Free The Taming of the Thief by Heather Long Page B

while.”
            “Oh?”
Pietr's research hadn't turned up that golden nugget. He looked over the
apartment, checking each hanging for a sign that might label it hers.
            “I
said I fancied myself a painter, but I was terrible.” Her gaze danced with
quiet laughter. “It took me about two years of art study and a really nice
professor explaining that a passion for art didn't always equate a talent for
it before I realized that I was chasing smoke.”
            Pietr's heart squeezed. Beneath the glib
words, a wistful note of regret echoed. “But you didn't give up your passion
for art?”
            “Nope. I loved it too much, so I earned a degree in Fine
Arts and then a Master's in the study of antiquities and now I'm working on my
Ph.D.” She looked down into a box that contained tubes of paint, brushes and a
pair of rolled canvases. He gave into the impulse and reached over to catch her
face in his hands, kissing her softly.
            “I
think that's wonderful.” He found that he genuinely meant it and had to release
her face before he took more than that hard, swift kiss.
            “That
I am a terrible painter?” A smile tugged her lips wide and split his heart
open.
            “No.
That you didn't give up on your passion.” His gaze skated over her slender body
with its voluptuous curves and back up to her warm eyes, which turned liquid
with heat. “Never, ever give up on passion.”
           

Chapter Eight
           
            S ophie had always enjoyed an
uncluttered lifestyle, placing less value on items and more on the stories they
told. Yet she'd never appreciated this quirk of her own nature more than when
she surveyed her righted apartment. The knowledge that others had been in her
space, their hands on her few precious knickknacks and photographs, not to
mention their haphazard destruction of her research, research she would to have
to sort through and re-priortize wasn't as easily shaken.
            Or
maybe it was the presence of the man stacking her newly repacked boxes in the
closet that she couldn't shake. Every action spoke of a reckless type of
kindness, a perversity of joy and a gift for laughter. He definitely possessed
a sixth sense where her moods were concerned.
            Then
there were the kisses.
            Oh
the kisses.
            Sophie sighed. Her lips tingled at the memory
of his mouth shaping hers, plundering and giving in the same breath. His kisses
were an addiction. Rubbing two fingers against her lower lip she turned in a
slow rotation, everything was back where it belonged.
            “Better?” He came to stand behind her, his low
voice wrapping around her like an embrace. His ability to move so silently
unnerved her, but even that she seemed to grow accustomed to.
            “I
don't know.” How he wrung these utterly truthful confessions from her, she
wasn't sure. It would be more polite to just tell him yes, it was fine.
Instead, she told him the truth. She didn't know if it was fine. She wasn't
sure about anything at the moment.
            “You
should pack a small case and I can have Jacques come back for anything else you
need.”
            “What?” She spun to look up at him.
            “You're not staying here, at least not until
the authorities have caught the men after you.” Gone was the jovial, teasing
glint. Replaced by something harder, more indefinable, but utterly implacable.
            “I
can hardly go stay with my parents, that would mean
explaining all this.” Sophie threw her hands up. “And I don't even know what
this is.”
            “You'll stay with me.” The words uncurled a
fist of heat in her belly that spread like wildfire along her nerve endings.
Her body rose eagerly to the invitation. The heat stung her cheeks and Sophie
swallowed back the acceptance that leapt to her tongue.
            “I
can't possibly.”