Selling Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 1)

by Samantha Westlake

  My hand finally settled on a binder clip, which I hurled overhand at Barry. It hit him in the neck, but didn't have quite the same impact that I imagined the stapler would leave on his fleshy, soft skin. Still, Barry's eyes widened and he quickened his retreat.

  "Good to see you, Rebecca," he called out quickly before the door closed. My eyes widened, but he was gone before I could manage to find a suitable insult.

  I stood there behind the front desk of the Halesford Gallery, glaring at the door with an intensity probably strong enough to send invisible beams of hatred straight through the wood. Maybe, if this was a fair and just universe, my hatred would earth itself in Barry's stomach and give him some ulcers or dyspepsia or that Irritable Bowel thing that seemed to feature in so many TV adverts.

  "Well, that was interesting."

  What? Who said that? I jumped nearly a foot in the air, spinning around as my eyes flew wide open in surprise.

  I spotted the speaker immediately as he moved forward, standing up from the wall he'd been leaning against behind me. He'd been in the second room of the gallery, with a line of sight on both Barry and me, but not close enough for either of us to notice his presence. He now advanced forward, and I felt a little chill of something run down my spine.

  "Old friend?" he asked, dark eyes the color of black coffee examining me.

  "Um, ex-husband. Who are you?" I stammered out.

  He smiled. "Must be a recent break."

  I caught myself halfway through a nod, trying to regain my conversational balance. "Seriously, who are you? When did you come in here?"

  He smiled, and brilliantly white teeth flashed in strong contrast against skin the color of coffee with lots of creamer. "Name's Onyx. Heard of me?"

  Chapter Nine

  *

  "Onyx?" I repeated dumbly, staring back at this man who'd somehow managed to sneak into the art gallery as I argued with my ex-husband. Maybe not the best first impression, I considered ruefully to myself.

  I seemed to have a problem with that, as of late - especially when it came to sexy, handsome, mysterious men.

  He nodded, taking another step forward. He crossed over to where the binder clip that I'd chucked at Barry's head had landed, and bent over to pick it up. I tried to not ogle him as he leaned down, his long, mocha fingers extended out, and failed miserably.

  Onyx looked like he stood at least a few inches over six feet tall, long and limber with cords of muscle standing out on his exposed forearms. I didn't doubt for a moment that those bands of muscle also extended over the rest of his body. A pair of tight black jeans and a matching black sweater, the sleeves of which he'd rolled up to just above his elbows, covered the rest of his lean figure. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a spy magazine, perhaps fighting hand to hand with James Bond, and I suspected that his presence on the silver screen would instantly win over legions of adoring female fans.

  No wonder why he'd been featured in magazines, and why people wanted to buy penises that he carved, I thought to myself faintly. The buyers were probably all sex-starved women who just wanted to add to their fantasies about the artist.

  Onyx glided over to the other side of my desk, reaching out and placing the binder clip in front of me. "Want to talk about it?" he asked.

  I shook my head mutely, looking up at him.

  "Good," he said, but he didn't leave.

  After another second of silence, during which I did my hardest to not start sweating at the presence of him this close to me, I finally managed to clear my throat. "So, is there, um, something that you needed?" I asked, doing my best to pull together my remaining shreds of professionalism. "Do you need me to get you something?"

  Onyx, however, just shook his head. "I sometimes come here when I need inspiration," he said. "Watching how people interact with art, how they respond - it pushes me to try and define the edges of my influence."

  I nodded, not even trying to make sense of the words. They came from the mouth of a man who was literally tall, dark, and handsome! He could probably read off a recipe for lasagna from the back of a pasta box, and I'd be totally spellbound as I listened to him.

  "So you're just here to watch customers?" I asked. "Unfortunately, we don't have many of those, it seems."

  "It's often a lot of waiting," he nodded, and I caught another brief flash of those white teeth in a smile. "Perhaps I also just don't want to sit in my studio when I feel at a loss for inspiration."

  Okay, that made more sense. "Anyway, I don't think we've met before," I continued, trying to keep the professionalism going. Salvage the situation, Becca. "I'm Rebecca Grace, but you can call me Becca. I'm going to be the new manager of the Halesford Gallery."

  "Pleasure," Onyx murmured, taking my hand and giving it a firm but not overly harsh squeeze. His dark brown eyes peered into mine, and for a moment, I swore that he could definitely read my naughty thoughts about him.

  "So, Onyx?" I asked. "That's not your given name is it, I'm guessing?"

  Onyx just smiled at me again as he stepped around the desk and grabbed the second chair from behind, drawing it out so that he could sink into it. His actions reminded me of a cat, graceful and precise, as he settled into the chair and propped his long legs up on the desk. His languor made it clear that he wasn't planning on answering my question about his name.

  "Do I just make the checks out to Onyx, if someone buys one of your pieces?" I pressed. I was aware that the questions might sound annoying, but decided that my babbling was at least better than awkward silence. "And if someone buys one of your statues, do I have to wrap it up so that there won't be any sort of issue with lewdness when they carry it out?"

  He frowned at that. "What do you mean?"

  "Well, you know," I said, wondering how to state this in clearer terms without having to say it, well, right out. "They, uh, they look kind of inappropriate. Like, you might not want to let your grandmother see one of them."

  Onyx just gazed back at me. I tried to gauge his reaction, but those dark eyes were totally inscrutable. I couldn't even say whether he was truly not sure what I was awkwardly trying to explain, or if he was just stringing me along to mess with me.

  "Don't worry about it," I finally gave up after another minute. "But you're welcome to hang out here and avoid doing work. Maybe if some old ladies come in, you can give them a big smile and convince them to buy a bunch of your statues."

  He smiled at that comment. Settling back in his chair, he watched me through lidded eyes as I did the same behind the desk, and we sat for a few minutes in silence.

  "So, how did you get in here, anyway?" I finally asked, not able to bear the silence any longer. "When I was arguing with Barry, I mean."

  He looked at me like he couldn't tell if I was joking. "There's a back door in the storeroom."

  "Oh." Duh. There goes my professionalism, I thought gloomily. Don't even know my own gallery. "And you have a key?"

  "Yes."

  Five more minutes ticked by. "What about your studio?" I tried asking next.

  He looked over at me, raising his eyebrows but not saying anything.

  "I mean, where is it?" God, I was stumbling over my own words, here!

  "Just around the corner. I have a warehouse which I've rented out. It gives me the proper space to explore my inspirations."

  I thought about Onyx's statues, how most of them, although large for the anatomy that they depicted, were easily small enough to fit on a table or a countertop. Maybe he chiseled them down from massive blocks, I considered. Or maybe he had even bigger shafts back in his warehouse, but he didn't put them on display here for fear that they'd give all the little old ladies heart attacks.

  When I glanced back over at Onyx, he'd leaned forward a little to examine me, and I saw a new glint in those dark eyes. "You know, you're more than welcome to come view it, if you'd like a private showing," he suggested.

  That wasn't a come-on, was it? Better test the waters before reading it the wrong way. "I'm not su
re I can manage to pull myself away from my duties here," I replied, waving a hand around at the empty art gallery.

  Onyx smiled at me. "Rebecca."

  Oh wow, my name sounded amazing when it slipped out of his lips, almost as if he was caressing the word. Maybe I should consider having a fling with this artist, I briefly thought to myself. That would be the sort of choice that Portia would definitely approve; just look at Onyx, he practically exudes sex out of his pores. If I got him into bed, he'd probably ruin me for other men, break me forever, in the most amazing way...

  I realized that I'd been staring at him with my mouth hanging slightly open, and hastily clicked my jaw back shut. "What?" I answered weakly.

  "You have to describe my artwork to customers, convince them to buy." He stood up from his chair, rising up over me, reaching out for my hand. Spellbound, I let him take it, tugging me up from my chair.

  Onyx led me over to where a couple of his pieces sat on display. Before, when I'd first seen them, they made me feel a bit uncomfortable, like I was running some sort of sex shop, but now he guided my hand to one of them. Mesmerized, I couldn't bring myself to break away, even as I felt the cool, smooth stone brush against my fingertips.

  "You need to talk to those who enjoy my art about how I consider every line, how the grace of the whole statue impacts my choice, even in the smallest details," Onyx murmured behind and above me, his hand on mine as he kept it gently on the statue. I felt hot and sweaty inside my clothes; had the air conditioning cut off inside the gallery without my notice in the last couple minutes? I could feel his presence standing behind me, almost bumping up against me as his hand rested, warm and alive, on top of mine...

  "And to understand my process, I invite you to come back to my studio, to see my work in action as it forms from the shapeless blocks I begin with," Onyx went on, as my hand moved across the smooth stone of his statue in a gesture that would probably make Barry blow a blood vessel in his nether regions if he could see it. "Let me make you a part of my process, use you for inspiration."

  Holy shit. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I managed to pull my fingers off of the statue and turn around, but there Onyx stood, right behind me. By turning around, I simply pressed myself up against him, gazing up over the curves of his broad chest and up to his dark eyes.

  He wasn't trapping me there; there was plenty of space on either side for me to step away. But I couldn't, almost as if his body was magnetically attracting me to him. If I just rose up on my tiptoes, let my hands reach out to wrap around his neck...

  Good god, no! With my last shreds of self-control, I broke the gaze between us, turned and took a step away. Maybe I just had to get out of his cloud of pheromones, or something. I sucked in a deep breath, fighting my rapidly beating heart. I was NOT about to screw up this job, possibly my last chance to earn the money I needed to pay off Barry, by falling into bed with Onyx, the artist that I needed to keep happy above all else!

  "You could keep him happy in bed," a little part of my mind murmured to me, but I ignored those words.

  "You know, Mr. Onyx, it probably would be a good idea for me to see your studio, just so that I can better sell your works to clients," I stated after I'd taken another couple breaths, pulling my professional aspect back firmly into place. "It will have to be a short visit, of course, since I can't leave the gallery closed for long."

  Onyx nodded, not even raising his eyebrows at the "Mr." that I placed in front of his name. "Of course," he promised me. "I'd hate to distract you from your work for too long."

  From the little twinkling in his dark eyes, I suspected that he guessed, quite accurately, exactly how much he would distract me from my work for the rest of the day. Damn him. He was just playing with me, like a cat playing with a trapped mouse.

  Inside my head, I could practically hear Portia's voice, shouting at me to not be a dummy, to grab this sexy, commanding artist and ride him until I came my brains out and couldn't manage to hold onto a single thought except for how I needed to gulp down about five gallons of Gatorade in order to rehydrate. Portia's advice might be what my stumbling lack of a love life needed, but it definitely wasn't what I needed to choose to address my financial problems - and right now, those were more pressing than how long it had been since I'd last managed to get laid.

  (Nine months, but don't tell anyone.)

  So I'd go along with Onyx and see his studio, remain very professional, and just stock up thoughts of Onyx for when I was alone and back in my apartment, I told myself. I wouldn't do anything that could corrupt our working relationship.

  I headed back to the front counter (anything to give me a little breather from the field of arousal that the man seemed to project out unconsciously from his body!) and grabbed my purse and keys.

  "Let's go," I told him, nodding to the door.

  Onyx just gave me one more of those enigmatic, knee-wobbling smiles before stepping out so that I could follow after him and lock up behind me.

  Chapter Ten

  *

  Sure enough, Onyx's study happened to be only a few blocks away, close enough to walk. Idly, I wondered whether Carter had helped the artist rent out this space, before Onyx glanced over at me with those dark eyes and thoughts of any other man fled my mind like shadows from a spotlight.

  "This is where I work," he said, spreading his arms wide as he stepped back into the big, open space.

  I nodded, following after him (although being careful to keep a couple of feet between us, just in case that proximity-based seduction field of his seized control of my brain again). Trying to keep my mind off of Onyx, maybe sweaty and holding a hammer and chisel, peeling off his shirt as he worked, wiping the sweat from his dark brow... er, right. I quickly focused my attention on the space.

  In all honesty, it really was a very nice living and working space. The interior of the warehouse was largely open and untouched, with exposed steel girders overhead and windows set into the walls along the top of the structure to let in tons of natural light. Beams of sunlight lanced down, illuminating rectangles across the ground.

  On one side of the interior of the warehouse, I saw the workshop - big blocks of stone were stacked on pallets, and I saw several boards on the walls holding a wide variety of tools. I saw chisels galore, of course, as well as all different sizes of hammers, but there were plenty of other stone carving tools that I couldn't even name.

  On the other side of the warehouse, a wooden multi-panel screen shielded the far side from view. "What's over there?" I asked, nodding towards it.

  Onyx smiled at me. "That's where I eat and sleep when I'm not working on my art. Would you like to see?"

  "No, that's okay," I replied casually, as my heart nearly leapt out of my chest as it thudded. Onyx's bed! Someplace horizontal, where he probably slept naked, his muscled form on display on top of the silk sheets, where he brought back the women he picked up so that he could show them his own prodigiously sized statue...

  I quickly moved across the warehouse floor towards the workshop side. "Are these some of the finished pieces?" I asked, nodding over to where a sheet covered up a bunch of lumpy but otherwise unclear shapes beneath.

  Onyx nodded, moving after me. "In fact, this is one of the pieces that I haven't yet managed to move," he said, reaching for the sheet. "I approached Preston about displaying it in the gallery, but he wasn't sure that he would have enough floor space."

  Before I could respond to that, Onyx twitched the sheet aside, and I gasped out loud as I saw what lay beneath.

  Holy crap. Talk about an imposing statue! The piece that had been hidden beneath the sheet was smooth black stone, much like Onyx's other pieces, but this one was most definitely oversized, big enough to make any woman's eyes water with pain as she imagined it in real life, and definitely more than big enough to make any man, no matter how much heat he packed down south, feel totally inadequate. Hell, I could straddle the thing and practically ride it around like a horse!

  "Oh
my god," I gasped out.

  Onyx smiled again at me. "My inspiration came from a beautiful documentary on Africa," he said. "The unsullied beauty of the wilderness there lit an inner fire in me, and despite the lateness of the hour, I couldn't sleep until I'd carved the rough shape of this piece. It took far longer than I expected to finish, but I truly believe that it's one of my finest pieces, and an incredible representation of my work."

  "Yeah, Africa," I echoed faintly, wondering if the documentary, more specifically, had focused on elephants. "I, um, I can see why Preston might not have wanted it in his gallery."

  Onyx frowned. "He said something about not being sure if the floorboards could accommodate the weight of the carving, I believe."

  "Right, right, that's what I meant, too. The floorboards." Not because my Uncle Preston didn't want to have a five-foot stone cock sitting front and center in one of the rooms of his art gallery. My uncle had a fairly open mind, but I couldn't imagine even him going quite this far in embracing the art.

  Hah, embracing the art. Looking at the massive shape, I doubted that I could even get my hands wrapped around the thing. Onyx certainly had a grandiose imagination.

  "I wonder if he measures up," Portia's voice whispered inside of my head, and my face momentarily went blank as I clamped down on that line of thinking before it could progress any further.

  Fortunately, a different line of thinking had instead started up in my head, one that could probably do a much better job of helping me out in the short term. "But you do want to sell this piece, right?" I asked Onyx.

  He nodded. Was that a glimpse of regret in his eyes? I couldn't tell in the shadows and dappled sun streaming in through the high windows of the warehouse space. "Yes, although the price is quite high. This is a piece for a true collector, one who can appreciate the imagery that I'm trying to capture."