Dark Masterpiece (Serendipity Series 3) (30 page)

Turning abruptly, he headed for the door,
pulling off his black silk pajama shirt and flinging it to the
floor. It was just too bloody hot.

* * * *

Evie flicked on her bedside light and
squinted at the clock. Good lord, it was two AM. She sat up and
sighed in frustration. She had been tossing and turning for the
past two hours and had only managed to doze for about twenty
minutes. What was her problem? All she could think about was
Traevyn. Her mind kept replaying the way he had kissed her. Reality
was so much better than her fantasies, but man, she needed her
sleep too.

She grasped for her glasses and shoved them
on, then sighed again and flung the covers back. Maybe if she
wandered around and drank some water or something…

She yawned as she headed down the hallway,
the wooden floorboards cold on her bare feet. She stretched as she
approached the staircase, then jumped and let out a startled squeak
as she saw Traevyn standing at the end of his corridor, shrouded in
shadow with his raven black hair falling around his bare shoulders.
“Traevyn,” she whispered, drawing in a shaky breath. “What are you
doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” His eyes focused on her,
taking her in. He wanted to groan aloud. She was so perfect it
hurt. Desire inflamed him. He was sure he would incinerate.

“Me either,” she said. She swallowed and her
eyes roamed up his torso. “I…uh… was going to get some water. I
just keep tossing and turning.” She met his eyes. “Why, um…why
can’t you sleep?”

“Too hot,” he rasped. He couldn’t tear his
eyes from her. He just wanted to be near her. His hands ached to
touch her and, at that precise moment, he did not want any part of
her body unkissed.

She frowned, feeling flushed under his gaze.
His eyes held that promise again. That promise of all those secret
and wicked things she wanted to explore. Her heart picked up its
pace as he stepped closer to her, his tall frame towering over her
and exuding raw sensuality. “Too hot?” she repeated.

He nodded. “Oh yes.” Without warning, he bent
and scooped her up into his arms, carrying her back down the
hallway.

Evie wrapped her arms around his neck and
snuggled close to him, stunned and dazed, but far from unwilling.
He carried her effortlessly all the way to his room and set her
down on his bed, leaning in to give her a hungry kiss before she
even had a chance to formulate a thought. It was a savage kind of
kiss, and her world spun as his tongue plundered her mouth. Her
hands slid up his shoulders as she twined her arms around his neck
and he gently pushed her back so that she was lying against several
soft pillows.

He broke the kiss and came up to lie beside
her before wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her full
up against him, seeking her mouth once more. As soon as her body
touched his, all her blood was set aflame. She trailed her fingers
down his spine, relishing the feel of his smooth skin and the way
his muscles moved and played beneath it.

Traevyn brought one hand up to cradle Evie’s
cheek and threaded his fingers through her hair. He softened his
kisses, making them sensual and seductive, taking her breath away
until she thought she would die.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, trailing
his lips down to her neck and throat.

She shivered as his fingers slipped deftly
beneath her shirt to caress up her side and across her stomach. He
kissed down the column of her throat and ran his tongue in an
agonizingly slow stroke across her collarbone. She gasped. Her mind
was spinning out of control, making it impossible for her to focus
on anything other than his touch and his kiss.

He painstakingly pulled the strap of her
tank top down over her shoulder and kissed her there. He nuzzled
her neck, grazing her skin with his teeth. “I love you,” he purred.
“I want you.” He left her neck to press kisses along her exposed
stomach, pulling down the waistband of her pants so that he could
access her hip bone as well. He spent a few seconds there before
his hands deftly removed her pajama pants altogether.

Evie squeezed her eyes shut
and, somewhere within the waves of passion that were crashing over
her, a shred of rational thought crept in. She tangled her fingers
in his hair and frowned, trying to come back to reality, even
though she really didn’t want to. Traevyn ran his hand slowly up
her leg and nibbled on her hip again, teasing the edge of her
panties with his teeth. Holy cow, she
really
didn’t want him to
stop.

She sighed in bliss and
attempted to make her mind go blank, but when she felt his fingers
begin to take her panties down the same path as her discarded
pants, she grabbed his hand to stop him. “Oh my gosh,” she
breathed, trying to bring her wildly spinning mind to some kind of
halt. “Traevyn, we have to stop.” She
hated
saying those words.

He pulled away and came back up to look into
her eyes. “Too fast?” he murmured.

She shook her head. “No.” She frowned. “Yes.
I mean…” She sighed. “Kind of.”

He gave her a gentle smile and touched her
face, even though it killed him to just lie there when everything
inside of him was screaming for him to peel all of her clothes from
her body and get drunk off of her. “What is it, Evie?”

“It’s just… I always wanted to wait.” She
frowned, embarrassed. She felt way too prudish all of a sudden. He
would probably think she was completely stupid.

“You’re a virgin?”

She swallowed and met his eyes. She nodded
uneasily.

He gave her a very soft smile and leaned in
to press a tender kiss to her lips. “That’s wonderful, Evie.”

She blinked. “It is?”

He nodded, caressing his hand down her
shoulder and arm.

Her cheeks turned pink. “I just always had
these crazy fantasies of a romantic wedding night when I’d get to
experience everything with my husband. I never liked the thought of
comparing my husband with someone else. I know it sounds old
fashioned, but I want to marry the man I give my heart to and I
think that, if I love him enough to be with him forever, he should
be the only one to ever have all of me. It’s like a gift, you
know?”

His fingers ran a torturously slow course
down her side again and Evie thought that his eyes seemed to hold a
soft light.

“I have never dated casually,” he said.
“Whenever I date someone it is because I feel I may have a future
with that person. I am a one woman man. I do not say ‘I love you’
unless I am sure that I speak truth.” He met her eyes. “Evie, I
would not be with you unless I had intentions to one day marry
you.”

Evie’s heart stuttered and she felt the color
drain from her face, but from surprise more than anything else.

“I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable,”
he said. “I don’t, of course, mean right now.”

She shook her head numbly. “It doesn’t make
me feel uncomfortable,” she whispered. Her throat felt like
sandpaper. The thought of being married to Traevyn was like
heaven.

He ran his fingers across her jaw and down
her neck, breathing a soft sigh. “I will wait for the divine bliss
that is you,” he said. “It may kill me, but I will.” He smiled.

She bit her bottom lip.

He nuzzled his nose against her neck again.
“I just wish that I could give you the same gift, Evie.”

She smiled and her heart melted. She wrapped
her arms around him and held him close to her. “The gift of your
heart is enough for me,” she murmured. “It’s the only gift that
matters.”

He tightened his arm around
her, needing to feel her pressed against him. He still felt like he
was smoldering inside, but he tried to tame his savage impulses. He
admired and respected Evie for her decision and would not try to
manipulate her into changing her mind just because
his
body was screaming
at him. And it
was
screaming. He had been celibate far too long.

He forced his carnal thoughts away and
contented himself just to hold her. Maybe he would start taking a
routine dip in the ocean every morning. That sounded like an
appealing option. “Will you stay with me?” he asked. “I need to
feel you next to me, Evie. I can’t stand being away from you.” His
hand drifted back to her stomach where he idly caressed his palm
over it. Her skin was as soft as rose petals.

“Of course I will,” she
whispered. Part of her was kicking herself for telling him to stop.
It was Traevyn Whitelaw for crying out loud! How many people
got
that
opportunity? There was no way to tell this early in their
relationship if they would last. What if they didn’t and she had
passed up intimacy with him? She would regret it
forever.

She sighed. But what if they did make it?
She would only ever know Traevyn. Traevyn’s touch, Traevyn’s kiss,
Traevyn’s body. She was much more willing to take the chance and
wait. The reward would be so much greater in the end. She wanted
all of Traevyn forever. She wanted a lifetime with him, not just
several moments of passion. Although, sleeping with a famous artist
did make for good back-to-school gossip. That would get Barrett
deBoer off her back for sure. She giggled at the thought.

Traevyn raised his head and frowned. “What’s
so funny?”

She met his eyes. “I was just thinking about
Barrett deBoer.”

He cocked an eyebrow and propped his head up
on his elbow. “I try to make love to you and you’re thinking about
the married man you have a crush on?”

She grinned. “No, that’s Maxim. Barrett is
his brother, and he’s been trying to date me for years.”

Traevyn arched both of his eyebrows this
time. “That’s even worse!” he exclaimed. He put his hand over his
heart. “You’re wounding me, Evie,” he teased.

She giggled again. “Don’t worry, he’s a jerk.
I was just thinking of the look on his face if I were to tell him
I’d slept with you.”

Traevyn blinked and feigned shock. “So now
I’m a conquest? You’re breaking my heart!” He fell onto his back
dramatically.

Evie laughed and wrapped her arm around his
waist, resting her head on his shoulder. “Didn’t you know that was
my plan all along? I rigged it so that I could come on this trip
and seduce you.”

“And yet, you refuse to let me have you and,
instead, decide to drive me crazy with your perfection and your
adorable little froggy panties.”

She looked down at her panties and her face
flamed. Yup, sure enough. Little frogs hopping onto lily pads. She
groaned and put her hands over her face. How sexy was that, really?
She needed a makeover.

He chuckled. “Don’t be embarrassed. I love
them. Your perfect body and everything about you drives me
wild.”

Having someone like Traevyn tell her that she
made him sexually frustrated with her perfection was not the kind
of comment she was used to hearing. She turned her face into his
shoulder as if to hide it and smiled shyly. Having him say he loved
her stupid bikini briefs was even worse. She felt his hand come up
to stroke her hair, and she snuggled closer to him. “I love you,
Traevyn,” she whispered.

He turned over on his side and cupped her
cheek in his palm, gazing directly into her eyes. “You are quickly
becoming everything to me.”

She sighed as his lips came to claim hers
once again. Every color on an artist’s pallet flashed through her
mind when he kissed her, every beautiful image that had ever
inspired her. He was a masterpiece in every way.

* * * *

When Traevyn awoke he realized he felt
something strange, foreign. He frowned as he tried to place what it
was. Gradually, he became aware of Evie’s presence beside him and
he turned his head to see her curled on her side away from him,
still sleeping soundly. He smiled to himself and caressed her arm,
then pressed a kiss to her shoulder and pulled the cover up over
her. He sat up and swung his legs out of bed with a sigh.

That was it. He felt complete.

He stood and opened the French doors,
stepping out onto the balcony and closing his eyes as the morning
mist attacked his bare skin. He took a deep breath and grinned. For
the first time in so long, every single part of him felt alive.

He turned and went back inside, not wanting
to make Evie cold. He slipped a robe on and quietly made his way
out of the room. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her,
loving how right she looked in his bed, in his room…in his
world.

She belonged. She always had. She was the
missing piece. He smiled and walked down to the office where he
rummaged through his things until he located a leather journal not
unlike the poetry book he had given Evie to read. The only
difference was that this one had a Celtic knot pattern embossed on
the front.

He smiled and sat down at his desk, running
through all the many songs and poems he had locked away in his
mind. After a moment, he began to write.

Chapter Twenty-Four

As Evie loaded the last of her luggage into
the trunk of her car a horrible, painful lump rose in her throat,
matching the horrible, painful pressure around her heart. She
turned slowly toward the mansion that had been her home for the
past three months, and the breeze blew her hair gently as it
rustled the eucalyptus leaves. She tried to fix the scene in her
memory, tried to take in every Gothic detail.

Her eyes strayed to the front door as Seth
emerged, followed by Traevyn. Her heart twisted and she wanted to
bawl like a baby. He’d told her that he would come see her on
winter break, that he wanted to see her home and her life, but that
was at least three months away. What had gone by so quickly while
she was living in Big Sur suddenly seemed like an eternity. She
folded her arms and looked down at the ground, fighting her
tears.