Read Online Tempting the Artist by Sharon C. Cooper - Free Book Online

here, at my place. Maybe we can
start here and then if you want, we can leave and go somewhere
else.” When Luke didn’t respond, she continued. “Luke, nothing will
happen, that you don’t want to happen.”
    Yeah, that’s what he was
afraid of. He wanted it to happen, and he was sure it would happen whether they intended
on it happening or
not.
    “ How about we go out to eat
or maybe have a drink and then see what happens afterward.” Being
out in public would give them a chance to get reacquainted and
force him to keep his hands and lips off of her.
    An hour later, Luke sat
across from Christina trying not to stare at her. Not only did she
look incredibly sexy, she hadn’t given him
a hard time about changing his mind and suddenly wanting to
talk. Instead, she readily agreed to meet
him and was sitting across from him as if he hadn’t slighted her
days ago.
    His gaze raked over her while she
talked on her cell phone, giving her sister, Peyton, information
regarding a job. Dressier than usual, tonight she wore a low-cut,
white sleeveless blouse showing off well-toned arms and flat abs.
His shaft had leaped to attention when she had walked into the bar
looking sexier than he had ever seen her. She was already the total
package but swathed in a seductive outfit, she was like a Christmas
present begging to be unwrapped. The fitted black skirt that molded
over her shapely hips and stopped just above her knees, with a wide
black belt that emphasized her narrow waist, had him glancing away
to keep from salivating.
    Luke wondered if what he felt the
other night upon seeing Christina had been a fluke. The way his
mouth had gone dry and how his body had come alive when his hand
had made contact with the small of her back. The electric charge
that shot up his arm that night was almost his undoing. And then
there was the quiver that had flitted around in his gut, that
hadn’t let up until she was safely behind her closed door. She had
stirred a longing within him that he struggled to contain and
tonight was no different.
    He lifted the glass of Scotch to his
lips hoping the smoothness of the liquid would tap down his growing
need to hold her, to see if her body still responded to his touch.
Who knew one woman could shake him up like this? Never one for
dating exclusively, Christina had been his first real relationship.
Luke worked so much that he hadn’t realized his life was missing
anything – not until Christina had come along and shook up his
world. He quickly remembered why he didn’t do relationships. When
they parted ways, it was as if he had lost a part of himself. He
never wanted to experience that type of pain again. He had already
lost his parents, the people who had meant the world to him. No way
would he allow his heart to be ripped out of his chest again. Yet …
here he was thinking about giving this relationship crap another
shot.
    “ Sorry about that.”
Christina stuffed her cell phone back inside her large Coach bag.
“PJ had been in meetings all afternoon and I needed to update her
on certain aspects of the job I’ve been on.”
    “ No problem. I’m glad you
were able to meet me.” Their gazes collided, and the air was
knocked out of him. Tonight she reminded him of the first time he
had met her at Zack’s birthday party. Like then, he felt helpless
in fighting his attraction to her. “I owe you an apology for the
way I treated you the other night.”
    “ You already apologized for
that and actually, you don’t owe me anything.”
    “ I wasn’t in the right
frame of mind to hear anything you had to say. First of all, I was
in shock from running into you, but also still a little pissed by
the way we parted.”
    “ And that was my fault. I
could have handled that night in New York better than I had.” She
stared down at her hands that were wrapped around her drink. She
had ordered a cosmopolitan, which was interesting since she was
usually a wine drinker. Luke watched as her fingers traced