The Body Painter (Master of Trickery Book 1)

by Pepper Winters

  My nostrils flared, doing my best to control my rage. “I’ll do it. I’ll serve the detention.”

  “You weren’t the one talking.”

  “Don’t care. Olin wasn’t either.”

  “Punishment is given to those who deserve it.”

  I shivered. Her words were a little too close to the thoughts in my own head. I got it rough at home, but maybe...I deserved it.

  Maybe I wasn’t as good as I strived to be. Maybe my dad knew something about me that I didn’t, and his beatings were part of a punishment I did deserve.

  I shook those thoughts away. If that was the case, I would weather the storm. But I wouldn’t let Olin be hurt. She’d never done anything wrong in her life.

  Removing my fist from her desk, I backed up a step and lowered my voice. “Why do you hate me so much?”

  Her eyes widened. “Hate you? Why on earth do you think I hate you?”

  “Oh, I dunno. A few reasons.”

  “None that are real.” She waved her hand, her gaze once again landing on my body. “Now, run along.”

  “I’m not a child. I don’t ‘run along’.”

  She smiled coyly. “Oh, believe me. I know you’re not a child, Gilbert Clark.”

  I crossed my arms against the sudden chill. “I should be done with school if it wasn’t for you. I think the least I deserve is the truth. You don’t like me. I get it. I’m fine with it. But don’t take it out on Olin. She’s one of your best students.”

  “She was.” She sniffed. “Until she started hanging out with you.”

  “Her grades are still excellent.”

  Ms Tallup leaned over the table, casting a subtle glance at the door and empty corridor. “It’s not her grades I’m bothered about.”

  I swallowed hard as her eyes once again skated down my front, lingered on my jeans, then snaked their way back to my face. “I’m worried what you’re doing to her. She’s underage. You could be arrested.”

  “Arrested?” I backed up. “For what?”

  “For sleeping with your innocent little girlfriend.”

  I swallowed hard. I didn’t like this conversation at all.

  The dynamics were off. The subjects all wrong. No way should a teacher discuss a student’s love life. No way should the power she held be used to condemn and control me.

  Terror slicked down my spine. “Why do you care what Olin and I do outside of school hours?”

  She stilled. Her eyes flashed as she made a show of fluffing papers into a neat pile. “I don’t. But you should.”

  “Why?” Goosebumps dotted my arms as her face sharpened, dropping the pretence she’d held for years.

  With a short, tight chuckle, she whispered, “You’re a smart boy. You’ll figure it out.”

  She left me standing wordless and disgusted as she swept from the classroom with her hips swaying and a sly smile on her lips.

  Chapter Twenty

  ______________________________

  Olin

  -The Present-

  “WHAT DID YOU mean we both have to pay?”

  My question hung in the air as I stepped into Gil’s warehouse. He’d driven us here in a small hatchback that’d seen better days with chipped white paint and ripped upholstery. It didn’t smell like him nor had any sign of regular use.

  I’d held my tongue the entire journey.

  He hadn’t let me grab any clothes or asked if I needed to check on my apartment. He’d just bundled me into his run-down vehicle and squirreled me away in the same place he’d kicked me out of two days prior.

  I tried to be rational.

  I tried to be patient.

  But I’m running out of restraint.

  Gil didn’t answer my question, moving through the cavernous space with stormy steps. He looked angry. Angry at having me back in his space.

  Well, that makes two of us.

  The poise that’d been drilled into me by my dance master fissured a little. My composure that ensured no one ever knew just how lonely I was, frayed.

  Gil wanted me.

  That was undeniable.

  Gil would protect me.

  That was tried and tested.

  But...when it came to enlightening me about things happening in his life, he’d always been tricky. It’d always taken an argument for him to be honest. Always been me who’d had to push and push for answers.

  If only I’d pushed harder when he’d broken up with me, we might’ve salvaged what he’d broken.

  Don’t let him get away with secrets this time, O.

  He’ll shut down.

  Disappear.

  Again.

  Chasing after him, my determination not to let him ruin our second attempt overcame my need to be considerate of his pain. “Gil...you can’t just drag me here and then ignore me, you know.”

  He kept walking, his shoulders bunching as if my reprimand physically hurt him.

  “Gil.” I jogged after him, my heels clicking with each dainty step. My pinstripe skirt wasn’t exactly meant for quick strides. “You can’t avoid this. I deserve an explanation.”

  His hands fisted as he stopped beside a metal cabinet holding bottles upon bottles of paint. A rainbow of colour, all waiting to be smeared on some woman’s skin and photographed.

  I didn’t like the brushes waiting in their glass jars. I didn’t like the fresh sponges or neat nozzles of his air gun. I didn’t like anything to do with his art because it hurt so, so much that he’d evolved into someone immensely talented after sharing the first origins of that talent with me.

  No one else had known.

  And I’d been too stupid to understand just how important it was to him.

  My frustration smoked into something with sharper claws. Anger I hadn’t dealt with returned. Anger that’d settled deep inside, churning, hurting, demanding answers I could never earn.

  He’d only stolen my heart when I was younger, but this time, he’d stolen my body too. He’d shown me just how good we were together. Just how deep that lust and longing went, only for him to slam a door in my face.

  Literally!

  “You’re a master at hurting me these days, Gil,” I whispered with stilted, snowy words. “But I’m not young anymore, and I’m not going to let my mind run riot with wonder—not like when you rejected me at school. I refuse to lie to myself like I did back then...constantly believing you’d come back. Do you know how empty I felt as the months went by and you never returned? How hard it was to be honest and admit that you’d just had enough of me? I constantly came up with excuses for you: maybe your dad needed help with the family business. Maybe you suddenly didn’t have time for virgin girls anymore when you had whores living in the next room. It broke me, Gil, and I refuse to let you break—”

  “Don’t.” His eyes snapped to mine. “Don’t you fucking dare. Is that what you’ve thought of me?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “What? That you were sleeping with whores? It was one scenario.”

  “There were others?” His nostrils flared.

  “There were many. Some better, some worse.” I let truth be my weapon. “No answers leads to awful conclusions. You gave me nothing, so I thought the worst. And now, you’re doing the same and all I can think about is terrible, gruesome things. My mind is once again making up painful hypotheticals.”

  His shoulders tightened, face etching with despair. “Your conclusions will be better than any truth I can give you. I’d rather you think the worst of me than learn what I’m truly capable of.”

  I stilled. “It can’t be that bad.”

  He laughed, his tone empty. “It’s worse.”

  “Well...” I moved toward him slowly, keeping my own pain hidden. “Let me be the judge. Tell me and I’ll help in any way I can.”

  He held up his hand, trying to prevent me from encroaching on him. “You can’t help with this, Olin. No one can.”

  “That’s not for you to decide.”

  “It is. And I have.” He ran a hand over his
mouth, his eyes narrowing in vexation. “You shouldn’t even be here. I don’t know what I was thinking bringing you back.”

  “Then let me go home.” I crossed my arms. “I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself—”

  “You’re not leaving.”

  “You can’t keep me here against my will.”

  He stepped into me, his powerful presence crushing air from my lungs. “I can if it means you stay safe.”

  “Safe?” I blinked, staring into menacing green eyes. “How will you keep me safe when that arsehole has been in here? He’s probably beaten you up in this very room. You can’t keep me safe if you won’t raise a hand against him.”

  A flicker of something painful appeared and disappeared in his gaze. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” His brow scrunched and shadowed his face. “You don’t know what you’ve stumbled into.” His own anger soared past his control, raising his cold voice to a blizzard. “Why did you have to see my advertisement, huh? Why couldn’t you have stayed away? Stayed far away from me—a forgotten piece of my past? He wouldn’t care then. I wouldn’t be walking this goddamn tightrope.”

  “You can’t blame me for finding you. Life happens in mysterious—”

  “Life is the hardest fucking thing to endure. And you—” His chest rose and fell as if he suffocated for a proper breath. “You made it so much better when we were younger. But now...you’re making it a thousand times worse.”

  My heart broke, bleeding through the cracks. “That isn’t my intention, Gil. I’m trying to help—”

  “And I’m trying to keep you safe! Can’t you permit me to do that, seeing as I’m fucking useless at everything else?”

  His shout echoed around the warehouse, licking with rage.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, his head bowed. “Look, I’m sorry. I—”

  “It’s fine.” I sighed. “I don’t know why I expected you to finally trust me.”

  His eyes whipped up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you never told me stuff in the past, so why would you start now?” I ignored the drip, drip, dripping of my bleeding heart.

  We were going around in circles.

  Gil looked at the ground, effectively shutting me out.

  He might be talented with a brush, but he was also talented at keeping people at arm’s length. A glacier that refused to melt or yield.

  Moving around him, I plucked a bottle of paint from the metal shelf. His attention followed me, locking onto my hands as I rolled the deep blue from left to right.

  “Can you at least tell me about the phone calls?” I looked up, catching his stare as I slowly unscrewed the cap.

  “Phone calls?” He frowned, distracted enough by my seemingly unconnected topic.

  “The one you answered when you refused to give me the job. The night Justin argued on my behalf.”

  Anger flushed his neck; he growled. “Just a phone call.”

  “I don’t think it was.” Dabbing a spot of blue onto my fingertips, I rubbed them together, smearing the pigment. “It made you change your mind about painting me.”

  “I decided I needed the money.”

  “Money for blackmail.” My fingers kept smearing paint, my stomach a churning mess. I was glad I had something to focus on, rather than freezing in Gil’s frost.

  “Stop trying to connect dots that aren’t there, Olin.” He never took his eyes off me as if he hated me touching his things.

  “I think there is a connection.” I looked up briefly, studying how close I was to pushing him over the edge.

  Push harder.

  Earn answers.

  Be prepared to run if he snaps.

  “Doesn’t matter what you think.” His body vibrated with tension, his eyes heating with a faint wisp of lust. Lust for my hands as I rolled my wrists and danced my blue-smeared fingers in the air.

  He’d watched me enough when we were younger that my dancing was foreplay for him. The heavy focus of his desire, the erotic target of his want.

  Dancing for him drenched me in a spotlight of forbidden, sinful things.

  My tummy somersaulted as he sucked in a breath, unable to tear his eyes away from my painted hands.

  “And the phone call that interrupted our first kiss?” I touched the sleeve of my cream blouse with blue tipped fingers, switching topics, marking myself. “Was that unimportant too?”

  His jaw locked as hotter desire pooled around us. Sensuality suddenly threaded with frustration.

  “That’s a trick question,” he grumbled.

  “How is it a trick question?”

  “If I say it was unimportant, then I make our kiss seem as if it meant nothing. But if I say it was the most important phone call of my life, then you’re vindicated in chasing this topic.”

  I smiled gently, even as my heart fell over. “So which is it? Did our kiss mean something? Or was it merely a mistake?” I ran out of paint. I didn’t want to stop seducing him, ruining him. Grabbing the bottle, I tipped a puddle of rich royal blue into my palm.

  I willingly vandalized my own clothes when I didn’t have disposable income to buy more. The craving to touch his paint. To wield it like he did. To prove a point that what he valued could be borrowed, sampled, taken.

  And through it all, Gil stood frozen like a hunter. A hunter who would very much like to pounce.

  The rapidly thickening need between us drove me to recklessness.

  His voice gruffed with gravel. “I can’t answer that.”

  “You can.”

  “No, I can’t.” He groaned under his breath as paint slowly oozed through my fingers.

  Plop.

  Plop.

  Plo—

  His hand shot beneath mine, catching blue droplets, his gaze never leaving mine. “I don’t like wastage, O.”

  Such a simple, curt sentence, yet it sizzled with something potent and passionate.

  I shivered as I deliberately tipped my palm, sending a thick river of blue into his. “And I don’t like being left in the dark.”

  He looked at the paint in his hand. His jaw worked. His eyes flashed. “You don’t have a choice.”

  Our argument twisted with something dangerous.

  My gaze landed on his handsome, exhausted face, an invitation husky in my throat. “I choose not to lose you for the second time.”

  In a flash, he reached for my throat, his skin slippery and cold with blue.

  I gasped as his fingers latched around me, squeezing the pigment into my flesh. It bled between us, thick and rich, dribbling down my chest and into my cleavage.

  Gil followed every track, his gaze hypnotic and hazy. “You can’t lose what you don’t have.”

  My nipples pebbled; time stood still. “I’ve always had you.”

  Breathlessness tortured me as his fingers unlocked from my neck and smeared heavy and possessive down my chest. He cupped my breast, ruining my blouse with sapphire streaks. “That’s what you believe?” His nose grazed mine. “That I belong to you?”

  “Yes.” My heart hammered against my ribs. “Just like I belong to you.”

  Darkness clawed over his face. “I can’t own what isn’t mine to take.” His thumb feathered over my pulse, his lips thinning as my rapid heartbeat revealed just how undone I was.

  My head grew heavy, my body swaying under his touch. “I was yours the very first day we spoke.”

  His fingers kneaded my breast even as he shook his head. “I only borrowed you...I didn’t claim you.”

  I bit my lip as his thumb circled my hardened nipple, drawing a crescent blue moon around it. I couldn’t look away from the smeared graffiti or the way Gil’s jaw locked with fury.

  Desire didn’t just whisper between us.

  It positively set fire to us.

  Fireworks of need.

  Explosions of lust.

  “We’re family, Gil.” My eyes hooded. “Family isn’t temporary. It’s forever.”

  “Stop.” His fingers s
licked over the column of my throat, pushing me into the metal shelves behind me. “Please fucking stop.” A cloud of rage and rapture twisted his voice—two opposing colours mixed with a sharp palette knife.

  My spine bruised as he pinned me to the many bottles and apparatus behind me.

  The things Gil hid weren’t ordinary, simple secrets. They cast a shadow over everything. An ominous skulking demon that he pretended wasn’t real. They devoured him from the inside out. They left him the ghost of the boy he’d once been.

  But standing there, with his fingers latched on me in possession, his paint on me in ownership, and our chests panting to the same erratic beat, there was simplicity instead of complication.

  “Stop?” I arched into him, no longer caring about secrets and safety. No longer brave enough to fight for answers.

  This was important.

  This was needed.

  Him.

  Me.

  Us.

  “Are you sure?” I whispered.

  His entire body shuddered. For a moment, I hoped he’d spill everything. It was all there, swimming in his gaze. Dreadful, grim things he’d endured without telling me. Hard, painful things he’d buried, deep, deep inside. But then he broke eye contact and embraced the ice he’d mastered. “I can’t do this again.”

  I leaned into his hold, pressing my neck into his control. I wanted to nuzzle him—to rub against his cheek like a cat. “It’s just us, Gil. No one else.”

  His groan sent goosebumps scattering over me. “There’s always someone else. Something else.”

  “There doesn’t have to be.”

  He caged me tighter against the shelves. “I’ve already put you in enough danger.” His power and heat rippled in waves. His hips pressed mine into submission. The hard hotness in his jeans said I wasn’t the only one unravelling, even though he fought it. “I can’t touch you again.”

  His words and body were enemies. His body vibrated with sexual hunger; his voice condemned with denials.

  He fought me.

  He fought us.

  I grew wet as well as furious. “You already touched me.” I looked pointedly at my blue-smeared breast, his fingers preventing my chin from tipping too far. “Your hand is on me, listening to my pulse, knowing how much I want you.”