Sculpting Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 2) (27 page)

"Sure, if there's anything that can distract me-" I glanced up, and the rest of my sentence died on my tongue.

His words had been casual, spoken in a soft and even tone - but the heat was back in Carter's eyes, and his expression nearly melted my undergarments into a puddle on the floor! He rose up off of his stool, sweeping my wineglass away from my unprotesting fingers, and I let him clear it. The force of his need for me, his hunger, hit me like a wrecking ball slamming into the side of a crumbling building.

Portia, even sitting off to the side, caught a blast of that arousal. "Well, looks like I'll be heading off to go clean up my own apartment," she said quickly, swallowing her last sip of wine so that she could hold the glass out to Carter as well. "It's been fun, tonight!"

Normally, most people would have let it go there. But because Portia was Portia, born without a filter between her mouth and brain, she gave me a bawdy wink. "Although if I'm any sort of judge, you two are going to be having a lot more fun tonight than me!"

"Portia!" I snapped, even as I felt my cheeks blushing crimson. She wasn't wrong, of course, which just added to the heat coursing through my face. "Don't just yell it out there for everyone to hear!"

"And speaking of having fun, what about you?" Carter joined in, speaking over my shoulder from behind me. His hands slid up and wrapped loosely around me as he spoke; the gesture seemed casual, but I had to stifle a gasp at the touch of his fingers against my sides. His skin practically burned through my clothes, and I felt his fingertips flex against me! I could tell that he was already thinking of what was still to come tonight.

"What about me?" Portia asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I mean, we need to find you a man, someone to come out with us on nights like this and round out our little group." Carter's fingers slid down along my side, running over the curve of my hip. I imagined that hand guiding me as he took me, as our bodies came together, and had to bite my lip to hold back a moan.

Portia just shrugged. "I'm in no rush to find the right guy. At some point, he'll stumble into my life, and I'll have to give up my wild, exciting lifestyle and settle down, turn into an old fuddy-duddy like you two."

"Portia, we're the same age!" I protested, outrage momentarily managing to hold its own against the growing tide of lust.

She waved a hand at me, like this fact didn't really matter much. "Still. I've got plenty of fun options here. You two go get out of here, get into bed by nine PM like senior citizens."

I opened my mouth to object again to this, but Carter beat me out, speaking before I had a chance. "You heard the lady's orders," he murmured to me. "Let's get you off to bed."

When the words came from his mouth, I failed to even consider resisting. "Okay," I whispered, his hands hot on me as he pulled me out of my seat, out towards where his luxury sedan was parked next to my blue pickup, out towards my apartment, my bed...

We somehow made it back to my apartment building without any accidents, Carter following behind me, his headlights a constant in my rear-view mirror. I parked and held the front door to my aging apartment building open for him to come in with me.

"And hello to you, Salem," Carter said as I unlocked the front door to my little apartment, bending down to scratch at the ears of my cat as he paraded in between our legs. Salem's purr grew into a rumble like a tiny lawnmower as he circled around us, covering both of our outfits with a fine layer of black cat hair and blinking up at us with luminous green eyes.

"He's only being nice to you because he's hungry," I pointed out to Carter, as the man bent down to rub the cat's back. Salem sank down to the floor and closed his eyes into slits, occasionally arching his back up so that Carter's fingers hit just the right spot.

"Eh, I'm okay with buying his affection," Carter answered. He gave Salem one last scratch and then stood up, ignoring my pet's yowl of protest at the massaging fingers going away. "And now..."

"And now what?" I asked, feeling my breath catch in my throat, come more shallowly, as Carter moved towards me. That hunger was back in his eyes, and here in the apartment, there wasn't anyone else to see, to interrupt.

"And now, I think that I'm interested in affection of a different sort," he murmured. His hands slid around my waist, pulling me in towards him, pressing my torso up against his hard figure. He brought one finger up beneath my chin, guiding my lips up to meet his own.

Oh man. How did I land such an amazing kisser? I fought against the urge to wrap my legs around Carter and cling to him like a boa constrictor - fought and lost. Both my arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him down towards me.

"Let's get you off to the bedroom," Carter gasped out after a second, his fingers now already tugging at my clothes, pulling them aside so he could touch me, hold me, press deep into my bare skin.

"Okay," I managed to get out in reply, staggering along with him towards the room in question.

That word was the last one spoken in my apartment for quite a while - although we definitely made plenty of sounds as Carter slowly, lovingly explored every single inch of my body, driving me insane with desire and hunger for him before finally, completely, granting me the release that I so desperately sought from him.

For a couple of hours, I didn't think once about Uncle Preston's call.

Later, however, as Carter slumbered beside me, one big, muscular arm draped over my shoulders and with his chest gently pressing against my back each time he took a slow, steady breath, I couldn't fall asleep right away. Instead, I lay awake in the darkness and wondered what my uncle could be planning for his gallery.

Somehow, I just knew that it would end up causing me no end of trouble.

Maybe I really did need to go find a local gypsy woman who could handle curses, I thought drowsily to myself before drifting off into unconsciousness.

Keep reading! I've included a bonus copy of another book,

TOMCAT

Read on now!

Chapter One

*

"Admiral" Theodore Whiskers was missing.

Although I didn't want to even consider the possibility, I felt my blood pressure rising as I moved from room to room in my little house. I knew all of his usual hiding spots, but with each place that turned up empty, my heart rate ratcheted up by another ten beats per minute.

"Whiskers!" I called out, trying to keep my voice from cracking. "Come on out, buddy! Where are you hiding?"

Nothing. Not even a meow.

In desperation, I turned to the big guns - the wet food. I grabbed one of his cans of cat food from the cupboard, holding it out in the middle of the kitchen as I pulled on the metal tab to pop off the top. The sound of the seal breaking resonated throughout my little cottage, but I still saw no sign of the large orange tabby.

Dammit, I cursed, trying to use anger to control my rising panic. Now, just when I had so many other problems that I should be addressing in my life, my cat had to vanish.

I set the open can of cat food down on the counter, vaguely hoping that maybe Whiskers would come out and approach it on his own. He wasn't what anyone could call slender or svelte, after all, and he'd grown used to getting his can of wet food in the morning, chowing down while I dosed myself with caffeine. I picked up my still-steaming cup of coffee, taking a sip and hoping that the jolt of energy would bring inspiration with it.

Should I call the police? The Truckee Firefighting Department? I knew that they (firefighters) were the ones to call about cats stuck in trees, at least according to popular myth, but I didn't know what they could do about missing cats. Thank goodness that I didn't have any children, I thought grimly to myself. I couldn't even keep a damn cat without losing him - and then panicking.

Okay, Elaine. You can handle this. Just stay calm.

What would a calm, normal, rational person do in this situation?

I took another sip of my coffee, focusing very hard on keeping my hand from trembling. There we go, I told myself. Just relax. Everything is under control. No need to panic.

A normal person wouldn't bother calling out Whiskers' name, because he never responded to his name. I didn't even know if he knew his name - how could I tell?

So, running around the neighborhood frantically shouting out "Admiral Theodore Whiskers!" was out.

A normal person would first search her house, looking for where her damn cat might be hiding. Check. I'd already checked all of his usual nooks and crannies, with no luck.

Next, a normal person would look for possible escape routes. How could he have gotten out? I normally kept the house on tight lockdown, since he'd previously shown that he was willing to claw through a screen door-

My eyes drifted up, above the sink full of dirty dishes that I'd been meaning to roll up my sleeves and wash for the last few days. They settled on the open window above the sink, my curtains flapping gently in the slight spring breeze that blew into my little cottage from the outdoor world.

Dammit.

Okay, my cat has managed to get outside. But he can't have gotten far, I'm sure. He's a big, fat, lazy orange lump, and he's not especially inquisitive. I bring home cat treats and toys for him all the time, and he usually only prods them for a minute or two before giving up on them and pretending that they don't exist. He wouldn't be tempted to run away.

Sure, because cats are totally logical creatures. Right.

I took a deep breath, downed one more gulp of my coffee, and then headed outside. "Here, Admiral Whiskers," I called out softly, just in case anyone I knew happened to be out for a morning jog and passed by my house. Didn't want to give the impression that I'd gone totally around the bend. "Here, kitty kitty. Where are you?"

There weren't many places in my sparse backyard for my cat to hide, at least. The grass was fairly short, most of it slowly turning brown from lack of water and attention. I most definitely did not possess a green thumb. A couple scraggly bushes stood around the edges, up against the wooden fence that separated my backyard from the Winterhearst mansion on the property next door. At least that fence would surely prevent my cat from getting out of the yard - it stood a little over five feet high, made of wooden slats bolted onto beams running the length of my yard-

-and as I looked up at the fence, I saw a fat orange blob sitting on top, looking very satisfied with himself.

"Whiskers!" I burst out, glaring at my fat, rude asshole of a cat as he perched on top of a fence that he shouldn't have been able to climb, casually staring back at me. "Get down from there right now!"

A little voice inside my head pointed out that I was talking to my cat, trying to give him orders. Maybe I really had finally snapped and lost it, that voice suggested. Poor Elaine Dean, not even thirty-five, already going crazy. It's all that time without a boyfriend, with no one around but her cat. She's lost it, started acting like her cat is a real person. She'll probably end up as a recluse, dying alone inside her house and only being found after her cat's managed to eat most of her face.

I told that little voice inside my head to hush. I wasn't crazy. I might not have a boyfriend, or even any potential male suitors on the horizon, but I wasn't about to lock myself in my house and give up all contact with the outside world.

At the very least, thanks to the wonders of Amazon and free two-day shipping, I'd be able to get my hands on plenty of cat food.

I shook my head, blinking in the chill of the early morning as I stood in the warm sunlight. First things first. I needed to retrieve my cat.

I slowly crept across my backyard towards the fence where Whiskers perched, trying to appear innocuous and unthreatening. "That's a good kitty, just sit there," I muttered to him as he regarded me balefully out of the corner of one eye. "Just relax, and let me get within arm's reach so that I can snatch you up and put you back in your prison..."

My soft words seemed to be working. Whiskers shuffled his bulk a little bit as he perched on the top bar of the fence, but he didn't seem inclined to move. I reached the edge of my yard, slowly stretching out a hand towards the cat. Just a few more inches, and I'd be able to grab him by the chubby scruff of his neck...