The Muse

by Anne Calhoun

  “Leave them on,” she said.

  He couldn’t look at her. That should have been his line. He wasn’t sure what would come out of his mouth if he tried to flip something back to her, disbelieving laughter, or begging. Instead he bent his head and kissed her instep. Eased his palm along the swell of her calf, to the pressed flesh of her crossed legs, and lifted the top one off. The tight skirt didn’t allow for much movement, so he left her knees pressed primly together and hitched the skirt up. She didn’t do anything so gauche, or helpful, as wiggle. Instead, when he got the confection of what had to be silk in some form or another to midthigh, she lifted her bottom so he could push the skirt to her hipbones.

  Baring panties in the same shade of gold. Lace. The fabric laid waste to the demure construction. Without thinking, he bent forward and touched the tip of his tongue to the tiny triangle at the juncture of her thighs. He traced the edge of the leg openings from hip to thighs, heard her breath catch as he did, then release on a slow, breathy exhale as he licked and kissed his way down to her knees. Her thighs were soft; she was thin but lacked the muscle tone of an athlete. Her skin was smooth, freshly shaved, more likely waxed. The lace contained darker curls, neatly trimmed; he breathed heat and humidity into them, then pushed his tongue against the top of her cleft.

  She made that soft, pleased noise again. His cock leaped in his pants, then again when she said, “Yes, please.”

  There was role playing and there was ridiculous; he drew the line at removing her panties with his teeth. Instead he reached under her backside, curled his fingers into the top elastic edge, and pulled them off, letting his fists brush her bottom as he did. Humor lightened the heat simmering in her eyes but disappeared when he put his mouth to her bared mound.

  She shifted, intending to kick her panties free from her ankles, but he pressed down on her knees, keeping her in place. She looked at him, one eyebrow lifted, despite their positions, imperious in her shining suit and hair. He smoothed his hands up her outer thighs, curled his fingers around to the soft inner flesh, and drew them down and open, spreading her.

  Her eyelids drooped. “It would be less awkward,” she said, one ankle tugging at the entrapping panties.

  “You like me like this,” he said, meaning his bared chest and jeans. “I like you like this.”

  “The shoes work for you,” she said with satisfaction.

  “Even more with lace panties against them,” he said, and spread her knees wide.

  It was awkward, until he bent forward and set his mouth to the top of her pussy. He was looking up at her as he did, so he saw her eyes close, her teeth dent her lower lip, the faint quiver of her lashes. Less awkward already; he spread his own knees to make room for her feet between his legs. He wanted to grind his cock against something, but there was nothing in reach. Shifting his hips made it better and worse at the same time, so he sat back on his heels and focused all of his attention on her.

  Ignore how that makes your heart race, because this is really fucking hot.

  He curved both arms under her thighs and gripped her hips, the better to feel her squirm. Then he nuzzled at the soft hair and softer flesh, darkening pink. The scent of slick heat filled his nostrils. One of her hands gripped the edge of the seat. The other came to rest on his head, heel by his temple, her long fingers curving through his hair to press against his skull.

  They all but left dents in bone when he brushed closed-mouth kisses to the soft folds, lacking urgency, teasing them open before letting them close again. Her clit was swollen, slick, he noted before he shifted to the tender skin by her thigh. She tried to squirm down and open farther. He clamped his hands around her hips and held her where she was.

  “Seth,” she snapped, or tried to, except it was hard to snap when the only air you got was from panting gasps.

  “I can leave any time,” he said, neatly shifting the balance of power back to something resembling level.

  “Seth, please,” she tried again.

  “Hush,” he said, and brushed the very top of her sex with his fingertips. “You’re distracting me.”

  He went back to work with her low groan of surrender echoing in his ears, making the golden light vibrate. He rode out the furious struggle as she wriggled her feet free from her panties then slid down and lifted her leg to his shoulder. He squared up to take her weight and teased open her folds with his tongue. Her fingers curled in his hair, seeking a grip on strands he hadn’t had cut since he was discharged.

  The first time he circled her clit, she sighed with relief. The second time she breathed yes god yes, barely audible over the air-conditioner. The third time she lifted her hips, pleading for more, harder, with body and mouth. In response, he slid his tongue down to her opening, circled there, felt her salty slick juices coat his tongue, his chin, his lips. She arched, lifting, trying to get his mouth where she wanted it, but he flattened his forearm across her belly and used the fingers of the other to hold open the top of her folds, exposing her clit to the cool air he could feel against the hot skin of his chest and belly. Even with him holding her up and open, her thighs were quivering with tension. He wedged his shoulders more firmly between her legs and resisted the powerful urge to grind the air.

  Her ferocious cry when he returned to her clit made him look up at her. He almost came in his jeans. Her head was thrown back in a position of utter abandon, but she was clothed from the top of her mound to her collarbones, and something about the tightly fitted jacket and skirt, the incongruous frills, the long sleeves, made his heart thump against his chest.

  She was close, tense, quivering, the pink sex flush blooming in the deep V of her jacket and spreading up her throat. Oh yes, she was close, helpless, pleading wordlessly. He closed his eyes and licked his circles a little harder, a little tighter until she went rigid in his arms and a soft, hoarse cry tore from her throat. He held her through it, pressing gently with tongue and hands until she subsided.

  When her eyes opened, they were spaced out, satisfied, clearly adrift on endorphins. He palmed her juices off his face then went to work on his belt and fly. All this did was remind him of how the speed and thrill of playing in traffic wasn’t enough, that there was a personal element, the element of touch necessary to keep the mental wolves at bay. They were both stuck in nightmares of lives, but together they’d forget everything.

  “Stop,” she murmured.

  “What?” Incredulous, his hand halted mid-zip. Was this some kind of role-play ending in which she sent him home unsatisfied? His brain short-circuited in the overload of no meant no, but fuck if he was coming back for another round of any-goddamn-hundred-bucks-an-hour-thing if he wasn’t getting off. Playtime was fun, but he was no masochist.

  She reached out and swiped her thumb across his lower lip, and Christ, the look in her eyes. “I want to draw you like that.”

  – EIGHT –

  Her brain was offline. The observer whose voice ranged from snarky to shrill to shrieking was all but silenced. The spaciousness in her head was brilliant, a negative space that seemed to go on forever. Afraid of disturbing the fragile balance giving her the first sense of peace she’d had in weeks, she didn’t move, didn’t say anything else, just watched him with the feral, female part of her brain.

  His face. Traces of her juices gleamed on his cheek, and his lips were an invitation to sin, swollen under her thumb. She pressed, very gently, watched his eyelids droop and his cheeks heat. Drawing him was no longer the idle pastime of a rich woman with a panic disorder. It was an imperative. She could breathe, and it was glorious.

  “You want to draw me like this,” he said. It wasn’t a question. A fine tremor ran through his hands, halted on his buckle and zipper. At some level she knew the intricacies of fingers, hand, buckle, belt, zipper, fly, and hips were beyond her, but Lord have mercy, she wanted to try. And that mouth. Five lines. She could do that, capture the swoop of his lower lip, the bracket of the upper, the tantalizing space in between. It was their density th
at would evade her, but again, imperative that she try.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice distant, like that of the observer.

  “Naked?”

  Tacit permission granted, she scrambled to her feet, knocking him back on his heels, then stumbled over the shoes and panties strewn on the floor. She shoved her skirt down as she hurried to the easel. “I don’t care,” she said abstractly. Breathing was glorious. “Just . . . stay there.”

  Her hands were unsteady, so the first attempts to capture him sitting on his heels with his back to her were shaky. Then he changed position, smoothly rising and turning to take her place on the edge of the chair. His elbows came to rest on his knees. He scrubbed the heels of his hands over his face once, twice, all fantastic action poses to capture, both the motion and the impulse that made them. Frustrated desire, sublimating something, just as he had when he saw her. He slid his cupped hands over his hair and linked his fingers at the nape of his neck. A pause, trying to come to terms with something. A single low breath shuddered to the floor, disturbing the eddies of air in the room, control found. The scent of sex reached her nostrils, calling a faint response from her nipples and clit. She ignored it. Later. She grabbed for this as avidly as she’d grabbed for the game he’d offered.

  She’d seen him in bike messenger gear, cargo shorts, and a tight jersey. He’d come to her apartment last time in something similar, cargo pants and a T-shirt. This time he wore a tailored white oxford and dark jeans fitted to his lean hips and thighs. In his current position the shirt gapped open, giving tantalizing glimpses of his chest, the tattoos, the scar—the lines and angles irresistible. Without thinking about it, she drew quickly, bold, confident lines, working from the silent space in her head, glancing from him to the page, not judging or erasing or thinking, just capturing. The essence of the pose was in his shoulders and the intricate play of angles at elbows, knees, the negative space between them. The impulse and motivation were more difficult to grasp. Why was he here, not just in the chair but in her town house, in Manhattan? Her own frustration grew. She saw the surfaces of him, but not the essence of Seth Malone.

  A horn went off down below. Arden made an inarticulate noise of protest as her concentration shattered. He looked up from his steady contemplation of his hands, his sharp gaze a delicious contrast to the sex flush fading on his cheeks and chest. She shook her head as an avalanche buried the quiet. He sprawled in the chair, the shirt dropping away to expose ribs and muscles, the unabashed jut of his erection against his jeans. He still wore his shoes, highly polished brown with good tread. The contrast caught her attention for a moment, the workingman’s shoes polished bright. He was dressed to go out, she realized. As was she. But not together.

  “Lost the moment?”

  “Yes,” she said. “They don’t seem to last very long.”

  He glanced at his watch, a thick functional digital thing, battered, on a worn canvas strap. “That was about twenty minutes. Not bad for picking it up after a decade.”

  “How do you know all this? Did you pick it up from modeling sessions?”

  “I draw, too.”

  She blinked. “You draw.”

  “Yeah. It takes a while to learn to switch off the right brain on command. You’ll get there. It just takes practice.”

  Right now it felt as if she’d never do it again. The numbing effect of the shock that got her through the last couple of weeks was wearing off. Her stomach was a swirl of emotions, the heat that had ebbed to a simmer, the residual humiliation of the party. Oddly enough, that party wasn’t the worst thing she had to do this weekend. Tomorrow morning bright and early, Derek was driving her out to East Hampton to see her mother. Neil had promised to stop by the house on his way back into the city. More lawyer talk, probably bad news she’d have to brace her mother for.

  But despite the observer voice in her brain shrieking that it was temporary and therefore pointless, on a deep and profound level, she felt better than she had in ages. Since she’d been hit by the cab, to be precise.

  She forced her brain back to the lines on her sketchpad. It . . . wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, either, but at least it wasn’t bad. She knew what she was doing, attacking drawing for something to do, because the risk she’d have a panic attack was too dangerous right now.

  “I’m trying to get the feel of you on paper. The weight,” she said, feeling rather inarticulate.

  He gave a soft huff that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Good thing I weigh less than I did in the Corps,” he said.

  She peered around the easel, head tilted, her hair sliding free from its mooring behind her ear. Something about that changed the way he looked at her. It had been a long time since she’d felt this dance between herself and a man, where all it took was a look to convey desire. “I can’t imagine you heavier,” she said.

  “I’m down about ten pounds. Between biking thirty to forty miles a day and not lifting weights like I used to, some of it got redistributed.”

  The initial burst of enthusiasm was long gone, but looking at him, at the sheer energy and ability in his body, was too enticing to let go. That was definitely part of who he was, but she was still missing something. “Forty miles a day?” she said, incredulous.

  “Easy.”

  Looking at him was no hardship. “Do you mind if we continue before we . . . continue?”

  The corners of his mouth quirked. “What do you want?”

  “Take off your shirt,” she said.

  After a moment, he stood and shrugged the white shirt from his shoulders. His erection strained at his fly, and there was something predatory in his gaze, reminding her wordlessly that they weren’t finished. All she could think was that sex with Nick, now married to her best friend, had never been like this. Never.

  “Requests?” he asked.

  “I’ve always wanted to try that Spiderman upside-down kissing thing,” she said offhandedly.

  She startled a bark of laughter from him. “We’ll have to put hooks in the ceiling,” he said, studying the plaster.

  “Too much work. Suit yourself.”

  The filmy ruffles of her skirt tickled her knees and the lining brushed her bare bottom as she arranged her pencils and he sprawled on the chair again, his hands linked behind his head, presenting the flat plane of his chest and abdomen, the length of his legs, the triangles between his bent arms and his head. “Okay?”

  “Perfect,” she said, and picked up her pencil.

  “Why the . . . I guess you’d call that a suit?”

  “I had a party this afternoon,” she said. “A baby shower for a friend.”

  “And you wore that?”

  She remembered Betsy’s acerbic comment about the women dressing up for each other. “I wore this,” she said. “What about your clothes?”

  “I thought I’d have time to go to the movies after you’d finished with me.”

  “Are you meeting someone?”

  She tried to make it casual, distantly answering his questions while she focused on drawing him. Light, curved strokes for his ribs and abdominal wall to give his torso dimensionality on the page. It was harder than it looked, creating three dimensions on a flat page. Knowing she was missing something gave the effort to draw him new purpose.

  “No,” he said. “I was going to meet a friend, but he bailed on me just before you texted.”

  “A bike messenger friend?” she asked.

  “No. Phil. A friend from the Corps.”

  “Someone you served with,” she said.

  “No. I served with Doug, his brother.”

  “Why aren’t you going to the movies with Doug?”

  “He died. An IED killed him and two other guys.”

  She peered around the easel, the shortening responses and clipped phrases coalescing into an increasing pattern of discomfort.

  “Also your friends?”

  “My best friends,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  The anguish on his face, cove
red only by a thin layer of bravado, mirrored the way she felt so much of the time, even before the raid, always putting on a show of being fine, just fine, so she gave him the space she longed for, the space he’d given her, and went back to the drawing.

  She worked in silence for a while, until the tension in the room thickened into irresistible desire. “I’m done,” she said, and stepped out from behind the easel.

  He got to his feet, stretching overhead on the tips of his toes, then each arm across his chest, with the opposite forearm holding his elbow. Then he beckoned to her, one finger, one step down from imperious. Suddenly acutely aware of her bare feet and bare bottom under the suit, she crossed the floor to stand in front of him. He looked down at her, a hint of concern flashing under the long-simmering desire in his eyes, thick and potent.

  Please don’t say I don’t owe you this. Please don’t.

  As if he read her mind, he reached out and rubbed one of the filmy ruffles lining the V-neck of her jacket between his fingers. The rasping sound was loud in the room, ending when he trailed his finger down to the intersection of the ruffles and the corset-inspired waist made of a darker gold silk. She wore nothing under the jacket but a bra, and the heated look in his eyes told her he’d figured that out, and he knew exactly what to do with that piece of information.

  Both hands went to work on the narrow belt at her waist, unfastening the toggles to toss it on the sofa next to his shirt.

  “Do you want me to put the shoes back on?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  It was his turn to sound distant and distracted. He was exploring the jacket by touch, fingertips ghosting over each seam and shift in fabric, coming together at the hook-and-eye closure, then parting to slide down the V created by the jacket’s ruffled, open hem. Back up, this time unfastening each hook as he went, baring her as she’d bared him several hours earlier.