Reckless (30 page)

But none of that mattered to me. What mattered was that I had Samantha, and there was only one of her in the entire fucking universe.
 

I really didn’t care what Isabella had in mind.

Unrelenting, she cocked her own crazy-sexy dimpled grin at me. It didn’t have the desired effect on me.

I sighed and stepped away from her, trying not to be rude. I walked over to the table where I kept my receipt book in a drawer. “Did you want cash? Or am I supposed to pay the agency directly?”

“Is all taken care of,” she smiled.

That meant Brandon. I’m sure he’d send me the invoice later. Or maybe not. When you’re slinging six-figure canvases out the door one after the other, a few grand here and there doesn’t make anyone blink anymore. At least, that was the plan.
 

“Do you need anything for the road?” I asked Isabella. “You want some water to take with you?”
 

She walked over to where I stood at the desk and placed her palm on my painter’s smock.
 

“Please,” she flashed her wide-mouthed smile.

Please
was right. I gently skirted around her and headed toward the kitchen. “Come on, I’ll grab you a cold bottle from the fridge.”

I heard her clacky heels following behind me.

I’d already grabbed a water from the fridge by the time she made it to the kitchen. I leaned against the doorframe when she came in.

“We drink together?” she pouted her lips in that way women who know how to use their looks always pouted. The way that makes most guys drop to their knees, tongues hanging out, and start begging and promising the world and anything else they can think of. She wasn’t getting it.

“Sorry, Isabella. I’ve got a ton of work to do before the sun goes down.”

“Is good, having so much work, no?”

“Yes.” I said flatly. I could tell she had no intention of moving from where she stood, hand on her cocked hip.
 

Fine. If she wanted to play games, I knew my way around the board. I raised an eyebrow and waited her out. My guess was her next move would be a hair flip.

She raised an eyebrow.

That was her tell. The hair flip was seconds away.

Wait…wait…

Oh! There it goes!

She tossed her lustrous main around with spectacular grace.

Hair flip!

I’m sure she’d practiced that move for photo shoots a hundred times. She finished by tilting her chin down, another camera-ready pose. She really had nice eyes.

I didn’t care. It was Game Over time.

I turned and walked into the entryway and opened the front door.

I heard her pout again. This time, it was the real pout. The frustrated kind that sounded like a little girl not getting her way. When she walked out of the kitchen, she looked a bit sulky. I felt sort of bad, but she
was
throwing herself at me. She’d get over me. Someday.

What could I say? Old habits died hard. This shit was regular as breathing to me.

Isabella stopped on the runner in the entryway and eyeballed me again. Was she not getting the hint? She had it bad.

I motioned outside with my arm. “After you.”

“Your tattoos are very sexy.”

I already knew that. “Thanks.”

Finally, she walked outside.

I would be a completely rude dick if I didn’t open her car door for her. We walked to her shiny Jetta together. When she clicked the alarm, I opened the door.

“You are very gentleman,” she said in her lusciously accented broken English.

“Always,” I smiled.

“Maybe next time, we eat lunch, yes?”

“Maybe.” How many more sessions did I have with her? I’m thinking one too many. I sighed. At least she was easy on the eyes, and her painting would sell for a bundle to some shallow rich schmuck who didn’t look beyond the surface. Business was business.
 

Isabella stuck her hand out her window as she drove off and waved at me with her $400 nails. “
Até logo
, Christos!” She actually blew me a kiss.

I shook my head when she was gone. Poor thing. I’d have to ugly myself down for her next sitting, keep her in line. Maybe I could wear a pair of those classic novelty glasses with the big nose, bushy eyebrows, and Hitler mustache. Maybe that would tone her flirting down.

Mental note: buy novelty glasses ASAP.

I chuckled, because I was seriously considering doing it. Sure, she’d see right through the disguise, but I’d be willing to bet she’d think I was two handshakes away from being a serial killer after that. It
could
work as a deterrent.

Samantha, on the other hand, would probably think it was hilarious. Maybe Brandon was right. Maybe I did need to paint Samantha.

But I didn’t think I’d get her to sit nude.

Then again, the Mona Lisa wasn’t a nude. Neither was the Girl with the Pearl Earring.

It could work.

I walked back into the house. In the living room, I opened the liquor cabinet and poured myself an inch of bourbon, straight up. After my long day in the studio, I needed to unwind.

I threw back the entire glass in one long swallow. I poured myself another inch and walked into the studio.

The painting of Isabella was coming along faster than I’d expected. Most of it was still rough, but the face was finished and was as flawless as Isabella’s. My technical mastery of oil paint was clearly evident.

The only problem?

It wasn’t doing anything for me. Sure, her face looked photo-real, but it was lifeless. I’d captured her pouty, full lips, her sultry eyes, her delicate jawline. She looked textbook sexy, which meant boring sexy. Cardboard. Cookie-cutter.

There was no spirit to the painting.

I’m sure I could sell it to some pin-up art collector for ten grand. But that would be taking five steps backward with my pricing. The painting of Isabella needed to go for at least $80,000 if I was going to build my name. Not $10,000, of which I’d get $5,000, meaning $3,000 after taxes, another $500 for supplies, leaving me with $2,500, which was not worth the weeks I would end up putting into it by the time I was done.

I gulped down the rest of the bourbon in my glass.

Maybe the painting would come together when I finished her body.

I went into the living room to pour myself more bourbon.

Chapter 15

SAMANTHA

Romeo and I walked into Professor Bittinger’s class extra early. I wanted to get there long before the woman had reason to give my grief.
 

The room was empty when we arrived, so Romeo and I set up on sculpting tables next to each other, pulling out our sculpting tools and armature wires from the previous class.

“Do you think Hunter will be back today?” Romeo asked as he peeled clay off of his armature.

I did the same with my clay, preparing my wire stick-figure for today’s sculpting. “Yeah, he told me he’s going to be here all quarter.”

Romeo frowned. “When did he tell you that?”

“When he followed me to my car after the first day of class.”

Romeo’s face lit up. “Hunter is stalking you? You lucky bitch!”

I rolled my eyes. “You can have him.”

“I think I’d need to get breast implants first.” Romeo pushed his chest muscles together with the palms of his hands. “I’d have awesome cleavage, don’t you think?”

“Are you saying you would go girl, just to get Hunter? I mean, have a sex change operation?”

Romeo rolled his eyes dismissively. “I may be gay, Sam, but I’m not crazy. I would never behead my Little Romeo.” He patted his crotch affectionately. “Poor little guy, Sam here would have you sliced off with one of those little cigar-cutter guillotines. But she totally didn’t mean it,” he looked at me pointedly, “did you Sam? Tell him you’re sorry,” he demanded.

“I’m not apologizing to your pants, Romeo!”

Romeo looked heartbroken. Then he cupped his hand to his ear. “What did you say, Little Romeo? Uh-huh. Mmm-hmm. Oh, Little Romeo, how rude! Don’t talk like that about Sam!” Romeo’s face turned sad. In a grave voice he said, “You really hurt his feelings, Sam. You really ought to apologize.” Romeo raised his eyebrows expectantly.

I was so swept up in Romeo’s genuine outpouring of emotion, I actually whispered, “I didn’t mean it, Little Romeo.” I giggled, and looked Romeo in the eyes. “How was that?”

“Excellent, now just give Little Romeo a hug and a kiss, and everything will be fine.”

“I’m not hugging and kissing your Little Romeo!” I blurted, perhaps louder than I’d intended now that the room was full of students.

“I’m kidding, Sam,” he smiled. “Little Romeo only likes boys. Just like his old man.”

Chuckling, I shook my head.

“Good afternoon, class!” Marjorie Bittinger said as she walked in the door. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was terrible due to an accident on the Five.”

I guess it was okay for
her
to be late and full of weak excuses.

“I’m sure the only accident she had on the freeway was in her pants,” Romeo said. He wrinkled his nose.

I giggled, but, ew. “I think that’s her perfume.”

“Smells like pewfume to me,” he winced. “Did somebody let a skunk in?” he whispered.

“Are you through?” Professor Bittinger asked, suddenly standing behind Romeo. How the hell did she always do that? Did she have a teleportation device in her pocket, or just trapdoors scattered throughout the room for her to pop up through?

“All done,” Romeo said casually while holding up his cleaned armature wire, purposefully misunderstanding her.

Marjorie scowled at him. “I’m glad to see that you have paid such fastidious attention to your 1/12th scale armature, because you won’t be needing it today,” she said victoriously. Marching to the center of the room, she said, “Today we’ll start on our 1/3rd scale sculpture of the model. We will be using the large armature wire you purchased at the beginning of the term.” She turned to me whip-fast. “Did you remember to purchase the large wire, Miss
Smith
?”

I struggled to not stick my tongue out at her. “Yes I did, Professor—” I almost said Bitchinger, “…Bittinger.”

She glared at me like she’d known what I’d been thinking. Then she closed her eyes dismissively before turning away, as if merely closing her eyes would magically banish me to Hell or Hades, or wherever she hoped I’d rot for eternity.

For the next hour, we built a much larger wire stick-figure man.
 

When I was finished, I noticed Hunter Blakeley walk into the room. He was preppie-sexy and had the aviator sunglasses on again. He walked directly to the professor and they chatted for awhile.
 

Marjorie Bittinger transformed into her usual preening, flirty self when Hunter was in close proximity. The way Hunter acted, you’d think they were dating.
 

“Do you think those two are hooking up?” Romeo whispered.

“It seems that way.”

Hunter walked into the corner and changed into his robe behind a hanging curtain. Marjorie stole glances at him the whole time.

“She’s peeping at him!” Romeo whispered, faux-offended. “You think she’d wait until he was standing naked in front of the entire room. She’s totally desperate.”

I could relate to that feeling of desperately wanting something you couldn’t have. I felt like I’d been seeing as much of Christos lately as Marjorie was getting to see of Hunter at the moment. Glimpses.

With any luck, that would change this evening when I had dinner with Christos. I crossed my fingers. And my toes.

Hunter walked out from behind the curtain and onto the dais wearing his robe. He flung it off with a flourish.

Sigh, yeah, he was totally hot.
 

I noticed a gleam in Marjorie’s eyes as she pretended to give Hunter’s naked body a cursory inspection. She tried to play it off like no big deal. But her hunger was obvious.

“Hunter,” the professor said, “please take your pose. Class, grab some clay from the warmer, and go to it.”

It turned out the bigger sculpture needed way more clay. I had to go back to the warmerator three times before I had enough. I slapped clay onto my armature, and went to work with a wooden paddle smoothing out the planes. I was getting the hang of this sculpting thing, and had my voodoo man blocked in pretty quickly.

Minutes later, I discovered that working larger was more difficult. There was a lot more room to screw things up. I was getting hung up on one of the legs. The knee looked wrong and the calf was three sizes too big.

“Your paddle,” Marjorie demanded.

“Huh? Oh.” I handed her the wooden tool, which looked like a small spatula.

Despite Professor Bittinger’s lack of interpersonal pleasantries when it came to anyone other than Hunter, she was amazingly skilled at sculpting. She plucked off a hunk of clay from the calf muscle on my sculpt. Then, with three quick swipes of my paddle, she transformed my wonky clay leg into a work of art.

“Wow, Professor. That looks amazing.”

She handed me the paddle unceremoniously and walked away.

I rolled my eyes behind her back. Was that supposed to be teaching, or just showing off? Despite her clinical beauty, she was a robot in the social arena. She was totally hotistic.

During the break, Hunter robed himself and bee-lined right over to me. I couldn’t help but notice Marjorie’s glaring eyes glued on him. I felt like running out of the room, just to get away from Hunter. Either he didn’t realize or didn’t care that he was souring my relationship with my professor, which would probably have an impact on my grade.

“Hey, beautiful,” he smiled. “Been thinking about you.”

I almost said, “That’s funny, because I haven’t,” but realized such a brush-off might sound like flirtation. I didn’t want to be a rude Bitchinger either, so I opted for bland, “Hey, Hunter.”

“You remembered my name?” He grinned. “That’s a start.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” he smiled.

I swear, everything with Hunter was a come on.

“Hiiii, Hunter,” Romeo smiled longingly. I think he batted his eyelashes. At least, he may as well have based on his fawning tone.

Hunter glanced at him dismissively. “Hey, dude.”