Confess To Be Mine

by Suzie Nelson

  “Promise me,” he said. “That you’ll keep it.”

  “I will.”

  The whole time, Hugo followed me with his piercing green gaze like a hungry hunter tracked prey. Not dangerous, but sensually exciting. Not creepy, but hot as hell and making me horny. There should’ve been laws against how he stared at me. His attention made my body shiver in lust and my nipples stiffen in desire.

  Stop it. Let’s pretend like we’ve been around a man before, Miss Lusty.

  An easel stood in front of him. Various tubes of paint and different sized paint brushes sat on top of the table that was positioned on his right.

  His deep voice danced along my body. “Today, I just want to create.”

  “Okay.”

  He gestured to a long black couch. “That’s where you’ll be posing. Choose any position that makes you comfortable. I’ll have you hold the pose for a five minutes and then we’ll switch to other positions. This is more of a warm up sketching session for today.”

  “Should I wait for make up? I don’t usually wear any.”

  “Good. I don’t want anything on your face. I just want you. This session is about getting used to drawing you, playing with the curve of your chin and the exotic shape of your eyes. Toying with different shades of paint to capture the porcelain look of your skin and then there’s…your curves, of course.”

  “Of course,” I gave him a nervous smile. “My curves.”

  “Usually, my models are very thin. You’re curvaceous and..” He licked his lips, sighed, and clapped his hand. “Never mind all of that. Let’s get started. Would you like anything to drink or eat?”

  I was already surprised that I hadn’t vomited, as I walked naked around his place in nothing but an expensive fur. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

  I lay on the couch, making sure the coat remained closed as much as possible. As I got into my first position, simply lying on my side, the bottom of the coat opened and exposed my legs and barely remained closed at the top of my thighs.

  “Perfect,” he whispered.

  I looked up at him. My heart stopped.

  His gaze decorated my legs. “Are you nervous?’

  “Very much.”

  “I’m nervous too.”

  “Is that typical for when you start a project.”

  Sighing, he ran his fingers through his hair and picked up a piece of charcoal and a large sketch pad. “No, I’m never this nervous.”

  Hugo began drawing me. After five minutes, he told me I could get into a new position. Last night, I’d practiced a few, after researching modeling and did my best to keep him drawing and inspired.

  After twenty minutes, he continued to draw, but asked, “Are you less nervous?”

  “A little.” I swallowed. “But, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be fine.”

  “Feel free to talk.”

  “Oh, you’re not sketching my lips?”

  “No.” For a few seconds, he gripped the edge of his sketch pad with his hand, but didn’t look up. “I’ve already drawn those lips longer than I should have. At some point I had to get past the beauty of your face.”

  “Yes,” I giggled. “I always have that problem with guys. Men are just falling over themselves, trying to draw my lips. It’s a gift and a curse.”

  “You’re very funny too.”

  “And you’re very poetic.”

  “No, I just say exactly what I’m feeling. For example, If I could, wake up every day, and paint your face, I would. I’m that drunk off you.”

  What do I say to that?

  “No jokes this time?”

  “No. Just silent nervousness.” I swallowed, suddenly the coat was too hot and I wanted take it off. “So. . .what are you sketching now?”

  “I’m focused on the curve of your neck.”

  As soon as he said it, shivers of pleasure slipped along that spot as if he was right in front of me, gripping a paint brush and caressing my flesh with the tip. My nipples stiffened under the fur. I became moist and needy in all the right places. I’d prepared for a lot of things with this session—doing the right poses to inspire an artist, staying positive and in the moment, getting enough sleep, and eating a healthy meal before the moment began.

  What I hadn’t prepared on was my body reacting to him with such a hot intensity. And slowly, I started enjoying the session. Posing for him proved to be adventurous and utterly erotic.

  “So, how naughty are your books, Melody?” He stopped drawing and looked at me. “Wait. Let me guess. Dark and dirty.” He nodded his head as if I’d confirmed it. “Yes. Very dark and dirty.”

  “And why do say that?”

  “It’s in your eyes.”

  “Maybe, you’re projecting your own dark and nasty feelings on me.”

  He chuckled to himself. “Melody, if I got dark and nasty with you, there would be no maybes or doubts. You would know.”

  Our session continued like that. Words filled with promise. Flirting on both sides. And every now and then, a low groan would slip from those full lips of his. And my body would react. Warmth centered between my thighs. My nipples grew hard and yearning to be touched.

  And we were just in a room, creating art. Never had I experienced something so hot and passionate in the creative process. Never had I been moved so easily by any man.

  Watching him draw inspired me to write a hero that was an artist who fell in love with a woman that he asked to model. Chapters rushed to my head. I could see her coming to his house full of nervousness, but confident all the same. I could see the modeling session. It would be just like ours, boiling hot and lust thickening the air.

  Yes. Just keep it on paper. Don’t mess with him in real life. Make love to him on the paper.

  But still, I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. With each pose, I made sure he remained in my view. And at no moment, he complained.

  We talked a little more, but silence filled the rest of time. And so, our communication shifted to nonverbal messages of desire. With some poses, I exposed more skin, taunting him with my bare flesh, loving how he tried to stifle a groan. Other times, he seared me with a fiery gaze, that filled me with arousal. Once, I released my own low moan.

  It was a heated exchange of my teasing poses and those looks from him that touched me down to my core.

  In the middle of the session, he took his shirt off, and I wasn’t sure if he was hot or raising the stakes, taunting me as I teased him. Once his shirt fell to the ground, he sped up his movements. The charcoal danced and skated on the pages. The muscles on his arm flexed with his actions. Desire pulsed within me. And I squeezed my thighs together unable to look at him anymore without touching myself.

  Since becoming a struggling writer, I didn’t have time to date. Once I took the second job at Spin, my regular social life went out the window too. It had been a long time, since I’d enjoyed the pleasures of a man. And never in my life, had I experienced a man like him.

  Is he as passionate in bed, as he is with his art?

  By the second hour, Hugo no longer drew. He’d sat on the floor only a few feet away from me. So close, he could reach his hand out to touch me. And I couldn’t deny it, my skin craved his caress.

  He paused from sketching and stared at me, searing my flesh with his gaze. “You saved me. Did you know that?”

  “I didn’t save you. I just helped a little.”

  “No.” He set the sketch board on the ground next to him. “I owe you.”

  “You’ve already given me this pretty coat and you’re going to sign a big check. We’re even.”

  “No. You don’t understand.” He scooted closer and leaned his side against the couch. Taking a break, I lay my head on the pillow near his shoulder. I’d thought modeling would be super easy, but I’d discovered that holding positions caused an ache in muscles that I’d never considered. I would have to stretch tonight and soak in a hot bath.

  “How do you feel?” he ask
ed.

  “Fine.”

  “I scheduled a masseuse for after your session. Do your arms and legs hurt?”

  “They do.”

  “Then, promise me something.”

  “Sure.”

  “Always tell me the truth, when I ask, if you’re okay.”

  “I was okay. I can handle a few aches here and there.”

  “Yes,” he whispered, “but I want to take care of every place that hurts.”

  It was hard to breathe with him so close, and me so naked.

  “I’m a big girl, Hugo. Independent and awesome. I can handle all the places that hurt.”

  “Yes, but until I saw you yesterday, I was restless, depressed, and buying albums to distract myself from my lack of inspiration. And then the heavens parted and you appeared.”

  “More like, I walked out of the kitchen.”

  “That too.” He smiled. “You make jokes, when you’re nervous.”

  “And how do you know that I’m nervous?”

  “You’re clutching the top of that fur like it holds your heart inside of your chest, and if you let it go, you’ll die.”

  I swallowed. “Maybe, you make me nervous.”

  With that heated gaze of his, he leaned toward me. “Is it only when we’re this close?”

  His cologne swirled around me. I inhaled it and found myself lost in him, in the moment, in the soft fur along my body, in the art beautifying the room. So close, I drowned in Hugo and didn’t want to rise to the ocean’s surface. I wanted to stay at the bottom and be full of him.

  “You didn’t answer my question.” He turned his attention to my lips. “I only asked because...when I’m this close to you...I’m very nervous.”

  Desire surged through me.

  “You excite me.” Fire blazed through his eyes and he stared at me as if he was in a trance. And it was crazy, but I felt those same flames too, raging inside of my core.

  “Maybe, it’s the passion,” he said. “We both have it. You thrive off the passion for writing. And if someone told me that I could never paint again, I might...”

  “Jump off the tallest building,” I finished his sentence. “Yes, I know exactly how you feel.”

  So close, if I moved forward a few inches and he did too, we would be kissing.

  Silence moved between us and something else bridged between us too. It was hot and volcanic and bubbling at the top, ready to over flow. If we’d been anywhere else, doing anything else, I might’ve taken a chance. But in the end, this was a job. And he was a handsome, rich man that probably had a long list of women waiting to get inside his bed.

  I sat up on the couch and made sure the coat was still closed. “Is the session almost over?”

  Disappointment showed in his eyes, but he nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  I glanced at his sketch pad, but he shook his head and closed it. “No. No. Do you show your chapters, before you’re done?”

  “Never.”

  He rose from the floor and towered over me. “Then, you’re being a very naughty model by looking at my work, before it’s finished.”

  “Hmmm,” I stood up and the fur coat gathered around my legs, draping me in soft elegance. “I hope you don’t discipline your naughty models. I’m known to be very bad.”

  Smiling, I dragged myself away.

  Catching me off guard, he captured my arm and gently turned me around. “Hold on.”

  I looked up into that gorgeous face. “Yes?”

  “I shouldn’t ask you, but I really want to.” He paused from talking and slipped his fingers down the arm of my coat and then captured my hand.

  “What shouldn’t you be asking?”

  “Will you have dinner with me?” he said.

  Warmth spread across my skin. If he’d taken off my coat and kissed on any inch of me, I might’ve orgasmed right there. That very fact scared me. This was too fast. With sex and love, I took my time. Granted, I usually got bored as hell with the guy, but I always took my time.

  And here Hugo had my body blazing with lust and he’d barely touched me or spent that much time with me.

  Yet, curiosity peeked my interests. “Why shouldn’t you ask me out to dinner?”

  “Because for the first time in years, I have a muse. I don’t want to throw that away with dinner and what could happen after dinner.”

  “What could happen after dinner? That very presumptuous of you, just because I write naughty, doesn’t mean I am naughty.”

  “We’re both adults that wear our passions on our sleeves. I can see the desire glowing off you, just like you can see the lust all over my face.” He trailed his thumb along the lines of my palm. Shivers of delight ran through me. He closed the small distance between us and pressed his hard body against mine. “We both want each other. Tell me, if I’m wrong?”

  It wasn’t fair of him to ask me that, not with me being naked and horny under the fur coat. Not with him seducing me the entire session. Not with his sexy, poetic words and the hunger glowing in his gaze.

  “Tell me,” he said again. “Am I wrong?”

  “No.”

  He could’ve wrapped his arms around me or leaned down and press his lips against mine, but he remained in control and precise like a hunter. “What are we going to do about this feeling between us? It’s only one session and I’m this close from tearing that coat off you.”

  My breathing turned heavy.

  “We’re both smart. We see our art as more important than anything else. Surely, you’re not making waitressing a career. You’re doing it to get by. To pay a bill. To buy more tools to create more works. The fire that blazes inside of you, burns inside of me too. I can see myself in you.”

  Without hesitation, I whispered, “I feel the same way.”

  “Then, what do we do? What do you do, when passion for a man gets in the way of your work?”

  “I don’t know. That’s never happened to me,” I admitted. “My writing comes first. Even when I try to make a honest effort with a guy, I always forget to call. I always let too many weeks go by, without seeing him. After a while, his needing my time begins to annoy me. I’ve stopped dating just to not hurt anyone’s feelings anymore.”

  “So basically, you’re the female version of me.”

  I touched my chest. “No, you’re the male version of me.”

  He pulled me back to him. “I enjoyed our session today.”

  “I did too.”

  “Then, are we being greedy by wanting more?”

  I bit my bottom lip. I could barely think with him so close to me, his muscular chest molding against me.

  What should I do?

  “Maybe,” I said. “We should get this out of our system.”

  “Then, have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

  I tried to clear the lusty fog in my head to think things through, but nothing came up except images of Hugo naked, standing over me, and covering my body with paint. With that image, my breathing shifted to panting.

  “Okay,” I said. “Just dinner for now.”

  “Just dinner,” he nodded. “For now.”

  “And we take this slow.”

  “I agree.”

  “And we never forget the art. We stop, if it gets to be too much.”

  He licked his lips. “And what if we don’t want to stop?”

  My confidence weakened. “Then, we’re screwed.”

  Chapter 3

  Hugo

  The art series had to come first, but Melody was like no other model or woman.

  In just one session, I wanted to know everything about her. In just one session, I became so stiff in my pants that I had to remain standing behind the canvas to not scare her away. In just one session, I said forget hiding behind the canvas and sit right next to her, breathing in her sweet scent.

  How unprofessional?

  Models didn’t represent objects of desire. They were supposed to be studies of beaut
y. And while Melody triggered inspiration, desire also surged through my blood and throbbed in every bone, every time I looked at her. She was potent with charm. She made my heart stir and my body crave more.

  After she left, I kept wondering why I hadn’t taken her on that long black couch. Why hadn’t I slide the fur coat and exposed her naked body? Why hadn’t I slipped my fingers along that soft skin.