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One

“Why does this sculpture make me think of hot, amazing, fantastic sex?”

Sage Ballantyne looked at the woman she hoped would become her sister-in-law, but didn’t reply to her outrageous statement. Tyce Latimore’s work, whether it was an oil painting or a wood-and-steel sculpture, always elicited a strong reaction. He was one of the best artists of his generation. Of many generations.

Thank God he was also the only artist of his generation who refused to attend his opening nights. If there had been even the slightest chance he might appear, then Sage would’ve stayed away.

Sage flicked her eyes over the abstract six-foot-high sculpture. It was unusual and very unlike Tyce’s normally fluid lines.

“There isn’t a curve in sight but it screams passion and lust,” Piper said.

Sage’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m not seeing what you are.”

Piper pulled Sage to stand next to her.

“Try this perspective,” Piper suggested, her cheeks tinged with pink.

Sage laughed at Piper’s embarrassment and turned back to look at the sculpture. Actually, from this angle it did look like two people bent over a desk, and Piper was right; when you made that connection you saw the passion in the piece. This sculpture would be a talking point in his reviews. The art critics would wax eloquent about Tyce’s take on human sexuality.

Sage knew how he felt about sex; he liked it. Often and any way he could get it.

“But why the frog?” Piper asked before moving on to another display.

Every muscle in Sage’s body stiffened. Oh, no, he hadn’t. No way, no how. Not even Tyce Latimore would have the balls to...

She looked at the sculpture again and yep, there on the “desk” was a tiny, beautifully made steel frog, its surface treated so that it took on a greenish hue. In an instant Sage flashed back to three years before.

They’d arrived separately to a party, not wanting to tip off the world about their relationship—the heiress and the hot artist, professionally and personally, would be big news—and they’d spent the evening pretending not to know each other. The tension had been hot and sexy and, by the time Tyce dropped a quick suggestion in her ear that they meet in the library, she was a vibrating, hot, sticky mess of take-me-now. Within twenty seconds of slipping into the room, the door was locked, Tyce had her dress up her hips and had stripped her of her soaking thong. He’d unzipped, leaned her over the desk and he’d taken her, hard and fast, from behind.

The jade frog on her host’s desk had watched them, thoroughly unamused.

Sage hauled in a breath as her heart tried to claw its way out of her chest. How dare he? What they’d done together was not for public dissemination.

Just another reason she’d been right to walk away from him three years ago.

“That sculpture was difficult.” Tyce’s unmistakable deep and velvety voice came from behind her. “I was constantly distracted by the memories of that night. And others.”

His words were low enough for only her to hear. She didn’t turn, but she felt the heat pouring off his body and she inhaled his soapy, sexy all-man smell. Lust skittered over her. As usual, Sage felt like she’d been plugged into the nearest electrical outlet. Her skin buzzed, her heart stumbled and her mind felt off-kilter.

Three years and he still had the ability to rocket her from composed to crazy. Three years and her first instinct was to beg him to take her to bed. Three years and instead of being angry with him for depicting their encounter in the library in an, admittedly, very abstract way, she wanted to kiss him.

Or slap him...

Then, like now, he pulled her in and tempted her into edging closer. Generally, Sage found it easy to step away from men she found too attractive or too interesting. They weren’t worth the hurt that was the inevitable outcome of becoming entangled in someone’s life.

Determined to protect herself, Sage seldom allowed relationships, especially those with men, to deepen past a week or two. With Tyce, it had taken her six weeks to convince herself to leave. He was supremely dangerous.

Tempting, addictive... All that and more.

So, obviously, kissing him was out of the question.

Sage spun around on her ice pick heels and her hand connected with his cheek. Instantly mortified and regretful, she watched that too-handsome face harden, his obsidian eyes turn, if that was at all possible, darker. He opened his mouth to say something but instead of speaking his hands gripped her hips and he yanked her into his hard, muscled chest. His temper-tinged mouth covered hers, his hot tongue slipping between her lips, and Sage was lost, swept away to a place only Tyce could take her. Sage dug her nails into his arms, feeling his bulging muscles through the thin fabric of his black dress shirt and, wanting more, her hands skated over his broad chest, danced across those washboard abs she’d loved to tickle and taste.

Tyce lifted his mouth off hers. “Come with me.”

Sage looked around for Piper, caught her eye and Piper waved her away, silently giving her permission to leave without her. She shouldn’t; this really wasn’t a good idea. But instead of saying no, instead of dismissing him or walking away—creating distance between herself and people was, after all, what she did best—she placed her hand in his and allowed him to lead her out of the gallery.

* * *

Tyce rolled out of his king-size bed in his borrowed apartment and headed to the luxurious en suite bathroom. Three years later and sex with Sage was still fantastic. He never had better with anyone else, he thought as he tossed the condom away. Sex had never been an issue; everything else was... Had been.

Tyce leaned forward and placed his fingers on his right cheekbone, checking for but not expecting to see finger marks from the force of Sage’s hand connecting with his face ten hours before. Tyce blew out a long breath. Only they could rocket from a slap to a kiss to having wild sex all within the space of an hour. He and Sage Ballantyne were, had always been, a combustible combination. There was a reason why they’d avoided each other for three years; put them in a room together and some sort of firestorm always occurred.

Tyce gripped the edge of the vanity. Judging by her deer-in-the-headlights look when she turned around, she hadn’t expected to see him at his own exhibition and he couldn’t blame her. His presence last night had been an aberration. He hated discussing his work, having people fawn over him and his art. To Tyce, it was a simple equation. If you liked what he did, buy it. If not, he didn’t care. There was no need to endlessly discuss his influences and inspiration for every piece. Luckily for him, art lovers seemed to connect with what he produced. His taciturn attitude to publicity and art critics and his reclusive nature added, so his agent, Tom, said, to his mystique.

He’d only gone to the exhibition because Tom insisted he meet the wealthy CEO who wanted a sculpture for the lobby of her new corporate headquarters. It was a commission that would raise the levels of his depleted coffers and it wasn’t an offer he could treat lightly.

All thoughts of the commission, his agent and staying at the exhibition evaporated when he laid eyes on Sage for the first time in three years. A second after noticing her, Tyce felt his head buzzing, his skin shrinking and his world tilting. Damn; she was still as enticing and compelling and make-him-crazy as she’d been before. The world faded and he’d spun away from the CEO—who happened to be very female, very into him and very willing to give him a commission—and pushed his way through the crowds to reach her.

It was easy to call her hair black but it wasn’t, not really. It was the deepest, darkest brown he’d ever seen. Her eyes were the blue of Moroccan tiles and her body a product of a lifetime spent in ballet class. Sage, damn her, was effortlessly graceful and knee-knocking sexy. She was the only woman who’d ever caused his heartbeat to spike, his lungs to contract and his brain to chant...mine, mine, mine. He’d been thinking of cotton sheets and a massive bed as he’d approached her and it seemed natural to open their conversation with a sexy quip. She, obviously, hadn’t and responded with that furious slap. But, because he’d seen the desire in her eyes and heard her low, excited gasp as his lips met hers, he ignored his stinging cheek and...yeah, hell then broke loose. An hour later they were both naked and panting and pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the night. Tyce ran his hands over his face. Last night they’d let their bodies do their talking but the sun was up and reality was knocking on the door.

Literally. Tyce opened the door to Sage’s soft rap and looked into her vivid eyes. Ballantyne eyes. She was gorgeous, Tyce thought, feeling the action down below. They’d just had rock-my-world sex for most of the night and he wanted more.

Tyce tensed, waiting for her to ask him when they’d see each other again, whether he’d call her later. He couldn’t do either; there were far too many secrets between them, a history that didn’t make that feasible.

“I should give you hell about that sculpture,” she said, “but I don’t have the energy for anything more than coffee. Too bad there isn’t any. I checked. Do you actually live here?”

She posed the question as a joke but it cut too close to the bone for comfort. How would she react if he told her that he only occasionally used this Chelsea apartment belonging to his biggest client? It was easier to meet Sage in Manhattan than to explain to her, and everybody, that he, despite his sculptures and paintings selling for up to five million each, had just enough cash to keep producing his massive abstracts, to buy steel for his sculptures and to pay the mortgage and amenities on his warehouse in Brooklyn where he worked. And actually lived.

Sage waited for him to respond but when he didn’t, she shrugged. “So, since you don’t have the juice of life, I’m going to take off.”

He wanted to protest but knew it was for the best so Tyce just nodded. After all, nothing had changed.

Sage shimmied those slim legs into a pair of designer jeans and hooked the tabs of a lilac bra together. Tyce, comfortable in his nudity, pushed his shoulder into the doorframe and watched the tension seep into her spine, into those long, toned limbs. He knew what she was thinking: How could they be so perfectly in sync between the sheets and unable to talk to each other outside the bedroom?

They’d done this before. They’d been amazing in bed but out of the bedroom they’d been useless. Used to being on his own, he’d struggled with giving equal attention to his art and to her. Art, it had to be said, always won the battle. At that time, as always, he’d needed to sell as many of his pieces as he could. But, on a more fundamental level, he knew that he had to keep his emotional distance. Relationships, with Sage or anyone else, demanded more than he had to give. His lovers objected to his need to isolate himself, to spend hours and days in his studio only coming out for food, a shower and, yeah, sex. They wanted attention, affection and he, mostly, wanted to be left alone, content to communicate through his vivid, dark oil paintings and his steel-and-wood sculptures. He wasn’t good at personal connections. He’d expended all the emotional energy he’d been given caring for a depressed mother and raising his baby sister and he never again wanted to feel like he was standing on a rickety raft in a tempestuous sea. He’d held Sage at an emotional distance, unable to let her go but knowing that she needed and deserved more from him. Her adoptive father’s death had been their personal tipping point. Since he couldn’t see himself in a relationship, didn’t want to be tied down, he’d used Connor Ballantyne’s passing to put some space between them, and Sage, surprisingly, had let that happen by not trying to reconnect.

Stepping up and helping her deal with Connor’s death would’ve flipped their relationship from casual to serious, from skimming the surface to ducking beneath the waves and he’d been too damn scared of drowning to take that risk.

Tyce rubbed his hands over his face. The Ballantyne situation was complicated—he and his sister, Lachlyn, were the only people who knew that Lachlyn was Connor Ballantyne’s illegitimate daughter—and his attraction to Sage was not, had never been, helpful. His art, the paintings and the intricate sculptures, were the one thing in his life that made complete sense. He knew exactly what he was doing with his art.

Reaching back, Tyce snagged a towel from the rail and wrapped it around his hips, keeping his eyes on Sage as she pushed her feet into spiky heels. She picked up her leather bag and pulled it over her shoulder.

She pointed a finger at him. “So, I’m going to go.”

Tyce saw the shimmer in her eyes that suggested tears and his heart constricted.

Hurting Sage was never what he intended to do, not now and not three years ago.

“Sage, I—” Tyce didn’t complete the sentence, not sure what he was about to say. Don’t go? Thanks for a great night? Let’s try again?

Because the second thought was trite and the last impossible, he just stepped forward and when he was close enough, dropped a kiss on her temple. “Take care,” he murmured.

Sage pushed the sharp tip of her fingernail into his stomach. “If I see anything in your art that references this night, I will personally disembowel you.”

Not bothering to look at him again, she glided from the room, a perfect package of class and sass, her back ramrod straight.

Turning back into the bathroom, Tyce lifted his head and looked at his reflection in the mirror, unimpressed with the man looking back at him. His sister, Lachlyn, deserved to own something of the company her father, Connor, created, and in chasing down and buying Ballantyne International shares he thought he was doing the right thing, the honorable thing, but sleeping with Sage, then and now, had never been part of the plan. Originally he’d just wanted to get to know her to find out as much as he could about the iconic Manhattan family because he’d intended to use that knowledge to his, or Lachlyn’s, advantage.

He hadn’t banked on their chemistry, on the desire that flared between them. He’d thought that she would be easy to walk away from once they got each other out of their systems, but that had proved to be more difficult than he thought. Last night had blown those preconceptions out of the window. For as long as he lived he’d crave Sage Ballantyne...

As fast as a snakebite, Tyce’s fist slammed into the mirror above his head and glass flew from the frame and dropped into the basin, onto the floor. Tyce looked at his ultra-distorted reflection in the thin shards that remained in the frame and nodded, satisfied.

That looked far more like the person he knew himself to be.