Finally, she glanced up again, and his breath caught. Gears turned over in his mind, words rising up to the surface, but for once in his life, he couldn’t seem to get them to spill forth.
Her face fell. “Or not. If it makes you uncomfortable, or . . .”
And what could he do? He reached out before she could turn away from him, putting a hand on her face and holding her steady as he leaned in for a kiss. Her lips were so sweet, made all the more so by the foreign warmth inside of him he couldn’t seem to tamp down. And why should he?
Pulling back from the kiss, he touched his brow to hers. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” When she scoffed, he insisted, “It is.”
Sure, he’d gotten compliments before. He’d had people—women—tell him he looked good. But this was something else altogether.
So he tried to treat it with the respect it deserved. “I’d be honored.”
It wasn’t a line and it wasn’t a lie. He pressed his lips to hers once more, then backed away.
“You want to do this now?” he asked.
“Sure. I mean, I’ve got all my things.”
They had a couple of hours before they typically wandered off in search of dinner. He couldn’t think of any reasons to delay.
“Okay.” He nodded and stood, setting his fingers to the collar of his shirt.
And it was strange, wasn’t it? The still-racing beating of his heart and the desert of his throat. He’d gotten naked in front of more women than he cared to count. He wasn’t shy about his body. He’d worked hard for it and kept it in the best possible condition. It wasn’t as if he’d ever been shy in front of Kate. Hell, just this morning, he’d been wheedling to try to get his clothes off in front of her. So why was this giving him pause?
Behind him, she was fussing with something or other. He snuck a glance over his shoulder and spied a neat little row of materials arranged across the desk. Turning around again, he took a deep breath.
Tucking his thumb into the placket of his shirt, he slipped each button through its hole, then shrugged the fabric off. He actually took the time to hang it up, and cursed at himself in his head. Stalling. It was ridiculous—why was he stalling? He tore off his undershirt and dropped it to the ground. Took off shoes and socks, and unfastened his belt. Biting the bullet, he shoved his jeans and his boxers down as one and stepped out of them.
He turned to Kate with as much bravado as he could muster. All he had to do was make a dickhead comment about his—well, his dick, and everything would be fine. Normal.
But he met her gaze, and fuck. There was a warmth to it that was more than simple aesthetic appreciation.
Alarm bells sounded off like klaxons in his mind. He slept with tourists, with women passing through. He’d disappointed enough people, and he didn’t have anything to offer a nice girl. It was better to stay unattached. Free.
But in a few short days, this girl had wound herself around him, and there wasn’t any point denying it. He’d sunk his teeth in, too.
When it was over, it was going to bleed.
Right now, though, she was still looking at him like that. Any pervy joke he would have made died in his throat.
“Where do you want me?” he asked.
“Lie down.” She gestured to where she had turned down the bed.
He let her direct him until he was positioned how she wanted him, with a handful of pillows propping him up. One arm extended toward her and the other bent under his head. Legs splayed out across the sheets.
“Perfect,” she said after a moment, and she sounded as hoarse as he felt. “Do you think you can hold that for a while?”
He shifted in minute ways, but the discomfort he felt wasn’t physical. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Let me know when you need a break.”
“Sure.”
He lay there in silence for a long minute as she arranged herself in the chair, getting her sketchbook settled in her lap and selecting an instrument to draw with. And then, as far as he could tell, she just stared at him.
He had to turn his gaze away.
The skritch-skritch of pencil on paper told him she’d started working, and he had to fight the instinct to fidget all over again. Relax. Calm. He sank into the bed the best he could.
But no matter how deeply he breathed or how hard he focused on letting his mind drift, the simple truth was there.
He’d been naked a thousand times before. But he’d never felt it.
Not like this.
chapter SEVENTEEN
There was a certain kind of focused, aware calm that settled over Kate when she was really in the zone. Staring at the excess of riches laid out in front of her right now, though, she wasn’t focused. She wasn’t calm.
But she was aware.
Incredibly, brilliantly aware of Rylan’s lips and eyes, the tousled mess of his hair and the stubble on his cheeks. He had the most gorgeous shoulders, taut with muscle without being bulky, and his biceps and forearms were sleek and strong. She’d always loved the feeling of his hands on her body, but she’d never truly taken in the shape of them before. Long fingers and blunt nails. The lines of tendons flexing underneath his skin.
And then there was the rest of him. With the subtle twist she’d made of his body, the crest of his hip stood out sharply, shadowing the hollow beneath it, pointing to the dips and curves of his abdominals. Solid thighs and well-formed calves. Hell, even his ankles and his feet were pretty, and she could scarcely catch her breath when she let her vision encompass the whole of him.
He wasn’t hard, which was possibly the weirdest thing. She’d seen him in various stages of erectness, even seen him gently deflating in the aftermath of orgasm, but completely soft like this was new. She couldn’t help the way her gaze kept being drawn back to it.
She’d touched that part of him. Had him on her tongue and in her hands and pressed up against her spine as he moaned into her ear.
And now it was hers to look at. As much as she wanted to.
With less than steady hands, she adjusted her book in her lap. She’d already done a quick couple of gesture sketches of him, waiting for him to settle. Tension lingered in his limbs, though, and she frowned. He wouldn’t be able to stay still for long if he didn’t relax.
“Do you want to stretch or anything?” she asked. “Get a drink?”
He blinked a couple of times, chest rising and sinking more rapidly. “Yeah, actually.” He sat up in slow increments, rolling his shoulders and flexing his feet.
Just for something to do, she stood and grabbed him a bottle of water.
“Thanks.” He took it from her and twisted off the top, lifting it to his mouth and taking a couple of careful, measured sips before setting it aside.
In the time she hadn’t been looking, he’d pulled the sheet up to his waist. Part of her wanted to tease. He’d seemed so confident in his own skin before, but now there was a self-consciousness to him.
It was just so . . . unlike him.
She picked at her thumb, unable to stop staring at the drape of the cloth across his groin. “We don’t have to do this, you know.”
“I know.” He looked down. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“All right.” She returned to her chair and picked up her pencil again.
After another minute of twisting and stretching, he shoved the sheet away and settled back against the pillows. The pose wasn’t quite the same as the one she’d directed him into earlier, but that was almost better, honestly. What it lacked in drama it made up for in the way he eased into it, some of the stiffness from before bleeding away.
It was even more beautiful, and something in her heart stuttered.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
She looked up to find him gazing straight at her. It took a couple of tries to get the words to form. “It’s perfect.”
Flawed and perfect. Just like you.
She swallowed, forcin
g herself to relax her grip. She traced all the lines of his body in her mind one last time.
Then she turned the page and began.
It was easier, this time, to quiet his mind. He lay there, splayed out on the sheets, bare but for the chain around his neck.
He should have taken it off, probably. He hadn’t thought to at the time, and with the way she was sketching away, at this point it seemed too late. Sometimes, he wondered why he wore it at all.
The scratching of her pencil on the paper settled over him, and he drifted along on it. He didn’t want to throw her off by staring into her eyes, so he varied his gaze between her hands and the window and the ceiling above his head. Maybe he should have asked if he could pose with a book, or if they could turn on the television, only . . .
It didn’t seem right, did it? He wanted to know how she saw him. She should see him with his attention undiverted.
And more, there was an energy to it. A humming static to the air surrounding them, moving from her to him and back again. This was intimate.
This was exposure.
Trying to hold still, he sucked the inside of his cheek between his teeth and bit down hard.
Maybe this was how she imagined it would be, letting him inside of her. He’d let it go; every time she’d squirmed or looked uncomfortable at the idea, he’d been quick to back off. But for the first time, now, he thought maybe he understood it. He felt vulnerable, lying there naked for her inspection. It wasn’t sexual at all, but that was why it was so difficult for him. Sex he was good at. This—being open like this. It was something different, something he didn’t quite know how to do.
He unclenched his jaw before he could draw blood. If he told her how uneasy he was, she’d probably say that they could stop again. But he felt like he was on the cusp of a revelation. If he could find a way to work through this, it would mean something. To him and to her.
The person he had been a handful of days ago told him it would get him in her pants at last. But a newer voice said that didn’t matter. Whether he got off or not didn’t matter.
If he made it through this, and if she saw in him something worth seeing . . . he’d earn her trust.
How much that mattered to him made him tremble.
For a long moment, he closed his eyes, focusing on the sounds of marks being made on paper. Then he shifted his attention. He relaxed his toes and his calves and his glutes. Breathed air into his fingers and his arms. Quieted the beating of his heart.
He looked again to find her staring at him in a way that made him feel not exactly vivisected, but . . .
Seen.
She smiled at him uncertainly, and he answered with the slightest of shakes of his head.
He let his gaze go soft and aimed it at the gauzy curtains framing the doors out onto their balcony. He gave himself over to it.
And as she kept on drawing, he felt like, somehow, deep in the empty parts of him, he was getting everything he wanted in exchange.
Kate looked down at what she’d drawn and blinked. She tilted her head from side to side and shifted her legs. Rylan had taken two more breaks in the time she’d been working, but she had scarcely moved except to reach for different materials.
Now, it was like coming out of a fog, the haze of creation receding as she examined what she’d wrought.
And it was . . . good.
Really good, and she didn’t say that lightly. She knew better than to let herself get carried away. Ego was an ugly thing on an artist. But this was more than good. It was right. Exactly what she’d been going for when she’d set out to capture this man.
Holding the pad at arm’s length, she regarded it more critically. She’d gotten the shape of his nose, had left some of the details of his features vague while still suggesting the parts that needed to be seen. She’d captured the pride and the self-assuredness, but between those lines, the rest of him bled through.
Vulnerability. Anger. Hurt.
There was something coiled to the man she had drawn, and the lines she’d penciled in to anchor his form to the sheets only accentuated it. He looked like he was waiting. She didn’t know what for—or if he knew, even. But there was anticipation in the cant of his hips and the rigid set to his limbs. His pose spoke of relaxed ease, but it belied a readiness to walk right off the page and out of frame.
She tightened her jaw. She’d gotten that much right at least.
Shifting her gaze back to Rylan, she let the low ache that had been building in her chest all week come to the forefront. She had two full days left in Paris after today. She was the one who was going to leave. And he was going to let her.
“You okay?” His voice surprised her, interrupting the quiet that had descended on them.
“Yeah.” She nodded, pulling her thoughts back to the here and now. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Definitely.” She tapped the corner of the page with her nail. “You good for a few more minutes?”
“Sure.”
Putting the low curl of dread aside, she examined her work one more time. Made a couple of careful marks, darkening shadows and sharpening the appearance of a particular jut of muscle. She swept her gaze over it again, comparing it with the reality of the man in front of her. The drawing was as finished as it was going to be.
But she wasn’t done yet.
Hoping he wouldn’t mind, she turned the page, taking care not to smudge the work she’d just completed. She shifted in her chair to get a slightly different angle as she studied his face.
It wasn’t only dread filling her belly now. It wasn’t quite affection, either, though there was some of that there, too. It was deeper and warmer, and it hurt inside her chest.
Looking at him hurt.
So she channeled it.
With quick strokes, she tried to get down on paper how he made her feel, all twisted up and uncertain—like she was the one on display, exposed, even though he was the one stripped bare for her to see. Roughly intimating the shapes of his features, she focused on his eyes and his mouth, taking them apart into lines and shapes, distilling them into something she could understand.
But the end result didn’t help. It was a portrait of the same mystifying, beautiful, inscrutable man, and she wanted to crush the paper in her hands.
A fresh page and another try, and another and another, but none of them put her any closer. Frustration made her blood hot. It wasn’t the same angry, self-despairing aggravation that had nearly overtaken her up on Montmartre. It was knowing the solution to a puzzle lay just out of reach, and watching an hourglass about to run out of sand. She only had so much time.
To find herself, sure. But also to get some kind of grasp on what was happening to her, here, with him.
She turned the page once more. On the bed, he was getting restless, either because he’d gone too long without a break, or maybe because he could sense her distress. She had to calm the heck down. Now. Before it was too late and she’d lost her chance.
She took a deep breath and set down her charcoal, trading it out for a hard-leaded pencil. This time, she approached the page with all the quiet she could summon to her mind and her nerves and her hands.
Soft brushes of the graphite across the tooth of the paper. A hint of an outline. And then more line work. More and more, tracing around and across the planes of his face. The eyes she adored and the mouth she had kissed, and the man she . . .
A deep pang made her breath catch.
She didn’t know Rylan. She didn’t know him at all. But she knew his wit and his secrets and the careful way he’d touched her body. Brought her pleasure. Showed her around museums for God’s sake. Opened himself up to her like this . . .
She sketched in the curve of his lips, and the last piece of the puzzle slipped into place.
She loved him.
It was written so clearly across the page—couldn’t have been more clear if she’d spelled it out. Love shone from the curve of his cheek and the fall of his hair
and the tender softness of his earlobe. So many tiny details, and he was going to see.
God, he was going to want to look at this and he was going to know everything.
Beyond her tunnel vision, he stirred, the rustling of sheets a low murmur of a sound, lost beneath the roaring in her ears and of her heart. Warmth on her shoulder, then blunt fingers making a dark contrast against the snowy white of her page as they tipped the book down.
It broke the spell.
She dropped the book, looking up. With the sheet draped around his waist, Rylan stood in front of her, concern twisting his frown. “Kate? You went all”—he waved his hand at her—“pale. You sure you’re okay?”
She wanted to laugh.
No. She was the furthest possible thing from okay.
She’d burned her savings on an idiotic trip to Paris. Had gotten her purse stolen and had spent her days ignoring the work she’d come here to do because a man was paying attention to her. Was taking care of her and charming her and teaching her all sorts of things she’d never known her body could do.
So like the sad, naïve idiot she was, like her mother’s daughter, she’d fallen for him. And she knew it. Without a shred of doubt, she knew.
He was going to break her heart.
She sucked in a breath like she was drowning. If the outcome was the foregone conclusion, what the hell was she doing here? She should grab her things and run back to her nice, safe hostel with its awful roommates and communal baths.
Or she could dig her feet in. There wasn’t anything to lose.
If she wanted anything from him, she should go for it. Now. While she still had the chance.
chapter EIGHTEEN
If it hadn’t been so scary, it would have been hilarious. Because, seriously, Rylan had driven plenty of ladies out of their minds with his cock.
But he’d never done it quite so literally before.
Seven Nights To Surrender Page 18