by Simply BWWM
Chanel gave him a nod. “It’s beautiful, thank you. Really beautiful. I’ll be comfortable in there.”
Andrew reappeared then with her tea, and she looked up at him gratefully. She could already see why he was such a help to Nick. Andrew left them then, not going too far away; he stayed close enough to be ready if needed, but not so close that he might interfere.
“So, originally, I was going to have this painting done at my home in Boston, but I’ve wound up out here on the boat for a long weekend, so I guess we’ll need to do it out here, if that’s possible.” Nick looked doubtful but hopeful.
“Yes, we can create it here. Do you like the sea?” she asked, feeling as though she already knew the answer to the question.
“I love the sea,” he replied, grinning at her, and feeling as if he was talking with a friend.
“Then this is a good place to do the painting. I’m guessing that the weather is slated to be good if you’re planning a long weekend out here. I won’t need to worry about big waves rocking the boat, right?” she asked as her mind finally kicked into professional painter mode.
He waved his hand lightly. “Yes, the weather will be great. Sunny all weekend, no real wind, and no big waves. We’ll be fine.”
“Great, then I shouldn’t have a problem painting. Did you have any particular place in mind for your backdrop? Do you want something natural, perhaps with the sea behind you, or something a little more…” she hesitated before she said it, wishing that the word didn’t conjure up inappropriate images of him in her mind, “intimate. Like a room aboard this boat?”
His eyes were on her mouth again as she spoke, and his lips parted once more, but then he looked back at her and closed his mouth for a moment. “I was thinking something perhaps onboard. I… I don’t know if it will work, but I have a beautiful stateroom here, and I guess that would be as good as anywhere else. It will definitely give us more privacy, and I would feel more comfortable with that.”
“Stateroom it is, then,” she agreed easily, wishing that she felt as confident as she sounded. Chanel’s body was alight with some shiver of electricity that moved through her over and again, like the small waves that rose and fell in the water around them, and there seemed to be no way to control it. She had never felt anything like it before, and the strangeness of it was enlivening to her. Though she wasn’t entirely sure what it was or why it was happening, she did know that it was due to the presence of the beautiful man before her.
There was no other word for it, really, she thought to herself as she gazed at him. He was the essence of beautiful. His rugged good looks, his squared jaw and aquiline nose, and his blue, blue eyes, fringed with thick black lashes beneath low black brows just seemed to draw her in and not let her go. His skin was pale, though healthy looking, and she found herself wondering what the rest of him would look like when it was time to paint him.
Butterflies began to dance in the depths of her belly, and to distract herself, she picked up her cup of tea and drank it. He was speaking to her about something, but she couldn’t quite hear every word because her blood was rushing in her ears and her mind was totally distracted by thoughts she couldn’t hold at bay, like the question of what his sweet full lips would feel like against hers, and what he might smell like if she was close enough to breathe in the scent of his skin. She reminded herself yet again that she was on a professional job and that she absolutely must maintain total professionalism at all times. There was no room for attraction or inappropriate thoughts. For all she knew, he might well have a wife or a girlfriend, and it would be horribly wrong of her to be thinking of him as she was.
He looked at her expectantly, and she realized that he had asked her a question and was waiting for an answer. Swallowing the last of the tea in her mouth, she blinked and set the cup back in the saucer. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what it was that you said. Could you say that again please?” She felt foolish, having had to ask again when she had been staring at him the whole time as though she had been listening intently to him.
Nick only smiled at her as if it was nothing at all to repeat himself. “I was just wondering when you thought you might like to start the painting.” He blushed a soft shade of pink in his cheeks, and she found herself loving the way that he looked with that almost bashful look on his face, as his eyes searched hers.
Chanel smiled at him. “We can start anytime that you like. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish.” She told herself that it might be wise of her to start and finish as soon as possible, so that she wasn’t totally distracted by him for longer than she could reasonably say that she was working on the painting.
He stood up and held his hand out toward the deck alongside the boat, where she had come to him from the main cabin. “Well, maybe we should get started then.” He gave her a nod and walked ahead of her, and she followed him, trying not to notice the width of his strong shoulders, and the narrowness of his waist, or the firm curve of his hips and backside. He was wearing jeans, and they could not have looked better on him. She swallowed hard and told herself to keep her mind on the work at hand and stop acting like an art school girl with a crush on her subject.
Nick led her through the main cabin and back down the spiral staircase, and she found herself wondering just how close the stateroom was to her room. As it turned out, it was just two doors down the same hallway. His room had a double door entrance and took up almost all of the back lower deck of the yacht. She walked in with him, and Andrew closed the doors behind them, leaving them alone in the room.
There was a bed bigger than the one in her room, and there were two leather bound chairs at either side of a table on one wall. She saw that his room was similar to hers, including a walk-in closet and a full bathroom, though his bathroom had a sunken jetted tub in it that could easily fit more than one person, and his room had more of an entertainment center in it than just the flat screen television on the wall as her room had. His room also had a deck that went out on the side of the boat, and there was a set of a table and chairs there.
“This is incredible.” She murmured as she looked around and took it all in. The room was done in deep cobalt blues and golds, with dark wood in many places, and it was luxurious without being overstated.
As she was gazing around the room, he was staring at her, and when her eyes met his again, she blinked and drew in a quick breath. “So, will this work?” he asked hesitantly.
She cleared her throat. “Were you thinking of using the bed or some other background? Did you have something in mind?”
Nick had to be honest with her, and though it had seemed like nothing at all when he had first come up with the notion in his head, that was before he had seen her, before she had immobilized everything in him, and before she was standing not five feet from him in his bedroom. Somehow the image in his mind had a much more sensual and erotic feeling to him than it had when he had first conceived it.
“I guess I was thinking of the bed,” he said quietly, his eyes meeting hers.
She bit at her lower lip, and he watched her do it, finding himself thinking about gently biting her lower lip before making himself brush the thought from his mind and look away from her.
“That would work. If you want more natural light, we could go up on the deck. I can’t imagine that many people would see you at all, as we’re out here in the middle of the ocean and no one is around, but you do have employees on the boat, so that could be awkward.” She considered it, and she saw his point about being in his bed. “I guess you’re right. We lay you back against some pillows on the bed and create your portrait. Would you like it to be a discreet painting, or something more obvious and showy?” she asked, hoping that he knew what she meant.
He felt his cheeks warm at the thought of her painting him in such a way that he would be fully exposed on the canvas when it was all said and done. “No, I think if I’m ever going to display this anywhere, and I want to, then I would make it subtly discreet. The intent is really
to display the fitness of my body at this point, so that in later years, I have it to look back on.”
Chanel nodded. “I can do that. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and get my things, and we can get started. You could get yourself ready and meet me back here, perhaps in a robe.” She was grateful that she had done so many nude portraits that she was able to speak about them without showing any kind of real inhibition, but she wished that she felt no inhibition deep inside of her at the very thought of the man before her, who would shortly be disrobed and waiting for her to preserve nearly every part of his body for posterity.
Heading into her cabin, she closed the door behind her and then shut her eyes, exhaling a gusty sigh as she tried to push the frustration out of her. She had been a painter since high school, and she had done her first nude then and had continued to work with them predominantly all the way through college and out into the real world where she had made quite a name for herself creating images that showed the human body in many different lights and portrayals. Aside from blushing a bit with her very first nude as a junior in high school, she hadn’t flinched since. Not once. Not one time had any person, male or female, caused her any kind of untoward reaction.
Chanel prided herself on the fact that she could be totally matter-of-fact and nigh-on n clinical about her approach to nudity in the arts, even when sensuality and sexuality had been an intentional endeavor in the piece she was creating. She had excelled at keeping her wits about her, but for some reason she could neither comprehend nor logic away, something about Nick Thomas made her feel as if there was a current of electricity moving over and through her skin, and it felt like she had no grip on herself around him.
Just being around him had made her heart race, her nerves tingle, her thoughts go to places where they never should be, and what was worse than all that, she could not deny to herself that he had induced a warmth in her that had spread through her lower belly and tightened nearly every muscle around there.
Her reaction to him was totally foreign to her, and she couldn’t begin to understand it. No man had ever caused her to react in such a way before, and she told herself that it was silly and ridiculous, that she was a professional, and that she absolutely had to get a grip on herself. She had to straighten herself out, because she had a portrait to create and two days to get the better part of it done before she took the canvas back to her studio to finish it. There was no time, and there was certainly no place for any kind of intimate interest to take hold in her.
Steeling herself, she talked herself into a mindset of professionalism and artistry, then she donned her smock, picked up her brushes and paints, and headed back to the main cabin where she was determined to create a portrait of Mr. Thomas without any kind of inhibition, interest in him, or hindrance to her work.
He wasn’t in the room when she came in to set up. He was instead in the bathroom, his hands on the mirror, giving himself a firm talking to. Nick took a deep breath and let it out, as he stood there wearing nothing. He closed his eyes and told himself that she was an artist, that she was there as a commissioned employee to create a piece of artwork for him, and that he had no business being so irresistibly attracted to her.
He hadn’t known at all what she looked like, and he never could have guessed that there would be such strong chemistry between them, but none of that assuaged the fact that he should know better. He took a deep breath and told himself that he would go into the other room and handle it just like any other business proposal and deal, and that there would be no interest or allowance of distraction, no matter what she looked like, and no matter what she made him feel like.
Slipping on his cobalt blue silk robe, he exhaled slowly and then tied it at the waist and walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. Chanel was standing before a large sized canvas set up on an easel, and he was a little surprised to see a camera on the small table beside her, but he said nothing about it. Instead, he decided to work on his hosting skills.
“Do you need anything? Would you like some water or some more tea?” he asked, looking at her and feeling a shot of adrenaline move through him. He cursed silently for allowing any kind of emotion to overtake him.
Chanel was doing her best to maintain her pleasant composure. She had managed to calm herself to the point where she was ready to work, and then he walked in, wearing nothing but dark, deep blue silk that sculpted itself over his muscled and toned form, and she tried not to notice the way that it fell open from his neck to his waist or that it set off the blue in his eyes, making them look even more intense than they already were.
“Oh, no. I’m fine, thank you.” She smiled at him and turned her attention away from him, looking around the room. “Were you thinking you’d like your front or your back best shown in this portrait?” She worked hard to keep her voice even, and she finally lifted her warm brown eyes to meet his gaze.
He swallowed the lump that had begun forming in his throat. “The front, actually. The back is well formed, but the front has gotten most of the effects of the work that I’ve done.” He hadn’t thought about what it might be like to be standing before her with an exposed full frontal.
Her heart quickened and her breath grew short. She had painted many men before, and it had never bothered her in the least. They had all been clients or friends, and none of them had ruffled a single one of her feathers, so there should be no reason why this one man should have any kind of a warming and bothering effect on her. That didn’t seem to be something that she could convince her body of, though.
Chanel considered his position thoughtfully for a long moment, and then began adjusting the lighting in the room so that it created a darkness to one side and a lightness to the other. She asked him to stand about four feet in front of her, near his bed, and to face himself toward her. He did as she asked, and she was surprised that he had positioned himself just exactly as she wanted him to be.
Directing him with patience and kindness, she went to him and touched her fingertips to his chin, almost hesitantly at first, willing herself to keep her professionalism as the nearness of him drew out even more heat in her. She delicately turned his head this way and that, instructing him to look ahead and not at her, and he made himself listen to her.
When she had him standing the way that she wanted him, she asked him to slip off the robe , and after only a moment of hesitation, he did. It fell silently to the floor and puddled around his feet, and he stood before her, bare, strikingly beautiful, and electrifying every part of her.
The depths of her belly heated, and her breath caught in her. She made herself look away for a moment, her gaze searching for her palette so that she had something to look at other than him, something believable. She told herself again that he was a client and that she absolutely could not react to him the way that she was, no matter how natural it felt, no matter how much it seemed to be out of her control. She told herself that she was in total control of herself and her reactions, and she was going to pick up her brush and paint his portrait and that would be all that there was to it.
“Is this all right?” Nick asked, his gaze shifting to her.
Taking in a shallow and long breath so that he wouldn’t see it, she looked up at him and smiled lightly. “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll leave much of the lower half of you in a shadow, and I will have you raise your right foot up a little and place it on this stand.” She wasn’t going to be able to paint simple shadows over his groin while it was bared before her. He was considerable in size, and she knew that if she didn’t cover him, she would be distracted by him. The only way to cover him while keeping him nude would be to strategically place his thigh in front of him.
Taking a small wooden box from her kit, she walked over to him and knelt before him, keenly aware of his masculinity and form immediately in front of her. She placed the box on the floor and kept her eyes on his feet.
“Okay, if you’d please place the ball of your foot on this…” She waited. He did as she asked him to. “Tha
nk you,” she added, and stood back up, keeping her eyes down as she walked back over to the canvas to face him and have another look at how everything appeared before her.
His right thigh only barely covered his groin, but it was enough to do what she desperately needed it to do. “That’s good. It shows the muscles in your legs as well,” she added, hoping that she sounded professional, belying the real reasons she was having him stand the way that she was.
“Is there any kind of music you might like to listen to, so it isn’t so quiet in here?” she asked, reaching for her phone.
He shrugged. “I’m pretty easy going, whatever you like is fine. What do you normally listen to while you paint?” His eyes shifted to her, and he drank her in with them, taking the opportunity to let his gaze move over her face and notice all of the details about it. She was truly beautiful, and he could see clearly that she didn’t know it. She had no idea at all that she was so enchanting.
