Everything You Need (4 page)

He rose. “I can give you that much.”

“What? No.” She bent over the end table and grabbed his sweater. She tugged on it.

He glanced down at her. “It’s only three thousand.”

“I could never take that kind of money.” If he could even get such sum at such short notice.

“It would be an advance for posing.”

“I don’t want to pose nude.”

“Who said anything about nude?”

“But... That kind of money...” Why would anybody want to pay her that for normal posing? Actually why would anybody want to use
her
for posing?

He went around the end table and squatted down before her. His fingers curled around her hands. “It’s for the same kind of posing as you did the last time.” A charming, naughty smile stretched his mouth. “Though maybe we can also try something more daring.”

At his touch, or was it his smile, a small sizzle of heat stirred inside her. The sensation surprised her, but she didn’t try to haul her hands out of his hold. “Like what?”

He became serious. “Nothing you wouldn’t agree to, okay? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“But...” Her eyes descended to her hands that looked small against his big and warm ones.

“What?” His thumbs stroked the inside of her palms, she could feel the hardened skin of his fingertips. He had working hands, with long fingers and a firm, dry grip. There was a smudge of yellow paint on his thumb’s neatly clipped nail.

Why shouldn’t she take the opportunity when it presented herself to her? If he wanted to spend money on her, why not? “Do you even have that kind of money? I mean, you won’t miss your rent or anything like that?”

“No.”

“Okay. That means...” Three thousand, one hundred per hour. “Thirty hours of posing.” To spend so much time in his company? Yes, she would like that.

“Yes.” He released her and stood.

Okay, if this was what he wanted... “Would an hour or two hours after work, or before when I have afternoon shifts, suit you?”

He nodded. “That would be perfect.”

Chapter 4

The stroke of a brush left an orange glow on the canvas, adding another layer to the half-realized image of a girl napping in the armchair. Ashton glanced down at the picture on his tablet, which sat on the narrow shelf of his painting easel, and then past the canvas at the real deal.

As if she felt his gaze, Kris mumbled in her sleep and then snuggled deeper into the armchair. She sat on the armchair sideways, with her side leaning against the chair’s back and her legs thrown over the armrest.

He smiled to himself, pushed the brush into the jar full of water set beside him on the counter, and wiped his hands on the rag stuffed into the waistband of his jeans. He tiptoed to the girl and then, with his fingers wrapped around the chair’s back, he leaned over her until his nose almost touched the top of her head. He closed his eyes and deeply inhaled her scent, something that he had wanted to do since she passed him coming into the room and a hint of the sweet smell had drifted to him. She smelled like a bouquet of flowers, like roses.

She murmured something.

His eyes opened and he straightened, observing her face. She had light grey patches under her eyes and she looked tired, not only physically, but also mentally. There was something bothering her and when he had tried to subtly enquire about it, she closed up like an oyster. So he had to take the only approach available to him; to be patient and wait. His finger slid under a strand of blond hair that had fallen on her cheek. He twirled it around his finger.

She stirred and her eyelids fluttered open.

He pushed his hands into his pockets and smiled.

“I fell asleep. I’m sorry,” she said in the voice of somebody who still wasn’t completely awake. She rubbed her eyes.

“Are you hungry?”

“No.” Her stomach growled and her eyes widened, as if she was surprised at the betrayal of her body.

He chuckled. She was adorable and she tempted him to bend down and to press a quick kiss on her nose and then lower, onto her mouth. Yes, he really wanted to kiss her, to brush his lips against hers, to verify that her mouth felt as soft as it looked. He resisted the temptation and satisfied himself with a gentle flick of his finger on her nose. “What would you like? Chinese? Thai? Or maybe Italian?”

“You’re already paying me for my time, you can’t feed me too.” She stood up and stretched.

“Of course I can.” He turned around and walked to the desk under the window. The other day, Claudia had put some take-out menus in the desk drawer, ordering him to use them. He took the pamphlets out and as he walked toward her, he fanned them out. “Here, pick one.”

“But...” Her stomach growled again.

“I’m hungry. You are hungry.” He grinned. “Don’t try to deny it, I heard it quite clearly.”

She shyly smiled back and pointed at one of the pamphlets.

He turned it around to see what it was. “Chinese.” He put the rest away and took his phone from the desk. “What do you want?”

“Don’t care as long as it isn’t pork. I’m not fond of pork.” She strolled toward the easel.

“Don’t look,” he said to her before he dialled the number on the pamphlet.

She peeked at the picture anyway.

“I told you not to look.” He forced himself between her and the easel and with one hand turned her and nudged her away. The telephone line connected and a woman’s voice answered. “I would like to order, please,” he told her and started to list the food he liked, “Plain chow mein, egg fried rice.”

Kris side-stepped him.

“Beef Peking style -- just a moment.” He caught Kris’s wrist. “Would chicken with mixed vegetables be okay?”

She nodded.

“Chicken with mixed vegetables,” he said into the phone.

“Isn’t that too much food?” Kris tried to tug her hand out of his grip.

He ignored her words and her struggles, refusing to loosen his hold on her. “Mixed vegetables with cashew nuts and two pineapple fritters in syrup.” He told her his address and hung up. After he shoved the phone into the pocket of his jeans and released Kris, he towered over her, his forehead furrowed into a fake scowl, his arms akimbo. “I told you not to look.”

“You also told me that you were going to make a statue of me, not paint me.” She smiled up at him.

He stared down at her, at the curve of her mouth.
So pretty
.

“But look, there’s a painting of me.” She darted around him. “I want to see it.”

He caught her, with his arm around her waist, he hauled her backwards until her back touched his chest.

She stiffened.

There were two possibilities. He could withdraw his arm and pretend that he hadn’t noticed how uncomfortable she had become, or he could try the one thing that always managed to make people more relaxed, something that Kate liked to do to him. He smirked and still holding onto her, his free hand sneaked across her belly and then his fingers attacked her side, tickling her.

Flinching, she squealed, then started to twitch. “Stop it, stop it, please,” she managed to wheeze out between the giggles as she tried to wiggle out of his hold.

Kate would have ordered him to stop right now. Of course, he never obeyed her, as he didn’t heed Kris’s requests; he was enjoying the trembling of her body and her Tinkerbelle-like laughter. After a few seconds he did stop, but he still held her in his half- embrace. She was soft and pliable, so warm as she leaned on him and tried to catch her breath. He wanted to turn her around, bury his fingers in her hair and kiss her, something he had wanted to do since the first moment he had laid eyes on her. Would her kisses feel the same as Kate’s? He released her.

She faced him, flushed; her eyes narrowed and a small smile lingered at the corners of her mouth. “That was low.”

He couldn’t help but smile. That’s how she should always be, with a light in her eyes and a joy lingering on her lips. “What can I say, I’m a low kind of a guy. No integrity whatsoever.”

“Yes, I noticed.” With a solemn expression on her face and a mouth that wanted to turn upwards, she nodded.

“That’s why it’s good that you insisted on payment in advance,” he joked.

The light in her eyes dimmed; it was like a blank dullness replaced the joy that had glittered in her gaze and she again became the meek, stoic girl who observed everything from a distance. She hadn’t told him what the money she needed was for, and he didn’t ask, too grateful for the opportunity to be able to spend more time with the girl whose face resembled Kate’s so much. However, he just hadn’t counted on the fact that the more time he spent with her, the less she reminded him of Kate, and the more he started to become curious about Kris.

“Yes.” She averted her gaze and hugged herself, her eyes darting around until they stopped on the easel. She closed the two steps of distance that separated her from the painting. “It’s quite light.” She glanced at him before her eyes moved to the painting before her again. “When you told me that you would like to paint me, I thought that you would do something similar to the grey and black paintings downstairs. But there’s so much orange and beige and gold. But what’s that...” She hunched down and squinted her eyes. “It’s that a bone?”

From the cabinet nearby, he took a sheet, forced his way between her and the easel and tossed the sheet over the painting. “Yes.” It was actually a sketch of bones, not just a bone. “It’s has a symbolic meaning.”

She didn’t say anything, just lifted her eyebrows.

“It will be self-explanatory when it’s finished.” He gently pushed her aside. “No more peeking, okay? Not until it’s finished.”

His phone rang.

He took it out of his pocket and checked its display. It was his mother. He answered it. “Yes.”

“Hello, Ashton.”

“What do you want?” He moved to the desk and leaned on it.

“Is that any way to greet your mother?”

His mother was fond of long monologues, which she also liked to practice over the phone. If he wanted to avoid her chattering, he had to put a stop to it before she even started. “I’m in the middle of something.”

“Your dabbing again?”

She could at least remember that even though he painted, he was more of a sculptor than a painter. He inwardly sighed, covered the receiver with his hand and said to Kris, “I’ll be right back.” He strode into the next room, where sacks of material covered the shelves and canvases leaned against the wall. Because of the blinds covering the windows it was quite dark. He told his mother to put his father on, and when his father answered, he asked him, “What is it?”

“We’re coming to the city on Saturday, for a few days, and we would like to have dinner with you.”

“You’re not planning to stay at the hotel, I hope, when there’s a spare bedroom in the flat.”

“We wouldn’t want to bother you and Kalen.”

“You mean
you
wouldn’t want to bother us,” Ashton said and then quickly continued, “Kalen is on a trip and I’m rarely there. You two would actually have the apartment to yourselves.”

“Mother’s not going to be pleased; she wanted to have Sunday dinner with both of you boys.”

“She’ll have to be satisfied with me.”

“She would probably insist that you bring that girl you are dating, what’s her name? Mary or something, the one you know from school.”

“I’m not dating Mary; we’re just friends.” With benefits, but he wasn’t about to share that with his father. “Listen, I really am in the middle of something, can we talk later?”

“Yes, of course,” his father said, which was followed by goodbye.

“Bye.” Ashton turned off the phone, pocketed it and returned to his studio where he found Kris in front of the canvas. “I told you not to look.” He stalked toward her.

She released the edge of the sheet that she held upright and stepped backwards. Playfulness laced her voice as she said, “I just peeked a little.”

“Yes, I saw what ‘a peek’ means in your vocabulary.” He stopped before her.

“I was curious.” She took another step backwards and then when he stepped forward, she continued to walk backwards.

He followed her. “Did you know that curiosity killed the cat?”

“I’m not a cat.” She took another step backwards.

He stepped forward, his eyes slid up and down her body. “No, you are not.”

Her legs hit the counter. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

She shifted left.

He set his hands on the counter’s polished surface, trapping her.

The playfulness in the air thinned and tension replaced it.

“Ashton.” His name slipped out of her mouth like a brush of breeze.

His tongue darted out and he licked his upper lip. “May I touch you?”

“Huh?”

“May I touch you?”

“Touch me?”

“Your face. May I touch it?”

For a moment silence stretched between them, tightening the tension, and he thought that she might refuse him, but then she pushed her chin forward. “Okay.”

He stared at her for a second, their eyes locked, then he lifted his hands and framed her face.

She subtly took a deep breath.

His thumbs caressed her cheeks before his hands glided up, slowly, feeling her, touching her, seducing her with his touch.

She closed her eyes.

His fingers brushed against her nose, eyes, then trailed the arch of her eyebrows, his gaze on her slightly opened mouth, which tempted him and begged him to be kissed. With the tips of his thumbs pressed together, he followed the ridge of her nose then touched her mouth, the fingers drew apart, following the bow of her upper lip then the lower lip, meeting on the fullest part of her mouth.

Her breath rushed in and out of her lungs and breezed against his fingertips.

Tempting, she was so tempting, and the desire for her flared up. All he needed to do was to close the small distance between them and lower his mouth to hers. And he would be lost, he knew that without having to taste her. He was already lost in the need for her, in the desire to lift her up on the counter, rip her jeans off her and thrust inside her, hard, over and over again.

Her eyes opened, her pupils widened, swallowing the grass-green of her irises. He could see himself in her dazed eyes.

Slowly, he leaned down.

Their breaths mingled.

The buzz of the intercom. It was as if the sound of it woke her from a trance and she slid through his fingers like an eel.

With regret he watched her as she went to the armchair and slumped into it, hugging herself. She crossed her legs, appearing to lock herself into the embrace of the chair. He shook his head and then took a deep breath as if that would help him get rid of his want for her, which lingered like a heavy knot in the pit of his stomach.

The intercom buzzed again.

He strode to it and pressed the talk key. “What?”

“Did you order takeout?” Claudia asked him.

“Yes, send it up.”

When the food arrived, he paid for it and set it down on the desk, which he pushed to the sofa, waving to Kris to join him. They sat down on the sofa and started to eat, making chitchat, ignoring the awkwardness that hung over them like a veil. When they started to talk about the book that she had borrowed from him, she relaxed a bit, but she still left as soon as the leftovers of their meal were cleared away.