Divine Desire: A Lotus House Novel: Book Three Read online

  “It’s peppermint…uh, natural body wash. I buy it at the local…oh God.”

  I bit down on her erect tip and then lavished it with soft sucks to soothe the burn of the bite.

  “Local farmers’ market. It’s edible.” She sighed and let her head fall back, offering up her body on a silver platter.

  I growled, opened my mouth, and pulled as much of her left breast into my mouth as I could. I was right. Fuck, yes. I could put most of it in my mouth.

  She moaned and rubbed her lower half against me. I could feel her moisture wetting my pelvis as she ground against me.

  I closed my eyes and released her tit. Definitely the last thing I wanted to do, ever, but something about the way she proclaimed that she had to paint stopped me from continuing.

  My dream. She’d said those words. Two words that had the power to destroy me, almost as much as the world’s hottest yoga teacher-slash-artist was doing right now.

  Shifting her, I lifted her head and took her mouth. The kiss was brutal and hard, nowhere near gentle and definitely not sweet. I bit at her lips, sucked on her tongue, and took the kiss from her. With my eager lips, I impressed that this was not over. We’d take it there. Just not now. Then I pulled away on a huge breath, stood, lifted her along with me, walked the few paces to her stool, and set her back down. Her eyes were awash with lust and desire. At that moment, if I wanted to carry her to bed and fuck her, I could have. She’d have allowed it. But it didn’t feel right.

  “But…”

  “Paint. Talk. Tell me your dreams.”

  Chapter Five

  Manipura is associated with the natural element fire and directly linked to one’s sense of self. It is depicted as a golden bright yellow, like the sun. This energy center relates to self-esteem, personal identity and sense of purpose in life. Keeping this chakra open is necessary to keep one’s self goal-oriented and focused on future dreams.

  MILA

  I swallowed back the instant prick of fear and anxiety that came with speaking about my true desires. The only person who knew my dreams was Monet. I’d never told a man anything of value about me. About what I wanted out of life. What I worked so hard for.

  Atlas, hot as Hades, both fists gripped at his sides, as if physically preventing himself from grabbing me, turned, and walked back to the stool. He sat his ass in the seat, crossed his arms over his chest like he’d done before, and leaned back. His rock-hard cock stood tall and thick, ready to pillage and plunge. And right now, I was so on board with that plan. I shifted on the stool, feeling the arousal coating my thighs and looked down. My nipples were no longer a soft brown but a reddened plum color. Dots of broken capillaries speckled around the tips where Atlas had sucked like a Hoover. There was even a round bruise the size of a nickel spreading across the upper swell of one breast.

  Damn sexy bastard had marked me. “A hickey!”

  He smirked. “I can’t control myself around you. I want to bite you as much as I want to fight you.”

  I sighed, picked up my painting supplies, and went back to work.

  “Dreams?” he asked again.

  “Tell me yours first.” I was stalling.

  Atlas cracked his neck from left to right, the pop audible on both sides.

  “Ouch. Sounds like someone is tense.”

  He glared. “Perhaps because I’m sitting on a stool, less than ten feet away from the naked girl I want to fuck, and my dick is hard as stone. Ever heard of blue balls?”

  I grinned. “Hey, moments ago you stopped what could have gone further.”

  He scowled. “Yeah, yeah, and then I’d get to be the douchenozzle keeping you from your dreams, which obviously has something to do with painting me or painting in general, because I doubt that you’ve had an ongoing desire to paint me since we haven’t known each other that long.”

  “Very observant.” I slathered a long blob of color down the center of his chest where a shiny key hung. “Hey, can you remove the key? It’s impeding the view.”

  He shook his head. “No. Paint me with or without it, but I’m not taking it off.” His words were harsh all of a sudden, not even a hint of the playful edge we’d developed.

  I let out a breath and focused my attention on him. “I’m sorry I asked. Is the key important to you?”

  “Is painting important to you?”

  “It’s my life, my future.”

  He ran a hand through his messy hair. At least the hair I could paint how I wanted since it moved around so much. Those lengthy curls could go whichever way, and the painting would work just fine. “Yeah well, the key is my past. It stays with me. Always.”

  Huh. Interesting thing to say about an object. “What does it open?”

  Atlas’s nostrils flared. “If you’re going to continue this line of questioning, I’m going to need to put my mouth on you again. Maybe my fingers too. Depends.”

  I stopped painting mid-stroke. Him even mentioning his mouth and my skin in the same sentence sent a fireball of lust roaring through my body. I gripped my paintbrush and clenched my teeth allowing a moment of calm to come over me so I could respond.

  “Depends on what?” I asked.

  His entire face went from grump to solicitous in a heartbeat. “On how you want to come, wildcat.”

  “God, you’re such a filthy animal,” I spoke through clenched teeth, pretending his words didn’t turn me on.

  He laughed. “Honey, this is nothing. I’m happy to show you filthy. Finish up what you need to, and I’ll show you filthy.”

  I put my brush to canvas and outlined the features of his face. “Is this your normal way of picking up women? Talk dirty to them?”

  “Do you always paint the men you want to fuck?”

  “Never. You’re the first.”

  “So you admit you want to fuck me.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  I snickered and outlined his brow on the canvas and then moved to his soulful eyes. I hadn’t decided yet if I wanted to fill in this painting with color or do the entire thing in black and white. When I painted something in color, it came to life in a very “real” way, like the image could jump off the canvas at any moment. With black and white, everything seemed more abstract.

  “Why do you always answer a question with a question?” I asked.

  “Do I?”

  I groaned, and he chuckled. All in all, I was getting a lot of painting done, my muse having been so stoked that I hardly noticed that I was sitting on my stool naked while I painted an insanely sexy man not ten feet away. A man who I wanted to pull off the stool and push onto my queen-sized bed and have my wicked way with. That in itself would be a first. Having sex on my bed. I’d never had sex in my apartment, because I didn’t bring men here. I always went to their homes. Less mess involved and I could just get up and go. Be free.

  “What’s that on your face? A smile? Are you thinking about finding new ways to paint me?”

  I smiled huge. “That’s not hard. I’ve already imagined you in a hundred different settings naked and willing.”

  His eyes widened to the size of saucers, and he smiled big, full teeth and all. “Really? Do tell.”

  “Ways to paint you, curly. Jeez. Do you always have sex on the brain?”

  “With you in the room, yes. Normally, no. I’ve always got a tune in my head.”

  “Music?” I asked while filling in his arms crossed over his chest on the canvas.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I play guitar, sing.”

  “Professionally?”

  “I’d like to, but no. I play locally. Clubs, bars, that kind of thing. Write my own music, sometimes I write for others. Whatever it takes to get the bills paid, you know?”

  I nodded. Now that I understood. I worked my ass to the bone in order to pay rent, utilities, and feed my muse in art supplies. “I get it.”

  He placed his hands on his thighs and leaned forward. His gaze seemed to dig right into my psyche, straight through to my soul. “You do, don’t you?”

 
; “Yeah. Whatever it takes to make it happen. Don’t stop. If you want it, believe it. Be your strength.”

  “Be your strength. I like that. Something tells me you know a lot about being strong.” He glanced around my room, focusing on one thing for a few moments and then moving to the next. “You only have two pictures in frames.”

  I tensed and hovered the brush right at his elbow on the canvas. “Again, very observant, curly. Do you want a medal for that?”

  “No, I want to know why.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t have a lot of pictures to put in frames.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Now that’s a line of bull and you know it. An artist who doesn’t have a lot of pictures? Try selling that ice to another Eskimo, because I’m not buying, hotness. What’s the deal? You not from around here?”

  “No, I am. I just don’t have a lot of people in my life that I’d want to frame. My dad, my best friend, and her daughter, that’s about it. I don’t have time to build on relationships, so I cherish the few I have. Is that okay with you?”

  He lifted his hands and waved them in front of him. “No harm, no foul. Sorry. Didn’t mean to piss you off. This time…” He grinned, and the tension that emanated between us momentarily disappeared.

  “So your dream is to make it big in music, I gather?”

  He grabbed the key around his neck and pulled it along the beaded strand. The sound of each bead ticking against the metal of the key clicked like a zipper being pulled, only he kept doing it. Over and over like a nervous tic. “Yeah, or something. And you want to paint.”

  “Or something.”

  ATLAS

  “Done yet?” I was tired, hungry, and horny. Three things that did not make me a happy man.

  Mila ignored my question, her concentration on the job. She had her lip firmly between her teeth, her brows were pinched together, and her eyes were lasered on a point on the canvas. Her face was mere inches from the painting.

  I hadn’t seen any of it yet. For all I knew, she could have been drawing naughty stick figures for the last two hours. What I did know was that my ass hurt, my dick had long since gone soft, and I had a cramp in between my shoulder blades from holding my arms across my chest. Every time I tried to move them, she’d ask me to put them back. Something about holding the integrity of the pose. Whatever.

  While she did her thing on the painting, I got up, grabbed my jeans, and tugged them on. I shook out my shirt, turned it right-side out, and jerked it over my head. Still, her focus never left the tiny strokes she was making, her hand barely moving. As quiet as a mouse, I planted myself behind her and stood as still as I could and watched her, really watched her.

  Mila Mercado was beyond beautiful, a blind man could see that. Her skin glowed like the sun glinting off the smooth waters of Lake Tahoe in the dead of summer. Wisps of soft, honeyed curls caressed her nape. Her back was long for such a petite woman and devoid of any birthmarks or even freckles for that matter. The tiny pebbles of her spine dotted down her back, and the stirring of something bigger than my dick came to life. A song…

  Everything I didn’t need…

  Bring a man to his knees…

  Cinnamon lips so hot and fresh…

  Wait until I steal your breath…

  Curls that twirl and tangle…

  Don’t let this lust dangle

  Fill me up with your spicy heat

  With you, I’ll trust the deep

  It wasn’t great but definitely a start to something, and for that, I was grateful. I hadn’t written a word in months. One night sitting naked for a hellion artist with a sassy mouth and an ass I could bite a hundred times and never get enough of, and my muse was stoked. I ran a hand over the hefty bulge between my thighs. Looked like something else was stoked, too.

  I tiptoed on bare feet until I was right behind Mila. Her head tilted to the side as if she was assessing her work. I took the opportunity to place my lips on that open space on her neck and wrap my arms around her. She gasped but leaned back into me, arching her chest. Invite accepted, I gripped the small globes of her breasts and rolled each nipple between thumb and forefinger, elongating them until she mewled in pure ecstasy.

  That’s when I opened my eyes and looked at what she’d been working on. My hands froze over her tits. Hell, my entire body froze. There I was. Me. In stark black and white with bits of random colors layered to highlight the shadows.

  “Holy fuck, Mila,” I croaked in awe. Complete and utter awe.

  She groaned. “You don’t like it. It’s not done.” She hurried to add, “I have hours of work to put into it.”

  “Like it.” I swallowed the golf-ball sized lump that clogged my throat.

  Everything I didn’t need

  Bring a man to his knees

  Fill me up with your spicy heat

  With you, I’ll trust the deep

  With you, I’ll trust the deep. The line ran a marathon as I took in every harsh slash of paint, each smooth ripple of muscle as she saw it.

  “Is this how you see me?” My voice was so filled with emotion I could have cried. Fucking dropped to my knees and wept. Shit. Fuck. What was this wildcat bringing out in me?

  Her hands gripped mine at her waist where I’d pulled her into a hug. A hug. Not a grope where I’d been headed before. No, a god’s honest tight embrace. One I was nowhere near willing to let go of until I’d gotten my shit under control.

  Her naked body trembled in my arms. “Well…yeah. To me, this is how you look. But it’s art, you know. It’s…” She tried to say something more, but I couldn’t hear it. Didn’t want her mouth to get in the way of what was honestly the most beautiful thing I’d ever witnessed in my life. I put my hand over her lips.

  “Shush. Don’t try to explain it, wildcat.”

  Another quiver ran through her, and I removed my hand from her mouth. Thank God she kept quiet while my eyes hoarded their fill of her work. Of me.

  I shook my head and focused on every little nuance I could take in. “You’re magnificent.”

  She tried to push off me, but I held her tight and wrapped my arms fully around her so she couldn’t move away.

  “Mila, you made me look like a god.”

  She guffawed. “Narcissistic much?”

  This was no joke. The painting was definitely me, mostly in stark black and white, but with the added sweeps of rainbow colors in the hidden spaces, it was as if I could come alive. And in the painting, I was cut, strong, beautiful. She saw me as more than I was. My chest puffed up in pride.

  “You see me this way?” My tone sounded scratchy and as raw as I felt.

  I held onto her but walked around the stool. “When you look at me, this is what you see?” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder at her art.

  Her eyes wrinkled at the edges, and her mouth opened and closed. Then an expression of resolve came over her face, and she lifted her chin and looked me in the eye. “I don’t have to explain my art. Just like you don’t have to explain your songs.”

  I grinned. “No, you don’t. But you know what this means.”

  “No, what?”

  “Means you think I’m hot.”

  She scowled.

  “You think I’m sexy.” I grinned and leered at her tits.

  “Puh-leeze,” she muttered and looked off into the distance.

  “Admit it. You want me to get all up in your sweetness.”

  She tipped her head back and laughed. “Oh, I’ll admit I want to let you in. The problem is…will I be able to get you right back out?”

  Her words, those caramel-brown eyes, the stiffness to her chin spoke volumes about what she wanted.

  I ran a hand up her arm and curled it around her nape. “What, not the cuddling and spooning type?”

  Mila smirked and pressed both of her hands under my T-shirt to caress and fondle my abdomen. Her fingers were freezing cold, and I jerked when she laid them flat.

  “I’m more the hit it and quit it type,” she deadpanned.


  Now that surprised me. However, I figured if I wanted to get anywhere with the wildcat, I needed to play her game.

  “And what about me makes you think I have anything more than an interest in making you scream? All. Night. Long.”

  She harrumphed and tugged my neck until our foreheads pressed together. “Then why are you dressed?”

  “Because someone was neglecting me while I sat for hours being an artistic god.”

  Mila groaned. “Oh, poor little baby.” She shook her head. “Now you’ve ruined it. The mood is broken. Why are you such a pain in my ass?”

  I wrapped both of my hands around her neck and lifted her chin with my thumbs. “Oh, I plan on being a very big pain in your ass. And soon.” I ground my pelvis against her leg so she would be reminded of just how big of a pain I’d be. Her gasp was music to my ears. “Besides, it would be a far improvement over that sassy mouth, though I have the cure for that as well.” Another pelvis roll had her straightening, trying to get closer.

  “But first…” I caressed her nose with mine and kissed my way to her ear.

  She craned her neck, giving me more room. “Yeah?”

  I grinned against her buttery soft skin and whispered, “Food. I’m starving.”

  Her fingernails dug into my biceps as she pushed me off and away from her. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”

  I laughed hard and kept laughing as she grabbed her dress, pulled it over her head, and hid her insanely beautiful body from my gaze. Good move, because I was having a hard time choosing between fucking her and feeding her. The digital clock on the microwave across the room displayed a glaring green ten p.m. We both needed to eat. I wouldn’t last in the sack on an empty stomach, and after all this buildup, I wanted hours to tame my wildcat. Hours.

  Her entire body stiffened as I looped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, hotness. Let me feed you. Then I’ll fuck you. All night long. Promise.”

  She tried to shove away from me but I held firm. “You think you’re getting me in bed now? You’re delusional.”