Read Online The Muscle Part One by Michelle St. James - Free Book Online Page B

this."
    He caught hand her as she walked away, her dark hair picked up by the breeze, blowing like strands of mahogany silk in the wind.
    “I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”
    “You can’t help me anyway,” she said. “And really, you’d do well to leave now, while you can.”
    “I can’t do that,” he said.
    “Why not?”
    “Because it’s too late; I already care too fucking much.” He hadn’t realized the truth of it until he’d said the words, but now he knew it for fact. He couldn’t just leave Isabel and Sofia to Diego. Couldn’t just walk away, knowing Isabel was imprisoned in her own home, haunted by something so vile the light in her eyes dimmed every time she thought about it.
    “Well, don’t.” She lay her palm against his cheek, and for a moment, her gaze was tender, all the feeling he knew was between them evident in her eyes. “It will end badly for both of us, querido. ”
    He watched her go, his heart in his throat. He didn’t know what was keeping her imprisoned, but he knew he couldn’t leave until she was free.
    And he had a feeling that might mean the end of them all.

17
    T he house was quiet , Isabel’s brush against the canvas the only sound in the studio. It was her third late night working in a row. Ever since her conversation with Luca at the park, she’d had a hard time getting to sleep, her mind racing over the possibilities, over the look in his eyes when she’d told him to leave it alone.
    It was too soon for love, wasn’t it? And yet what else was this feeling in her bones? This longing that made her body ache, her heart feel hollowed?
    She’d hurt him. That was the worst part. She’d seen it in his eyes. And hurting a man like Luca wasn’t something anyone should do. Not because he was too gentle or sensitive, but because he was so strong. He could hold the whole world on his shoulders without flinching — and that meant he shouldn't have to. She’d never felt so safe in someone’s presence, not even when her father had been alive.
    She dipped the brush in the last bit of paint, a jade-like shade of green with a fine, barely-there metallic sheen. She’d been winding it through the bigger segments of blue, hiding it so you had to really look to know it was there. The more she worked, the closer she came to finishing, the more revelatory the process felt, and when she finally put down the brush and stepped back, she understood.
    It was about Luca. For him.
    The sweeping arcs of blue were his magnanimity, his strength, in every color on the cerulean scale. But there was something else there, too. Not darkness, which is what she usually hid in her paintings. But something strong and light, something generous and warm in the jade and verdigris and sea foam shades she’d wound throughout the canvas.
    She saw what he’d given her in the colors and movement of the piece.
    Hope. Somehow he’d given her hope.
    He didn’t want anyone to see all the goodness hiding in him. In fact, she had a feeling Luca had been guarding the secret of who he really was — guarding his heart — his whole life.
    And yet he’d shown it to her. He’d laid himself bare before her, kneeled in front of her body like a man at worship. Asked nothing in return.
    A ferocious storm of emotion swept through her, filling her chest, threatening to choke her with its power. It was too much — the painting, Luca, the way she felt about him. She already had so much to lose. It was foolish to tempt the fates with anything else.
    But she couldn’t stop her feet from moving, and she slipped from the studio and walked deliberately up the stairs, coaxing herself along when her heart beat too fast, when fear threatened to paralyze her. This was different. She was choosing this, choosing him.
    And that made it different. Sacred.
    Her breath caught in her throat as she approached his bedroom door. She’d been surprised when he hadn’t followed her to the studio. Had wondered if maybe he