Drawing Lessons

by Julia Gabriel

  She smiled at the memory. “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “You should feel an orgasm everywhere, Marie. It should feel as though your entire body is disintegrating into individual particles of matter.”

  Marie considered that while she continued to draw Luc. Given that she had just experienced the best orgasm of her life, it was hard to imagine how one could be better. But she was beginning to think she should give Luc Marchand the benefit of the doubt. After all, the drawing she was currently doing was markedly better than the morning’s.

  “What was that little smile for, hmm?” Luc asked, pushing the blindfold up over his forehead.

  She looked up from the sketchpad. If there was a sexier man on the planet right now, she couldn’t envision it.

  “I was just thinking that your teaching methods, unorthodox as they are, seem to be working,” she said.

  “Oui? Show me.”

  She turned the sketchpad around for him to see.

  He studied it for a moment. “Bon. You are making progress. You can trust me, you know, Marie. I would never ask you to do something that would hurt you. Understand?”

  Marie was about to draw some more when Luc’s stomach rumbled loudly.

  “I don’t know about you, but sex always makes me hungry,” he said. “Let’s go out to dinner to celebrate your progress.”

  Chapter 12

  Marie looked up at the old weathered stone on the Red Fox Inn and Tavern, the crisp white trim, the green roof. “This looks like one of those ‘George Washington slept here’ places,” she observed.

  “Apparently that was the case,” Luc replied as he held open the door for her. “Along with Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor.”

  Inside, heavy wooden beams crossed the ceiling from whitewashed wall to whitewashed wall. A fire was lit in the giant stone fireplace. It was cozy and warm, and Marie half expected to hear horses thundering by outside.

  Female heads turned right and left as she followed Luc through the dining room to a table in the back. Steak, wine, dessert. None of it was a match for Luc in dark jeans and black cashmere. She allowed herself a little jolt of triumph. She had seen today what all these women were merely imagining.

  The waitress arrived with menus and two glasses of red wine.

  “A toast, Marie, to your progress.” Luc raised his glass to her. “Seeing is always better than not seeing.”

  Marie felt her face warm.

  “Although not seeing wasn’t so bad for me today,” he added. His eyes twinkled beneath his still shower-damp hair.

  “You did seem to enjoy yourself,” she said, immediately taking a sip of wine to cover up her boldness.

  A smile played around Luc’s eyes. “It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed myself quite like that.”

  Marie buried her face in the menu. She had no illusions about what had transpired between them earlier. It had been amazing sex, the best she’d ever had, but it was still just sex.

  “Earth to Marie?” came Luc’s voice, gently.

  She looked up to see him watching her over the top edge of his menu. “Sorry. I was lost in thought there for a minute.”

  “Thoughts about us?”

  She shrugged and looked back down at the menu. He chuckled.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Of course, she was thinking about us. She’d be thinking about this day for weeks. Correction, years.

  When the waitress returned, Luc ordered the filet mignon and Marie the pumpkin ravioli.

  “Marie, do you know what my favorite part of today was?” Luc passed the bread basket across the table to her. “When you were laughing. You don’t smile nearly enough. You’re so serious all the time.”

  “You’re rather an intense person. Plus, I’m always afraid you’ll say I’m not taking your lessons seriously. And I am.”

  “I know you are, Marie. And I don’t mean for you to get discouraged. I’m just trying to push you out of that comfort zone you’ve been so comfortably entrenched in.”

  “Yes, well, I think you did that today,” she said dryly.

  “And was it all that terrible?”

  She blushed again, and shook her head. “I think I’ve blushed more today than I have in all the years of my life combined.”

  “I like it when you blush, Marie. I like to see those freckles disappear and then slowly reappear.”

  She covered her cheeks with her fingers. He leaned across the small table and pried them off, then curled his hands softly around them.

  “Thanks to that damn blindfold,” he said in a low, husky voice, “I didn’t get to see whether you have freckles in other places.”

  Her face was fully on fire now. “You do this on purpose, don’t you?”

  “Oui.” He smiled a slow, sexy grin. “But it’s not that hard to do, really. I don’t think you’re used to having men flirt with you. Did your husband never flirt with you?”

  She thought back to the early days with Richard, when they were dating, before he’d met Maya. She shook her head. No, even back then Richard had never been flirtatious or tried to make her laugh or blush. He had seemed to know that Marie wouldn’t have a choice in whether to marry him or not. She was a done deal from the beginning.

  “He didn’t know what he was missing.” Luc let go of her hands and leaned back into his seat just as the waitress approached. “Well, lucky for me, eh?”

  The waitress set their plates on the table. Marie took a deep inhale of the spicy sweet steam coming off her pumpkin ravioli. She suddenly realized how famished she was. A lot had happened since they’d had lunch. A lot.

  “After all, if American politicians were smarter, I wouldn’t be sitting here with a beautiful woman, looking forward to the rest of the evening.”

  “You say outrageous things like that and I don’t know what to say back.”

  Luc’s fork stopped in mid-air. “What’s outrageous about any of that? You are very beautiful, Marie—yes, you are. I hope you are looking forward to the rest of the evening as much as I am. And we are allowed to make as much fun of politicians as we like. Yes?” He popped the steak in his mouth.

  Marie focused on her dinner for awhile, trying to ignore the flurry of questions in her brain—and trying just as hard to ignore the lingering feel of Luc in her body. She wanted to look forward to the rest of the evening, but part of her was afraid to. It just seemed so improbable that a man like Luc would be interested in her. He’d get bored with her quickly—it hadn’t taken Richard long to lose interest—and then where would that leave her? Where would that leave her heart? As much as she might like to be the sort of woman who could sleep with a man and walk away, she wasn’t sure that she could.

  She had to ask the question. “Do you teach all of your students like this?”

  A look of surprise crossed his face. He took a sip of wine. “Of course not.”

  “Then why me?”

  He raked his hand through his hair. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s because I’m attracted to you, Marie. Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Because I want to teach you what you want to learn.”

  She gestured toward him, then pressed her hand to her throat. “I just don’t see why you ...” Her voice trailed away.

  “Why I am attracted to you?”

  She nodded. It was impossible to miss the dark, hungry look in his eyes.

  “Do you still want to model for me?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “If you let me paint you, I will show you what I see when I look at you.”

  “Painting takes a long time, though, doesn’t it? I’m sure Nishi didn’t pay you for that.”

  His tilted his head and looked at her for a long moment. “You could do me a huge favor, actually. My friend Sam is opening a new gallery in December and she wants me to be the first show there. But I need new work to give her. Would you let me paint you for the show?”

  “Like Alistair Smith and Elizabeth Calhoun?”

  He shrugged. �
�If you wish. We could do it that way. I could obscure your face.”

  She thought about it. Elizabeth Calhoun had spent a lifetime denying her love, denying herself a chance to fully enjoy her desires, her pleasures.

  Do I want to hide that way?

  Granted, Elizabeth Calhoun had remained a senator’s wife until she died. She’d had good reason to hide her affair. But Marie was released from those bonds when Richard filed for divorce.

  I have nothing to hide.

  Richard was openly flaunting a mistress.

  If he can cheat on his wife, surely I can have my portrait painted. Those aren’t even the same order of magnitude.

  “No,” she said. “I want you to paint all of me.”

  * * *

  Luc unlocked the studio and held open the door for Marie. “I’ll make coffee,” he said, heading into the kitchenette. He’d drunk too much wine at dinner, on top of the intoxication of having Marie pleasure herself on him this afternoon. He needed a cup of strong black coffee to clear his head if he was going to draw her tonight.

  When the coffee was brewed, he handed her a mug and asked, “So tell me about this dream you keep having.”

  She took a sip of coffee. “Oh, you don’t have to draw me that way. That’s okay.”

  “I think it would be a good place to start, don’t you? That way we can take a look at the differences between your dream and how I see you.”

  “This sounds like a lesson.”

  “Well, yes, I hope it will be enlightening to you. Discovering how someone else sees you should help the way you see things. We’re doing each other a mutual favor here, Marie. I’m helping you see more clearly and you’re helping me create new work for my show.”

  She was quiet for several moments. Watching her mull this over only stoked his excitement further. Painting Marie was going to be so rewarding, her hesitation, her shyness, the battle between desire and fear that was waging inside her. Occasionally, women came to him for “boudoir” portraits, gifts for a husband or lover. They were the least interesting portraits to paint, everything out there on the surface, nothing hidden, nothing held back to surprise later.

  Marie held nearly everything back. He wanted to peel back some of that reserve in his paintings, get her to reveal herself to him. There was a passionate women underneath that composed exterior, a quirky déesse trapped and waiting for rescue. He, Luc Marchand, wanted to be the man to lure her out.

  “We were here, in your studio,” she began to speak again. “But it was dark.”

  He laughed. “And I was painting you in the dark? Ah, Marie, I am not that talented.”

  “No, no,” she said quickly. “There was a light just over me. So I couldn’t really see you behind your easel.”

  “So like a spotlight?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked up at the ceiling of the studio. The bulbs in the track lighting couldn’t be individually turned on or off, short of unscrewing them. He peered around the room. Ah! Over there. He strode over to an old floor lamp and disentangled it from the mess of chairs and side tables he used as props.

  “Will this work?” he asked. He trailed the plug over to an outlet, then turned off the overhead track lighting. The lamp gave off a soft, diffuse glow.

  Marie nodded.

  “And what were you sitting on?”

  “Just a stool.”

  He dragged the stool over to the lamp.

  “What were you wearing?”

  “Just ...” She tugged at the waistband of her jeans.

  “Just your jeans?” Luc was liking this dream already.

  She shook her head, leaning down to remove her boots. She kicked them aside, then slowly unzipped the jeans and stepped out. Luc was dying to say a million things — god you’re beautiful I will paint you worship you make love to you whatever you want — but he bit his tongue because now Marie was pulling her cashmere sweater up and over her head. Her dream was that he had painted her wearing just her bra and panties? Yes, Marie Witherspoon was holding back some very interesting sides to herself.

  His breath caught in his throat as she reached behind her back and unhooked her lacy yellow bra, then slid the matching lace panties down her legs. She crossed her arms over her chest, a sight that pained him—he didn’t want her to hide any part of her body from him—and turned toward him.

  “I painted you like that? Wearing nothing?”

  She nodded, not willing to look him in the eye. He walked over to her and tipped her chin up. “Are you embarrassed by the dream?”

  She shrugged. “A little, I guess.”

  “Never be ashamed of your dreams, Marie.” He ran his thumb along her cheekbone, then over her lips, which parted readily for him. The memory of Marie lying sprawled on his chest—her cheeks flushed a soft pink, her lips open as she tried to recover her breath, her heat wrapped around him—filled his brain. He watched her now, her face still flushed from the wine at dinner. She had washed off her makeup in the shower, revealing a trail of light freckles across her cheekbones. He was overcome with the urge to kiss each one. The shape of her face, her bones, the curve of her lips—even now, when she was clearly unsure whether she should smile or not—she had such classically beautiful proportions. She would be both easy and challenging to capture on canvas.

  He touched a light kiss to her forehead. “You are beautiful,” he murmured against her skin.

  “Don’t you need a sketchbook?” she replied, deflecting his compliment.

  “I believe that’s the least of the things I need right now, but ...”

  He dragged his easel closer and propped a sketchbook on it. When he looked up, Marie was sitting on the stool, crossing her legs this way and that, finally settling on just resting her feet on the stool’s rung.

  “What should I do with my arms?” she asked.

  “How did you have them in the dream?”

  “I can’t remember, that’s the thing. I ...” She struggled to get the words out. “What I remember most is how I ... felt.”

  He looked at her slender figure perched on the paint-spattered stool, trying to take in the lines, the shadows—which were considerable in the lamplight—the mood of the scene. She looked like a character from an Edward Hopper painting, vulnerable and stoic at the same time. As if she were lost, but would keep trudging down the road by herself anyway. He shifted his chair and easel a few inches to the left. From this angle, the lamp illuminated her spine, knob by knob, and cast her face in shadow.

  “Keep your arms crossed, I think,” he said.

  He began sketching in her form. That was easy. He’d spent more than one night lying in bed drawing an outline of her form, just his hand and fingers against a blank canvas of air. It felt appropriate for this first painting to be all shadow and light, chiarascuro, the simultaneous sadness and courage of nudity. She had come to him, wanting to draw but blind to what was around her. Wanting pleasure, but unwilling to admit it.

  It took only twenty minutes to get a good study he was happy with. The week ahead would be a joy, every day in his studio translating this pencil sketch into a full-blown painting. He stood and carried it over to Marie, held it out for her to see. She was quiet for a long while, just staring at herself on the paper.

  When she swiped a hand against her cheek, he dropped the book and pulled her up off the stool. Her eyes were wet, her lower lip quivering.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Is that the way you see me?” The pained expression in her eyes nearly slayed him. “It’s so ... depressing.”

  Shit. This wasn’t supposed to be her reaction, though he could see now that it wasn’t an unreasonable one.

  She tried to turn away to hide the tears that were now spilling down her cheeks. He pulled her to his chest, let his shirt absorb the tears. “Non, non. Not depressing. But you are sad, Marie. I do see that in you. Except for this afternoon, when you were laughing at me.”

  This afternoon, she had wanted him.

&
nbsp; Right now, he wanted her.

  He cupped the back of her head, threading his fingers deep into her hair. “I want to paint all the ways I see you, Marie. But you will have to trust me. Trust that I will be honest.”

  He ran his hand along the bare skin of her spine, pressing her body harder into his. The curve of her breasts was enticing; his lips burned with anticipation. “And you will have to be honest with me.”

  She tilted her head back to look him in the face. Then she surprised him by pulling his mouth down to hers and kissing him with a reckless abandon he hadn’t seen in her before. Her kiss was hungry, desperate.

  “Luc,” she murmured against his lips.

  He parted his lips for her. Tentatively, her tongue began to explore his lips. It was torture, and even more so when she dug her fingers into his hair and pulled herself into his mouth. He endured the exquisite torture as long as he could, then wrapped his tongue around hers and kissed her as deeply as he could. He felt her knees buckle.

  He picked her up and carried her over to the mat and blanket they had christened that afternoon. He gently laid her down, then slowly undressed for her, pulling his sweater over his head, unzipping his jeans. Her face was dark with desire, her eyes hooded.

  “Marie, you are beautiful,” he said, joining her on the mat. “Extraordinarily beautiful. That’s one thing that never changes about the way I see you.” He caressed her face, then smiled slyly. “You’ve never had any medical emergencies, have you?”

  The sight of her amused smile back at him sent a wave of heat through his body. “I’m not sure I can promise not to have one tonight,” she replied.

  “Just remember to breath, Marie, and you should be okay.”

  Her deep inhale drew his attention down to her breasts. He drank in the sight of her creamy skin. “Here is where we learn whether I have any medical emergencies.”

  He leaned down and pressed his lips to her soft curves, buried his face between her breasts and inhaled the scent of his own soap on her skin. It was unexpected, and intoxicating. Her skin glowed in the dim light and he took a moment to just admire her beauty.