.” She hesitated. “Simmering.”

“Simmering?” he said, his gaze moving slowly over her face and fastening on her lips.

“Yeah. Like something is frothing just beneath the surface, and you might . . . blow at any second,” she whispered.

The silence stretched.

“Take off the pants,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“You heard me. They’re part of the costume. I want to keep it all together, or there’s a chance things will get misplaced tomorrow when the delivery service comes to get them. I’ll look around after I pack this and see if I can’t find a robe for you.”

He turned away and started to gather the armor parts. Gia was a little floored. He
was
interested in her, wasn’t he? He was extremely hard to read at times. But then she recalled that squeeze of her braid, the obvious male heat in his eyes when he studied her just now, not to mention that tingling stroke on her heel.

No. She wasn’t misreading him.

Her pulse began to leap in her throat as she fumbled with the fastenings on the loose pants. She drew them off and folded them. Turning around slowly, she saw Seth methodically packing the armor into a duffel bag, his back to her. She approached him.

“Here you go,” she said.

“Thanks.”

He barely turned from his task as he accepted the pants. Feeling very exposed in a pair of low-rise, boy-cut black briefs and a tank top, not to mention confused by Seth’s intense focus elsewhere, she wandered back to the seating area.
Should she take this opportunity to go?
she wondered anxiously as she tugged at the shorts. Liza had told her to wear something brief that hugged the body. The black shorts were extremely tight. She looked down at herself anxiously. Why hadn’t she noticed the way they outlined her sex before? Maybe she should sit down on the couch and put a pillow over her hips until Seth returned with the robe? She jerked on the fabric again, only to have the waistband creep down beneath the bottom of her tank top and expose the skin of her lower belly.

She wasn’t wearing a bra. That fact hadn’t bothered her at all when Liza had been costuming her earlier, even when a few of her coworkers came into the room in search of adhesive or a prosthetic or a certain hair color for a beard and mustache.

Seth was a professional as well, she reassured herself, as she once again looked at the back of him.

And no. She didn’t want to leave.

She loved the way he looked, the way he moved. He wore a pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, a supple black leather vest, a thick platinum watch that struck her as very masculine on his strong forearms, and a pair of sturdy leather work boots. She was struck by how he moved with such graceful economy, despite his largeness.

She was also struck by how good his butt looked in his jeans.

He turned around, and she again was staring into his unyielding face. She forced her fussing hands to her sides. His gaze dropped slowly over her, and Gia felt a pleasant pressure in her body dipping in tandem with it. His stare lowered over her belly and hips and lingered between her thighs. Something hot leapt into his eyes.

So much for her concern that he’d changed his mind about finding her attractive.

His gaze wandered back up her body, scoring her. Her breasts suddenly felt very heavy and . . . obvious.

He took three steps toward her, and Gia swore her heart jumped directly into her throat.

“What about the rest?” he asked gently, one dark brow slanting.

“These”—she waved stupidly at her shorts and shirt—“are mine. They aren’t part of the costume.”

“I know,” he said, coming closer still. “Do you want to take them off too?”

The ensuing silence throbbed in her ears. Her heart chugged like a restrained locomotive.
This is really going to happen
. Her clit prickled in anticipation.

“Yes,” she replied honestly through numb lips.

He just nodded, holding her stare. Was he a magician, the way he hypnotized her?

“Take off the top first.”

It felt very difficult to draw a breath, as if the air in the room had become too thick for her lungs to process. She was very aroused, but still . . . she hesitated.

“How many times have you said that to a woman after removing a costume or makeup?” she managed to ask because her tongue had gone very thick.

“Seriously?” he asked, eyebrows arched. She nodded. “Never. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” she whispered. Naïve or not, she trusted her instincts. Plus, she knew about Seth from Liza. If this were par for the course for him, Liza would have told her. “Would you believe I’ve never agreed to something like this before?” she croaked, her fingers playing with the bottom of her tank top.

He took another step and came to a halt. “It never crossed my mind to doubt it.”

She gave him a shaky, grateful smile.

Shocked by her uncharacteristic brazenness, she pulled her tank top up over her swollen lungs and aching breasts.

*   *   *

His breath stuck as she dropped the tank top to the floor. She stared at him, seemingly transfixed. He stepped closer, drinking in the image of her. He laid his hand on the smooth expanse of skin above her left breast. She trembled beneath him. He felt the delicate beating of her heart. His gaze leapt to meet her stare.

“You’re very lovely,” he muttered, his voice breaking slightly.

Her lips parted. It was the sweetest temptation. He couldn’t remove his eyes from the vision of her mouth, or how desire glazed her springtime eyes. His hand lowered over a firm breast. Her skin was like warm silk. He cradled her breast and lifted it slightly, arousal shooting through him at the sensation of her firmness and weight. A soft moan slipped past her lips. He feathered his thumb over her nipple and felt her bead against his fingertip.