Naked Love

by Jones, Lisa Renee

  Her words reminded me of what I'd heard about how artists developed not just an eye for detail, but for people too. For seeing beneath the façade and finding the truth the faces might tell.

  "Doesn't your artist's eye tell you?" My question came out harsher than I intended.

  Another smile twitched at the corner of her mouth as she bit her bottom lip. "Yeah…so I think you are not."

  "Polite to a fault? Unfortunately, not. It's why I don't always get by so well here."

  "Then why do you stay?"

  I shrugged. "It's home. It's all I know. I've travelled, sure, but I've never really felt like I belonged anywhere else."

  "But you don't feel like you belong here either."

  A few beats of awkward silence. Then, seeming to believe she'd said something she shouldn't have, she bit her lip again and said, "Sorry."

  "Don't be sorry."

  Right now, Giselle's words were like addicting stabs. I wanted to see how deep they could cut me before I bled.

  "Tell me. Look and tell me. Tell me what you see."

  The startling intensity of her eyes made me almost want to avert my gaze. But looking iris-deep into them, I'd swear they weren't just the melted-chocolate color I'd noticed at first, but layers upon layers of browns, sparkling with passion that stirred me up and put fear into me at the same time.

  "Tell me," I urged, her silent stance suggesting she was considering it. "I can handle it, Giselle."

  Once again, our eyes met, and a shock of electric sensation zapped right through me.

  She shook her head. "I don't know. It's better when I don't only look, but also"—her head tipped down—"touch too."

  My cock heard her again, too, although I did my best to stifle it. The last thing I needed right now was to be flashing an erection while she had her attention fixed on me so diligently.

  "That's fine," I told her.

  She nodded, her eyes closing as her hands neared my face. Her fingertips gently slid up to my eyelids.

  "Eyes closed for you too, Gage. It is easier."

  I closed my eyes. Her hands started out on the rigid plane of my forehead, feeling out the strong brow bone my dad always used to boast about. Then they swept down, over my eyebrows. "You are a hard man. Closed off," she said softly, without a trace of judgment.

  Cassidy said the same thing.

  Even though I'd heard it many times before, coming from Giselle it didn't have the same sting.

  Her hands swept down to my cheekbones.

  "Proud."

  My faults were being revealed one by one underneath her busy fingers. Why couldn't she spot anything good? This subconscious bullshit was probably only revealing the many negatives she guessed about me. By now, Giselle probably had me pegged as a cocky, unfeeling, rich boy who wasn't interested in anything more than getting laid.

  It's true though.

  When her fingers swept down around my eyes, however, she paused. "Sad." The word came out, softly, a little unwillingly.

  My eyes snapped open as I ripped my face away from her hands.

  Giselle blinked at me, as if startled from a deep trance. Her cheeks were now beet red.

  "Sorry," she said again.

  I shook my head, stretched out my arms, and rubbed at my temples. "You don't have to keep apologizing. I asked you to tell me. I was just…getting uncomfortable being in one position for so long."

  Lame.

  She nodded wordlessly, clearly seeing right through my obvious lie. But was it enough to have her make an excuse and leave my pathetic ass on the beach?

  I didn't want her to leave, though.

  "I'm sorry." I'd said those two words to Cassidy countless times but they sounded foreign on my lips when saying them to her. "I'm just not used to—"

  "People just saying what they think?"

  Another soft smile from her had me studying the sand where her toes were buried, the soft grains partially obscuring her feet at the end of her long lovely legs. "Yeah. It's a bit disarming…but I don't want you to stop doing it."

  "Oh." Her lips formed an O in surprise. "And…you also wish for me to keep on drawing you?" She blushed as she asked the question.

  "Yes. Please."

  The next few minutes, she worked in concentrated silence. Although I was itching to talk to her, I kept quiet, figuring I'd blabbed enough already. But when she lifted a hand to twirl a strand of hair absently, revealing a vibrant wrist tattoo, I couldn't resist.

  "What's that?"

  She glanced down. "Oh, this?" Smiling, she lifted her wrist, so it was inches away from my face.

  Many shades of color: azures, amethysts and every hue in between, expertly twined together into what looked to be a tiny sparrow. "I guess it is my spirit animal, you could say."

  Above the colorful bird was the sweeping script of an N, and then below an F.

  "Those letters, are they a French form of the compass?"

  Giselle withdrew her wrist to hold it close to her. "My French accent is that much of a giveaway, yes?" she asked after a minute, with a little smile.

  I nodded. She didn't say anything, though, and got back to her sketching. Apparently Giselle was the only one who got to dig deep.

  "Do the letters stand for 'never fear'?"

  As she glanced up, I caught the beginnings of a smile and then…sadness. I kept my gaze steady and determined, though. So far, Giselle had been the one leading and guiding our conversation. Now it was my turn.

  "You are close. It's for 'never forget,'" she said after a minute, her eyes growing more distant.

  As if sensing my next question, she explained, "It is reminder. For why I left home. Why I came here."

  By now, she looked so distraught that I only wanted to take her in my arms and comfort her. Instead, frustration thrummed in me—at myself, for prying where I shouldn't have.

  "Listen, Giselle…" I took her hand. "I—"

  And then, a gust of wind snatched her drawing away. As it sailed through the air, Giselle leapt up, taking off after it. "Merde!"

  I scrambled up and after her, already several paces behind. Suddenly, with a cry, Giselle toppled to the sand.

  When I reached her, her foot was clasped in her hands and her toe was streaming blood.

  "Shit. Are you all right?"

  Giselle shot a glare at the nearby rock jutting up from the sand responsible for her injury. Then, she tossed a wistful look over her shoulder as the wind whisked the paper out of sight. "Looks like that is the end of your portrait, Gage."

  Her jaw set in pain, as I looked around for something to wrap her toe in. The best option was a piece of palm leaf from the nearby tree. She barely made a noise while I fiddled with the leaf. Cassidy would have been crying blue murder, demanding to sue the beach for a hidden rock. Although, she’d never allow sand to get between her manicured toes, so I guessed that point was moot. Yet, Giselle was quiet. Fearless. I tied the leaf around her foot twice, but despite the way I bound it, red blood still seeped through my makeshift bandage. Should I take her to my place for some proper first aid?

  She gave a small, bitter laugh. "Ought to have been more careful. I am one for the mishaps. And then there is the whole name of this beach."

  Despite the situation, I found myself smirking. "Folly Beach, yeah."

  I made up my mind.

  Before I could think about it, I grabbed my surfboard and swept her up in my arms. There was a second or two of a communal balancing act—but she ended up higher in my arms, and my Hypto Krypto in hers. It would work.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Taking you to my house. The hospital is a good thirty minutes away, and even if you just want to go to a drugstore, that's a twenty-minute walk. My house is about five."

  Giselle relaxed in my arms. "All righty then." She peeled her eyes away from the reds and pinks the setting sun was flinging into the sky and aimed a testy look up to me. "Promise me you are not an absurdly attractive axe murderer?" Absurdly attractive axe murderer
? Where have you come from, Giselle?

  I gave her a small squeeze. "Promise."

  Our eyes locked together.

  Adrenaline flowed through my veins as we returned to her notebook underneath the palm tree. We gathered up everything a second time between us, and I carried her to my beach house.

  Except this time as I walked, "absurdly attractive axe murderer" ran through my head like an addictive sort of tongue twister.

  And she is an alluring, French beach fairy.

  3

  “So, we have pink, blue, or regular old white."

  At the kitchen table with her injured foot propped up on a dinner plate, Giselle tilted her head at me quizzically.

  "Bandages," I said, holding up the three cloths.

  I left it at that. I wasn't going to explain how my ex was the reason I had pink and blue cloth bandages in the first aid kit. She was a smart girl, and probably had already figured it out anyway in the time it took me throw on jeans and T-shirt. Even though I loathed the feel of salty skin under clothes, I’d shower later. Right now, I had a beautiful woman in pain to tend to. She crinkled her nose at me and said, "What the hell, I choose pink."

  Fuckin’ adorable.

  After inspecting and cleaning her cut, the injury didn't look quite as bad as I'd originally thought, so a simple wrapping over some antibacterial would probably best do the job. If her toe was broken, then time was the only thing to heal it. Thankfully it wasn't her big toe that had taken the blow against the rock. I could feel her eyes on me as I worked, so I looked up and gave her a smile. She'd given me so many. Smiles. In a short time, I'd become rather addicted to Giselle's smiles. I didn't have a lot of experience with smiling women—any really—but I knew enough to understand that I liked them from her. A whole fucking lot.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Your English." I made the final wrap-around before tucking the excess pink fabric in. "How'd you learn to speak English so well?"

  "Oh that," she said sweeping out her hand. "I was just a nerd, I suppose. Ever since I was small, my dream was to see with my own eyes the America I'd read about in my textbooks and seen in the movies. The America with the mint-green goddess of Liberty, the delicious apple pie, and where everyone was so loud and wild and raw. So, in class I was one of the few ones who paid attention and studied on my own. And so"—she cracked a smile—"here I am."

  "Is it what you expected?"

  Her head shake was decisive. "Nope."

  But that still hadn't told me what I really wanted to know. "Why here, though? Charleston, hell—or even South Carolina for that matter—isn't exactly on most foreign traveler's top ten."

  "I already did check out New York City and Boston.” She made a quick sequence of finger tapping, from her thumb to her pinky, as if that was how fast her trip had gone by. "Anyway, I ran out of money and was tired of all the city, city, cities. I wanted somewhere more quiet…on a beach. Like Cannes in France, but small."

  "You choose well then. Guess your English lessons paid off."

  Her eyes lit up with mischief. "Not exactly. Our English classes themselves were trash—all Disney movies, and mocking whatever the teacher said to us. It was more my stubborn pigheadedness, as my père used to say, that got me anywhere, and studying at home with Brynne, an American university student who lived with us in Paris. I did my lessons with her. Things like that."

  I nodded. "The French classes at the private school I went to were pretty much trash too. I mean, don't get me wrong, the teachers really tried. But I think it's like you said, most of us kids just weren't interested. My French exam in the twelfth grade was passed by the slimmest of margins—sixty-one percent and only by writing Dr. & Mrs. Vandertramp on my frog eraser."

  Giselle stuck out her bottom lip at me in a pout. "Alors tu ne peux pas parler à moi?"

  My blank stare probably said it all, as my dismal years of primary French failed to comprehend what she'd said. "Uh, bonjour?"

  Giselle threw her head back and laughed, the deep rumble making her body shake all the way from the long length of her dark golden hair down to her delicate tan feet. After few seconds, she paused. Sticking up the big pink mummified creation that was her middle toe, she wiggled it, and laughed some more. "It is like a big pink marshmallow."

  "Just don't go eating it," I said wryly, seeing that she did have a point.

  She stuck her tongue out at me playfully, and then it hit me. "Hey, you must be hungry. Sorry, I didn't even think to ask."

  Giselle nodded her head up and down dramatically. "The worst host, you are."

  Her frown held for a quarter of a second before it cracked, letting loose another peal of laughter. "Although I would appreciate anything you have, really." Her smile sheepish, she added, "When I get into drawing like I do, I often forget to eat."

  I strode over to the pantry and then looked back over at her. "I don't know. I feel like I really have to live up to this worst host thing." I wasn't one to tease in conversation, but with her it felt very natural. Easy.

  Our eyes locked on to each other's in a sort of sarcastic staring contest. What were we even doing here?

  Crossing her arms across her chest, Giselle flicked her head in a sideways uncaring motion. "At least when I die of starvation, you will not have to waste any more of your beloved pink bandages on my corpse."

  Opening the cupboard, I retrieved a package and tossed it at her. "That should hold off your starvation for at least another hour or two."

  She caught the bag of giant marshmallows and set it on the table with a grin. "My subconscious powers of suggestion worked."

  I nodded, sitting at the table. "You're lucky you didn't say your bandage looked like a mushroom, because I have some of those too."

  She wrinkled her nose adorably.

  I noticed our feet were touching under the table. Giselle's good foot had draped lazily down and was now resting against mine. She didn't try to move it either, as she busied herself with trying to open the bag of marshmallows.

  Frustrated, she shoved the bag over to me. "If you meant to mock me by providing me with a marshmallow bag that doesn’t open, congratulations, you have succeeded."

  With one quick rip I tore open the bag and tossed a marshmallow her way.

  Giselle jerked toward it and caught the marshmallow neatly in her mouth.

  Impressive.

  As she chewed, she winked at me, with what was most certainly a surprised expression on my face. "Drawing is not my only skill."

  "That's obvious." Her words sent a stroke of excitement down to my cock, keeping me on the edge. Just being around this unexpected woman, I sensed there was more truth to her words than even she herself realized. What would it be like to be where that marshmallow was right now…pressed against her rosy lips? Having her tongue moving against me…licking and sucking. Shit.

  Something soft hit the side of my face. Giselle's expression of pure innocence changed to disbelieving when I picked up the marshmallow she'd thrown and tossed the entire thing in my mouth.

  "How?"

  As her brown eyes widened, I managed to squeeze another giant one into my mouth and kept on chewing.

  As she raised her half-eaten marshmallow and pointed at my mouth expectantly, I shook my head and mumbled, "Hink hat's it."

  Lips pursed, Giselle leaned over, steadying herself on the table with the hand that wasn't clasping her own half of a marshmallow.

  Determined, she mashed her marshmallow half into my already stuffed mouth slowly. The whole process was as sexy as fuck, and I did not stop her. Couldn't. Once finished, she clapped her hands together. "Ha!"

  Her eyes dipped to my lips, paused. Our eyes met and held. Every atom in me urged me to lunge forward and press my marshmallow-coated lips to hers.

  But I didn't.

  I got up from my chair instead and strode over to the sink, cranked on the faucet, and shoved my hands under the cold stream. This was not for the purpose of cleaning my sticky fingers or mouth, but actu
ally to force myself into some space and perspective.

  I'd just met this girl, and she was clearly in a vulnerable situation with an injured foot. Whatever my simmering mental state, right now wasn't the time to act upon my urges with a total stranger.

  But right now, I did have Giselle sitting at my kitchen table, with her features set into what looked to be pain.

  "You okay?" I asked.

  She mustered up an unconvincing smile. "I will live."

  I felt a bit helpless, and it was fucking frustrating seeing her this way. "In France, what do they do for pain? Like, to take your mind off it?"

  A smile lit in her eyes. "The same way I presume they do here in America."

  I liked the sound of this already. "Oh?"

  She glanced down, her cheeks blushing pink. "Wine."

  She looked back at me, meeting my gaze brazenly this time. For what seemed like one long dreamlike minute, we stared at each other. Was it just my imagination? Or did Giselle have more than a fair idea of what I'd like to do with her? Maybe something she wanted…too.

  She was the first to tear her eyes away. "Sorry. That was a bit assuming of me, asking for wine after you have been so generous and accommodating already. You do not have to. In fact, forget about it."

  I'd already made my way to the wine cupboard, though. "You don't have to apologize for anything. Before I met you, I'd had a shit day myself. Some wine would be an excellent way to top off the night. I'll even throw in cheese and crackers while I'm at it to show you my social skills aren’t a complete waste of—"

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized I couldn't just toss her out onto the beach when we were finished drinking the wine. She didn't have a car or a way to get home that I knew of, and she wasn't walking back in the dark with an injured foot.

  "Would you like me to drive you where you're staying?"

  She shook her head no.

  "Sorry, I didn't even ask you about that before I brought you here. I forgot—I don't even know where you live." My rambling seemed to do nothing in the way of earning me any more information from her, so I finished it by making her an offer. "Although, you're more than welcome to stay here too, if you'd prefer." Oh, that's smart, asshole.