Melt Into You

* * *

Jace was going to fucking lose it. He hadn’t planned for this exercise to go on very long, but there was no way he could turn around and face the audience at the moment. Evan’s lightning-quick physical responses and eagerness to follow instruction had his cock swelling painfully against the zipper of his dress pants.

She’d almost called him sir for the love of God. What was she trying to do? Kill him?

He’d known immediately that doing this exercise with her would be tough, but he thought it’d be because of the old guilt of knowing what had happened the last time he’d really touched her. But hell, he couldn’t even spell the word guilt if he tried at the moment.

All he could think about was how tempting those hard little nipples looked pressed up against the pale blue cotton of her dress. How silky the skin of her legs felt against his hands as he slowly drew his fingers up and down her calves. And how fucking hot she looked blindfolded and bound for him.

No. Not for him. She was someone else’s. He needed to keep that at the forefront of his mind. Shit. He closed his eyes and tried to block out what was happening—focus on something else. War. Sick puppies. Female bodybuilders. Anything that would get the blood flowing back to his brain and out of his throbbing dick.

Because he could not tread in this territory. This was Evangeline—not some chick he could haul off to his hotel room, fuck, and leave. And beyond that, he didn’t mess with other people’s women—not without permission. He’d been on the receiving end of that equation before and refused to inflict that on someone else.

He moved his hands to her knees, hoping those wouldn’t be as tempting as the soft flesh on her legs. But when he grasped them, he felt the little give of her thighs, the slight parting, and he had to bite back a deep groan.

He tried to picture Evan the very first time he’d met her when she was all bones and wide eyes—eyes way too jaded for a fifteen-year-old. But the image wouldn’t appear. All he could think about was the gorgeous woman who sat before him. A woman who probably hated him, who couldn’t even bear to have lunch with him.

He swallowed hard and, using his thumbs, drew tiny circles on the sides of her knees. Counting the rotations as he went, praying it would refocus him. Evan adjusted in her seat a bit and her knees parted enough for him to glimpse the lacey white panties underneath. And holy shit—the view was only half the torture. The sweet, hot scent of female arousal wrapped around Jace like a fist.

He sucked in a sharp breath, and his grip tightened on her. Get up, moron! End the exercise. But instead of listening to the shouting voice of reason in his head, he found his hands inching higher, brushing the tops and insides of her lower thighs, careful not to hit the jellyfish stings. Her legs quivered beneath his touch.

“Oh, God.” The words were so quiet, so full of . . . need, he’d thought for a minute he’d only imagined he’d heard them. But when he looked at her face and the way her teeth were biting into her full bottom lip, he knew she’d said them.

Every nerve in his body seemed to electrify. Christ.

However, before he could figure out how to respond, the lights flickered and blinked out, blanketing the room in darkness. A few sounds of surprise came from the audience behind him.

“What happened?” Evan asked, stiffening beneath his touch, her voice higher than normal.

Before Jace could answer her, Dr. Dan’s voice rang out through the pitch-black space. “Just stay put, everybody. Nothing to worry about. I’ll go tell them to flip the circuit breaker, and we’ll be up and running again in a minute. Relax and stay where you are for now. Don’t want anyone tripping over anyone else.”

Jace started to pull away from Evan, but the sound of her quickening breath gave him pause. “You okay, Ev?”

“Can you see enough to untie me? I . . . It’s hot in here, and I’m feeling kind of . . . claustrophobic.”

“Oh, yeah, no problem.” He hopped to his feet, thankful for the lack of light. Otherwise the audience would see just how effective the exercise had been for him. Reigniting the flame was an understatement; he could set off a fucking forest fire right now.

Carefully, he moved around the back of the chair and felt around until he found her wrists. He hadn’t tied her tightly, so it only took a second to loosen the bindings. Once she was freed, he heard her rustling around—probably taking off the blindfold. He wondered if Evan still had a fear of the dark like she’d had when she was a teenager. His fingers flexed, wanting to reach out and touch her again, make sure she was okay, but he held back.

“Ev, stay in the chair, okay? I don’t want you to fall off the stage.”

No response came.

A few seconds later, the bank of overhead lights flickered back on, and he shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness. He blinked, letting his vision adjust, and found the chair in front of him empty. He looked around the room.

The back exit door was clicking shut, and Evan was nowhere to be found.

Awesome. He’d stepped over the line again, and she’d done exactly what she’d done the last time.

Bailed.

God, he was a jackass.

FOUR (#ua2025c48-69cb-58d3-9896-ba187ad1a3a3)

Evan’s muscles ached as she unlocked the front door of her photography studio and went inside. She’d planned to come in earlier to get things in order for re-opening next week. But after the restless night she’d had, she’d decided to go to the gym first for Janice the Evil’s advanced spinning class, hoping the punishing workout would beat her agitation into submission. No such luck. She’d almost puked thirty minutes in and now she just had embarrassment and a sore ass to add to the restlessness.

God, if she could just get some sleep, maybe she could get herself back on track. Since they’d returned from South Padre, she’d tossed and turned every night, her mind racing and her body craving things she couldn’t have. It was as if seeing Jace again had knocked her whole system out of alignment.

Ugh. She dropped her bag and sank into her desk chair. What was the deal? She was the freaking master of blocking things out, of centering herself and focusing on the tasks at hand. But now she just felt . . . scattered. And all the things that usually kept her calm and content weren’t doing a damn thing.

Part of it could still be her body adjusting to being off the medication, but there was no way she was going back to those pills. After so many years on them, she hadn’t even noticed when the healing effects had switched from therapeutic to numbing. Until one day a few months ago when she’d seen her neighbor’s sweet little dog dart across the street during her morning run and get hit by a car. The whole thing had happened in the space of seconds, and her neighbor had immediately rushed to the injured dog’s side. But as Evan had stood there on the curb watching the horrible scene, she’d realized that all the things she should be feeling—sympathy, concern, sadness—were just . . . absent. Like her heart had gone hollow inside her.

That night she’d vowed to work her way off her prescription. She didn’t want or need that crutch anymore. At one time her depression had been dangerous, but she was no longer that girl, and she had no intention of living the rest of her life on deep freeze. But the change hadn’t come without consequences. Her whole system now seemed to be on the fritz.

So she was down to her last resort—the one outlet that had never let her down. Her photography. Maybe if she threw herself into her work, she’d find her way back to the stable existence she’d created before Jace’s reappearance had knocked her off balance.

“Hey, stranger.”

Evan yelped and nearly toppled off her chair. She glanced to the back of the studio where her part-time intern had stuck his shaggy head out from the storage room.

Finn grimaced. “Sorry, I thought you knew I was here. Didn’t you see my motorcycle parked out front?”

She put her hand to her chest, her heart pounding beneath her palm. How had she not even noticed his bike? She really was in a freaking daze. “No, I didn’t.”

“Classes are out this week and I’m not scheduled at the restaurant until late, so I thought I’d come in and help you get things ready to go for Monday. Plus I wanted to experiment with a technique for a still life project I have coming up. I should’ve asked first, I—”

She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I’m sorry. You just startled me. I’m a bit of a space cadet today. No sleep.”

He locked the storage area behind him and gave her a mock pout. “Poor thing. Traveling the country with your totally tasty fiancé. Must be a real hardship. I could take over for you, if you’d like.”

She rolled her eyes. “Though you are prettier than me, Daniel’s too old for you. You’re what? Twenty-two?”

“Twenty-three.” He smirked and tucked his inky black hair behind his ears. “And age I can work with. But that whole him being straight thing might get in the way.”

She sniffed. If Finn only knew how wrong he was on that one. “So how’d the Allen shoot go last week?”

Even though she’d shut the studio down for the most part while she was out, she had let Finn take on a few simple jobs to get in some practice. He’d been with her six months and had proven to be more than reliable despite the fact that he was balancing community college classes and a waiter gig along with his internship. The eager desire to learn reminded her of how she’d been when she’d first discovered photography. And his talent behind the camera was so innate that she had full trust that her clients would be happy—especially with the intern discount she’d given them. She was already feeling awful that she’d have to let him go when she, Daniel, and Marcus moved to L.A. in a few months.

He shrugged. “It was cake. Just a couple of business headshots. She didn’t want anything too”—he did air quotes—“out there.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“Yeah, so nothing fun. She wouldn’t even do outdoor shots. I gave her what she wanted—boring pictures in front of a bookcase.” He shook his head sadly. “A little part of my creative genius died on the inside.”

He stepped to the file cabinet behind her desk and pulled out a folder. He tossed copies of the black-and- white proofs on her desk.

She picked them up and scanned through them. Even with the ho-hum background, Finn had captured the spark in the elderly executive’s eyes and her take-no-shit smile. “These look great—excellent lighting. You made her look a decade younger.” She handed the sheets back to him. “I appreciate you accommodating her wishes. Hopefully we can get something more fun for you to shoot next time.”