Emma walks beside me to the elevator, where I hit the up arrow on the panel. “It’s nothing. Just something I do occasionally.”
Despite my evasiveness, her curiosity doesn’t diminish. “Really? That’s not the hobby I would have pegged you with.”
“Ah, it’s just a stress relief thing, you know? Trigg has his running and yoga, Gunner hits the weights, Daniel locks himself in a coding cave, Jude — he —” I give Emma a side glance, but I’m pretty sure Jude doesn’t want me telling Emma what he does for stress relief. Guy has some kinky stuff between those ears of his, and I’d be lying if I pretend I don’t have some of the same appetites. “—Jude has his own thing. Anyway, it’s nothing.”
“Can I see what you’re working on? I doubt it’s nothing.”
“Hmm?” I ask as the elevator swooshes into place, trying to buy myself some time, feeling unusually self-conscious at the idea of Emma, of all people, seeing my artwork.
“I’d love to see it, if you’d be okay with that.”
We step into the elevator together, Emma staring at me curiously. I fix my attention on the instrument panel and the buttons for her floor and my penthouse. I could bring her up there, but… no one ever really gets the sort of stuff I do. Anytime I’ve shown someone, they seem to be disappointed, like they were expecting landscapes of cute cottages in the forest or maybe angry graffiti or something.
My heart gives me this erratic beating sensation, and I don’t know what the hell it is until it settles in my stomach. Butterflies? What the fuck? Did I just get butterflies?
“It’s pretty personal, Emma.” I hit the button on the panel, enter the passcode, and step back, trying to affix my stare on the gleam of the closed elevator doors in front of us, but I can’t help giving her a sideways glance.
Her playful features transform immediately. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pressure you—”
“Which is why I would like for you to come up.” I nod at the panel, where only one button is lit up — the one for my penthouse.
Emma follows my gaze, and her eyes widen a little. She crushes her lips together, bashful now. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I breathe in, watching her eyes trace up my legs and torso until she reaches my gaze, a part in her lips. “I want you to see.”
“I don’t want to invade your personal space. I get it, really, I do.”
I consider my words carefully. “Maybe I need to share it more, with people like you.”
“Like me?”
She’s searching me with those eyes, making me want to take that one stride that would close the distance between us. But I can’t. There is nothing in me that deserves her kind of sweetness. Instead, I just say, “Yes.”
The elevator dings, and I step into my penthouse foyer, inviting Emma to join me with a nod of my head. The lights turn on automatically as I make my way into my living space, and Emma follows, her gaze drinking everything in. Her eyes land on the far wall, and she walks over to it, mesmerized.
“Wow, this is beautiful.”
I don’t have many people up to my place, but when I do, they usually head straight to the west wall of windows to take in the impressive view. What they don’t do is walk directly to my favorite piece and study it. It’s a large figure, a bronze freestanding statue, a semi-abstract of a reclining woman. It’s the only item placed along my living room’s north wall, a gallery style display.
“It’s by Henry Spencer Moore. One of his more modern pieces. Not many of them like this.”
“I love the lines,” she says, tilting her head with interest as she walks its length. “Is this the kind of work you do?”
“Not quite. Moore is a master. But my studio’s this way, if you’d like to see.”
Emma follows me once more as we move further into the penthouse. I set up my art studio in the deepest room in my apartment. As I open the door, the lights switch on, and my stomach does that sinking tightness thing one more time as Emma lets out just the hint of a gasp.
It’s a large room, and it’s a mess. Half-finished canvasses and sculptures litter the area. I’ve been liberal with my mediums. Clay, stone, and metal conduit lay about with chisels, dust, and wire snips. Oils, pencils, and charcoal stand ready next to easels with rough sketches and the first strokes of new paintings. These pieces take weeks to months for me to complete, and I’m rarely in the same mood twice in a row when entering my studio. I usually have at least half a dozen things going on at once. The brass bowl I’m hammering is my feel-good piece, the oil on canvas is what comes out during introspective moods, and the large stone sculpture — my attempt at something on the size scale of Moore — is what I go after when I’m in an agitated state and need to let out some physical energy.
“Sorry, I know it’s a bit of a mess.”
“You call this a mess?” Emma laughs, her eyes wide as she looks around the space. “I mean, there’s stuff everywhere, but this is art in progress. You should cook with me some time — now that’s a mess.”
“That meal you made us was amazing.” I kiss my fingertips with a wink. “It was art with food.”
She squints at me now. “That’s kind of you.”
Emma walks toward the nearest oil painting in progress, that curious head tilt of hers returning. “This is... a bit haunting.”
The canvas is strewn with shades of black and dark blues. There are some golden yellows and warm oranges peeking out from beneath. Abstract is my best attempt at embodying what goes on inside my chest when the weight is bearing down on me. I come close to her, tilting my head at the same angle. “What do you see?”
She doesn’t answer right away. She stands with me in silence, really — and I mean really — looking at the piece.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her studying it. She’s not like most of the previous guests I’ve allowed in my studio. The few I have shown this room to, they’ve looked around, not really seeing any of it, then rattled off some generic compliment to my work.
But Emma — she’s contemplating it.
I’m validated in my decision to bring her up here, but there’s a new feeling crawling through me. Her eyes are focused on the canvas, but I feel like she’s staring straight into my soul. Like she’s inspecting this dark part of me I conceal from the world. I feel the tension rising in my chest but try to breathe through it. Wasn’t this part of why I wanted to bring her here, to share this side of myself? To let her see my cracks and flaws?
“Longing,” she says finally.
Even though I’ve tried to brace myself for it, her insight catches me off guard. I tamp down the urge to immediately move away from the canvas and change the subject. Instead, I make myself stay by her side and calmly say, “Why do you think that?”
“Here,” she says quietly, pointing at a bright splash of color. “There’s this core... this inner need.” She talks with her hands as she explains, creating a ball with her right hand and pulling it to her stomach. “It’s trying to come out, to be seen, but it’s being kept back by all this.” She waves over the expanse of rough darkness.
“Interesting,” I manage to say, but my mouth has gone dry.
“It’s searching and wanting, but it’s being hidden.” She takes a deep breath and swallows hard. “There’s so much unfulfilled desire here. Unmet need.”
Her insight is unlike any critique I’ve received, and if I’m honest, even I haven’t allowed myself to realize exactly what I was putting down on that canvas. I haven’t been able to put the words to it, but her comments and that hitch in her voice strike me right in the chest. I simply nod, afraid my voice will break if I try to speak.
“Is it what you meant?”
I clear my throat, hoping the words come out evenly. “I’m not sure. It’s possible.”
“It’s just that...”
She pauses, looking up at me, her expression open, kind — but her eyes, God. Those eyes, they’re looking right into me. She draws a slow breath then continues. “It remin
ds me of you. Something beautiful surrounded by this... darkness.”
Hell. I want to turn away, to hide the vulnerable parts of myself from her. What if she doesn’t like what she sees? But more than that, I want to run my fingers through her hair. Touch her soft skin. Brush my lips against hers. When she doesn’t look away, my pulse beats hard, and I feel the call of those dark shadows — the desire to show her the way of pain and pleasure. To bind her hands and tie them behind her bare ass. To teach her submission and abandon. How liberating it can be. How it satisfies a primal need most of us hide. She could be my canvas.
But no. My darkness consumes, and I won’t have her light polluted by me. I take a breath, inhaling deeply to keep words from spilling out of me, and step away from the canvas, walking to the counter along the nearest wall, where a mess of items sit stacked beside the utility sink.
“Feel free to keep looking around as long as you want,” I tell her over my shoulder.
“Okay, thanks.” She looks at me, hesitant and unsure, but she doesn’t push the topic of the painting, and I turn back to the sink.
Her footsteps echo softly as she walks through the space, pausing now and then at different pieces. But I can feel her eyes on me as I work in silence, rinsing paint cups and palette boards under warm water. After a few moments, I glance behind me, and she’s standing a few feet away.
I see a question playing on her lips. “What is it?”
“Two things.”
I know that tone. My chest tightens instinctively, but I turn off the water and turn to face her, leaning against the counter as casually as I can manage. “Alright, shoot.”
“I’ve been spending some time with Callie and Cora lately — they’re both awesome, by the way.”
I nod, waiting for the question I know is coming. “Agreed.”
Emma walks forward a few feet, stopping beside a table top covered with my stone-working tools. She traces a finger on them, her eyes avoiding my gaze. “Well, they’ve both alluded to your past as being... shadowy?” She shakes her head. “I don’t know if that’s the right word. They said you don’t like to talk about it. I was just wondering, is it... connected to our world? Is it tech stuff?”
“They’re right, I don’t like talking about it.” I mean it as an acknowledgement, not a rebuke, but my tone comes out too firm, and Emma nearly jumps. “Sorry. Yeah, I was involved in some... shady shit.”
She just stares. I see the questions in her eyes, but they don’t form on her lips. She’s giving me an out, a chance to change the subject. I’m tempted to take it. But fuck it. She’ll find out sooner or later. Might as well be from me.
“I was a hacker. One of the best. It was one of the few things I’ve ever been good at. Sometimes, I did it just for myself. Sometimes, I was hired. But it was all the same to me.”
Emma’s staring at me now, but I can’t read that expression. “Wow.”
I draw in a breath through my nose, then exhale. No turning back now. “I hurt a lot of people. But I didn’t care back then.”
She nods slowly and looks back at the tools on the table, touching the row of chisels laid out. “You must have changed a lot.”
“Have I? Maybe. I don’t do black hat work anymore. But that doesn’t fix what I wrecked, the chaos I caused, doesn’t it?”
She gives me a quick sideways glance. “Why don’t you do it anymore?”
How to explain what happens when a man hits bottom? It’s not easy. I wave my hand at the canvas of the oil painting she studied earlier. “I guess it’s like that painting right there. All the shit I was doing covered up the little bit of good in me, I guess. But, I couldn’t let it out — it wasn’t enough to sustain me. My life would just swallow it whole, and I’d spiral down a hole of drinking and fighting and all sorts of shit to make myself forget what it felt like to have something good. Because I could never hold onto the good things. Then the shadows would come back, and I’d keep going down that path, because it never disappointed me, it never left me wanting for more. It was always there for the taking. In the hacker world, I was a god. I could do whatever I wanted. Nothing was untouchable; no one was better.”
“So, what changed?”
“I finally just hit the wall, I guess. Rock bottom, as they say. I was a complete fucking disaster, just broken. Apparently, I called Jude one night and said some things...” I trail off, a fist of pain in my chest at the memory of my twin repeating the words I told him that day, of knowing what I put him through.
Emma takes a few tentative steps toward me, but I turn my head away, fixing my eyes to a spot on the wall. I can’t look at her right now; I can’t bear to see what she thinks of me. I just need to get through this and let the chips fall where they may.
“I can’t remember any of this,” I continue, “but he showed up at this shitty hotel I was in, just drinking myself into a fucking coma. Practically had to hog tie me, he says, but he brought me to his home. Took me some time to sober up, to get my head wrapped around some of the things I’d done. But those guys, all of them — they’re my brothers now, blood or not.”
She touches my arm, and it sends a hot burn through me. Her voice is soft, soothing me. “I’m glad you have them.”
It takes me a moment, but I collect myself and shake off the urge to pull her to me and hold her tight until the pain is gone, to face all of it for once. It would take ages, but I could bear it with her in my arms. I straighten up and clear my throat, letting the impulse pass. “Me, too. But, you said two things. What’s the other?”
I glance at Emma, and I can tell she isn’t ready to move onto another topic — she wants more; I know that look in her eye. She’s got that fiery determination, like she’s willing to dig past all the bullshit and the shadows to get to the naked parts of me, but she draws herself up straight and nods, dropping the topic for now.
“Ah, yeah, item number two.” She returns to wandering around the room slowly. There’s a different look on her face now, one that says she’s just as uncomfortable with the upcoming subject as I was about the proceeding one, which has me intrigued.
I take a guess. “More things you’ve been talking with Callie and Cora about?”
She looks a bit like a cat caught lapping at the milk. “No. With Gunner.”
“Oh boy,” I say. That man has no filter. “What did he say?”
Emma continues to drift through my studio, looking at and touching works in progress. “He just seems like such a guy’s guy, you know? You’d never think… I mean, I would never have thought that… he’s into guys, too.”
“Ahh.” Well, well. They have been talking. I have no doubt why she’s bringing this up to me. Gunner is as honest and open as they come. “You’re wondering how I fit into that picture.”
She circles behind a large easel and meets my eyes when she emerges on the other side. “So, it’s true?”
“If Gunner told you what I think he did, then yes.”
Emma stops beside a half-finished sculpture just to my right. “I’m not used to guys like you being… fluid.”
I draw nearer to her and give into my temptation, letting the pad of my thumb trace across the smooth skin under her ear. “That’s a good word for it,” I admit.
Her tongue runs across her lips, and I feel the rapid beat of her pulse under my thumb. She’s not just curious about figuring me out. She’s curious about figuring herself out, too. There’s something more here than just casual conversation.
“You may be surprised how many guys like Gunner and I are open to experiencing new things sexually. A lot of men, actually. But most can’t jump over the wall society has put up around masculinity.”
Her gaze stays on the floor, but she tucks her chin and turns her head to me, moving into my touch. “I wish it wasn’t like that. That consenting adults could just... follow their desires behind closed doors without society’s judgement.”
I hear the same unmet longing in her voice that I’ve carried with me my whole life. A question
forms in my heart, but I don’t dare whisper its name. I let my fingers uncurl against her soft, warm skin, gently stroking the nape of her neck. “Don’t get me wrong — that wall can be a privileged one as much as it’s a repressive one for guys. I fell back on that privilege more than a few times, especially whenever I’d go on a bender. Guys get a lot of slack when it comes to raising hell.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Oh, I’m sure you could.” I give her a little knowing smile, and Emma lifts a hand to my chest, her fingers tracing the pattern on my shirt. She’s a little bit shy and reserved, but I see that wild glint in her eye she thinks she’s tucked away. I spotted it the night at the club, and I’ve wanted to tease it out ever since.
She looks up at me through those long lashes. “Don’t people give you shit?”
“Not if they want to keep their teeth.”
Emma lets out a laugh of surprise. I move my hand to her cheek, running it down to her chin, my gaze moving from her eyes to her full lips.
“But seriously, how do you do it?” she asks. “Being yourself when there’s all these little boxes people want to put you in and the judgement for doing things differently?”
“I didn’t, not for a long time. I tried to squeeze into those boxes when I was younger, but after Jude joined the military, I just... drifted. Got into trouble everywhere I could. Went looking for it. Jude was my only anchor, until I came here. These guys, they’ve given me a home when I never thought I’d belong anywhere. I think that’s the key. To find your tribe. And then it doesn’t matter so much what anyone else thinks.”
“And with Gunner? Is that just something for fun?”
I cock my head, deciding what reply to give her — the surface answer about how I just go with whatever feels good in the moment, or the deeper truth. I go with the latter.
“All the guys made me feel welcome, but it was Gunner who really showed me what unconditional acceptance felt like. He’s… well, he’s very honest to who he is, and that’s something I’d never really experienced. I’m really gratefully for that, for him. He’s a wiseass and a cut-up, but he’s a damn good guy. I carry the things I’ve learned from him right here.” I touch a fist to my chest.
Hidden Agenda: A Reverse Harem Romance (The Code Book 2) Page 8
