Art-Crossed Love Synopsis:
Can love be more than a four-letter word?
Lissa Blanc is a painter on a mission. She filters the world through a lens of color, line, and form and hides her ambition behind a delicate smirk that lets her critics believe life comes easy. To her, art isn’t what she sees. It’s what she feels. Few know that behind the glitz of a prodigious upbringing, she’s driven to emerge from the shadow of painful memories that insist she’ll never be a renowned talent in her own right.
Cole Rathlen is a photographer on the mend. A crippling grief has stifled his once-rising career and compromised his creative instincts. Knowing he can’t stagnate forever, he seeks a twisted absolution in the form of a woman whose paintings give life to the emotions he won’t let himself imagine, let alone feel.
When the two partner for a prestigious project that will pull them from the mountains of Colorado to the palaces of India, Lissa quickly realizes that more than diverging ideals hinder their search for success and salvation. Was Cole’s life upended by a tragic but unavoidable choice or something more sinister? While Lissa can’t delve into the mystery but not the man, Cole can’t resist a tenacious soul that refuses to leave him chained. As the truth closes in on a project finally sprouting wings, will Lissa sacrifice her chance at success to set Cole free? Or will Cole shrug the chains of lingering regrets to prove that those who love the most, love again.
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Art-Crossed Love:
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Excerpt:
Lissa would be warm. Cole wanted her free and giving and, as he knew she could be, greedy.
“You started a fire,” she observed, cozying toward the warmth and reaching delicate hands to dying embers. He waited for her to elaborate, but when she swiveled her head to look at him, an arched brow said it all. She suspected he hadn’t come looking for canvas and color. Her gaze flicked to her dresser and back, looking sly. Next time he dropped by uninvited, he’d see what waited in those drawers.
Cole chuckled, feeling true mirth for the first time in what felt like forever. “You don’t approve?”
“I do… of both your motives and your methods.”
The last word faded away when he approached from behind and pressed his lips to her nape. His erection had grown painful, and he cursed the cock that was three steps ahead of the action and damn unwilling to wait up now that he’d taken the plunge. “Speaking of methods—”
“Cole?” she interrupted, sounding lazy, and yet determined.
He licked the spot he’d kissed. Blew. “Shhh.” They could talk later.
“Cole?”
The vulnerability she injected into his name said the question couldn’t wait. He knew that tone. They’d talk now or fuck never. Either option might kill him.
He caved. “Hmm?”
“Can you handle this?”
I hope so. “Not sure I have a choice.” His body had taken the decision out of his hands.
“Once we start this—if we start this—we still have to make a go at the project.”
He nipped her bare earlobe. “You smell like gingerbread.”
A nod brought her head back to rest on his shoulder. “Holiday scents came out at Halloween, and I’m really talented with online shopping.”
For a rich girl, she minimized when it came to jewelry. Her ears and neck and fingers were bare in blatant invitation—kiss me, touch me, suck me. But the body products? Jesus Christ. The most tantalizing woman in the world smelled like cookies.
She whimpered when he mouthed her throat. “Can we have both?” she asked.
Cole knew what she meant—could they successfully be colleagues with benefits?—and chose his words carefully. He wasn’t offering a white dress or a picket fence. But with that question, neither was she. “We’ll compartmentalize.” Granted, the last two years hadn’t been a great example of his ability to separate. Work had been tied to tidal waves of emotional bombardment, far from his specialty. This could be simple. Elemental. Necessary.
He didn’t hurry when he wrapped both arms around her middle, waiting patiently for her answer, but also not letting her escape. Concern barely overrode his desire. It shouldn’t have. There were other women.
Not that you want. The others didn’t tell him to fuck off when he needed a set down. The others didn’t have silken chestnut hair, not quite brown, not quite red. The others didn’t smell like dessert.
She nodded after way too long. “I trust you.”
Anything but that. His arms spasmed, giving Lissa an involuntary squeeze. Not trust. She could hand over lust and anger, heap on the frustration, but she shouldn’t put her wellbeing in his hands. No one should. “Trust,” he repeated, his rasp a scrape along his protesting conscience. “Trust me to what?”
Her head rolled on his shoulder, and he felt her smile into his neck. “To make me feel good.”
Relief came in a rush. She talked of tonight, not tomorrow morning. Women—especially this one—were never so simple, which meant she lied to herself, if not to him. But they could pretend.
Make her feel good? The woman had no idea.
Libby Rice Bio:
Before becoming a writer, Libby was first a mechanical engineer in the data acquisition industry (voltmeter anyone?). Preferring writing to technical design, Libby headed to law school and eventually practiced patent law for several enterprising years (patent application covering a voltmeter anyone?). Finally realizing that technology just wasn’t her bag, she traded the voltmeters for alpha heroes and the women who love them.
Today, Libby writes contemporary romances from the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where she lives with her husband, a bona fide rocket scientist (he stuck with the voltmeters!). When not writing, Libby loves good food, even better wine, and traveling the world in search of the next great story.
Libby loves hearing from readers! Join the fun at www.libbyrice.com, where you can sign up for Libby’s new-release e-newsletter, or on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram.
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