Page 6 of Obsession: The Unspoken Sin
Stricken, Alice touched her cropped curls.
They nearly brushed her shoulder and framed her diamond-shaped face. Though slightly fuller, her high cheekbones possessed a magnificent, pronounced sharpness that caused a terrible best friend’s attention to linger on her face—and then linger longer on her lush crimson mouth.
“Laurence?” she whispered.
Rattled, he shook his head wildly.
“What are you doing here?” Her quavering question cut through all the noise of confusion, horror, and sorrow.
New heat climbed his neck and filled his cheeks.
He spoke as calmly as he was able. “Me?”
Heneededto be calm. He needed to be the affable, charming, brother-like fellow who reminded her of how good she had it back with Exmoor and the rest of the Mastersons so he could whirl her back home.
Now, it just remained to be seen how to handle that now nearly impossible and dangerous feat with fury stirring inside him.
He gritted the back of his teeth. “Me?” he repeated, hardness creeping into his tone. “You ask me whatIam doing here, Alice,” he hissed.
So much for patience. Fortunately, his agitation chased away that wounded doe expression she wore and restored the fiery-tempered spirit to the mink’s pretty blue eyes.
“You have no place being here,” Alice said in clipped, crisp tones he’d never before heard her use with him or with anyone. And that was saying a lot, considering the fact that they’d bickered and quarreled on and off throughout the whole of their lives.
My God. She was looking about as if his getting caught here was the scandal and not her actually working here.
“You have to go,” she whispered.
Denbigh was still recovering from the shock of her artwork—work that the lady’s older brother most definitely did not know anything about—when her words reached him.
Heat slapped his cheeks.
“Laurence, are you listening to me? I said you have to leave.” Alice wrapped her paint-stained fingers upon his sleeve, leaving streaks of crimson and gold upon his tan jacket.
Since seeing Alice this morning, he’d been besieged by a host of volatile emotions.
Rage.
Disbelief.
Fear for Alice.
Now, Denbigh found himself swallowed up and consumed by a far greater, more overwhelming, and even more dangerous emotion.
Desire.
Denbigh looked to where Alice’s fingers curled about his bicep. The muscles bunched and rippled and came alive in ways that were heinous and unforgivable, but also undeniable, as it had been some four to five years ago when he’d realized Alice Masterson was no longer a girl. Scorched by her touch and shamed by the feelings eclipsing his senses, Denbigh wrenched away.
Alice’s eyes bore the same startlement as his. She too had sensed something charged in the atmosphere, but she could have no idea, and never would, of the feelings her slightest touch roused within him.
“You cannot be here, Laurence,” she said, this time more earnestly and less angrily. “Dynevor will be livid. These areprivate quarters. He doesn’t want patrons wandering about. It isn’t good for his family who lives and visits here.”
Denbigh brought his eyebrows together. “I’m not worried about Dynevor,” he whispered silkily. “I am wondering what the hell you are doing here and what you’re working on.”
Her confused gaze followed his over to the half-filled canvas she’d crafted with her talented fingers. She’d always been a master with a brush. When she’d been a girl, he’d delighted in trying to distract her from her projects. He’d often failed. Her revere and love of painting and sketching proved far greater than her annoyance with him, which was saying a great deal indeed.
But this… Her work here, now…
It was evocative. Vibrant. A sight to behold—it stole one’s breath and drew one into the painting. Alice had centered Bacchus amidst a bevy of voluptuous, adoring, subjects who existed for the primal god’s pleasure.
