by Anne Conley
Sure, it spoke of deep thoughts happening behind those serious eyes. Her mouth indicated a level of concentration on her work. An intensity.
It made Jude think of sex.
He realized he’d been watching her for hours. He’d just been sitting on the couch, and she seemed totally immune to his presence, so he’d continued. Eventually, he figured he was being creepy, so he got up and went outside to replenish the wood, then back inside to straighten up.
Jude made the bed, purposefully not sniffing the pillow to find remnants of her smell on it. He spread the covers, not wondering where her satiated pussy had touched the sheets. He did not imagine he smelled her desire on the quilt. He made the bed without all that.
He did the dishes, wiped down the counter in the kitchen, and moved on to the living room, plumping and straightening the sofa cushions, folding up his blanket, and stacking it on the pillow.
Stepping back outside, Jude breathed in the bracing air. The snow had stopped for now, but the sky looked like it wasn’t finished yet, so he went back to the kitchen and mixed together some eggs, vanilla, sugar, milk, and cocoa powder before going back out for some snow.
Mixing it all together until he found the right consistency, he put the bowl in front of Annette and settled himself on the sofa to watch her.
Snow ice cream was a tradition he’d had with his mom, and based on Annette’s gleeful experience in the snow this morning, he thought she might enjoy it as well. He certainly hadn’t had any in years.
She absently looked down at the bowl and reached for it with one hand, maneuvering the paintbrush with the other so she could hold the spoon and the brush. Annette brought the spoon to her mouth and took a bite, her eyes widening and a low moan escaping that had his cock twitching in his pants.
“Oh, God … what sorcery is this?”
He laughed at her reaction. “It’s something me and my mom used to make when I was a kid. I thought you might like it.”
She slurped up bite after bite. “I can taste the outside. Is that my imagination?”
“Probably. There’s so much other stuff in it to add flavor to the snow, but I imagine it’s a little mind over matter,” he said, throwing her words back at her.
Closing her eyes, Annette brought the spoonfuls to her mouth, eating the ice cream like a five-star dessert. Pride slammed into him. He’d brought that look to her face. He’d made her feel like that.
Jude tossed some more wood into the fire and repositioned himself on the sofa, still watching her. She had finished her bowl and was practically licking it clean.
“I can make you more,” he offered.
“No, one bowl is plenty.” Her eyes opened and fell on him. “Can I paint you?”
A weird feeling came over him. He wasn’t a vain guy, but the idea that she wanted to paint him gave him the warm fuzzies. At the same time, he was self-conscious.
Bowing his head dramatically, he answered, “I am at your service, milady.”
Annette took a deep breath. “Then come over here and take off your shirt, please.”
Jude jumped to do her bidding, yanking his shirt over his head and tossing it in a corner as he stood.
Chapter Eleven
Annette was nervous. The morning light was overhead now and about to be lost to her for today, but she had one more thing she wanted to do before she stopped and started her sketching. For that one thing, she needed Jude.
She also knew where this would lead, and she wasn’t scared at all. Nervous, yes—the implications of sex with Jude were staggering—but she had no fear.
She looked at the specimen she’d suspected he’d been hiding under his shirt. It was more magnificent than she’d anticipated. The lines and ridges of his torso, the flat planes of his pectoral muscles, the curves of his biceps, everything was perfectly defined.
“God, Jude. What do you do?” She breathed the question, her voice temporarily gone.
His mouth curved into a grin. “I’m a firefighter. I thought you knew that, you were at the auction.”
“Yeah, but I had no idea carrying hoses around and riding in trucks made firefighters so buff.” She giggled nervously, glad for the distraction. “We have volunteer firefighters at home, and none of them look like you.”
Okay, that was forward.
She started to backtrack but realized once she was done with this, they would have no choice but to take the physical aspect of this to the next level. There was no way her fingers would do for how worked up she was about to get herself.
“I’m about to do something I don’t typically do.” She spoke softly, preparing Jude. “To get the lines right, I paint them.” She shook her head, embarrassed she was getting so vocal about her process, but she hadn’t done this on a person before and felt like he needed a little warning. “I mean, I paint the thing, physically, to get tactilely involved with it, so I can learn the lines intimately.” She had no idea if that made sense to Jude, but his raised eyebrows and the quirk of his lips said he was game for anything. “It’s a newbie thing, but I haven’t tried to put human lines in a landscape before.”
She’d painted flowers to learn the lines of the petals and leaves, tree bark, stuff like that. It helped her memorize the planes of what she painted so she could use the strokes in other pictures. For example, the lines of a sunflower helped her to draw the lines of a seashell.
“I’m ready.” His husky murmur washed across her skin with a small puff of air, and Annette realized she’d been standing there, paintbrush at the ready, just staring at him, lost in her own thoughts.
“Okay,” she said, more to herself than anything else.
She loaded her brush with a crimson paint and mixed it with a little orange. At the last minute, she added a stroke of yellow to make it look more like the color of fire, then she turned back toward Jude.
God he was fabulous.
She started at the place his shoulder met his neck—the rounded muscle that joined the two—and went down his arm, painting a stripe of color that contoured his muscles. She went across his chest, under his pecs, then down the middle of his torso.
Jude let out a hiss of air, probably because the paint was cold, but it made his nipples stand out, a stark relief against the flat disks on his chest. She traced the ridges of his abdomen with strokes of color that stood out against his tanned skin.
The bristles of the brush loved Jude’s skin, flattening and molding to it, leaving color in their wake. It was glorious, the way her hand was working the brush.
His jeans hung low, and Annette held her breath as she outlined the line that went down the outside of the abdominal ridges, leading into the miraculous “V” that ended with the jutting bulge in his jeans. Jude was holding his breath too.
Moving back up his body, she painted his collarbone, his neck, his Adam’s apple, then stood back and looked at him, trying to imprint the picture in her mind. Grabbing her sketchbook to ground herself, Annette quickly drew the lines, transposing them from Jude to paper so she could look at them later.
And remember.
His eyes were dark and intense, like a caged beast was inside him desperate to be let loose. Not finished with her work for the day, she tried to ignore that thought.
Vague impressions of Drake and his intentions for her show made her focus enough on her work to make sure she utilized the light while she could.
She made a quick sketch of Jude’s torso lines and looked at him again. He hadn’t moved and was still looking at her intently. A shudder of need slammed into her, but she still required something more.
Annette looked at him, trying to be dispassionate as she thought about what it was she needed.
She needed him to move a little bit so she could get the lines in motion.
“Can you hold onto that beam above you?” His golden ey
es looked up to the beam in question, a good two feet above his head.
“Sure.”
Her breath hitched as he jumped straight up in the air and grasped the beam, his muscles popping with the exertion.
Those were lines a girl could dream about.
“Perfect,” she breathed as she reached for a chair to stand on and continue painting him.
The muscle around his armpit was bulging out roundly, so she started there. God, his arms were phenomenal. She loaded up her brush and went to work, tracing the routes of the veins on his forearms as his hands gripped the beam. His biceps were bigger here, more defined from this position, so she re-marked them in a darker shade of the flame color she’d mixed up.
His jeans sunk lower on his hips, so she was able to trace this “V” a little further down, gulping at the top of the nest of curls peeking from his jeans. The curve of his ass showed as she went around to the back of him.
“How long can you hang there?” She really wanted to get his back. It was amazing, the muscles a brilliant topography of the human body.
“As long as you need me to, sweetheart.” He wasn’t breathless at all, so she took his word for it.
After a quick sketch of the lines on his front, she went around to the back and started painting it.
Annette hadn’t done many portraits and hadn’t had much of an interest in sketching the human body. It was mostly because she went to college in east Texas, and the nude model they’d had for the one lesson had been a woman.
She may have to rethink the human anatomy.
By the time she’d finished painting the muscles and ridges of Jude’s back, she was a helpless mess. Her pussy throbbed with need, and her breasts were heavy, almost painfully so. Her body hummed, and she knew it wouldn’t take much to set her off.
Annette made a quick sketch of the painted lines, hoping like hell she could impart the barely tamed wildness of Jude’s body in her paintings.
“You can drop down now,” she said as she put her paintbrush aside and scooted the easels up against the wall next to the window. She didn’t want him sneaking around and looking at them later.
Jude dropped with the grace of a panther, squatting on the floor with one hand touching it. As soon as she saw the look in his eyes, she knew he’d been just as turned on by the experience as she had been.
It was feral. The paint on his torso was like war paint, and in the blink of an eye he’d turned into some wild savage—untamed curls around his face and muscles bulging from hanging from the ceiling. A slight smirk lifted his lips, and in her next breath, he pounced.
His hands went straight to her neck as his lips invaded her mouth with a ferocity she matched. He was growling, tugging at her clothes, and Annette immediately went to his jeans to unfasten them, helping to lower her baggy sweats by stepping on the legs and pulling them down with her feet. His hands went around her back to unclasp her bra, and she whimpered and writhed at the feel of him.
Then she was in Jude’s arms with his hands at her ass, squeezing and molding it. She wrapped her hands around his neck as he kissed her collarbone. Pressing her breasts against his chest with a moan, hoping something would relieve the fullness there, she ground her wet folds against his thigh wedged between her legs.
His lips branded her, and he hauled her into his arms, pressing her against the window. Annette squealed at the cold against her feverish skin, but Jude only warmed her front with his mouth, lifting her and sucking a breast between his lips. It sent a riotous shock to her core, and she came unglued, her moans voicing her need for him.
Jude lowered her to the floor and clasped her wrists against the window above her head. He breathed deeply as he examined her from head to toe.
This was about to happen.
His voice, when it came, was impossibly low and husky, like he’d been chewing on hot coals. They burned her, seared something deep inside her, and spoke of no returns.
“If we do this, Annette, it’s not just a fuck. You’ve fucking enchanted me today. I don’t know what kind of spell you put me under, but I won’t just fuck you. You understand? We do this, you are mine.” He stroked his erection once before squeezing it at the base. It jutted out against her belly, proud and sure.
She knew she needed to question his words. This wasn’t what she wanted yesterday. She wasn’t in Pamona Gulch to attach herself to some man and a relationship. She was here for her art, but as Annette looked at the wild man in front of her, covered in paint, she realized she didn’t have a choice. The chemistry was too much. She couldn’t deny it.
She couldn’t deny him.
Annette was no innocent. She’d only ever been with Luke, but when you live in the middle of nowhere, there’s not a lot to do for fun except drive around back roads looking for quiet places to be alone. She’d been having sex with Luke since high school. They’d gotten bored and experimented a lot, so she’d had a lot of varied sex. Luke had always been very gentle, submissive to her needs, and was never really into some of the roll-play and kinkier things Annette had wanted to try. He’d done it all to please her, but his heart had only been set on missionary, vanilla stuff.
She knew in her heart, as Jude looked at her and licked his lips, he was trying to figure out a plan of attack. Jude wasn’t going to be a gentleman, and nothing about him said submissive. This would be nothing vanilla.
Without preamble, he dropped her wrists and fell to his knees, his massive grip on her thighs spreading her wide before he plunged his tongue into her folds. The growl he let out sent a shudder wracking her body, and her hands delved into his wild hair. Jude speared her with his tongue, shoving it deep inside her before coming out and lapping at her folds. Each stroke with his flattened tongue ended on her clit and ratcheted her nerves higher and higher, but never high enough to send her over the edge.
He made himself more comfortable on the floor, pulling one of her legs over his shoulder as he spread her wider to his ministrations. One hand explored her wetness, while the other roamed up her torso to a nipple, flicking it lightly.
The overabundance of sensations took a toll on Annette. The chilled glass at her back was warming with the heat of her body, and as she looked at Jude’s head between her legs, she imagined steam coming off the glass, muddying her vision.
He pulled his head back and blew a stream of air across her, and Annette couldn’t tell if it was warm or cold. The contrast between sensations left her at a loss as to what she felt where. All she knew was Jude was setting her body aflame.
His fingers set a tempo, diving in and out of her, while his tongue finally settled on her clit. Her hips couldn’t stop moving, the leg over his shoulder gripping him for leverage while she ground against his face and chin. She was so close, she just needed something more, but she didn’t know what. When his thumb and forefinger squeezed her nipple, then twisted it hard, she moaned and used one of her hands to stimulate the other.
Still not enough.
Her moaning was incoherent. She couldn’t form words to say what she needed, but the only thing she knew was she needed to come. Bad.
Jude sucked her clit into his mouth, and she felt the pulses of her climax coming, but he stopped just when she was about to fall apart and looked up at her, his mouth shiny with her wetness.
“Tell me.” The dark gleam in his eyes sent a thrill shuddering up her spine. “Say what you need, Annette, and I’ll give it to you.”
Her legs trembled, her breasts rose and fell with her breaths, and she couldn’t get enough air. His hand was still inside her and she couldn’t think, let alone breathe. And he wanted her to talk? Gasping for air, she found the words she’d been needing.
“I need to come.”
A glint of satisfaction spread over his face. “How?” He curled the finger that was still knuckle-deep in her pussy. “How do you want to come
?”
“I want to come on your tongue. Make it harder and lick my clit, Jude.” She was begging now, saying anything to give him what he wanted so he would make her come.
“How about if I did this?” She felt another finger in her pussy, gathering her wetness, then he slid it up to her asshole before plunging inside.
“Oh God …” Her head fell back, and she closed her eyes. “Yes, that. And your tongue. Please.” She wasn’t a virgin to the anal stuff. Luke had been accommodating, but she hadn’t liked it much. Something told her Jude would be very different. “Make me come, Jude. Make me fly,” she gasped as he started moving his hand and went back to work on her clit.
This time, he sucked it between his teeth and flicked it with his hard tongue, tweaking her nipple and pumping his finger in and out of her puckered rosebud, his moans a chorus with hers. The entire thing sent a swell of sensation through her, and she was lost.
Heat. Cold. Light. Dark. His rough hands. His slick tongue. Fullness. Tightness. His massive shoulders between her legs, all the sensations happening—pulsing, rippling, currents of light and colors and lust shooting through her limbs.
Annette exploded on a scream, clutching Jude’s hair in a handful of reality, but she still found herself floating as he lapped at her sex again, bringing her down from the best orgasm of her life.
Jude stood and took her in his arms, kissing her fiercely before spinning her around so her front was against the freezing window. She was limp, letting him maneuver her at his will. He clasped her wrists in his hand above her head again and laid a hard smack against her ass before rubbing it lightly.
A low moan of appreciation soothed her ears. He sucked a spot on the back of her neck before whispering in her ears, “I can’t tell if the fact I’m not the first in this ass is making me jealous, or if it’s one of the hottest things ever.”
“Well, you’re not the first guy I’ve been with,” she managed to breathe out, despite her desire to fall limp in his arms. “But I can say that was the first time I’ve really enjoyed it.”
