Reckless (25 page)

Luckily, she circled in such a way that she came to me next to last, so I had time to build my armature.

“Let’s see what kind of mess you’ve made, Miss Smith,” she snarked.

I held up my completed armature and smirked.

The look of superiority on her face did not falter as she scanned my armature. “Well, it looks like we have an over-achiever in our midst,” she said, loud enough for the entire room to hear.
 

Okay, she was lame. She hated me, whether I was a screw up or top of the class. Whatever.

The professor abruptly yanked the armature from my hand and turned it over and around, wiggling it in several places before slapping it back into my hand. “Good job, Miss Smith,” she said dismissively, turning her back to me as she walked to the final student and inspected their work.

“Okay, class,” she said in a clear voice, “everyone place your purchased clay into the bin next to the clay warmer. After you’ve done that, take a few blocks of warm clay out of the warmer.”

The clay warmer turned out to be a refrigerator that had been converted into a re-warmerator. Inside it, something circulated hot air, and on the shelves were dozens and dozens of warm chunks of green clay.

I grabbed a few and returned to my sculpting table.

Miss Bittinger turned to a cute guy in a bathrobe who sat casually on a chair in the corner of the room reading something on his smart phone. His bare feet were casually crossed and laid out in front of him.

“Hunter,” the professor said, “would you please take the stand?”

Hunter walked onto the dais in the center of the room and threw his robe open dramatically. Whoops. He was hot. No tattoos like Christos, but definitely chiseled and manly, with flawless tan skin. None of the other male models in Life Drawing had been remotely attractive. This Hunter guy was quite handsome. He had a mess of blond hair, striking amber eyes, and the requisite six pack, heavy pectorals, and bulging shoulders. He clearly worked hard to maintain his impressively rock-hard physique.

Well, I was here to sculpt, not gawk.
 

Romeo took care of the gawking for me. His eyes popped and his mouth was a big O. He was in heaven.

I smiled at him and waved my finger in an “uh-uh-uh” gesture.

He stuck his tongue out at me.

“Is something funny, Miss Smith?” the professor asked.

I frowned. “No.”

“If you can’t maintain a professional attitude, perhaps you’re not ready for this class?”

I opened my mouth to protest. I was here to work. Whatever. She’d decided I was the flake student. I’d have to prove her wrong.

“Hunter,” the professor said, “please take a relaxed standing pose.”

Hunter settled his weight on one leg and cocked his hip. He was the California surfer version of a perfect marble statue.

It turned out that a “quick sculpt” took a lot longer than a quick sketch. At first, I wasn’t sure what to do. Everyone around the room started slapping clay on their wire armature. I did the same, noticing how warm the clay was. It was really squishy and buttery, sort of like lard in terms of firmness, but not greasy at all. I could squish this stuff around all day long. Warm clay. Who knew?

It didn’t take long for me to get the hang of the actual sculpting. It was like playing with Play-Doh, but easier because the armature helped keep the clay in the right places.

Soon, people pulled out a variety of wooden tools from their own bags. They used the tools, which looked like a variety of wooden letter-openers or butter knives, to further shape the clay. Some people just used their fingers. I was a hands-on kind of girl. Fingers seemed to be easiest.

At one point, I glanced over at Romeo. He was hard at work, but when he saw me looking at him, he held up his rough sculpture, which resembled nothing more than a rudimentary clay voodoo doll at this point, and pulled the legs apart with his fists. Then he jammed one finger up into the sculptures’ crotch while running his tongue around his own lips and giving me bedroom eyes before blowing me a kiss.

I winced, and tried to focus on the sculpture in my hand, but Romeo was still trying to get my attention from across the room. I glanced up and he bent his sculpture at the waist, then jabbed his finger into the sculpture’s butt.

I grimaced and giggled reflexively.

“I didn’t realize this was your own personal comedy club, Miss Smith,” the professor barked behind me. “Are you here to work, or goof off?”

“I’m working,” I said, sounding thirteen again. I held up my sculpture.

She looked down her nose at it, then glared at me for what seemed like an hour. She jammed her fists defiantly on her hips. “Well, keep working! Do you need an invitation?” She stalked over to the next student, her heels click-clacking.

Oh boy. What had I gotten myself into?

Chapter 13

SAMANTHA

“All right, class, now we’re going to find out why our tables have wheels," Professor Bittinger said. “Please shift your table two positions to your right. If your bags are in the way, you can set them against the walls.”

Everyone moved their tables in the circle, but Hunter remained in his same position and pose. As soon as I looked at Hunter from my new vantage point, I saw all kinds of problems with my sculpture, so I went about fixing them, until we moved positions again. More problems. Sculpting was a whole different animal from drawing, but I kind of liked it. In some ways it was easier, because you could squish the clay around to fix things without using an eraser and then redrawing everything.

We shifted positions two more times in the next twenty minutes, then took a break.

The students circulated the room, chatting and looking at each other’s work.

“How’d it go?”

I looked up, right into the amber eyes of Hunter. “I’m sorry, what?”

He haphazardly strapped the belt of his robe around his waist, almost as if he’d just gotten dressed in the privacy of his own bedroom first thing in the morning, as if covering his wing-wang in public was a formality for him. “How is your sculpture so far?”

I was blushing, I think from embarrassment. Was I the only person in the room? Couldn’t he talk to someone else? “Oh, uh, pretty good, I guess. I’ve never sculpted before. It’s a lot different than drawing.”

“That’s what they tell me,” he smiled. His teeth were white and even, as perfect as his physique.

“What, you don’t draw, I mean sculpt?” I stammered.

“Nope. I leave it to the professionals.” He winked at me and flashed his smile.

Was it just me, or had he not belted his robe tightly enough? It looked like it was going to fall open if he wasn’t careful. I considered telling him as much, but couldn’t think of the right way to say it. Was he doing it on purpose? Setting me up for a stealth flashing? Probably.
 

“What’s your name?” he asked, holding out his hand to shake. This caused the top of his robe to billow out, revealing his chest and abs as he leaned forward.

“Oh, uh, Sam.” I reluctantly shook his hand.

The shaking made his robe ripple, and I saw the belt sliding apart. When we finished shaking hands, he straightened up and I swear the only thing stopping the robe flaps from sliding completely away to reveal his full splendor was that they had caught on the, um, prominence, between his legs. Not that he was sporting wood, but it, well, it was
uncommonly
obtrusive. Not that I was looking. Sure, I’d seen it five minutes ago, but not from two feet away.

He needed a harness for that thing.

The second I realized what Hunter was doing, because the look on his face made it obvious he was orchestrating this imminent yet “unintentional” unharnessing, I appropriately bolted my eyes on his.

“I thought you said your name was Samantha,” he said, giving me a cocky smile.

Ever since Christos had started calling me Samantha all the time, I’d decided to stop introducing myself as Sam to everyone. But this Hunter guy was dangerous, and needed to be kept at arm’s length. “Oh, uh, yeah,” I grimaced, “my, ah, friends, call me Sam.”

I was regretting locking my eyes on his because their amber color was trying to hypnotize me. Was he making them shine and glimmer on purpose? Or was that their natural state?

“Sam it is. My name’s Hunter Blakeley.” he said casually, hands on hips.
 

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed old man gravity was further working his dirty magic on Hunter’s robe. Full disclosure was nearly upon me. Ew.

“You seem pretty good at sculpting,” Hunter grinned.

A few months ago, I would’ve blurted out words of nervous self-doubt. But that was a few months ago. I’d made steady progress since then, and after my parents’ bombshell the night before, I wasn’t in this class to mess around. I was here to work, not flirt. I knew what Hunter was doing. Besides, I totally wasn’t interested, and I’m pretty sure my artistic advancement wasn’t his top priority. “Thanks,” I said flatly.

Hunter gazed at me. His robe shifted another inch. I’m pretty sure there were no more inches left on his robe before his…
inches
were unveiled. In my head, I shouted at him,

FIX IT!!!!!!

He smirked confidently, probably reading my mind. Yeah, he knew what he was doing. He probably did this to women every day. Practiced on street corners as old ladies walked by. Helped them across the street while his robe accidentally fell open, just to see if they had heart attacks.

I needed to remove myself from this situation, because he was clearly indulging his desires to the hilt. Hilt was the wrong word, because we all know a sword and its hilt can be a euphemism for the male genitalia, just like a scabbard can refer to a woman’s—

STOP!!!

That was me shouting at me.

Get a grip, girl!

No!! Don’t GRIP anything!!!!

Yes, I was going insane. I was only human. And Hunter was hot. I took a deep breath and said to him, “Well, I need to get more clay, er, ah…”

“Hunter!” Professor Bittinger said, standing right behind me, “so good to see you posing again!”
 

Jesus Christ!
She almost gave
me
a heart attack. Maybe that was her plan. But seriously, how the hell was it that most of the time her noisemaker heels machine-gunned across the cement floor when she was on the way over to chew me out, but now all of a sudden she managed to sneak up on me like she wore ninja slippers?

My operative theory was Magical Shoes. That was the only plausible explanation.
 

“Heeeyyyy, Marjorie,” Hunter drawled to the professor, giving her a cocky head nod.

He called her
Marjorie
? Were they pals?

“What have you been up to?” the professor asked Hunter. “I haven’t seen you since Spring quarter last year.” Her eyes gleamed at him.

“This and that,” he smiled.

She giggled girlishly.

How was “this and that” worthy of laughter? I guess the comedy bar for horny older women was set pretty low. Because she was obviously acting like a lovesick teenager around this Hunter guy. I also noticed that Marjorie had no problem gawking at his groin every two seconds. Between stares, she preened and flipped her hair saucily with her hand.

Harlot.

Wait a second! Maybe this new development could take the heat from Hunter off of me! I just needed to leave him alone with Marjorie and they could go at it like rabbits on the sculpting studio floor!

Problem solved. All I had to do was get Hunter off
my
back by getting Marjorie on
her
back, and maybe she wouldn’t be such an uptight bitch to me anymore!

Perfect!

Just give them a little privacy and let nature take its course.

Unfortunately, I was stuck where I stood between them and my sculpting table. Worse, Marjorie was going to drip on me any second while drooling over Hunter.

Crap. I’d forgotten to wear my rain slicker.

“Sam here seems pretty good at sculpting,” Hunter said, nodding toward me.

Marjorie blinked free of Hunter’s love enchantment and looked over at me. Her lovesick face soured into hatesick.

Not what I needed. Where was my escape hatch?

Shit!

The professor looked me up and down, her nostrils flaring, as if deciding someone had just farted, and it had to have been me. “I see you’ve met Miss Smith,” she sneered.

Great.

“You should’ve told me you had such a cutey in your class,” Hunter said.

WTF was he doing?! Red alert! Abandon ship! It was so obvious Marjorie Bittinger wanted Hunter Blakeley all to herself.

Marjorie’s eyes narrowed at me. I’m confident she was thinking carnivorous thoughts, imagining skinning me alive and roasting my flesh on a stick while I begged for mercy. The new white meat: Boneless, skinless Samantha Breast. And not in a sexy way. Because I wouldn’t put it past Marjorie to believe that if she ate my flesh, she would consume my power over Hunter, making it her own. No wonder she taught sculpture. She was a Voodoo Priestess all along, I was sure of it.

Marjorie snarled directly at me, “My only concern is whether or not Miss Smith’s sculpting skills warrant her presence in my studio.”

My eyes goggled. I wanted to duck under both of them and bolt for the door. Instead, I mentally rolled up my sleeves and lilted, “I’m sure they will.”

“We’ll see about that,” Marjorie said before turning and walking away.

Great. The Wicked Witch of the West was my sculpting teacher and I was fresh out of water buckets, otherwise I would’ve poured one over her head right then.

“Take your positions, class,” the professor barked. Her voice thundered around the room. An omen of things to come? I’m sure she was already formulating a surprise lightning strike on my ass sometime this quarter, and I feared her particular version of a lightning strike would include a squadron of flying monkeys soldiers flying out of her butt and setting their sights on me, something I hoped to avoid because I was fresh out of monkey repellent. Because you
know
her butt-monkeys didn’t shower, or at the very least
rinse
, upon ejecting from Marjorie’s rear end. Maybe she could install one of those drive-thru car-wash machines in her rectum? It
could
work. I would have to sketch up plans later.