Free Larger than Life by Kay Hooper

briskly and critically arranging his subjects as if they were a still life of fruit or flowers on a table. He placed a meek Travis on his side and raised on one elbow with his other arm lying over an upraised knee, a wide tree trunk at his back. Saber was commanded to sit demurelyat his waist and lean back, turning slightly so that her back rested against Travis’s raised thigh and her left forearm lay across his ribs.
    The position, both silently realized, was one that lovers might have assumed. They were left gazing at one another in an amused silence that insidiously became something else.
    Mark, happily unaware of having disturbed his subjects, settled himself some little distance away with his sketchpad on his knees. “I’ve wanted you two for days,” he murmured, turning to a blank sheet and setting to work. “The perfect couple. No, don’t frown at me,” he admonished Saber as she turned her head to stare at him. “It’s lovely, but it isn’t you. Look at Travis. Yes. Pensive. And he looks at you as he always does. Waiting. Yearning.”
    Saber gazed into green eyes that flickered briefly in surprise, then steadied to a faintly questioning look. She felt breathless beneath that look, and confused. Mark’s comments unsettled her; was the artist simply creating a mood, or was he, as seemed obvious from his words, merely looking for expressionshe’d seen on them both these past days? And if he had seen Travis gaze at her with yearning—why hadn’t she seen that?
    “Oh, damn—I’ve broken the point on the number three. I’ll have to go and get another. Don’t move,” Mark ordered his subjects, then tenderly put aside his pad and hurried off toward the main house.
    Saber took the opportunity to look anywhere but into those green eyes.
    “It looks like our amiable artist has let the cat out of the bag,” Travis said quietly.
    “Really?” She forced a lightness into her voice.
    “He caught me wearing my heart on my sleeve. I should have remembered how perceptive any good artist is.”
    She felt the warmth of his thigh through his jeans and her thin cotton blouse, and her fingers were suddenly far too aware of the lean ribs beneath his knit shirt. Green eyes drew her gaze, caught and held her captive. “He … must have been mistaken,” she finally managed to say.
    “No. He wasn’t mistaken.”
    Saber would have drawn away at that, but the arm behind her abruptly encircled her shoulders and pulled her so close she could feel his warm breath on her face.
    “You’ve treated me like a friend these past few days, Saber, and I’m glad you trust me enough for that,” he said huskily. “Can you trust me enough to believe that I love you?”
    Stunned, Saber couldn’t think. And there was no resistance in her when his hand slipped to the nape of her neck and drew her head toward him until his lips found hers. Hungry, demanding, he kissed her as though afraid he would never get another chance, and Saber could no more stand against that than she could willingly stop breathing.
    She was not a reckless or naive woman, but she forgot everything in that moment. It didn’t seem to matter that they’d known each other for such a short time, or that he actually knew very little about her. The only thing that mattered was the warmth of his embrace, the compelling need of his kiss. Her body came to life in a way she’d never known before, vibrantly alive and aching with desire.Her hand lifted to touch his cheek, and Saber renounced the world.
    But the world wouldn’t go away.
    “You moved,” Mark said indignantly. “Yes, that’s very pretty, but not what I had in mind!”

FIVE
    S ABER WAS FORCED to call on all her reserves of self-control to remain placid while Mark concluded their “sitting.” Obeying the artist, she gazed into Travis’s eyes, forcing her expression into the mold Mark requested. Pensive, he insisted.
    Pensive?
She thought about that, because it was slightly less unsettling than