Free Sculpting a Demon by Lisa Fox Page A

his were so large. So large and strong, and yet they touched her so gently, with so much care. “Handling a chisel for hours on end tends to raise some calluses.”
    “Ah,” he said. “You mean those instruments of torture you keep lined up over there.” He nodded his chin toward her workstation.
    “Torture?” she asked. “Those aren’t for torture. They’re sculpting tools.”
    “Of course they are.”
    “You’re such a freak,” she said, shaking her head.
    “Why do you do it?” he asked.
    “Do what? Torture people?”
    He laughed. “Sculpt.”
    “I love it,” she said, a small smile on her lips. “It makes me…whole.” Her smile turned sad, distant. “My mother used to tell me I’d never be pretty so I should work hard at being smart.” She laughed ruefully and then swallowed hard. “I wasn’t that either, but at least I found art. Without it, I’d be nothing.”
    He turned her roughly in his arms until she was facing him. “Never say that again.”
    “What?” she asked, shocked by his vehemence.
    “That you are less than anything. You are beautiful. You are intelligent. I will not hear you say otherwise.”
    She started to say that it was just the truth, but the sheer anger on his face, the way he gripped her, made her hesitate. “Okay,” she said slowly, in an effort to appease him. “Fine.”
    He regarded her for an extended moment. “No,” he said. “Not good enough. You agree, but you do not believe.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “You find me attractive, yes?”
    “Attractive” didn’t even come close, but she nodded anyway.
    “You think that I am intelligent?”
    Again, she nodded.
    “Then why would you think that I would not recognize those same qualities in another?”
    She wanted to say it was because he had no choice, that the magic or whatever it was that had brought him to her probably had some hand in his opinion, but in her heart of hearts she knew it wasn’t true. He believed what he said because he believed what he said. To say otherwise would be an insult. “Okay,” she said with more conviction this time. “I get it.”
    “No, you don’t. Not really. But you will,” he said.
    He met her eyes and she was struck again by the burning intensity within their depths. Sure, on the surface he was all smiles and mischief and raging libido, but underneath, where it mattered, he was pure power, an unfathomable well of determination and strength. She reached out and touched his face with her fingertips. He made her feel…so much. So much good, so much right, so much wonderful. Ways she’d never felt before. She touched her forehead to his and closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.
    He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her lips. “It is my pleasure,” he said. “ You are my pleasure.” He deepened the kiss, his tongue caressing hers.
    When her cell phone rang again, Lila broke the kiss and ground her teeth. “Son of a bitch,” she said, reaching across the coffee table. She flipped the phone open. “Hello?” she answered sharply.
    “Lila,” her agent’s voice said over the phone. “Do you have a minute?”
    “Hi, Edwin,” she said, scrubbing her hand through her hair to try to clear her head. “What’s up?”
    “I looked over the contract and there a few things I’d like to point out before you sign.”
    Damn, it would be something important. “Sure, okay, hold on a minute.” She placed her hand over the phone and turned to Arien. “I’m sorry, I have to take this.” She rose to her feet and crossed the loft to her desk. “All right,” she said. “Give me a second while I dig it out…”
     
    Arien watched her hips sway as she walked away, the way her hands flitted over the papers as she spoke into the phone. He acutely felt the loss of her in his arms and he wanted her back immediately. It was stunning, and slightly unsettling, how much in fact he wanted her. How much he needed her. Making her come brought him joy