by Nancy Warren
Even as she put her feet to the gravel and gathered her bags, she was aware of the excitement in her belly that had been simmering all day along with the chicken.
She only hoped Duncan would be as excited to see her as she was to see him.
A knock on the door yielded nothing. A tiny frown gathered. Duncan’s beige rental was parked in its usual space so she’d assumed he was there.
Was he out walking? After climbing? She glanced around her at the rain dripping from the dark green cedars and firs. A dense mist made the river ghostly and the path beside it anything but inviting. The sun from earlier today had long gone, bringing rain in its wake.
She rapped louder.
Nothing but the depressing sound of rain dripping from the eaves. She started to turn. Surprising him had obviously been a dumb idea. She’d call him on his cell and arrange something. Then she paused, hearing the low riff of a saxophone coming from the other side of the door. Had he fallen asleep?
She stood there another minute outside the door while rain dripped off the trees behind her.
Pushing a plastic grocery bag over her wrist, she tried the door handle and it turned. She eased open the door and stepped inside.
She couldn’t see Duncan, but above the sound of the CD she heard the shower, which explained why her knocking hadn’t received a reply.
She thought about him naked and wet in there and contemplated climbing in with him, but first she needed to get her dinner organized.
The coffeemaker contained half a pot of cold coffee. There was a bowl of bananas and apples on the counter and the trash contained several scrunched takeout containers.
She opened the wine to breathe, stuck the chicken in the oven, and slipped the salad into the small fridge, where it joined an open quart of milk, a block of cheese, some olives, and half a dozen beers. He was such a guy.
She heard the water shut off. So much for joining him. Oh, well, she was certain they’d think of something.
“Duncan?” she called. “It’s Alex. I brought dinner.”
“Great. I’ll shave.”
Good plan. Since she didn’t imagine he was worried about giving the chicken whisker burn, she concluded she was dessert. More pleased with her surprise by the second, she returned to the kitchen to pour wine.
She wandered over to the adjoining living/dining area where an easel was set up. He’d shoved the dining table over to the wall and used it to store his paints, including the crimson tone she recognized from his shirt cuff the day they’d found the body.
She studied a half-completed painting that was a copy of a grainy black-and-white photocopy. The painting wasn’t one she recognized, but it was clearly in the style of Van Gogh. He’d taken the black and white and transformed the scene with colors. Colors she seemed to recognize from the time she’d spent in art galleries all over Europe. Yes, she thought, that yellow was exactly right.
He was good, she thought. Technically very good, but she wasn’t emotionally moved as she imagined she’d be if she were in the presence of a true Van Gogh.
When he emerged, in a towel that showed quite a bit of his mouth-watering physique, his hair springing in damp curls all over his head, his eyes warming at the sight of her and his face freshly shaved, she tried not to let her shiver of reaction show.
In a town like Swiftcurrent, a man like Duncan Forbes seemed like a mirage in the driest desert.
She passed him a glass of wine.
“Thanks,” he said. He didn’t lean over and kiss her as she’d half thought he might, but his eyes promised that and a whole lot more.
“I hope you didn’t already have plans for tonight.”
“Of course I did. If you hadn’t come to me, I’d have come to you.”
She sipped her wine. He was awfully sure of himself. Where did he get off thinking she was so hot for him? Unless the screaming orgasms had given her away.
“How was the climb?”
“Quite the workout,” he said, rolling one shoulder as though it were stiff.
“Did you and Tom get on okay?” She’d had a tough time picturing them together having fun after the way they’d met.
“I was glad he was there,” he said curtly. “He’s a good climber. And he didn’t arrest me.” He gave her a quick kiss. “I’m going to get dressed.” And he disappeared into the bedroom.
So much for Hi, honey, how was your day?
She stared at the shut door. “Don’t dress on my account,” she muttered. Had the climb tired him out? But if he was too exhausted for sex, why had he shaved?
When he emerged a couple of minutes later in a creased gray shirt, cargo pants and bare feet, she gestured to the half-done picture and said, “You’re quite the artist.”
“I’m in my Van Gogh period.”
She chuckled. At least he wasn’t pretending. “It’s very good.”
“Thanks. You should see me with sunflowers.”
“Is this an actual Van Gogh?” she asked, gazing at the photocopy.
“You’ve never seen it?” Duncan’s usually lazy gaze sharpened and she felt him staring at her with keen concentration.
Was this some kind of pop quiz?
She stepped closer for a better look. “I’m not much of an expert,” she said. “I know the famous paintings. The sunflowers and the self-portraits and the fields at Arles, Starry Night, but apart from recognizing the style, no.”
“Poor old Vincent. It’s his, all right. A lot of artists learn technique by copying the greats.”
“So you’re an Impressionist?”
“Not really. My own work is more realistic.” He gazed at her, in that sleepy, sexy way that turned her to liquid desire. “But usually I wait for inspiration.”
“Really.”
He stepped closer. “I’m feeling inspired right now.” He lifted her hair and kissed her neck. “Let me draw you.”
This was more like it. Whatever strange mood he’d been in when she arrived had dissipated. She rolled her head to give him better access to her neck. “You want me to pose for you?”
“Absolutely—now take off your clothes.”
She chuckled as his lips continued their lazy tour of her neck.
“You want to draw me nude?”
He grinned against her skin; she could feel it. “Every artist has his specialty.”
She wasn’t at all sure she trusted that grin or the twinkle deep in his eyes when she turned to stare at him, but who was she kidding? When she’d planned to come here, getting naked had certainly been on her mind.
His charm had her responding, as her body reacted with a wash of pleasure to the idea of stripping before him, stretching out for his pleasure while he turned her body into art.
She glanced around at the oatmeal-colored pull-out couch in front of the TV. What she needed was a dark red velvet divan surrounded by ruined pillars or something, not a Sears Special beige couch built for durability rather than beauty, pushed against a cedar-paneled wall. “I don’t know.”
He caught the direction of her gaze and went to the closet and pulled out a white motel sheet, which he flicked so it billowed like a sail and drifted slowly to the couch, giving the practical furniture a dreamy look. He was an artist, she reasoned; he’d paint in whatever background his imagination suggested.
Turning back, she saw the challenge in his gaze and her mind was made up. But he didn’t have to know that.
“How will you pose me?”
“I need to see you naked first, then I’ll work with whatever inspires me.”
“Does this inspire you?” Keeping her gaze on his, she slowly raised her hands to the first button on her shirt.
Duncan watched, half mesmerized as she slowly slipped the button free, baring an inch or so of flesh. Even that subtle gesture had the room temperature rising.
Based on the way he was reacting to her undoing a single button, she’d have him enslaved by the time she was down to her underwear. Especially as her lingerie was her secret weapon
. She ordered it from an exclusive company in France at exorbitant cost.
The jazz was sultry and eased into her blood, so she swayed with the music in a slow, sliding way as she slipped more buttons free.
She didn’t want bump and grind—she liked this pace fine. All she was doing was removing her clothes in time to the music. It wasn’t a striptease, exactly, more like free movement. She’d taken dance classes in her college years, mostly to stay in shape, but she hadn’t forgotten the moves.
The artist seemed to be gaining inspiration by the second, watching her unblinkingly from those deep blue eyes.
The buttons undone, she slipped the shirt from her shoulders and let it drop.
The groan he emitted when he saw her gauzy bra was worth every Euro.
Oh, she’d pose for him, all right, for as long as he could stand it. Based on the way he was shifting from foot to foot like a stallion pawing the ground, sniffing a mare in heat, she didn’t think she’d be waiting long.
Her skirt was three-quarter-length, stretchy black wool and she put a little extra sway into her hips as she peeled it down her legs and then stepped out of it.
She rose and his gaze went immediately to the opaque silk panties held together with ribbon, then followed the path of her legs down to the thigh-hugging stockings and all the way down to her black heels.
“Do you want me to keep going?” she asked softly.
“Oh, yeah.”
She removed her bra first, and as her breasts spilled free she saw his hands clamp into fists.
She pulled a ribbon on each hipbone to release the bow and parted her legs so her gossamer panties floated dreamily to the ground.
Would he stop her now? But no. He watched as she turned a wooden dining chair toward her, stepped out of her right shoe and placed her foot on the chair seat. Slowly, she rolled down her stocking. Placing her bare foot on the ground, she repeated the procedure with her left leg, sliding her stocking down in time to a sultry piano scale.
Naked, she turned toward him.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he took in the sight of her and the knowledge that her body affected him so powerfully only added to her own excitement. He’d better be one fast painter.
“Lie down,” he said.
She sat, the white sheet cool against her naked skin, and reclined, shivering when more of her encountered the cotton. She felt a little feverish. Cold on the outside, furnace-hot on the inside.
Stepping back, he narrowed his gaze and inspected her from top to toe. “Have you ever been painted before?” he asked softly.
“No,” she whispered.
“Try to relax and follow my instructions. And stay still. It’s very important not to move.”
She cocked a brow. If he started issuing orders–
“I’m going to place your limbs the way I want them. Do I have your permission to touch you?” he asked as though he were a calm professional with nothing but the highest aesthetic ideal on his mind. Okay, asking was better than ordering. “Yes, you can touch me.” Yes, yes, yes!
His hands were warm and climbing-roughened as they grasped her shoulders and shifted her toward the center of the room so her breasts thrust forward. He trailed his fingers down her arm as though contemplating, a slight crease between his brows; then, with a small nod, he picked up one hand and laid it beneath the jut of her breasts. She felt them rise and fall with her breathing. Felt the slight caress each time the underside brushed her knuckles.
Next, he touched her inner thigh, above the knee. She was so sensitive, so keyed up, that she gasped softly. “Raise your knee.”
She did.
“Beautiful,” he complimented her in the tone she bet he used on his students when they got an A.
The curtains weren’t closed on the sliding doors, so she could see her reflection in the dark glass, indistinct like a reflection on water, but clear enough that she saw the provocative pose. She could tell him to close the drapes, but the chances were slim that anyone would walk by. And the possibility added to her excitement.
He placed her second hand on her raised thigh, moving it until her fingers curled against the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh. She felt absolutely open, her whole attitude begging to be taken.
The pulse built, low in her belly, echoing in her throbbing nipples. The slight caress of her own hands only reminded her that she’d promised to stay still, remain on display for him, naked while he remained clothed.
“How do you feel?” he asked, so close as he studied and arranged her that she felt his breath on her belly, making her shiver.
How did he think she felt? Contemplative? Sleepy? Angry? “Horny.”
“Good. That’s great. Now, let’s help you project that feeling.”
“Project horny?”
“Sure—great art comes from the subject as well as the artist, you know. Where would da Vinci be if Mona Lisa was in a pissy mood that day? Would she wear the most famous scowl in history?”
She chuckled softly.
“Don’t move,” he admonished, opening her knee a little wider.
16
Duncan picked up a charcoal pencil and glanced over at her, squinted, then turned to the clean paper he’d clipped to his easel.
“Tell me about how you feel at this moment.”
“I feel like a woman who’s about to get the best sex of her life.” Sooner, she hoped, rather than later. She felt as though her entire body were a sex organ thrumming.
“You’re a smart woman.” Cocky bastard. “Now close your eyes and tell me how you feel about the way I’ve posed you.”
She closed her eyes. Sure, he was a game player, but it was a lot of fun when she played along and from the pronounced bulge in his pants, he was torturing himself with this teasing, too. She breathed in slowly and really concentrated.
She felt the air on her naked body, currents shifting like whispers against her skin. She felt the warmth and press of her own hands against her body like pockets of heat. “You’ve placed my hands near my breasts and between my legs, but not close enough to touch myself, and that seems to focus my attention on those areas.”
“That’s exactly where I want your attention.” She had a damn good idea that—artist or no artist—his attention was firmly focused on her erogenous zones too.
“There’s something about having my hands right there but being unable to move that makes me feel—constricted.”
“Constricted?” A thought interrupted her as she pictured herself, lying here naked, and imagined the resulting painting.
Her eyes flew open and she glared up at him. “Who will see this picture?”
“No one but me. Right now it’s only a sketch. For my private collection. Relax and go back to what you were saying. You feel constricted.”
“Yes.” She didn’t dare shrug, heeding his reminder not to move and enjoying the idea of being forced to remain still. “I can’t move. It doesn’t matter that it’s only my mind stopping my body from moving, I still feel — bound.”
“Bound? Like a slave?” It was the tone that went with the words that ticked her excitement up a notch.
She imagined how a love slave might feel, imagined herself the pampered object of desire, but still an object. As a modern woman and a feminist, naturally she found the very notion abhorrent—but as a momentary fantasy, playing a love slave was powerfully exciting. He could do what he liked with her.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good. Work with that.” Brushes of all shapes and sizes thrust from his pocket but he only used the pencil, so she heard the scratching sound of charcoal on paper. “I want you to close your eyes, imagine you’re in that very position, lying on a–”
Almost dreamily she finished the sentence. “A dark red velvet divan.” She saw him, then, the dark prince whose slave she was, eyes narrowed, assessing his newest acquisition. He’d purchased her, or perhaps she was a gift. It didn’t matter. In her fantasy she was helpless, belonging to him only for his ple
asure. He looked a lot like Duncan Forbes.
She shivered at the thought, smelled incense, heard the soft swish of robes as her dark prince approached. Every nerve in her body tightened and her skin seemed to prickle with the knowledge that he would touch her any way he liked. But she must remain passive.
A moment passed, another. She felt the air shift, grow heavier; she was no longer alone in her own space. She wanted to open her eyes and yet didn’t.
She heard movement, scraping sounds, and then the scratching of pencil on paper was much closer. He’d moved toward her.
For a few minutes there was no sound but those of the artist at work, sometimes the scratching was rapid, sometimes he paused and she felt his gaze on her.
Then she felt the air around her naked torso shift and she felt something brush across her left nipple, a soft, slightly rough stroke, like a calloused finger stroking her. She felt her nipple bloom to life as she recognized the touch of a brush.
Her eyes flew open.
Duncan was squatting beside her, a broad-headed sable paint brush in hand, a gaze of intent concentration on his face as he brushed her nipple.
“What are you doing?”
He grinned up at her, all sexy mischief, his eyes twinkling with it. “I want a certain look.”
He didn’t stop what he was doing and the sliding swirl of the brush on her sensitive skin was intoxicating.
“Stop moving,” he ordered.
“It was just my head.” But the teasing strokes had her so hot it was even more of an effort to keep still.
“This style seems to involve a lot of brushwork,” she said, trying not to gasp as the brush swirled and dipped, tickling, soothing, arousing as it stroked her breast and then drew back to her nipple, which appeared shockingly red as it bloomed beneath his brush.
“Like I said, I’m in my Van Gogh period.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
“He was manic, you know,” Duncan said, moving to the other breast, turning her into a living canvas painted with invisible paint.
