The Game

6

Lying on Tobias’s bed I realized I’d been right about this being his room.

He’d carried me over his shoulder all the way in here and this was the side of him I adored, his playfulness took a little coaxing but was so worth it.

Tobias dragged me down the bed toward him. “These are mine.” He snapped the waistband of the shorts I’d borrowed and then eased them down my thighs. “I’m taking these back.”

“What am I going to wear?” I worked on unbuttoning my shirt.

“Not my problem.”

“I like it in here.” I glanced over to the wrapped frame I’d almost peeked at earlier. Tobias’s stare followed mine.

There was something about the way he looked at it, something in the way the twine had been carefully wrapped around it.

Getting his attention back on me before he saw that it had piqued my interest, I said, “Do you have a cowboy hat?” I cringed at how stupid that sounded.

“No.” He grinned. “Are you into that? Role play?”

I giggled with embarrassment and covered my eyes.

“Come here.” He grabbed my ankles and yanked me toward him.

“Should we wash off this chlorine?” I sniffed my arm but couldn’t smell it on me.

“It’s a freshwater spa.”

“Maybe we should shut the door so Jade doesn’t sneak in?”

“You have a lot of demands.” Tobias went over to the door and kicked it shut and continued to undress. “You could learn a lot from her.”

“Funny. Why didn’t you make Jade a he?”

“Easier to control.” He smirked at me. “Though when I developed her she had this annoying trait of interrupting me. So I tweaked her circuitry. Took her sassy-arse attitude down a notch.”

“Do you realize how cheeky you are?”

“No one’s mentioned it.”

“Yeah, right.”

Tobias leaned toward my sex. “Time to make it up to you.”

The jolt of pleasure from his tongue running along my clit made me arch my back. “Oh, yes.” I moaned.

He lavished affection with his mouth, sending shudders of electric pulses inside me. Writhing, thighs trembling, my fingers were nudged away from my breasts and he cupped his own hands there. He tweaked my nipples as he thrust his tongue inside me, his fingers lightly pinching with rhythmic tweaks sending me spiraling into oblivion.

He turned me over and raised my arse in the air and thrust into me. “You feel amazing, Zara.”

All I could focus on was the bliss he was sending into me as his balls struck my sex with each thrust.

He slowed and ran his hands down my spine. “Everything I do is to protect you. I need you to believe me.”

“Locking me outside?”

He pulled out and flipped me onto my back so he could see my face. I scootched closer to him to let him know I didn’t want to stop.

Tobias plunged back in and stilled as though making a powerful statement of ownership. “You broke into my home,” he said darkly.

My channel tightened around him. “I’m a guest.”

He resumed pumping leisurely and his voice softened with arousal. “You strategized your entry point and executed the perfect break-in.” He reached low and flicked my clit.

My body shuddered at the erotic shock of his touch. “That’s why you teased me in your pool?”

“Jacuzzi.”

“So you admit it?”

“If you want something bad enough.”

I pushed myself up and slapped his chest playfully.

He gave a smile. “Mission accomplished, Leighton, you got your man. I’m inside you again. Feel this? This is what you wanted. See how ingenious you are. Looks like you have something in common with Icon.”

“Not fair.”

“Is this fair?” He buried deeper.

My white-knuckled grip tightened on the bedsheet; I was close.

“Need convincing?” He lifted me with ease and I wrapped my legs around him and he carried me across the room. Tobias shoved me against the wall and proceeded banging me hard against it. “How about this?”

This was mind-blowing and the feel of his controlled pounding sent me into a trance; all I could do was rest my head on his shoulder and let him have me like this.

He carried me over to the armchair and threw me face-first over it so my bum was raised upon the arch of the high back and my hands were gripping the seat. This position left me completely powerless and totally exposed. When his mouth met my sex again, he made me scream through another orgasm.

“I can see you still need convincing.” Tobias lifted me up and carried me back to the bed and flung me onto it. “How about this?” He climbed on to join me and rose above my body and yanked my arms over my head and gripped them there, pinning them down. Sinking his cock inside me again, setting off into a startling rhythm and pummeling me into the mattress.

I knew this was Tobias’s way of asserting his authority after I’d played with him in his gym.

“I need you to come again.” His voice sounded punishing.

“I can’t.”

“You can and you will.” He moved his hips in a circle.

His masterful words sent me reeling and I tipped up my pelvis, my hair falling over my face as I shuddered through another climax. Tobias stilled and became rigid and his heat burst into me, his face buried in the crook of my neck as he rode out his pleasure with continuous leisurely glides.

He held himself up with strong arms either side of my head and looked down at me. “How was that for an apology?”

“Right on point,” I managed.

He slipped to my side and pulled me onto him.

With my head nuzzled into the cradle of his neck and my leg draped over his, sated and weak in his arms I fell asleep.

The sound of birdsong stirred me awake and I raised my head off the pillow, realizing I’d been here all night.

“Hi.” Tobias reached over and lifted a strand of auburn out of my eyes.

I hoped he’d not snuck out during the night to bloody well steal something. So much for being on guard. Still, he reflected innocence and his hair was its usual mess of perfection.

I stretched languidly. “It’s like being on holiday.”

And I’d just reminded him the real reason I was here.

He rested his head in his hands and stared up at the ceiling.

I reached out to touch him. “I didn’t mean...”

Tobias swept his hand across the room. “My casa is your casa.”

Scooting over to him, I planted a kiss on his bicep and he reciprocated my affection with his fingers trailing languidly through my hair, making my scalp tingle.

The uncomfortable silence lingered too long.

“What’s it like having homes all over the world?” I broke the quiet.

“Guarantees privacy.”

“You have a Rothko, Tobias. An authentic painting by the master himself?”

“Mark gave it to my dad.”

Which explained why it was here and not in a gallery. Though this went against Tobias’s philosophy of sharing art with the world.

“Did your dad know him?”

“Yes. He was a remarkable man.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“The blue reminds me of you.” His eyes crinkled into a smile.

“Do you ever get lonely?”

“I keep busy.”

I rested my head in my palm. “You avoided the question.”

“I love my work.”

“Which? Your business? Your gallery? Inventing? Or...”

“Zara, don’t go there.”

“What would happen if I did?”

“I told you before. Everything I have done is to protect you.”

“From you?”

His eyes held mine and he looked hurt.

“From who, then?”

“Push me at your peril, Leighton.”

“What are you hiding?”

“What are you hiding?” he mirrored back.

“Me? Nothing.”

“Can I ask you something,” he said softly.

I shrugged that I’d hear his question at least.

He turned to face me. “How did your dad choose the paintings? The night of the fire?”

“We grabbed what we could.”

A flash of fear; disorientation.

“You remember something?”

“It was a long time ago.” But I understood the question. It was like asking which child you would save first, because each painting held a precious place in my father’s heart.

“Zara?” Tobias whispered.

I loosened my grip from where I’d been digging my fingernails into his bicep. “Dad went back for his favorite.”

“You went with him?”

“I couldn’t leave him.”

He looked horrified. “That was so dangerous.”

“He’d removed Madame Rose Récamier from my bedroom and placed her in his office weeks before. The frame needed to be refurbished. Otherwise she’d have gone too.”

“The smoke could have gotten to you.” Tobias rested his head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as though working through a difficult thought. “That’s where he kept the Michelangelo. That’s where he kept all the paintings you saved.”

“There were so many. We tried.” A familiar guilt that I couldn’t manage the Degas.

This drawn-out silence allowed those haunting memories to sweep in. “I should be able to ask you things too.”

“Go on, then.”

“How do they contact you?”

“Who?”

“Your clients? The ones who hire you to steal their paintings back?”

“Zara, please.” His tone insinuated I’d ruin what we’d shared.

I yearned to reach him and now felt so right. I scooted closer and rested my head on his chest and my scalp tingled as he ran his fingers through my hair.

“The thing is,” I began softly, “when a painting has been with a family for decades it’s hard to come to terms with the fact a family member obtained it illegally years before. The current family bonds with it.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“No, but more people suffer.”

“When you saw St. Joan at Christie’s you wanted to take her home. You wanted her back?”

“Yes.”

He gave a shrug to indicate he’d made his point.

“You stole her from Christie’s for me?” I raised my head to look at him. “Tobias?”

He turned his face away and gave the deepest sigh.

“Toby?”

He slid into a sweet smile, and then his expression shifted to resignation, his gaze sweeping the ceiling.

“There’s something you’re not telling me?” I whispered.

He turned his head to look at me “This moment could change what we can have. You want that?”

“I need answers.”

“Proceed with caution.”

A flutter of nerves went berserk in my chest. “I have to know.”

His stare bored into my eyes as though gauging I was ready. “Do you remember that first evening we met?”

My eyes brightened with the memory of him half-naked in The Otillie basement. “Of course.”

“Later, when we met again in the gallery?”

“You introduced yourself and then left.”

He’d suddenly walked out of the gallery as though my name alone had caused his quick exit.

“You’d heard of me?” My voice rasped with emotion.

“I realized you were Bertram Leighton’s daughter.”

The hairs on my forearms pricked. “Did you know my dad?”

He hesitated. “No.”

My heart thundered with all the possibilities of what was coming next.

He blew out a cautious sigh. “I came across information on a painting that appeared to have been stolen. It was St. Joan of Arc by Walter Ouless.”

“Where?”

He blew out a frustrated sigh of doubt. “I travel.”

I reached out and squeezed his arm. “Please.”

“I researched the painting’s provenance. I didn’t like what I saw.”

“You realized it was stolen?”

Was he admitting he knew the man’s name?

His gaze held mine. “I tracked St. Joan to your family.”

“I know you stole her back for me.” I held my breath, waiting for him to acknowledge this.

Tobias rose and pushed himself off the bed and padded across the room and went straight for that portrait-sized package wrapped in brown paper. The same one I’d caught sight of earlier.

He lifted it off the floor. “This is yours.”

I bolted upright, realizing he’d brought it home from The Wilder.

Weeks ago, he’d left me sleeping in my London flat to sneak off to steal St. Joan from Christie’s. The gallery’s footage had not only caught the theft but Tobias’s holographic security guard in the vicinity. A trick of the cameras. The actual guard had been recorded eating his lunch in the break room at the same time the heist went down.

Tobias rested the painting on the bed. “I’ll arrange to have her discreetly returned to London. Tell no one you have her.”

My heart pounded as a chasm seemingly opened again between us.

Lifting the painting off the bed, I delicately tore the brown paper to reveal St. Joan’s face beneath. It was her.

Tobias pulled on a T-shirt and grabbed a fresh pair of boxer shorts from a chest of drawers and dressed in silence.

He headed for the door. “Your safety is all I care about.”

“I’m not in any danger.”

“I’ll make coffee—”

“What changed?”

He paused by the door.

“Last night you were whirling me around a dance floor asking me to admit I want you? And last night...it was incredible.”

His expression softened. “It was even more than that.”

“What’s wrong, then?”

“The more you know the more dangerous it becomes for you.” The sweep of his hand inferred the rest. “I won’t do that to you.”

“What are you saying?”

“We’re everything we shouldn’t be.”

My mouth went dry as I realized why he was going cold on me. “You don’t want me to ask the name of the man who stole my St. Joan?”

Tobias gave a wary nod. “It’s a treacherous road.”

“So what happens now?”

He headed toward the door. “I’ll make breakfast.”

A chill washed over me. “Are you sending me back to London?”

Like he’d done outside The Wilder.

All the ground I’d made to get closer to him was lost.

“Look, Zara, knowing St. Joan is returned to you is all that matters. Knowing you’re safe.” He left and closed the door behind him.

Did he have any idea how much he hurt me when he pushed me away like this? I grabbed his shirt from the back of the armchair, glancing at the one beside it—the same chair he’d bent me over and taken me on so deliciously; the kind of passion my body would crave for an eternity. I went back into his wardrobe and searched out a pair of shorts and used one of his belts to keep them up.

Making my way down the stairs I reasoned Tobias had risked so much for me. My St. Joan back in my arms was proof of that. More questions needed answers and yet Tobias had closed down so fast I’d had no way of breaking his descent into aloofness.

I went in search of him, following the aroma of fresh brewing coffee. My stomach grumbled and yet my appetite wavered.

Tobias was standing with his back to me before a grill and he looked lost in thought. I needed a few seconds to steady myself at the stark beauty of him standing there working the spatula to flip the batter. The coffeemaker spluttered out fresh brewed grounds into a glass pot.

St. Joan’s frame weighed heavy in my hands.

The room looked gorgeous with its sleek modern stainless-steel appliances and it exuded a cozy style. There were badass robotic arms above the stove.

“Hi.” He gestured for me to sit at the center island. “Coffee?”

I looked around for Jade but didn’t see her. “What is that?”

He followed my gaze toward the two arms above the stove. “My chef. This morning I insisted on cooking.” Tobias slipped into a smile as he pointed to the mechanism. “He’s a little put out, but still.”

I refused to laugh. “Is this your goodbye? It’s not as harsh as outside The Wilder but it’s just as cruel.” I rested the painting on the island.

Tobias’s frown deepened. “She’s authentic. But you already know that.”

“Tell me his name.”

“It’s over.”

My silence resounded louder than words.

He gave a look of understanding. “This isn’t an easy decision.”

“You know who the man is who scathed my family’s reputation. The man who sent my dad to an early grave. The man who stole that—” I pointed to the half-wrapped painting.

“I’m here for you.”

My breath stuttered. “He needs to go to prison.”

“What was I thinking? You’d prefer tea, right?” He opened a cupboard and rifled through it. “I have it somewhere.”

“You really believe I’ll let this go?”

He gave up searching and turned to face me, crossing his arms across his chest defensively.

“I’m considered your client now? You gave me my painting back so I’m of no consequence to you?”

“Spending time with you has been...” He gave the kindest smile.

“Cut the bullshit, Tobias. This is important.”

“Zara, I believed this would help you see things from my perspective.”

“You think I’ll change my mind now about persuading you to give it up.”

“Give what up?”

“Being Icon.”

He raked his hand through his hair. “I’m flattered.”

“Are you blackmailing me with my own painting?” My breath stuttered on its inhale.

“Now that would be ingenious.” He gestured left. “Would you rather have a bagel? I have salmon.”

I turned and stormed through the house past the wall of water in the foyer, all the way to the front door where I saw my high heels. I scooped them up and saw several sets of car keys laying on the entryway table. I grabbed one of them and flew out the door, squinting against the morning sun.

“Zara!” His footfalls closed in on me.

The gravel bit into my soles and I quickly pulled my shoes on. I flicked the key ring and a silver Jaguar’s headlights flashed.

Tobias’s strong arms wrapped around me. “Zara.”

“Let me go.”

“We drive on the other side.”

“I know, I drove your Ferrari, remember?”

“That was a self-driving car. And I was with you.”

“You can’t use my own painting to manipulate me.”

His front pressed against my back and he held me with a determined strength, his arms holding me in a hug, gripping my arms to my side.

My rib cage ached from his hold. “Why tell me any of this?”

“I believed you’d handle it.”

I weakened in his arms and he let me down.

I spun round and glared at him.

“What are you expecting?” He took his keys from my hand. “Relationships are built on a foundation of trust. You’re here on behalf of Huntly Pierre—”

“No.” Though telling him they weren’t aware I was here sent a stab of doubt at my sanity.

“Look—” He stepped forward.

I stepped back so he couldn’t touch me.

“You investigate art thefts,” he said. “When you catch Icon, it will be case closed. Your career skyrockets.”

“Then why haven’t I done that?”

“Lack of evidence.” He glanced at his home. “You were hoping to find some, no doubt.”