by Zoey Parker
Seeing something beautiful take shape beneath my hands is the only bliss I have left.
The crash of waves on the shore and gulls crying that comes through the open window lulls me into a zone while I paint. Hours flit by. Shapes emerge in broad strokes of color as a face slowly comes into focus. Shadow here, the curl of skin texture there, the hint of a light refracting in the iris…
“That’s an awful sad face,” someone behind me says.
I know that voice. I whirl around.
Mortar leans against the doorjamb, hands stuffed in his pockets, as if his being here is the most natural and nonchalant thing in the world.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. Then I catch sight of myself in a mirror and blush. I’ve got paint streaked across my forehead, my hair is pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, and the apron I’m wearing wouldn’t be out of place in a grandma’s kitchen.
Mortar jerked a thumb behind him. “My bike’s in the shop down the street. I thought I’d take a stroll while the guys worked on it. Lo and behold, the door was wide open, so I stuck my head in. Lucky me.” He grins and my blush deepens. It’s not just an embarrassed flush. It’s also the same heat I felt rising in my cheeks when he’d pulled me into his embrace last night. In my face, my thighs, between my legs, heat flourishes like it’s meant to be there.
“Oh. I see.” I’m at a loss for words. “The door is, uh, broken.”
He looks at the easel behind me. “Like I was saying, that’s an awful sad face.” I turn to face what he is talking about.
It’s my face on the canvas, broad and colorful. He strides over to it. I feel like crumbling into myself like a black hole, just in and in and in to one single point until poof, I’m gone. But that’s not an option. I step to his side.
“It’s a self-portrait,” I say, and immediately I curse myself for saying such a stupid, obvious thing.
His voice comes out almost as a whisper. “It’s beautiful.” He raises a hand like he wants to touch it, then stops short and lets it fall back by his side. Meanwhile, I’m a living, breathing oven, judging by how hot my insides feel. Where does this heat even come from? I wonder.
Mortar opens his shoulders to look at me. I’m suddenly so aware of everything about myself, what I’m wearing, how ridiculous I look. It was one thing for him to flirt with me when I’d spent all night getting ready to go out, putting on that dress and those heels, the works. But it is a whole different thing to be seen like this, paint-smudged and sweaty.
His eyes don’t seem to agree. He looks me up and down and I see that same twinkle in them that I’d seen last night. In some ways, it reminds me of Grady. There’s the same kind of hunger in there, a sort of wild animal dominance. But there’s a softness in it, too.
Or maybe I’m just reading way too much into a pair of eyes.
He gives a tight nod, like he’s seen what he was looking for. Spinning away from me, he starts to stroll around the cramped space, examining all the drawings hung up along the walls. I gulp and shiver before I follow him. This man does something strange to my body when he’s close.
“Why isn’t this one finished?” he asks. He points up at a big canvas with several large blank areas.
“I couldn’t afford to buy new paint to finish it,” I admit.
His eyebrows furrow. “Grady has plenty of money. Why doesn’t he just buy you the supplies you need?”
“He thinks it’s a waste. I’ve never made much from selling this stuff.”
“How’s that? They’re incredible. People must be dying to get their hands on it.”
“Mostly because it’s hard to sell half-finished paintings.”
The frown deepens. “Let me get this straight, People want to buy them. You don’t have the money to get new supplies to finish the ones you’ve started. And Grady won’t help you get what you need?”
I nod, unsure of what Mortar is driving at. Why does he care about this stuff?
“I don’t get it.”
There are a million things buzzing through my head that I’m dying to say. Because he’s an asshole, or, because he can use the promise of more money to manipulate me, or, because I still owe him a fortune in loan payments ever since I was foolish enough to try to buy this place on my own in the first place.
But I can’t say any of that, as true as all of it is. Instead, I settle on a forced shrug and, “It’s a long story. A long, boring story.”
The mention of Grady brings him to mind. He sure as hell wouldn’t be thrilled to walk in and find Mortar waltzing around my studio. And he would be even less pleased if I told him that Mortar’s presence is making my heart beat ten times faster in my chest.
I set my jaw and steel myself against the soft heat between my legs. The man in front of me is nothing but trouble. Everything about him screams, “Don’t get involved!” The cocky swing of his arms, the tattoos peeking above his shirt collar, the winged skull stitched on the back of the leather jacket he’s wearing. I remind myself that he is a criminal. I’ve seen him before, on the nights in the past when Grady took me to the midnight races. Mortar was always in the thick of things, handling huge sums of money that made my dizzy just by looking at them. Nothing good follows something like that.
I stay leaning against the windowsill while Mortar does a slow lap around the room, looking at everything on display. He takes his time. I wonder if he is genuinely appreciating everything or just putting on a show for me. I remember his crack from the night before about finding a woman to raise a family with, and I wonder how serious he was about that, too. I dismiss it—no chance. A man like that is nothing but a lone wolf.
He turns the last corner and switches his gaze to me. I feel naked in front of him. He takes slow, confident steps towards me. That intrigued furrow is still written across his forehead. Two steps, one step, then he stops and leans against the wall right next to me.
“I enjoyed talking to you last night,” he says. His voice is low.
In spite of my better instincts, I tell him the truth. “I liked talking to you, too.”
“You deserve better than Grady.”
I can’t say anything back to that. Years of inertia, of learning to just keep my mouth shut if I want to avoid pain, prevents me from saying any of the million things that could be said in response. I say nothing.
“I mean it,” Mortar replies, moving half a step closer. There are just inches between us now. “You deserve someone who makes the things you love possible.” He sweeps a hand around the studio, pointing out the dozens of unfinished pieces that are crying out for more paint, more supplies, just a little bit of money and love to bring them to life.
My lips are parted slightly. It’s the only way to let out the heat that is rocketing up to insane temperatures now, centered on the molten core of my lower abdomen. I’m nervous and swept away all at once. My head is swimming. His eyes are so close.
I don’t know what’s happening, but before I can react, Mortar’s hands are on my hips, drawing me close to him, while our mouths crash together. His tongue teases at the opening of my lips, then slips past, mingling with mine. I hesitate, but I open to let him in. My hands are wound in the curls at the back of his head. I can feel the muscles in his neck moving as we jostle against each other, spreading warmth from body to body.
His fingers untie the apron and it falls to the floor. He slips a hand under my shirt, beneath my bra, and softly caresses my breast. I feel an involuntary moan escaping my throat as he pinches my nipple with a gentle touch, just enough to send a shiver down my spine.
The only thing I want is more. I lean into him, savoring the heft of his granite body pressed against mine. I grip his buttocks to grind against him while our kiss opens deeper. He keeps my head close to his with a hand on the swan curve of my neck. I can feel the ocean breeze tickling my hips where he has pushed up my blouse.
My body is responding to his like it’s known what to do my entire life. My head is another story. It’s a beehive of angry thoughts
. I shouldn’t be doing this; I shouldn’t be here with him; I shouldn’t have my tongue in his mouth. Every cry of protest from my head is shut down by the powerful heat emanating from somewhere deep inside me, the heat that wants this more than anything.
He pulls me closer and I lean farther. Our bodies are aligned head to toe while our hands grapple for purchase against one another. Each brush of his lips against mine coaxes a new chorus of nerves to life. I feel like I’ve broken through a wall, or like I’m water overflowing a dam at long last. The sheer sense of finally is irresistible.
I push hard into his chest to kiss deeper. The shift of weight knocks Mortar back on his heels. One elbow flies out and knocks a vase down from its perch on a low pedestal at his side. He breaks away and tries to catch it.
“Shit!” he curses as it hits the floor. Shards of clay tap dance across the tile in every direction.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, dropping to my knees and starting to sweep up the pieces into my hand. “It was stupid anyway. Don’t worry about it, really.” I’m glad he can’t see my face, because I’m blushing hotter than a thousand-watt lightbulb.
He ignores my protests and helps to clean up the broken pottery. When the worst of it is cleared away, we stand. I can’t face him. I look at the floor.
Mortar presses gentle fingertips on the underside of my chin and forces me to look in his eyes.
“Come with me,” he says. I start to tell him that I can’t, that Grady would be livid, but he cuts me off with a shush. “I know you won’t say yes right now. But I want you to know that the offer is there. Whenever, wherever, just let me know and I’ll be there to pick you up. That’s a promise.”
He leans down and draws a soft kiss from me before I can tell myself not to let him. My hands clutch empty air, longing to touch his strong chest again, but I push them down to my sides. He pulls away slowly, still looking into my eyes.
“I don’t break promises,” he says. Then he turns and walks out, hands in his pockets, as calm as the moment he entered.
I, on the other hand, am still reeling. I should feel like I did something wrong, but my whole body is ringing with a mute physical thrill like I’ve never experienced before. I shudder. The sensation scares me a little.
Still painfully aware of the frantic thudding of my pulse, I draw up a chair at the wobbly desk in the corner and force myself to look through the financial documents for the studio space. Overdue and Delinquent stamps are sprinkled liberally across every page. I crunch numbers and try to breathe.
Slowly, as I dive through statements that don’t contain an ounce of good news, I get my breath and pulse back under control. The sun drops outside while I work.
“Knock, knock,” Grady says.
I turn to look at him through tired eyes. He’s standing, framed in the doorway, just like Mortar had been when he entered. Except everything else is different. Instead of the dark curls, it’s a close-cropped crew cut seated on a meaty head. Their shoulders are the same breadth, but Grady’s body drops into a boulder gut and thighs like tree trunks, instead of the slender abs that I felt beneath Mortar’s jacket.
“Let’s go.”
“One sec,” I tell him. I lean over to file away a few of the papers in my hand.
I hear him suck in a breath. “What’s this?”
I look behind me to see him holding a big chunk of the vase that Mortar and I had broken. It takes everything in me to keep a straight face while I lie and say, “Knocked a vase over while I was cleaning. I must’ve missed a piece cleaning up.”
“Huh.” He tosses it out the window. “Didn’t like that one anyway.”
I gather my stuff.
“Hurry up,” he calls back over his shoulder as he walks outside.
I lock the door behind me, then climb into his patrol car, parked out front. He’s blocking a fire hydrant, I notice, and two wheels are on the sidewalk. Nothing out of the norm. The passenger door clicks shut. We peel off down the road. Grady immediately flicks on the lights and siren before tearing down the median, blasting through red lights, and cutting off drivers everywhere we go. He chuckles when he sees a car screech to a halt just before it would have struck us.
“Sell anything today?” he asks sarcastically. He knows full well that I have nothing salable right now.
“No.”
He sucks his teeth and sighs. “Can’t wait ’til we get rid of that place.”
My heart drops. Get rid of the studio? He’s gotta be joking. That’s the one place I have left, the one thing keeping me tethered to sanity instead of losing my mind in this hellhole that has become my life. I can’t let that happen. I have to tread carefully, though. His temper is a ticking time bomb.
“Sell…the studio?”
“Of course.” He seems surprised, like it’s ridiculous that the thought hadn’t occurred to me before. “I’m not gonna float you forever.”
“We had a deal.”
“And you can’t keep up your end of it. If you’re not selling, how are you gonna make the loan payments you owe me?”
We come full circle with a sickening crunch. I’m transported back to five years ago. I was fresh out of art school. My head was spilling over with a million ideas and the praise of every professor who told me to go for it, to take a stab at being a professional artist. I was going to sell paintings and make beautiful things that would bring happiness to people. I had the talent and the willpower. It was only a matter of time before I made it big.
Confident that success was right around the corner, I’d taken out loans I couldn’t possibly afford in order to buy the studio space and start filling it with the supplies I needed to make masterpieces. Costs just kept adding up—insurance and electricity and air conditioning and all the tools that being an artist required. Before I knew it, I was eyeballs deep in debt and drowning.
Enter Grady. The promise of some help with the loan payments was music to my ears. “Just for a couple months, until I get going,” I’d warned him. And I’d meant it. Things had settled into a workable situation. I got back to work. But then I needed some paint or a brush, and the no he gave me was much harsher and more sudden than I’d been expecting.
Slowly, like everything else horrible in my life, it snowballed, until the studio had become a symbol of all the things I wouldn’t ever be. Still, when I was there, I could find the tiniest sense of relief. It was the last safe haven in my life.
And now that was being taken away.
“I need supplies to finish paintings,” I told him. “Then I can sell them.”
He chortled. “How can you know for sure? You haven’t sold anything in months. Naw, we’re gonna sell that piece of shit place. That’s the only way I’m gonna get any kind of return on all the cash I’ve sunk into it.”
“But—”
“No, shut up. It doesn’t matter. That’s what’s happening.”
It feels like all the sound has been sucked out of the world. I sink low into my seat, trying to wrap my head around what the loss of my studio would mean.
It will be the loss of everything. Once this last link is severed, I’m all alone in Grady’s world. It’s a world of fists and drunken anger and I won’t have any recourse from it, not a single avenue of escape.
Well, except for one: Mortar.
I think about the kiss and as I do, I feel the phantom heat creeping over my skin again. It’s tantalizing. “I don’t break promises,” he’d said. I believe him. He said he’d protect me from Grady. I believe that, too. I believe he would try, at least.
But then I look over at the man to my left, and I realize that there is no one in the world I could trust to keep me safe from him.
I feel a sudden heat on my mouth, and a fingertip touched against my lip comes away wet with blood. I’ve chewed my busted lip open without even noticing. As I fumble for a tissue in my purse, Grady looks over and sees the injury. Some twisted expression, halfway between a grin and a scowl, takes over his face.
“Had a g
ood time last night, did you?”
“It was fine.”
“You and that biker sleaze seemed to be having an awfully interesting conversation.”
“It wasn’t anything.”
He smacks a flat palm against the steering wheel. “Like hell it wasn’t!”
“Grady, it wasn’t anything. You overreacted.”
He pauses. His sudden coolness scares me. I’m used to explosions from him. This icy glee is something new and frightening.
“No, I didn’t overreact. It made me realize something, actually.” I wait, too scared to say a word. The other shoe is about to drop. I can hear my pulse in my ears. “And I made a decision.”