“Follow the light.”
Jacob.
I relaxed, bringing a hand to my chest as I caught my breath. Follow the light? What light? But as I peered into the darkness, a dull glow shimmered just ahead. I walked inside, biting the inside of my jaw to keep from crying out when the door swung shut behind me.
I moved forward, walking into the unknown. I did not know if I was about to run into a wall, or send some priceless artifact crashing to the floor. I just saw the amber flicking close. With a few more steps I found that it was not alone; multiple candles lit the way.
The row of candles winded down to one, higher than the others. I squinted and smiled when I felt his presence. The contours of his body were in shadow, but I knew them well enough to make them out in the near dark. Strong, powerful calves, that led up to defined thighs. The cut of his pelvic muscles, a delicious V that led the eye to his groin. The answering clench of my inner muscles because they knew they were about to be pulled to the point of no return. Stretched wide for his demanding bulge.
My mouth fell open when I realized that I was not filling in the blanks with memory. He was really standing in front of me. Naked.
Still in awe, I reached out, fingertips grazing a wall of muscle.
“You’re—” I stammered, feeling hot and bothered. Flustered—and like I was definitely overdressed. “You’re—”
“Waiting,” he finished. The flame did things to his eyes, turning them into blue orbs that made me tremble.
I wanted him so badly I could not stand it.
My eyes flickered down, seeing the outline of his cock, his fist wrapped around the shaft. I looked back to him. “Waiting?”
“For you to get on your knees.”
It was what I wanted; to taste his salty warmth on my tongue. To feel him in my mouth, every tremble of pleasure doubling my own. But places like this had cameras with night vision. They would see everything.
“You want me to...” My cheeks swarmed with heat as I cleared my throat, unable to say the act out loud. “Here?”
His free hand came out, fingers lightly brushing my neck while his eyes flashed angrily. “Do not make me repeat myself.”
I sank to my knees. The floor creaked as I made contact. The candle’s flame was dangerously close to my head. Looking forward, I saw his c**k was dangerously close to my mouth.
I parted my lips and pulled him inside. The corners of my mouth strained as I opened wider. His musk filled my nostrils, a heady aroma that was all Jacob; as intoxicating as his taste. He drove himself deeper. Pushed further, harder, until I could not keep up and swayed. He caught me, cradling the sides of my head, giving me a moment to collect myself until he went back to f**king my mouth.
I flicked my tongue over his mushroom tip, letting out a moan—and he unleashed one that rattled the windows. His body shuddered as he melted in my mouth.
After he regained his composure, he offered me a hand, pulling me to my feet. I took in the room from a different angle. I thought the candles were leading me to Jacob, but the light shimmered past us, the flames creating a path that stopped in front of a specific painting.
“What’s that?” I asked.
His face twitched with emotion. Or was it a trick of the light?
“Let me show you.”
I followed him. He picked up the last candle in front of the painting, illuminating it.
In the painting, a woman was on her knees, her arms stretched toward a stormy sky. When I peered closer, I saw that she was surrounded by headstones.
“The Grieving Mother,” Jacob said beside me.
The painting’s namesake gave it a whole new meaning and I stepped closer, my heart wrenching at the grief-stricken look on the woman’s face. It was so real, so visceral, that I could almost touch the tears streaming down her face.
“It’s beautiful.” I turned to Jacob, but his attention was locked on the painting. I touched his shoulder and he blinked rapidly, glancing over at me like he had forgotten I was beside him.
“I said it’s beautiful,” I repeated softly.
“Beautiful?” he murmured, buttoning his shirt with jerky movements. “I think tragic is a more appropriate word.”
I dropped my hand, feeling the invisible wall he put up to keep people out rebuilding before my eyes. He moved away from the painting, but I would not let it go that easy.
“Why this painting, Jacob?”
He stopped, his voice low and melancholy. “I think it’s time we talked about Isabella.”
Chapter Eleven
Now that my had eyes adjusted to the room around me, I had a better gauge of my surroundings without relying on the candlelight—or holding both hands out in front like a mummy.
The room was not quite as large as I first thought. There was not multiple rooms, but sections for each type of art: one with paintings and sketches, another with furniture and antique pieces, and the final was for sculptures.
Jacob stalked to the counter in the center of the room, picking up a bottle of wine. “Care for a drink?”
I followed him, eyeing a pair of wine glasses lining the counter, flanked by brochures. “Is it that kind of a story?” My sorry attempt at a joke fizzled, his face still hard as stone.
He put the wine bottle down for a moment, letting it breathe. “It centers around my father, which means it’s certainly not a happy story.”
Based on the little I knew about Jacob’s dad, Carlton Whitmore, the man lived his life as loudly as the action movies he starred in during his career in the 70’s. He had big, fancy houses spread throughout the world, jet-setting with different women every day of the week—despite having a wife and son back home in the States.
I knew of Carlton and Allegra’s affair, but I had no idea that there was another Italian woman that Jacob not only knew about, but obviously cared enough about to give her a job at his villa.
“My father used to say there were two things he loved about Italy: the food and the women.” Jacob poured wine in the first glass, filling it halfway. When he reached for the second, he nearly poured it to the rim. I expected him to pass the full one to me, but he handed me the other. “Salud.”
We clinked our glasses together.
“I saw the papers, just like everyone else,” he continued. “The women grinning into the camera. My father with jackets held over his face, trying to hide the fact hat he was doing more screwing than acting. My mother would lie to me and say they were his co-stars. And even though I was young and didn’t want to believe he left us so he could sleep with other women, I understood that he wasn’t joking when he said he loved Italian women.