Take Me

by Tracy Wolff

  “I won’t deny that. But come on. Seriously. You have to tell me.”

  “I have to tell you, huh?” I shoot her a look. “Why is that exactly?”

  “Because I’ll make it worth your while.” She shoots me a comically sultry look that still manages to go straight to my dick.

  “Pretty sure you’ll make it worth my while even if I don’t tell you,” I say with a snort.

  “Well, yeah. Obviously. But I still want to know what you’re going to do! I’ve seen pictures and the space is really unique. Even before I met you I was dying to see what you had planned.”

  “Dying to see, huh?” I reach over and take hold of one of her curls, straightening it out just for the pleasure of watching it bounce back. “So, what exactly are you willing to give me if I tell you?”

  “I’ve already given you everything you want and you know it,” she answers with a laugh.

  It’s my turn to laugh. “We’ve barely scratched the surface of what I want from you, darlin’.”

  She doesn’t say anything to that, but then she doesn’t have to. Not when the whole car is suddenly charged with a sensual awareness that makes me want to pull over and take her right here, on the edge of the vast and endless Pacific.

  I reach for her again, wanting—needing—to touch her, but she’s already there, her fingers tangling in mine as she brings my hand to her lips. “Whatever you want to do to me,” she whispers against my palm, “I am so, totally on board for it.”

  And fuck, just like that she fucking slays me. All I can think about is fucking her, owning her, loving her, any way that she’ll let me. Knowing that scares the shit out of me, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

  My whole life it’s always been about the art. From the time I could hold a pencil over a piece of paper, I’ve been obsessed with creating. Obsessed with tapping into the sublime in order to make something great. Nothing else has ever been able to compare.

  But Hope changes all that. She doesn’t drown out my vision—hell, she makes it more fucking clear than it’s ever been—and she doesn’t compete with it. Instead she’s somehow managed to merge with it, somehow managed to make it so that I no longer know where she leaves off and the art begins.

  It’s a scary fucking realization, one that would normally have me running for the fucking hills. Not now, though. Not when she’s sitting right there with that goofy look on her face that says she’s just as affected by this thing between us as I am. Thank God.

  “It’s you,” I say, the words coming from a place I didn’t even know existed before she walked into my studio five days ago and started taking off her clothes.

  “Yeah, it better be me you currently want,” she teases, “considering I’m the one you’re fucking.”

  “You’re the only one I want,” I tell her, and it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever said to a woman. “But I was talking about the sculpture for the Griffin. It’s you.”

  She doesn’t say anything for long seconds, and neither do I, considering I’ve done more soul baring in the last two minutes than I’ve done in the last two decades. If anything else gets shared in this car, it’s damn well going to come from her.

  “Me?” she finally manages to squeak out. “You mean the piece you hired me for is the one—”

  “No. That’s something else. The piece I want to put in the Griffin came to me Wednesday night.” And fuck. Looks like there was more shit that needed to be said after all. Jesus. I grit my teeth and keep on driving, determined not to say another word ever.

  “Deacon.” She sounds awed which, frankly, is not the emotion I’m looking for here. “Oh my God, Deacon.”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “It’s a huge—”

  “It’s no big deal,” I say again, cutting her off. “I was sketching you, I had an idea, now we’re going to go check out the space again, just to make sure what I want to do is going to work there.” I already know it will, but I want to see the space again, with Hope in it. Want to know what it feels like when she’s there.

  “What if it doesn’t w—”

  “It will.”

  “Okay. But what if it doesn’t—”

  “It will.” This time my tone leaves no room for argument, something she picks up on pretty quickly, thank Christ. I’m already feeling queasy as fuck about telling her this much. Sitting around debating what I told her for the next forty-five minutes isn’t up for fucking discussion. Hope doesn’t say anything else—about the sculpture or otherwise. Instead, she just leans over and turns on the radio, changing stations until she hits on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” And then she starts singing, complete with air guitar and exaggerated facial expressions.

  And just like that, I can breathe again.

  Hope jams out to the entire song, singing along like my car is fucking Coachella and she’s determined to bring down the house. It’s the most fucking adorable thing I’ve ever seen and I can’t stop grinning as we drive along the winding coast.

  She does a couple more classics—Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” and Springsteen’s “Born to Run” before finally retiring her air guitar.

  “Hell of a set of pipes you’ve got there,” I tell her as she reaches over and turns the radio back down.

  She shrugs. “So I’ve been told.”

  There’s something in her voice that has me glancing her way. “You never thought about doing something with all that talent?”

  “I am doing something. I just serenaded you, didn’t I?”

  “You did, but seriously—”

  She cuts me off. “It’s about the art. For me, it’s always been about the art.”

  And yeah, I so completely get that.

  It’s been twenty years since my first high school sculpture class and the excitement and the agony of creating has only grown stronger.

  “Are you ever going to show me something you’ve done?”

  “Maybe. If you ask nicely.”

  I shoot her a look. “I’m asking now.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.” She lets out a long, slow breath.

  It gets my back up, though I don’t know why. “Tell me you’re not one of those artists who doesn’t believe in showing off her work. Because that’s fucking ridiculous. Art is meant to be shared—”

  “I don’t mind showing my pieces.”

  “So what’s the problem then?” She doesn’t answer, just kind of glances out the window and finally I get it. “You just don’t like showing off your stuff to me.”

  “Well, yeah. Obviously.” And if her words aren’t enough for me to get the message, the look she sends my way is all No shit, Sherlock.

  Something that feels an awful lot like hurt winds its way through me, but I ignore it. Or at least, I try to. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re Deacon Vick and I’m a third year art student,” she fires back. “What do you think it means? It’s pretty fucking intimidating even thinking about showing you something I’ve done.”

  “That’s total bullshit. We’re fucking.”

  “Yeah, because having your dick in someone automatically means you don’t intimidate them anymore.”

  My hands clench on the wheel as I shoot her an incredulous look. “I’m pretty sure that’s how it’s supposed to go.”

  “Maybe.” She lifts a brow. “But I’m pretty sure it isn’t.”

  And isn’t that a kick in the ass? I’ve spent most of my life using my art and my attitude to keep people at bay. Now that I want to let someone in—more, I want her to let me in—that same art is suddenly in the way.

  Irony is a real bitch when it wants to be.

  “Just one piece,” I tell her after the silence between us becomes uncomfortable for the first time. There’s a part of me that hates that I’m practically begging, but f
or a glimpse inside of Hope that I don’t have to steal? Yeah, I’ll beg for that.

  She sighs, and when I risk a glance over at her, she’s looking out the window, fist clenched and shoulders tight.

  I should tell her to forget it, that it doesn’t matter. But goddamnit, it does matter. For a lot of reasons.

  Eventually she nods and I feel like I’ve just won a marathon...or something way more important.

  Taking one hand off the wheel, I reach over and pick up the fist she still has resting in her lap. One by one, I uncurl her fingers before lacing my fingers with hers.

  “Thank you,” I tell her softly.

  She shrugs, but another glance tells me her shoulders are relaxing again. “You’re welcome.”

  Then she turns to me with a grin. “But you’ve got to do something for me in exchange.”

  I laugh. “Baby, there are about a million things I’d love to do for you in exchange.”

  “I bet. But that’s not what I mean.” Her fingers move restlessly against my own. “I want you to tell me something about yourself.”

  “That’s it?” I feel my own shoulders relax though I hadn’t realized I’d tensed up. “I’ll tell you half a dozen things if you want.”

  “It can’t be something I can read in any of the million articles floating around about you. It has to be something more personal than the fact that you like Metallica, tequila shots and nights in the desert.”

  Well, fuck. “Exactly how many articles have you read about me?”

  “All of them. And they all say the same thing. If you expect me to show you a piece of my soul, I damn well want to see a piece of yours.”

  Just the idea makes my skin crawl, but her voice is no nonsense and I know she means it. Hope may look like a wet dream, but she’s a total ball buster, no doubt about it. I’d bitch about it, but the truth is it’s one of the things I like most about her, even when she turns it on me.

  Maybe especially then, since I’ve never met another woman—hell, I’ve never met another person—so willing to dish my own shit right back at me.

  Still, it doesn’t make it any easier for me to open up a vein and bleed all over the place. Hope must get that, because she doesn’t rush me. Instead she sits, silent and patient, her hand still clutched in mine until I finally say, “My little sister died when I was nine. Drowned in the swimming pool while my mom was on the phone.”

  It’s not what I was planning to say and as soon as I say the words I want to take them back. I haven’t said those words in nearly two decades and the lack of use hasn’t made them any easier.

  My skin is all but crawling just from hearing them spoken out loud and as they hang there between us, there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to jump out of the fucking car to get away from them.

  I wait for Hope to ask for details, wait for her to tell me how sorry she is that my sister died, but for long seconds she doesn’t say anything. Just rubs her thumb against the back of my hand again and again.

  Then, just when I feel like I’m about to jump out of my fucking skin, she says, “Tell me about her.”

  It’s the last thing I expect to hear. “What?”

  “Tell me about your sister. What was her name?”

  And just that easily, my throat closes up. It’s been decades since anyone asked that question, decades since I’ve even been able to say her name out loud. My parents lost it completely when she died and their way of coping was to erase every trace of her from our lives, like she never existed.

  It had nearly killed me, felt like I was losing her twice, but I never said anything. Because I was barely ten at that point and they were hurting so badly that they couldn’t see anyone else’s pain. Even mine.

  “Lacey,” I tell her when I can finally clear the lump out of my throat. “Her name was Lacey. She was four and she had the most amazing giggle in the world. And the brightest green eyes. And the fiercest temper. She would get so mad when I didn’t let her have her way.”

  “Huh. Wonder where she got that from.”

  “Yeah. It’s a total mystery.” I laugh a little, and that too is a shock. “She was the sweetest thing in the world until something didn’t go her way. And then she became a total tyrant. She would get right up in my face and pull my hair and yell at me until I fixed whatever it was that had gotten her so upset.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like if the cookies were too far out of her reach or if I hid her favorite doll or if I wouldn’t let her ride my skateboard. She used to give me hell in her little four-year-old way.”

  “Someone needed to.”

  I start to object, then shrug. Because, “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

  Hope brings my hand to her lips and kisses my knuckles one by one. Then asks, “What was your favorite thing about her?”

  “Besides her temper?” I think about it for a second. “The way she smelled like baby shampoo whenever she hugged me. And the way she flat out refused to eat peas. Oh, and the way she’d beg me to play hide and seek and then be too scared to hide by herself so we’d always end up hiding together, pretending someone was looking for us even though nobody ever was. She was so happy that we always won.”

  I laugh full out at the memory and Hope joins me, her laugher—and her warmth—wrapping around me like a blanket.

  She doesn’t ask any more questions and I don’t volunteer any more details, but that’s okay. Because for the first time in more than twenty years, I can think about Lacey without feeling like a traitor to my parents. For the first time, I can remember my beautiful, outrageous little sister how she was instead of how we were once she was gone.

  It’s a gift I don’t know how to begin to thank Hope for. But the way she’s holding my hand, the way she’s looking at me with eyes full of softness, makes me think I don’t have to.

  Instead, I squeeze her hand back just as tightly for one second, two. Then I pull away just long enough to turn the radio back up.

  Hope watches me for several seconds, then does the most Hope—and the most perfect—thing she can do for me. She starts to sing along with P!nk’s “Beautiful Trauma.”

  Two minutes later, she’s back to jamming along with Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” and I’m back to loving every second of it. And if the tight knot of grief that’s been inside of me since Lacey died is still there, at least it’s a little bit looser now that I had a chance to talk about her.

  The rest of the drive is one long, extended concert, featuring Hope singing along with everything from Madonna to the Chainsmokers. Normally I’m a drive in silence kind of guy, but there’s something about listening to Hope belt out the lyrics so enthusiastically that makes me ridiculously fucking happy.

  Then again, there’s a lot about her that makes me happy. If she didn’t, I wouldn’t be anywhere near this fucked up.

  One Direction’s “Best Song Ever” is blaring when we pull up to the security gate at the Griffin and I’m equal parts horrified and amused at the look the guard gives me. But Hope is still singing her heart out, a huge grin on her face, and that’s what matters.

  “I figure this should only take about fifteen minutes,” I tell her after we’re cleared to park. “Then we’ll head to the water.”

  “I like the sound of that,” she says. “But take as long as you need. I’m in no hurry.”

  “Fifteen minutes,” I reiterate, because she may not be in a rush but I sure as shit am. The sooner I get done here, the sooner I can get her alone—and, more importantly, the sooner I can be inside her.

  But as soon we get to the garden, where the smallest piece is supposed to go, I know my plans are screwed. I called yesterday, letting them know I was coming so that it would make security easier. That didn’t mean I expected—or wanted—a cocktail party to be thrown in my honor. But that’s exactly what Hope and I walk into.

 
Damn it.

  “Deacon, how are you?” Max Griffin—the youngest scion of the Griffin business empire and the guy who commissioned the sculpture—meets me with a grin and a handshake. “We’re so excited you stopped by.”

  That makes one of us. “Yeah, of course. I was just hoping to get a look at the space.”

  “Of course.” He gestures expansively. “Mi casa es su casa. I do hope you’ll take a few minutes to meet the board members, though. They’re so excited about your pieces that they dropped everything to be here.”

  Aren’t I lucky? “Actually, we were planning on doing this pretty quick. We’ve got plans—”

  “It’s okay,” Hope says, squeezing my hand in a What the hell are you doing kind of way. “We’ve got a few minutes.”

  “Very few,” I answer with a glare.

  “As long as it takes,” she reiterates as she steps on my foot in a not-so-blatant reminder that I need to play nice. And the thing is, I know she’s right. Considering what they’re paying me, an impromptu cocktail party with the board of directors isn’t too much to ask.

  But I hate this part of the job and usually avoid it like the fucking plague. There’s a reason I live and work an hour and a half away from the city and the gallery that displays most of my work. The less time I have to spend playing the artiste, the more time I actually have to be a working artist.

  “Half an hour,” I compromise and Max nods, looking relieved that I’m playing along. The truth is, I don’t give a fuck about his plans—if he wanted to pull something like this, he should have at least run it by me or my agent. But Hope looks like she wants to stay for a while, so I suck it up for her.

  Which is how I get stuck spending the next twenty-five minutes drinking champagne and mingling with San Francisco’s high society as they try to crawl as far up my ass as is humanly possible—all of which pisses me off even more. And not just because it’s uncomfortable as hell to have these people fawning over me in front of Hope, but because, seriously, if you want to say something nice about my work, cool. Do it. But if you want to stand there and gush when it’s obvious you don’t know shit about what I do? No fucking thank you. Find someone else’s asshole to crawl inside.