“You’re not answering my question.”

I open my mouth to shoot back a smart retort but I can’t find one. “Are you seriously jealous?”

Before I can blink, he has me pressed against the wall and his mouth is on mine, rough and possessive. Hands driving into my hair, he shifts me until his leg is between my thighs.

I open under him, wanting his kiss and touch as much as I want to escape our conversation. More. He wraps my hair in his fist and tugs lightly until I open further, press deeper into the kiss.

When I am breathing hard and my legs are shaking, he releases me. I have to lean against the wall for support while I catch my breath.

“What was that?” I ask, chest heaving, my body protesting that there must be more where that came from.

“Just a little something to remember me.” He winks and walks out of the room. Then, when he’s halfway down the hall, he calls, “Tell Will I said hi.”

***

William

She’s humming under her breath and smiling while she takes notes in the inventory binder. She’s wearing little black pants that stop just below her knees and a flowy tank top. She’d look almost innocent in that outfit if her ponytail didn’t show the beard burn on her neck.

I haven’t seen her this happy since last spring when I kissed her for the first time, and just the memory of that kiss is enough to make me hard.

“I think it’s really coming together,” she says, smiling up at me.

I blink at her, too busy thinking about how she got those marks at her neck. For a minute, I don’t know what she’s talking about. “Oh, the gallery?”

“The gallery.” She frowns, studying me. “Are you okay?” She drops the binder on the desk. “How are you holding up?”

I stare at her for a beat. I don’t know if she really expects me to answer or if the question is a courtesy. “I’m okay. It sucks, but it’ll pass.”

I wait for her to ask if I ended it for her, but she doesn’t.

I guess we both know I did. At this point, the only question is if Maggie wanted me to.

“I pulled some strings in the department,” I say cautiously. “I found a way to get your scholarship back.”

Her jaw drops. “Really?”

“You know how I was trying to get you to switch to art education? If you change your major now, you could apply for this art education scholarship that’s only available for established students.”

The smile falls from her face. “I don’t want to do art education.”

“I know, you’re MFA all the way, but think about the future, Mags.”

“I am thinking about the future. I have no desire to spend the rest of my life in a high school.”

“You’d be great. Stop letting that old story define you. Everyone else has moved on. It’s your turn now.”

She takes a step back, her green eyes hard. “Fuck. You. Those were the worst years of my life.”

I set my jaw. “So, what? You’re going to tinker with glass for a living? Find many job listings for that?”

“Fuck off,” she growls. “I know you did the sensible business degree before your MFA, but I’m not you, and I didn’t ask for your input.”

“I’m trying to help.”

“You’re trying to fix me,” she spits. “You know what? Some people don’t think I’m broken.”

“Who? Asher? Right, because he’s one to judge how f**ked up someone’s life is.”

“Don’t act like you know him. You don’t.”

I laugh. “Oh, and you do? Come on, Maggie. How well can you really know him? What do you know about him? You know his family? Or his plans for the next ten years? Did he tell you what happened with the guy he beat to a pulp?”

“He doesn’t have to tell me that.”

My lip curls in disgust. “I bet he’s found time to f**k you though.”

When I register the hot sting of her hand connecting with my cheek, I’m glad. Because I deserve it.

***

Maggie

My hand shakes as I raise it to knock on Ethan Bauer’s studio door. I haven’t stopped shaking since I left Will and his nasty implications about my relationship with Asher, and to add insult to injury, now I have to talk to Ethan.

I want to pretend that coming here is no big deal, but I have too many memories in this studio. Too many mistakes. I don’t want to be reminded how stupid I was to believe the things he told me, how naïve I’d been to hope.

Yet that hope is peeking into my consciousness again lately. When Asher lies beside me. When he touches me.

Is Will right? Am I being naïve?

I stomp down the thought and knock. Without waiting for him to invite me, I open it.

Oh, no.

A young girl’s in front of the window, a red satin sheet wrapped around her, her dark hair swept up off her neck, her bare shoulders exposed.

“Maggie?” Ethan calmly puts his brush down.

The girl turns, eyes wide, as if she’s been caught doing something much more scandalous than posing for the artist.

I understand. Posing for Ethan Bauer is much more erotic than the touch of most men.

“Ethan,” I say. God, I want to be out of here, and soon. “We need to talk.” No need to waste time on pleasantries.

“Um, I—” the girl cuts herself off with a quick shake of her head and reaches for her clothes. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

I have things to say to Ethan that I don’t intend on sharing with anyone else. On the other hand, I don’t want to be alone with him. “Stay. I won’t be long.”

Ethan wipes his hands on the damp towel that hangs from his easel and the smell of paint thinner stings my nose. Red smudges disappear from his hands and stain the towel. Images blip through my mind. My hands covered in paint—the reds and yellows of tulips—and running over his bare chest. Then another blip of my hands covered in red. But blood, not paint.

I push back the unwelcome images and walk to the window where the model had been posing. It has a great view of the wooded ridge that runs along this part of the riverbank—the very best view of any studio at Sinclair.

Only the best for the great Ethan Bauer.

Aspiring artists from all over the country come to Sinclair for the opportunity to paint with Ethan. Some of them probably even make it through without sleeping with him.

The girl sits on the couch, looking uncomfortable as hell in her red sheet.

“What can I do for you Maggie?” Ethan asks. Those blue eyes, usually so hot, so intense, are cold.

“I need to know what you did with the Discovery collection.” That’s what he had called the paintings of me. And I’d been so flattered.

His eyes narrow. “It’s not about you, Maggie. You can’t decide you’re going to keep art from the world because you’re feeling self-conscious. It’s not about you. It’s art.”

God save me from artistic egos. “Are you showing the collection at Will and Krystal’s gallery?”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

Worry, dread, and horror fight for control over my more sensitive organs. “Where are they?”

The girl stands and scrambles for her clothes. “Maybe I should go.”

I shoot her a look over my shoulder. “You need to hear this. Someday you’ll be the one wishing you could hide the evidence of your affair with him.”

Her cheeks blaze.

A month ago, I would never have said that. But after Will threw it in my face, the pretense seems almost ridiculous.

“Let me take you to dinner,” Ethan says. “We’ll talk. I want to know what projects you’ve been working on.”

“I’ll pass.” I back out of the office, glaring at him as I go.

If he won’t tell me where the Discovery collection is, I’ll find out for myself.

***

Asher

Maggie pops another grape in her mouth before taking another sip of champagne. She’s sitting on the solid walnut monstrosity that is my dining room table, her soft thighs showing beneath the hem of an old Infinite Gray t-shirt. For years, I’ve thought this space—with its ostentatious chandelier and heavy furniture—a waste, but sitting at the table with Maggie propped before me, I don’t think there’s a single spot in this house I like more.

“Your house is amazing,” she says.

I raise a brow. “What? You didn’t let yourself in when you helped yourself to my pool?”

She smacks me across the chest and grins. “Totally different. The pool is outside.”

“But the sauna is in the basement,” I say, gently parting her legs and positioning myself between them.

“Sauna?” She wriggles forward and wraps her legs around my waist. “How did I miss that?”

I am making myself hold back. I was almost surprised when she showed up at my door tonight, and I gave her the grand tour since we never got around to that last night. As we went from room to room, she was throwing come-hither looks over her shoulder, but I’ve held back because she’s more than that to me, and I won’t be like the men who have made her think that’s all she has to offer.

So I break a slice of Havarti and pretend I’m not about to lose my mind when she uses tongue and teeth to take it from my fingers. “I think you were too distracted by the Cezanne outside the wine cellar to notice the sauna.”

“Oh, I was distracted all right.” She locks her feet together behind my back and pulls me closer. “But the painting was only part of the equation.”

I offer her a grape this time, and her mouth is hot on my fingers as she takes it with her tongue.

“You like feeding me, don’t you?”

“Among other things.”

“You have a good eye for art,” she says, and I know it’s a compliment, considering the source. “Would you be interested in driving up to Chicago with me tomorrow? I need to check out a gallery up there.”

I brush my lips over hers. “I’d love that.”

She takes another sip of her champagne then frowns at her glass. “You don’t drink, but it’s not just because of the probation.”

“Is that a question?”

She sets her glass on the counter and wraps her arms around my neck. “An observation.”

“Do you want to ask a question?”

“Are you an alcoholic?”

I used to deny the label, but I’ve made my peace with it. The difference a year makes. “Yes.”

She runs her thumb along my two-day growth of beard. “Then why do you keep alcohol in your house?”

“Because I won’t let it have that kind of power over me.”

“But it did before.”

“Yes.”

“What happened with the guy you assaulted? What did he do?”

I tense. “I told you, I was loaded.”

She narrows her eyes. “There was a reason. He did something.”

I can feel the hardness in my own jaw from thinking about Chad. “He was sleeping with Juliana. I found out and didn’t handle it well.”

“Juliana?” she asks softly.

I open my mouth and hesitate before answering. “Zoe’s mom.”

Her fingers wrap around my forearm and squeeze. “Does it bother you when I drink?”

“No,” I say, but she must see something in my eyes because she pulls back.

She drops her legs from my waist and settles her hands on the edge of the table. “It does bother you.”

“It bothers me when you get drunk, not when you have a drink.”

She swallows and shifts her eyes to the abstract painting that covers the side wall. “Do you want me to stop?”

I stand and take her jaw in my hand, turning her to face me. Her big green eyes are rimmed with tears. “I’m not trying to change you, Maggie. I’m trying to love you.”

She grabs a handful of my shirt and tugs me close. “Kiss me.”

I want to kiss her. Taste her. Cherish her. When she told me about her past last night, it explained so much, and my chest still aches with hurt for her.

“This is more than sex, isn’t it, Asher?” she asks softly.

“How can you ask that?” I run my thumb along the edge of her jaw. “I told you last night. I’m in love with you.”

Her chest rises with her shaky inhale.

“Do you believe me?”

“I do.”

I lower my mouth to hers, and I’m so damn hungry for this, my hands are on her before I even decide to let this be more than a kiss. I curl my fingers into her ass and draw her against me. I run my lips and tongue and teeth along her neck, and her fingers curl into my hair.

She’s so sweet and I could taste her for hours. I want to take her to my bed and keep her there. I test her reaction to my fingers, my mouth, my tongue and my teeth. Lifting her arms, I pull off the t-shirt she donned when we toured through my bedroom. I slip it over her head and toss it across the table.

Her ni**les are hard and taut in the cool air.

“You are so f**king perfect,” I murmur, trailing my fingertips between her br**sts and over her belly.

“Hardly,” she whispers, voice weak.

As I lower myself, my mouth follows the path of my fingers, and I circle her navel with my tongue. Tiny silvery scars snake out from here. As I taste each one, she tenses under me.

“Stretch marks,” she says softly, dropping her hands to disguise them. “Not so perfect.”

I move her hands. “Perfect.” And I kiss her there again, mouth, tongue, teeth. When I scrape my teeth across the ridge of her hipbone, she cries out and her moan echoes off the walls.