Pictures Of You [Anthology]

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Pictures of You ISBN # 1-4199-0852-9 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Pictures of You Copyright© 2006 Shelby Reed Edited by Briana St. James Cover art by Syneca. Electronic book Publication: December 2006 This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 443103502. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

Content Advisory: S – ENSUOUS E – ROTIC X - TREME Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (Erotic), and X (X-treme). The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been rated E–rotic. S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination. E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. E-rated titles might contain material that some readers find objectionable—in other words, almost anything goes, sexually. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry in terms of both sexual language and descriptiveness in these works of literature. X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Stories designated with the letter X tend to contain difficult or controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

PICTURES OF YOU

Shelby Reed

Trademarks Acknowledgement The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Coke: The Coca-Cola Company Corporation Muzak: Muzak Corporation Old Spice: Proctor & Gamble Company Peter Pan: Disney Enterprises, Inc. Pete’s Dragon: Disney Enterprises, Inc. South Park: Comedy Partners composed of Viacom International Inc. and Viacom Hearty Ha! Ha!, LLC.

Pictures of You

Chapter One “What is that?” Professor Palladin stood over Keir Hanson’s shoulder and circled a smudged gray area on her drawing with the cruel, trusty pencil he usually kept tucked behind his ear. “A thumbprint, perhaps? Don’t tell me it’s part of the figure.” At the sound of the professor’s gravelly chastisement, the other students in the figure drawing class went still and peeked over their drawing easels. Even the model, naked and posed like a Greek discus thrower, watched the exchange from his platform in the middle of the studio. Keir went hot all over. “Um…well, that’s the—” “The what?” “That’s the figure’s…that’s his…” Palladin smirked and slid his pencil in place behind his left ear. “Penis, Miss Hanson. As much a part of the human body as the nose on his face.” “Yes, I know what a penis is,” she muttered. “This is still just a rough sketch. I’m getting to it.” “It looks like an accidental smudge. I want detail, Miss Hanson, not a modest shady scribble. For God’s sake, look at him!” He made a grand sweeping gesture toward the model, whose only response was to blink twice in surprise. “The man has a wonderful, generous penis. Give him credit where credit is due, please.” A whispering wave of snickers moved through the circle of students, and once the old professor moved on to his next victim, Keir scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to erase the crimson embarrassment she knew stained her cheeks. The cranky old codger had picked on her since the first day of the semester, and usually she handled it with casual finesse, even enjoying the combative humor lurking in their give and take.

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Today, however, she’d left her fighting gloves at home. She awakened at dawn to find her boyfriend Paul gone, his dresser empty. After two years of living together, all he’d left was a note scribbled on the back of a Christmas card, saying something about his restless nature and the torment of his ongoing Search For Self. Skimming his eloquent words over and over—he was ever the poet, especially at times like these—Keir saw what the message really said. The thrill is gone and I’m taking off with the hot blond loan officer who works in the next cubicle. The hot blond loan officer who worked in the cubicle next to Paul’s had a name, although Keir couldn’t have recalled it if she’d tried. Something as fluffy as the woman’s bleached hair and saline boobs. Keir had seen her once in the parking lot while picking up Paul from his job at Citrus Trust Bank. The woman was crossing the asphalt, double Ds at attention beneath an aqua skintight dress, her tackiness so dazzling that Keir had stared like any ogling male. “Who’s that?” she’d asked Paul as he climbed into her faded sedan. “Who’s who?” He’d stared blindly around the parking lot, as though Beulah BoomBoom, the only other person in view, didn’t exist. Then he changed the subject. “What’s for dinner?” Keir should have been instantly suspicious. It wasn’t like him not to notice a beautiful woman. Sometimes it seemed his gaze was mounted on an axis, capable of swiveling in humanly impossible directions to get a good eyeful of some girl’s poor, unsuspecting ass. Keir should have heard the screaming siren of his guilt when he acted so lackadaisical about Beulah Boom-Boom. She should have seen it coming, this it that had shattered her heart and ego. But she hadn’t. As always with this time of year, her mind had been filled with visions of sugarplums instead. Christmas was only four weeks away, and she’d been too busy decorating the small two-bedroom condo she and Paul shared, too busy 6

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shopping for just the right cable-knit sweater to complement Paul’s baby blues, too busy pretending that he really was working overtime when every night he came a little later, and a little later. There’s none so blind as they that won’t see. Yesterday afternoon, her joyous Yuletide world finally detonated when she knelt by Paul’s side of the bed to plug in the Christmas lights she’d strung around the bedroom window. The big gold hoop glistening in the red and green glow wasn’t hers. Heart hammering, she picked it up and turned on the reading lamp to study it. After staring at the earring for a moment, she ceased seeing the gold plated hoop. All that danced before her tear-blurred eyes was a seedy neon arrow pointing at Paul’s balding head that flashed, Cheater. Bastard. Liar. Jackass! She didn’t confront him until after dinner, which he ate with mindless enjoyment while she stared at her plate and choked back sobs. He didn’t notice anything was wrong until she burst into tears and threw her spoon at his forehead. The resulting red welt brought him around to the realization that all was not well in their relationship, and they argued until they were too exhausted to continue. By the time Keir locked herself into the bathroom, curled up on the rug and fell asleep, Paul still hadn’t admitted to betraying her trust, but the light was out of his eyes. It was the last thing she saw as she shut the door in his face. He’d looked at her like she was a wad of gum stuck to the sole of his shoe. Like he couldn’t wait to pack and get the hell out of Dodge. The next morning, his closet was empty, his duffel bags missing. The quick phone call Keir made to a sympathetic crone who worked in Paul’s bank verified that yes, Paul had taken a leave of absence until after the holidays and yes, Blondie had tagged along. “For what it’s worth, honey,” the bank secretary told Keir, “no one ever liked her much.” Except Paul. He would probably spend New Year’s Eve on some Caribbean paradise with his new girlfriend, where they would sip daiquiris and play slot machines between bouts of 7

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incredible, sweaty, tropical sex. And meanwhile, Keir would sit alone in her condo, snowed in, with the Christmas lights dark and her heart even darker, swigging warm, four-dollar champagne straight from the bottle. She hadn’t cried since he left. She was dry. Eyes, body, heart. Dry like a piece of three-day-old cornbread…until this moment. Dr. Palladin’s nitpicks about her drawing had humiliated her more than they should, and she knew if he circled back and made another comment about the penis she couldn’t yet bring herself to draw, the floodgates would open. Fortunately, before the old man and his damned pencil made it back around to her easel, their model spoke from the posing platform. “Professor? I need a break.” The husky sound of his voice brought Keir’s head up. She hadn’t heard him talk before. He usually just came into the studio with the rest of the students, stripped his beautiful self naked, and stepped up on the dais in the middle of the room. Business as usual, his relaxed stance always said, but his gaze never landed on any one person. Until today, she’d never made eye contact with him. Now he was looking straight at her, his eyes the piercing green of tumbled sea glass. “Fine,” Palladin said wearily. “Everyone take a break. Be back in the studio in ten minutes.” While students shuffled paper and chatted around her, Keir covertly watched the model step off the platform and pull a pair of boxer shorts up his long, strong legs and over his muscled ass. When he leaned to retrieve his can of cola, she smothered a smile. Characters from the cartoon South Park were plastered all over his backside. How had she failed to notice him before? She had drawn his body for weeks now. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, she recreated every line, sinew, shadow and curve of his form. Or most of them, anyway, if she discounted Palladin’s pet peeve smudge.

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People didn’t realize how awkward it was to render a real individual’s nude body on paper. In order to draw a model’s penis, the artist had to really look at it. Again and again, her gaze bouncing between a total stranger’s genitals and her paper, pencil scratching away, until she got the shadows and lines just right. And God forbid she drew it too small. That wouldn’t be a problem in this case. There was no missing the fact that the guy was well endowed. Flaccid sex organs didn’t usually do it for Keir, but he was so wonderfully put together, every part of him seemed finer than the one before. Anyway, what could be more wrong than an art model sporting an inexplicable erection? As a longtime art student, she’d always managed to separate the humanity from the subject. It kept her from feeling mortified when a model flung off his or her clothes before her. She was sure the other art students had similar methods of coping with the oddness of staring at a naked person for endless studio sessions. Now, though, as she took in the whole, exquisite picture of this man in his colorful shorts, she was curious about the person inside the gorgeous body. He shoved his fingers through his curly, sandy hair and raised his arms over his head to give a long, shuddering stretch. The lightly tanned muscles of his back flexed and flowed while Keir took it all in with an artist’s eyes and a woman’s awareness. How had she missed such raw beauty? Her mind had been clogged with Paul Lucas for so long, the world could have stopped turning and she wouldn’t have noticed a thing. Now she was free. The realization swept through her like a cooling, unexpected breeze. Free from Paul, his freakish, obsessive-compulsive demands, his petty jealousies. He hadn’t wanted her to enroll in the drawing class when he’d heard they were going to have nude male models. In fact, he’d forbidden it. It took Keir a week to convince him that she had no interest in any man but him. Funny thing was, she’d meant it at the time. And even funnier, that was precisely when he began coming home late every night.

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Anger bubbled hot and bitter in her chest, but she doused it with another glance at the model, who was walking off the kinks from standing still for so long. She had no more demands to answer, no rules to follow except her own. Nowhere was it written that an art student couldn’t harbor healthy, blood-pumping lust for a naked male model. And if the surreptitious glances from the coeds huddled across the studio were any indication, Keir wasn’t the only female having these thoughts. The man was one of those walking sculptures that made a girl gladly forget the Pauls of the world. “Nice smudge,” said a male voice behind her. She turned to find the object of her musings a foot away, studying the drawing on her easel. Up close, his features were less perfect than she’d realized, and all the more appealing for it. The eyes that looked so green from afar were actually shot through with spokes of gold and brown, and faint lines etched the corners of his full, sensitive mouth, heralding a good thirty years of easy smiles. The bridge of his nose was tanned. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and his stubble was blond. “Pardon me?” she said blankly. He pointed to the area of question on her drawing. “Palladin’s right. It’s definitely a smudge.” Heat stung her cheeks. “I’m not done.” “I hope not.” He smiled. “A man’s touchy about these things, you know.” Boy, did she know. Paul’s penis had all but been his best friend. He’d named the damn thing Buddy. Little Buddy when it was flaccid. Big Buddy when it was erect. The idea of his genitals having an actual name had distracted Keir so badly, she sometimes had trouble reaching orgasm when they made love. The urge to giggle had lurked at every passionate session. She studied the model and wondered if all men named their cocks. This guy’s penis would merit a sexier name than Little Buddy. It was long and thick and strong, like a weapon of unearthly pleasure. Big, Bad John would work. 10

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Of course while she was standing there, naming his penis for him, he was waiting for her to say something. He’d attempted to start a conversation, but now he looked increasingly uncomfortable as she stared at him without speaking. He shouldn’t be surprised. No doubt women clammed up on him all the time. Besides, she couldn’t remember what they’d been discussing in the first place. Oh, yes. His smudge. “Well.” She smoothed her dark ponytail and looked away from his verdant eyes. “I don’t appreciate Palladin’s comments. He picks on me, in case you haven’t noticed.” “That’s because you always say something back.” She couldn’t argue with that. Her mouth had been her own worst enemy since twenty-five years ago, when Sister Xavier Marie moved her desk permanently into the hallway outside the fifth grade classroom for having a smart mouth with nothing smart to say. “I’m a decent artist, though,” she pointed out, arguing with the good sister’s memory. “I know. I’ve seen your work.” Surprised pleasure rippled through her. “You have? Where?” “Student gallery.” His gaze wandered over the drawing on her easel as he spoke. “I’d recognize your style anywhere. Kind of fluid and emotive. You’re really talented.” She hoisted herself onto the barstool behind her. “If that’s true, why does Palladin ridicule every picture I do?” “Because you’re talented.” He took a swig from his soda can and added, “The old man rides the best students the hardest.” Secretly thrilled by his disclosures, she studied his expressive face. His lashes were longer than hers. He’d be dangerously close to pretty if he shaved off that three-day stubble. “And what makes you so knowledgeable? Are you a student too?”

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“I’ve been his model for five years. I listen and watch. Palladin might be a bastard sometimes, but in the end you’ll walk out of this studio with skills you didn’t know you possessed. And you dish it back to him as good as he gives, which means you’re smart,” he added, his smile reappearing. “Too smart to bail, hopefully.” Take that, Sister Xavier Marie. After a hesitation, she wiped her graphite-stained fingers on the leg of her jeans and extended her hand. “I’m Keira Hanson.” “Thad Warner.” He stepped closer and grasped her fingers. Good strong handshake, none of that macho bone-crushing stuff. His palm was warm and dry. When he released her hand she asked, “What do you do besides model, Mr. Warner?” “I’m a photographer, Miss Hanson.” “My friends call me Keir.” “Mine call me Thad.” “I think you’re very brave to do what you do, Thad.” His smile widened. “What, photography? It takes no courage at all. Just aim the camera and shoot.” “Ha ha,” she said, fiddling with her pencils. Maybe she was imagining it—God, she hoped not—but this guy seemed to be flirting with her in a very subtle, beguiling way. Her inner voice snorted. He’d picked a humdinger for sure. She was two years and four months out of practice when it came to the initial attraction phase. Too far gone, perhaps. And currently feeling like Paul’s doggie bag leftovers. “I’m serious,” she went on, resisting the urge to squirm under his steady appraisal. “Doesn’t stripping down in front of all these people bother you?” He shrugged. “We all look the same under our clothes.” Oh, no, we don’t. Keir eyed the rigid road map of muscle across his six-pack abs. Tiny golden hairs feathered from his navel into his shorts. From experience she knew

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the way those hairs grew darker and coarser around his penis. She knew how wonderful and generous, as Palladin had so flamboyantly put it, that penis was. Out of nowhere she envisioned Thad Warner erect, her hands around his cock, his hands around hers, guiding her touch up down up down in smooth, easy strokes, faster, then falling away because she was doing such a damn fine job all on her own… Heat flooded her face and she stood again, struggling to look anywhere but at the tanned muscles of his bare chest. “Well, I’d better get my soda before the evil professor returns. Nice to finally meet you.” “Likewise,” he replied as she stepped around him. “Hey, Keir?” She paused at the door, heart pounding. “Yes?” “Don’t disappoint me on that smudge now.” In spite of herself, a smirk curved her lips. “I’ll do my best not to let you down.”

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Chapter Two It was a damned coffee commercial that set her off. An older married couple sitting on a wraparound porch, sipping from their cups and perusing a newspaper together, like they had every day for decades, while the rising sun gilded their snowy heads …something she would never have with Paul. Something she hadn’t with him before he left, either, because he always read the morning paper in the john. Even still, it was the loss of all that could have been which finally shattered her emotional numbness, and when she broke down, she cried all night. All week, in fact. It took a solid week of crying in the shower, crying herself to sleep, crying in the grocery store—hell, crying anywhere she went except for drawing class, where she was blessedly distracted by the free eye candy named Thad Warner—before she decided she was wasting valuable time. She could admit it now. She hadn’t lost Mr. Right at all. In the end, what Keir was really crying about was how much time she’d wasted on Mr. Wrong. At thirty-five, she wasn’t getting any younger. Biological bells were ringing. It was time to move on, to save the remainder of her hot ‘n sexy years for someone who deserved it. In the meantime, she had a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree to attain. Accompanied by Brenda Lee’s toe-tapping “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”, she scoured her apartment for signs of Paul’s presence, bagging every last reminder she found, from his spare set of car keys to the creepy gourmet chutneys and canned sardines he liked, to the extra blades he’d purchased for his razor. It all landed in the trash chute with a satisfying thump. After moving the furniture around, Keir bought slipcovers for the sofa and chairs, framed and hung several of her drawings on the walls, and changed the shower curtain 14

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from Paul’s preferred plaid to one covered with lime and aqua flowers. When she was done, her home was her own once again, and the ghost of her old lover seemed far away. And that night, for the first time in two years, she lay in the dark thinking about someone besides Paul. Someone with green eyes and smooth muscles and a ‘wonderful, generous’ penis. Pleasure tightened her stomach as she recounted the handful of conversations she’d shared with Thad since meeting him last week. He was witty and easygoing, but there was a quiet intensity to him that spoke of depths she’d like to explore further. Much further, she thought, smiling in the dark. The pleasure turned to excitement as she laid a hand over her breast and the tight knot of her nipple poked her palm through her T-shirt. She was tight and aching all over suddenly, goose bumps pebbling her flesh. Arousal? Hallelujah! It had come so easily too, with one man in mind. Thad. He was the stuff of fantasies, and as she slid both hands beneath her T-shirt and plucked at her sensitized nipples, she realized that tonight he would be the stuff of her fantasies. He was so unencumbered by self-consciousness and vanity. Men like him were usually great in bed. Brave. Uninhibited. He probably could dirty-talk like there was no tomorrow, his hot whispers rushing against his lover’s ear as he moved his hips in slow, liquid undulations between her thighs. Oh, that’s a sexy thought. A shudder slid through Keir. Tugging harder at her nipples, she shivered at the intense sensation that shot down the direct highway to her clitoris, her legs sliding restlessly against the mattress. She was coming alive. After months of experiencing mostly apathy in what had been an increasingly non-sexual relationship with Paul, she was feeling something again. Something sharp and delicious. And all because of this guy, this art model, Thad. He probably didn’t restrain his cry when he climaxed, unlike other more insecure guys she’d known. He probably 15

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made his lover come first, his beautiful lips parted and hovering over hers to breathe in her gasps of delight. Then while she was still quaking, he would drive home in graceful, determined thrusts, harder, faster, until his muscled body bucked and jolted, and he cried out his pleasure to the night. The tingling was now a full-forced sexual burn that settled between Keir’s thighs, swelling her tender flesh, making her feel ripe and hungry. And so empty. Her hand slipped down to rub the crotch of her panties and she found herself wet and ready, with no man to fill her need but the one seducing her in her mind. Leaning over the side of the bed, she groped blindly under the mattress for the small quilted bag that contained her vibrator, but all she felt were dust bunnies. “Damn…” Unduly interrupted, she climbed from beneath the sheets and got down on the floor to locate the long-neglected bag of tricks, which had long since been shoved into no-man’s land under the far side of the bed. Thankfully the batteries still worked when she tried the vibrator. Sitting up against the side of the bed, she pulled aside the crotch of her panties and slid the cool plastic phallus inside her slick entrance, wincing a little as unpracticed muscles yielded to the foreign invasion. Then she turned it on high, and her entire world honed down to the pulsating plastic rod that jumpstarted her sleeping nerves and set them on fire. “Oh, wow,” she whispered, feeling depraved and alive and desperate, the soles of her feet pressed to the carpet as she let her thighs fall wider and pushed the vibrator in as deep as it would go. Sparkles danced behind her eyelids, her inner muscles throbbing around the smooth, hard shaft. Thad, she thought, seeing the play of shadow and light on his naked, sculpted muscles as he stood on the studio dais. She tried it aloud. “Thad. Oh, God, Thad.” The hoarse murmur belonged to a stranger, and suddenly so did her body, because every inch of the wet, swollen flesh swallowing the vibrator jumped and pulsed, and just that quickly the orgasm was upon her, pulling her upright and jerking her like a puppet on disconnected strings.

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She came so hard, the contractions squeezed down to her very bones, tore a short cry from her throat, left her limp and trembling against the side of the bed. Instantly the stimulation from the vibrator was too much for her sensitized flesh, and she turned it off and withdrew it, noting how her wet sex seemed to cling to it as she did so, and how easily it would be to come again if she reinserted it. But she was replete for now, if not a little more aware of her solitude. She’d never shared such an orgasm with anyone. Her mouth curled into a mildly embarrassed grin. If Thad only knew who he’d entertained in such a lively way tonight. After a few moments of recovery in the silent darkness, she went into the bathroom, cleaned herself and her plastic pal, and returned the sex toy to its bag beneath her bed with a newfound sense of reverence for it—and for the man whose image had revived her sensuality.

***** “Want a soda from the Coke machine?” Thad asked her Wednesday night on their ten-minute break. “I’m buying.” She swiveled on her bar stool to face him and considered the offer. “Hmm. It sounds enticing, but I never trust a man in polka dot boxers.” “Ah, so you noticed my new threads.” He gestured down at his undershorts. “Too much?” “Absolutely not. The green matches your eyes.” He smiled, those beautiful eyes crinkling at the corners. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Let me buy you a soda.” Keir gave a dramatic sigh. “No strings attached?” “Only that you promise to fix that damn smudge.” “How do you know I haven’t yet?” she demanded as they sauntered down the hallway toward the Coke machine. “I check every time I walk past your easel.” 17

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“You do not.” “Your drawing is the only one without a penis.” “There’s a penis there,” she protested. “A lightly penciled, somewhat scribbly one.” Thad laughed. “You’re going to give me a complex.” “Am I really?” She glanced at him. “Nah. It is looking more, er, substantial, but it’s still not mine.” He was right. The problem was, she found it increasingly difficult to study his penis with any kind of objectivity. And lately, she couldn’t quit thinking about Big, Bad John or the man who wore it so well. They got their sodas, then leaned against the concrete block wall outside the classroom, where they could talk and laugh. Other students cast them knowing glances as they came and went from the studio, but Keir ignored it. She lived for these little conversations with Thad. Tonight their light flirtation slid into more somber and thoughtful conversation, then back again. Back and forth. Little glimpses of who they really were. It was titillating, and if it continued, it wouldn’t be long before she knew him as well inside as she did on the outside. He was talking about the penis-smudge issue again. “Now tell me again why it’s so hard for you?” They both paused at his choice of words before Keir decided to maintain dignity by not snickering. “None of your beeswax. You make a better art critic than you do a model. Aim your camera at some woman’s bare nipple sometime and then tell me how easy it is to get it right.” “How do you know I haven’t?” he mimicked her, and followed it with a slow smile that made her choke on her snappy retort. He had such a way of disconcerting her with his easy humor, but that wasn’t the very best thing about him. No…it was the intent way he listened to her, with two little frown lines creasing his brow, as though what she had to say was really important. He made her feel like she counted.

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And if she wasn’t careful, he could break her brittle ego into a million pieces. “Okay, I haven’t photographed that part of a woman’s body,” he told her. “Yet. But I’ve been thinking about something along those lines.” “Any particular nipples in mind?” She tried to sound arid, witty, but it came out half choked. “In my dreams,” he said, his gaze searching her face. “Absolutely.” She stared back into his eyes, pulse pounding, and when that became unbearably intimate, at his graceful brows, then at the tousled sandy curls she so wanted to bury her fingers in. Everything about him was a masterpiece. “Keir.” He broke her from her meditation on the curve of his ear. “What are you looking at?” “Perfection,” she replied, and with an unapologetic grin, headed back into the studio.

***** On the Tuesday before Christmas break, Keir finished decorating the stylish pencilthin tree she and Paul had picked out the year before. She covered it with kitschy mercury balls he would have hated and followed that with an explosion of garish pink tinsel. Then, by the blinking glow of the tree’s tiny multicolored lights, she sat down on the rug with her sketchbook, the one containing quick studies of Thad’s face, and languorously paged through the sketches. The sight of him sent a shock of pleasure through her all over again, as though she was seeing him for the first time. She’d done a good job rendering the subtle shifts of his expressions in repose. And lately, she’d done an excellent job capturing his appeal. The most recent drawings were the best, because the more she got to know him, the more beautiful he became. He was the impossible mixture of nice guy and every woman’s wet dream. In the bathroom, as she pinned up her dark hair and turned on the shower spigot, she thought about the theory that it was truly possible to capture someone’s likeness 19

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once you knew his heart. She wanted to draw Thad better, to draw him perfectly. She wanted to know his heart. And, being the great adventurer that she was, his other parts too. Erotic possibilities slowed her movements while she stripped off her clothes, made her feel languid and sensuous. She switched the water flow back to the tub spigot and dug her bubble bath out from under the sink. In the beginning with Paul, Keir had eschewed showers for languid baths before every date, loving the sinuous lap of silky water against her skin, the way it titillated nerves already galvanized by constant desire. She’d been so in lust with Paul’s mind. He wasn’t great in bed—kind of selfish, really—but she hadn’t thought it mattered. All he had to do was put his lips against her ear and quote some obscure poet, and she’d drown in orgasmic admiration of his brilliant mind. Embarrassing, really. Steam rose off the lavender-scented water in curls shaped like question marks. Sucking in a breath, she eased into the too-warm water and let her tender backside adjust to the penetrating heat before sliding down until her back rested against the stillcool porcelain. Wildflowers and deep, bone-soaking relaxation suffused her senses. It had been a long day. Her eyelids sagged. She dozed. And dreamed. Thad lay naked across her bed like a primal offering, the fine, sculpted lines of his form silhouetted against the crimson glow from a neon light outside the window. Not that a neon light hung outside her window in reality, but this was her dream, and in it, her apartment looked sexy and 1930s-seedy, and a naked man lay sprawled across her drowning-in-silk mattress, waiting for her to devour him. In fact, he said it. Huskily. With a tinge of low desperation. “Put your mouth on me, Keir. Please…”

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She wasn’t about to disappoint him. She crawled over him, trying to decide where to start. When she kissed the sensitive nape of his neck, he shivered, his breath coming in quick pants against the pillow. The strong, graceful curve of his neck into his shoulders was one of her favorite parts of his body. She kissed him there, then bit him and licked away the sting. His hips shifted restlessly against the mattress, his muscles rippling. He buried his face in his arms and groaned. He needed her. Kissing her way down the line of his spine, she tasted the peaks and valleys of his musculature, the salty-sweet flavor of his skin, to the small twin hollows at the top of his ass. Then she lightly bit his buttock, gently sinking her teeth into the smooth, resilient flesh, and nudged apart his thighs. His balls felt tender and fragile in her hand, and she gently cradled them until he drew one knee up on the mattress and looked at her over his shoulder with hot, hungry eyes. “Keir,” he pleaded hoarsely, and dropped his forehead to the pillow again. “Like this?” She played with the soft masculine orbs, reveling in the way they tightened in her fingers, fascinated by the vulnerability of him and the corresponding, unyielding power of his erection. “Yeah, like that…oh…” He ground himself against the bed, rhythmic now, needful. “Will you put your mouth on me?” Did he even have to ask? “Roll over.” She sat back, breathing hard, waiting, wanting, as he shifted to his back. Then he captured her hand again and led it to his erection. In the past—in reality—she had only seen his cock resting in its soft patch of dark hair, but now it stood rigidly erect, imposing in size and breadth. A bead of opal moisture shimmered on its smooth, swollen head, and when Keir leaned to catch it on her tongue, Thad groaned low in his chest. She took him deep, then, impossibly deeper, into her throat, letting the muscles close around him, letting her tongue savor the ridges and veins and hot, pulsing flesh while he thrust up to greet each downward slide of her lips…

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“I’m going to come,” he whispered, his fingers drawing light, frantic whirls in her hair, and she sucked him harder, licked faster… Most guys wouldn’t stop a girl at this point, but it was Keir’s dream, and it wasn’t most guys. It was wonderful, sexy, loving Thad. With a violent shudder, he urged her to straddle him. “Fuck me,” he ordered, staring up at her with glittering, avid eyes. Then, with her help, he notched the tip of his cock to her wet portal and brought her down, pushing up into her at the same time. They both gasped at the stunning sensation. “Fuck me,” he repeated, the words terse and low. “Ride me, Keir.” Moving with a grace and fluidity that only existed in dreams, Keir slid up and down on him, feeling the blood pulse and swell his shaft within her tight sheath, while his fingers gripped her hips, supporting without controlling. She was in charge, and she loved it. “Faster?” she asked, her movements never faltering as she circled his right nipple with a fingertip and felt him quiver beneath her. “Faster,” he groaned, his eyelids sliding closed under the weight of ecstasy. “God, yes, Keir.” He was so close, she could read the rising orgasm in his flushed face, in his strident breaths, and Keir was right there with him, cantering on him, rubbing just right against his steely cock, her own climax rushing like a swollen river within her. Thad’s lashes lifted and he gripped her hips and pulled her down hard on his shaft, eliciting a cry of pleasured surprise from her throat. “Oh, yeah …fuck me hard…” And as she reached out to grasp her orgasm, he went over with her, shouting out his own hoarse ecstasy. The anguished, joyful sound woke her. She shot up, panting, half-drowned in bathwater gone cold.

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Uttering a groan of abject frustration, she drew her knees up to her chest and pressed her face against them. She wanted a man. No, she wanted this man. Wanted his touch, his mouth, his tongue. Wanted to nibble his neck and caress his muscled ass and stroke the cock that she knew better than her own body, to feel it piston inside her, followed by the hot flood of his release as she breathed in his pleasured praise. And right now, she wanted to come. No time for traipsing into the bedroom for the vibrator. She had to come now. Shivering from the cooled bath and chilled air, she stretched out in the tub, slipped a hand between her thighs, and found herself slick with silken need that the bathwater hadn’t yet washed it away. A few rhythmic flicks of her fingertips against her aching clitoris, a few licks of cool water sloshing against her turgid nipples, and she shuddered through a climax. An intense but disappointing climax, because she was alone. As usual. A droplet fell from the spigot with a penetrating ploop. It was so very quiet in her apartment. “Make love to me,” she whispered into the bathroom, but there was no one to hear.

***** Keir could barely look at Thad the next night. He seemed to sense that something was different too. During class, his gaze kept straying from its usual focal point somewhere over the students’ heads to her face, and his expression was somber, his regard more probing than ever. How could she tell him that every glance at him was killing her? That her own unpracticed touch, and even her good ol’ vibrator, were paltry and pathetic substitutes for his hands, his tongue, his cock? Heat flushed through her in waves, sent desire flooding her most private places, places only one man had touched, but now ached solely for Thad.

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“What’s wrong?” he asked after class, watching her with a frown as she packed up her art box. “Nothing.” She cleared her throat and avoided his gaze. “Why?” “You’re quiet tonight.” “I have a lot on her mind. Christmas and all. Plus, the student show’s coming up the second week of January, and I haven’t decided which picture in my portfolio to enter. None of them seem right.” He fastened his jeans, his expression thoughtful. “Maybe you haven’t drawn the right picture yet.” She waited for him to gather his things, and they walked to the parking lot together, dawdling behind the other departing students. The night was windy and spitting snow, and Keir drifted closer to the warm, strong barrier of Thad’s body, her arm brushing his with every step they took. If he noticed, he didn’t comment, and he didn’t seem to mind. He broke the wordless tension between them by teasing her a little, about her bickering with Palladin, how easily she blushed, and, of course, the infamous smudge. “How’s that coming along?” “Frankly I haven’t thought about it lately,” she lied. “I’ve had my mind on other things.” The real thing. God help her.

***** On Friday, Palladin stood over Keir’s shoulder, following the movements of her pencil with a hawk’s eye as he suffused the air with the scent of Old Spice and old man. “Miss Hanson, you have a good grasp of detail here.” She glanced at him, surprised. “Well, I have you to thank, Professor. You traumatized me into paying better attention to certain…areas.” 24

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An actual smile tugged up the corners of his thin mouth. “The entire rendering has improved,” he declared in that thundering Shakespearean voice. “Students, be sure to look at Keira Hanson’s rendering during the break.” She received several compliments from her classmates during the ten-minute recess, and when she left the studio for her usual date with Thad at the soda machine, she felt buoyant. Palladin was right. Good work was satisfying. The old professor’s bellowing declaration of her adequacy had given her back her artist’s pride. Thad was waiting for her at the end of the hall, one shoulder propped against the concrete block wall. Tonight he wore red and green shorts that read Don’t Open Until Christmas and a black T-shirt. It was cool in the cavernous hallway. Keir noticed that goose bumps had raised the fine hair on his arms. “Heya, Picasso,” he said, pushing off the wall when she reached him. “Congratulations.” “For what?” “You achieved the impossible—a compliment from Palladin.” She fluttered her lashes as she stuck quarters into the drink machine. “He obviously adores me. Did you look at my drawing?” “I did indeed.” He smiled into her eyes. “No more smudge.” “An exaggeration in its place.” He flinched. “An enhancement.” They both laughed. Then he sobered. “It really is a beautiful drawing.” You really are a beautiful subject, Keir thought. Thad gazed at her for a long moment. Then he said, “I’d like to see more of your work.” She hesitated. Her portfolio was sacred. Its contents read like a diary. Soft pastel landscapes when she was in love, bold crayon abstracts when she was in misery. Black

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charcoal figures comprised of raw, energetic lines, page after page of them, since Paul had left her. In the past week, the only thing she’d produced was more pencil studies of Thad’s face and figure. She felt driven to capture him on paper, to remember the pleasure that gazing at him in all his unabashed, naked glory brought her. If anyone deserved to see her portfolio, it was Thad. “Hmm.” She slid a sideways glance at him. “Do I really want to lay open all my deep, dark secrets before you?” He stepped close enough that he had to drop his head to meet her eyes. “I don’t know. Do you?” She swallowed her excitement, her pulse thrumming. “Maybe we could trade. A secret for a secret.” “Ask me anything.” His attention settled on her mouth, and she thought he might say something more, but then two women from the art class strode past, their raucous laughter echoing in the corridor. When they had disappeared into the studio, Keir lifted her gaze to Thad’s again. His dark lashes were as thick as feathers. Somewhere in the last twelve hours he’d shaved, and his jaw looked baby smooth. “Anything, huh?” She pretended to consider, painfully aware of how close he stood, of the warmth radiating from his strong body, of how delicious he smelled, like laundry detergent and clean skin. “You’re not married, right?” The corner of his mouth quirked. “I thought that was obvious.” “You never know about people.” “True. So that’s your question?” He tilted his head to consider her from another angle, something hot written in his sparkling eyes. “And if I answer it, I can see your portfolio?”

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“Every naked inch,” she choked, and wondered if the excitement burning her ears was enough to put off steam. “Okay, then. No, I’ve been divorced for three years.” “But are you dating someone?” The mortifying demand was out of her mouth before she could squelch it, and she bit back the urge to curse. His smile widened. “That’s two questions. What else do I get to see besides your portfolio if I answer?” Her mind went blank. Her body went hot and wet. “Keir?” She swallowed. “What?” “The answer is no,” he said, his voice soft, so soft. “I’m not dating anyone right now.” Keir’s breath burst from her chest in a small explosion. She was a fiery red, humiliated, titillated mess. Why not show him her portfolio? Her every secret was already written on her face, and he was grinning at her like he’d long ago figured it all out. Having stripped herself of decorum right there in front of him, she had no choice but to meet his eyes head-on. She lifted her chin and said, “All right. When do you want to look at my portfolio?” He retrieved her forgotten coins from the soda machine’s change slot and dropped them in her hand, his fingertips brushing her palm. “How about tonight?”

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Chapter Three For the remainder of the class, Keir played cat and mouse with Thad’s intense green gaze. The first time their eyes met, he winked and glanced away, and she shifted her attention back to her drawing board, heart thumping. When she looked up again to check the shadow on the left side of his face, his gaze was back on hers. They smiled at each other and Thad rolled his eyes as though to say, Stop. Keir widened hers in innocent indignation and forced her concentration back on her easel, wondering how many women could honestly say they’d indulged in playful flirtation with a stark-naked man amid a room full of people. When it happened again, she bravely held his gaze until he swallowed and shifted his attention elsewhere. He appeared to be having trouble standing still, which filled her with empowered delight. Twice he broke a pose, apologizing, and Keir noted the light sheen of perspiration covering his shoulders despite the room’s draftiness. “Mr. Warner,” Palladin gritted finally. “Normally I would ask if you have ants in your pants, but considering that you aren’t wearing any, may I compel you to stand still?” Color stained Thad’s cheeks, but he didn’t respond. When his gaze met Keir’s again, it was dark with an unnamed sentiment that both frightened and thrilled her. His eyes moved over her face, her hair, his appraisal like a sinuous caress while desire pooled in her belly and burned between her legs. She stood on the edge of a precipice with this man. One step and she would tumble deep, deep, into the white-hot center of the earth. By the time class ended, she was warm all over, and so aroused she could barely keep from pressing a hand to the aching place between her thighs. Little electric waves 28

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of sensation stung her there, like aftershocks of a phantom orgasm. Her legs trembled as she stood and packed up her supplies. “You ready?” Thad stopped at her easel to wait for her. He had pulled on a longsleeved T-shirt, faded jeans and loafers. He was wholesome and painfully beautiful. “You actually own something besides campy boxer shorts,” Keir remarked to soothe the sweet tension between them. “I was beginning to wonder.” He slid into a worn leather jacket and rubbed a hand through his sandy hair. “Boxers are my favorite. Except for being buck naked, of course.” “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she said with a shaky laugh. God, she was illsuited for this kind of sexual excitement. It left her tongue-tied and dry-mouthed. He reached out and took her drawing pad, then tucked her tackle box beneath his arm. “So we’re going to your place?” Keir hesitated. She was about to drive this man—this very sexy, wonderful man—to her apartment, where they would be alone. Her attraction to him had blossomed into a monstrous, empty yearning, and she didn’t know if she could sit beside him without puddling to the floor. And what if she’d somehow misread him, and none of the long, hot looks or vague promises they’d exchanged meant anything? “Or we could grab your portfolio and go to my house,” he said, following her into the corridor. “But do you mind driving? I rode my bike tonight.” She nodded dumbly. “I’ll bring you back to get it in the morning.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she froze. Oh, God… “In the morning,” he repeated slowly. “Okay.” She blinked, mortification rising up her body in a scalding wave of fire. There was no way out. Her subconscious had just run through the streets, screaming its fantasies. She wanted him, he knew it without question, and there was no turning back.

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Thad wisely chose not to comment, but he did raise his brows and grin, catching the door for her as they walked out into the parking lot. Five steps ahead of him now, and furious with herself, she reached her ancient Honda and glared at him over the top. “You know what I meant.” “I know what it sounded like you meant,” he said evenly, still smiling. “I’ll bring you back for your bike tonight. We’re going to my place to look at some drawings, right?” “That’s what I understood.” Thad climbed in the passenger side and pulled on his seatbelt. “Did you have something different in mind?” “What else could I possibly have in mind? Don’t answer,” she barked when her words hung in the air like neon arrows pointing at her head. She jammed the key into the ignition and started the car. “So we’re headed to your apartment, then?” he said without looking at her, even as his smile flashed in the dark. “To look at my portfolio.” “Right,” he said.

***** To deny that she had sex on the brain would seem utterly false, so Keir just avoided the subject and sank into a pleasant temporary denial as she drove them to her condo. They shared a light conversation about siblings—he had two brothers, she had one sister—and pets. Thad liked all animals, but currently he was renovating his house and only had room for an eighty-pound mutt named Frank. “So where’s this house of yours?” she asked when they stopped at a traffic light. “In Westchester,” he said. Her brows shot up. “Westchester’s a really nice area.” To say the least. Real estate in that neighborhood belonged solely to people of the six-income bracket or higher. Which was funny, because Thad didn’t seem like the proverbial rich bachelor. He didn’t seem 30

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like a poor ne’er-do-well, either, or a hippie, or a Peter Pan…he just was himself. Totally appealing and like no one else she knew. Keir glanced at him in the crimson glow of the traffic light. There was so much she didn’t know about him. He was a photographer, he was thirty-three, he was divorced. But somehow most of their conversations had left her with vague impressions of his personal life and no solid detail. She opened her mouth to ask some mindless question—When’s your birthday? Did your ex-wife break your heart? Do you ever wear briefs instead of boxers? Which do you like better, chocolate cake with white icing or white cake with chocolate icing, because stuff like that matters when you come right down to it?—but then he spoke. “You have a pencil mark on your cheek.” And he reached out to gently brush his thumb over a spot close to her mouth. Lightning sensation shot through her body and she gave an involuntary jolt, her lashes fluttering closed. When she opened them, his gaze was focused on hers instead of on his task. His touch was too light to remove any typical pencil mark, and too potent to be anything less than a caress. Keir forgot to breathe. The moment, thick and silent except for the rhythmic thud of her heart, took forever to pass, and yet it seemed too soon when he withdrew. “Thanks,” she half-whispered. He settled back in his seat and cleared his throat. “My pleasure.” The car behind them honked, propelling her to accelerate through the now-green light. They didn’t speak the remainder of the five minutes it took to reach her condo parking lot. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t sully the sweet, viscous tension simmering between them.

***** “Welcome to my humble abode.” Keir made a grand sweep in the direction of her nine hundred square feet of living space and shut the door behind them.

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While she moved around the room like a whirling-dervish, picking up clutter and turning on lamps, Thad stood in the middle of the tiny sitting area with his hands in his jacket pockets, taking it all in. “Wow. Check out that Christmas tree.” “It’s pink, it’s tacky, and it’s all mine,” she declared, leaning behind it to plug in the tiny blinking lights. He smiled at her. “Your artistry is written all over it.” “And my questionable taste.” “That too.” Every light in the living room was now ablaze, and in desperation she looked around for something else to do. Her entire being felt breathless and shaky. When he shrugged out of his jacket, she jerked into action, grabbed it from his hands and whisked it off to the coat closet. Then she closed the closet door, smoothed her blouse over her quivering stomach, and turned to flash him a bright smile. “It’s kind of cool in here. How about something warm to drink? Coffee? Hot chocolate?” “Coffee sounds great.” While she was in the galley kitchen, she covertly watched him kneel by her stereo and examine her CD collection. He was so at ease with himself. Of course he’d have to be, to stand naked in front of people. She wondered why he did it. Was he an exhibitionist? Did he ever get turned on in the middle of a pose, and if so, what the heck did he do about it? As she spooned grounds into the coffee maker, she heard him chuckle. The warm sound brought a smile to her lips. “What’s so funny?” “You have the soundtrack to Fast Times At Ridgemont High.” “Yep, guilty as charged.” “And Walt Disney’s Pete’s Dragon. Oh, look, here’s Marilyn Manson.” “Your point is?” she said, dumping a carafe of water into the top of the machine.

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“My point is you also have Eminem, Grace Jones—Grace Jones?—Aerosmith and a wide variety of Muzak.” She put away the coffee can and withdrew two mugs from the cabinet. “What can I say? I’m eclectic.” “You’re great.” Keir turned to find him hovering in the kitchen doorway, a CD in his hand. “Mind if I put this on?” “What is it?” He glanced at the jewel case. “Enigma.” “Oh.” She blinked. “Oh. Of course not.” But she stood frozen to the spot, her heart thudding, while he returned to the living room stereo. The Enigma CD he’d selected was the one she and Paul had always made love to. The one that made her think of slick, sliding flesh and rippling muscles and orgasms that shook you in time to the beat of Gregorian chanting. God help me. Why couldn’t he have chosen Pete’s Dragon? The earthy scent of coffee seeped into the air, and the slow, sexy breath of Enigma filled the apartment. Thad adjusted the stereo volume and reappeared in the kitchen. “How’s that?” Throbbing. Pulsing. Hot. “Super. Here.” She half-shoved a steaming coffee mug into his hands, noting his vague frown before she turned away to open first one cabinet, then another with shaking hands. “I’m going to have some whiskey in mine if I can find the damned bottle. Here it is. There’s plenty if you want some.” “Hey,” he said softly. “Keir.” Instead of answering, she kept her back turned and busied herself trying to wrench the lid off the bottle, feeling naked and raw in her own skin. His presence filled the space behind her, imbibed her home with warmth and wonderfulness and that hulking,

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terrifying potential for her heart’s downfall. And when he reached around her and took the whiskey from her useless fingers, she went still. “Keir.” He grasped her elbow and gently turned her to face him. “What?” She drew a breath and tried to smile, to erase her heart from her face. But still she felt it burn her cheeks, its fire fueled with the painful rhythm of her past. She didn’t want to remember what it was like to make love for love’s sake, the kind of lovemaking where your soul throbs out of you with every climactic shudder. She didn’t want to desire this man the way she had Paul, so intensely that the sight of him standing, so real and potently male, in the middle of her condo made her wet and weak and aching. But she did. She had, since the moment she first heard him speak in the studio two weeks ago. Was it only two weeks ago? What kind of idiot was she? She didn’t even know him! “What is it? The music?” he spoke in that soft, easy way of his that said no matter what her answer, it would be all right. “I can change it if you don’t—” “I don’t know, okay?” she snapped. “I don’t know what I want!” A lie, of course. What she wanted was the problem. “Okay.” Thad started to back away, but she reached out and grasped the front of his T-shirt to stop him. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…look, I’ll be blunt. This CD reminds me of sex.” Humor and something else, something heady and sweet, softened his features. “Yeah? Me too.” Then, to her amazement, his hand covered hers and pressed her palm to his chest, where the heat of his skin burned her through his T-shirt and his low voice reverberated beneath her touch. “Should I turn it off, Keir?” Oh, God. Keir swallowed and dropped her attention to his lips. Her insides shivered, tiny galvanized currents running through her nerves. Between her legs she’d gone damp and soft. He had done more than touch her hand. He’d touched her heart.

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He’d touched that suffocated, hungry place deep inside her that screamed for this kind of insanely delicious thrill. “No,” she whispered finally. “Don’t turn it off. I kind of like it.” “Yeah,” Thad repeated. “Me too.” He cradled her hand to his thudding heart and lowered his head until his breath brushed her open lips. He was going to kiss her. She could already taste him on her mouth, on her tongue…her eyelids fluttered closed, her breath hitched, she died a little in anticipation… And nothing happened. Keir opened her eyes and found him watching her with a faint smile, so close that she could count his gorgeous lashes. A surge of anger and humiliation flushed through her and she pulled away from him. “Why are you really here, Thad?” He straightened and set the whiskey bottle on the counter behind her. “To see your portfolio.” Oh. That. “Fine. Have a seat on the sofa. I’ll bring it out and we can look at it there, and then I’ll take you back to the college to get your bike.” “Keir—” “It’s no problem. Really. I said you could see it.” And she dashed around him before he could touch her again. Alone in her bedroom, she rubbed her hands over her hot face and gulped in huge, steadying breaths. Her body was still vibrating with desire. Christ—for a moment there, she’d really thought he was going to kiss her, to touch her, to take her. She’d really wanted him to strip her naked and put his mouth on her, cradle her ass in his warm hands, shove his beautiful cock inside her. Right there in the kitchen. Up against the wall, the refrigerator. On the countertop. On the floor, with Enigma pounding her senses in time to his sinuous thrusts. Well.

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He obviously wasn’t riding the same sexual wave. There was definitely a twisted kind of excitement in pushing a flirtation so far, though. Keir, herself, had reveled in it for the past couple of weeks. His warm attention, the delicious chemistry between them, had salvaged her wounded heart and ego, if only for a brief time. He’d helped her over the hump of heartbreak. She didn’t want to be mad at him for playing games with her— he’d made no promises. She wanted to take his lack of promises and clobber him over the head, but of course that wasn’t rational. He was here, after all, to see her portfolio. Just like he’d said. He wasn’t a liar. He wasn’t her lover either. He was a flirt. A passerby in her life. A blip on her screen. Sighing at her woman-scorned self, she dragged out her large leather folder and carried it into the living room, where she laid it on the rug in front of the sofa. She had nothing to hide from him after all, especially because this was no great love-affair-to-be. It wasn’t even a one-night-stand-to-be. He could look at all of it—at all of her, heart and soul, sentiments and agonies and fantasies, everything the drawings contained. She didn’t care. Gregorian chants amid a throbbing electro-beat limned the air as she untied the portfolio strings and straightened to find him watching her from the breakfast bar. “Well?” she said, her voice a little too sharp, a little too cheerful in the condo’s hushed intimacy. “Here it is, Thaddeus Warner. Have at it.” He took a sip from his mug, set it on the bar, and came around the sofa to where she stood. Immediately she stepped away, putting distance between them, and perched on the arm of a nearby chair to wait in the multihued pulse of the Christmas tree lights. Long moments passed as he knelt on the rug and spread out the first four sketches, various anonymous landscapes of places she had visited with Paul and had long since forgotten. His profile was unreadable as he examined each one, then carefully replaced them and laid out the next four, which were portraits of his face from different angles, all drawn from memory and so painstakingly rendered, they looked photographic.

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His throat moved but he didn’t say anything, just clasped his hands behind his neck, sat back on his heels and studied the renderings, the tree lights splashing a pastel glow across his features. Finally he looked up at her. For a long time, neither of them spoke. Then he dropped his arms to his sides and said, “God, Keir…I had no idea.” “I know.” Her throat ached, but she smiled anyway and nodded at the portfolio. “There’s more.” Thad bit his lip and carefully withdrew the final drawing, a large study of him stretched across her bed, the way he’d looked in her dream, naked, vulnerable and wanting. “Where does this scene take place?” he asked, leaning closer to examine it. “My bedroom,” she said baldly. His eyebrows lifted. Then the corners of his mouth twitched. “Keir? This is missing something.” “Oh?” “Something integral.” Christ. She knew exactly where this was going. Sucking in a shaky breath, she made a grudging motion for him to continue. “Where’s my penis?” His smile widened as though he couldn’t stop it. “Sheesh, I didn’t even get a smudge on this one.” There was no easy way to respond without sounding like a head-case. She crossed her legs and waved a dismissive hand. “Well, see, I couldn’t remember exactly how your…how it…I couldn’t…” He was laughing! She narrowed her eyes. “You think I have issues with male genitalia, don’t you?” Thad shook his head helplessly. “I just don’t know. What does your therapist say?”

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“I don’t have a problem,” she declared, rising to her feet as indignation washed away the sweet tightness in her chest. “You really want to know the truth? I couldn’t remember what your penis looked like because I try not to look at it that much in the studio.” “Why not?” he asked, his mirth fading to a grin of sheer delight. She stepped over the drawing and stopped, the tips of her tennis shoes brushing his knees. “Because…because…you’re amazing, every damned inch of you, and looking at you so intimately makes me want you, and if I look, I can’t concentrate on what Palladin is saying—” she dragged in a breath, knowing she was lost, and charged on. “Not to mention I’m really not ready to feel like this for anyone, damn you, Thad! And to want you and not have you is too painful, so I come home and do these drawings to get you out of my system…and all right, maybe to revel in you in a way I can’t in the studio with everyone watching, to recreate you so I can look at every bit of you the way I want—” “Except my penis,” he pointed out. “Thad!” Keir scrubbed her hands over her fiery face and turned away, her pulse thundering, torn between hysterical laughter and tears of humiliation. Behind her, she heard the slight pop of his knees as he rose to his feet. She hugged herself and closed her eyes, too afraid to turn around and face the damage she’d wrought. It was one thing to have a guy reject you, but another thing entirely to be relegated to Entertainer of the Year. The sound of cloth brushing skin followed, then the slide of a zipper. “What are you doing?” she choked without looking. “Getting naked,” he said. She whirled, lips parted, to find him bare-chested and barefoot, his hands hovering at the waistband of his open jeans. He wasn’t laughing anymore.

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“Finish it,” he said, his face somber in the rainbow castings of the Christmas tree. “Will you finish it, Keir?” He meant the drawing. She swallowed, wondering why her heart hadn’t simply flung itself through bone and muscle and flesh, out of her body and into his hands. “Oh, yes,” she said at last, shaken but sure. “I thought you’d never ask.”

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Chapter Four With the drawing in hand and the sound of Enigma still throbbing in her veins, she led the way to her bedroom on legs that felt slushy and unreliable. “This is my room,” she told him, hovering in the doorway while he moved ahead into the space. “I don’t believe in making my bed. I’m only going to mess it up again in a matter of hours.” “Your logic is fascinating.” Thad wandered to the foot of the double bed and glanced around the small room, his shirt wadded in one hand, totally at ease with his jeans gaping open enough to expose the muscles of his lower abdomen and the soft hair that marked a path from his navel into his fly. His green gaze slid over the drawings framed on her walls, then her dresser, whose surface she had covered with a colorful assortment of family photos. He wandered over to it, glanced at the pictures, and studied the array of cosmetics and lotions. “Ah, so now I know the name of your perfume.” “You’d wondered?” The drawing slid unnoticed from Keir’s fingers and landed at her feet. “Yeah. The scent drives me crazy.” He picked up the teardrop-shaped bottle and held the tip to his nose, closing his eyes. “It’s incredible on you.” She had to clear her throat before she could reply, and then she couldn’t think of anything to say beyond, Would you stop this nonsense and put your hands on me already? He turned from the dresser, set aside his T-shirt, and with his heavy-lidded gaze searching her face, slid his jeans and boxers down his long, strong legs. Moving with his usual easy composure, he stepped out of the puddle of clothing, picked up and folded each item and laid them neatly on top of his shirt. Then he faced her, the only sign of edginess in the way he flexed his fingers at his sides. 40

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Keir’s face warmed. He was fully aroused, his erection thick and strong and more formidable than she could have dreamed. If this night continued on its errant, enchanted path, she would take all of that inside her. Know its breadth, its heat, its thrust. “Big, Bad John,” she whispered. “Pardon?” She shook her head, staring in helpless amazement. Following the line of her gaze, he glanced down at himself. “Oh. Sorry about that.” He met her regard, bold arousal written in the darkened green of his eyes. “Actually, I’m not sorry.” “I don’t want you to be,” she breathed. He started toward her with such intent, she took a step back, her heart thrumming and leaping. Then he stopped, the muscles working in his jaw. “Finish the damned drawing, Keir.” “Yes. Okay.” She retrieved the forgotten rendering from the carpet and halfstumbled to the drafting table near the closet. “My pencil—” “Finish it so we can start. You and me.” Oh, God. “Yes,” she said, and fumbled the pencil box so badly, its contents flew across the table like a child’s pick-up sticks and clattered down the slanted expanse. By the time she found her portable drawing board—buried under the laundry basket of all places, damn it—Thad had stretched out across her rumpled sheets on his stomach and braced himself on his forearms. Waiting for her. Keir kicked off her tennis shoes, then dragged her rolling desk chair over to the bedside and sat with the board balanced on her lap. How she was going to concentrate enough to get even a chicken scratch on paper, she didn’t know, but the way Thad was looking at her didn’t help. No man had ever regarded her like that before—like he wanted to devour her.

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“What are you thinking?” he asked, even though the hot intent in his eyes told her he already knew. “How beautiful you are, Thad. You’re a beautiful man. A beautiful person.” She took a deep breath, exhaled and let it whisk away some of her nervousness with it. Then she checked the picture for his pose. “In the drawing, you’re lying on your hip. Can you turn that way, please?” He did as she asked, crooking his elbow beneath his head as it was in the rendering, the other arm resting across his stomach. “I want you so bad,” he said. “You have no idea.” “I have some idea.” Keir managed a shaky grin and began sketching, adding shadows to his hip, to the tender spot where thigh meets pelvis, then heavier strokes to outline the shape of his erection, its proud angle, the duskiness of its silken head and slightly darker shaft. It didn’t take her long to capture him on paper, and when her pencil went still, she raised her gaze to his. Without speaking, she set aside the drawing board and held the picture out for him to examine. Thad sat up on the side of the bed and took the drawing in both hands as though it was something precious and fragile—and it was, Keir thought. It was her heart and deepest desire on that page. “It’s finished,” he said huskily, and with his eyes locked on hers, leaned to carefully lay it on the floor. Then he held out his hand. “Come here.” When she laid her fingers in his, he grasped them and drew her down onto the bed beside him, then pushed her hair away from her face and caressed her cheek, his thumb brushing her lips, her chin, the line of her jaw. “Kiss me,” he whispered, and without waiting for her to move, tilted her chin up and covered her mouth with his.

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Oh, she thought, her lips parting to welcome the immediate thrust of his tongue. Oh. It was all she could think. And reacting was all she could do, drowning in the most penetrating excitement she’d ever known, until the burning ache between her legs swept through her entire body, turning her languid and hungry at the same time. Coming to life, she untangled her fingers from his and slid them into the soft curls at the nape of his neck, her other hand guiding his when he slid his palm down to cup her breast. He caressed its weight through her cotton shirt and bra, kneaded it gently, then plucked its tip to erection with his fingertips, until a sharp pang of desire wrenched a sound from her throat and she forgot herself, her nervousness, everything but this man and how he filled her senses. And how much she wanted to be naked along with him. Keir wrenched her lips from his and stood to yank her shirt free from her khaki pants. When her trembling fingers fumbled on the buttons, Thad helped her unfasten them. Together they pushed the shirt off her shoulders and down one arm before their mouths fused again, hot and ravenous, tongues warring and tangling. He edged back onto the pillows and she went with him, their legs entwined as he grasped her hips and drew her pelvis tight against his. Even through the placket of her khakis, the heat of his cock burned its imprint on her flesh. He nibbled and licked her bottom lip, all the while deftly opening her fly despite the restless movements of her hips. When she straddled him and sat up to unfasten her bra, he smiled at her and drew the thin garment slowly down her arms, his eyes hot as he took in the sight of her small, naked breasts. “You’re beautiful, Keir.” She felt beautiful in that moment, a rare sensation, and one born of a tender lover’s appreciation. Keir held her spine erect, shivering inside and out beneath his searing gaze. To be appraised like this, with nothing sacred or hidden in the blazing overhead light, was both devastating and electrifying. He traced a single fingertip around her left 43

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nipple, left it knotted and tingling, then did the same to the right breast, circling with his tender, calloused touch again and again, until the sensation rushed in galvanized currents straight to her sex, turning her wetter, softer, less self-conscious and more desperate. She squirmed on him, rubbing against his steely erection. “Oh, my God.” Her head fell back, hair brushing her naked back as he sat up and traced the sensitive underside of her right breast with his kiss, then took her nipple between his lips and teased it with teeth and tongue, tugging, nipping, licking and licking and… “I feel like I could come,” she whimpered in disbelief. “Oh…” Tiny shudders throbbed through her womb and stole her breath as she flattened her palms on his chest and rocked on the hard ridge of his penis. It wasn’t a full-blown climax, but merely a harbinger of the pleasure to come. And it would come—she would come—under his hands, there was no question. It terrified and thrilled her at the same time, because she’d never experienced that kind of mind-blowing detonation in front of any man. He would be the first. His smile promised it as he urged her up on her knees and skimmed the pants down over her hips. Shivering with impatience, Keir kicked them off to the floor and peeled off her socks, then knelt beside him on the mattress again, and with careful, worshipful fingers, took his erection and bent to touch her lips to its burning, satin tip. Leaning back on one elbow, Thad murmured a wordless encouragement and swept her hair to the side so he could watch her as she lowered her mouth over his cock. He filled her, touched the depths of her throat, and still she could only take in half of him. She withdrew, dragging her tongue up the hard line of his shaft, then took him in again, impossibly deeper and with steady suction, aware of the slight saltiness that teased her tongue, the essence of his pleasure. He gasped, his fingers whirling in her hair, faster, faster, just like in her fantasy. Then, “Christ—I’m—stop, Keir. Stop—” She backed off. He collapsed on the pillows and flung an arm over his eyes, released a long, shaky breath. And just when her face 44

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began to heat with the old sense of inadequacy, he lifted his arm and offered her an apologetic grin. “I’m sorry. I was going to come in your mouth.” Her cheeks warmed even more, but with delight instead of humiliation. “Oh. Is that such a bad thing?” “It is if I want to come inside you when we make love.” A wicked smile curled her lips. “What about after that?” “Only if you come in my mouth at the same time.” And while she paused to muse on that, Thad grasped her waist and hauled her into him, turned her beneath him so that he lay beside her, and opened his mouth over hers. He kissed her deeply, then drew back a little to tease her with his tongue, nudging, nibbling her bottom lip, his erection throbbing and burning against her bare abdomen. Keir groaned and sank her fingers into his hair to hold him, and this time when his mouth covered hers, she felt his hand slide up the inside of her thigh to the triangle of her panties. Instantly she jerked, with pleasure and embarrassment both, because she knew he’d found her soaked with need. “Oh, no,” she whispered, simply because there was nothing else to say. “Oh, yes,” his reply came hot and breathy against her ear. His fingertips made a single, firm stroke up through her wet heat to press firm against her clitoris, and she shuddered, closing her thighs to clamp his touch right where she most wanted it. Her fists drew the bottom sheet from its mooring as she grabbed wads of it to anchor herself to the earth. Then she released his hand to do its worst. Or best, as it were. Gingerly, he moved the crotch of her panties aside and slid a finger between the slick, swollen lips of her sex, dipping into her wetness, his gaze shuttered and steady on her flushed face. “Keir?” Oh, God. The top of her head felt like it would blow off as his fingertip pressed lightly on her throbbing clitoris. “What?”

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“I’m going to go down on you.” That roused her from her pre-orgasmic haze and she lifted her head in protest. “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that.” “I want to.” “But…you do?” “So much,” he whispered, and with a sultry smile, eased down her body, spreading kisses along her heaving rib cage to her shivering belly, where he lingered to dip his tongue into her navel and murmured something about how good she was going to taste. Then bracketing her thighs with his hands, he eased them apart and settled between her legs, and glanced up her body to lock eyes with her in that instant before his mouth touched her flesh. Keir stared down at him, reading the purpose in his long-lashed gaze as he hovered over her mound, and with a groan of both reluctance and anticipation, she let her head fall back on the pillows. She thought he might make a careful foray into this act that was so very personal. Instead he opened his mouth wide over her, taking in as much of her sensitized flesh as he could, his tongue lapping her clitoris, dipping and sliding and flicking, instantly eliciting a cry from her throat. Her hands flailed, unanchored, then settled on his hair, clutched and clung, and oh, God, what was he doing down there with his teeth and tongue? It felt better than anything, ever, and the sounds rising from her chest belonged to some wild, uninhibited creature, not Keir Hanson, who’d never thought much of oral sex and tried to avoid it at all costs because of how vulnerable it made her feel. This new Keir angled her head on the pillow to watch her lover cradled between her thighs, hazily noting the furrows of concentration between his fine brows and the exquisite fan of his lashes across his cheeks, before ecstasy weighted her eyelids and she sank back into the pillow’s yield.

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Thad shifted, splayed one hand over her abdomen and the other under her ass, and settled into her again with his sinful, hungering mouth, savoring her sensitive flesh in gentle tugs and nips, until her hips instinctively rose to meet each thrust of his tongue, until she felt the jolt and climb to something terrifying and magnificent…a rising to pleasure so huge and blinding and… “Oh Thad, oh yes, oh yes!” Clutching his hair, she convulsed beneath his plundering mouth again, again, every muscle wrung tight and shivering as she quaked through the most intense orgasm of her life. And when she collapsed limply against the pillows, Thad kissed the inside of each thigh, nuzzling his lips and chin against the tender skin, then rose up and settled between her legs, his cock so hard that it lay parallel between their abdomens. “I came,” she said with a disbelieving laugh. “Yes, you did.” He smiled down at her, his mouth red and delectable from the friction of kisses and caresses. “Is that unusual?” “With a second party? I’m afraid so.” He kissed her ear, the underside of her jaw, the ticklish tendon on the side of her neck. “Mm. You make yourself come?” Keir roused to her senses a little, and closed her eyes to hide from his curious grin. “On occasion. Don’t you?” “Absolutely.” She opened her eyes again. “That sounds very, very hot,” she told him, and he laughed. “I guess it does have its moments.” “Where do you do it?” “In the shower,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “In bed sometimes. You?” “The same.” Warm titillation bombarded her in waves, and she shivered. “Will you show me? I’ve never seen a guy…you know…do that.”

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“Of course. But right now…I’d rather fuck you.” “Okay,” she breathed, her heart jolting at the blunt declaration. Dropping his head to meet hers, he kissed the spot between her eyebrows, her nose, her cheeks, then her lips, which had fallen open in amazement at his tenderness in such a primal moment. And when his mouth captured hers, he reached between them, found her slippery opening with the tip of his cock, and pushed into her, deep. They both groaned, and Keir wrapped her arms around his neck, her heart hammering a crazy rhythm as she rose up to meet his second thrust with a strong push of her own. They ebbed and flowed, back and forth, slow and deep, panting into each other’s mouths, until Thad lowered her to the mattress and buried his face in the curve of her neck. Keir held him tight, clutching his back with one hand and his undulating ass with the other, reading the flex and hollow of muscle with each graceful thrust, cherishing every minute of this incredible fantasy come true. “Ah, Keir,” he whispered, moving harder now, with purpose, his forehead pressed to her temple. His skin was damp and slick beneath her hands, the heady scent of desire rising around them. “You’re so wet, so hot, it makes me want to come right now.” “Yes,” she whispered, over and over, half soothing, half mindless. “Yes.” And then there was silence, no more sound of Enigma, which had long since worked its pulsing magic, nothing but the squeak of the box spring and the rhythmic rush of their breathing. Thad braced his arms on either side of her and stared down into her face, his features steely with concentration, his strong, hard thighs holding her legs splayed wide. She read the approaching orgasm in the sinew of his neck and shoulders, then in the way his lips parted, as if in amazement at the impending explosion. And suddenly she was climbing the crest with him, and he was rubbing her just right, his shaft probing an electrified spot deep inside her. Drowning in sheer abandonment, Keir slid a hand down the muscled expanse of Thad’s back and between his buttocks to explore him, reading the divine makings of a 48

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man—his tight, silky balls, the tender flesh beneath them, then the intimate opening she’d never touched on anyone. When he gasped, she probed deeper and with her other hand, cupped his jaw and traced his open lips, exploring him there as she did below, penetrating his mouth and the tight place between his buttocks simultaneously, until he closed his lips around her thumb and sucked, his eyes squeezed shut in agonized ecstasy. And then he thrust harder, faster, faster…and cried out some mindless word like Please or God or Keir. She didn’t know because she’d gone over the edge with him, her own cries matching his. Even as her inner muscles convulsed around his shaft, she felt the hot spurt of his ejaculation inside her, pulses of heat and life and pleasure that filled her all the way to her heart. Muscles quaking, Thad slowed to a gentle rocking and rested his forehead against hers as she clutched him in breathless astonishment. They stayed like that, panting, eyes closed, their hips dancing languid and easy, until he finally went still and lifted his head to look at her. In the vibrating aftermath, she studied his flushed, beautiful face, the damp curls clinging to his temple and forehead, the slow lowering of his lashes as he examined her features in turn. Then he smiled…and suddenly they were both laughing. Keir couldn’t have said why. Joyful disbelief, maybe, because it had been the most incredible sex ever. Thad found her hand, laced his fingers through hers, and glanced down at the way their bodies connected, male to female, hard to soft. “I’m…speechless.” “Me too.” “I want to do it again.” “Me too.” He kissed her, his lips clinging softly to hers, then rolled to the side and drew her into his embrace. “Maybe after we rest a little.”

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Keir drifted in a lovely state of semi-delirium, listening to the slowing thud of his heartbeat beneath her ear as a mild, cool draft sipped the dampness from their bodies. His breathing was slow and even now, the steady back-and-forth brush of his fingertips on her arm faltering and then finally ceasing. “Thad?” she whispered, wondering if he had fallen asleep. “Hmm?” Stirring, he tilted his head to look down at her. “What do you really do for a living?” He resumed stroking her arm. “What makes you think I’m anything but a photographer?” “You live in Westchester,” she said flatly. He swallowed a laugh. “Yeah, that’s a damn shame, isn’t it?” “It’s gorgeous there.” “It is. I bought my house with the intention of setting down roots there. One of these days I’d like to have some kids to run around with Frank the dog and play in the backyard. But even if that never happens for me, I still think I’ll stay. I love my house.” “How many bedrooms?” she asked bluntly. “Six,” he replied with mock solemnity. “Are you disappointed?” She sniffed. “I don’t know yet. So you’re not a photographer?” “I am in my spare time,” he said, “but I also invest in real estate.” She rose on her elbow to look at him. “You mean like flipping houses?” “Some commercial property too, but yes, that pretty much describes it. I’ve been doing it since right out of college. I buy the houses, do the renovations myself, resell them. It’s hard work, but I like it.” “That explains the calluses on your palms.” She played with his hand, kissed one toughened fingertip. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” He let his fingers drift over her lips. “I don’t know. I wanted you to like me for me before you knew the other stuff.” 50

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She hesitated. It was too soon to fall in love, but she was heading that way, and the rapt expression on his features as he gazed back at her told her he might come along for the ride. So she settled for, “Well, I do. I really like you, Thad Warner,” and when that sounded ridiculous, she added, “You know what I mean.” ‘I really like you too,” he murmured. “It’s happening fast, isn’t it.” An observation more than a question. “Does that bother you?” He swallowed and caressed the line of her jaw, staring into her eyes for a long moment. Finally he said, “For so long after my divorce, I didn’t look at anyone. I had to work through the poor-mes, then the easing back into the dating scene, and to be honest, I thought I’d rather be alone. But the minute I met you, Keir, I knew you were special. I thought it might happen like this—I hoped it would, and I’m fine with it. I’m more than fine.” He smiled and stroked her cheek with such tenderness, tears stung her eyes. Then he added, “I know you’ve been hurt recently, and it kept me from asking you out at first. You seemed so sad. But then…” “Then I wasn’t anymore, because life’s too short.” She ran her hand down his stomach, feeling the muscles contract under the caress before she trailed her fingertips through the dark hair surrounding his penis. To her amazement, his cock stirred, coming to life as though it had a mind of its own. He sucked in a breath. “Unbelievable how that can happen so quickly after you nearly killed me with pleasure.” “Mm…” Keir enclosed his shaft and reveled in its steady, growing pulse. “God, you’re sexy.” “Takes one to know one.” He caught her errant hand and lifted it to his lips. “Don’t distract me yet. I have a really important question for you too, and a lot hinges on this.”

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Her heart sank a little. “Yeah? What?” “I don’t know. This is really hard for me.” “What?” She caught his face in her hand. “Just ask me. What is it?” He drew a breath and looked beleaguered. “Keir…do you think you can do my family jewels some justice on paper from now on? No more smudges?” Keir burst into laughter. “I can’t make any promises,” she said, sliding over him again to meet his grin with her own, “but ask me again tomorrow, after some extensive and thorough research.” “Oh, yes,” he whispered, and drew her down for the sweetest kiss of her life.

The End

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About the Author Writing romance comes naturally to Shelby Reed and has flavored most of her work since she first fell in love with Jane Austen’s stories years ago. She strives to write about real women with contemporary issues, who manage to find love despite the trials and tribulations of today’s single female. When not churning out fiction, Shelby utilizes her B.A. in Art as a portraitist, works part-time as an editor, and considers herself a fulltime author since she recently quit her day job to throw herself headlong into writing. She lives in the flavorful deep south with her husband, two rambunctious dogs, and a house full of manuscripts and artwork in various stages of completion.

Shelby welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

Also by Shelby Reed A Fine Work of Art The Fifth Favor Holiday Inn Midnight Rose Seraphim

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