Covered In Paint: Book Five of the Art Of Love Series

by Donna McDonald

  “He had a house full of kids to take care of,” Brooke exclaimed.

  “He had a house full of college kids. It’s not like they require a babysitter, Brooke.” Jessica held her daughter’s belligerent gaze.

  “Okay. You found me out, Mom. I’m scared—okay? Drake scares me. His kiss scares me. He makes me forget my own name until he says it again,” Brooke all but yelled.

  “Oh honey—I’m so sorry,” Jessica said, pushing her bottom lip out in a pout. “You’re a goner already.”

  Brooke put both hands on the table and leaned forward. “Mom—the man promised to step in front of me in case of a zombie attack. What am I supposed to do with someone like him?”

  Both Jessica’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow. It’s not everyday you come across a man willing to sacrifice his brain for you. Drake must be as desperate for you as you are for him.”

  Brooke raked a handful of crackers into her hand and proceeded to pelt her laughing mother with them.

  Chapter 5

  “When did you first find the lump?”

  “A few days ago when I did my monthly breast exam. Normally I do it on the last day of my cycle. I was a little late doing it this time because I’ve had a lot going on,” Brooke replied.

  She felt Dr. Mason press down as she palpitated the tiny, hard knot.

  “Are you having any unusual discomfort in your breasts?”

  “No—just the normal tenderness before my period—but none after. I’ve had these lumps before. They tend to come and go. If we need to change my birth control, I’m okay with doing that. I’m not sexually active right now anyway. This would be a good time.”

  “You can sit up now, Brooke.”

  Brooke rose to a seated position, refastened her bra, and pulled her shirt back down. The doctor waited patiently and then smiled kindly at her before launching into more explanation.

  “Lumps can sometimes be the result of hormonal fluctuations, but it is usually safest to rule out everything of concern before accepting any one conclusion. Given your history of these lumps happening over and over, I’d like to do a mammogram and see what it shows us about your breast health.”

  Brooke nodded numbly. “Okay. Sure. When do you want me to get it done?”

  She watched the doctor lift the tablet and key in some information.

  “When you check out, the front desk will print the mammogram order for you to take with you. They can also schedule the appointment. Let’s get it done quickly and then we’ll call if we need to see you again. You have a lot of fibrous tissue in your breasts, which sometimes makes it challenging to get a clear reading. You’re a smart woman to do your self-exams so faithfully.”

  Brooke nodded. “So what happens if we find something that needs to be addressed?”

  “We’ll do some more tests—probably a biopsy of the existing lump or maybe even remove the entire thing to really be sure. Either way we’ll get everything tested for malignancy. Many tumors are benign, but some are not. Early detection is key to fighting the spread to surrounding tissue.”

  Brooke eased out a breath and stared at the wall. “Okay. Thank you. I like to be prepared for what has to happen.” She flinched when the doctor touched her arm.

  “Try not to worry about the results. It’s a small lump, and we don’t know what it is yet. Don’t let concern stop you from living your life,” Doctor Mason advised.

  Brooke nodded and watched her slip quietly out the door.

  ***

  Another two weeks passed and finally Brooke couldn’t stand waiting any longer to see Drake again.

  She knew it was his classroom because she could hear Drake talking inside. She grinned as she heard him starting to lecture. That sexy voice of his was melodious and very soothing. Hearing him speak so low and so seriously caused a reaction in her underwear that was no longer surprising even if it was always mildly uncomfortable. It certainly gave her a sudden and full comprehension of why so many female students and faculty lusted for the elusive man.

  But what was she thinking? Wasn’t she one of them? Wasn’t that why she was here?

  Lust had her wanting to know everything she could about him. Her epiphany about her feelings after talking to her mother made her even more nervous than she would have been normally. It also made her uncertain of what to do now since she had invaded Drake’s work area this far.

  She was still standing outside the classroom chewing her lip when two non-traditional female students came from their sidewalk smoke break obviously late to his class.

  “Hi,” she said when they stared at her. “I came to audit Dr. Barrymore’s ass today.”

  She didn’t know what to think when they looked at each other and burst out laughing. They covered their mouths to hold it in as much as they could. When they calmed, both grinned at her. Up close, she could tell they were close to her age.

  “Honey, we’d all like to audit Dr. Barrymore’s ass. The man has a great ass,” the first woman declared.

  “Not ass. I meant class—I meant I’m here to audit his class,” Brooke whispered fiercely, her face heating over her tongue slip.

  “Uh-huh. Sure you did,” the second woman commented, rolling her eyes.

  The first woman laughed again. “A word of advice, honey. Don’t bother volunteering to model. We’ve all tried it. We’ve never seen Dr. Barrymore react to a naked woman. If it wasn’t for the art teacher he’s banging in Louisville, I would swear the man was gay.”

  Brooke told herself not to ask any questions, but it was beyond her. What the hell?

  “He’s seeing an art teacher in Louisville?”

  “Yeah. We think she’s his booty call when he needs a fix. He told Melanie about her when she hit on him. Tell her, Melanie,” the first woman ordered the second.

  “Yep. Dr. Barrymore said he was dating a teacher in Louisville,” the second confirmed.

  “Although I have heard different rumors lately,” the first said, peeking into the classroom and then looking back.

  “What rumors?” Brooke prompted, another nosy question popping out on its own.

  “I’ve heard he’s got a thing for a new teacher on campus,” the first said.

  “Who…who…” Brooke cleared her throat so she could get it out. “Who is it?”

  They both answered with a shrug, and she visibly relaxed. Wow. Campus gossip practically flew around here. U of C had never been like this…not that she had known about anyway.

  “Well, we better get in there. He’s started lecturing already. We’re working on form today. You picked a boring class to audit. Where’s your stuff? Aren’t you drawing?”

  Brooke shook her head. “No. Not today. I just thought I would see what it was like.”

  “If you like drawing naked women, you’re in the right place,” the second snipped, slipping into the room.

  “Come in quietly so you don’t get the evil eye. He’s been known to kick people out for disrespecting the models,” the first advised, following her friend.

  After they had both gone into the classroom, Brooke reached back, twirled a lock of hair and caught herself. She dropped her hands and lifted her chin. What on earth was she nervous about? “So you have a booty call woman in Louisville, eh? Well, we’ll just see about that, Dr. Barrymore.”

  Her intention was to march into the room and take a seat, but instead she stopped short at the door. Her gaze was arrested by the sight of a naked and attractive twenty-year-old blonde reclining on a red cushioned bench at the front of the class. Everyone could see the full back of her body from hairline to toes.

  Pacing near her, Drake asked her to turn her upper body slightly toward him and put her gaze on the ceiling. She did as his low voice commanded until one hard-nippled, perky twenty-year-old breast pointed skyward under his intense gaze. Drake nodded in approval of her new position and returned to pointing out the curves of her spine and hips. And yes—her now pointy-nippled breast too—as he explained how to capture the curve of it in a drawin
g.

  She was both stunned and humiliated.

  Brooke guiltily recalled how Drake’s mesmerizing voice had shut down her mind a time or two. This wasn’t taking into account the fact that the man had silenced her tongue every time he had kissed her. Yet nothing she knew about him had prepared her for what she felt, seeing him standing so close to a naked woman who wasn’t her.

  After staring at the scene for several long minutes, her rapidly firing brain started offering dozens of logical deductions. It was absolutely the fastest set of conclusions she’d ever drawn in her life, but she was too shocked to enjoy her mind working so brilliantly. All her reservations about getting involved with the dark and brooding man she craved were suddenly explainable.

  She knew for sure now that Drake wasn’t the one—could never be the one. Their age difference was widely reflected in the sum of their life experiences. But his intense gaze on the naked twenty-year-old made every conclusion she was drawing even more crystal clear.

  Suddenly all the time she had spent wondering how Drake would react to the first sight of her youthful body rose up to embarrass her. It was obvious now her personal angst had been for no good reason. Obviously the man was used to seeing perky breasts every damn day. Why would he be impressed with hers?

  The naked breast she could see plainly, even from the back of the cavernous room, was still pointing at the ceiling and looking like an advertisement for a silicone implant. Brooke knew her very real breasts were still quite nice, but they weren’t anything extraordinary.

  And they certainly weren’t twenty anymore.

  Not that any man had complained about her breasts to date, but still…hers couldn’t compare to the perfect set all his students were scrambling to capture on their sketch pads.

  Brooke shook her head, as if the motion might help to sort out her scrambled thoughts. Future possibilities danced over her realizations, leaving doubts on top of doubts in their wake.

  What if—God forbid—the lump in her breast became a genuine cause for concern? What if something were to happen to her real breasts?

  Thinking about Drake having access to perfect breasts anytime he wanted to view them made her nearly ill. The lump might be nothing or not, but now the potential loss of that body part was not something she could imagine ever sharing with the man pacing in front of a set of perfect ones.

  As she watched Drake talking about the nude woman’s curves and lines, all her initial impressions of his shallowness came pouring back, including his statement about wanting to paint her. She remembered her mother’s argument that naked had not been implied in his artistic request. Well, boy was her mother wrong for once. Normally catching Jessica Daniels in an error of judgment gave her great satisfaction. At the moment, the reality she saw in front of her own eyes was just too stark.

  At the time Drake had confessed to her about not dating, she had actually believed his story. Now she found it highly questionable, even though it was hard to imagine the concerned father figure he was being such a convincing liar when it came to women.

  That didn’t make any sense.

  But why hadn’t Drake caved like a normal man with needs and dated one of the naked women he saw all the time? Certainly not all of them were students…not that the two students she met in the hall had much going on in the looks department, but…shit.

  Drake had told her he’d never brought a woman he dated home with him while Brandon was there. Was he that damn picky about how his women looked? Just what kind of standards of beauty did the man have?

  Then it occurred to her—maybe Drake had the opposite problem. Maybe the man was bored with female perfection. Maybe only his dead wife had ever been worthy of his true appreciation. Maybe his dead wife’s illness had warped his ability to appreciate the beauty of any other woman’s form.

  How screwed up mentally would it make him if what she feared was true? Did Drake need weird, extravagant things to get turned on?

  Maybe the art teacher in Louisville worked because she was someone who had learned to play to his kinky side which wanted something other than perfection.

  Now she REALLY wanted to know what his booty-call woman looked like.

  Brooke stared again at the twenty-year-old model. Drake’s hand hovered just above her nipple as he talked. All the woman had to do was raise her body a fraction, and it would brush his fingers. Did that sometimes happen naturally?

  Well lumpy breasts or not, she for sure did not need this kind of worry…or competition.

  “I can’t do this. No. I can’t. I need normal and straight and…I don’t know…but something else. Not this,” Brooke whispered quietly, shaking her head as she eased herself out the classroom door again.

  She was glad now she hadn’t made eye contact with him across the large cavernous art classroom. No—she needed time to think of what she was going to say to him to break things off.

  With a sad sigh of resignation, Brooke headed out of the art building. All thoughts of seducing Drake had fled completely the moment the younger woman had obeyed his command to tilt her perfect breast up for him to gaze down on it.

  The walk back to the philosophy building was silent and long as she thought about how close she had come to actually seducing a man she was never going to understand sexually.

  She consoled herself about the knot in her stomach. Confronting the uncomfortable truth today had likely saved her from worse pain if her feelings for him had gotten any stronger. And okay—now she had a few more epiphanies to process.

  For one, she had to come to terms with the fact that when it came to dealing with artists, she was not the wild, free-spirited daughter of Jessica Daniels. Not that it mattered—she wouldn’t let it. She could handle being sexually conservative if suffering Drake’s artistic life was the price of its opposite.

  Secondly, her natural guard with him now suddenly made all kinds of sense. No wonder Michael and Shane hadn’t appealed to her. Were they like him too? Oh God—was Will? Not that her brazen mother would care if Will looked at naked women every chance he got. Jessica Daniels wouldn’t care one bit. Instead, her mom would strip in front of everyone and let Drake’s students draw her while he ran his hand over her womanly curves and lines.

  Snorting at the most humiliating image imaginable, Brooke walked faster. She didn’t consider herself a prude, but she had never understood art’s fascination with nudity and all manner of sexual nuance. Until today, she thought she had accepted those liberal views in her mother. Maybe she had, but it was sure a hell of a lot different to confront such openness in a man you wanted to sleep with.

  Her first instinct had been right as usual, and she should have trusted it. Getting naked with Drake was just not going to be able to happen. The last thing she needed was to wonder what was really going on behind Drake’s intense, soul-stealing gaze traveling over her own curves.

  If such a worry made her a prude—fine.

  She would own the label, but she refused to allow her naked aging body to be continually compared with much younger ones.

  Funny, she had sought Drake out today because she had begun thinking of him as her lover before he had even become one. Instead of finding a lover today, she had found out some very painful truths about herself.

  Maybe she was just plain old conservative Brooke Daniels—staid philosopher and wistful romantic. The bottom line was there was nothing wrong with her. It was perfectly fine that her dreams were of babies, a home, and a guy who thought her breasts were the only ones he ever needed to see.

  There was absolutely no logical reason to change her plans or her views for someone like Drake Barrymore, who she was never going to understand. She didn’t need his approval, his praise, or him.

  And she had enough to worry about where her breasts were concerned. She didn’t need to be concerned about the ones Drake was ogling.

  Chapter 6

  Cold water in hand, Michael was heading back out the patio door to his latest project when the doorbell rang. Swe
aring mildly at the interruption, he trudged to the hallway to see who it was. He peered through the peephole, saw a cascade of red curly hair, and grinned. Opening the door wide, his smile faded when it was met with sad eyes and a frown. “Hi,” he said cautiously.

  Brooke sighed and waved. “Got time to talk for a few minutes? I have to get back to class in an hour, but I needed…hell. I needed to talk to someone…like a brother…I guess. I don’t know, since I never had one before. Anyway, congratulations. I picked you instead of Shane.”

  Surprised, but curious too, he waved Brooke inside. “Sure. Come on in. Want something to drink?”

  “Got a real soda? I could use the caffeine.”

  Michael nodded and headed to the refrigerator. When he’d fetched her drink and a glass of ice, he turned to find Brooke sitting at the table and staring at the scratches on the surface. She was tracing them like they were Braille.

  “What’s got you so down today?”

  Brooke raised her gaze to Michael’s, then looked away to pour her soda over the ice. She gave her jittery insides and the bubbles in her glass time to settle before she spoke. It had to be said quickly because there was nothing that could ease the discomfort of the question.

  “When you were in art school, did you draw or paint a lot of nude models?”

  Michael picked up his water and opened it as he pondered the question. He took a drink as he looked at Brooke’s defeated gaze, wondering what the hell had happened to send her to ask him inane questions about his artistic education.

  “Sure. It’s standard practice for learning the lines and forms of the human body. Why do you ask?”

  Brooke tightened her jaw, not ready to reveal her reasons. “So did you ever sleep with any of the models? Wait—that’s not my real question. I don’t care about actualities. I care about feelings and motivations. Did you ever want to sleep with any of the models after staring at them for hours?”

  “Being a guy, I’m not sure how to answer such a question without condemning myself,” Michael replied, wary of the steel in her gaze. Brooke looked exactly like Jessica when she was pissed, but he knew better than to say that to her at the moment. He’d been around his stepsister enough now to know that looking so much like her mother was a sore point with Brooke.