 
# **Contents**

Copyright

Book Description

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Author Note and Thanks

Hold Me Tight excerpt

What's Yours is Mine excerpt

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other Books
**Draw Me In**

Talia Surova

Copyright © 2013 Tamar Bihari aka Talia Surova

Smashwords Edition

ISBN-13: 978-0-9910933-3-5

ISBN-10: 0991093321

~*~

www.TaliaSurova.com

talia@taliasurova.com

Newsletter sign-up page

~*~

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

_Book Description_

When bike messenger/artist Raven uses her key to crash in an empty warehouse for the night, she wakes to find that Finn, the pickle maker and warehouse owner, is there with her, playing his jazz saxophone in the dark.

~*~

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To my mother, the artist
Chapter One

Gold next, a single dab in the center, a bright accent. Raven dipped the tiny brush and dotted the bright polish on her client's thumbnail, half-aware of the swirl of conversation around her. Laurie, her client, was getting married on Sunday. Frances, the store's proprietor, wanted to know what flowers she'd chosen. Sally, who sat at the next table working on the maid of honor, wanted to know what the wedding dress looked like.

Raven didn't care. Didn't want to know. Wasn't getting married. Wasn't even vicariously interested in hearing about a wedding.

"Oh, that's gorgeous!" As Laurie looked down at Raven's handiwork, she unconsciously jerked her hand.

Raven released Laurie's fingers in time to save the polish from smearing. "I'm not done yet."

"It's stunning. You're an artist."

Uh, yeah. Her paintings were on every wall around them. Images of stalky forest and rough ocean, surreal neon purple-and-pink falcons, and her favorite: a serene Frances holding a steaming cup of tea, the steam swirling up and mingling with her graying hair. All hers, each signed with a flourish. Hard to miss.

"So when are you getting married?"

"I'm not."

"But Jimmy said..."

Raven grabbed Laurie's left hand and positioned it on the worktable. "You want your nails done or not?"

Laurie eyed her speculatively. "You and Jimmy doing okay?"

Raven started the nail with pale blue. A steady stroke, an even coat. It might not be real painting, but it was her art too, and it was going to look good, dammit. "Jimmy is my roommate."

"That's not what I heard. I hear your boy is planning to propose."

"God, I hope not."

Laurie's hand trembled under hers. "Got something against marriage?"

"I think it's great. If you're in love. Which you are. Tommy's a terrific guy." In his way. "You'll be happy."

"What's wrong with Jimmy?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with Jimmy?" Uh-oh. Raven knew that voice.

Sure enough, Jimmy stood by the open door, looking like someone had stolen his lollipop. He was holding a bouquet of roses.

Roses, of all things.

~*~

Jimmy hadn't said much. He wasn't the make-a-scene-in-public type, thankfully. He was probably waiting until she got home. She'd have to look for a new place to live, that was clear. Jimmy thought he was in love with her, but he wasn't. More like with the idea of her. Or the idea of being in love.

She rode up the dirt road on Jimmy's motorcycle, the stones and tree roots along the way jostling her and rattling her teeth. The cabin was remote and tiny but well insulated. And Jimmy had been a good roommate, all told. Clearly, they shouldn't have gotten involved. That was a mistake. Love wasn't her thing. She'd thought Jimmy knew that. Apparently not. But being together had meant she could use the second bedroom as an art studio space, a definite perk. And Jimmy was a nice enough guy. Not unappealing either, in his gawky, overgrown-boy way.

Maybe he'd be willing to go back to being roommates. She needed at least six more months to save up the money to move down to Portland. Maybe she'd even head to New York City, the center of the art world.

No, not yet. Too soon. Too expensive. She wasn't ready. She needed a larger body of work, a few local shows in Portland. But mostly, more money in the bank. Like, well, any.

Jimmy was a nice guy. He'd let her stay. She'd explain that they weren't in love and nobody should be giving anybody flowers for nonexistent anniversaries of the first day anyone moved in. He'd get it. And he'd get over her. Shelley at the diner had her eyes on him. He was cute enough; he'd hook up with someone else. Someone who liked flowers and lobster nets and playing pool and Ping-Pong for hours at a time.

He'd get it. He would.

She zoomed around a hairpin turn in the road past a huge oak and spotted a red glow.

That wasn't normal.

Then the motorcycle glided farther down the road, and she saw it through the slim stalks of a birch tree stand.

A bonfire. Flames licking up a rectangular canvas frame. No, two. As she bumped over the dirt road, going as fast as she could without hitting dirt, she saw Jimmy drop a third on the pile.

He was burning her paintings. Her _paintings_. The three she'd been working on for the past two months. Her breakthrough series, the portraits of her foster sisters in an eerie version of the Maine woods—gnarled trees with broken branches against burnt-orange skies. The paintings that were going to get her a show in Portland, maybe even in one of the fancy Congress Street galleries.

She skidded to a stop right by the bonfire. "Have you lost your mind?"

Jimmy paused over the fire. "That got your attention, huh?"

She snatched the last painting off the fire, but the bottom edge was singed already, and smoky smudges had started to blacken the surface. Her stomach roiled.

Jimmy wiped his charcoal-dusted hands on the bottom of his shirt, making it even dirtier than it already was. "What's wrong with Jimmy? What's wrong with Jimmy is that he's in love with you, but you're in love with these damned paintings!" His apple-cheeked face looked incongruously pinched, making him appear like a sour-faced sock puppet.

She set the brake and dismounted. Her hands were shaking, she noticed dispassionately. She shoved them in her jeans pockets. "So you burn them? Good going, asshole." She started toward the front door of the cabin. If she hurried, she could catch the last bus to New York City tonight.

Jimmy hurried after her. "Where are you going? I'm talking about us, and you're walking away again. Didn't you hear me? I love you, dammit!"

His words were like the leaves fluttering above, like the wind shushing against the house, like nothing at all. She walked across the gravel and dirt toward the house, numb. Moving because if she stopped, she'd realize her best, most personal work was gone.

She'd leave too. It was the only way. She'd move on, race ahead of the pain. Not let it eat her whole.

She went inside, letting the door slam behind her, but Jimmy was one step behind. He caught the door and followed her in. "Answer me. Say something. Don't do this."

"You'd better see to that fire. Wouldn't want to burn down the house." Raven grabbed a duffel and stuffed clothing into it.

"Don't go. Where will you go? You should stay here. You don't have anywhere to go. Isn't that why you're with me? For the cabin?"

She paused. Did he think that little of himself? "I'm your roommate because of the cabin. I started sleeping with you because I liked you. We liked each other. Don't confuse convenience for passion. And don't destroy someone else's passion because you're a little boy in a man's body."

"God. I did that, didn't I?" He sat on the bed, his body sagging like he'd only now come back to himself. "That was—that was insane. I'm so sorry. I thought—you pay more attention to those paintings than me, I thought if I did something to them, got them out of the way, you'd notice me. Be with me for real." He started blubbering. "I miss you. You're right here, but it's like you're not here. You're always drawing and painting. And you go bowling with me, and then we don't even have sex or anything. I don't even know what's in your head most of the time."

She went into the bathroom and scooped up her toiletries, tossing them through the door at the duffel on the bed. Damn Jimmy. She'd feel sorry for the guy if he hadn't destroyed her work in a freaking bonfire. "Go find yourself a normal girlfriend. Shelley or one of her gang, someone who enjoys everything you do and who knows how to feel something more than mild affection." She stomped out of the bathroom and tossed the toothpaste past him, grazing his cheek. "But don't ever pull a stunt like that again. With anyone. For God's sake. Grow the hell up."

"Help me be stronger. Don't go. Don't walk away from me. That won't solve anything. You can't go."

"The Mega Bus leaves in an hour. I'll be on it."

She walked outside, threw her leg over the motorcycle, and settled onto the seat, checking on the duffel, which she'd slung over her shoulder and tucked under her arm for good measure. It had better stay put during her ride. The engine revved with a loud purr.

Jimmy ran outside after her. "Rae Ann—"

"Raven."

"Don't go. I love you. I do."

She gave him a level look. "You don't. That's not how this works. You can pick up your hog at the bus depot. I'll leave it there for you."

She left without looking back.

Maybe there was something broken inside her, but she didn't cry. Not even when Frances gave her the rest of her paycheck in cash, sniffling over the bills as she handed them to Raven. "Write, okay? Let me know how you're doing. Don't let the big bad city eat you alive."

Raven didn't cry, but she did hug Frances, inhaling the mingled scent of hair spray and face powder. The older woman meant well. She was Raven's second-to-last foster mother, and she was a good person. But it was past time to go. The final bus to New York wasn't going to wait, kicking up fumes, for little Raven Porter.

~*~

Finn inhaled deeply. The smells of brine, vinegar, and spices got him every time. He wanted to drink everything in his factory kitchen. Eat it all with a slice of toast. Even after hours, the scents lingered. He walked around the room checking in on everything. He peeked into the kvass vat. The mixture looked dark and delicious. Poured a dollop of watermelon-basil kombucha into a tiny paper cup. Not fizzy enough yet, but getting there. Snagged a miso-brined pickle from the oak barrel in the center of the room. Perfect crunch. _Mental note: jar that batch up tomorrow for Union Square. _

He was procrastinating. Putting off going home. There was nothing important for him to do here. He'd come back to work after dinner to finish prep on an experimental batch of chickpea miso, but he'd put the bean mash into the fermentation crock twenty minutes ago. It simply felt more like home here than his admittedly comfortable brownstone in Fort Greene ever did. That place was almost too big for one person. It echoed. This gleaming kitchen wasn't as outwardly charming, but it was filled with life quietly percolating away on counters and in barrels, and that satisfied him like nothing else could. He felt active, engaged. Less alone.

Wait, what was that? A creak. From the stairwell outside the open kitchen door. And not that of an old building settling. Footsteps. Then he caught a glimpse of dark clothes, a flash of skin.

He wasn't alone.

But the only rooms up on the third floor were a currently empty warehouse space and his office. And the only other person who had the key to his office was...

"Alison?" He went to the stairwell. She was halfway down the final set of steps to the front door and outside.

"Oh, there you are!" Alison backtracked up the stairs. His semi-girlfriend aka friends-with-benefits, who also happened to be his part-time accountant. "I thought you'd left. I was looking for you." Her laugh sounded oddly nervous. As she reached the landing, she planted a wet kiss on his mouth. She smelled like beer and pizza.

He pulled away. "You didn't check the kitchen, then. I've been here for a while."

"Guess I didn't look hard enough, huh?" She backed him into the kitchen, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him again. "I miss you."

"We see each other twice a week, when you come in." His skin prickled, and not in a good way. She was way too close, invading his personal space, assuming a level of intimacy they'd never had.

"That's business. I mean pleasure. I mean us." Her voice was wobbly. Drunk?

He extricated himself from the tangle of her embrace and stepped away again, folding his arms, protecting himself. Something was wrong. Alison wasn't ever this aggressive. "What's going on?"

"What's the matter? You've met someone else? Is that it?" Her gaze narrowed. "You haven't touched me in weeks. Months. You're not in love with me anymore."

Finn felt like he was drowning. It wasn't supposed to be this way. They'd set boundaries. "I was never in love with you. And you were never in love with me. What's going on? Why are you acting like this?"

"Because I'm tipsy and feeling stupid. And because I miss you." She plastered herself against him and played with a lock of his hair. "I love your hair. So soft."

He pushed her away as gently as he could. "I don't think..."

She drew herself up. "Of course you don't. You never do. You seal yourself off from love. From real intimacy. You're a cold fish, Finn. Get it? Finn the fish?" She laughed, but it was a harsh, angry sound.

"Alison..." Finn felt helpless in the face of this uncharacteristic outburst, but he had to try. He reached out, but she spun away.

"No. I get it. I'm not The One for you, and I never could be. That's okay. I don't want a piece of your cold, cold heart. I'd always come in second. This is the only thing you're capable of loving." She swept her arm over the gleaming expanse of countertops. "Fizz and nasty brine. I don't even like pickles. Did you know that? I was pretending."

She went to the door, then paused in the doorway. "By the way? I quit." She hitched her oversized shoulder bag all the way up onto her shoulder, shoved a folder farther into it, and disappeared down the dark stairwell. Finn could hear her heels clattering, then the sound of the front door slamming behind her.

He should go after her. Make her feel better.

But the afterimage of her anger left a sour taste in his mouth and a clench in his gut. He'd hire a new accountant tomorrow. Then he'd stay far away from romantic entanglements. They made his brain hurt.

He snagged a cumin-infused dill pickle from a barrel and munched on it, more for the comfort of it than any desire. Alison had never been that needy, that raw. They didn't have that kind of interaction. Not ever. Had she been burying it? For months? Wouldn't he have noticed?

When had she come into work, anyway? He'd been here an hour, and he hadn't heard her go upstairs. She'd apparently been in his office the entire time. It only took a minute to look for him. What had she been doing all this time?

Something wasn't adding up.

~*~

Three hours later, he found the reason. He'd checked the recent items list on his computer's menu bar and then matched the accounts she'd accessed with their corresponding invoices. It all gave a clear picture of something truly rotten.

Alison had been embezzling from the company. She'd set up a dummy vendor with a name two letters off from his biggest packaging supplier. He'd probably signed off on a dozen or more of those bogus invoices. He'd have to call the cops in the morning. And a lawyer. He pushed his desk chair back from the computer and unsuccessfully tried unclenching his shoulder muscles. He felt like he was falling into the computer. Into a dark maze with monsters around every bend.

Alison had been embezzling from him.

His cell phone buzzed. When he saw his mother's number on the caller ID, Finn thought briefly about letting it go to voice mail. But she'd just call back in ten minutes. His mother was nothing if not persistent. So he picked up the phone.

"Hi, Fiona. Yes, I remember you're coming next week. No, I'm not that absentminded. No, I'm not set in my ways. That's your—" He suppressed a sigh. "Yes, I'm looking forward to it too."

He let her voice wash over him as she launched into a monologue of the most recent amazing sights she and his father had seen, part of their ongoing tour of the country in their brand-new RV. She rarely needed much input from him. Or from anyone, for that matter.

Knowing this visit was imminent, he'd started to declutter the guest room, removing the boxes of books, the heavy comforter, and his old saxophone in its plastic case. When they'd come through last year, his parents had slept on the sofa bed in the living room. Their presence—no, his mother's presence—had taken over the entire house. This year he wanted to be able to shut the door.

He thought briefly about telling his mother what had happened tonight with Alison. But he never found an opening in her monologue, and then the conversation was over.

Even after he disconnected, his mother's voice still rang in his ears, an echo of loud loneliness.

Finn turned back to the computer, but the numbers on the screen looked like gibberish. So he got up and went into the hallway, intending to go back down to the kitchen. But an unexpected yearning struck him full force.

The warehouse door was slightly open, just as he'd left it a few hours ago when he'd come up here with the first pile of stuff from his spare bedroom.

Finn swung the door open and stared at the dim outline of the bulbous molded-plastic saxophone case. He'd bought that case in college, when the instrument itself gleamed with newness. Back then, he'd played it every night, either in his room or at the local bar on a wood platform in the corner, part of an ever-changing jazz ensemble. He hadn't played in at least two years. No, three. Not since he'd bought this facility and expanded the business. He didn't have time for music.

He stepped into the room. It was empty except for a long worktable by the far wall. The Chin sisters must have left it behind when they moved their embroidery business to the Garment District. A few scraps of brightly colored silk thread stuck to the battered wood surface.

Finn set the case on the table and clicked the latches. The lid lifted silently. The sax lay in its velvet-lined nest. Dormant. Waiting.

As he lifted it out of the case, the metal glistened in the light from the street. He wiped it with a chamois, set the reed in place, and brought it to his mouth. It felt right. It felt necessary. Like solace.

~*~

The afternoon sun shone directly in Raven's eyes as she pedaled her new bike up Nassau. She was reasonably sure she was still in Brooklyn—which turned out to be a big sprawl of a borough—but the tall buildings of Downtown had given way to fancy brownstones, which then gave way to row houses with signs in Polish on all the shop awnings. Her knees were scraped from the time she'd fallen off her bike avoiding a semi barreling too fast off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Her lungs were gritty and her eyes stung from dust and car exhaust.

She felt exhilarated.

She was here. She was doing it. She'd landed a job on the very first day. When she'd walked into the courier place, she'd expected to face a request for references and a grilling on the city's layout and proper messenger etiquette. Instead, the dispatcher had asked if she could rustle up a bicycle on short notice and given her the gig. Conditional on doing a good job for the first week. But she was good at memorizing maps and navigating treacherous byways. She'd be fine.

Backwoods Maine was light years away. Jimmy was a fading memory. She was a bike messenger in New York City. She'd make the rest work too. After all, she was here.

Raven's next destination smelled curiously like brine and vinegar. Brine could be explained by the East River half a block away. She could see the glint of water past the fence that marked the end of the stubby dead-end street. But vinegar?

She parked her bike by the curb, wrapping the chain around a streetlamp, pulled out the biggest box from her saddlebag, and went over to the open truck bay, the bag clunking against her thigh with every step.

Three people loaded boxes into the back of a truck emblazoned with the name Finn's Fermentation Factory.

The brine-and-vinegar sharpness was stronger here, mingled with dill and oregano and some other spices she couldn't name. Her mouth watered. She hadn't eaten for hours. She'd skipped lunch and might need to skip dinner too. She'd spent a large chunk of her final salon paycheck on a used blue bike, striped helmet, and canvas saddlebag, leaving too few dollars in her slim wallet.

The workers were staring at her. The stranger in their midst.

She glanced at the box in her hands. "I'm looking for Finn McKenna."

"I'll take it," said a tall, elegant black man. "Finn's busy." He glanced at another man, who grimaced back at him.

"This says he has to sign it himself."

"On your head, then. He's not in a good mood. He had to sic the cops on his girlfriend today."

The other guy smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "Shut up, Nate. She's not his girlfriend." It seemed affectionate. Strange place.

"Not anymore, that's for sure." Nate waved Raven upstairs. "He's in the kitchen on the second floor. Or the office on the third. Ask if you can't find your way. Get in, get out, don't feed the bear. He bites."

The kitchen was an industrial-size room filled with barrels, huge cauldrons of steaming liquid, rows of large ceramic pots, and big glass jars on long steel counters. Half a dozen people worked in here. All wearing aprons, their hair tied back. Soft jazz played over loudspeakers. The scents of vinegar and sauerkraut, spices and sharpness, were strongest in here, and no wonder. Someone crunched a pickle; someone else picked up a mug of something fizzy and gulped it down before returning to her task.

Raven scanned the workers. "Is one of you Finn?"

"He's upstairs, I think."

Up the dark center staircase to the third level. To the right, a forbiddingly closed door. To the left, a door cracked open, light spilling out invitingly.

Raven went into the room to the left.

It was empty. She almost turned back. She was on a schedule, and she was running way behind. But she paused. Because this room was everything she'd dreamed New York would be when she'd sat in the salon painting French manicures on the nails of matrons from Connecticut visiting Maine for their summer holidays.

It was an empty room, true, but it held such promise. Sunlight streamed in through huge windows onto the pale gray concrete floor. The ceiling was a jumble of exposed pipes. One wall was exposed brick. The matte tin ceiling had a hint of gleam, with embossed squares in an endless repeating pattern. It was a backdrop fit for a smoke-filled bar, a party in a fancy loft, or an artist's studio. That stream of sun was delicious. It slid along the floor, licking the room with brightness. Dust mites twirled along the beam of light.

Raven set her bag and the package on a table against the sidewall and stepped into the ray of sun, drawn to it. She twirled in it, flung her arms out wide, and soaked in the beauty of it.

She was here. This was real. She might be dizzy with fatigue and hunger and shock, but she danced a dance of freedom and newness and delight. Because she could.

~*~

Finn slammed out of the office, his fingernails digging into his closed fists. Numbers swam in his brain. The more he looked at the accounts, the worse he felt. Enough.

That box of kefir starter should have gotten here by now. Finn closed the office door behind him and started downstairs—but paused, catching movement out of the corner of his eye.

Someone was in the warehouse room.

The memory of Alison's exploits darkened his vision around the edges. He felt the gorge rise in his throat.

Nobody was taking advantage of him. Not Alison, not anyone.

He swung the door open all the way.

And stopped, dumbfounded.

A woman swayed in a swath of sunlight, arms outstretched, dancing to music only she could hear. Dark hair swirled with her graceful movements. A T-shirt clung to her curves. Her jeans had holes in both knees and paint stains down the thighs. She was beautiful in an entirely unexpected way—off-kilter and quirky, with dark slashes for eyebrows and a wide, generous mouth, tipped up in a blissful inward smile.

She danced in his loft space like she owned the place.

He stepped into the room, compelled. Wanting and not wanting to break the spell.

She turned, twirling on her toe as if her shoe were a ballet slipper and not a mud-stained work boot. He could tell the moment she saw him. She toppled off her toes and stood flat-footed. "I shouldn't be in here, right? It was too much, though. All this lovely space, and the light. I couldn't resist. Okay, I didn't want to. But it was wrong of me." Her voice was mellifluous, with a hint of New England earthiness in the vowels.

"It _is_ nice light." He'd never noticed before. The sunlight. The view of the river. The quiet sense of space.

She went over to a small pile of things she'd set down on the long table. "You're Finn McKenna, I'm guessing?"

"And you're...?"

"Raven. I was looking for you. I got distracted." She picked up a box, proffering it.

Right. She must be the courier. The thought was disconcerting, as if she shouldn't have such a prosaic role in life. He took the box. "Where do I sign?"

She handed him her electronic pad, then, as an afterthought, the pen that went with it. As he reached to take it, she flushed. Their fingers grazed—an electric spark like a jolt of attraction—and the pen fell to the floor.

They reached for it at the same time, then both pulled back in a comedy of errors. She grinned at him with a hint of wickedness in the curve of her mouth and the tilt of her slightly pointed chin, and he felt himself smiling back, almost unwillingly. _Mental note: bike couriers can be sexy as hell. _

He picked up the pen, and they both stood. She stepped back to let him sign for the package. He was conscious of her like a heartbeat thrumming through him. He should not be so acutely aware of her. A stranger. Awareness was trouble. Awareness was stupidity.

So he handed the pen and pad back to her and picked up the box. "If you want a pickle or something, ask on your way out. Tell them Finn said you could."

The box felt cold in his arms. Not surprising, given the half-dozen ice packs keeping the kefir starter fresh. He should get this into the kitchen.

He went downstairs without looking back. That moment, seeing the woman in his warehouse dancing, it felt like playing the saxophone. Like rippling music. Like escape. He couldn't afford it, and so he didn't look back.
Chapter Two

After Finn McKenna of the soulful eyes and sardonically arched eyebrows left, the room felt smaller. Less inhabited.

Time to move on and stop being so fanciful. Raven had a job to do. Packages to deliver. Parts of Brooklyn to discover. And, apparently, pickles to eat.

She grabbed her things from the table, hoisting the bag over her shoulder and slipping the signature pad into the bag. Something gleamed on the floor by a table leg.

Three keys on a cheap metal ring. She plucked the ring off the floor and held it in her palm. She'd return it to him downstairs in exchange for a pickle. That seemed fair. And if it gave her an excuse to touch his hand again, to feel that startling electricity, no harm in that, right? She wasn't with Jimmy anymore. She was a free agent.

Speaking of Jimmy, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Again. She ignored it again. Jimmy was history. Maine was part of her past. Keep on moving, that was her motto. Jimmy was a blip. So were all her foster parents except for Frances. So was her mother.

Especially her mother.

Onward.

By the time she got to the kitchen, Finn McKenna was gone. She told a large, older man in a red apron about Finn's offer. He loaded her up with two dill pickles, a paper cup filled with sauerkraut and Polish sausage, and a large bottle of something fizzy. She stashed the drink in the bag for later, devoured the food, and hopped on her bike heading for her next stop, humming happily to herself.

~*~

Finn climbed out of his Volvo, still going over the figures on his tablet computer. He'd been at it all afternoon. He'd rather have started the kefir. Sprinkling the powder on the surface of the milky liquid and mixing it in with a huge wooden spoon made him feel like he was a magician in an old movie, working over his cauldron. Instead, he'd handed off the task. Jose made a "hmph" noise when Finn made him repeat the steps and bristled when Finn stood over him as he started the process, so Finn went back upstairs to stare at the reverse alchemy of a bank account turning gold into lead until his vision blurred.

As he left the building later, he realized he'd been too harsh on poor Jose. It wasn't the guy's fault Alison had deceived Finn. It looked like she'd set up the dummy account six months ago after he'd—gently, he'd thought—told her he wouldn't be available for an intimate Thanksgiving dinner. Who _did_ that? Who retaliated for a romantic slight by stealing money? A lot of money too.

He walked up the steps of his brownstone, still focused on the numbers, still in his head—until he heard a woman's booming laugh. A familiar booming laugh. When he turned to look, he saw a large camper, painted with everything from a dragon to a depiction of an alien, parked in front of his house.

His parents were here. Four days early. No warning. His mother had probably bulldozed his father into changing their plans again.

He pasted a big smile on his face and accepted their hugs and effusive greetings as well as his mother's ribbing about what a wonk he was. "You'll walk right into a telephone pole if you're not careful," she said. "Remember when he did that, Phil? He was ten years old, ambling along to school, and wham!" She pretended to slam her hand on her nose and laughed uproariously, the way she did every time she brought up his past foibles.

It was a painfully cheery evening. His mother ordered him to bring in everything from the RV first. "I don't trust the neighborhood. And your father hurt his back climbing to the observation deck at Niagara Falls."

So Finn did it. He started to carry the first suitcases upstairs, but Fiona stopped him. "Where are you going? Not that closet of a second bedroom? We'll never fit in there. Your father likes to sprawl. The sofa bed suited us fine last time. We'll sleep out here." She gestured around the living room.

"I'd prefer if you—"

She cut him off and started talking about their visit to Toronto and how clean the city was. So much nicer than New York. Finn should think about relocating there. They'd come visit more often if he did. But he should get a bigger house so they could stash more of their stuff in the basement. His father shot him an apologetic look but said nothing.

Finn too said nothing, because what was the point?

Over Thai takeout, his mother told him tall tales from their trip through Utah and Arizona. His mother claimed she'd seen an alien ship land in the Sonoran desert and told Finn she'd met a Mormon who was honest-to-God married to five women. He'd asked her to be his sixth wife, she said. His father grinned behind her, dishing out more pad thai onto his plate.

By the time his parents lay snoring in the living room, Finn's facial muscles were sore from smiling, his stomach ached from the spicy food, and his heart hurt from—well, from everything. He went to his bedroom but couldn't sleep. Threads of soft jazz tangled in his head, memories from last night's stint with the sax mingling strangely with the striking image of a woman dancing to inaudible music in a shaft of sunlight.

Sleep was impossible. He craved the mental peace of his music. Focusing on one thing, letting everything else fall away as if it didn't matter, if only for that single moment.

~*~

It was one single purple streak in a swath of still-damp hair, but what a difference it made. Raven peered at her reflection in the long bathroom mirror at the Flatbush YMCA. Was that her? It wasn't Rae Ann Porter, who had only gotten a community college degree and who was set to paint nails the rest of her life in coastal Maine. But it was her. It was _more_ her. It was Raven P. Artist. Bike messenger. New Yorker. Badass.

She grinned at her reflection, feeling impish. The bathroom was stark, the dorm room starker, but it would do. It was a start. One day in the city and she'd already landed a job and gotten fed with delicious sausage and sauerkraut. Even that fizzy drink turned out to be tasty. And that guy Finn... Whoa yeah. Not her usual type, with his button-down shirt, his neatly trimmed dark blond hair, and his clean-shaven face, but he was magnetic. Quietly compelling, with a brooding edge. Sexy like whoa, with big workman's hands and a hauntingly refined face.

And this was only the first day. Who knew what adventures were in store tomorrow? An art studio, a permanent place to live, another sexy city boy...

She trotted off down the hall with her duffel bag, yawning. Time for bed.

An hour later, she sat up with a start. The woman in the bunk above her had rolled over yet again, making the flimsy metal frame quake. Raven had woken abruptly from a half doze, her heart pounding, half expecting an avalanche of human flesh to tumble on top of her. And when she turned onto her side, glowing eyes stared back at her from the floor. Too big for a mouse. A rat?

"Shoo!" She made batting gestures. "Get out of here!"

The other three women in the room jumped up. "What the hell?" "What's wrong with you, bitch?"

The sound of scurrying rodent feet overlaid their startles and grumbles. "Rat."

One of them flopped back down. " _One_ rat? Seriously? That's why you woke us? Last night there were three." She closed her eyes and started snoring instantly.

The other women settled back down too, clearly not impressed. One scratched her back. "Bedbugs too." She shrugged and settled back into her sheets. "It's temporary, right?"

Multiple rats. And bedbugs. Raven watched as the itchy woman scratched her scalp and buried her head under a pillow. Lice too? Her own skin crawled.

At the scrabble of small claws, Raven stood, grabbed her duffel, and zipped it shut, grabbed her towel, grabbed the shirt she'd used to cover her eyes. Grabbed everything.

When she stepped outside, she shivered. The air felt unseasonably chilly for May, more like spring in Maine. The street was dank, with huge garbage bags piled up by the corner. Tall apartment buildings loomed, foreboding. There were no trees. She was in Flatbush. In the heart of Brooklyn.

Far from home.

With nowhere to go.

She shoved her hands deep into her pockets and unexpectedly closed her hand on something metallic with a ragged edge.

The keys from that pickle warehouse. She'd never given them back to sexy Finn.

Maybe she did have somewhere she could sleep tonight. For one night, then she'd find someplace legit. It didn't make her a thief like her mother. She was simply using a space that was otherwise unoccupied. That was okay, right? If she had Finn McKenna's phone number, she'd call him right now and ask.

Well, ignoring the fact that they'd only met for a few minutes this afternoon and it would be an extremely weird phone conversation. And the minor detail that it was currently two thirty in the morning and he was probably fast asleep. People tended to be grouchy if you woke them in the middle of the night to ask silly questions. Anyway, she couldn't. She didn't have his number.

It wasn't stealing. She'd simply borrow the space for the night and leave first thing in the morning.

She unlocked her bike, fumbling with the lock as she pretended she didn't notice the creepy-looking drunk stumbling his way down the street in her direction. Then she took off in the direction of the river. Thankfully, she'd spent time earlier tonight poring over that map of Brooklyn, tracing everywhere she'd been today. Finn's Fermentation Factory was in Greenpoint, right by the East River. An easy ride. Flatbush Avenue to Washington to Kent, which turned into Franklin. She could do it.

Picturing that quiet warehouse space, that peace in the middle of the city, the sense of freedom she'd felt dancing in the sunlight—it all gave her the rush of energy she needed to pedal faster through dicey areas and through industrial wasteland, dodging mud-encrusted trucks and pimpmobiles banging their stereos at full volume as she rode through Brooklyn on a lonely weekday night.

It was all good. She had keys in her pocket. A new adventure, right?

~*~

The crazily painted trailer home glowed loudly in the light from the streetlamps, taunting Finn as he unlocked his Volvo. That RV looked wrong on this tree-lined side street. It stood out.

He drove through near-empty city streets past the Navy Yard and the Williamsburg Bridge entrance—all quiet, all still. On to Greenpoint and the industrial kitchen that was his second home. He unlocked the door, breathing deep of salt and vinegar, dill and cumin, then went up to the third floor. Swung the warehouse door open and stepped into the dim room. Picked up his saxophone case, gently laid it on the table, unlatched the clasps, and pulled the gleaming instrument out of its velvet-lined nest. He stroked one finger along the metal, then assembled the sax, mouthpiece, and reed. Taking his time with each step, relishing the ritual.

When it was complete, he sat on the lone stool, positioned to see out the window to the dancing water and the lit buildings in Midtown Manhattan, slid his lips around the reed, and blew out a long, low note. A relieved exhalation of sound.

~*~

The music wove through her dreams, evoking images of warmth and loss, of wandering through woods and meadows, of painting enormous murals on the sides of jagged boulders. As the sound changed moods, her dreams followed suit, growing darker and more intimate. When she woke, Raven felt as if she were still dreaming, conjuring a silhouette of a man perched on a stool, playing soulful jazz on an alto saxophone that gleamed darkly in the light from the street.

Was she in a movie? She felt like she'd slipped sideways into another life. She padded closer to the musician, compelled to see his face, to watch him glide his fingers along the keys, to experience the sound full-on. To invest in the dream.

Because it was a dream, she wasn't scared, just curious. No, more than curious. She had to know. It was imperative.

He registered her presence. As a long, slow note sounded through the bell of the sax, he looked at her. And she knew him.

It was Finn. The owner of this place, the king of fermentation, the man in the button-down white-collared shirt. Only now he wore a soft, faded tee and jeans, his hair was mussed, and he looked sleep-hollowed and intense. As if he too had woken from a dream.

He let the last long note trail off, then cradled the sax in his lap. "You're the woman from earlier. The one who dances." His voice was husky, his eyes were heavy-lidded. She wasn't sure if he was awake or asleep.

She wasn't sure if she was.

"You shouldn't be here."

"I can go." She started for her tiny pile of stuff, but his voice stopped her.

"You can stay. On one condition."

She turned, wary.

His eyes glinted in the dark. "That you dance. Like you did earlier, but for me."

"Why?"

He didn't answer. He lifted his sax to his mouth and began to play again.

As Raven stood, undecided, the music seeped into her. It wasn't like listening to a perfect recording or being at a concert. It was more personal, more intimate. More real. Notes wavered and seemed to go into free fall before they caught themselves back up, weaving into the pattern once more. It seemed as if Finn wasn't sure what he was doing, as if he was improvising but not sure how to do it. The music sounded vulnerable. Pained. Her heart opened to him, to this man playing in the dark.

Even though she hadn't made a conscious decision to dance for him, she found herself swaying gently to the soft melody. This wasn't a wild dance, wasn't a delight in freedom like this afternoon. She raised her arms, swiveled her hips, kept watching his intense gaze, and felt her whole body flush with awareness.

She was outside her life. She had no defined life. She could be and do whatever she wanted. Right now she wanted this.

So Raven danced around the room, hearing the vibrations of her thumping feet along with the wail of the saxophone. As she danced, she watched his fingers caress the keys, the play of tension along the muscles of his forearms, his frown of concentration. She felt strangely as if she knew him, this man she'd barely even spoken with. She knew why he was frowning. Why he played music here in the dark when he had a bed waiting for him. He needed to escape just like she did. He craved the different, the dream, the unexpected comfort of it.

As she danced, she was hyperaware of Finn. She relived the sensation of his hand accidentally brushing hers earlier today and the way it turned her inside out, that simple touch. Remembered the look in his eyes a minute ago as he asked her to dance for him—challenging, almost playful, strangely longing.

A wave of lust rushed through her. She wanted to feel those skillful fingers play along her skin, wanted that intent look focused on her and nothing else. Wanted to kiss him, touch him, be with him.

She felt dizzy with the craziness of the feelings swirling inside of her. She'd never met him before today, and all she knew of him was pickles and the saxophone. And yet she knew more than that. She _got_ him. And oh, she wanted him.

Raven danced for Finn, danced to the strains of seductive jazz, and was enthralled.
Chapter Three

When Finn picked up the saxophone last night after so long away, it felt like he'd become a different person. Younger. More innocent. Focused on the music and nothing else. He could lose himself in the sound.

But tonight was different. She was here. The woman from this afternoon. Raven. And it wasn't only about the music anymore. He felt as if he'd conjured her from the single beam of yellow light slanting in from the streetlamp, from the dark shadows of the room. Conjured her from dust and fumes to dance for him in an oversized tee that stretched over her round, taut breasts and hiked up as she raised her arms, showing the full length of her long, beautiful legs—bare skin edged with light and blue with darkness.

He'd conjured her because he needed her. Needed her to dance for him. Needed to escape from work and family and stress and dreariness. Needed to feel less painfully alone right now.

"'Round Midnight" segued into "Take the A Train," which transitioned straight to "Maple Leaf Rag." He was going to run out of remembered melodies soon, but he didn't dare take a break. The moment he stopped, she might dissolve into motes of dust. She wasn't real. Couldn't be. The woman from this afternoon was solid flesh, dark hair, embarrassed movements. This one? Her hair glinted purple when she turned toward the window, and her eyes gleamed with a knowing sexuality. He'd conjured her.

He kept playing.

~*~

How long had it been? Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? Raven's feet hurt, her breath came in stutters, and her side ached. It was like that story about red shoes—shiny crimson leather, the kind of shoes you couldn't walk past without aching to try them on, but with a dark secret: they made their owner dance until her feet were worn away into stumps. Finn's music was like that. Unbearably beautiful and impossibly demanding.

She was tired. So tired.

Finally, she flopped onto the bare floor and lay on her back, arms spread wide, panting as she stared up at the patterns on the ceiling. Tin squares, embossed, dappled with shadows. Blink, and they swam. Blink, and they danced.

Blink, and her vision was filled with his face.

"Are you okay?" He frowned down at her, so close.

She nodded. No energy for more.

He stroked her cheek with a delicate touch, circled onto her forehead, then traced the line of her nose. Then her mouth.

Her heartbeat sped up. Energy flowed through her—triggered by his touch, radiating out.

"You're here. I thought I imagined you." His voice was husky, unused.

Because he whispered, she did too. "I can still leave. If you want. Despite the dancing." She had to say it even if she didn't mean it. In fact, she desperately wanted to stay for the night.

It wasn't even so much about the fact that she had nowhere else to go, not anymore. It was about him. This moment. This almost-dream, not-quite-reality. She'd stepped outside of her life, and this place—this man—was part of that. She wanted to linger, to wrap herself in his kiss like a promise of something better.

"No, it's okay. Stay. If you want." His voice was a caress, an exhale, his gaze dark.

"I want..." _To kiss you. _

From her position on the floor, she reached up and touched his mouth with her fingertip. Softly, the way he'd explored her face. He closed his eyes.

She sat up. He slid back along the floor, making room for her. She slipped her hand behind the back of his head. In response, he leaned in.

They kissed. A gentle kiss. Exploration and hello.

It felt unlike any kiss she'd ever had. This was part of the dream too. Maybe she wasn't even here but was still riding the bumpy bus along dark highways heading south to New York, her half-conscious mind spinning a story of a perfect man. Slim, with a narrow, refined face, elegant cheekbones, and a quiet intensity. A man who serenaded her and then enfolded her in his arms and kissed her. It felt like an extension of his music—rhythmic and melodic, playful and seductive. When his hands slid down her shirt, she shivered with the emotion of this waking dream. Port Authority Bus Terminal and bicycles and streets like a giant maze and rats and purple in her hair. And now this man, here, in this magical room.

She kissed him, and it was all about tongues and teeth and lips, and as she did, she slid her hands along his back under his shirt, feeling his skin already tacky with sweat. This was all there was. Yesterday was normal, today was upside-down, and tomorrow was an enormous question mark. Right now, right here, this was it. She grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked it up over his head, breaking the kiss.

"Are you sure?" His voice was hushed, like in a museum. His eyes were dark, unreadable. He breathed fast, his chest rising and falling, his heartbeat shuddering against her skin.

"I'm not sure at all. Of anything. But that doesn't mean I want to stop." She lifted her shirt over her head, baring her chest to him.

~*~

His eyes had long since adjusted to the dimness, and he was thankful for it, because Raven was slim and taut and lovely. And she didn't want to stop. The clamor in his brain, the tight knot behind his eyes—it all faded into blessed insignificance.

All that mattered was this woman, dappled in the light from the street. This woman who had danced alone, exalting, as if she didn't care what anyone thought. This woman who had danced for him when he'd asked, but not just that. Not just movement. As she'd swayed to the sound, he'd felt as if she were making music with him, as if they were responding to each other's signals, almost improvisational and entirely intimate. Kissing seemed the obvious next step, another part of the dance.

He kissed her again. Her mouth, her cheek, her chin. But... "This isn't real. You know that."

"I know. You're my dream."

He laughed against her mouth at that. "No. You're mine."

She slid her hands down his body, pulling him up with her as she stood, then tugging them both toward the corner of the room. "We can argue about that later. Right now you're going to give me satisfaction, dream Finn of the Fermentation Factory, and I'll do the same for you. And it will be awesome."

His footsteps stuttered to a stop. Sex with a woman he'd only just met? Was this really going to happen?

He'd never done such a thing in his life.

And yet...

She cocked her head, sizing him up. "I found a comforter. Is it yours?" She gestured toward the back wall, where she'd set up a nest from the folded-over comforter, with a heavy jacket for a pillow. "It's more comfortable than the floor."

It didn't necessarily mean sex. But kissing, yes. Touching, that too.

She sank onto the comforter, a softness in the midst of the bare floor, and he followed her down. She slid her hands under the waistband of his jeans. "These will have to go." They went.

When she ran her hands across his rib cage, he felt the shiver in his groin. Her touch felt like it wiped away bitterness, letting in pleasure.

He stroked her hair, then ran his hands along her long, lean muscles as she continued to explore his. Between caresses, they lost their underwear; then she pulled him right against her. Skin to skin. So natural, so right, sliding against each other like this, but also such a surprise. Cool concrete under his shins, warm bedding against his hip, warmer woman against his chest, belly, and groin. He stroked her intimate folds, slid his finger inside her wetness, felt her buck against him in response, and a powerful lust rose up inside him. So simple, this. Nearly wordless. Perfect.

She kissed him again, and he was lost.

She licked up the underside of his cock, and he drowned in sensation.

She left him, and he reached for her, not wanting this bliss to stop.

She rummaged in her bag, then scooted back over with a box of condoms. "I bought them this morning at the bus station. I had hopes." Her eyes gleamed. Was that a hint of blue? Did she have blue eyes? He didn't even know.

He didn't know her at all.

He sat up. "This isn't going to work." She'd snuck into his warehouse at night, she was offering herself to him, and why? She couldn't be another Alison. He wouldn't let that happen again.

But Raven said, " _Now_ you have qualms?" Her tone was like a whip, sharp and sarcastic. "You've got to be kidding. You get me all sweaty dancing for you, seducing me with that insanely sexy music, that fever dream of a jazz fantasy. Making me crazy, so turned on I can't stand it, you straitlaced saxophone god. I want to fuck you like I've never wanted anyone ever in my life. And now you're going to walk away? _Now?_ "

Her eyes were narrowed, her tone scathing. Her nipples were pert, her mouth lush.

"You want me because of my saxophone?" He felt dizzy. His music? Not his money? His _music_?

She laughed, throaty. "Plus, you're sexy without your clothes."

The dark, hot look in her eyes said she was telling the truth. She wanted him for his jazz playing and for his body and for this insane, electric connection between them. His cock jumped, and she looked down and grinned, lascivious and enticing and utterly ravishing.

~*~

Man, he was dense. Sexy as hell but dense. He'd made her dance for him, set her aflame with his command performance, and now he was getting cold feet? Seriously?

But his cock said otherwise. His cock said, _Yeah, still interested._ And he still sat there like a cat watching its prey, his body on high alert.

Still naked. Not leaving. He wanted her, yes he did.

And she wanted this with him, wanted it so bad. She wanted to know that she mattered, to know that someone in this huge city saw her, responded to her, lusted after her. She wanted to feel. Wanted to _be_. And damn, but she wanted it to be him. Desperately, and right now, and yes please.

She slid out a condom packet, tore it open. Held it up. "You in or what?" She purposely made her tone coarse. This was not lovemaking. She didn't do that. It came with icky emotional baggage that led to people thinking you owed them something and burning your paintings. This was—should be—hot and fun and ridiculous. Nowhere to belong, nobody to pretend to be. Just this. Them. Now, or not at all.

She slithered on top of him. "Tell me yes, or I'll go take care of my own needs. Or would you like that? Do you want to watch?"

"I want—" He sounded hoarse, strangled. "I want you. But—"

"But you just broke up with someone or were hurt by someone. And it's the middle of the night, and we shouldn't be here anyway. And we definitely shouldn't be doing this. Is that it?"

His intake of breath told her she'd nailed it.

"So what?" She raked her nails gently down his sides. He shivered under her touch. "Does that make it wrong? Or does it make it very right? Sometimes you have to, you know? Go ahead, even if it's not all plotted out and scheduled and fitting into your life plan. Sometimes you have to fuck a stranger in the dark and let it be as good as you know it will be, because it's the right thing to do."

She closed her hand around his cock, felt it throb against her palm, and then let go. Leaned back, no longer touching him at all. Cool air wrapped around her.

"You don't care that we don't know each other?"

"Don't we, though?" Because she knew him. Intimately. Knew him from his music. From his food. From the serious expression under dark blond slashes of eyebrows, the taut line of that generous mouth. From the fact that he was still here. He obviously needed this as much as she did.

He took a long, shuddering breath. "Maybe we do. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe we don't know anyone in the end." And he was reaching for her, and oh, he was hard and hot against her, his whole body ready. Then he kissed her again, his hands tangled in her hair. Before long, they were lying on the comforter, touching each other all over again, and the air was delicious with intent.

Finn ran his fingertips lightly along the insides of her thighs, which shivered with the sensation. She spread her legs out, an invitation.

As he entered her, she was thrown back into the feel of the music melting inside her—long soulful held breaths, a sustained, impossible, sliding trill of sensation. So slick, so sure, filling her completely. She wanted this. Needed this. Music and dance and sex under the tin ceiling in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City with this man, this impossible man with the expressive eyes gazing down at her. His biceps bulged with effort as he held himself over her, driving into her again and yet again. This, yes. This. Oblivion, sensation, transformation, bodies in motion, against, with, alone but together, pounding, sliding, slipping, gripping, slamming, hard and fast, building and wow.

She came around him, pulsing as she felt him pulse, hiccups of whole-body breath, this too in sync, feeling the metronome beat of musical rise, crash, die away in a slow fade. Seeping away, settling back into her body and his. Completely, wholly satisfied.
Chapter Four

Finn woke with a start. He was lying on a rock-hard bed but felt delightfully cozy. A beeping truck backed up outside. An airplane roared faintly far away. All the scents, sounds, and sensations were unexpected. He wasn't home, and there was a woman curled into his side. Naked and warm, but a stranger.

He opened his eyes. Tin ceiling. Large empty room. His sax was on the floor next to the stool. His black T-shirt was a casual heap, covering most of another shirt. A woman's white tee.

Raven—that was her name, wasn't it? God, if he got that wrong after last night...

Last night.

Coming here so late, wrapped up in the music and loneliness and sorrow. Raven appearing in front of him in her flimsy oversized tee. He'd asked her to dance for him.

And they'd had sex. Here. At the warehouse.

It felt like a dream, but it wasn't.

He slipped his arm out from under her. She snored louder.

If he woke her, he'd have to ask what she was doing here. How she'd gotten in in the middle of the night. Tell her never to do it again. Break the spell. Ruin the memory.

Moving quietly, he picked up his jeans, his socks, his shirt, and his shoes and got dressed silently, casting glances toward Raven. Still fast asleep, she flung her arm out as if searching for him. Even that was graceful. Even that unconscious movement turned him on.

He slipped out the door, closing it behind him, and crept downstairs.

The kitchen door was open. Nate was stirring a pot of broth on the industrial stove. How late was it?

Finn tried tiptoeing down the next flight of stairs to the street. He was hardly ready for prime time. But Nate spotted him. "Ah, I thought you were here. I spotted your Volvo outside. What time did you get in? Don't tell me you stayed all night."

"I've been here awhile." Finn sauntered into the kitchen, took a bottle of kefir out of the fridge, and poured himself a glass. _Mental note: Go home to shave and shower before anyone smells you. _

_Mental note addendum: Straighten up the warehouse upstairs, get rid of all signs of what occurred last night. _

_Change the locks. _

_Buy a padlock._

_Buy an alarm system._

_Stay on the straight and narrow. _

What had he been thinking last night? Sex with a stranger?

Insanely fantastic sex with a woman who dyed a purple streak in her hair.

It didn't feel as wrong as he'd have expected.

He realized Nate was talking.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

Nate looked at him, measuring. "Something's different about you."

"Oh?"

"You're not being an ass."

"I'm never an ass."

"Sure, if never means always."

"I'm in a good mood. Don't spoil it."

Nate leaned forward. "I knew it! Were you here all night? Did you figure out how to make the numbers work?"

"No." The word came out like a bark, harsher than he'd intended, as it all came rushing back. Alison. The company—his baby—teetering on the brink.

Nate looked as dismayed as Finn felt.

Finn rubbed his forehead. His headache was seeping back in. This was no way to run a business. No way to be in charge.

_Dance for me._ Gleaming, knowing eyes and forthright chin and _"Sometimes you have to fuck a stranger in the dark and let it be as good as you know it will be, because it's the right thing to do."_

Sometimes you had to act like you knew what you were doing even if you didn't.

But he did know what to do after all. "We tell nobody. We get a bigger credit line from the bank. We're good customers, so they'll say yes. And we go ahead with the Park Slope store but scale it down. Furnish it eclectically with thrift store finds for a homey look. Ditch the high-end designer and do it ourselves. Your sister's good with flea markets. She can help us. It'll be like the old days."

"And the expansion plant out in Plainview?"

"If I get any of the money back from Alison, I'll put it aside for that. Otherwise, it's on hold indefinitely."

Nate grabbed a bottle of soy sauce, measured it out into a beaker, and poured the result into the broth. He stared into the dark liquid as if reading tea leaves. "That could work."

"You do the publicity work. Pull strings. We'll make a splash with a big launch party. Movie stars if we can dig them up. Celebrity chefs. Write-ups on the food blogs. Buzz sells. Get on it."

Nate snorted. "I'm the publicity hound, huh?"

"Better than me."

"Need I remind you that I'm only the office manager?"

"I'll give you more shares."

Nate grinned. "Whatever you did last night, it was good for you. You're like a new man today."

"A new man who needs a shower. I'll be back in an hour. Be me while I'm gone."

"Bark orders and give everyone dirty looks?"

"Ha."

As he left the building, he glanced up at the warehouse window on the third floor. Nobody was visible. His secret tryst was still safe.

Sex with a stranger. Who'd have thought?

~*~

It turned out the courier office had a shower. Marisela, the taciturn dispatcher, grudgingly let Raven use it before she went on her first run of the day.

As she clamped the helmet on her head, Raven's hand brushed her still-damp hair, reminding her of dying that purple streak last night in the sink at the Y. She gazed down at the map, tracing a likely route into Manhattan, and her finger slid across a swath of Midtown. She'd been there just yesterday, disembarking from the long-distance bus at Port Authority, wondering if she'd made the world's biggest mistake. She took off on her bike, feeling the warm breeze kiss her face, and thought of gentle fingers trailing along her cheeks last night.

What a first day. What a welcome to the city.

Life was good. Especially that interlude with Finn. Best of all, she'd never have to see the guy again. Sex and sax and no strings attached. He was no Jimmy, burning her paintings because she didn't love him enough.

She sang to herself as she rode over the Manhattan Bridge, then through the concrete canyons past turn-of-the-century apartment buildings and shiny new condominium towers to the corridors of Midtown. Sang louder as she approached the galleries in Chelsea. She quieted as she rode past them, staring longingly through the huge glass windows. It wasn't like she had a key for this. It wasn't like she could break and enter and deposit her work in one of those clean, minimalist gallery spaces.

She was here, yes, at the center of the art world, but it didn't matter. Her paintings were so much kindling back in Maine, and she had a saddlebag filled with packages to deliver.

Grimly determined after her morning round, Raven returned to Hasty Courier to collect more envelopes and boxes. She stared at the top folder in dismay. "Can someone else do this one? I'm going in the opposite direction."

"No, you're going to Williamsburg and Long Island City. It's all in the same area. I know my job." Marisela looked affronted.

"Right, my mistake. Still finding my way around."

Back to Finn's Fermentation Factory and the awkwardness of seeing Finn after their intimate night together. She'd woken up to a quiet room and no man in her makeshift bed. And that was good. That was perfect, in fact. That was exactly what she wanted. No complicated love stuff. And yet it also wasn't. He could have left a note, for example, saying _Take some pickles from downstairs,_ or _There's a shower off the kitchen._ And even though it was good that he'd left like that, it was also weird. Because now she had to see him and say—what? _Thanks for the sex? _

Maybe he wouldn't be around. He might be home sleeping it off. Or locked away in his office on the third floor across from their den of sin. And she could drop off the folder downstairs and never see him.

Or maybe he'd be in the truck bay, hammering on a bookcase, his biceps bulging out of a deep blue T-shirt, his hair neatly combed. Neat, that was, until he saw her and ran his hands through it, mussing it immediately. "Oh. Hi."

She got off her bike, walking it to where he stood in the shadow of the garage. "Delivery from Hasty Courier at your service. Sign here." She thrust the signature pad toward him. Yeah, this wasn't awkward.

Finn said, "About last night..."

She waved to shut him up. "It was a one-time thing. Dream sex. It didn't even happen, right? I don't need roses or your phone number. Sign, and I'll get out of your hair."

"How did you get in last night, anyway?" Finn set the hammer on the shelf. Carefully not looking at her.

"There was a key on the floor. Yesterday afternoon." She heated, flustered by memories of dancing, her intense awareness of his gaze, their first meeting and again last night. "I was going to give it to you, but I forgot. And then I had it, so..." She patted her pockets, looking for the key.

But Finn had moved on. "I don't have your number, or I would have called this morning. Not about that, but..." He glanced at her, then away.

And now the awkward was amped up to eleven. "Yeah, um. I don't have one. Anyway, it wasn't like that, right?" Her heart shouldn't hurt. She was only telling the truth. And she didn't want messy entanglements anyway. And yet...

He quirked an eyebrow at her.

The burly guy in the apron appeared in the truck bay, carrying a bowl of something. He looked from Raven to Finn, tilting his head like a large quizzical bird. "Am I interrupting?"

"Yes." Finn's voice had an irritated snap to it.

"I was just going." Raven walked her bike back out to the sidewalk, hopped on, and fastened her helmet. She made a show of checking her map even though she already knew she had to go over the Pulaski Bridge into Queens and turn onto Vernon Boulevard.

Finn came out from under the garage door awning, approaching her with a serious look in his hazel eyes.

Her heart beat faster.

He extended the signature pad. "You forgot this."

She took it and rode off without looking back, her treacherous heart still hammering a wild rhythm.

~*~

Her eyes _were_ blue. An unexpected dark blue, almost gray.

Her attitude was unexpected too. Matter-of-fact but with an undertone of pain that didn't fit her words.

And she hadn't given him her cell phone number. She'd even lied to get out of it. Which was good, because she was right. It should be a one-time thing. Safer that way all around.

He shook off his melancholy and got to work. Too much to do before the store opened next month. And his parents to appease with short visits home, to boot.

After work, he took them to his favorite Brazilian restaurant in the Slope and tried to ignore his mother's cross-examination of the waiter regarding the origins of the meat and the cleanliness of the kitchen. The rest of the meal was easy. She talked. Finn ate. His father grinned a lot.

Afterward, his parents raided his fridge for the last of the kimchi and begged him to bring them more from work tomorrow. His mother gave him a huge hug. "I adore your kimchi, my love. It's all things spicy and wonderful. I'm going to stay with you until I've had enough to last me a good long time." She gave him a big toothy smile. Behind her, his father shrugged, almost apologetic.

Finn said nothing. Finn always said nothing when his parents were around.

The air in his townhouse felt suffocating. He walked through the living room on his way to bed, making his careful way past bags and suitcases, random piles of books, and Bubble Wrap from the Amazon orders his mother had already received. She'd shown him a negligee she'd ordered. Bright fuchsia with gold edging. She held it up to her wide torso. Behind her, his father rolled his eyes.

Finn tried to scrub the image from his brain. His traitorous mind pictured the garment on someone else's slim body instead. The purple streak in her hair would perfectly complement the deep pink silk.

Not that it mattered. He'd never see her again except to sign his name on a package. And if that got too strange, he'd tell Nate they needed to switch to a cheaper courier.

After his parents crashed for the night, he slipped out the door again. His father's bare feet stuck out past the end of the blankets.

The streets were less empty tonight. He whizzed past rows of cars making the turn onto the BQE, hearing snatches of music and conversation from open windows.

It was earlier tonight, just midnight. His sax awaited.

So, it turned out, did Raven.

Finn knew the moment he turned the corner onto the dead-end street. A single light shone from the third floor. It was theoretically possible he'd left the light on, but he knew he hadn't. He'd eaten lunch in that large room, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his sandwich and his pickle. Avoiding his crew. He could barely stand the small talk on a normal week, and this was anything but. He'd turned out the light when he went back to work. He was sure of it.

Now he took the stairs two at a time, tamping down eagerness. He was going to have to be firm. She needed to find a different place to crash. In this entire city, there must be somewhere for a personable, employed woman.

He pushed open the door. "You can't stay here. It's not a hotel and I can't—"

The words trailed off as he saw Raven in the same oversized tee as last night, her legs bare. But she knelt on the floor, drawing on a huge sheet of newsprint paper with colored chalks.

Drawing a figure of a man, illuminated in bright yellows and purples and reds.

A man playing a saxophone.

A cloud came up out of the bell, a rising mist of soft colors. It looked like how he felt when he played.

She was drawing him.
Chapter Five

Raven stretched her arms over the paper, reflexively protective. Not that it would do any good if Finn wanted to grab it and crumple it up like so much garbage.

She stood. "I'll leave."

Finn stood stock-still in the door. Frighteningly opaque. "You should."

She went to kneel by her duffel, grabbing leggings to slip on.

He stayed in the doorway. "Where will you go?"

"What does it matter?"

"You can't stay here. This isn't a hotel. This is a place of business. It's not coded for habitation." He sounded so formal.

"I understand." She stuffed the rest of her things back in the duffel and zipped it up, belatedly realizing she'd be leaving the sketch behind. Her first drawing in New York. The only piece of artwork she had here.

She set the duffel down and went over to the paper, knelt again, and put the pastels back into the box, fitting each into its separate slot. "You don't have to stick around watching me. I promise I'll go. I swear on my mother's grave."

"Is your mother dead?"

"She might as well be. She's in jail." Why had she told him that? "And now you're thinking, 'Like mother, like daughter,' right?"

"That must be rough." He sounded sincere.

"I'm used to it. She's a petty thief who turned to bigger fish as she got desperate. She got locked up for a year when I was seven and again when I was ten, but for longer. She's still there."

He came into the room. "Not much of a parent, then. How hard for you."

"Yeah, well. Past is past." She rolled up the edges of the newsprint. It was a shame. She hadn't bought fixative at the art supply store, so the pastels would smear. But before she could get to the actual drawn image and do any damage, Finn knelt beside her. He put his hand on hers and stared down at the page. She was trapped.

Finally, he said, "Why?"

"Why did my mother steal stuff? Who the hell knows? Maybe because her daddy was a jackass who beat her when he got drunk. Or because she wanted nice things she couldn't afford on a waitress salary. Or because she's a self-centered idiot. Why does anyone do anything?"

"I was talking about you."

"Why what? Come back here tonight? That's what you meant, right?" She forced a laugh, but it had a dark edge. "Because I figured you probably wouldn't show up two nights in a row." It wasn't entirely true. She'd pictured him showing up again at three a.m., playing soulful jazz that seduced her out of sleep. Pictured it and stopped herself. Better not to go there.

"No, I meant why draw this?" He gestured to the paper on the floor. "Why draw _me_?"

_Because you meant something to me last night._

"It was a strong image. It caught my fancy."

"You're an artist." It was a statement, not a question.

"Trying to be." And that felt far too vulnerable. She pulled the paper out from under his hand and started to roll it up again. He put his hand on hers again, stopping her.

"Where will you go?"

"Not the Y. There are rats, did you know that? And lice. Maybe Penn Station. They've got benches there, right? And I hear it's relatively clean." She slid her hand out from under his and started rolling up the paper again.

"You can stay tonight. For the one night." His voice sounded almost strangled. "You'll have to find a place tomorrow. I can't keep letting you crash here. It's—"

"Not a hotel," she finished the sentence for him. "I understand. And thank you."

~*~

He wasn't sure why he'd made the offer. It wasn't his problem if she spent the night in Penn Station or in a city park. Or the subway.

It wasn't his problem, but it was. She clearly had nobody else, no support. And she wasn't a dream. She was real, with hints of a complicated, difficult past, and she was—

Uh, right now she was leaning in close, the dip of her shirt illuminating what lay beneath: tight nipples, lush breasts, slim waist.

She ran her hands down his biceps, uttering a soft wordless murmur.

He covered her right hand with his. "What are you doing?" But it was blindingly obvious. Now she slid her hands along the front of his shirt. It felt like a titillation and a promise, and he was hardly immune. Especially when she kissed him softly on the lips. He sank into her warm mouth, excruciatingly aware of her tantalizing body pressed against his.

But there was something about the way she kissed, the way her hands moved over his chest and down, the way she grappled with the button on his jeans. Too hurried, too deliberate. Her movements had an edge tonight, utterly unlike last night's dreamlike encounter. Especially when she drew back and took off her T-shirt. Her bra was red, he noted with a tiny detached part of his mind. The rest was a thrill of animal-brain white noise as she unclasped the hooks and the bra too fell to the floor.

Finn stood hastily and stepped back, giving himself as much distance as possible so he wouldn't be tempted. "This isn't— We can't do this." He ran his hands through his hair, rubbing his scalp, trying to regain his composure.

"Why not?" She stood too. "Isn't it what you want?" Her voice was matter-of-fact, but her chest fluttered with each stuttering breath, and her nipples were tight. Aroused. He felt a rush of lust like a bulldozer.

"It's not." He knew the bulge in his sweats gave lie to his words. "I mean, yes. You were— Last night was—" He exhaled, working to regain control. "But it wouldn't be right. It would be as if I'm only offering you a place to stay so you'll sleep with me."

"Isn't that how it works?"

He didn't respond. He couldn't. He was too flabbergasted.

"Okay." She affected nonchalance. "I get it. You're a one-and-done guy. You had me, so you're not interested in another go. Fine. Whatever."

"Jesus, no! It's not that. It's—please." He grabbed her T-shirt from the floor and thrust it at her, averting his gaze from her naked body. "Put it on. Please. I can't talk to you like this." To distract himself, he walked across the room to her duffel bag, which sat on the long table next to his saxophone. It was open. Her belongings rested inside: balled-up clothes, toothpaste, Band-Aids spilling out of the box. A hairbrush with strands of dark hair tangled around the bristles. A paperback with a stamp from a Maine library.

Not much. "Is this all you've got?"

"And my bike." Her voice sounded muffled. She was putting on the shirt.

"Have you had dinner?" He shouldn't offer. Shouldn't raise the possibility. He was running a commercial enterprise, dammit. He didn't need a freeloader. This wasn't a restaurant, and it certainly wasn't a hotel with room service.

"Yeah, I ate."

He turned, leveling a be-straight-with-me gaze on her. And felt it in his gut—her tangled hair, the haunted look in her eyes that she tried to cover with a wry smile. The suggestion of her lush body under the thin fabric of the shirt. That bristly vulnerability mingled with an unselfconscious sexuality did him in.

She shook her head at him. "I grabbed a yogurt and some peanut M&Ms. The courier place has snacks. It's fine. I've gone with less."

"Not on my watch." Now it was a point of pride to feed her. He went downstairs to get her a plate of sauerkraut and sausages with all the fixings he could find in the well-stocked company fridge. And then he left. Quickly, before he could change his mind and give in to the monkey brain chanting _sex sex sex, sexy woman wants to have sex with you. _

_The answer is still no,_ he told his libido, and started his car's ignition, heading for the safety of his home, where there were no women taking their clothes off, just his parents snoring in the living room.

~*~

Finn's pulse quickened as he pulled up to the curb the next morning. Raven's bike was still there, tethered to the security gate next to the front door of the plant.

But he couldn't go up to check on her, not right away. First he had to deal with a vat of amazake that had gone off, a text from his lawyer about the Alison mess, and a freaked-out call from Nate's sister, who had agreed to help with the store but sounded like she was having second thoughts. He didn't do well with emotional women. He sicced Nate on her and stomped off to set up a new batch of amazake.

By the time he extricated himself from all emergencies, real and imagined, he wasn't surprised to find Raven's bike gone. Still, he went upstairs. Had she cleared her things out? He wasn't sure if he hoped she had, or if he hoped she hadn't.

If she stayed, if she paid rent...

He let himself picture it. Going upstairs to share pizza and sauerkraut and see what artwork she'd created that day. Cozy and friendly and comfortable, with an underlying thread of sexual attraction.

Yeah, and an underlying thread of mess and complication and don't-go-near-it.

It didn't matter. The building wasn't zoned for residential. And Raven could never afford the rent. So it wasn't happening. Which was good, because his wayward brain seemed to be taking him down dangerous paths toward intimacy and commitment to a woman he hardly knew. A woman who snuck into places she didn't belong. And kept coming back when she shouldn't. If she showed up tonight, he'd tell her to leave. He'd tell her she couldn't keep taking advantage of the situation. He'd be firm. He could do it with his employees. He'd done it with Alison. Why couldn't he do it with this petite dark-haired woman with fire in her eyes and a pointy, determined chin?

He unlocked the warehouse door, stepped into the room, and saw the huge drawing she'd done of him playing the saxophone, the one that had been spread across the floor last night. It was stuck on the back wall with thumbtacks presumably filched from his office supplies. She must have stayed up half the night working on it. It was vivid, three-dimensional, tangible.

It was him. His secret self. A portrait of wistful longing and quiet passion threaded through with the echo of a melodic arpeggio, all limned with such delicate sensitivity it made him ache.

The contradictions of this woman took his breath away.

Her duffel sat on the table, a folded note on top of it. He went over and unfolded it.

_To Finn of the Sax and Sauerkraut:_

_Thank you for letting me crash here last night. I'll pay you back. If not in trade, then some other way. Don't get your panties in a bunch, I'll come get my stuff tonight. _

It was signed with a drawing of a black bird in flight. A raven, presumably.

~*~

Raven tried to find a place to live. She did. But the apartment in Astoria with the cheery potential roommate and the sweet parakeet turned out to be an overintrusive potential roommate with fifteen parrots, five cats, and an intense odor of chemicals. And the PETA lady insisted on a thorough background check, complete with housing references. It turned out Jimmy was still in a bad mood about Raven's departure.

And the place in Breezy Point? The building had taken a hit from Superstorm Sandy. The owner was trying for some under-the-table rent while he waited for his insurance money. Which might have been okay except for the pervasive smell of sewage.

So she was back at the warehouse. Not to pick up her stuff and drop off the keys, but to spend the night. She rode her bike north along Franklin under a deep blue twilight sky, heading toward the ragged northern edge of industrial Greenpoint. She rode past people in their twenties streaming out of the subway station, scattering to their various rental apartments. Past middle-aged folks holding their children's hands as they returned to their narrow town houses from dinner or soccer games or whatever normal people did in their normal lives. Raven felt a sharp twinge, a phantom pain that shot through her chest and into her stomach.

A normal life. She'd never had that. Never thought she wanted it. The twinge in her gut said she'd been wrong.

Strangely, climbing the stairs at Finn's Fermentation Factory felt like coming home. And if a tiny voice in her head said that was because of Finn, she told it to shut up. He was a guy. They were interchangeable. Useful, sure, but that was all. Anyway, he wasn't interested in her. He'd turned her down.

When she got to the third-floor landing, she looked at the closed office. No light streamed from below the door. He was gone for the night.

She used her key to unlock the door to the empty room. Inside, she found everything the way she'd left it, but now a cardboard box sat next to her duffel. Her name was scrawled on top in black sharpie.

She opened the box to reveal an array of food neatly stacked inside. A jar of pickles, a can of salmon, two apples, a jar of mayo, a box of gourmet crackers. A wedge of cheese, carefully wrapped. A bag of chocolate-covered almonds. A half-size bottle of wine. A fancy one too, with a classy label. She set the bottle down on the table. It was so elegant.

Another surprise rested in a bag under the table. An air mattress, still new in its case.

This wasn't cool. It was too much. She started breathing in fast, shallow pants that made her dizzy. Hyperventilating.

She fled. Out the door and down the stairs, tripping past steps. Stumbling, almost falling. She caught herself with the railing, then proceeded at a slower pace, but panic still rose in her throat, threatening to choke her.

Finn was letting her stay. Welcoming her. Inviting her.

And she couldn't stand the thought.

Once she got to the street and she heard the door click shut behind her, she realized she had nowhere to go. No way to reach him. And she'd locked herself out with all her things inside.
Chapter Six

Finn told himself he'd stay away from the factory tonight. He would not check on Raven. Not see her reaction to his gifts. If she never used the mattress, that would be for the best, but if she needed it, she had it. Even if she got an apartment, she'd need a bed, right? And she'd need to eat. He wasn't being nice, he was being practical. Helping her get a start so she could stop sponging off him.

He'd stay home tonight.

His parents had invited his brother, Michael, over for dinner. Takeout, as always. Chinese tonight. His parents never cooked, and Finn spent enough time at work over the stove. He had no intention of providing a home-cooked meal for his family too.

Michael had driven in from Jericho. He hadn't bothered to find a parking spot. He'd just double-parked his overpriced Miata in front of Finn's brownstone. Every car driving past down the tiny one-way street honked as they squeezed by.

Finn sat in the living room of his ordinarily spare, clean home and tried not to look at the mess around him. "Mom, when did you say you're moving on? Gettysburg is up next, right?"

His mother waved in the air with her wooden chopsticks, spattering soy sauce onto his Tibetan rug. "There's time for that later. We're getting reacquainted with New York. And you, at least in theory. You work so hard, we never see you. Michael, do you ever see Finn?"

"Hardly ever. Never knew a pickle maker could be such a workaholic." Michael laughed, showing his teeth. "Still, pay's good, right?"

"I do okay." Finn tossed his paper plate into the trash. "But it's true. The work is never done. In fact, I left some kombucha fermenting. I need to check on it." The bubbly liquid had at least two more days of brewing to go, but he didn't mention that part.

He said his regretful good-byes and got out as quickly as he could, relishing the night breeze as he walked to his car, which he'd parked around the corner. He wasn't going to check on Raven. He was simply...

Who was he kidding? He was going to check on Raven.

His pulse quickened as he approached Causey Street and the factory. Would she be there?

As he turned onto the dead-end street, he saw a lone figure sitting on the curb. No, sitting was a misnomer. She was curled into a ball. Head bowed, arms hugging her legs tight. Miserable.

Even before he'd consciously registered who it was, he'd parked, jumped out of the car, and headed over to her. "Are you okay? Did something happen? Did someone...?"

_Molest you, beat you, treat you badly._

She looked up at him. Tears tracked her eyeliner down her cheeks like streaks of war paint. "I locked myself out. All my stuff. Everything you gave me. It's all inside."

"Is that all?" He got up and fished out his keys.

Raven stayed at the curb. Even after Finn opened the door, she still sat there.

He backtracked. "What?"

She shook her head. Stayed seated.

So he sat too. Hyperaware of the now-open door behind him, but who was going to slip inside with the two of them right here? He muzzled that little voice. _Mental note: not everything is under your control. _

She got up and went to the door, wiping her eyes on her sweatshirt sleeve. "Sorry. I'll be in and out in five minutes. I'll be out of your hair."

Finn followed Raven upstairs. Through the still-open door, he saw the box of food he'd left her, now open. The bottle of wine sat on the table next to it. The rectangular mattress bag was out of its plastic shopping bag. Her duffel remained zipped.

Raven went straight for the duffel, shouldering it, and turned back around, heading for the door. Finn stopped her. She brushed past him and ran down the stairs.

He hurried after her. "Take the mattress. I'll just have to find a spot to stash the thing. And I'm guessing you'll need a bed in your new place."

She stopped on the second-floor landing. "I didn't rent a place."

"So where are you going to sleep?"

"Somewhere." Her voice was bleak.

He caught up to her. She looked away.

He touched her chin with his forefinger. More tears?

"The streets? Why?"

"Because you gave me stuff."

"Oh, for God's sake. It's not a bribe. I'm not trying to seduce you."

"I know." She looked at him full-on now, her eyes shimmering with tears. "People don't do that for me. It's not how things work. You'll be disappointed, and then you'll break my heart. Or I'll break yours. I crashed here, and that was wrong of me. But staying now, that would be more wrong."

He rocked back on his heels. The hallway had never seemed so dark, so enclosed. "Let me get this straight. If you and I were having sex, you'd stay here tonight? It's only because we're not that you need to run away?"

"I don't run away. I leave." She sniffed. "It's a rational decision." At least she was regaining her sense of humor.

"You're not answering my question."

~*~

Was it screwed up that she desperately wanted to kiss him? She threaded her hand through his hair, reveling in its softness, the way it curled against her fingers.

"Are you trying to seduce me?" His voice was soft, strained.

She slammed away from him. "I guess not." She clattered down the final set of stairs, the hollow sound of her footsteps sharp and echoing.

Finn ran faster. He caught up to her and gripped her arms to stop her. "Raven."

She turned to face him.

He looked darkly intent, his eyebrows straight slashes. "When I kiss you, it'll be because we both want to, not any kind of manipulation or payment for services."

_When._

Her heart eased a hair.

He continued, "Still, we have a problem. Curiously, I want you to stay here."

"Even though I shouldn't? Even though it's against regulations and so on?"

"Just until you find somewhere more permanent. I feel better knowing you're safe."

"I've been looking."

"I believe you."

"I'll find something."

"I know."

"Okay. I'll stay. For tonight." What a strange conversation. Why did it even matter to him? __

_"I feel better knowing you're safe."_

Finn ducked downstairs while Raven was taking the food out of the box. He showed up a few minutes later with a traditional red-and-white-checked picnic blanket, which he ceremoniously unfolded and spread out on the floor. "If we're doing this, we're doing it right."

For a while, the only sound was munching. Finn seemed as hungry as she did. She looked sideways at him. What was his home life like? Had he eaten? Who did he live with?

"Are you married?"

He choked on his bite of apple. "Married? You think I'd sneak off from my wife and..."

"People do."

"Not me. I thought you'd have figured me out well enough to guess that."

She had, at that. Maybe she'd asked it as a test. "What do you do when you leave here?"

"I stay late most nights. It's hard work starting up a business. I don't have time for a personal life. And I don't much want one. People are a pain in the ass. I prefer my fermented concoctions any day." Finn's voice was hollow, like he was lying. Maybe to himself.

"So no girlfriends?"

"Nobody serious. Not since college. It's a waste of energy." He tossed his apple core into a makeshift trash bag.

"What are you saying? You work all day and all night too? That's it?"

"Sometimes I go to jazz clubs."

"Do you play there?" The smoky, sultry sound of that alto sax echoed in her memory.

He shook his head.

"You should."

"Do you show your art?"

"I—not yet. I just got here." She'd gone into two galleries earlier today, between apartment hunting. They'd both turned her down flat. They needed to see more work, needed to see a strong CV, needed to see credentials and clippings and everything she didn't have.

"How about back home?" He picked up empty wrappers and plastic utensils, tossing them into the paper bag.

"It's a provincial town. They think art should be sea and sky and lobsters. My stuff doesn't fit." She smiled ironically. She still felt the desolate ache that had sent her running outside. This picnic, that mattress. Finn himself. Giving so much. It wasn't right.

Maybe she had a solution. "I'll teach you to draw."

"Why would you do that?" He crumpled the top of the bag.

"Payment. I can't exactly be your apprentice chef and make pickles for you, can I? And you won't sleep with me." She cocked her head. "Unless you've changed your mind?"

He set the bag on the floor and looked up from under his eyelashes at her. He had long eyelashes. Dark, like the look he was giving her. The electricity in the room shot up, sending sparks through her veins. The memory of his touch on her skin, his mouth on hers, his body moving in sync with hers.

He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing.

A car backfired.

A siren flashed by.

He opened his mouth like he was about to kiss her.

She leaned in. It was going to be delicious. And so very right.

He stood. "I've always wanted to learn how to draw." He didn't sound terribly sincere. "Tomorrow night. Let me know what supplies you'll need. I can send someone to round them up during the day. I'll come up here around seven. Does that work for you?" He sounded stilted. Formal.

"I'll get the supplies. You just have to show up." She sat back, stunned. No sex? Really?

He wanted her. She had no doubts on that front anymore. His jeans were bulging, his gaze dark, and he still sounded as shaken as she felt. And yet he was saying no.

As Finn cleaned up, Raven unzipped the clear plastic bag and pulled out the flat rubber mattress.

"My first sexual experience was with one of my foster fathers." She could feel him looking over at her but kept her focus on the mattress as she unrolled it, then set it up on the floor by the far wall. "I was fifteen, so it was almost okay. He wasn't bad looking. He came into my bedroom after everyone had gone to sleep and told me he loved the way my hair looked and could he touch it? I wasn't stupid. I knew what he wanted. I also knew I could have screamed bloody murder and reported him to Child Protective Services. But..." She plugged in the mattress and turned on the spigot. It inflated with a soft whoosh. On the other side of the room, Finn was very still. "I also knew if I did it with him, he'd be reasonably gentle and then he'd feel guilty as hell, and that would be useful. He paid for my first art lessons."

Finn came over, kneeling beside her. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I knew what I was doing." She refused to look at him. He deserved to know who she was. "Then there was Mr. Lee. He was my math teacher in eleventh grade trig. My grades were terrible. I hosed the midterm, which was a disaster. If I failed even one class, I'd be shoved back into foster care. I'd just gotten out. Foster care was... It wasn't fun." The mattress was expanding fast. She kept her gaze down. She'd never told anyone any of this. Not Jimmy, not anyone. "Mr. Lee didn't spell it out, but he made it clear he liked my tits and my mouth and that he'd adjust my grade if I—" Now she did look over at Finn, gesturing toward his crotch and making a sucking face.

He sat on the stool, listening quietly. Which was good. The words felt like bottled-up poison in her blood, and she needed to let it all out. But if he looked shocked or appalled or showed pity, she'd shut up and walk out of here even though she'd probably end up in Port Authority or Penn Station, resting her head on her duffel, spending the night with the drunks and meth heads.

So yeah. Better he be calm about it all.

"I didn't do it. I had standards. Mr. Lee smelled like raw garlic, and his eyes were too close together. Doing him would have felt like... I'm not a whore. I just...barter."

"So you failed math?" Finn's voice was soft. Nonjudgmental.

"I got Gary Kirkpatrick to tutor me. He was in my class. Super smart. He smelled like lavender soap, and he shaved his chest hairs. I thought he was gay, but it turned out he was merely metrosexual. I did it with him in the boys' locker room. It wasn't bad."

The mattress was solid. Firm. She sat on it. It bounced a little.

"I forgot to bring sheets." Finn picked up the plastic packaging the mattress had come in. "I think it comes with a cover." He fished inside the packaging and held up something blue and soft looking. "Here." They hooked it over the corners of the bed together. "Did you ever... Have you ever been with someone because you wanted to? Because it felt right?" His hand grazed hers, and he hastily pulled it away.

Their gazes met. He looked perturbed. Crap. He wasn't supposed to react, but he was.

"Oh, sure." She tried to sound nonchalant.

"When?" He grimaced. "Sorry. None of my business." He turned to go.

She felt it like a loss. "Once. Two nights ago. With you."

He turned back, now holding the picnic blanket, which he shook out. Apparently she'd misinterpreted, and he wasn't planning to leave yet.

"Don't worry that I'm going to get clingy. It didn't mean anything. It was just fun, right? A good time."

Finn didn't respond. He spread the blanket over the bed. It was looking awfully cozy. She sagged onto the mattress, then lay down to test it out. It felt delicious. She didn't want to get up. "Will you play for me?"

"The sax?"

She nodded. "So beautiful. Like a dream." If he played, he'd stay a bit longer. She could wrap herself in his music like a warm blanket and feel like she belonged here.

~*~

So Finn moved the stool closer to the air mattress and played "Summertime" and "Melancholy Lullaby" and "Moon River" for Raven. He imagined weaving a nest of sound around her, creating a hammock of notes and trills to rock her to sleep. The air from his breath rolled through the bell, and he imagined it crying for Raven's sorrows. Blowing warmth across her face. Curling inside her and giving her strength and courage—though she hardly needed more than she already had. Giving her softness and support, then. Giving her everything she'd never had.

He played until his fingers were stiff, his chest held no more breath, and the saxophone felt heavy in his arms. Raven was curled up on her side, hands tucked under her head, asleep.

The music echoed in his head as he set the sax down, disassembled it, and put it in its case. At this hour, he'd be home in ten minutes.

But as he set the case down and turned to go, he heard a sound from the bed. A moan. Raven crying out in pain or fear.

A dream.

He went over to the bed. She was thrashing, her mouth open, her eyes closed tight.

He smoothed her hair. She shook her head from side to side, moaning. The nightmare had a grip on her. He rubbed her back. She jerked once, then quieted.

"Finn?" It was a whisper.

He'd woken her.

He whispered back, "Yes?"

"Stay?"

So he lay down on the bed, letting Raven curve her back into his chest and groin, letting her legs tangle with his, letting her breath ease into sleep. His eyes felt sticky, his body felt heavy, but his mind was still and quiet, the music echoing in his heart.

He stayed.
Chapter Seven

Morning light streamed in through the tall windows. Raven needed to stretch. Eat. Pee. But she remained lying down under the red-checkered picnic blanket because Finn lay next to her, lightly snoring.

He'd stayed. He'd stripped down to his boxers and T-shirt, then slid under the coverlet with her, nestling against her, keeping her warm all night, his heartbeat steady under her ear.

He was still here. She could feel his morning arousal temptingly firm against her hip, the possibility turning her on. But it felt wrong to do anything. As if it would break a fragile trust.

So she lay in bed listening to his heartbeat, counting his breaths, and wondering what came next.

Until the sound of a key turning in the door sent her bolt upright. The doorknob rotated, and she grabbed the blanket to cover herself and Finn. Which made no sense, since they were both wearing T-shirts.

Finn raised himself up onto his elbows, sleepily puzzled. "Raven...?" Then he whipped around toward the door as four people burst inside. "Oh Christ."

"You know them?"

He grimaced, addressing the group at the door. "Mom. Dad. Michael, I guess you spent the night? And Nate. What the hell are you all doing here?" He got up out of bed and put on his jeans, unselfconscious in front of their audience, then headed for the door.

The elegant black man Raven had seen before held up a key ring apologetically. "Your family invaded my home, demanding I come here and let them in. They said your Volvo was parked out front, that they'd called..."

Raven got up as Finn led the group out of the room. The older woman—Finn's mother, presumably—threw a look back at her before following her son out. "And called and called." She had dark hair streaked with gray, which she'd bunched into two incongruously young pigtails, and she wore a colorful batik shirt paired with a clashing maxi skirt. She looked like a too-early morning—overly bright and painfully loud. "Why is it easier to get hold of your office manager than to find our own son?"

Raven could hear the office door creak open, hear Finn saying, "You found me. Now you can leave."

Once she'd donned a clean pair of pants, she hastened through the door, still zipping them up. She joined the group in Finn's still-dark office in time to see him fishing in his pocket and coming up empty-handed.

"I must have left the phone at home. Or in the car." He paused, glancing over at Raven. "I parked in a hurry last night."

She felt an uncomfortable stirring in her chest. He'd been worried about her.

"But that's not a reason to come all the way here looking for me. I'm a grown man, Mom. I don't live with you anymore. Haven't for ages."

"You can't even stand spending a few hours under the same roof, apparently. Ever since we got here, you flee at night and don't come back until morning. Have you been spending your nights here? With her?" The rotund, colorfully dressed woman gazed at Raven dismissively.

Nate frowned. "Has she been staying here? You know it's a code violation. If an inspector comes by—and you know we're overdue for one—we're screwed."

"She's not moving in. Just crashing here. Besides, a kitchen inspector won't look at the rest of the building." Finn's voice had an irritated edge.

"Won't they?" Nate looked unconvinced.

Finn's mother chimed in. "If it's a code violation, why are you sleeping here with her? Why not bring her back to your beautiful brownstone? Introduce her to your family? Are you ashamed of her?" She gestured toward Raven. "No offense, dear, but he hasn't even mentioned you." She turned to Finn. "Or are you ashamed of us? Is that it?"

Finn ran his hands through his hair. "I'm not ashamed of anyone." He was lying. It was obvious, at least to her. His voice was different. Who _was_ he ashamed of? Her? Or them? "I had work to do, and Raven was staying here, and it got late..."

He slammed his hand against the wall, startling everyone. "No. That's not true. Yes, I've been spending time with Raven. She needed a place to crash, and I gave her one. And I...I wanted to stay here." He flushed. "That's it. No more questions. You don't have to like it. It's not your call. Any of you."

His mother turned away with a melodramatically pained shrug. "Fine. Be that way. We'll see you back at your place. Unless that's too much for you, in which case we can be on our way. I don't know where we'll go, but I'm sure we can find somewhere we'll be wanted." Her voice trailed back up the stairs she'd already started down.

Finn's father hesitated. He was slim to his wife's stout, tall to her short, and had spongy curls of graying hair and kind eyes. "She'll calm down. Give her time." He nodded at Raven. "Take good care of my boy. He needs some TLC." He looked to Finn again. "But, uh... We need to get the trailer home fixed up before we head out. And we don't have the cash. So it might be a few days yet before we can hit the road."

Finn sighed. "I'll cover the cost."

"Thanks, my boy. I knew you would."

Finn's brother winked at him. "About time you did something unexpected, Finnegan." He turned and followed their parents downstairs, leaving only Nate with the two of them.

Nate looked at her with a thoughtful gaze, like he was categorizing her faults, toting them up one by one. "You're the bike messenger."

She nodded.

Finn put his hand on the other man's arm. "Don't."

Nate ignored him. "You're using him for crash space, aren't you?"

She shook her head, mute.

Nate gave her a measuring look. "Everyone uses him. Don't do it."

Finn shook his head at his office manager. "You make me sound like a wimp."

"No, you're strong. Too strong. Too damned good at everything. Why do you think Alison leeched off you? Your parents do it too."

Finn made a harrumphing noise. "Raven's not."

Except that she was, wasn't she? Not on purpose. Except for that first night. But still... She was staying here. Eating his food. Asking him to play for her. Asking him to stay with her. She hadn't ever offered to give his keys back.

Raven went back into the warehouse room and stuffed her things in her duffel. It was past time to move on. Stop mooching off the best guy she'd ever met.

Finn followed her in. "What about my art lessons?"

Right. The lessons. She owed him that. Payment for what he'd given her. It was hardly enough. It would have to do.

~*~

Nothing was coming out right. The pickles were too tart, the kvass tasted like dirt, and bills loomed like a teetering Tower of Pisa in his office. He snapped at everyone until they eyed him warily and made excuses to work on things that took them elsewhere. His mother was probably pouting at home. If he were a better son, he'd go home and soothe her ruffled pride. Instead he stayed at work through lunch, remembering the stark look in Raven's eyes and dreading tonight.

When he went upstairs, intending to work in his office, he found himself opening the door to the warehouse room instead. Her duffel was still there. She hadn't snuck in in the middle of the day to take it and disappear into the vast city.

They'd known each other less than a week. When had she become so important? It felt impossible that she mattered this much to him.

He resented that she mattered so much. Nobody should.

He went into the office.

Nate reclined on the couch behind the desk, feet up on one arm of the sofa. He was munching on a cookie and flipping through invoices. When Finn came in, Nate set the invoices down. "I know, not my place, I shouldn't be here. As usual, you're taking everything on yourself and not letting me share the burden. I get that, okay? You don't trust me. I don't blame you. I could be a serial killer. Or, wait, a serial fermenter. But we've got a business to run, and you've been acting..."

Finn raised his eyebrows.

"...Weird." Nate choked on a bite of cookie. "Don't fire me."

"For saying I'm weird?"

"For letting your family in this morning. Obviously, I had no idea what we'd see. It's not exactly your style. Who is she, anyway?"

"A bike messenger."

Nate gazed at the ceiling as if asking it to give him patience to deal with Finn. "Who is she? And what did she do with the Finn I knew? Buying her an air mattress? Getting her to give you _art lessons_?"

Finn frowned at him. "Do I pay you to gossip?"

Nate got up, tossing the invoices on the couch. "You pay me—far too little, by the way—to watch your back. Which I'm doing. I'm the closest thing you've got to a friend, God help you. And I care about you, you moron. Don't screw things up worse. How well do you know this bike messenger? We don't have enough money left for you to go all soft now."

Nate left the room, letting the door slam behind him. Leaving Finn blinking hard.

~*~

Blick Art was heaven on earth. Two expansive floors with art supplies everywhere. And not just the crafty stuff. Her basket was heavy with goodies she couldn't afford but couldn't resist: soft drawing pencils, chamois cloths, old-fashioned rubber erasers, sticks of charcoal, a box of pastels, even a few small tubes of paint in case Finn wanted to try oils.

Browsing the row of brushes, she spotted a Japanese calligraphy brush—a luxurious pale red swath like a fox's tail. It was the only one left in the bin. Probably hideously expensive, but so gorgeous. Maybe she could pick up some ink and show Finn the proper technique.

And now she had an image of teaching him calligraphy. Her hand over his, guiding his strokes, their breaths in sync, the intimacy of the moment. Sexual tension sharp and pure.

She reached for the brush.

So did someone else. Raven's thumb smacked against the other woman's hand, and their shoulders collided.

She stepped back.

The other woman did too.

The woman was mid-twenties, dressed in an eye-popping red leather top and tiger-striped leggings. Her blonde hair was shot through with purple streaks. Purple. Like Raven's.

It wasn't quite like looking into a mirror. The woman's face was more angular, her eyes more wide-set, and her hair the tint of wheat fields. And yet...

"You take it." The woman thrust the brush at her.

"No, that's okay. I can't afford it anyway." Still, Raven took the brush.

"Neither can I." The woman laughed. "I just lost my job today."

Raven frowned at her. "You seem awfully chipper."

Now her mouth twisted, rueful. "It's either that or cry."

"I know the feeling." _All too often._ Raven ran the brush along her cheek. So soft. Also twenty-five dollars. For one brush. Not in her budget. Not by a long shot. "You sure you don't want it?"

The blonde took the brush and contemplated it. "If I buy it, do you suppose that means I'll get a job soon to pay for it?"

"A good-luck brush? It does look sort of like a rabbit's foot."

"Doesn't it, though?" The woman smiled, a whimsical, self-aware sort of smile.

Raven felt that strange sense again. A connection, however tenuous and in the moment. Finn wasn't the only person she could relate to in this vast city.

Somehow they ended up at the front counter together, standing in the same line. And somehow Raven waited for the other woman, whose name was Alanna Woodruff and who worked—when she had a job—at an ad agency doing illustration work, and who had gotten fired for telling her boss that the flop-eared bunnies he'd wanted would look stupid in an ad for deodorant, and besides, he should stock the office pantry once in a while if he wanted them working so much overtime for no extra pay.

Alanna had a jittery, nervous exuberance and seemed to accept Raven without question. And for that, Raven instantly loved her.

As the two women left the store, Raven reluctantly waved good-bye. "Better get going. I have to be in Greenpoint in an hour."

"Greenpoint? No way! I live in Greenpoint. Where do you live? What street?"

Raven stuttered in her step. "I, uh, don't. Not exactly."

"Oh, my mistake. Meeting a boyfriend, then?"

Raven flushed. "Not exactly."

Alanna laughed, rueful. "I'm blowing it, aren't I? Sorry, none of my business." She thrust out her hand. "Nice meeting you, and thank you for letting me buy the brush."

"I don't have a place to live, so I've been staying upstairs from this pickle plant by the river, but I shouldn't be, so I'm giving the owner a drawing lesson tonight." It came out in an unintentional rush.

Alanna grinned. "Cool. Is it Finn McKenna? I've seen his stand at the Smorgasburg Food Fest. He's totally hot."

Raven blinked.

"So let's go. We can talk more on the subway. You can tell me how you ended up with Finn."

"I'm not _with_ Finn, I'm just giving him an art lesson." It sounded hollow, even to her. But her relationship with Finn wasn't more than that. Couldn't be. "Anyway, I've got my own transport, so..." She gestured at her bike, chained to a post near the store.

"Ah. Rain check, then?"

"Sure."

Alanna dug out a card and handed it to her. "Here's my cell. Text me when you're in the neighborhood and we'll have coffee at Grumpy's." Warmth suffused Raven. An offer of genuine friendship. From someone almost, maybe, sort of, like her.

New York City was full of surprises.

~*~

Nervousness made her early. Six thirty for a seven o'clock meeting. She'd never taught anyone how to draw before. She wanted to do it right for Finn. Give him something of herself. She sharpened the pencils, gulped down some water from the bottle she always carried now, and stared at her art supplies, hoping they'd guide her to be a good teacher tonight.

Then she picked up one of the soft 6B pencils and started to draw.

A rumpled bed. A man sitting on that bed. His hands clutching the sheets. On the bed, a picnic blanket laid out with bananas and apples and odd-shaped jars of food.

She was so involved in her sketch that she didn't even notice when Finn came in the room. Wasn't aware of him until he knelt down beside her. "Is that me?"

"Sort of." She erased a curve of the apple, blew the eraser dust away. "Without you posing, I had to do it from memory. I fudged some."

"Why do you keep drawing me? Why me?" He looked so serious, intent on whatever she might say.

Several responses flitted through her head, from flippant to crass. But that wasn't fair. Finally she settled on the truth, or part of it. "You're compelling. Your face, it's like a map." She reached out and almost touched his lips, but drew back. "It's got strength of character, with that wide forehead and that assertive chin, but softness too, with those beautiful lips and those expressive eyes. Your face has so much personality." She realized belatedly that she'd dropped to a whisper. "I love to draw you."

"What if I pose for you now?" His voice too sounded hushed. Like they were talking about something entirely different.

_Snap out of it, Raven._ "I'm supposed to teach you, not draw you."

"Talk me through your process. Next time I'll draw you."

"Okay." It was little more than a breath. She'd stopped drawing and was abruptly aware of how close he was. Inches away. He smelled spicy, salty, utterly masculine.

He leaned toward her. It wasn't an offer of a kiss; it was more unconscious than that. He swayed, and she swayed too, feeling his body heat. Imagining wrapping herself in it. The best, warmest comforter.

She stood, picking up the pad of paper like a shield.

He stood too and shoved his hands in his pockets. "So where do you want me?"

_Anywhere I can have you. _

"First lesson. What do you want to draw? Set the scene. If you stand in front of that window there, I'll have the graffiti on the wall across the street. I could make you silhouetted, all dark and moody. Or the other window, and I'd have the East River, and it would be more romantic. In the classic art sense, I mean."

"How do you choose?" He was looking at her intently. "Is it about how you see your subject?"

"Or what mood I want to create." She walked over to the mattress, made up neatly, just like a real bed, with the blanket folded down and a towel rolled up to mimic a pillow. "We could stage a scene. They did that a lot in Renaissance times, painting scenes from mythology or the Bible. People do it now, but more normal stuff. Like you could be lying in bed, sleeping. Or you could be reacting to someone at the door like you did this morning."

Finn sat on the bed. "Not a moment I want to relive."

She sat on the other end of the mattress. "Or I could do a simple portrait."

"That sounds good."

"Most people start with vases or bananas, things like that. Heads and hands are the hardest."

"So I won't draw you." He quirked a smile. "But I want to watch you draw me."

The words were innocent. Light, almost. The look in his eyes wasn't. She felt like she was drowning. Like this was getting serious. But it was just a drawing. She'd done hundreds of drawings.

"Whatever the client wants." She went to fetch the art supplies.

~*~

It turned out being drawn meant sitting still for a long time. Oh, Raven kept it interesting, talking about shading and proportion and all the technical elements that went into a good drawing. She was poised and in her element and entirely focused on the task. As the portrait came to life with quick strokes, the purple streak in her hair fell across her face, and she impatiently brushed it away. She worried her lower lip with her teeth. Her shirt hiked up as she changed positions, but she never noticed, just kept drawing. Her omnipresent sexual energy became unconscious; her entire body language was different.

She reminded Finn of himself when he spent hours in the fermentation kitchen perfecting a new recipe. It was a new side of her.

"Finn."

"Hmm?"

"You need to turn your head again. You're leaning in too much."

He corrected his angle.

She glanced up at him, then down at her page. Then up at him again.

"Finn."

"Yes?"

"You're smiling."

"I can't smile?"

"Not without ruining the picture. Think depressing thoughts."

He burst out laughing.

"Finn!" But she was laughing too.

"Sorry." His mouth twitched. He tried to suppress the smile.

She flashed him a mischievous look.

"You're not helping."

"Sorry." She didn't sound sorry.

She looked entirely kissable, with a smudge of charcoal on her nose and that purple lock of hair falling across her face again.

Why was it a bad idea to kiss her, again?

Because it was for the wrong reasons, at least on her side.

He clenched his hands into fists.

"Finn." She looked up from her drawing with a frown.

"Sorry." He relaxed his hands with an effort.

"You changed entirely from one second to the next. What are you thinking about?"

"I was—" He hesitated. "I was wishing I could kiss you."

Her mouth formed an "O" but no words came out. She set her pencil down and moved the sketch pad away, then scooted forward.

He put his hand out, stopping her. "Just because I want to doesn't mean it's right to take advantage of the situation."

"What if I want to? I mean, really want to, aside from all this—" She gestured around the cavernous room. "Two people, you and me. We press our lips together, and that's it. If you want." She ducked her head, uncharacteristically embarrassed.

What could he say? What could he trust himself to do? Because they knew each other now, it meant something more complicated than a dream of music curling inside the soul or two strangers coming together. Everything had changed. And yet nothing had. He wasn't wary of her, not anymore, but still, this wasn't a good time for him, wasn't the right time to entangle himself in someone else's life.

Still, a kiss...

She searched his face, looking for clues. He needed to say something.

"I..." He touched her face, traced the line of her cheek.

She shivered. Turned her head and kissed his palm.

Now he shivered. Such a simple connection. He tried again. "You..."

"Yes." Her voice was husky, trembling.

So he kissed her.
Chapter Eight

He kissed her, and it was just a kiss. Tongues twining, his stubble against her cheek.

It was just a kiss, but it was a most excellent kiss. Finn groaned deep in his throat, and Raven felt it in her chest, that vibration that meant _need_ and _yes_ and _I want you too._ She pressed against him, the sketch pad forgotten. The pencil rolled off the mattress and clattered onto the floor.

He kissed her, and she felt like he'd never stopped kissing her. That everything they'd done for the past week—every interaction, every time they saw each other—had been another form of a kiss. Gentle butterfly kisses, deep soul kisses, sloppy sexy kisses, but always implied, never real. This was all of them in one. And it was real.

Kissing. More kissing. Lying back on the mattress now, kissing and touching.

Finn pulled back, out of breath, and slid his hand out from under her shirt. "We shouldn't be doing this. I don't remember talking about hands. Only kisses."

"When's the last time you did something selfishly, because it felt right?"

His eyebrows shot up; he clearly recognized the words. "Three nights ago."

Touché.

"And every time I play the saxophone."

She rolled so she was lying half on top of him. "Your music, yes. Who knows about it besides me?"

"I changed my mind. Let's go back to kissing." Finn reached for her, but she held back. This was important to say.

"It's always stolen time, isn't it? Seems to me you take care of everyone else's needs. Your parents, your business, your employees. Me now. You don't take care of your own needs. No wonder your office manager says you're a grump. I would be too. You're not selfish enough."

Her words reverberated in her own ears with the heavy weight of truth. He was a giver. She was a taker. She had nothing to offer him.

She needed to leave. Find her own way in this scary-exciting-overwhelming city. Without him, because it wasn't fair to him. She wasn't about to be anyone's burden, least of all his.

But that was tomorrow's trouble.

Tonight, right now, she traced her finger along his collarbone, then along the edge where his sweatshirt met skin. "And it's not just sex. I've started to care about you. I want to give you pleasure. It would—it would please me." Nervous laughter bubbled up. "That sounded dumb."

He pulled her up, fully on top of him. Nose to nose. "It sounded perfect." And he kissed her. Deep this time. A delicious promise.

After a long, leisurely exploration of his mouth, Raven kissed Finn's nose, his forehead, his chin, and licked up the side of his ear, delighting in his responsive shiver. "What do you like?" she whispered in his ear. "I'll do it. I want to make you feel good."

She slipped her hand under his waistband, felt his cock ready against her palm. "Want me to go down on you?"

He shuddered and pulled her hand away. "I want you to enjoy this." He took her shirt off, then slid his fingers under her bra line, unclasped her bra, and let it fall away. She delighted in the toe-curling sensation as his fingers brushed her nipples. Before his mouth closed over her right breast, he said, "I want this to be the best you've ever had." His voice was thick. "I want you to feel everything."

Dimly, in the back of her brain, she thought she should be striving to give him pleasure, not the other way around, but damn. It felt amazing. He slid his hands down her body and gently tugged her pants off, then her underpants. He licked and kissed and caressed his way down her torso and abdomen, settled in at her groin.

The first time his tongue touched her, she jumped off the bed. It felt like she'd been electrocuted. So intimate. As if Finn were slipping inside her soul, not just playing his tongue against her slick, eager body.

He licked her like he had all the time in the world and this was exactly where he wanted to be. She bucked up under him, involuntarily craving more. She moaned, a stutter in her throat, a catch in her heart. _This_. _Yes_. Finn groaned in response, as if he were feeding on her pleasure. When she gazed down her body at him, his deliciously mussed hair, the lines of his face lit by the night outside the room, he smiled back at her, his eyes alight with his own enjoyment.

This _was_ pleasure for him—giving to her. The thought stunned her. Still, though she wanted him inside her, wanted him crawling up her body and sliding into her, it wasn't time yet. Not until this was equal. Not until he was crazy with lust too.

So she pulled away. Still gasping, still hungry, but she pulled away. "Your turn."

"This is about you. What you want."

"This _is_ what I want." She realized that she meant it. Because when she took him in her mouth and he shuddered in pleasure and laced his fingers through her hair, then jerked his hands away as if afraid he might get too rough, she was even more turned on.

When he pulled her up his body and kissed her thoroughly, tasting of musk and sex and her, he whispered against her mouth, "You're not who I thought you were."

She stiffened.

"You're so much more. Dream girl, dancer, artist, beautiful silken-winged raven." He stroked her hair, and she felt like she was melting.

He touched her cheek wonderingly. It came away damp.

She kissed him fiercely, stopping whatever he was going to say. She slid her legs against his, scissored around his cock, rubbed herself against him, teasing the tip against her entrance.

Crying, emotion, weakness—that wasn't important. Doing, not feeling—that was.

He moved with her, sliding against her, but he spoke in a low tone in her ear. "If you're not okay..."

"I'm more okay than I've been in my entire life. Stop asking me that and get the damned condom." She covered her mouth, aghast. "I didn't mean it like that."

He laughed. "Don't change, Raven."

A deep kiss, and she relaxed, sighing into him, her body aflame, shivering with tension.

The condom. Yes. He fetched it from her duffel. She helped him unroll it. Hand over hand, guidance and partnership.

Then _yes_.

He hovered over her, gazing at her. "This is..."

He slid into her.

"It is," she said, on a rising moan. _It is. _

It wasn't like the last time. That was a dream, fast and intense and self-contained. This was slow and mutual. Raven watched Finn's warm hazel eyes widen as he moved inside and with her, as she tightened around him, as they rocked the mattress—gently at first, but then with more force, sliding it across the floor. Every movement felt like a reminder. She was here, they were doing this, he was inside her, moving with her. And the thought, the feel of his body against hers, the spice-and-salt scent of him, the sounds of their bodies and their breaths—it overwhelmed her. She started to leak tears; her emotion spilling out the seams.

He hesitated.

"Keep. Going." She gripped his ass, strained against him, wanting to engulf him, take him into her, imprint him, memorize him.

It had never felt like this. Not ever, not with anyone. And she told him that. "It's. You." She groaned, loud. "It's so good, and it's all you."

Finn's expression opened up—relief and passion and warmth. His arm muscles knotted with effort as he leaned in and kissed her in time with the rhythm of their bodies. She could feel herself letting go, the flash flood of emotion tangled with sensation, the electric swirl of her body awake, alive, and completely, entirely present. Could feel him too, his building orgasm in his halting breaths, his sped-up movements, and the way he jerked against her, sloppy and hard. It was like music, the way it gathered speed, the way it got into her heart, the way they moved together, the escalating rhythm spreading through her body and—

She cried out as she orgasmed, long and hard—and felt him come too, pulsing into her as she felt the concentric circles receding, echoes fading through her body.

In the aftermath, he held her close as she wiped her eyes. "That was tremendous."

"It was. It is." He tucked her against him, skin to skin. Warm and safe and home.

~*~

Raven woke to the seductive scent of coffee brewing and the playful sound of jazz bebop. For a moment, she'd have sworn she was in an upscale café. Then she opened her eyes and saw the large warehouse room, her temporary home.

Finn was setting up a lavish breakfast, the long table functioning as a sideboard. Scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, croissants. As she got out of bed and donned her oversized tee, he smiled at her. "I wasn't sure what you like, so I got some of everything."

"What, no pickles? What's a meal without fermented foods?"

"Good point." He started toward the door.

She caught his arm. "I was kidding." She reeled him in for a kiss, then she sat on the stool and dug in while Finn watched approvingly. He held a croissant but didn't eat. He looked nervous.

She scooped a big forkful of fluffy eggs, eyeing him. "Spit it out."

"So." He took a bite of his croissant, shedding flakes all over his shirt.

"So?"

"I was thinking." Another excruciating pause.

"Say it." She was starting to lose her appetite. What was he going to say? What nasty bombshell was lurking in his head?

He stopped, started again. Stumbling over words, that wasn't usually a good sign. "You know you can't stay here, right? I shouldn't have let you stay as long as I have. I should have kicked you out that first night." He flushed, clearly remembering their late-night encounter. "Nate is absolutely right. This building isn't zoned for residential use, and that's going to catch up with us sooner or later. Probably sooner. Given everything else going on, it's not a chance we can take."

"So you're kicking me out. I get it. That's okay." She stabbed the eggs with her fork. No reason to be upset. He was being practical. This relationship wasn't a forever thing anyway. Time to move on.

"I'm going about this all wrong, aren't I?" Finn raked his hands through his hair like he was tempted to yank it out by the roots. "I wanted—want—to ask you to move in with me."

Raven didn't respond. Couldn't. Her vocal chords felt frozen. His words—they had the right number of syllables, the right cadence, but she couldn't fit them into a pattern that made sense.

The plate tilted in her lap. Finn gently removed it from her unresisting grasp and set it on the table. "I realize it's awfully quick. Ideally, we'd have more time to get to know each other. Make sure we're compatible. That what's between us will actually work out. But it's logical, right? It fixes your housing problem. And I'm sure we're compatible in at least a few ways." He flashed her a smile but was clearly perturbed by her silence.

She should say something. Should respond like a normal person. Like she might have done before—before what?

Before meeting Finn unraveled her, stripped her defenses, and made her far too vulnerable.

She didn't have words, so instead she stood and kissed him. It was _"Thank you"_ and _"You are amazing"_ and _"Good-bye"_ all in one.

It might even have been _"I love you."_ But that thought frightened her the most. All she could do was kiss him with everything she had, and if the kisses led to breathless lust, which led to walking each other over to the mattress and lying down on it, which led to opening her body to him again, that too meant _good-bye._

~*~

Raven wasn't like other women, and Finn was grateful for that. She didn't gush; she didn't endlessly discuss her feelings. She just showed him how she felt. In her drawings, in her tears, in her responsive body, in her wistful smiles.

And if she didn't give him her cell phone number, that was—as she said—just because she was changing it today, getting herself a New York number now, and she'd give it to him later. He gave her his. He also scribbled his home address on a torn edge of the sketch pad and tucked it into her jeans pocket as they kissed good-bye.

But kissing him like that? Making love after he'd asked her to live with him? It was her way of saying yes. It had to be.

He couldn't lose her. In less than a week, she'd made him feel more alive, more connected, than he'd felt in years. Maybe ever. Her strength and vulnerability and...

She would show up tonight. Either at home or at the warehouse. She had to.

Finn left the loft space without looking back. If he looked back, it might seem like he was doubting her. Doubting himself.

Somehow, though, he wasn't surprised when he went back upstairs later, checking on the big room. Raven wasn't there, of course. Her work shift had started at ten. But her things were gone. Her duffel, her art supplies. She'd even taken the air mattress in its carry bag.

He tried to convince himself that she was taking him at his word. He'd said she couldn't stay there. That they could get in trouble for it. He'd given her his home address. She could easily show up there tonight, duffel and bike in tow. She could.

He worked the rest of the day in a fog, making mistake after mistake in the kitchen until Carl, the head chef, shooed him away. He went to the storefront and measured and sawed and annoyed Nate's sister so much, she snapped, "Either you get out of my way or I'm gone." He went back to Greenpoint and shut himself in the office with a bottle of pomegranate-lime kefir and called every store he could think of in the Tristate area that might want to stock products from Finn's Fermentation Factory. And if he occasionally thought, _I chased her away,_ and _I was too eager,_ he shut the thoughts down and plowed on. Some people drank through their pain. Finn worked.

He went home early, though. Just in case.

His parents were happy to see him.

Raven never showed up.

He wasn't surprised.
Chapter Nine

Clouds spread across the sky, ominous. Raven rode with her head down, racing the impending storm. She delivered a package to Dumbo, catching a glimpse of the blue span of the Brooklyn Bridge from between buildings, then went up to the gritty edge of Astoria, riding past the big cement-block walls of the Kaufman Astoria film studio on her way north; then back down to dreary Gowanus and the smelly canal; then east to Ditmas Park, going out of her way so she could glide down the residential streets lined with stately Victorians.

By the time she made it to her last stop in Park Slope, she was flattened by the June humidity, spattered by rain flying in her face, and ready to collapse. One more drop-off and then she was done.

Raven glanced at the address again, an unfamiliar one.

She'd passed up three packages in the past month going to Finn's Fermentation Factory. She couldn't face him. Not after she'd disappeared like that. Not after she'd run away from the hugeness of his offer.

Two weeks ago, she'd come back from a run, and her dispatcher, Marisela, had handed her a note from Finn.

He'd come looking for her. The thought gave her a shiver in her gut.

The note had been short and to the point.

_Raven,_

_You don't have to live with me. We don't have to date. Just come say hello. That's all. I worry._

He'd signed it, _Best,_ _Finn_ , which hurt too.

She should stop by his industrial kitchen. She should at least text him to say _Hello, I'm still alive. I landed on my feet_.

Because she was, in fact, okay. She'd spent a week crashing on the couch in Marisela's cramped apartment in Elmhurst, waking every morning to find her boss's toddler yanking on the purple streak in her hair, apparently convinced it wasn't part of her head, or to Marisela's two older kids bickering over who got to choose this morning's cartoons before school. It was all achingly, utterly foreign. She was an outsider, she didn't belong, she was a foster child again at the mercy of the system.

And yet Marisela's family was so warm and comfortable, Raven felt a disconcerting yearning for a place of her own with a tangle of kids, a loving spouse, and a sense of belonging. And she pictured Finn.

The image scared the crap out of her.

After her mother went to prison the second time, Raven had vowed that she'd never get entangled too deeply with a man. She'd be strong and independent and everything her mother wasn't. Because if she cared too much about someone like Finn, someone amazing and generous and kind, one day he might wake up and say, _This is wrong. This isn't me._ And then where would she be?

Her life wasn't sunshine and holding hands in perfect harmony. Her life was scrounging and fighting for what she needed. Calculating the odds. Taking risks, yes, but not with her heart. If she cared too much, she'd get sloppy, she'd rely on someone besides herself. That way lay danger.

Finn was temptation. Finn was love and giving and false promise. Finn was off-limits. And that was why she didn't text him. Because it opened a door that should stay closed.

After a week at Marisela's, she'd landed a roommate situation. The apartment was cramped and musty, the paint was flaking, and the fridge sometimes stopped working for no reason, but she'd lived in worse places. She shared the place with Adelaide, a Jamaican bike messenger with a painfully soft voice and an addiction to video games. Adelaide said it would be okay for Raven to make her art in the apartment. Even oil paints, as long as she kept the windows open to air the place out.

She'd seen Alanna from the art supply store a few times too, and once even went to a life drawing session with her and some of her friends, which involved more laughter than sketching. Alanna had lent Raven the Japanese brush afterward, saying it might bring good luck. Alanna had a new job, which she didn't seem to love. And a boyfriend, who seemed cavalier and sloppy in his affection. But she claimed she was happy. Maybe that was just what happiness looked like. Settling.

Another reason not to reach out to Finn. What they'd had—that wasn't settling. That was unique and enormous and special, and seeing him again would ruin everything.

Raven pedaled faster now, trying not to spin her wheels in the warm rain. The streets were getting slick, the puddles deeper. Under her windbreaker, she could feel her back getting damp. After this last drop-off, she'd head home, change into her paint-splattered shorts and tank top, and get to work.

Here it was. Her final stop for the day: an in-progress storefront with plywood boards covering the windows. No sign over the door yet. Curious, she parked her bike and went inside, taking off her helmet on the way.

The ringing of hammering filled the small space. Everyone inside was so intent on their work, they didn't register her presence. It was an inviting place even in its unfinished state. Rough-hewn wooden shelving lined rustic-painted walls, and converted antique kerosene lamps lit the space. Teetering high on a ladder, a man affixed faux-tin tiles to the ceiling while a petite black woman with close-cropped hair peered up at him. Toward the back of the store, two men were assembling a glass case.

Wait a second.

The men in back. They looked familiar. She'd seen them before. At Finn's kitchen.

And the man on the ladder...

Finn himself.

She glanced down at the package in her hands. Why hadn't she registered his name? She'd been too busy looking at the address, so blithely certain that he only got deliveries at the warehouse.

She was supposed to deliver this super-important For-Your-Eyes-Only envelope to Finn McKenna.

While she remained invisible, she stood and watched. Drinking him in. The play of muscles under his short-sleeved T-shirt, the arch of his back, the tilt of his head. The precise way he worked, the sureness to his movements. This man had played his saxophone for her. She'd slept with this man. She'd opened herself up to him.

He turned, and she felt an adrenaline hit. He was about to see her, to say—

But he didn't see her. He glanced down at the woman standing by the ladder and said, "We can leave the walls bare, then."

The woman snorted as she handed him a small box of tiles. "You're as pigheaded as Nate said you were. Bare is not homey. You said you want this place to feel like someone's home pantry, not a cold factory warehouse, remember? Don't you have anything in your attic? Photographs? Posters from college?"

"I'll think about it." He peeled the backing off another square and placed it on the ceiling, smoothed it out with his fingers.

The woman turned away with a shrug. She caught sight of Raven gawking. "Can we help you?"

Finn turned at the words. She felt the pained shock of his recognition in the immediate shuttering of his expression. "Raven." His voice vibrated through her, his tone deep.

"You know her?"

"I did." He climbed down the ladder and came over, wiping his hands on his oil-stained cargo pants. "I thought you'd left the courier company."

"I'm still there. I guess I haven't had any runs headed your way lately."

"Did you get my note?" He was being so formal. It hurt more than she would have expected.

"I did. I—" _Haven't had time, lost your phone number..._ "I didn't know what to say. You were—I wasn't ready to call you." Raven fiddled with her helmet strap, swinging the helmet, uncomfortably aware of the woman watching them.

"Is it because I asked you to move in with me?"

"No, I—" Who was she kidding? "Yes. I can't." She squeezed the helmet strap. "But I'm okay. It was good of you to worry, but I found a place. I'm in Bushwick. I should have let you know." God, could this be more excruciating?

"I miss you. Every day." His voice, low and hurt, rumbled through her. "I've tried not to, but it doesn't work. I've never met anyone like you."

He took a step toward her, and now it was the two of them, intimate and close. She could smell spice and sawdust and something else that was only him. His scent enveloped her, reminding her of those nights in Greenpoint, of touching and being touched.

She stepped back. "You've got enough to deal with. Your parents, that sleazy accountant, your business. I can't be another project for you."

Finn frowned, pained. "Is that why? I thought—" He stopped, censoring himself. "For the record, I gave my parents some money, told them I loved them, and sent them on their way. They're in Banff. I got a postcard. My mother sounds giddy. Next time they come through, I'm springing for a hotel room." Finn considered her, frowning. "So you thought you were a project for me?"

"Wasn't I?"

"Does it matter? Isn't love about people being there for each other? Healing each other?"

Her throat constricted. "Love?"

Finn froze, seeming to replay his own words, then took a deep breath. "Yes. It may sound crazy, but yes. Love. You obviously don't feel the same. If it's one-way, I guess I was wrong."

It wasn't one-way.

But she couldn't make herself say it.

She was drowning in the words she couldn't speak, couldn't articulate.

He loved her, and that felt like a blessing. An impossible, terrible blessing.

"I can't— I don't— You don't love me. You can't."

He grabbed her hands and led her through the store to the back room, ignoring the stares of his workers. She nodded hello to them. They looked puzzled.

Once inside the small room stuffed full of boxes and bins and carpentry odds and ends, Finn shut the door. They were alone.

"Why do you think I can't love you?"

"Because we spent, what, four nights together a month ago? Love doesn't work that way."

He folded his arms and leaned back against the door, strangely at ease. "And why is that?"

"Because... Because it doesn't."

"In your infinite experience?" His posture was calm, his face opaque, but his voice was edged with cold anger.

"You don't sound like you love me." Why did that hurt?

"Maybe I'm protecting myself. Since you don't love me. Since you can walk away from what we had, what we shared, and not even give me your cell number when you knew damned well how much I'd do for you."

"That's the problem. That, right there. I don't _want_ you to do so much for me. Like I'm broken and can't make it on my own. We're not equal, the two of us. You've got this great business and an amazing brownstone..." She'd ridden past it. Gone out of her way to ride past it, in fact. It was beautiful, with soft dark stone blocks and cheery flowers in pots all the way up the stairs. It looked like a real home. "While I'm a screwup. A bike messenger. And before that, I did nails at a salon in a tiny Maine town. You shouldn't settle for someone like me. I can't be your fixer-upper all my life."

He was next to her in a single stride. "If that's how you think of yourself, if that's what you think I'm doing, you're an idiot."

He kissed her. It wasn't a nice kiss. It wasn't tender or kind or understanding. It was teeth mashing against teeth, lips painfully squashed, his stubble scraping her sensitive chin.

She kissed him back fiercely. Feeling fully alive for the first time in a month, her body kindling to his passion.

And then it was over. He stepped back, letting her go.

Raven nearly fell against the wall, stumbling against boxes. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know, maybe I was fixing your lip gloss? Since I'm such a nice guy." He pushed past her, opening the door to the main room. "Have a good life. I'm glad you found a place to live. I'll look for your work in a gallery in Chelsea someday. Maybe I'll even buy a painting and hang it on my wall so I can look at it from time to time and think about the woman I _helped_ because I was so _kind_."

His voice was corrosive, nails-on-blackboard painful, and she'd never heard anything so beautiful in her life.

He loved her. He honestly did. He wouldn't be so angry if he didn't.

Out into the rain. Out into the dark streets. She unlocked her bike and mounted it, heading into the evening among the cars flashing by, their tires digging into the puddles, splashing her legs all the way home.

When she got home, Raven ran the bathwater as hot as she could stand and got in. Cleansing, purifying.

She closed her eyes, letting the steam work its way inside her.

Finn wanted her in his life. Not out of kindness but out of love.

And yet she'd ridden away on her bike. Left him there tacking up ceiling tiles.

What kind of idiot was she?

Finn wasn't Jimmy. Wasn't like anyone she'd known. He was melodic saxophone solos and bubbly kombucha that got up your nose. He was constantly mussed hair and soft, sexy kisses and a huge heart.

He needed someone who could offer him the world. All she had was herself. Was that enough? Could that ever be enough?

She lay in the tub for a long time. Leached of oils, the skin on the pads of her fingers and toes shriveled into pruney folds. The water temperature cooled to unpleasant while the water crept down the drain by slow degrees, leaving her half-beached in the ceramic bathtub.

She turned the water on again, nearly scalding her legs and back. Purifying. Cleansing.

Becoming someone new?
Chapter Ten

Finn's cell phone dinged while he was carrying a large box filled with jars of pickled carrots into the Park Slope store. He had the shop door propped open with his leg, maneuvering the box inside, letting the air-conditioning dissipate into the late June heat.

He came all the way inside and let the door shut behind him, ignoring the phone.

It dinged again. Probably Nate's sister, Valerie, with a picture of glass jars or cuckoo clocks or some other oddment for the store. Or his brother, Michael, asking for another loan, certain that Finn hadn't meant it when he'd said no two weeks ago. Or his new accountant bitching about the mess Alison had left behind. Or hey, maybe even Alison herself, texting to taunt him from whichever Mexican beach town she'd landed in after she'd fled New York ahead of the cops.

From behind a display rack, Nate grinned at him. "Girlfriend wants to get hold of you."

"Don't have one. You know that."

"Whatever happened to that?"

An innocent question. It shouldn't cause a pang in his chest like an echo of a heart murmur. In the end, Raven didn't trust him—or rather, didn't trust herself.

He'd done the right thing when he'd let her go last week. Even if that final scene in the back room played on endless loop in his brain as if his subconscious was hoping for a different outcome this time. He'd still done the right thing. "I thought you didn't like her."

"I didn't trust her not to take advantage of you. Obviously I was wrong about that."

"Told you." But he smiled to cut the sting. In the past few weeks, he and Nate had become something a lot more like real friends. They'd gone out for beer. Gone to a Mets game. Finn had been over to Nate's to finally meet his wife and tickle his baby girl.

He was tired of keeping the world at arm's length. Not everyone was like his mother. Not everyone was a user. Raven was proof of that.

His cell phone chimed another incoming text.

Nate raised his eyebrows.

Finn pulled out the phone.

And nearly dropped it.

He didn't recognize the number, but the cadence, the content—he knew instantly. It wasn't so much the words, though they sounded like her, sassy threaded through with, _I dare you to like me. I dare you to care._

He knew. And the knowledge eased the knot around his heart.

The text read: _I have a surprise for you. Two days from now. Be there._

His elbow braced on the metal shelving, his foot up on the box, he texted back: _Our entire relationship has been a surprise._

Finn waited, but the phone didn't respond. Only after he'd finished unboxing the jars and moved on to scrubbing a pewter serving dish, his hands greasy with polishing soap, did it chime for an incoming text.

_Relationship? Who do you think this is? This is your mail carrier. I hope you plan on giving me a big holiday tip. _

He wiped his hands on a cloth and wrote back: _I like mail._

The response: _Mail likes you_.

Two hours later, when he and the crew were digging into empanadas and guacamole at the Latin restaurant two blocks down from his storefront, he got another text.

_Two days. Be ready. _

Nate caught Finn smiling down at his phone. "The girlfriend strikes again."

Finn grinned back. "Maybe so."

Nate's eyebrows shot up. "Do tell."

"Nothing to tell." _Yet._

His phone rang as he bit down on a corn chip. He grabbed the device, smearing the glass surface with a bit of avocado, but it was Valerie fussing over a last-minute detail.

His cell chimed as he scooped up a forkful of platanos. He grabbed for the phone, but it was the cultural blogger Roman Del Valle confirming that he'd be at the launch next week. _I'll be hungry,_ he said. _Feed me, and I'll love you forever. _

Finn put the phone back down. Right sentiment, wrong sender.

Nate eyed the phone. "Can you set that thing to vibrate? Your girlfriend is getting annoying."

"Roman is my girlfriend? He'll be surprised to hear that. Especially since he's bringing a woman to the opening."

Nate smacked him on the shoulder. "Don't tell me you haven't been talking with that bike messenger. You're smiling for the first time in weeks."

Finn smiled.

~*~

Two days later, he got another text.

_Be at work at 6:30. Not at the store. At the facility. _

He texted back. _Should I be wearing a gray fedora?_

She wrote back. _I think I'll recognize you without it._

At six twenty-five, Finn went down to the truck bay and opened the corrugated garage door. He didn't actually have anything to do in the truck bay. No boxes to load or unload, no work to do on the truck. But that way he saw the moment the bike messenger came cycling up the dead-end street. When he put the cleaning rag down on the truck hood, he realized his hand was trembling slightly.

But the bike messenger was lean and wiry and entirely too tall. Also black, with intricate braids that fell out of her helmet as she took it off and shook out her hair. "You're Finn McKenna?"

"I am."

She surveyed him. "I thought you'd be bigger."

He laughed. "What did Raven say about me?"

"Raven who?" But she grinned as she handed him a slim envelope.

As she rode off, Finn opened the envelope and took out a single sheet of paper.

On the page was a drawing rendered in pencil with one single streak of color. Purple.

It was of a woman in a short sundress, semi-silhouetted by a window. Dark hair with that slash of purple running through it. A mattress with a checkered blanket nearby.

She was facing away, but she looked over her shoulder at the viewer, a clear challenge in her gaze.

A Post-it was stuck to the drawing: _Self-portrait of woman waiting. _

Finn took the stairs three at a time. Four at a time. As many at a time as he could.

When he got upstairs, the door was open. He stepped inside.

Raven wasn't there. But her work was. It covered the walls. He turned. He gazed. He was awestruck.

Raven wasn't merely good. She was phenomenal. The works were on paper, on canvas. One was even painted in rough, primitive outline on cardboard, with jagged cuts made by an X-Acto knife emphasizing the lines.

Her subjects were achingly familiar:

A sumptuous picnic laid out on the checkered blanket. A plate of sauerkraut and sausage, an apple, a slice of cheese, a hunk of bread slathered with butter. A set of keys lay beside the food, implying much.

Finn himself holding a tray of food, a mischievous glint in his eye and a crooked smile, looking far handsomer than the man he usually saw in the mirror. Was this how she saw him?

A still life of pickle jars, with a subtle reflection on the rounded glass of two people—the two of them?—kissing.

Him, playing the saxophone, rendered in blues and purples. A more complete rendering of the pastel sketch she'd done.

Half a dozen others. Images of the factory, of the store, of the food. Of the dead-end street with the fermentation plant in the foreground. Images of him. Over and over, images of him. Painted with light and shadow, drawn with tender shading, shaped with care.

She was an artist.

She loved him.

And she was here.

~*~

Raven stepped forward into the light. She'd been watching Finn. Now it was time to show herself.

Hearing his footsteps racing up the stairs a few minutes ago, she'd slipped behind the door. She'd needed to see his unguarded reaction.

And she had. His face had shown confusion, surprise, and finally wonder. He'd swiveled around slowly, staring up at the walls with an expression she recognized. It reminded her of that feeling she got sometimes in art galleries or museums—that the artist had captured something real. Something maybe even profound.

Finn was looking at her art that way.

She stepped out from behind the door. "They're yours. For the store. If you want them." _Do you understand what I'm offering? Why I'm doing this?_

"Of course I want them. I'd be proud to display them." His voice was soft. "What about you? Will you come to the launch?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

They met in the center of the room. It felt strangely like a cathedral, with the early evening light streaming through the windows, her colorful paintings on the walls, and all that empty space.

"I guess the question is—" She stopped. This was harder than she'd expected, this part.

Painting? That was easy. She'd locked herself in her bedroom with the windows open to air out the turpentine and oil smells, bopped to the music on her tinny iPod speakers, and immersed herself in memories. Reveling in them. Allowing herself to feel. But now? With him?

_Say it._ "Question is, will I be coming as your date?"

"You want to move in with me after all?" He was like a statue. An opaque marble statue.

She shook her head. "Like I told you, I have a place. But I don't have a boyfriend. I don't have you. And I miss you. I want to be with you. If you still want me."

Why wasn't he kissing her and telling her he was so happy that she'd finally said yes? Had he changed his mind?

"A month ago, you fled when I opened my heart. What's different now?" His voice was calm, but his gaze was troubled.

"When you asked me to move in with you, it terrified me. Honestly? I'm still scared of a real relationship. But if you're okay with that—with my being scared and still going for it—I am too." She cracked a smile. "I'm not a good bet as a girlfriend, but I'll try to be one for you."

He folded his arms across his chest, self-protective. "You should know. We were approached by a multinational company last week. They want to buy us out or buy in, I'm not sure which yet."

"Are you going to do it?"

"Probably not. I like being my own boss. Point is, I'm not going to stop making money so I can live in a trailer and be your boyfriend. I am who I am. If that's a problem for you..."

"It's not!" She took a deep breath. "It's not. I love your ferociously fermented foods."

This got her a small quirk of a smile.

"Seriously. It's so cool that you do that, and I would be proud to be your—to be with you. I wanted— _needed_ —to know I was bringing something to you too. Not just taking. That's why I made all this." She gestured around the room, indicating the drawings and paintings she'd stayed up late every night this past week finishing in a fevered need to show him what she felt. To illustrate her heart on paper. "For you. For your store, but also for you. It doesn't make us even, I know that. But it lets me feel like I'm giving you something. If you want it. If you want me."

What she didn't say was that this was her way of showing him how she felt, because she didn't have the words, not like he did. She only had the images.

For a long, suspended moment, he said nothing.

The suspense was driving her nuts. To distract herself, she looked critically at the artwork on the walls. Trying to see them the way Finn might.

The painting with the pickle jars was crooked. She went over to fix it, climbing on the table and reaching up to adjust the corner.

Finn came up right behind her. He gripped the bottom of the canvas, helping her tilt it. It wasn't exactly a two-person job, but that didn't matter. Not one bit.

"I want you." His voice was low in her ear, thrumming through her. "I want you in my bed and yes, I'm okay with it if you feel like you need to go back to your apartment in the morning. And I want your paintings and drawings on every wall I own. I want your art supplies scattered all over this room. I want to see you smeared with flecks of paint. Preferably naked and in my arms, but I'll settle for happy and with me and working in my warehouse."

"Only if you're willing to charge me rent." She winced at the thought of the cost, but it was only right.

Finn quirked a small smile. "If you're willing to pay a below-market rate. I wouldn't settle for more." He turned serious again. "But how do I know you won't run away again?"

She could feel the hairs on her arm vibrate with his nearness. Could feel the warmth radiate from his body, soothing even in this summer heat.

She leaned against him. His arms encircled her. It felt so good. So very good. "You don't. I could change my mind. I could run. I'll probably threaten it every time we have a fight."

She could feel his body stiffen.

"You'll have to take that chance, I guess." She turned in his arms, facing him. Touching his cheek. He closed his eyes in response, long dark eyelashes sweeping down. So beautiful. Hers? "Are you willing to risk it?"

He leaned in, opening his eyes. "I am."

"So am I."

And she was.

Willing to risk love.
Chapter Eleven

Raven parked her bike half a block away from Finn's store. She took off her helmet and shook out her hair, then smoothed her dress and headed down the street. She was half an hour early for the launch party. Finn had said he wanted to pick her up, but she'd said no. He should be available to deal with last-minute prep. She'd make her own way there.

Now she regretted that. Because now she stopped in front of the store, the darkening street shaded in blues and browns contrasting with the warm light emanating from inside the shop. Finn was in the center of the interior space, gesturing to someone. Cater waiters were loading up trays with Finn's goodies. And her artwork lined the walls, framed and brightly lit. Startlingly vivid.

A sharply dressed older woman, an early arrival, strolled over to Raven's oversized painting of pickle jars, holding her wineglass absentmindedly as she examined the work up close. Her face was an impassive mask, or maybe that was just the glare of the storefront window.

Raven felt queasy.

She turned around and went back to her bike.

~*~

"Where's the artist, Finn?" Roman gestured with his wineglass, sloshing the pale liquid. "I wanted to talk to her. Find out her story. It would make a good piece for the blog."

Finn smiled tightly. "She'll be here."

But would she? They'd talked about meeting up early so she could help calm his last-minute jitters. He'd suggested meeting up at the warehouse, but she'd said, no, she was capable of finding her own way to Park Slope, and anyway, he shouldn't take the extra time when he had so much to do. But now it was an hour and a half in, and no Raven.

Where was she? He texted her again. Still no answer. Was she at home, in her cramped little apartment in Bushwick? Was she riding through the streets of Brooklyn, lost and alone? Had she fallen off her bike, broken a leg, or worse? His stomach clenched at the thought. But that didn't feel right. She would have called. She would have let him know.

No, he knew exactly where she was. What he didn't know was why.

He excused himself from the party, whispered in Nate's ear, and took off, driving through the night-lit streets to the warehouse.

Sure enough, as he came up the stairs, he could hear melancholy trip-hop coming from the boom box he'd given her, and as he got closer, he heard the off-key sound of her humming accompaniment.

~*~

The painting was coming to life under her brush strokes. The scene was the nail salon back in Maine as seen from the street, with a darkly silhouetted figure peering in. It was all blocky shapes right now, large swaths of color with few details, but the idea was there, the intention solid.

"Sudden inspiration?"

She turned. Finn was lounging by the door in a faux-casual pose. Anything but relaxed. He was dressed in a silky violet shirt and dark gray pants, and looked unutterably hot and inexpressibly dear. Also pissed off. "It couldn't wait till, I don't know, tomorrow? _After_ my store launch?"

"I meant to come back. I just didn't see the point in being early when you had so much work to do, and then—" She gestured at the canvas with her right hand, her paintbrush splattering droplets across the drop cloth beneath their feet. "It took on a life of its own."

"Come _back_? You were there? And you didn't come inside? Raven, I thought—

well, I thought you were—we were..."

"We are. I mean, I am. I do." She would kiss him to prove it, but he was tight with tension. Probably not a good time. "This isn't about that. I'm not running away from you. I promise."

"Then why?" He stepped into the room, seeming to notice the painting itself for the first time. He looked struck. "Oh."

"It's just a painting. It's not your store, it's the salon where I used to work. See, that person there?" She pointed to a still-indistinct figure in the center of the shop. "That's Frances, my foster mother. She's pretty cool. You'll like her."

But he wasn't looking at the painting. He was looking at her. Far too perceptively.

"I was planning to come back. I was."

"Did you think I wouldn't miss you?"

"No." That wasn't true, exactly. "Yes. Yes and no." But she hated the look in his eye, and honesty compelled her to elaborate. "I know you want me there, and I love that you do. But it's your friends, your world, and I...don't fit. Which is fine. I don't have to. But does it matter if I go? I mean, really?" She set the brush in the turpentine can on her easel and swirled it in the liquid to clean it.

Finn abruptly turned and walked toward the far window, where he stood, looking out at the thin sliver of dark water you could almost slightly make out from there. "Yes, it matters. It matters to _me_. Because I want you in my life. And this party, it's part of my life. It feels wrong that you're not there. And maybe if you come, you'll enjoy it more than you expect. Maybe you'll fit into my life more than you think you will." His voice trembled, just a little, and Raven gave in to the impulse to go to him. He was being so restrained, so respectful, it was almost painful.

She put her hand on his back. He shivered under her touch and turned toward her, giving her a tender kiss. "If it's that hard, don't come. I don't want to force you."

And that was exactly what she needed to hear. "I'll come. If only to taste those pickles you were finishing this afternoon. Nate told me I couldn't have a taste, they were all for the party."

"Then we'd better get back before they're all gone." She could feel him smiling into her hair.

And it was okay again.

Even if she ended up standing at the edge of the party, a Maine misfit at a fancy city party, she'd be there for him. And for the food. And that was good enough for her.

~*~

_Roman Del Valle Is Always Right_

__

_Pickles and Kimchi and Paintings, Oh My_

_Dateline: Park Slope_

As the Brooklyn artisanal foodstuff boom continues, we all reap the benefits. In the latest twist on the theme, Finn McKenna of Finn's Fermentation Factory has opened a storefront on the fashionable part of Fifth Avenue in the Slope. Here's a heads-up: get there early, before they sell out of the best stuff. Before now, you might have been able to grab their mango kimchi at farmer's markets around town, including the weekly Smorgasburg in Williamsburg. And sure, their tamarind pickles are at every Whole Foods in the Tristate Area. But with the advent of this homey storefront, you can pick up miso pickles, turnip sauerrüben (a traditional German version of sauerkraut), and other exotic, quixotic good-for-your-body treats every day of the week. The Weston A. Price health food nuts and the chowhounds who love ferreting out the unique and the trendy will both be happy. Who knows, maybe hipsters and Hasidim can finally broker a peace, breaking some of Finn's sourdough bread together?

The store itself is inviting and warm. It looks like it could have been decorated with items from Finn's grandma's apartment, if Finn's grandma had wildly eclectic tastes. Charmingly chipped ceramic vases share space with a sleek reinterpretation of a wall clock done in Salvador Dali style, complete with melting numbers.

But the real stunner is the art on the walls, all clearly created by the same artistic sensibility and commissioned for this space. Paintings of the food and of the glass pickle jars will make you want to buy everything in the store and eat it immediately, while the sensitive drawings of the proprietor, Finn McKenna himself, will make you fall in love with him. Or with the artist, one Raven Porter. Remember the name. You'll be seeing it a lot. During the hour I was there, I heard not one, not two, but three partygoers offer to buy pieces off the walls. If you're smart, you will too.

Oh, and don't flirt with the artist. She's Finn's girlfriend. Lucky guy.

~*~

Finn ushered the cater-waiters out the door with a bottle of exotically flavored kombucha for each of them, then flipped off the overhead light and turned back to the semi-darkened store.

Just the two of them. Finally.

Raven was standing stock still, her back to him, looking at the painting she'd done of him playing the saxophone.

He came up behind her. "You didn't sell this one, did you? Because I don't think I could part with it."

She looked up at him, and he caught a glimpse of her face, half silhouetted by blue shadows in the store. Tears were streaming down her face.

"Raven? What is it? What's wrong?"

She shook her head, mute.

He opened his arms, and for a heart-stopping moment, it seemed like she wouldn't respond, but then she walked into his embrace and hugged him so tightly, he couldn't breathe.

"I never thought—when I came here, before I came here, I never thought my life could be like this. And it's all because of you." Her words were muffled by his shirt; he felt them as a rumble against his skin as much as he heard them.

Now he had a lump in his throat too. "Not just me. You too. You did all this." He gestured toward the walls, even though she probably couldn't see.

"If I hadn't met you..." She leaned back, just far enough to see his face, and wiped her eyes.

"But you did. Of course you did."

And that made her smile. "Of course I did."
Epilogue

The warehouse-turned-studio space was empty again, the way it had been nearly two years ago when Raven had first stepped foot in here. Finn swung the door open and steeled himself before walking inside. No paintings on the walls, no easel, no portfolio drawers. The turpentine-and-linseed-oil smell had mostly dissipated, thanks to the windows, which were still wide open to the chill March air. The floor was permanently splattered with paint stains. That wouldn't change unless he had it refinished. But the lived-in feeling, that was gone. And he missed it. Sorely.

This place was the beginning of everything. And when he'd worked downstairs in the kitchen or across the hall in the office, he'd loved knowing Raven was in here, covered in paint or pastel dust or whatever today's medium might be, her lower lip sucked between her teeth as she concentrated on creating her latest piece while the mini stereo played her current indie rock obsession or a jazz melody he'd recorded especially for her.

But that was over. That part of his life. Of their lives.

Two years, which had felt like it would last forever.

Today this space was no longer Raven's studio.

He turned back to the stairwell and held out his hand for his wife, who took it gratefully to help her get up the final set of steps. It was becoming harder for Raven to climb up here. She was carrying low, the doctor said, and one of the twins was pressing on her spine.

Seeing his expression, she touched his cheek. "It's not like I'm giving up painting. I just need to be closer to home. Our attic will be perfect. It's got great light. Almost as good as the light here."

"I know. It's the right decision."

"But?"

"But I see this place and I think about the first time I saw you. Dancing in the sunlight. The idea of other people in here... It feels wrong."

Raven quirked a smile. "Work on that. Change isn't always bad." She kissed him on the nose.

And here they came. Change on the hoof. The clatter of four sets of footsteps coming up the stairs.

Finn and Raven drew apart as the women came into the room. Raven's friend Alanna was in the lead, her blond hair no longer streaked with color. She wore a neon-green skirt and zebra-patterned leggings today. She grinned at them and gazed around the room. "Yes. Perfect. You were right, Raven. The light here, the space. Awesome." She whistled loudly, testing. "It even echoes."

The second one into the room—a tall woman with light brown hair framing her narrow, serious face—came over. "That's our Alanna. Says it like it is. But you already know that, right?" She thrust out her hand to shake Raven's hand, then Finn's. "Lita. We spoke on the phone."

The third woman, her wavy dark hair sweeping over her face, came over to join them. "Alanna's right. This is a great space. It was your studio, Raven? Judging from the paint spatter, it looks like you've gotten a lot of use out of it."

Raven quirked a smile. "I love it here, but I'm moving my studio closer to home. At home, in fact." She patted her belly. "I'll need to be in shouting distance soon. It's been a good place to work, though. Quiet, and the light changes every day. Always something new to discover."

The dark-haired woman nodded thoughtfully. "I can see that." She proffered her hand. "I'm Georgette, by the way. I take responsibility for these crazy artist types. I'm the resident shrink-in-training."

"And an artist too, I assume?" Finn said.

"I find painting concentrates the mind wonderfully."

The fourth woman, her red-gold hair pulled back tight against her scalp, her clothes loose and shapeless, was looking out the window and down the street. She looked back over toward them, then quickly turned away. By process of elimination, she must be Susannah.

Lita went over to her, bending her head toward her friend to hear her soft words, then turned to Raven and Finn. "And it's a consensus. We love it. If you want to rent to us, we'd love to sign on."

Raven squeezed Finn's hand, saying _Yes_ , and _I like these people_.

"I'll need to follow up on your references and credit, but assuming everything is in order, I think we can make it work."

After the women were gone, leaving an echo of laughter and chatter, Raven stood in the center of the room, backlit in a spill of sunlight. She closed her eyes, breathing out. And then she twirled. Her heavy belly gave her spin gravitas, but her outstretched arms, the expression of pure, simple pleasure, the thread of almost-audible music, that gave it lightness and an aching beauty.

Finn put down his bag and joined her. She slipped into his arms, smelling of spice and sweetness. And they danced.
_Author Note_

Thank you for reading _Draw Me In_. I hope you enjoyed it.

Though Greenpoint, Brooklyn is very real, I placed Finn's Fermentation Factory on a fictional dead-end street. It's much like many of the industrial streets in the northern part of this changing neighborhood.

~*~

Want to find out when I have a new release in the Greenpoint Artists series? Sign up for my low-impact newsletter. My books launch at a special 99c sale price for the first few days. I'll alert my newsletter subscribers first.

Please consider leaving a review on the vendor site or Goodreads. They help other readers find books. I appreciate all reviews.

~*~

Turn the page for a sneak look at the 2012 Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart Winner, _Hold Me Tight_ (formerly _No Peeking_ ), Book One of the _Greenpoint Artists_ series, available now.

_Hold Me Tight_ follows the romantic adventures of Alanna Woodruff, tAlanna Woodruff, Raven's impulsive, expressive artist friend, who rents the warehouse studio in the epilogue.

In _Hold Me Tight_ , Alanna gets hired as an artist at an ad agency, working under her high school sweetheart, who she still yearns for after all these years. The agency has a strict no-fraternizing policy, and Miles isn't the rule breaker type, but Alanna has a way of unintentionally making things complicated, and they both get tangled up in her sexy subterfuge. Note: It's a bit steamier than _Draw Me In_ , given the nature of the story.

After the _Hold Me Tight_ excerpt, keep reading for an excerpt from _What's Yours is Mine_ , the 2013 Golden Heart Finalist, also available now.
_Hold Me Tight excerpt_

_Miles and Alanna were briefly lovers as teens. They both continue to be haunted by the profound connection they felt then, despite how badly it ended. _

_Alanna has just been hired as a graphic artist for the ad agency where Miles is de-facto creative director. _

_Working together, their old feelings return in a rush, driving them both insane with longing, but they can't act on them. An ironclad company policy forbids fraternizing, and Miles is wary of trusting his heart to Alanna a second time. _

_When_ Hold Me Tight _begins, Miles has a girlfriend, Sophie. By this point in the story, though, he's broken up with her because of his feelings for Alanna. _

_Alanna doesn't know this. _

_Sophie and Alanna are of a similar height and build, and both have blond hair. _

_As this excerpt begins, Alanna is heading into work late to drop off some artwork._

__

Alanna brushed an errant strand of hair back from her face and smoothed her skirt against her legs. Keep it professional. Keep a discreet distance from the man with the girlfriend.

She stepped out into the unseasonable, unreasonable heat and headed to the glass-and-steel skyscraper. To Miles. No, to the job. There was a difference. There was.

As she opened the door to his brightly lit inner office, Alanna heard his voice calling out from behind her. "Sophie! Wait, I'll be right back."

Alanna whirled around. The girlfriend was here? Was she going to have to deal with that sickening display of affection again?

But Sophie wasn't there.

Miles was on the other side of the big main room, his hand still up in a half wave. Waving at her? He was already turning away, heading toward the break room.

As she entered Miles's now familiar office, Alanna put her hand up to her hair. Coiffed, upswept. He'd seen her from the back and thought she was Sophie. Wow, this was going to be embarrassing.

She pulled the printed image out from between cardboard protectors and laid it carefully on Miles's desk. Through the open door, she could see him approaching across the main room, passing rows of empty desks. There weren't many people left in the office at this hour; all the assistants and day workers had gone home.

The fluorescent lights overhead flickered. Once. Twice.

And went out.

All the lights. Inside Miles's office. In the main office. The buildings and streetlights outside. Everywhere. All dark, hushed, except for a faint echo of traffic cacophony far below.

The world consisted of shades of black and gray. A laptop computer sleep light pulsed in the main office, dimly lighting the space around it. She could hear exclamations, then footsteps as people raced toward the stairwell door, presumably to clatter down the long flights of stairs. Outside the window, the cityscape was dormant. Skyscrapers loomed like silent black behemoths. Alanna could see her hands on the desk more as shadows than as form. The room was blocks of shape, leached of color or definition.

Footsteps came toward the small office. One set. Male, judging from the weight and cadence. He stopped in the doorway, a dim silhouette. "Still here?"

Alanna opened her mouth to reply. Then she breathed out. He thought she was Sophie.

Everyone else was gone, and Miles was here with a woman he thought was his girlfriend.

Alanna murmured low in the back of her throat, a wordless assent.

"Oh. Like that." His voice was soft. He took a step into the room. Another. Then he was there. Right next to her.

A powerful current jolted through her body. She could hear his harsh breaths as he got close. He was turned on too. At the thought. Like her.

She should tell him. Should stop this right now. She opened her mouth again, determined to say her name, to clear this up. To—

He touched her. Light, gentle, tracing the line of cheekbone and jaw. He brushed her lower lip with his fingertip. It felt like the most intimate touch of her life.

Oh hell.

She leaned forward, tilted her head up, and kissed him with everything she had in her, all the pent-up longing, heartache, frustration. Like it was her last time ever kissing anyone. Acutely aware of his sandpaper chin against her own, his soft, generous mouth against hers.

It was dark, and he thought she was Sophie, and it was the only chance she'd ever have. So she kissed him.

~*~

This was pure sin, and he couldn't get enough. Alanna was here in his arms, flicking the tip of her tongue against his lip. Sin. Miles groaned and pulled her closer, twining his tongue with hers as he tasted her cinnamon-and-coffee-flavored goodness.

He'd known the truth the moment he stepped into his dark office, when she'd murmured a soft response to his greeting. Her voice was indistinct, but her stance, outlined against the gray-blue skyline, gave her away. She stood with her legs braced—a warrior, not a lady. And she smelled like Alanna, musk and linseed oil and body warmth.

But why so quiet?

Then he remembered calling to Sophie a few minutes earlier when the lights were still on, and he'd caught a glimpse of upswept blond hair, thinking she'd come to drop off her keys to his apartment. But it wasn't her. It was Alanna. And yet she hadn't corrected him. Her blurred whisper, that was deliberate.

And he realized, right now, in the dark, he could touch her without consequence. He brushed her cheek, the edge of her jaw, with his fingertip. Heard her quick intake of breath.

Then she kissed him, and the delicious shock of it stunned him.

She wanted more than a touch. She wanted him to kiss her. To embrace her. To make love to her?

Rash impulse and insanity. How like Alanna. How unlike him.

He kissed her back because he could. Cloaked in night, concealed by mystery, unknowable, untraceable. For once in his adult life, he could do what he wanted with no painful backdraft. He could be with this woman. He drowned in the swirl of sensation: her scent, her body against him, the ragged tone of her breaths, and once he started, he couldn't—or was that wouldn't—didn't want to, didn't seem to know how to—stop.

His hands crept up under her shirt to check if her nipples were as tight and aroused as they felt against his chest. They were, and her breasts felt so good under his palms. She gasped and arched up toward him, an invitation. At the same time, though, she whispered, "Miles," with a note of doubt. "Miles, wait, you should know—"

"Shhh." He kissed her, erasing the words. If she spoke, if she revealed herself, she broke the spell. This was the perfect moment. The only one they could have.

_To read more, buy_ Hold Me Tight, _now available._
_What's Yours is Mine excerpt_

_Darcy and Will worked together four years ago at Golden Organics, a natural beauty products company. They still have bad blood from events that occurred back then._

_Darcy ran into Will a month ago during her home inspection. He was working on the complex as a subcontractor. Their meeting was strained, to say the least. She reassured herself with the thought that at least they wouldn't be neighbors._

__

Stifling her hundredth yawn, she pulled into a free parking spot and got out. Time to go home. Time to sleep. Crossing the courtyard with her suitcases in the so-late-it's-early quiet, Darcy tossed her keys in the air and caught them with one hand. She glanced around at the condominium windows in the U-shaped complex. Most had curtains or shades installed already. She was the last arrival.

The key turned smoothly in the lock, the door swung inward on silent hinges, and Darcy stepped inside, flicking on the light. Brightness lanced through her retinas. She hastily switched off the light.

But hey. In that split second, she'd seen furniture. It looked strangely different than it had in the catalogue and she'd need to rearrange things, but cool. Real furniture.

And hey. Real furniture meant a real bed. Blessed, blessed sleep, so soon hers. She kicked off her shoes and dropped the suitcases.

On into the bedroom. The bed loomed large in the dark, a faint light shining through slats. Had she ordered a sleigh bed? Really? So not her style. She must have been delirious from jet lag. She'd have to call the company tomorrow and change it out.

More important right now was the dim bulk of a comforter, the edge of a pillow. The delivery people had even made the bed. She'd have to make sure they got a big tip.

She shucked her clothes, dropping shirt, skirt, panties, bra on the floor, and slid under the cool sheets. Bliss.

Just because she could, because she was finally in a deliciously comfortable bed, she stretched out, arms and legs and—

Her hand smacked warm flesh.

"Whu?" A masculine voice, sleepy and disoriented.

"Gaah!" She sat up abruptly, clutching the blankets to her bare chest. Where was the light? She needed light!

A flick of a switch. The mystery intruder turned on a table lamp.

Darcy blinked against the sudden brightness. Even squinting, she could make out his face.

Will Dougherty was in her bed.

~*~

Will was still asleep. That had to be it. He was dreaming, a tormenting melding of fantasy turn-on—a naked, sexy woman unexpectedly showing up in his bed—with cruel, darkly twisted humor: the naked woman was Darcy Jennings.

"What are you doing here?" She sat up fast, belatedly clutching the sheet to her chest.

"It's my bedroom. It's three a.m. What do you think I'm doing? Sleeping. Or at least I was."

Her eyes narrowed. "It's my bedroom. You made a mistake. You belong in number ten or number twenty-five or somewhere else. Or, better yet, in another complex entirely."

"There is no number twenty-five." This was not a dream. This was really happening. And she was, in fact, naked. Like a thrumming undertone at an all-night rave, the thought wouldn't go away. Darcy Jennings, engineer of his fall from grace, was naked in his bed, her dark brown hair falling over bare shoulders, her pert little nipples standing up under the thin cotton sheet that was barely covering—oh, there it went, sliding down her body.

She yanked it back up. Clutching her scant shield, she scooted closer on the bed, slicing her free hand through the air for emphasis as she spoke. "I don't care if there's a number twenty-five or a number twenty million and five. Get out of my condo."

Deep breath. He had to stay calm. No matter the provocation. "You ruined my career, isn't that enough? Do you have to ruin my home too?"

Oops. That wasn't calm.

He hastily stood up and backed away from the bed. Her quick inhale reminded him that he was naked too.

What of it? He had no reason to be embarrassed. After all, when he'd gone to sleep three hours ago, he'd been in his own bed. In his own bedroom. Alone. He had every right to be nude. "What number is yours? I'll guide you to it now. I can get the master keys from Tim's office." There, that sounded calm. Felt calm, even. He could do this, he could get through this ridiculous mix-up and go back to sleep, forcibly blotting out the memory of Darcy and her perky nipples.

"No. This condo is mine. Number fourteen. The Sea View. Mine. Janet gave me the key last month." Her words were defiant, but her voice quivered. As if to make up for the momentary vulnerability, her gaze swept him like a torch, flaring at all the wrong places.

And now he had an erection. Well, he wasn't going to compound the problem by grabbing an edge of the blanket like a fig leaf. Erections were normal, a fact of life. She'd have to deal with his. It meant nothing. _Nothing_.

__

_To read more, buy_ What's Yours is Mine, _now available._
_Acknowledgments_

The tricky part of this story was in how to spin a story from the initial seed of an idea. It took a while to discover who Raven and Finn were—though once Raven finally showed up, she took over.

My thanks to the Firebirds brainstorming group for applying their collective wisdom to ferreting out why it wasn't working and sending me down the right path, with special thanks to Pamela Kopfler.

Thanks to Daniel Valverde, my very own in-house editor. I don't know what I'd do without you.

Thanks to AJ Larrieu, Diane Patterson, and Alaya Dawn Johnson, who read this quickly and gave perceptive notes.

Thanks to Linda Ingmanson, whose editing was both speedy and thorough. I've come to rely on it.

And thanks to Damian. Because.

_About the Author_

Talia Surova began her writing career as a screenwriter but switched to prose after she started writing an online journal for fun. This led to writing fiction, which led to writing romance.

She is a two-time finalist for the prestigious Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart award, and won the Golden Heart in 2012 for _Hold Me Tight (then titled No Peeking),_ the first full book in the _Greenpoint Artists_ series.

She now lives in New York City, her childhood hometown, with her husband and son.
_Other Books by Talia Surova_

_GREENPOINT ARTISTS:_

_(_ begins with _Draw Me In)_

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_Hold Me Tight,_ Alanna's story

__

_Warm Me Up,_ Georgette's story—coming soon

__

__

_GREENPOINT PLEASURES:_

_(_ Closely linked to the _Greenpoint Artists_ series _)_

__

_Call Me Saffron,_ Samantha's story

TBD, Annie's story—coming soon but not that soon

__

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_VISTA DEL MAR:_

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_What's Yours is Mine _
