“I’m not leaving,” I sob.

Believe me I know I’m being irrational, but this morning has been too much for me. Maybe it was the tossing around all night, the heated sleeplessness that went unrelieved by the frenzy of paint and the failure to get off, but I’m frazzled to the ends of my nerves. And now this stranger, this hunk who’s seen me naked and is dressed like Jon, is standing in my bedroom, filling the space until the air is pressed out and being an asshole.

“If I have to carry you, I will,” he threatens. He strides across the room and grabs my arm. I jerk it away.

“If I show you why I won’t go, will you leave me the fuck alone?” I plead but not at all demurely.

“Get dressed,” he orders, ignoring my question.

“Fine,” I snarl. “Get out.”

“Fine.” He stalks out of the room, leaving the door open.

I throw on dirty jeans and a tank top splashed all over with paint without a bra, not only because it’s about a million degrees in this house. I also want to see him sweat. I slide my feet into flip flops and head to the kitchen, ignoring the bastard in my living room. I call for Mr Pete and bastard, Shawn, whatever his fucking name is, is right behind me as I leave through the back door. I tell Mr. Pete to stay when he hurtles toward me and his entire body droops, from his long, silky ears to his skinny tail.

“Do you have a car back here?” the bastard asks.

“Yeah. In the garage.”

The garage is the other half of my studio, which is where I’m going. If I’m going to die in flames, I want to be surrounded by my canvases. I can’t leave them. They’re my life’s work. I’ll ask the bastard to take Mr. Pete though. No reason for him to die.

I cover the ten steps to the studio door and let myself in. Shawn follows me. I can’t keep thinking of him as Bastard. Not when I need him to save my dog. As I throw the door back on its hinges, I feel the heat in my back. His body is close and exuding heat from every pore.

“This is why,” I say. I can’t look at him. His temperature shouldn’t be having an effect on me. But it is. My breathing is a little ragged and, shit, my nipples are two solid pellets pressing through the stretched cotton of my tank.

I hear the bastard draw breath as he takes in my life’s passion. Arrayed all around us, stacked against the walls and exuding a powerful odor of oil and turpentine are more than sixty canvases, all the same subject. My wild images of the fire that took Jon’s life.

I didn’t see it but it feels every moment waking or otherwise. The Bastard walks into the space with a low whistle. But I can’t look at the renditions I’ve made. I’m emotionally numb. I have been, ever since I realized Shawn isn’t Jon. When I saw him standing there, I’d thought my life had skipped backward a year, and he was here to make up after our fight. When reality crashed in, I lost it.

And to compensate, my very being seems to have left the shell of my body and the real me is on the outside, looking down on the shell of a woman I am.

If I weren’t numb, I’d be embarrassed. I’ve made a complete idiot of myself, dropping my towel and throwing myself at this stranger, this asshole who thinks it’s funny and now gets to order me around - for my own safety.

He’s a damn fine-looking hunk of masculinity and I feel terrible for even noticing that. He’s the same height as Jon, head and shoulders taller than me so my eyes stare straight ahead at the same broad shelf of shoulder a girl could support herself on for a lifetime. His eyes are bluer, I recognize now. Jon’s were pale blue like glaciers in the Arctic. Shawn’s are cerulean. No, that’s too green. They’re azure. Exactly the hue of the Colorado sky, when it isn’t obscured by smoke as it is now.

He’s also got a deeper tan than Jon usually did, and his hair is a darker brown. How I could have mistaken him for Jon is a puzzle. Except that he has the same build, broad in the shoulder and chest. His turnout gear obscures the rest, but the way his chest barrels, there’s no mistaking he’s fit and trim.

My reverie is interrupted by his question. “What’s all this?”

“I’m an artist. This is my work. I can’t leave it. You go on, and please take Mr. Pete with you, in case…”

‘In case what?”

I lookup and meet his stare, so intense I have to look away. I can’t bear it. I hate him and yet my body is craning toward those big arms and my thighs are dampening through the denim.

“I already told you, I can’t leave you here,” he says kindly now, but just as firm.

Don’t be kind. I don’t want kindness. I’ll lose it completely.

“You know it’s my job to make sure you get out,” he adds.

My arms and face are buzzing. Why can’t he understand?

“I’ll pack these up and get out, I promise,” I say, although I’m not sure that it’s true.

“There’s no time,” he says flatly.

“There has to be time. This is my life’s work.”

“It’ll be your posthumous work,” he tells me.

I get that he’s trying to make me see sense with the hardness but a swell of hatred rises in me again.

“Don’t you see? If I lose it along with my cabin, I have nothing left,” I snap. “I might as well die.”

“Lila, be reasonable and less dramatic. You can paint more of this creepy art once you’re safe.”

Creepy?

I look around. It isn’t creepy. Most of it isn’t. There are a few with Jon’s spirit in the flames, but they aren’t creepy. They’re beautiful. He’s beautiful. If I leave them here to save myself, he dies all over again. I can’t do it. I can’t.

“It’s my job to make you safe andI intend to do so right now,” the Bastard says, clasping my forearm.

“Get out.” I push at him.

“I’m not going to tell you again,” he says.

I open my mouth to tell him exactly where he can go but his arms come around me and pull me roughly to him. I’m enraged by the strength he exerts and the tug in my pussy from the feel of his palms on my skin. I fight him off and he holds me more firmly, so my chest goes crashing up against the solid wall of his.

“You Bastar…” I screech but don’t get through the second syllable.

I don’t know which of us initiates it but our mouths crash together and the bastard’s fingers tangle through my hair, tugging firmly enough that my head tilts back.

Time slows then stops.

What’s happening? Against my will, my body and my lips are responding to his dominance, while my mind sits in the corner, analyzing the situation. It’s as if I’m watching from outside my corporeal being. I fantasize myself as a princess on a 1980s book cover, bent backward by the rugged highwayman, my heaving breast spilling.

Holy crap, my breasts are heaving. I haven’t been kissed like this since… ever.

Suddenly, I’m back in my body and my interlude in the shower earlier is forgotten as Shawn’s powerful hands roam. His huge palm lands on the small of my back, pulling me closer into his beautiful chest wall. No, wait. This is insane. Reluctantly, wishing I didn’t have to, I put my hands on his arms and shove him away.

“What the hell was that?” I snarl.

My cheeks are hot, and I know they’re flaming. My fucking red-heads’ skin, though my hair doesn’t quite fit the definition.

“I’m sorry,” he quips. “Heat of the moment.”

He doesn’t look sorry. He looks… delicious. The cocky grin is back, giving him an uncanny resemblance to the highwayman I was just fantasizing. His gaze traps mine with eyes that are a darker blue than before. The look in them is dangerous. Irresistible.

I have to turn away. I’m still panting as though I ran up a cliffside.

“So, we were talking about…” I don’t even get to finish before he interrupts. He really is the rudest, most arrogant bastard in the long history of bastards.

“We were talking about you stopping this bullshit and coming with me, and this is the last time I’ll say it,” he announces in the husking tone. “Come voluntarily, or I will force you.”

His eyes cup mine again and I can’t help but shiver, and complete the sentence he left dangling in my head.

Force me to come?

No matter how hard I try, I can’t maintain eye lock and have to lower my gaze. My cheeks are burning. I want that. I want it. But surely he didn’t mean it that way.

“And how do you propose to do that?” I snip, keeping my chin down so he doesn’t detect how flustered he makes me.

Jon, I’m sorry.

The bastard hasn’t stopped grinning.

“I could throw you over my shoulder and dump you in back of my truck,” he pauses as though considering. “ Or, I think I have a pair of handcuffs in the cab.”

Why would he have handcuffs? The possibilities bloom in my thoughts, and I feel my eyes widen. My cheeks are hot again. This time he notices.

The grin grows bigger.

“Oh, I think you like that idea. You’re quite an interesting woman, Lila.”

He looks around at my paintings and leers at me. What is that about? Then just as sharply, he turns serious again.

“Come on,” he orders.

“No.”

Another eye lock where I’sure he’s going to do exactly what he promised and my heart is thrumming with anticiaption.

“Fine,” he says. “Then stay here.”

He strides out of the studio. Good. I hope he doesn’t forget Mr. Pete. I’d like to say goodbye to my pup, but I don’t want the bastard to think I’m chasing out after him plus I don’t dare take the time.

I can smell the fire, now. Part campfire, part garbage fire, it’s a horrible smell one never forgets. It means that the wildlife in the forest is being overtaken. The poor animals. It’s all too familiar to me.

With his expert knowledge, Jon hated that I live in the forest. He insisted on clearing a wide space around the cabin and outbuildings, and true to his insistence, I’ve kept it clear. It provides some protection, but a bad fire may overwhelm the clearing anyway. I know it’s foolish to stay and I’m being bratty. I just want to gather a few of the more important paintings, and then I’ll leave.

I begin moving, wondering how much time has passed since Jon, no Shawn, left. I’m not thinking clearly. Is it the kiss making me feel tipsy like this? Where is my puppy?

I wander out of the studio. The smoke is visible now. I can’t miss it. I can still breathe just fine, but the fire is not far away.

“Mr. Pete! Come, boy! Where are you?”

Shawn materializes in front of me. “Where’s the dog?” he shouts over the crackling air.

“I don’t know.”

He’s gone again, stalking away from me for the last time I hope. Good riddance.

I dash back into the studio. Nothing is packed. I grab my favorite canvas and start wrapping it. A few minutes later, I’m putting it in my car, with no memory of having finished wrapping it. What is wrong with my brain? Have I sustained an injury somehow?

I wander back into the kitchen and start making a sandwich. It must be noon by now, and my breakfast was just coffee, before I started painting this morning. My new painting! Is the smoke damaging it? I leave the sandwich partially made and rush back to the studio. I touch my finger gingerly to the new painting and it comes away blood red. Oh, no. It will never be dry in time.

Wiping my hand on my old jeans, I go back to my sandwich, and pour Mr. Pete a bowl of kibble. “Mr. Pete!”

I haven’t seen Shawn in a while. He must have left. Finally. I can pack up in peace now.