Seduction’s Canvas (Crimson Romance) (22 page)

For some reason being around him both charged and calmed her. It was like all the creative and emotional energy she had was swirling and firing throughout her body to create a fantastic ball of wonder and peace that she never imagined she could feel.

She watched him, taking in the way he ate his food with pure gusto and pleasure. Muscles flexing through his tee as he sliced through his steak. Full lips wrapping around his fork, tongue darting out to lick errant sauce away from the top of his — “Okay.” She pushed her plate aside and ran her hands across her thighs. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I want to go and prep some things in my studio.”

He looked down at the last hunk of his steak and speared it with his fork. He waved it at her tantalizingly then brought it to his lips, shoving it in. “No problem. Can I come and watch?”

She smiled at him and took a sip of her wine before she got up. “Of course.”

Ignoring the nervousness at having a visitor in her studio, Sam took care getting the light just right. She tilted the portable lamp so that it hit the high-back leather chair at a perfect angle so it wouldn’t interfere with the view that shone through the windows. It was a clear night and the sky was a deep ultra marine with highlights of sparkling champagne throughout. In her mind’s eye, she could already see how the painting would be with Mark as its beautiful focal point. She just hoped she could capture it. She hadn’t done live model painting since art school and she didn’t want to do Mark wrong. Sam turned to Mark who was leaned back in the corner, quiet and just studying her. She frowned. Oh well, she’d made this bed and now she must lie in it. Besides, somehow she knew that if she didn’t get the painting out of her system she wouldn’t be able to move forward with the rest of her work for the show.

She clapped her hands and rubbed them together. “Okay, Mr. Thorn. Off with the shirt.”

His brows raised in a startled expression. “What? I told you no nudity.”

She laughed and came toward him, going for the hem of his shirt. “And I told you it was my studio my rules. Now are you game or are you not? I promise not to go all the way. For some odd reason, I’ve decided that certain parts of you shouldn’t be shared with just everyone.”

“And for this I should be grateful?”

She arched her brow. “I think you should, Mr. Thorn. Now off with the shirt and onto the chair. The night won’t last forever.”

Concentration wasn’t easy with his jeans riding low on his hips and his abdomen all tight and muscular like it was. Sam scrunched up her nose as Mark sauntered over to the chair, admiring the firm tone of his backside as he passed. Really, it was quite going against the laws of physics for a man that large to be so fit. She briefly contemplated asking him to remove his pants also. For the sake of the art, of course.

She blinked and let out a long breath. Alright, Sam. Get it together. It was time to cast a critical eye. “Please just sit in the chair and get comfortable.”

He did. Leaning back, legs stretched out in front of him, large hands casually folded low on his waist, staring at her dead on. She sucked in a breath as her stomach did a quick double flip. No, this wouldn’t do, not at all. Sam frowned.

“Is something wrong?”

“I, um, I just realized that this composition won’t work. I’m going to have to reposition you.”

He grinned. “Can’t say that’s not the first time I’ve heard that.”

She raised a brow and shook her head, happy to have the tension broken. “Move it, model.”

Sam turned the chair so that Mark was in profile, gazing out the window at lower Manhattan and the Hudson beyond. He leaned back. This was better. She didn’t think she’d be able to work with him staring at her like that. It was as if he was seeing into her and somehow through her. No, she couldn’t take it, not at all.

“Now this is better,” she said with a smile as she headed toward her table, pulling her hair up and going for her ponytail holder.

“As long as you’re happy, Miss Leighton.”

She paused and turned back to him, leaning over the chair, looking him in the eye. “Not in here. In here and in here,” she said, her hand going to her heart and then, as if on its own, reaching out to his. His pulse was strong and steady underneath her hand. “You call me Samara.”

She watched his eyes go soft. Any bit of toughness and swagger that he had seemed to dissolve and all she was left with was blood and skin and muscle and man. “Samara.”

“Thank you, Mark.” She stepped back and he didn’t stop her. He just turned away and looked out the window.

Sam went to her iPod and flipped on her music, letting classical strings fill the taut silence of the room. Sam twisted her hair and picked up her charcoal. She leaned back on her stool and imagined the pencil as an extension of her fingers. Quickly and roughly she sketched out shapes. The rectangular panes of the window, the wide curve and arch of the chair, and then she zeroed in on Mark. Swallowing, she slowed her pace. As her pencil moved she imagined it running across his body. A strong oval for his head and squared off jaw. His nose a sweeping slope with a slight bump its only irregularity. Circular bumps, shadows and ridges, punctuated and highlighted his pectoral muscles. She then went to his biceps, felt a quiver in her lip as her eyes went over his tribal tattoo. Glancing lower to the mountainous hills that were his thighs, straining against the worn fabric of his jeans, she felt her hand come up to wipe at her brow. Then she looked down near the floor and frowned.

“Take off your shoes.”

Mark startled as if jolted from a dream. “Why?”

“The sneakers just don’t fit. But wait!” She leaned back to her shelf and picked up her digital camera, quickly taking a few shots. She then picked up her phone and took some photos with that too. “Just for good measure. I like to play it safe.”

Mark shook his head and went for his sneakers, tossing them aside. “Is this better?”

She looked at him and nodded. “It’s perfect.”

What seemed like hours later, Mark coughed and Sam blinked, him and the canvas coming into separation of focus. She stepped back. There was now color on her canvas that, though not a total picture, she felt she had begun in a way to capture at least a bit of the strength and beauty that was Mark Thorn. She frowned. Also surprising to her was how she’d played with color, pulling on the silhouettes of the cityscape and the night sky behind him, the deep blues and the blacks, hinting at the sparkle of One World Trade in the far background. All this wasn’t in her original plan and Sam usually never veered off of what she had originally mapped out to paint.

Sam frowned, biting her bottom lip as Mark’s voice floated over to her. “Am I that awful a subject?”

Her eyes shot up as she suddenly remembered that she wasn’t alone and her subject was a living breathing entity and in the room with her. “What? Oh, I’m sorry.”

“You’re way too quiet and after hours of this silence. I’ll admit, you’re shaking me, woman.”

Sam shook her head and gave a small grin. “Well, you needn’t be shaken. Come on over and take a look.”

Mark flexed his feet and rolled his shoulders as he eased out of the chair, sauntering over toward Samara. Leaning down and kissing her bare shoulder, he sent a ripple of pleasure running through her body. Then he looked up at the large canvas and stilled. Staring for what felt to Sam an insurmountable amount of time, she finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“Hey, dude. Now it’s you that’s making me nervous. What’s running through that pretty little head of yours?”

Mark looked down at her and then back up at the canvas again. Finally he pulled her around. “Can I kiss you? Because I really don’t know what else to do in this case.”

Her smile was wide as his lips came down on hers, taking her in fully, his breath becoming one with hers. His chest warm and solid and strong against hers, he wrapped his large arms around her. One gently around her back, the other slightly less so as it came around her behind and pulled her into his hardness as she let out a soft moan. “You are amazing,” he said softly, pulling back slightly.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Though in this position I do think you may be a bit biased.”

He leaned in and gave her lips another nibble. “Now why would you think that?” Then he paused and turned to the canvas. “Although … ”

Sam stilled. “Although what?”

Mark raised a brow and Sam gave him a hard stare as she noted the glint in his eye. “Although?”

He gave her behind a gentle pat as she crossed her arms and he grinned before continuing. “Although, I’m no art critic I just have one question. Am I really that pasty a color?”

Sam snorted. “Really? That’s your critique, tan boy? I’ll have you know you are that exact color.”

He shook his head, now crossing his arms over his bare chest. “I doubt it.”

Sam gave him a grin, baring more teeth than smile. “I wouldn’t doubt me if I were you.”

Mark looked at her, his eyes full of challenge. “And why is that? What, are you always right?”

“When it comes to color I am.” And with that Sam reached for her brush, dipped it in her mixture of white, Naples yellow, and raw sienna and then ran it in a wide arc across Mark’s chest about an inch above his right nipple.

“You didn’t,” Mark ground out, staring down at her in shock.

Sam grinned up at him. “I think what I did is prove my point. That is a perfect match.”

He chuckled, his pure white teeth gleaming with mischievous intent. “So it is.” And then he reached around her and dipped a finger in her palette.

She grabbed his hand. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you started this. And now you’ve got me curious to see what color you are. I’m wondering if this rich mahogany can do justice to the gleaming perfection of your skin.” He pulled his finger away from her palette and ran it along her upper arm. She felt a zing and a tightening in her center. “Or if this pretty pink can even compare to the blush of your sweet lips.” He swept the pink across her collarbone and her nipples tightened to hard peaks.

“You’re wasting my paint. Not to mention making a mess,” Sam protested.

Mark leaned around her with the other hand causing her to lean back and trapping her further. He dipped another finger into a deep shade of crimson and brought it up and along her thigh. “Believe me, Wildcat, I haven’t begun to get you as dirty as I plan tonight.”

Samara felt her knees begin to go weak at the same time Mark brought his paint filled hand up to catch her fall.

• • •

“Are you always so quiet while you work?”

They were sitting in Samara’s steam filled tub having just washed paint off of each other in the shower, and Mark’s voice came rolling at her from behind. “I don’t know. I guess so,” Samara answered, leaning back onto Mark’s hard chest. She was feeling blissfully satisfied and more content than she had felt in a long time. Here it was well after midnight and she was dead tired from the hours of work and not to mention the sex with Mark, but still she was somehow energized. She didn’t know if it was the work or a combination of the two, but it was good. “Like I said, I don’t normally have people in my studio so there’s no one to talk to.”

“And you like it that way?” His words rumbled against her back and she liked the relaxing feel of it.

She contemplated his question. “I don’t think of it much, but I guess I do. I’m not much of a talker. Despite what popular opinion may be, I’m a bit of a loner.”

Mark was quiet for a while and she wondered for a moment if he had fallen asleep. His arms held her loosely around her waist as the warm water lapped around them. But then he spoke up. “I can believe that. Like I said before, you don’t seem to be what the tabloids make you out to be. Despite your recent choice of company.”

It was then that Samara noticed his sudden tension and leaned forward, turning around slightly. She hated the tightness that was creeping into her own back at the thought of Peter. Of the outside world. “Are you talking about Peter?”

Mark’s eyes were midnight glaciers. “Why? Is he worth discussing?”

Sam felt a sudden chill, scared of answering honestly, but also not feeling the desire to lie. She swallowed. “I don’t know how to answer that. Things with Peter are complicated, but then again what else is new? He is a part of my life that is necessary right now, like my family, like my work, part of what I must do, if that makes any sense. But worth discussing? I’d rather not. Not right now.”

• • •

Mark stared at her, not knowing what to say or how much further to press. How could he demand more of her when she clearly stated that she didn’t want more from him? Could he put his foot down and say he was going to walk away when he knew it was a lie and he wouldn’t do it? Couldn’t do it? The smart thing would be to just be quiet and not ask any more questions. But he was never all that smart.

He lifted her and turned her around, sending water sloshing and pulling her down hard against his erection. “Tell me this, Samara, how much are you willing to do with him to make your family happy?”

Her eyes went downcast and came back up clouded as they met his. “At this point, I truly don’t know. Can you just deal with that for now and be my neighbor and my friend?”

Friend. Mark closed his eyes and leaned back as everything went silent and still. He would swear he felt all the atoms working to make time and space happen so that he could just function and take a next breath. This went against everything he was. How could he be what she wanted? How could he continue to lie to her and to himself and play this role of nothing while someone else claimed her as his own?

Mark opened his eyes again and there she was, staring at him. Her big brown eyes soft and liquid and in that moment, no pretense. No Leighton games. No takedown. There was just her. The girl of his youth. The one who woke up and for a moment turned his world to color. But now he could see clearly that she was even more broken than he ever was. Her, the bright star that smiled and gave him all the drive to be all that he ever was. To take every step that he ever took. And now she wanted to be his friend. Well, damn, how could he ever say no even to just that? No matter how much it hurt.