The familiar male voice radiates through me, and I can almost feel my body quiver from inside out. I whirl around to find Chris standing behind me, a rebel in denim and leather amongst black ties, and his surprise appearance does far more to impact me than Mark’s had. Every muscle I own tightens deliciously at the sight of him, and I’m not the only one to react to his ruggedly handsome good looks. Two women walk by, their eyes raking over Chris with admiration, their heads tilting together to exchange comments.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, and yes, there is accusation in my voice. I am illogically angry with Chris and I cannot seem to figure out why. Oh wait. He told me I didn’t belong here and yet he still manages to make me hope he’d show up all week long.

His eyes meet mine and hold, and if he notices my temper, he doesn’t show it. “I came to lend you moral support.”

“Why would you want to support me?” I challenge, fighting the thrill inside me at the idea he came here for me. “You said-“

“I know what I said.” He steps closer to me, his fingers curling on my elbow, his touch unexpected, electric. My body hums in reply, and I fight the seductive lethargy threatening to consume both my anger, and my capacity for logic. He told me to leave. He told me I don’t belong.

My anger sparks all over again. “You said-“

“Believe me, I know what I said and I was trying to protect you.” His voice soft and rough at the same time, sandpaper with a silk caress I feel from head to toe.

My stomach knots and I shove aside a blast of uncomfortable emotions his words evoke within me. I am too aware of his touch to fully process what I feel. My voice softens to a whisper. “You don’t even know me.”

His eyes darken, the dim light catching on the gold specks in their depths. “What if I said I want to change that?”

His words are everything I don’t expect, and deep down, everything I had hoped for. I am shocked, and pleased, and in disbelief. More so, I am confused. The crowd, the swell of voices, and clinking glasses fall away with that question. I am staring up at him and his eyes hold me captive. No, he holds me captive, this man, this artist, this stranger, who says he wants to know me. And I want to know him. I just plain want where he is concerned.

“You do know this is a black tie event, correct?”

Mark’s voice is a splash of ice water. I jerk around to find the sharp glint in his silvery gaze fixed on Chris and Chris alone. Power and supreme agitation radiate off of my boss while Chris appears completely unaffected, or perhaps, pleased at Mark’s disdain?

Chris faces Mark, his hands out to his sides. “Artistic expression. Isn’t that what you like about me?”

Mark’s lips press into a thin line. “I prefer your expression to be contained on the canvas.”

“Or in your bank account,” Chris muses, and while his tone speaks of jest, there is a sharp undercurrent to his words that match Mark’s steely stare.

“Excuse me.” A forty-something female and her husband that I recognize from an earlier, rather unfriendly chat, interrupts us and their intense interest in Chris is evident. The woman is practically giddy with excitement. “Are you Chris Merit?” she asks, and good lord, she sounds breathless, when only fifteen minutes before she’d been pretentious and borderline rude to me.

Chris’s eyes hold Mark’s for several crackling seconds that the couple seems to be oblivious to, before Chris turns his attention to his admirers.

“I’ve been known to answer to that name,” he replies, offering them one of the charming smiles that I’ve learned pack a real punch.

“Oh my God,” the woman gushes, whisking a lock of red hair from her eyes, and shoving her hand at Chris. “I love your work.”

Avoiding Mark’s gaze, feeling somehow as if I will be blamed, for well, something, I watch how Chris interacts with the couple. Eventually the husband wrangles Chris’s hand from his wife’s, to shake it himself, before he turns to do the same with Mark. “You really do know how to surprise your guests in all the right ways, don’t you, Mr. Compton? You certainly have earned our business tonight.”

Chris’s eyes meet Mark’s and even in profile, I can tell Chris is barely containing a smile. “I was more than happy to attend,” Chris comments, “but I did have one condition to being here.” The couple hang anxiously on Chris’s words, and though Mark shows no reaction, I’m pretty sure he is too. “I’m supposed to have a Corona beer waiting on me.” He shrugs out of his leather jacket, a statement to Mark he is staying I believe, and a waiter quickly takes it.

The couple erupts into laughter I don’t dare indulge in, and turn expectant gazes on Mark. I wonder which is worse for Mark—the use of his first name, or the request for a beer. “Oh please,” the woman pleads,” bring us a Corona, too. What fun to tell our friends we had a beer at a wine tasting with Chris Merit.”

“Unfortunately,” Mark replies, proving he can roll with the proverbial punches, “the beer didn’t arrive as expected.” He waves at a waiter who rushes over. “But I can certainly supply wine.”

Chris doesn’t push for the beer I doubt he really wanted, and soon we all lift our glasses in a toast. “To the painting I’m going to leave with by Chris Merit,” the wife declares.

“I can’t believe you asked for beer,” I whisper when he takes my glass.

His eyes twinkle with mischief. “Believe it, baby. I’m a rebel with a cause.” He hands off our glasses to a waiter.

“And what’s the cause?” I ask, while Mark and the couple continue to chat.

“Right now,” he replies. “You.”

My lips part in surprise but there is no time for a real reaction. The fuss has garnered attention, and suddenly we are surrounded by people who want to meet Chris. Graciously, he chats with the various customers, and I am both surprised and pleased as he introduces me to each.

A good hour passes, and Chris is as attentive to me as he is the visitors. At this point, he’s doing all the selling, but the wine tastings have continued. The longer the event continues the more I think I need to learn how to avoid drinking at events like this one. I am unsteady, and in need of food.

Mark joins the small group we are talking with and Chris hones in on him. “You got a minute?”

Mark inclines his head. “Anything for the artist of the night.” And while the statement is true-- Chris is the ‘artist of the night’--his tone drips saccharine.

Mark turns and walks away, and I expect Chris to follow. Instead, he slides his fingers through mine, and pulls me with him.

Chapter Thirteen

I am all too aware of Chris’s hand intimately twined with mine as we pursue Mark, or rather, as he drags me along for the ride. There is a possessiveness to his touch and I have the sense I am a token in these two men’s ‘who’s dick is bigger’ contest, and now I am the one who is not pleased. In fact, I’m freaking out, and my heart is about to explode from my chest.

“What are you doing?” I demand, gently tugging on Chris’s hand.

Still walking, he cuts me a sideways look. “What I came here to do. Protecting you.”

I gape at this ridiculous notion. What is it with him and this ‘protection’ hangup? I contain the urge to jerk hard against him and demand he stop and explain himself, simply because we are in public. My mind races in search of a more discreet plan of escape before I end up trapped in one of the offices in the middle of their obvious war.

Mark surprises me and halts in the center of the gallery, away from the fifteen or so guests still mingling amongst themselves, where low voices mean discretion. Chris stops with him, and I don’t have an option but to do the same since my fingers remain tightly tucked inside of his.

“I came here tonight to support Sara,” Chris announces without preamble. “I expect her to get the commission off my sales.”

What? I scream in my head. Oh my God. This can’t be happening.

“Ms. McMillan and I will discuss her compensation amongst ourselves,” Mark replies, and his tone is icy, his refusal to look at me damning. My heart sinks to my feet. I am as good as fired.

“That’s fine,” Chris states, “as long as the outcome of your conversation includes her getting twenty-five percent of my sales for tonight.”

My stomach knots at both the ridiculously high figure, and the demand Chris has made. Dread fills me as I realize what this must be about. Chris wanted me out of here. He told me to leave. I didn’t listen so he’s forcing me out. Why? Why does this matter to him?

Mark’s eyes flash with ice and settle on my face, and I am certain he is either going to fire me here and now, or he’s planning my dismissal for the near future. Instead, he shocks me with a curt, “Twenty-five percent, Ms. McMillan but be clear. Future rewards will be negotiated between you and I or not at all. Understood?”

I blink at him, speechless, but still manage to calculate twenty-five percent of the roughly three hundred grand Chris has sold tonight. Surely Mark has not just agreed to pay me fifty thousand dollars.

“Ms. McMillan,” he snaps. “Are we clear?”

“Yes,” I rasp. “Yes. I…of course. Understood.”

Mark’s gaze shifts back to Chris. “If there’s nothing else, I have customers to attend and so does Ms. McMillan.” He doesn’t wait to find out if there is anything else. He turns on his heel and departs, leaving me reeling with the impact of what has happened. My adrenaline surges through me, anger curling in my stomach and chest.

Whirling on Chris, I barely muster the will to keep my voice low, and it’s all I can do to remember the customers who might be watching. “What have you done?” The question comes out a hiss and I jerk my hand back with as much discretion as I can muster considering I’m shaking, but he holds it still.

“Made sure you’re no one’s captive.”

“By getting me fired?” I tug on my hand again. “Let go, Chris.”

“You aren’t going to get fired, Sara.”

“Let go of my hand,” I ground out between my teeth.

He clamps his lips together, and with obvious reluctance, he releases me. “You aren’t going to get--”

I walk away, cutting to my left, and toward the hallway opposite the office leading to the fancy guest bathrooms, afraid I’m going to do the completely unacceptable, and cry in public. I’m not a crier. I’ve never been a crier, but this is my dream Chris has destroyed. I thought I could be here, belong here. That a famous, gorgeous artist wanted me, when he was trying to destroy me. I am embarrassed and hurt. I hurt. This hurts. Chris hurt me.

Rounding the corner, I enter the hallway, and Chris is suddenly there in the narrow passage with me, pressing me against the wall, his powerful thighs framing mine.

My hand goes instinctively to his t-shirt-clad chest. I am immediately aware of the intimacy of the touch, of my body’s reaction to the man who has betrayed me. “Don’t shove me against another wall and try to intimidate me, Chris.”

“I’m not trying to intimidate you. I was protecting you, Sara.” His hands move to my waist, scorching me, and my reaction to the sizzling touch is instant. I cover his hands with mine, trying to control what he does next, but it doesn’t help. Now, my hands are on his hands and his hands are on my body.

“Call it what you want,” I ground out, “but you had no right to do what you did.”

“He had to know he couldn’t manipulate your dream. Money, and my many resources at your disposal, does that.”

His words knock my anger and my breath away, and confusion consumes me. His actions and his words conflict at every turn. “Why would you help me? You said I don’t belong in this world.”

“Because I won’t watch him gobble you up and destroy you.”

I remember his words, and understand now that he wanted me out of this gallery, not this profession. “Because he’s a dark, messed up, arrogant as**ole who will play with my mind and use me until there is nothing else left of me I recognize.”

“That’s right.”

“And yet you say you’re worse.”

He stiffens and cuts his gaze, seeming to struggle before fixing me in a turbulent stare. “I am, Sara, which is why you should run as far away from me as you can. And I should step back and let you.”

“Then why aren’t you?” I whisper.

His eyes hold mine, and what I see there, the depth of his desire, overwhelms me. He flattens his palm on my belly and I tremble beneath the touch, and he has to feel it too. “Because,” his voice low, seductive, his hand traveling up the center of my body, “I can’t stop thinking about you, and everything I want to do to you, everywhere I want to touch you.”

His hand presses to the swell between my breasts, and my ni**les ache with a wish he would touch them. His boldness ignites something sultry and dark inside me, a side of me that defies the good-girl school teacher who is appalled I haven’t stopped this. I want him. I want him here and now, and any way I can have him.

And when his gaze lowers to my mouth and lingers, I know he is thinking about kissing me and I have never wanted to be kissed so badly in my life.

“Do you taste as good as I think you do?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for my reply.

Suddenly, his fingers have tunneled into my hair and he’s dragging my mouth to his. I am all soft submission, yielding to the moment, to the man. I melt into him, welcome the hardness of his body pressed to mine. And when his tongue presses past my lips, a long, wicked caress, I taste his hunger, his need. There is possessiveness to his kiss, to his hand on my back, molding me closer. I am lost in the ache that has become my need for this man, this stranger I cannot resist. He says he’s protecting me; he says he’s dangerous. I am conflicted, and sure I should be angry with him, but I am completely incapable and unable of processing why.