Page 103 of Beautiful Exile

His lips twitched. “Still mad at Cope?”

“Well, his overprotective, alpha-male ass is annoying.”

Linc chuckled, the sound skating over me in a pleasant shiver. “I don’t know about alpha male. Overprotective? Yes. But I’m pretty sure he’s just as protective of his brothers as his sisters.”

I scowled at him.

Linc released me and held up both hands. “What’d I say?”

“You had to go and make a good point.”

That made him laugh. “I’m so sorry. Never again will I make a good point.”

“That would be the gentlemanly thing to do,” I huffed.

Linc grinned at me as he opened the door. “Baby, I’m a lot of things, but a gentleman isn’t one of them.”

A shiver of promise raced through me, and I was pretty sure my eyes dilated as memories of last night swirled through my mind. I stretched up onto my tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “I don’t know,Cowboy. You let me come first. If that isn’t the mark of a gentleman, I don’t know what is.”

“Vicious, if you make me walk into this gallery with a hard-on, I am going to spank your ass.”

A fresh wave of heat swept through me as different images flashed in my mind.

“You like that idea,” Linc rasped, his eyes going hooded.

My gaze cut to his, the hazel a darker green now. “I think I do.”

“Gonna kill me,” he muttered.

“But we’ll have fun on the way out,” I said, a smile lacing my tone as I stepped into The Collective.

As I moved inside, it was to find Farah standing there and fanning herself with a pamphlet about the gallery. “Would you two ever consider posing naked together?”

I choked on a laugh. “Farah.”

“What?” she asked with mock innocence. “You’re both hot as hell. We could do a whole show around it.” She did a little jump. “I’ve got it! Tonight. Mood lighting. Wine. You two in the throes of passion, and me capturing it all.”

“As flattering as that is, I’m gonna have to go with no on that one,” Linc said, fighting a grin.

Farah made a wailing face. “You’re raining on all my hottie-on-hottie dreams over here.”

I patted her shoulder. “So sorry.”

Her expression shifted, concern filling it now. “Are you okay? We heard someone messed with your studio.”

Trace was doing everything he could to keep the details under wraps. The story we were going with was that it was a break-in and some minor vandalism.

“Someone felt like being an asshole is all. Probably thought there was stuff they could sell in there. Got mad when there wasn’t,” I lied.

“That’s so scary,” Hannah said, emerging from the office area with Denver in tow and looking worried. “But Trace’ll get them. He always does.”

Denver’s expression was hard to read, but I saw the hint of apout on his mouth. “You didn’t think I might want to know about this? That it’s something Ishouldknow about?”

I bristled at that, and I wasn’t alone. Linc stepped up to my side, his already large frame somehow seeming more massive. “And why would that be?”

Anger flashed in Denver’s brown eyes. “She’s my friend.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “And what if pieces for the auction and show were damaged? I’d need to know immediately.”

There it was. The truth. Denver didn’t give a damn about me. He just wanted more art.

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