The Art of Deception

could feel her body spring to frantic life wherever he touched. He could feel his own strain from the need only she brought to him. Desperate, urgent, exclusive. If he’d had only a day left to live, he’d have spent every moment of it there, with Kirby in his arms.
    She smelled of wood smoke and musky flowers, of woman and of sex, ripe and ready. If he’d had the power, he’d have frozen time just then, as she loomed above him in the moonlight, eyes dark with need, skin flashing against silk.
    Then he drew the silk up and over her head so that he could see her as he swore no man would ever see her again. Her hair tumbled down, streaking night against her flesh. Naked and eager, she was every primitive fantasy, every midnight dream. Everything.
    Her lips were parted as the breath hurried between them. Passion swamped her so that she shuddered and rushed to take what she needed from him—for him. Everything. Everything and more. With a low sound of triumph, Kirby took him inside her and led the way. Fast, furious.
    Her body urged her on relentlessly while her mind exploded with images. Such color, such sound. Such frenzy. Arched back, she moved like lightning, hardly aware of how tightly his hands gripped her hips. But she heard him say her name. She felt him fill her.
    The first crest swamped her, shocking her system then thrusting her along to more, and more and more. There was nothing she couldn’t have and nothing she wouldn’t give. Senseless, she let herself go.
    With his hands on her, with the taste of her still on his lips, Adam felt his system shudder on the edge of release. For a moment, only a moment, he held back. He could see her above him, poised like a goddess, flesh damp and glowing, hair streaming back as she lifted her hands to it in ecstasy. This he would remember always.
     
    The moon was no longer full, but its light was soft and white. They were still on top of the quilt, tangled close as their breathing settled. As she lay over him, Adam thought of everything Fairchild had said. And everything he could and couldn’t do about it.
    Slowly their systems settled, but he could find none of the answers he needed so badly. What answers would there be based on lies and half-truths?
    Time. Perhaps time was all he had now. But how much or how little was no longer up to him. With a sigh, he shifted and ran a hand down her back.
    Kirby rose on an elbow. Her eyes were no longer clouded, but saucy and clear. She smiled, touched a fingertip to her own lips and then to his. “Next time you’re in town, cowboy,” she drawled as she tossed her hair over her shoulder, “don’t forget to ask for Lulu.”
    She’d expected him to grin, but he grabbed her hair and held her just as she was. There was no humor in his eyes, but the intensity she’d seen when he held a paint-brush. His muscles had tensed, she could feel it.
    “Adam?”
    “No, don’t.” He forced his hand to relax, then stroked her cheek. It wouldn’t be spoiled by the wrong word, the wrong move. “I want to remember you just like this. Fresh from loving, with moonlight on your hair.”
    He was afraid, unreasonably, that he’d never see her like that again—with that half smile inches away from his face. He’d never feel the warmth of her flesh spread over his with nothing, nothing to separate them.
    The panic came fast and was very real. Unable to stop it, Adam pulled her against him and held her as if he’d never let her go.

Chapter 10
    A fter thirty minutes of posing, Kirby ordered herself not to be impatient. She’d agreed to give Adam two hours, and a bargain was a bargain. She didn’t want to think about the time she had left to stand idle, so instead tried to concentrate on her plans for sculpting once her obligation was over. Her Anger was nearly finished.
    But the sun seemed too warm and too bright. Every so often her mind would go oddly blank until she pulled herself back just to remember where she was.
    “Kirby.” Adam called her name for the third time and watched as she blinked and focused on him. “Could you wait until the session’s over before you take a nap?”
    “Sorry.” With an effort, she cleared her head and smiled at him. “I was thinking of something else.”
    “Don’t think at all if it puts you to sleep,” he muttered, and slashed scarlet across the canvas. It was right, so right. Nothing he’d ever done had been as right as this painting. The need to finish it was becoming obsessive. “Tilt