Born in Fire (Born In Trilogy #1)

She slapped his hand away. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn about your schedules and timetables. You signed on an artist, Sweeney, not a bleeding clerk.”

“And what artistic endeavor prevented you from following a simple direction?”

She bared her teeth, considered punching him, then simply pointed. “That.”

He glanced over, froze. Only the blindness of temper could have prevented him from seeing it, being struck dumb by it on entering the building.

The sculpture stood on the far side of the room, fully three feet high, all bleeding colors and twisting, sinuous shapes. A tangle of limbs, surely, he thought, unashamedly sexual, beautifully human. He crossed to it to study it from a different angle.

He could almost, almost make out faces. They seemed to melt into imagination, leaving only the sensation of absolute fulfillment. It was impossible to see where one form began and the other left off, so completely, so perfectly were they merged.

It was, he thought, a celebration of the human spirit and the sexuality of the beast.

“What do you call it?”

“Surrender.” She smiled. “It seems you inspired me, Rogan.” Whipped by fresh energy, she pushed off the bench. She was light-headed, giddy, and felt glorious. “It took forever to get the colors right. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve remelted and discarded. But I could see it, perfectly, and it had to be exact.” She laughed and picked up her hammer to drive another nail. “I don’t know when I’ve slept last. Two days, three.” She laughed again, dragging her hands through her tousled hair. “I’m not tired. I feel incredible. Full of desperate energy. I can’t seem to stop.”

“It’s magnificent, Maggie.”

“It’s the best work I’ve ever done.” She turned to study it again, tapping the hammer against her palm. “Probably the best I’ll ever do.”

“I’ll arrange for a crate.” He tossed her a look over his shoulder. She was pale as wax, he noted, with the fatigue her bustling brain had yet to transmit to her body. “And handle the shipping personally.”

“I was going to build one. It wouldn’t take long.”

“You can’t be trusted.”

“Of course I can.” Her mood was so festive, she didn’t even take offense. “And it’d be quicker for me to build one than for you to have one built. I already have the dimensions.”

“How long?”

“An hour.”

He nodded. “I’ll use your phone and arrange for a truck. Your phone does work, I assume.”

“Sarcasm”—chuckling, she crossed to him—“becomes you. So does that impeccably proper tie.”

Before either of them had a chance to think, she grabbed his tie and hauled him toward her. Her warm mouth fixed on his, stunning him into immobility. Her free hand slid into his hair, gripped as her body pressed close. The kiss sizzled, sparked, smoldered. Then as quickly as she had initiated it, she broke away.

“Just a whim,” she said, and smiled up at him. Her heart might have been jolting like a rabbit in her chest, but she would think about that later. “Blame it on sleep deprivation and excess energy. Now—”

He snagged her arm before she could turn away. She wouldn’t get away so easily, he thought. Wouldn’t paralyze him one moment and shrug it off the next.

“I have a whim of my own,” he murmured. As he slid a hand around to cup the back of her neck, he watched her eyes register wary surprise. She didn’t resist. He thought he saw a hint of amusement on her face before he lowered his mouth to hers.

The amusement faded quickly. This kiss was soft, sweet, sumptuous. As unexpected as rose petals in the blaze of a furnace, it cooled and soothed and aroused all at once. She thought she heard a sound, something between a whimper and a sigh. The fact that it had slipped from her own burning throat amazed her.

But she didn’t draw away, not even when the sound came again, quiet and helpless and beguiled. No, she didn’t pull away. His mouth was too clever, too gently persuasive. She opened herself to it and absorbed.

She seemed to melt against him, degree by slow degree. That first blast of heat had mellowed, ripened into a low, long burn. He forgot that he’d been angry, or that he’d been challenged, and knew only that he was alive.

She tasted dark, dangerous, and his mouth was full of her. His mind veered toward taking, toward conquering, toward ravishing. The civilized man in him, the one who had been raised to follow a strict code of ethics, stepped back, appalled.

Her head reeled. She placed a hand down on the workbench for balance as her legs buckled. One long breath followed by another helped clear her vision. And she saw him staring at her, a mixture of hunger and shock in his eyes.

“Well,” she managed, “that’s certainly something to think about.”

It was foolish to apologize for his thoughts, Rogan told himself. Ridiculous to blame himself for the fact that his imagination had drawn erotic and vivid pictures of throwing her to the floor and tearing away flannel and denim. He hadn’t acted on it. He’d only kissed her.

But he thought it was possible, even preferable, to blame her.

“We have a business relationship,” he began tersely. “It would be unwise and possibly destructive to let anything interfere with that at this point.”

She cocked her head, rocked back on her heels. “And sleeping together would confuse things?”

Curse her for making him sound like a fool. Curse her twice for leaving him shaken and horribly, horribly needy. “At this point I think we should concentrate on launching your show.”

“Hmmm.” She turned away on the pretext of tidying the workbench. In truth she needed a moment to settle herself. She wasn’t promiscuous by any means, and certainly didn’t tumble into bed with every man who attracted her. But she liked to think of herself as independent enough, liberated enough and smart enough to choose her lovers with care.

She had, she realized, chosen Rogan Sweeney.

“Why did you kiss me?”

“You annoyed me.”

Her wide, generous mouth curved. “Since I seem to be doing that on a regular basis, we’ll be spending a lot of time with our lips locked.”

“It’s a matter of control.” He knew he sounded stiff and prim, and hated her for it.

“I’m sure you have just buckets of it. I don’t.” She tossed her head, folded her arms over her chest. “If I decide I want you, what are you going to do about it? Fight me off?”