Take Me

by Tracy Wolff

  Just the idea is absurd. Partly because he’s the great Deacon Vick and I’m just another art student, just another model interchangeable with a thousand others that he’s sketched...and fucked. And partly because he’s just Deacon, a man who wears his no trespassing signs like a king wears his crown.

  The fact that I want to get beneath those signs—that I want to dig them up, throw them away, burn them if I have to—means I’m in deeper than I ever expected to be. Certainly deeper than I want to be.

  Just thinking like this makes me feel vulnerable and the position Deacon has me in doesn’t help. I shift without conscious thought, bringing my legs together and rolling to my side. It’s a futile, but instinctive effort to hide the turmoil roiling around inside of me by hiding the rest of me.

  After all, he can’t break what he can’t see.

  “What the hell are you doing?’ Deacon’s voice slices like a whip through the air between us. “Don’t move!”

  I freeze midroll, remind myself that the only reason I’m here is to pose for him. Feeling vulnerable won’t change that. Nothing will, save me quitting and I can’t do that right now. Not if I want to pay my tuition by the fall deadline, which I definitely do.

  And not if I ever want to see Deacon again.

  “Sorry,” I whisper, stretching back out exactly how he had me before. “I got distracted.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I’m not looking at him now, but I can practically see the eyebrow raise. “By what?”

  I don’t know what to say. I sure as shit can’t tell him the truth, that I was thinking about sculpting him...and about how much I’m growing to care for him, despite myself. I’m smart enough to know that admitting the latter is a surefire way to get kicked to the curb.

  But I’m a terrible liar, so making something up is out too. In the end, I settle for a half-truth and a quick plea to the universe to let me get away with it. “By you. Obviously.”

  “Good answer,” he tells me with a laugh. “But it’s still not going to get you out of trouble.”

  “Who said I want out of trouble?”

  His eyes darken, but in the end he just shakes his head and continues drawing—of course. I’m beginning to hate that damn sketchpad.

  I go back to staring at the clouds and willing myself to fall asleep.

  It obviously works, because the next thing I’m aware of is Deacon leaning over me, his eyes filled with laughter as he presses soft kisses to my lips and cheeks.

  “Oh, thank God. You’re finally done.” I push him away so I can stretch.

  “Not done,” he counters. “Just ready for you to switch to a different position.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Aren’t you bored yet?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of drawing you. When future critics look back on this period of my work, they’ll call it the Hope era.”

  I like the sound of that—too much. Which is exactly how I like Deacon—far too much.

  He kisses me then, and it’s a real kiss this time. One that curls my toes and straightens my hair and leaves me trembling all over. When he starts to pull away, I make a grab for him, twisting my fingers in the front of his shirt and holding him to me for several more seconds. If this is all I’ll ever have of him, I’ll take it. More, I’ll be greedy with it.

  He stays, hands stroking up and down my back and lips tender against my own, until my stomach growls, loud and long between us.

  “I guess it’s break time after all,” he says, reaching for his backpack as he pulls away.

  I release him reluctantly. I don’t want to let him go, but I am starving—evinced by the fact that my stomach growls again. “Please tell me you’ve got a candy bar in there.”

  “Sorry, no candy bar.”

  I sigh huffily as I shrug back into my robe. “Well, what good are you then?”

  “Believe me, that’s a question I ask myself daily,” he answers as he pulls out a bunch of small plastic containers and lays them on the blanket in front of me.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Why don’t you open them up and find out?”

  Surprise holds me immobile for several seconds as I try to wrap my head around the fact that big, bad Deacon Vick has packed us a picnic. He may not call it that—in fact, I’m pretty sure he’d snarl at me if I even attempted to use the word—but that doesn’t make it any less true.

  Deacon has taken me on a picnic.

  My defenses—which I’ve worked so hard to shore up—thaw just a little. As does my heart. And that’s before I pop open one of the containers to reveal real homemade chocolate chip cookies.

  He baked. For me.

  Forget thawing. I might just melt into a puddle of goo if he keeps this up.

  I make quick work of opening the other containers, revealing a bunch of dishes that it obviously took time to put together. Samosas, cut veggies and dip, fruit salad, pasta salad. There’s even a cheese plate, for God’s sake, complete with baguette and a fig jam I’ve been dying to try. It’s basically a smorgasbord of my favorite things and I don’t know how he knew. More, I can’t believe he did this. For me. There’s a part of me that wants to cry and another part that wants to launch myself at him and kiss him senseless.

  In the end, I do neither. Instead, I sit back and watch as he pulls a bottle of wine from the bottom of his backpack.

  “You seem like a red wine drinker,” he says, holding up the Malbec. “So I took a risk. But I brought water, too, in case I was wrong.”

  “Malbec is perfect, actually.” I reach for the two tumblers he’s dropped on the blanket, and hold them out to him as he opens the wine. “One of my favorites. Just like the rest of this stuff. How’d you know?”

  He shrugs. “You study a person long enough and you see things they have no idea they’re showing.”

  I don’t like the sound of that, even though I know it’s true. Especially because I know it’s true. I do the same thing, after all. Most artists do.

  Still, the idea of him seeing this much? Of him dissecting me, picking me apart even as he sketches me in all kinds of vulnerable positions? It freaks me out. A lot. I’ve worked too hard to hide certain parts of myself to be comfortable with the idea of everything being on display for anyone, let alone Deacon.

  And still, I can’t resist asking, “What do you see when you look at me?” Now that it’s out there between us, I can’t imagine not knowing.

  For long seconds, he doesn’t answer. Instead, he just stares at me as if trying to figure out what he wants to say...or, more specifically, how much he wants to tell me. Which only makes me more nervous, though I’ll be damned if I ask again. I won’t beg anyone—not even the great Deacon Vick.

  Eventually, he grabs a couple of grapes from the fruit salad and holds one up to my lips until I take it. He pops the second one in his mouth and makes me wait several more seconds until he’s swallowed it. “What do you want me to see?” he finally asks.

  “Nothing.” It comes out before I know I’m thinking it, let alone that I’m going to say it. Which makes him smile almost sympathetically.

  “You probably shouldn’t be an artist’s model then.”

  “I’ve modeled for a number of other artists. They’ve only ever seen what they wanted to see.”

  “That’s because you’re good at hiding.” He reaches up, strokes the back of his hand over my cheek.

  “Obviously, not from you.”

  “No, not from me.”

  Forget being naked, I’ve never felt more vulnerable in my life than I do right now.

  It hurts.

  Thank God my stomach growls again, shattering the moment better than I ever could.

  Deacon laughs as he lets me go. “Here, eat before you starve.” He picks up a samosa and holds it out to me.

  I devour it and reach for an apple slic
e, determined to use whatever time we have to pick Deacon’s brain and—maybe—even learn a little more about him.

  “So, why iron?” I ask before popping the apple in my mouth.

  “Why not iron?” he counters.

  I laugh. I can’t help it. “Same old Deacon,” I murmur as I reach for another fruit slice.

  He beats me to it, snatching up a piece of pear and holding it to my lips. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’ve read that answer in at least half a dozen interviews you’ve done.” It doesn’t surprise me that it’s the same answer he’s given everyone else, but it does sting a little

  “Must mean it’s true then,” he says with a smirk, like it’s news that I’ve read articles about him.

  Which is an absolute joke. Even if I wasn’t into iron myself, I’d have read stuff about him—in school and on my own. Hard to miss one of the most successful artists working today.

  “Was it always iron?” I ask, though it’s another favorite interview question. “Or was there another medium you tried first? Or other mediums you like to experiment with, even if you don’t do public pieces in them?”

  He doesn’t answer right away and I hold my breath, wondering if he’s going to say something more than his usual, I tried everything, but iron’s what I’m good at so I stuck with it schtick. It’s a bunch of bull and everyone knows it—artists like Deacon have talent that transcends mediums—but he sticks with it anyway.

  It’s stupid thinking that he’ll say more to me, masochistic even, but I wait for it anyway.

  “I tried everything,” he says with a shrug, “but iron’s what I’m good at.”

  I exhale in a disappointed rush because apparently I’m stupid and masochistic. Otherwise, why would the little sting from earlier suddenly feel like a gut punch?

  There’s a million things I want to say, but I don’t have the right to any of them, even if we are fucking. So I do the only thing I can do. I reach for a cracker and shove the whole thing into my mouth.

  Can’t talk if my mouth is full—and dry—enough.

  “More wine?” Deacon asks after a couple minutes pass in silence.

  He holds the bottle over my glass like he’s about to pour, but I shake my head. The last thing I need right now is more alcohol. I need to beat the hurt—and my foolish expectations—back into submission first.

  “What about you?” he asks after pouring himself a second glass of wine. “Why iron?”

  Part of me wants to be snide and give the exact same answer he gave me, but I’m not that petty. Plus, if I do, that means I’ll be giving him the power to control how I act and what I say. I’ve fought too hard to be who I am. No way am I giving it up to anyone, even Deacon Vick.

  Especially Deacon Vick.

  “Iron just feels right,” I answer eventually. “When I hold it in my hands, when I shape it, when I make it become whatever I want it to be, it feels real. And it makes me feel real, too.”

  Deacon freezes, glass halfway to his mouth. His eyes are dark now, his pupils so blown out that they almost cover his entire iris.

  “Because if you can control something as strong as iron, you can control everything else, too,” he says, voice hoarse and a little stilted. “You can hold everything else in check.”

  It’s my turn to freeze, my turn to have everything inside me go still except for my rampaging heart. “Yes. Thoughts and pain and—”

  “Memories.” His voice is so low and dark that it’s nearly a growl. The sound sends a shiver down my spine, though I don’t know if it’s from fear or arousal or a little bit of both.

  Probably both.

  “I used to blow glass,” I tell him softly, my gaze locked with his. “But it kept breaking. No matter how well I tempered it. No matter how careful I was. It would shatter when I touched it.”

  Because I’ve always been one to hold on too tight when I should just let go.

  Instinctively I hold my hand out, show him the scars on my palms and the long jagged one across my left wrist that looks like a suicide scar—and sometimes feels like one, too.

  He sees it. I can tell by the way he cups my hand in his and the way his thumb strokes featherlight across the old wound. His touch gets to me like it always does, has the hair on the back of my neck standing up and shivers of arousal working their way down my spine. Back and forth, his thumb glides. Back and forth.

  Then slowly, so slowly that at first I’m not even sure what’s happening, he lifts my hand to his mouth. And carefully, tenderly, kisses Every. Single. One. Of. My Scars.

  My breath catches in my throat and inside me I feel something break, feel something shatter like all that long ago glass.

  And that’s before I feel the first layer of my defenses start to fall for the first time in forever.

  I’m spellbound as his lips linger at my pulse point, his tongue lightly tracing the scars and the veins that lay underneath them. I can’t move, can’t think, can barely breathe.

  I gasp out his name—and it’s half prayer, half sob—as he pulls me toward him. And then he’s kissing me, slow and deep and so thorough that I feel it all the way inside of me. Feel him all the way inside of me. Reaching up, I tangle my hands in his hair and hold him to me as I open to him in a way I open to no one else.

  His tongue delves deep inside my mouth, his hands slip inside the lapels of my robe and he strokes his thumbs back and forth across my nipples until every part of me aches with the need to have him inside me.

  I reach for him, start to fumble with his belt but he stops me with a gentle hand on mine.

  “Deacon, please. I need—”

  “I know, darlin’. But first...” He tugs at my robe until it falls off one shoulder. Then he moves back and reaches for his sketchbook, leaving my whole body seething with desire. With need.

  “Seriously?” I demand. “I haven’t had you inside me since five this morning and you have to draw me right now?”

  “Yes, right now,” he answers, feeling around for his pencil as he refuses to take his eyes off mine. “This is exactly how I want to draw you. Don’t move.”

  “Fuck you,” I growl, but I don’t move. Instead I sit here, legs crossed, hair tumbling over my shoulders, and let him do his worst. Because he asked me to. And because I’m suddenly, overwhelmingly aware that there isn’t anything I won’t give this man if he asks it of me.

  And just that easily I’m terrified all over again.

  Friday: Deacon

  She’s on time today and still I’m waiting for her by the door like an overeager puppy. I hate it, but not enough to do anything about it. Certainly not enough to send her on her way. How can I when there’s still so much I want to pull from her? Still so much I want to do to her?

  I would have given any other model her walking papers two days ago, but Hope’s different. I hired her for two weeks and though we aren’t yet at the end of the first week, I’m already dreading what happens ten days from now. Already hating the idea of writing her a check and watching her walk away from me.

  It’s why I always walk first. And why I’m so concerned that this time I won’t be able to.

  “Where do you want me today?” she asks, hands already on the buttons of her white blouse. It’s a subtle variation of the question she asks me half a dozen times a day, and still it hits me hard. Still it makes me think of all the different places and ways I want her, and how we don’t have time to explore even one hundredth of them before our time together is up.

  “In my car,” I answer, taking her elbow and propelling her back through the door she just walked through.

  She looks surprised, but not unhappy as she lets me guide her. “Are we going back to the meadow?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that certainly clears things up. Thanks.” She rolls her eyes at me.

  “I’ve got a mee
ting in the city and you’re coming with me.”

  “Santa Cruz?” she asks dubiously.

  “San Francisco.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have skipped a couple classes or something so you still would have had time to sketch.”

  “I have every intention of sketching you today,” I tell her. “Just not in my studio.”

  “In San Francisco?”

  “Yes.” I open the car door for her, this time letting her climb in under her own power before heading around to the driver’s side.

  “What’s in San Francisco?” she asks the moment I open the door.

  “The Griffin Building.”

  I don’t tell her anything else, even after I’ve slid behind the wheel. Then again, judging from the look on her face, I don’t have to. It’s obvious she already knows about the commission, already knows that I was asked to design a three-piece consecutive sculpture for their lobby, front courtyard and gardens.

  I almost turned it down—I don’t need any more money—but then they said the magic words. Total artistic freedom. That, combined with the chance to create three autonomous sculptures that are actually all pieces of one larger work, was too good an offer for me to pass up. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do—a piece within a piece on a giant scale—and if they want to pay me over a million dollars to do it, who am I to say no?

  “So, what’s the meeting about?” she asks as I head toward Highway 1.

  “I want another look at the space now that I know what I want to do. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “So you’ve finally decided?” She leans forward in her seat, a huge grin on her face. “What are you going to do?”

  I shoot her a mild look as I make the turn onto the Pacific Coast Highway. “Why do you care?”

  “Everyone cares.” She’s practically bouncing in her seat as she grabs my free hand and pulls it to her chest. “This is the biggest news to hit the California art world in a decade. So come on, spill.”

  “The California art world needs to get a life.”