Free Captivated (Stranded) by Mia West

he had managed to melt pearls. Without thinking, she licked one of the pools off him, drawing a startled chuckle from his chest. One by one, she cleaned the liquid pearls from his skin, rolling each over her tongue before swallowing it. When she finished, she found him watching her, his expression as open as she’d ever seen it.
    She half-expected an emotional declaration. He certainly had the look of a man about to spill his feelings, and in that moment, she was sure she would meet him wherever his heart stood.
    But what he said was, “I need to show you something.”
     

Chapter 9
     
    Stopping only to track down her discarded panties and pull on his boxers, Evan led Laine to the stairs.
    “Watch your step,” he said over his shoulder and stepped down first, ready to catch her if she stumbled. He would always catch her, he told himself, and he knew it sounded goofy and overdramatic, but if that fucker back home was idiot enough to push her away, Evan wasn’t about to squander the chance to give her everything she deserved. But he had to come clean first.
    All the way clean.
    Ducking through the kitchen window, he helped her into the dark apartment, smiling at the damp underwear and shirt she hadn’t bothered to put back on, or more accurately, at the parts of her now accessible to his hands. As soon as she stood on two feet inside, he stepped close and kissed her. She kissed him back, enthusiastically, and he slid his hands down her back to her butt, kneading her gently.
    She chuckled and grabbed his. “I’ve spent two months trying to get peeks of your ass.”
    He pulled away, surprised.
    She gave him a squeeze. “It’s your own fault; I only ever saw you from behind. Sometimes, in the afternoons, I’d have to duck into the bathroom.” She nipped his ear and whispered, “You were there with me.”
    Jesus. Little did she know. “I saw you, too,” he admitted.
    Her smile looked shy. “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.”
    “See anything you like?”
    He palmed her ass. “This.”
    “So I gathered.”
    He lifted her hair from her shoulders and held it in one hand. With the other, he stroked the nape of her neck. “This.”
    She shivered. “Nice.”
    He tugged down a lock of hair from her temple—“This”—and tucked it behind her ear.
    “Oh.”
    “And this.” He kissed the corner of her jaw. “I actually tried sketching you. Is that okay?”
    She frowned a little. She looked from him to the sketches on the walls. “I guess so. It was art, right?”
    Sort of. “The thing was, it never looked right. So I tried something different.” He sighed. “Come on, before I lose my nerve.”
    She gave him a bemused look. He took her hand and pulled her to the closet door. Inside, he flipped on the light switch, causing them both to groan. Candlelight probably would’ve been better, he thought, his eyes smarting. Way more romantic.
    But is this romance? Or confession?
    Behind him, Laine pulled her hand away from her eyes, and stepped into the closet. “So this is the secret space.” She scanned the crude pallet he’d made of sheets and blankets and extra clothes. Her attention caught on the sketch pad next to his makeshift pillow. “Is it in there?”
    “No.” He tipped his head toward the long interior wall.
    Her gaze traveled up the shelves to the bits of paper glued to the wall above. She studied it with polite interest, head tilted, eyes skipping over the collage’s surface, and one glance back at him that said, What am I looking at? The same kind of expression he’d worn at more than one modern art museum.
    He slipped a hand to her bare waist and moved her to his usual vantage point. “Now let your eyes go blurry,” he said.
    Her lashes fluttered, and she gasped with delight, but a general pleased sound, as if she’d thought of the right word for a puzzle. She saw something but still didn’t see herself.
    He waited, intent on her face as she squinted at the piece.
    Then it happened. Her eyes widened in