by Joss Wood
Tyce battled to get his brain to function properly. He knew that he should say something. She was trying, very earnestly, to make amends but all he wanted to do was to blurt out that he thought that they’d turned a corner, they might, maybe, have a shot at...something. Something bigger and brighter than this, whatever this was.
Tyce felt the burn below his rib cage as that thought lodged in his brain. Terror, his childhood companion, drifted into his head, accompanied by doubt, another old ally.
Would he ever be able to fight off both long enough to be with her, to be the man she needed? Deepening his relationship with Sage meant losing his freedom but, at the same time, he couldn’t imagine a life without her in it.
He felt dizzy, confused, utterly at sea.
Too much, too soon, Tyce told himself. You’re tired and played out. Think about commitment and monogamy and forever and what you want from her when you aren’t punch-drunk with tiredness and overwhelmed by emotion. In the morning you might decide otherwise. This might be an overreaction, a figment of your imagination.
Take a breath and calm the hell down.
Tyce pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and found his voice. “Want some coffee? I have decaf.”
Sage nodded and followed him to the small galley kitchen that ran along the back wall of the apartment. There was also a sitting and dining area and two en suite bedrooms tucked into this corner of the warehouse. A steel-and-wood gangway running above his workshop and home gym linked the apartment to his painting studio. Tyce knew that Sage, who was intensely interested in art, would ask for a tour but his studio, with all the sketches and portraits of her, would be firmly off-limits.
If she saw the many sketches of her she’d definitely think he was a psycho and go running for the hills.
Sage looked up at the pipes running across the ceiling and the massive wooden beams that contrasted with the redbrick walls. Her eyes focused on a massive wooden propeller he’d hung on the far wall and her lips quirked. “I love this... This is you. This is your space. Masculine and minimalistic.”
And so very different from her light-filled, pink-tinged, feminine space. If they ever ended up living together, how would they...
Whoa there, cowboy, cool your jets. You decided not to go there, remember? You were going to wait until your brain was functioning properly before you made any life-changing, crazy-ass decisions.
Take a breath, dude. And another...
He focused on making coffee, decaf, of course, then realized he needed something a lot stronger than coffee. He poured a mug for Sage, then reached for a bottle of whiskey and dropped a healthy amount into a glass. Sipping, he felt the burn in his throat, the warmth in his stomach, and his heart slowed down, his lungs opening to allow more air to flow inside. Yeah, that was more like it.
Sage looked around, her eyebrows raised. “So, where’s your studio? Where do you paint?”
He’d known she’d ask and instead of blowing her off, as he’d intended to do, he gestured to the door in the corner of the loft. “It’s on the other side of the building. Through that door is a catwalk that takes you there.”
Sage’s eyes lit up. “Can I see it?”
He wanted to say no but he’d just told her that they needed to be honest with each other. Nodding, he walked across the room to open the door onto the gangway. Taking Sage’s mug from her, he held her coffee and his whiskey and gestured for her to step out. Sage stepped onto the narrow walkway and looked down at his workbenches and equipment below. He’d just started a new sculpture and pieces of half-bent steel and wood lay scattered across the concrete floor. “What’s that going to be?”
Tyce shrugged. “Not sure yet. I’m still waiting for it to make sense.”
Sage nodded. Because she was an artist herself, he didn’t need to explain the creative process to her, that he was following his instincts, trusting that it would all work out in the end.
“God, it’s cold up here,” Sage said, wrapping her arms around herself.
“The warehouse is a bitch to heat but I’m normally doing some sort of physical activity down there, either working on a sculpture or working out, so I don’t notice it much. The studio is heated.”
They’d reached the door that led to his most private space and Tyce took a deep breath as Sage opened the door. “The light switch is on the left.”
Sage flipped the switch and light filled the messy room. Tyce handed Sage her mug, took a sip of his whiskey and wondered what she—the first person to step into this space—thought. He looked around, trying to see the familiar setting through new eyes. The windows were incredible, leaded panes letting in every bit of light and shelves held paints and brushes and trowels. Blank canvases were stacked against one wall and there was a half-finished, shades-of-blue abstract taking up the space opposite. Sage looked at the oil for a long time, sipping her coffee before glancing down at the stack of canvases facing the wall. Ah, crap. Well, what had he thought would happen?
“May I?”
Tyce nodded and she immediately sank to the floor, placing the mug by her knee and flipping the first canvas around. He squinted at the charcoal-and-ink sketch and let out a sigh of relief; it was a portrait of Lachlyn, her nose buried in a book. Sage said nothing and turned another canvas around and Tyce sucked in his breath. His mother was lying on the floor next to her bed, her knees pulled up, her eyes vacant.
“She looks a little like Lachlyn... Is this your mom?” Sage asked, glancing up.
Tyce nodded. “Yeah, as I mentioned, she suffered from chronic depression. She’d stay like that for days.”
Sage thankfully didn’t comment. She just flipped through the portraits, wrinkling her nose when she came across the one of her working at her bench. She looked at the date and lifted her eyes to his, her eyebrows raised. Tyce felt his cheeks warm. “I saw a photo of you in a magazine. I decided to copy it.”
Still no comment. Tyce felt ants crawling up his skin as she flipped through the portraits, many of which were of her. After examining the last one, she rested her forearms on her knees.
He saw the anger in her eyes when all that blue slammed into his. “Why the hell have you never exhibited these? They are so good, Tyce, possibly even better than your sculptures and your oils. They are emotional and, sometimes, hard to look at but so damn real!”
Tyce ran a finger along the edge of his ragged sweatshirt, trying to keep up. “I can’t do it,” he admitted.
“Why on earth not?” Sage cried. “They are fantastic. The emotion jumps off the canvas.”
His feelings about her, about them, were a tangled mess but she was still the mother of his child and she deserved to know the truth. The entire truth. Tyce paced the area in front of the oil painting, his fingers holding the glass tumbler in a tight grip. “I discovered that I could sell my portraits when I was thirteen or so. I’d take my sketch pad to Central Park and sketch people who passed by. I’d shove the drawing under their nose and they’d pay me... I still don’t know if they paid because they thought the work was good or because they felt sorry for the too-thin kid in old clothes.”
Sage quietly sipped of her coffee, her silence encouraging him to continue.
“I did that for a few years. I finished high school and was offered a scholarship to art school but I had to work and the only job I could find was in construction. To make some extra cash, I agreed to pose naked for an art class comprised mostly of women wanting to dabble in art.”
Sage just lifted one arched eyebrow higher, looking unaffected. Her shoulders lifted in a tiny So?
“I used to draw portraits of the women, which they’d buy. Then they’d take me home and they’d pose naked, telling me that the portrait was for their husband or their lover.”
“And you’d end up sleeping with them,” Sage said, her tone utterly prosaic.
Tyce rubbed the bac
k of his neck. “I sold many portraits and I slept with quite a few women.”
Sage tipped her head to the side and just looked at him. “So?” When he sent her a puzzled look, she continued. “I’m sorry but I’m trying to find the link between you sleeping with someone and why you won’t sell your portraits.”
Tyce couldn’t understand why she was being obtuse. “I slept with them, Sage!”
“You were nineteen and you would’ve slept with a gorilla if it wore lipstick,” Sage replied, impatient. Then the confusion cleared from her eyes. “Oh...wait, I get it. You don’t know whether they used the sketches as an excuse to pay you for sex.”
Nailed it, Tyce thought morosely, turning away from her.
Tyce heard Sage stand up, heard the sound of her mug hitting the surface of his desk and then felt her hand on his back. He waited for her words, his heart bouncing off his rib cage. “You don’t actually know how good you are, do you? That’s why you don’t attend your own exhibitions, why you don’t do interviews... You don’t think that you are worth the accolades, the money.”
Tyce whirled around and pointed at the oil. “I did that oil in half a day, Sage! I slapped some paint on a canvas, I didn’t even think about it and idiots will pay me a quarter mil for it, maybe a whole lot more. The sculptures take more work but nothing that’s worth the price tags the galleries put on my pieces. My portraits, they mean something, but yeah, every time I think of selling one, exhibiting one, I feel that I am that confused kid again, trying to keep his head above water, not sure whether he was being pitied or paid for being a stud.”
He sucked in a breath and continued. “Art...art was where I retreated to when my mom wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t move for days on end. It was the place I could hide out in, pretend everything was okay. I used to lose time sketching and drawing. It was the place where I fell into that creative zone where nothing could touch me.”
“Are you not going there anymore?” Sage gestured to the oil. “Because this tells me that you are...”
“It’s just so damn easy, Sage.”
Sage placed her hands on his chest and tipped her lovely face back to look at him, her eyes full of warmth... Love? Affection? “Tyce, you’ve had a hard life. You’ve looked after your mother, your sister and you sacrificed so damn much for them, your scholarship, your wealth to buy the Ballantyne shares, your youth. Aren’t you allowed to have one thing in your life that’s easy? Could this not be life giving you a break?”
Tyce dropped his forehead so that it met hers, hauling in big breaths of much-needed air. Could she be right? Could he finally accept that not everything had to be a fight, a battle to be won?
“You’re so talented, Tyce, the most amazing artist I know.”
“You’re biased.” Tyce rumbled the words, so badly wanting to believe her.
Sage stepped back and looked at him. “Do you remember when you painted the Tired Ballerina?”
The painting in her loft. God, he didn’t but it was early on in his career.
“It was nine years ago and I’ve always been obsessed about ballet and wished I had the talent to be a professional dancer. I saw that painting and I fell in love with it. I was nineteen, twenty? I begged Connor to buy it for me but he wouldn’t. When I turned twenty-one Connor released some money into my trust fund and I tracked down the owner and I paid him three times what he originally paid. I hadn’t met you yet but I wanted that painting more than I wanted to breathe.”
Touched, Tyce opened his mouth to speak but she held up her hand to stop him from saying anything. “I persuaded my siblings to buy Jaeger one of your sculptures for a birthday present, and Connor, at my insistence, bought another three of your paintings for his private collection. One is on the main wall of the reception area of Ballantyne International. Connor said that, while he’d never liked the Tired Ballerina, he loved your new work. He said that you were going to be one of the best and one of the most influential artists of the twenty-first century and... Guess what? You are. You are worth every cent you are paid. If you don’t believe one word I’ve ever said, please, please, believe that.”
Tyce closed his eyes, not wanting her to see the emotion there and he dug his fingers into her skin, hoping that she wouldn’t feel the trembling in his hands. He felt both tired and rejuvenated, wiped out and energized.
And God, free. Sage’s words made him feel empowered, unrestricted. She made him feel like he could take on the world single-handed and win. He wanted to tell her how much what she’d said meant to him, how life-changing it was, but the words stuck in his throat. He ducked his head and hoped that he could convey what he was trying to say with his mouth, his hands, by worshipping her body.
But Sage was way ahead of him. She stood on her toes and placed her lips on his, her tongue tracing the seam of his lips, demanding that he open up. He whispered a Hell, yeah and she slid her tongue into his and she dialed up the temperature, demanding his response. Tyce yanked her to him, his hands looking for bare skin. He was still pulling her shirt out of her jeans when Sage’s hand slid under his sweatshirt and her fingers tap-danced their way across his abs, her thumb swiping the space between his belly button and the low band of his jeans. His stomach muscles contracted and she groaned her approval and her kisses turned wild.
Then Sage’s hands attacked the button on his jeans. Who was this woman taking control, whose hand was sliding underneath his underwear to encircle him? She’d been timid, sometimes shy about telling him what turned her on but today she knew exactly what she wanted. Tyce felt blood pump into his erection and he turned rock hard in her hand.
Sage gave another throaty murmur of approval and she wrenched her mouth from his and stepped back to pull his shirt up and over his head. As soon as his chest was bare she slapped her open mouth against his sternum, her tongue tracing a fiery path down his body.
Holy crap, she couldn’t possibly be thinking of...
He’d pleasured her like this before but he knew that she wasn’t comfortable, yet, to reciprocate. He’d spent many, many nights imagining Sage doing exactly this but his imagination, which was powerful, had nothing on this. Her tongue flicked over his abs and he groaned and reached back to grab the edge of a shelf, convinced that his knees were about to buckle.
Sage pushed his jeans down his legs and worked her fingers under the band of his underwear. Cool air touched his straining erection and her fiery mouth on his skin was a complete contrast. He didn’t know if he could handle this: his fantasies had fallen well short of how she made him feel. In his dreams, his heart never felt like it was about to beat through his chest, like he didn’t have a single spark of brainpower left, that the whole world was reduced to her mouth on him.
He couldn’t do it... It was too much. Then Sage took him inside her mouth, and his brain, that teeny tiny organ, shut down completely.
Tyce gripped the counter and tipped his head back, thinking that if he watched her, he’d lose it completely. His chest heaved and beads of sweat popped on his skin. This, Sage, being loved by her, was all his fantasies and wishes and hopes and dreams coming true.
Oh, it wasn’t just about the sex—which was terrifyingly fantastic—but all of this. She was in his studio and she’d said everything he most needed to hear about his art, had placed his past actions into perspective, had opened up a new world to him. He wanted this, all of it. He wanted her in his life, to be a big part of hers, he wanted to raise their baby together. That much he knew... There would be no thinking about this in the morning.
He needed her. He always had.
Tyce gripped her shoulders, pulled her up and slapped his mouth on hers. In between hot and heavy kisses, they managed to pull their clothes off, scattering them across his paint-splattered floor. When they were both naked, Tyce locked his arms beneath her bottom and lifted her up, sighing when her slim legs encircled his waist. Unable to wait, he pushed her down and he s
lid into her, wet and warm and wonderful.
Sage gasped and Tyce saw stars behind his eyes. Not convinced that his knees weren’t about to buckle, he rested her against his oil painting, and Sage’s head fell back. Tyce stopped and looked at her, eyes closed, long hairs falling through the still-wet paint of his creation, her milky shoulders against the various shades of blue.
Knowing that he couldn’t hold on for much longer, Tyce commanded Sage to open her eyes. When she did, he sighed and fell a little deeper in love. “I want to watch your eyes as you come. But do it soon, please?”
Sage pressed down, her butt sliding down the canvas, and he sunk even farther into her. She gasped, yelled and contracted around him and he was lost.
Then he spun away into a vortex of a million shades of blue.
* * *
The next morning, Tyce walked Sage to the taxi and she noticed the amusement in his eyes as he pulled a cap over her head.
“What?” she mock demanded, thinking that he looked, if it was possible, ten times sexier than he had last night. He had rings around his eyes, so did she since they hadn’t spent much time sleeping, but the shadows in his eyes were gone.
“I was just thinking about the streaks of French ultramarine on your butt,” he told her, laughter rolling through his expression.
Sage frowned at him. “I’m more upset that you destroyed your painting than I am about some oil paint on my ass.”
Last night, when they came up for air and were marginally functional, Sage felt the wet paint on her bottom and had whirled around to look at the painting, which now sported a perfect imprint of her butt cheeks. Instead of being upset about his ruined painting, Tyce had cried with laughter.
“I’ll do something with it,” Tyce told her, lifting his hands to cradle her face. “Maybe. Or I might just keep it as a reminder of the best sex of my life. And the best conversation.”
Sage smiled and curled her gloved hands around his strong wrists. “Just remember that I think you are fabulous.”
