By His Desire (2 page)

Quick and clean. The perfect brush off.

He’d brushed off plenty of people in his life—including many, many women—but he’d never been on the receiving end. People didn’t brush off billionaires. It just didn’t happen.

He’d surprised her into having dinner with him, but she wasn’t going to let him catch her off guard again. No, Sarah Harper had apparently decided that this was a one-off, never to be repeated.

It wasn’t because she disliked him—or at least, he didn’t think so. She seemed interested in their conversation when he stuck to neutral topics—books and music and art—and she even smiled a few times. She seemed a little tense and uncomfortable, but she’d always been like that, and not just around him. Sarah had always been shy.

Maybe that was it. Maybe she just felt shy. Maybe if he dropped the whole second date thing and just kept her talking, she’d loosen up enough to agree to go out with him.

Because he wanted to see her again. He wanted that with an intensity that pulsed through him like a heartbeat. He’d half hoped that going to dinner with her would be anticlimactic, that he would discover that his attraction to Sarah had faded over time…but that’s not what happened.

As he watched the gleam of candlelight in her brown hair and noticed how it set off the creamy translucence of her skin, his body reacted to her exactly the way it had in high school.

He wanted her.

Something happened to him when he was with her…something primitive. His body hardened and tightened; his skin prickled with lust and adrenaline. On the surface he was still civilized; but it felt like he was hanging on to that veneer by a thread. Just below the surface, another part of him was howling like a wolf.

He wasn’t sure why Sarah brought this out in him. It wasn’t like she made any kind of effort to drive men crazy. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a gray cotton shirt—neat and clean and comfortable looking, but not flashy or seductive in any way.

And yet he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

There was a pause in their conversation as the waiter brought their dessert, and he took the opportunity to ask about something that had been puzzling him.

“If you don’t mind my asking, why did you let that particular painting go to auction? You didn’t feel a sentimental attachment to it?”

Her face flooded with color. “It wasn’t up to me. All my father’s unsold work went to my stepmother when he died.”

Keith frowned. “He didn’t leave you anything at all?”

Sarah avoided his eyes as she ran a fingertip around the rim of her water glass. “My father always believed that kids should have to struggle—especially if they want a career in the arts. Once I graduated from college, I was on my own. I understood that. I was fine with it. It was part of my father’s philosophy.”

“Bullshit.”

That startled her enough that she actually met his eyes again. “What?”

“Sorry. But it is bullshit. Leaving you that portrait wouldn’t have made a difference to you financially. You wouldn’t have sold it, would you?”

“Of course not.” Her voice trembled a little, and then, suddenly, words burst out of her in a torrent. “I love that painting. My father wasn’t the kind of man who could express his feelings verbally, but he put his heart and soul into his work and…and when I look at that portrait, I feel connected to him. Of course I wouldn’t have sold it. The truth is, I expected him leave it to me. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t. I thought he knew how I felt about it. But…he was starting to forget things, these last few years. I was worried he was developing Alzheimer’s but Lexie—my stepmother—said he was fine and refused to let me take him to a doctor. Maybe when he made his will he just…forgot.”

Forgot his own daughter? You weren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, but if the guy could forget a girl like Sarah, he was an idiot.

“What about your stepmother? She could have given it to you, couldn’t she?”

Sarah took a bite of her caramel custard before answering. “Lexie and I aren’t exactly close. I did ask her about the painting once, but…” she shrugged. “Anyway, what’s done is done. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose it doesn’t matter. It’s just an object, right?”

Keith didn’t answer her. A crazy idea had come into his head. An insane, impossible, lunatic idea.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He remembered all those things Valerie had said—that he should go after whatever would make him happy. That he should pay obscene amounts of money just to indulge himself.

It had never occurred to him to actually follow her advice. But why shouldn’t he, just once, use his wealth to get the one thing in the world he really wanted? Would it be so bad to indulge this one forbidden fantasy—the fantasy that for all the years of his adolescence had found its way into every single jerk-off session?

The fantasy that Sarah Harper was in his bed. At his mercy. That he could spend hours…even days…doing things to her until he broke through her defenses and she gave into him completely.

It was crazy. And it would never happen. But if he had even one shot in a million, he was going to take it.

It wasn’t like he had anything to lose. She’d already made it clear she didn’t want to see him again. So what if she shot him down and left in disgust? The end result would be the same. If he was never going to see her again, did it really matter if she spent the rest of her life thinking of him as some guy she’d gone to high school with, or some guy who was so desperate for her he’d tried to bribe her into his bed?

He’d only had one glass of wine with dinner, but suddenly he felt drunk.

Shit. Was he really going to do this?

Sarah finished the last bite of her custard, and used her tongue to catch a drop of caramel sauce at the corner of her mouth. A strand of hair fell over her cheek and she lifted a hand to brush it back.

And then all he could think about was Sarah in his bed with that long brown hair spread out on his pillow.

What would it take to make her gasp? To make her moan?

To make her beg…

Fuck, yes, he was going to do this.

* * *

What had possessed her to say all that to Keith? He didn’t care about her screwed up family relationships. He was always so cool and contained and perfect, and she...wasn’t.

He’d been that way in high school, too. She’d blushed and stammered her way through four years of hell while he’d sailed along effortlessly, smart enough to get good grades, rich and handsome enough to get any girl he wanted, and polite enough to treat even outcasts like her with kindness. He’d always gone out of his way to be nice to her, even when his friends rolled their eyes and made snide comments.

She had a sudden memory of their world lit class senior year. She’d sat in the desk behind his, and she’d spent the semester staring at the back of his head, at his black hair and broad shoulders and powerful back, and the way his arm muscles bunched and released as he read or wrote or raised his hand. He’d dated a few different girls that year, and Sarah had hated every one of them with a wholly unjustified ferocity. She had no reason to hate those girls except that they had Keith Logan’s strong hands all over their bodies.

What would it be like to see behind all that cool perfection? To be the one who could make those icy blue eyes turn hot with lust?

It was so hard to picture that Sarah wondered if, even in bed, Keith Logan stayed cool. That was easier to imagine. She could visualize him making a girl lose control while he stayed in charge.

She sighed as she finished her dessert. Dinner hadn’t been too bad, all things considered, but it would be a relief to say goodnight. Being with Keith made her too anxious, and she hated reliving the feeling that had defined her adolescence: longing for something she could never have.

“Sarah.”

She glanced up at him, admiring the way the candlelight drew out a gleam in his blue eyes. In this light they looked almost navy.

“Yes?”

“What if I told you there was a way you could have that painting?”

For a moment she just stared at him. What could he possibly...

Oh, no.

“If you’re thinking about giving it to me, just forget it. There’s no way, and I mean none, that I would let you do that. I didn’t tell you all that stuff about my family to make you feel sorry for me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

She sounded almost fierce when she made that little speech, and Keith raised his eyebrows.

“I wasn’t thinking that. And I’m not planning on giving you the portrait. Far from it.”

She frowned. “I can’t afford to pay you a million, and selling it to me for what I
could
afford—maybe ten thousand, if I’m lucky—would be the same as giving it to me for free. I’m not your charity case, Keith.”

He was smiling at her now. “I hardly ever got to see this side of you in high school,” he said.

She refused to be charmed by the famous Keith Logan smile. “What side?” she asked gruffly.

“This side. I remember you jumped all over Mark Sullivan once, because he said it didn’t matter if public schools had arts and music programs.”

He remembered that?

“He was implying that kids from working class families wouldn’t appreciate ‘the finer things in life’.”

“Mark was an asshole.”

“Yes, he was. But I don’t think
you’re
an asshole. I just don’t want you to think I—”

“I am an asshole.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“I am. Whatever good opinion you might have about me, I’m about to destroy it.”

“What are you talking about? How?”

“With the offer I’m about to make you.”

“What offer?”

He leaned forward across the table towards her. “The museum has the portrait for one more week. When the week is up, I’ll have the painting delivered to you. I’ll transfer ownership to you legally. It will be yours.”

“I told you, Keith, I—”

“Don’t you want to hear my price before you reject it?”

She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “Fine.”

“In exchange, for one week, you’ll live with me in my house. During the day, you can do whatever you want. There’s a gym, an indoor pool, a library, a home theater. There’s a study where you can write, and I have a chef who’ll cook you anything you want to eat. But at night...” he paused for a moment. “At night, you have to do whatever
I
want.”

For a minute, it just didn’t compute. She sat frozen in place, staring at him, while her mind flailed around helplessly trying to process what she’d just heard.

Keith’s face wasn’t helping. He looked like he always did—cool, calm, collected. His eyes were maybe a little more intense than usual, and as she stared at him, she caught the twitch of a muscle at the corner of his jaw.

After what seemed like a long, long time, she was able to force out a question.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

It still didn’t compute. Was it possible that what he’d meant and what she was thinking weren’t the same? As humiliating as it would be to ask, she had to know for sure.

Her heart was thudding against her chest. “When you say
whatever you want
—do you mean—are you referring to—do you mean sexually?”

Oh, God. Had she really just asked that? Was this conversation really happening, or was she lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a morphine drip, recovering from a car accident or a fall down the stairs?

One corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Yes.”

She couldn’t sustain her current heartbeat and live. Her pulse was roaring in her ears, and she seemed to be staring at Keith through a kind of mist. Her whole body was buzzing and vibrating, as though she were an engine being pushed too far and might break apart at any moment.

She grabbed for her water glass and spilled some on the table. “Shit.”

That corner of his mouth rose a little higher. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you swear.”

She took a quick gulp of water and set the glass back down. It still seemed impossible that he was serious about this, but...what if he was?

What if he was?

And then she had a realization that was as astonishing as the offer.

She wanted to accept. And not because of the painting. She wanted to accept because she’d wanted Keith Logan from the moment she’d laid eyes on him, back in freshman year at Adamson Academy.

But a man who was offering a million dollar painting in exchange for her sexual favors would surely expect more than she could ever provide. He would expect moves. He would expect tricks. He would expect
something
.

And then suddenly she was talking. She was talking in a rush about things she never, ever talked about. She was staring down at the white table cloth and the spot where she’d spilled the water, telling Keith Logan about her sexual history.

Such as it was.

“Okay, look. Before you get any ideas about me, you need to know something. I’ve had two boyfriends in my entire life, and I only slept with one of them. And it sucked. Okay? It totally sucked. It hurt and I didn’t know what I was doing and it
sucked
. For both of us. So we broke up, and I decided that the whole sex thing just isn’t for me. I have, so to speak, a solo gig as far as all that’s concerned. It’s just me and my trusty vibrator. Do you understand what I’m saying here? I don’t have the first clue what I’m doing in bed. I’m not the kind of woman you want for this...arrangement of yours. I’m not exciting. I have no skills. Okay?”

She paused to take a breath, her stomach clenching in agonized embarrassment at the truths that had just spilled out of her.

“I don’t want skills.”

Her gaze jerked up to meet his. “Then what
do
you want?”

A wicked gleam came into his eyes. “I want you in my bed and at my mercy. And I want to ruin you for your vibrator.”

His voice was low and raspy and the sexiest thing she’d ever heard.

This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.

There had to be something wrong with this scenario. What if he was into really freaky stuff? Stuff she could never, ever deal with?