“Good, polo it is. I’ll take you riding tomorrow before the match.” He patted her bottom and she snuggled into him.

“Sounds perfect.” She sighed and the sound flooded him with a soft cottony warmth starting in his chest.

“I have a surprise for you, too. Something for tonight.”

“Oh?” she replied in a low husky tone that made him grin.

“Yes, and you can’t seduce any answers out of me,” he vowed.

She wrinkled her nose. “Me seduce? That’s your area of expertise.”

He gave her a harrumph to show her just how wrong she was. He was beginning to figure out that she had some power of manipulation over him, but he’d better hide that or he’d be in trouble. He’d be the butt of every joke if it ever got out that a sweet little innocent woman like Callie had him wrapped around her little finger. It was his own fault. Staying distant from her emotionally was nearly impossible, especially when he spent half the time buried in her hot little body.

“What are you thinking about?” She’d fixed her clothes and was watching him with avid interest. For one so young, who had seen so little of life, she had an uncanny way of reading him and people in general. His grandfather would call her an old soul. Wes didn’t believe in things like that, but damn it, her soft warm hazel green eyes did seem to reveal a century of understanding.

“Polo, I most certainly am thinking about polo.” He winked at her, but she flashed a look of barely concealed disappointment. She’d admitted to thinking about him. He knew that, but he didn’t want to admit she had such an effect on him. As the dom, he had to stay in control of himself and this relationship.

“Oh.” That one syllable was so broken and soft that he cursed inwardly.

“Why don’t you go find Bradley. He has a present for you.”

The sadness was quickly buried beneath a smile and a shrug. “Why would Bradley give me a present?”

Wes caught her by the waist and held her still so he could swat her delectable ass in a light punishment for her sarcasm.

“You know damn well it’s from me. Now off you go. It should keep you busy for a few hours. I have some work to do but will find you later.”

Callie nibbled her lip, watching him a moment longer. “Okay.” She turned on her heel and headed for the door. She had to unlock it, but she didn’t look at him again as she left. How could she make him feel so villainous? He’d never cared before about a woman’s feelings outside of a submissive’s needs during a moment of passion and the recovery period afterward. This was new territory for him.

Wes waited, counting the seconds before he straightened his own clothes and checked his hair in the mirror. Callie’s hands had mussed it up. Raking his fingers through his hair to put it back in place, he nodded at his reflection in the little hanging mirror by the door before he exited the room. The unstoppable force that was his little sister stood right in front of him, hands on her hips, eyes spitting sparks.

“You’re really sleeping with her?” Hayden accused in a low feminine growl of warning.

“It’s none of your business.” He straightened his tie and smoothed it down the front of his coat as he buttoned it closed.

“Oh, that’s rich. You’re all for beating Fenn to a pulp for touching me, but when he returns the favor, suddenly it’s none of our business?”

“Hayden, she’s an adult and she can make her own choices.” He tried to nudge her aside but she slapped a hand on his chest, halting him.

“Sure she is. I’ll give you that, but she’s not a sub for you to play spank and fuck with. She’s a real person with a heart that was recently broken. She’s not a toy.”

Wes’s irritation flared to real anger. He removed his sister’s hand and responded as coldly as he felt in that moment.

“I know she’s not a toy, but she doesn’t seem to mind the ‘spank and fuck’ as you call it, and as long as she wants me and that, she has me.” This time he didn’t bother to be gentle as he forcibly moved Hayden from his path. That didn’t stop her from delivering a parting shot at him, however.

“She’s too innocent for you, Wes. You’d be better off with that bitch Corrine if you plan on acting like such an asshole.”

He didn’t deign to reply to such a remark, no matter how true it might be. Callie was innocent, and far too good for a man like him. But he couldn’t stay away from her. He couldn’t let her go.

Chapter 19

It was the most amazing thing she’d ever done. One painting on an 18" x 24" canvas in just eight hours. After Callie had located Mr. Bradley, he’d taken her to a bedroom that had been turned into an art studio. It was obvious Wes had planned the room with her in mind. It was full of blank canvases on easels, fresh palettes, and an assortment of brushes and paints. Callie had chosen acrylics for this piece because it needed fewer layers of colors.

The oversized dress shirt she’d gotten accustomed to wearing was covered in smatters of paint. The rich scent that was uniquely Wes’s clung to the fabric and deepened her longing for him. It was a growing sense inside her that she hadn’t felt for anyone else, not even Fenn. The need to see Wes, to be near him, to belong to him was overpowering. Even when she was lost in her painting, she still felt that pull toward him.

But it’s not love. I won’t let it be love. It was a promise she had to keep. She had to stay safe, keep her heart out of the picture.

A sigh broke from her lips and she studied the canvas, her finished work. The Lantern’s Glow she called it. The entire background was black, fading only to a dark forest green around the center where she’d painted a lantern. Inside the lantern a scene of four little boys around a campfire glowed like a memory trapped in a fortune-teller’s crystal ball. She’d turned the lantern into the object that showed the past.

The circular green-yellow light pooled outward in a luminous glow around the lantern and in that glow she’d painted four adult, masculine faces. Wes, Royce, Emery, and Fenn. Each of their somber gazes was turned toward the lantern and the image of the innocent children they’d been. In a way, their faces, half shadowed, were not unlike the boys before the campfire, a reflection within a reflection. Ever since Wes had told her about the lantern-yellow color, she’d had a haunting image in her head. She wanted to show it to Wes, but she was nervous about his reaction. Would he understand that she meant it as a tribute? Not a way to remind him of the pain of his past.

Soft booted steps behind had her spinning around on the stool. “Wes!”

Only it wasn’t Wes, but Royce. He wore jeans and a leather motorcycle jacket and black boots. He’d snuck in through the partially open door and was staring straight at her painting, not her.

“That’s me,” he murmured, his voice low and rough with emotion. “Why did you paint this?” A flash of fire in his eyes warned her she was on dangerous ground.

“I…” She swallowed hard. “It’s a gift for Wes. He told me about how you used to go camping.”

Royce’s intense features softened slightly. “He told you about that?” With slow steps, he reached the painting and studied it. One of his hands raised as though to touch the lantern but he stopped a mere inch from the canvas. His brown eyes were dark, like burnt umber.

“He said you were talented, but this…you’ve painted our souls.” Royce finally turned his gaze toward her.

“Really?” The idea that she’d touched him that deeply, and that Wes would have such faith in her talent to tell one of his closest friends, made her light-headed and excited.

“Yes.”

A collection of emotions fluttered through her like a rush of doves from a tree.

Royce slid his hands back into his pockets and gazed at the painting. This hardened seducer, a dom, a professor, instantly transformed. The boy from the photographs Bradley had collected for her to study shone through. But it wasn’t the innocent child she glimpsed now. It was a boy ravaged with horror and tragedy. Even knowing Fenn was alive hadn’t erased the monstrous taint of twenty-five years of believing he’d been murdered. Only time could ease such a deep wound. It lingered, like shadows late in the fall.