Needing air, he dragged his mouth from hers and skimmed his lips along her jaw to her ear. He wanted to explore every inch of her body. Taste every inch. A small stud pierced the shell of her ear, and he flicked his tongue against the rhinestone.
Her breath shuddered, so he repeated the action. He sucked her lobe into his mouth as he slid his hand up from her waist to cup her breast. Brushing his thumb over her nipple, he felt it again, that fine tremor that ran through her body as though she were a divining rod and he was supplying the water.
He wasn’t the only one exploring. Dax sucked in a sharp breath as her fingers nudged his inner thigh. One of his legs was curled around hers, leaving him open for her roving hands. Her touch drifted higher, coming tantalizingly close to his aching length but never touching. The tease drove him mad, and he shifted against her.
Lissa tugged the hem of his T-shirt up and swept her palms over his back.
Dax froze.
Both of her hands were on his back.
And something nudged his inner thigh again.
He had dog treats in his cargo pocket. It was just William sniffing around. He forced air into his lungs as he slowly pushed himself off Lissa.
Her eyelids fluttered open, and she tried to pull him back down. “Where are you going?”
“Just checking some—”
Teeth nipped into his thigh, and he rocketed off the ground with a yowl. Spinning in a drunken circle, he craned his head over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of dark brown fur as the body of an animal swung behind him, clinging to his pants and skin.
Lissa yelped and scrambled away.
The animal attached to his pants growled but didn’t release its hold.
Dax changed directions, whirling the opposite way, but the beast spun right along with him, never releasing its grip. Its tail swung in an arc, the only part of the beast Dax could see. The little bastard dug his claws into the fabric of his cargos and held on like Dax was a football and there was thirty seconds left in the Super Bowl.
Lissa’s peals of laughter brought him back to his senses. He was being attacked by a rabid beast and the woman was laughing? This needed to end. Now.
He shook his hips, trying to dislodge the animal. He jerked his leg in the air, hopping on the other to maintain his balance. The furball only tightened its grip.
Lissa rolled over to her side, clutching her stomach as she convulsed with laughter.
“Son of a …” Making quick work of his belt buckle, Dax shoved his pants down to his ankles and tried to kick them off over his boots. The badger burrowed into the cargos, slashed his claw against a pocket, and munched on the dog treats nestled within.
Dax finally managed to extricate himself from his pants and quickstepped away from the aggressive animal.
Lissa stood and plucked a dead leaf out of her hair. “I’ve never seen a man drop his pants so fast. It’s like you were Magic Mike.”
“You don’t know how close that badger was to my—” He growled as her smile only deepened, and he threw his hands into the air. “I was just molested by an animal!” He checked his thigh. Red in several places, but no broken skin.
She took his hand in her own and drew him away from the deranged badger.
“Badgers are supposed to be nocturnal, you know.” He needed her to understand that his reaction wasn’t out of line. His shouts might have bordered on girlie shrieks, and he didn’t want her thinking he couldn’t handle wildlife. “It might be rabid.”
“You were very brave. I’m sure the badger is sorry he messed with the wrong man.” She peered around his shoulder and snorted as she tried to smother a chuckle. Resting her forehead against his chest, she wrapped her arms around his waist and held on as her body shook.
Steeling himself, Dax peered over his shoulder. The badger was at the edge of the clearing, prancing away, as if getting fresh with humans was an everyday occurrence. And Dax’s pants were in its mouth, the fabric legs dragging in the dirt behind the animal.
Dax looked down at his boxers, then up at the sky. Great. He was going to be hiking it out in his underwear.
Wrapping his arms around Lissa’s shoulders, he sighed. Badger interruptus. Wasn’t that just his luck?
Chapter 9
A stiff breeze swept through the farmers market. Lissa gripped the edge of her sketch pad and fought back a smile. Shep, the strange-looking gray-and-brown mop of a dog, was posing like a champ, head held regally high, chest out, but he couldn’t fight the wind. It had taken his ear, twirled it around, and flipped it inside out.
Not the noble mien the hairy guy’s owner wanted.
Izzy strolled over from the other side of the long table filled with sweet treats and peered over her shoulder at the dog’s portrait. “How’s it going? It seems like you’re getting more business than our bake sale.” She took a large bite of a double chocolate brownie, crumbs raining down. She brushed her fingers over Lissa’s shoulder, knocking them off.
“Good.” Lissa leaned past her easel and asked the dog’s owner, Miss Eugenie Shaw, to flip Shep’s ear right-side out and turned back to her painting. “I thought I’d be painting more portraits and caricatures of humans, but everyone wants one of their dog. A person could make a killing out of pet portraiture in this town. Who knew?” She added some shading around Shep’s hind leg.
“Yes, we do love our dogs here.” Izzy glanced across the park to where her daughter, Ana, had joined an impromptu soccer game with a couple of other kids. Izzy’s two dogs kept interrupting play, chasing after the ball, making the kids shriek with laughter.
Shep’s owner joined them behind the easel and frowned critically at the painting. “I don’t think you’ve captured Shep’s essence.”
“His essence?” Lissa asked. She didn’t want to know what essence that mop of fur had, but she hoped he kept it contained.
“His je ne sais quoi.” Miss Shaw tilted her head, and the flower on her navy cloche hat drooped forward. “He’s looking a little … two-dimensional. Don’t you think?” she asked the older man who came up next to her, an ice cream cone in each of his hands.
Two-dimensional? Lissa opened her mouth to protest. None of her work was two-dimensional, either literally or figuratively.
“I think it looks wonderful,” the man said. A tuft of his snow-white hair was blown up straight in the wind and his blue eyes twinkled in the sun. “Shep looks very regal.” He handed Miss Shaw a cone and licked a trickle of ice cream from the top of his hand. “You have real talent, young lady.”
Lissa’s feathers unruffled. “Thanks.”
“Have you met Judge Nichols?” Izzy asked. “He’s the man responsible for Dax’s sentence at the shelter.”
“Really?” Lissa popped to her feet and stuck out her hand. “I like a man who can show a little leniency. I’m Lissa Ansel.”
“Nice to meet you.” He held up his sticky hand. “But we’d best not shake. Are you new to town?”
“Been here about a week, and I’m only staying until I start school in a little over a month.”
“School? You’re not an artist by profession?” the judge asked.
“I am, but I want to be better.” Lissa shrugged. “I’m going to an art school known for its intensive programs. Well-known artists also come to conduct workshops and give individualized guidance. Jeremy Harding is coming to explain his take on postmodernism.” She rolled up onto her toes. “I’m going to learn so much.”
Bending over, Lissa pulled finishing spray out of her bag and protected the portrait. “Okay, Shep, we’re done. You can relax.”
The large dog shook his whole body, his long hair flying about him, and trotted to Miss Shaw’s side. She pulled a treat from her sleeve and fed it to him.
Lissa handed the older woman the portrait and received a grudging smile in return.
“I’ve never heard of Mr
. Harding.” Judge Nichols licked his cone. “What does postmodern art look like? Is that like what Matisse painted?”
“Ooh, I love his blue woman.” Miss Shaw looked at her vanilla cone, looked at Judge Nichols’s chocolate, leaned over and took a swipe at his.
“No, Matisse was more involved in the modernist and postimpressionist movements. Some well-known postmodernists are Robert Rauschenberg and Aydin Aghdashloo.” Three faces looked blankly at Lissa. “Cleeve Horne?” she asked hopefully.
Silence. Okay, so the citizens of Pineville weren’t current with their postmodernists.
“I like Thomas Kinkade.” A corner of Izzy’s brownie fell to the ground, and Shep lumbered over to investigate. She covered the brownie bit with her shoe. “No chocolate for you.”
Thomas Kinkade. Lissa just barely contained her eye roll. Her parents loathed that man’s work. Thought it degraded art in order to turn a buck from ignorant tourists. “Here.” She flipped to a half-finished painting on her sketch pad. It was the drawing she’d started of the pregnant woman on the park bench, her attempt at a postmodern piece to show her new instructors. “I started this a couple of days ago. It’s an example of the movement. What do you think?”
She held the pad to her chest and turned to face each person.
Izzy winced.
Miss Shaw wrinkled her nose.
The judge was more diplomatic. “Ahhh.” He coughed. “Very interesting. I don’t have enough knowledge of art to pass judgment, however.”
“You don’t have to have knowledge of art to know that is a piece of—”
“Eugenie!” Izzy turned to Lissa with a smile. “I think what we’re trying to say is that while your work might be an excellent representation of postmodernism, maybe that movement isn’t our cup of tea. But your dog portraits—now those are great!”
Lissa looked down at her work. Seeing it upside down didn’t really make a difference in its interpretation. The figure was so stylized as to barely be recognized as human. Which was the point. As her parents said, it was the essence, not the representation that mattered when it came to true art.
“Whoa,” a familiar voice said. “Did a toddler get in your pencils? It’s a shame they wasted some of your expensive paper.” Dax strolled up to their group. William pulled him along, straining at his leash. Tilting his head, Dax eyed the painting sideways. “Jeez, I thought even kids had a better sense of color.”
Cheeks flushing hot, Lissa bent to give William a good chest rub. “I drew that. And the colors are supposed to clash. To represent the cacophony of womanhood—mother, lover, daughter, professional.” Really, the olive green flowed quite nicely into the burnt umber. Dax had admitted he didn’t know art. She shouldn’t be offended.
Dax rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah.” He swallowed. “‘The cacophony of womanhood’? So … that’s a woman in there?”
“Of course it’s a woman,” Izzy said indignantly. Lissa appreciated the staunch support, even when the woman pointed to a tree in the background and said, “Right there.”
Dax, the judge, and Miss Shaw all leaned forward and squinted. Even William turned his head this way and that.
Lissa twisted a curl around her index finger. Was it because her audience preferred kitsch over couture that no one understood her message? Or was it the inadequacy of her message? Maybe her parents were right. Maybe she didn’t have what it took to be a serious artist. She could paint pleasing figures, and she personally preferred painting something appealing to the eye instead of the aggressive ugliness that so many postmodernists seemed to delight in. But half the population could paint a basic pretty picture. True art required something more.
Her stomach clenched. Tourists and tradespeople. That’s who her parents had said would buy her work. Not true collectors. And Morris had told her—
She jerked her shoulders back. But that had been lies. Morris had been selling her work, for much more than he’d ever told her. It hadn’t been her attempts at postmodernism, true, but talent was talent. And there were some art collectors in New Orleans who thought she had what it took.
Placing the pad on the PTA table, Lissa tore the drawing from it and rolled up the paper into a tube. “I know it’s a bit experimental for some tastes—”
“No, it’s really good.” Dax rubbed his nose, his face flushing pink. He was obviously lying, but the fact that he did it to spare her feelings melted her heart into a puddle of goo. It didn’t hurt that he looked adorable while doing so. “I was just … looking at it from the wrong angle.”
The judge shook his head at Dax’s sad attempt to redeem himself. “Let’s go get your picture of Shep framed, Genie.” He slapped Dax on the back. “You might have learned some responsibility this past year, but you sure don’t know how to smooth talk the ladies. At least try to sound sincere.” He offered his arm, and Miss Shaw slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. They strolled across the park, stopping at a lemonade stand to buy two cups.
Dax frowned. “I am sincere. You’re a great artist. I’ve seen some of your caricatures. I, maybe, just might not be the biggest fan of”—he bobbed his head at the rolled-up picture—“that.”
Her caricatures? Those he considered great art? Her hackles shot back up. “That is the truest expression of myself.” Lissa sniffed.
“I really liked the pie charts you made for my meeting on Thursday,” he said, licking his lip with cautious hope.
Izzy looked heavenward, shaking her head. “Oh, brother. Good luck with that one,” she told Lissa, jerking her thumb at Dax. “I’ve got to get back to selling brownies. Or eating them. Either way, they’ve got to go.” She strolled around the back of the table and sat down.
“What?” Dax ruffled his hair. William tugged at the leash, making Dax stumble. “I do like your graphics.”
Lissa tapped her foot. “That’s not art!” She shook the rolled-up picture at him. “This is art.”
William lunged. Dax lost his grip on the leash and, with a howl, the Bluetick was free. He raced toward Lissa, leaped, and snatched the picture from her hand. And, like a dog with a stolen bone, he raced across the park, the rolled-up paper between his jaws.
“My drawing!” Lissa stared, aghast, as the dog burrowed under the grass-length tablecloth of a stand selling local honey. The tablecloth caught in his paws, came sliding down, and a pyramid-shaped stack of jars crashed to the grass. William popped out on the other side of the stand and trotted to a stand of oak trees. He dug a hole and dropped the painting inside.
Lissa watched it slowly unfurl from its rolled position as William kicked loose dirt on top of it with his hind legs, her heart sinking.
Dax opened his mouth, but she held up her hand. Breathing heavily, she said, “Don’t even say it.”
But the judge was right. Dax hadn’t learned how to sweet-talk a woman. “Even the dog didn’t like that painting. It’s not just me.”
Shoulders clenched, she marched toward the copse of trees to see if there would be anything left to salvage. She ignored Dax trotting along behind her.
“Everyone’s a critic,” she muttered.
Chapter 10
Lissa had to admit, when Dax decided to apologize, he went all-out.
The plane went into a barrel roll, and Lissa’s hair fell down to scrape the top of the glass-enclosed cockpit before they righted.
“Bogey at three o’clock!” Dax banked hard, bringing them into range. “Fire at will!”
Lissa lined up the gunsight and squeezed the trigger as fast as she could. Her target flickered on her radar before lining up in the center of a ring gunsight, or her pipper, as she’d learned it was called. The electronic image of the plane flashed red, and a beeping noise sounded through the cockpit.
Lissa whooped. “Got him!”
“Great shot.” Dax adjusted his headset, then rolled the plane to the left.
&n
bsp; The horizon stretched out in front of them. A couple of puffy white clouds floated in the otherwise cornflower sky. Farmland was laid out in neat rectangles below, bisected by the runway of the airport the air combat company flew out of.
It had only taken Dax a day and a half to set this up. All these adventure people seemed to know each other, and the owner of Sky Combat had given him a good deal. Lissa had insisted she didn’t need anything from Dax besides his apology for making fun of her drawing, which he’d freely given, over and over. But when he’d mentioned that he wanted to take her up as part of making amends, well, who was she to turn that down?
An alarm sounded in their headsets.
“Oh, crap!” Dax pushed down on the yoke, taking the plane into a controlled dive. “The Red Baron’s on our tail.”
Lissa scanned the skies. Sure enough, the flaming red plane flown by one of their adversaries was diving after them. “Put on the brakes and turn hard. I’ll get him.”
“Uh, no.” Dax glanced over his shoulder at her. His eyes were covered with reflective aviator glasses, and Lissa could see two smaller images of herself in the lens. “This is a fixed-wing airplane. Not a car. Or a helicopter. I can’t just put on the brakes. But I’ll try some other maneuvers.”
Lissa shrieked in delight as the plane shot straight up. The g-force shoved her back into her seat. Dax’s copper hair glinted in the sunlight above her, and she stretched out a hand, thinking she could touch one of the longish locks that gravity pulled toward her.
He banked right, and the plane rolled again. When he pulled it level, they were behind the Red Baron.
Lissa wiggled in her seat and lined him up in the sights. Now this was the life. Dancing among the clouds. Shooting lasers at pretend enemies. All with Dax as her copilot.
Forever Wild Page 10