Her and her idiot mouth again. A dark fire slowly lit in his eyes when she said that, which only added to the warmth definitely spreading out from somewhere well below her belly.
Mirth? He was enjoying playing with her. Wait a darned minute now. "That's not what I meant," she said, narrowing her eyes at him just a bit and taking another healthy step backward. Being this close to him was dangerous. Something crackled off of him. The fire she always sensed within him, coupled with the low, rolling desire that seemed to pulse out every time she was near him.
A wild, reckless energy between them that as always threatened to topple her sideways. That would be just the professional image she kept trying to impress upon him. Struggling to keep herself from doing anything else idiotic, Lacey stood her ground as she tried to gather her thoughts.
He raised his eyebrows. It was such a small gesture, but it transformed his already ridiculously stunning face from that of a gorgeous devil to that of a sinfully dangerous angel. Ah, what had she been thinking about?
Dazed, she just stared at him, struggling to hold onto her own thoughts. Something about wanting to toss her panties onto the ground and let him do whatever the hell he wanted to her, right?
Wait a minute. No, that's not what she wanted to think. Dammit. Just being around him completely fried her brain.
"So, when nobody else is around, I can definitely call you," and here, Sebastian leaned forward just a bit, close enough that Lacey's pulse stampeded in her throat, "Lacey?" He stroked her name as he said it. His voice curved around it, tasting it, savoring the sound of it in his mouth.
Holy shit. He'd just addressed her by her first name. Or maybe she'd fallen asleep at her desk and was now just dreaming?
Lacey knew her jaw was unhinging slightly, but there was nothing she could do about it. His dark, sun-kissed skin, the charcoal black hair, a small bit of which just started to trace one eyebrow, his unbelievably stern yet incredibly tempting lips. And his eyes. For the millionth time, she thought to herself that she'd never seen eyes quite like his. Hazel with a touch of some sort of flickering fire deep within them, right now they sported a dusky umber tone lit with flecks of jade green that drew her in and made her breath shorten.
Dammit. Every single time? Really? This was ridiculous. She was an adult. She was a professional. She had a Ph.D, for crying out loud. She refused to react this way just because of the way the man said her name.
He'd said her name.
Sebastian's gorgeous eyes examined her as her brain raced with her confused thoughts. "Hmmm," he murmured.
Holy shit. Were her—was she—yes. Her panties were getting damp. Like, really damp. Dear god.
Quick. She had to think of something. Earth to brain. "So," she frantically grasped for the first thing that might make the slightest bit of sense. "I, uh, there's something not quite right about this exhibit." Exhibit. Yes. She was a curator. A bright, rising star in the museum world. Right. Taking another step back and turning to gesture at the exhibit, she managed to say in her usual smooth voice, "I can't figure it out. Something's missing. Maybe you can help me?"
Lacey looked at the exhibit as she spoke, trying desperately to tamp down his intoxicating scent of bright bergamot and sage, and something indefinable that reminded her of a wild, primeval forest dusted with cedar. Then, dear god, Sebastian took a step in her direction, stopping literally only inches from her.
Swooning
was a word that had always struck her as something completely ridiculous that only the dumbest romance novels would ever actually use.
Right now, Lacey was definitely about to swoon as the full force of Sebastian's presence, his enthralling scent that was making her crazy with the desire to do something completely insane, like
kiss the man,
bombarded her with relentless intent.
“Ms. Whitman.” His voice was pure silk. Divine, soft, luxurious silk. “I am more than ready to help you in any way you please.”
Sebastian watched Lacey carefully as he spoke, assessing her reaction to his words. Her glorious indigo eyes widened, then darkened even more. He also caught her nostrils flaring just a bit, although she tried to hide her response to him. To his scent, which was capturing her more surely than any snare he could ever have set for the confounding, utterly absorbing woman.
Satisfaction rippled through him as well. She was attracted to him. No question about it. His dragon roared in approval, urging him to turn the few inches it would take to lightly grasp her chin in his hand, tip her beautiful face up to his, and ravage those sweet, soft lips that tantalized him every time he came near her. That had tantalized him since he'd first met her a year ago.
Sanity prevailed. One thing Sebastian never, ever did was play with his own employees. It was a shame, because he'd certainly met some beauties who worked for various aspects of the global Bernal corporate empire, but he'd always held firm. That was a potential route to legal disaster. Besides, he spent a fair amount of his time in Los Angeles, which teemed with a veritable explosion of buxom starlets and wannabes who were more than thrilled to be his companion for a night. He didn't need to dally with his staff when the most beautiful, willing girls in the world flocked to this sunny landscape.
Even so, he couldn't help it. Lacey's luscious pink lips tormented him. Every time he flirted with her, she would catch her lower lip in her teeth, nibbling a bit in her consternation.
It always made him harder than granite.
“All you have to do,” he added in a low, seductive voice, “is ask me.”
Lacey stared back at him. Sebastian's gaze involuntarily flew to her throat as she swallowed. The delicate muscles there, flexing with nervous response, caught his breath in his own throat. Being this close to her threatened to overwhelm him. It urged him to do to her all the things he had fantasized about since the moment he'd met her just under a year ago. To want to smooth his fingers along her skin, listening as her breath hitched and her glorious, utterly enticing female scent deepened as her arousal came to the surface.
Yet rationally, he knew this was merely a temporary game to distract him from his goal of repatriating the entirety of his gold hoard. Lacey was a beautiful bauble, and an extremely intelligent one at that, but nothing more. Even though his dragon kept insisting that Lacey was his, Sebastian knew better. He had been heartlessly betrayed by a woman once before. It didn't matter how damned enthralling this one was. She was just like the rest of them. Not to be actually trusted.
Ever.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Bernal." She flicked a glance at him as she said that, clearly indicating that they were back into formal name territory again despite the fact that he had luxuriated over the sound of her first name mere moments before. "I, ah, don't know what to say."
Sebastian gave a quick shrug before he abruptly stepped into the exhibit itself, eliciting a gasp from Lacey. Striding into its center, he turned his attention to a gorgeous, leather-bound journal that rested atop a classic table that would be found in the fancy ranchos of the elite class of the time, nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. A quill pen rested beside its open pages, seemingly ready to be taken up to record the day's events. Carefully, he opened it in the middle. Large and heavy enough for the pages to lay flat, the journal settled against the table as if made to be there. The pages, made of thick paper, were slightly ink-stained in places. But a colorful little painting on one of them to lent a richness to the scene that was, in fact, perfect.
“Here,” he said. “This is what's missing. An invitation to read about the treasures of my family's history.”
He looked back at her, raising an eyebrow as he made his own silent invitation.
~~~
Lacey felt all the air in the room seem to suck out sideways as Sebastian pinned her with his dark eyes. Standing there in the middle of the exhibit, his entrance into which had been both heedless yet exceedingly careful not to disturb anything, he looked like some sort of ancient king, surrounded by power and ready to blast fire or something.
Swallowing, she sternly told her brain to stop being fanciful, resume its usual function, and answer the man like the professional she was. “Oh, yes. That does actually work really well.” Her voice, which usually obeyed her, was steady. “It's a beautiful little painting. It adds just the right amount of intimacy to the scene.”
Oh, for crying out loud. Her cheeks flamed as he looked at her with that knowing smile turning his face into genuine sinful angel again.
“I knew you were a good hire, Ms. Whitman.” His voice practically purred. “Tell me, are you still happy to be working here?”
The rapid-fire change of conversational direction made Lacey blink. “Of course I am. It's a dream to work at the Bernal Center. Everyone in the field wants to be here. There's nowhere I'd rather be,” she added softly.
One of those moments, tight as a wire and crackling with restrained electricity, snapped between them again. The kind of moment that made Lacey forget her name, forget the world, and feel like she should just throw herself at the man. She felt her own breath shorten as she stared at him, wondering if she could literally drown in the dark chocolate of his eyes and the purely sensual promise they held.
No, not a smidgen of attraction between the two of them. Strictly a professional relationship.
Right.
“Excellent. I'm leaving for Madrid later today,” he added in another rapid change of direction, as casually as a normal human being would announce they were headed to the beach that afternoon. “Business will keep me there for several days, but I will be back in time for the opening on Saturday. I'll look forward to seeing you then, Ms. Whitman. I know you'll have everything under control.”
Stepping away from the journal and the table, he looked at Lacey. She felt herself swirling into the depths of his fascinating eyes as the tingling bits of her body told her in no uncertain terms that she wasn't really in control at all. Oh, wait. No, he meant the exhibit. She would be in control of the exhibit. The one she was standing in right now. Of course.
“Absolutely, Mr. Bernal.” Her voice didn't even shake as she answered him. That had always been one of her face-saving little quirks in life—her voice never betrayed her nerves, not even when she'd been defending her bold, unprecedented dissertation in grad school. The one that her advisors had thought was either brilliant or a disgrace.
The one that had gotten her noticed by Sebastian Bernal and led her to this very moment. This moment of genuinely wet heat between her legs as one of the richest men in the world, one of the biggest playboys, and definitely the most mysteriously intriguing man she'd ever met, stared at her with eyes filled with a dark promise of sensuous fulfillment that teased her dreams every night.
The sort of fulfillment that would only get her heart broken and make her lose her beloved job in the best case scenario.
Tipping her chin up and forcing herself to look as accomplished and in control as she could at 2a.m. after a long, exhausting day, she said, “Have a good trip. I'll see you Saturday night.”
The faintest etching of a grin shadowed his lips. “You will indeed.” He turned and began to stride back down the hallway, then paused and swung back to her. “Oh, and Ms. Whitman?”
“Yes?” Her heart thumped like the dumb thing it was as his broad shoulders filled her vision again.
“Wear something to match your curves. I'd very much enjoy seeing them on display as well.”
Unable to stop herself because it was late and she was both tired and caught off-guard, Lacey gaped at him.
“You don't show them off nearly as much as you should.” His gaze, still that of the world-renowned Casanova he was, took a leisurely track of her body from head to toe and back again. “Good night, Ms. Whitman.”
With that, he left for real, taking all the air in the room with him and leaving Lacey almost gasping from the innuendo.
Head ping-ponging, Lacey gave up on staying any later. Time to go home. To her lonely bed—and, she knew without a doubt, some seriously sexy thoughts about the powerful, and powerfully hot, man who'd totally soaked her panties again, without even touching her.
Sebastian crossed his arms as he waited for Ash's response. His expectations were not disappointed.
"Damn, Sebastian." Ash gave a low whistle as he shook his head in admiration. "You've been very busy these last several years, haven't you?"
Satisfied, Sebastian nodded as he reverently reached out to stroke the gold piece closest to them. A hefty gold cross bedecked with sparkling, colorful gems, it had been a gift from Queen Isabella of Spain to the Bernal family back in the 17th century. Sebastian's great-grandfather many times removed was one of those exploring the New World for the glory of Spain. Of course, neither his queen or anyone else knew that as a dragon shifter, he had quite an advantage over most of the other explorers of the time. In her gratitude for all that Sebastian's many times removed ancestor had done for the crown, the queen had bestowed many riches upon the Bernal family during her reign.
Riches that had been stolen amidst ugly bloodshed in the very early 1900s during what was the darkest period of the Bernal family lineage. Yet Sebastian had managed to repatriate many of the stolen artifacts since, including the sizable cross that he'd manage to buy back from Malcolm Kerberos in San Francisco the other night. It pained him to use part of his own fortune to pay for his own family's belongings, but he'd made a vow to his parents before their untimely deaths that he would do everything in his power to get back the precious items that were not merely dazzling pieces of gold so desired by most dragons.
These objects were imbued with a power far deeper than that. The loss of which power had led to his parents' subsequent weakening and slow, painful deaths when Sebastian was barely out of childhood.