by Kris Pearson
“Thank you. Just toast will be fine. I’d better hurry now I’ve slept in.”
His eyes roamed over her with masculine possession. Kate lifted a hand to the collar of the robe and drew it more closely around her. Matthew’s smile grew wider, and she turned and fled back to her bedroom.
Kate showered and dressed at top speed, and gulped another cup of coffee and a slice of whole-wheat toast and apricot jam before they climbed into the SUV. Matthew drove with care because of the ice-covered roads.
She looked everywhere but at him. She’d stroked his naked hip! He’d undone his pyjamas and she’d drawn closer instead of turning away. It seemed unreal now, but she knew quite well it had happened. Her body knew, almost more surely than her brain.
Each time she’d been close to him this morning, some perfidious internal place had trembled, heated, expanded, felt special. She wouldn’t be returning from Auckland after Sunday. There was no other viable decision now. However spectacular the surroundings, however desirable the job, Matthew had made it impossible for her to stay.
She clenched her hands together and stared out of the window. No hardship with such scenery. In the chilly morning air, frost still covered each blade of grass and twig. The low angle of the sun set everything sparkling. Drifts of mist rose from hollows. Mountains thrust into the cloudless sky whichever way she looked. The Remarkables with their distinctive jagged outline. Coronet Peak with its heavier mantle of snow. Maybe there were already keen skiers and snowboarders up there, enjoying the fantastic morning? She cleared her throat, wondering if she should ask, and then couldn’t voice even such an innocuous remark.
Matthew broke the silence when the lake became visible. “Wakitipu’s looking great in this light.” He pulled to the side of the road for a moment. As they watched, a bright red boat burbled slowly out. “Shotover Jet. He won’t be doing that speed for long.” Sure enough, a plume of spray eventually kicked up from the stern, the boat shot forward, and they dimly heard the roar of its powerful engine splitting the tranquillity of the still morning.
Lottie was chafing to get home, already seated in a wheelchair close to the reception desk.
“I thought you’d be on crutches,” Kate said, surprised.
Lottie beckoned her to bend. “Sometimes it’s okay to have the famous name,” she murmured. “I told them ‘really big house—too far to walk on crutches—painter can work sitting in the wheelchair... And so—” She looked very pleased with herself. Kate laughed.
“I hope this folds up,” Matthew interrupted, bending to inspect the other side of the chair.
“Oh ya,” Lottie said airily, patting his shoulder as he crouched beside her.
He turned and kissed her wrist. “How’s your head?” he asked.
“Little bang. Not so bad.”
“And the ankle?”
“Horrible.”
He flashed a big grin up at Kate. “Welcome to the world’s worst patient.” He unfolded to his full height and pushed the chair around to face the exit. “Anything I have to sign?”
“All done,” Lottie said, leaning back, content as a queen with her attendants. They proceeded out to the parking lot.
“Will it be easier for you in the back or the front?” Kate asked, surveying Lottie’s ankle.
“The back, maybe. I can go sideways.” Kate helped her in to the SUV, flinching at each of Lottie’s dramatic grimaces and groans. Matthew chuckled, and left them to it to while he wrestled with the chair.
“He’s not very sympathetic, is he?”
“Always the same,” Lottie agreed, finally settling. She turned her twinkling blue eyes to Kate’s. “Good idea for a new painting today,” she said. “Quite different for me. Could be woman, could be hillsides. Fun, ya?”
Kate nodded cautiously, not seeing what Lottie saw.
“So my new assistant’s first job is model, okay?”
“A portrait?”
Lottie waggled her hand in a maybe/maybe not gesture. “Perhaps not your face at all. Your hips, your back... keeping the panties on of course.”
Damn right! Kate thought, caught unawares. This wasn’t quite what she’d bargained on. And there weren’t many panties to keep on, drat it. She hadn’t been able to resist the tiny green lace thong. She needed to change into something more concealing...the French knickers perhaps. She relaxed a little at that thought as Matthew drove them back through the icy-clear day.
He pushed the chair along the wide main hallway of the house, then stopped at a door which was neatly concealed just around a corner. He pressed a button. The door folded sideways. Kate had her first view of Lottie’s private elevator.
Lottie motioned her in and waved Matthew away. The door closed and they ascended.
“Good to carry all sorts of things up, ya? And maybe me when I’m older and don’t do the stairs.”
Kate nodded, impressed. “Good for big paintings, too,” she agreed.
“My studio is the top floor. Lots of room. Lovely light. Matthew designed it all as I needed.”
The door opened on another world. Kate stood astounded.
The paintings were powerful, dominant, fierce. Lottie may not have lived permanently in New Zealand, but her love for the terrain was obvious—in every stroke and slash, every line and gradation of colour. There were canvasses in all stages of progress, leaning on walls and against furniture. Bookshelves, storage cabinets, easels, tables...the litter of painting paraphernalia was everywhere. Sketch pads, coffee mugs, wine glasses, and magazines spread in a rising tide on every level surface. A big book of Leonardo da Vinci’s exquisite life drawings lay open on a chair. A tome of French impressionists had fallen to the floor.
A circle of black leather recliner chairs around a low oak table formed the only island of sanity Kate could see in the huge space.
To one side there was a smaller room, obviously set up for sleeping.
Along the back wall a kitchen counter had sliding doors to conceal it—except they were not closed, and the litter of unwashed plates, orange peel, and paint spatters looked far from hygienic.
Lottie laughed at her reaction. “My eagle’s nest,” she said with satisfaction, waving a hand toward the surrounding views.
“Incredible,” Kate whispered. There was no other word. The long line of windows had been positioned to frame the up-thrust peaks of The Remarkables—for all the world like a gigantic canvas on which a supremely talented artist had produced their life’s masterpiece.
But Lottie allowed her scant time to admire it. “So, we have the red couch there,” she said, pointing. “Can you put those papers off? Anywhere will do.”
Kate shuffled them into a tidy heap, cast around for somewhere clear, shrugged, and finally balanced them on some magazines.
“And you pull it around this way a little? Good.”
Lottie sat, considering, eyes narrowed. “And Kate—in the bedroom there are lamps. Can you bring them?”
The bedroom was perfectly civilized. The lamps were easy enough to retrieve.
“Ya—one there, one the other side. You find the wall-plugs?”
Kate fossicked around as instructed.
“Now—you sit. Lean over. The other way. Onto the cushions?”
She tipped her head on one side. “I think you move this lamp further out, and bend its arm so it is low...”
Lottie took an elderly Polaroid camera from the table beside her and inspected it. “Now the clothes off and we see how the shadows fall.”
Kate was appalled. “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know if I can...?”
“Ach—nobody sees,” Lottie said comfortably. “Katie, if you had studied at art school you would know this is not hot stuff.”
Kate giggled unexpectedly at the description.
“Leave the bra and panties on. And on the couch like before.”
“The panties are very tiny,” Kate said, blushing, removing her jersey and the shirt underneath, and standing unwilling in her bra and trous
ers. Lottie looked up with expectation.
“Ya—off,” she said. Kate slowly peeled off her jeans. Lottie didn’t blink. “And lying down...turning the head away...”
Kate heard a click and a whir. “So—come and look.”
The photo was all too revealing, but Lottie seemed pleased enough.
“Again, Katie—and the legs stretched out more this time. Can you reach out and bend the other lamp down lower, too?”
Another shot. Another short wait. “Good. You come and see?”
Kate looked most unwillingly.
“Ignore all the windows Katie, and half-close your eyes. See the hills and valleys and shadows? Is she a woman or not? Is different, ya?”
Kate scrunched her eyes up and suddenly saw what Lottie saw. “Uh! That’s a real surprise.”
“Okay, so we do the real thing. With the bra off and being very comfortable on the cushions...”
Kate returned to the couch, removed her bra once she’d decently turned away, and settled down. She heard Lottie readying her painting gear. The house was warm... the lamps added heat of their own...this was not too bad.
“Hello—what have you brought for us?” Lottie asked a few minutes later.
Kate’s blood turned to ice.
“Just some sandwiches,” Matthew said. “Katie had very little breakfast, and it’s almost lunchtime. I thought you could both do with them.”
She lounged there, stunned, exposed, and embarrassed beyond belief. She dared not move and upset the pose for Lottie. Or display herself still further to Matthew.
Neither could she possibly stay like this with him in the room. Obviously he’d crept up the stairs instead of using the elevator. The predator had caught his prey.
She flinched as something touched her foot. She jerked her head sideways. He stood right there, far too close. And he gently lowered a soft concealing bed-sheet over her. She closed her eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He stepped away, out of sight. She heard him set down a plate and glass for Lottie, then he moved back in her direction, pulled a hard-backed chair across, and sat, knees apart, so he could move in close. One hand held a half full tumbler of wine and the other a plate of tiny bite sized sandwiches. He propped a drinking straw into the tumbler and raised it to her mouth. She drank gratefully. He fed her the tiny ham and camembert sandwiches one by one, with sips of wine between each. She barely needed to move—the pose would not be ruined.
“So what do you think of the studio?”
It was such a normal question that she could have been walking through town with him instead of lying naked under a thin sheet.
She did her best to find some insouciance. “Extraordinary. It must be wonderful for Lottie to have everything she needs so close.”
“And quite a few things she doesn’t need.”
“Yes. Well.” That had Kate at a loss for further words.
“You can see why she needs her own Superwoman. She’s an artist, not an organiser.”
Kate nodded silently, opening her mouth so he could slide the final tiny sandwich in. Matthew held it just out of reach. She glanced up at him. He ran his tongue around his top lip and she snapped her mouth shut.
“I thought you were being nice to me now,” she hissed.
“You’ll know when I’m being nice to you, Katie. You’ll know when I’m being a lot more than nice.” His reply was the softest whisper, inaudible to Lottie, fifteen feet away. He held out the little sandwich and she opened her mouth for him again. He tucked it in very slowly, pushing it home with his forefinger, intruding, invading, entering right into her body. She closed her lips around the finger and bit, quite hard.
He smiled, tolerating the pain until she released him. He licked his finger clean. Still holding her eyes, he drew up the last mouthful of wine through the straw and swallowed it. She watched the muscles and tendons moving in his strong golden neck, thinking that she could strangle him for his game.
He glanced across at Lottie, and apparently finding her turned away, bent and kissed Kate swiftly on her relaxed and unsuspecting mouth.
She froze rigid. Made no sound. Didn’t move a fraction to draw any attention to what he had done. And continued to lie there stunned as he drew the sheet off her body again in a soft and devastating caress.
He’d take a chance like that? In front of Lottie?
The danger had a powerful effect on Kate. Every tiny hair on her flesh stood up. Her skin tingled and twitched. Her arms and legs felt lead-heavy—there was no way she could jump to her feet and flee.
Her mouth burned, tasting of wine and surprise and wanting.
The insistent throb was back in her belly—but worse—warmer and wilder than before. Her blood pulsed, thick and heavy. She felt it travelling around her body, making her heart pump harder, stiffening her nipples and preparing a welcome between her thighs.
This was outrageous! She had no answer for such arrogance. Well—none that she dared acknowledge. If he really wanted her, she knew she now had very little resistance left. And she could never ever let him know that.
Lottie moved her plate out of the way. Kate heard it scrape across the bench-top.
“Can you get me that bigger canvas? The long one. I didn’t plan to do it so big, but she looks good, don’t you think?”
“She looks beautiful.” Matthew said quietly. “And who’d have thought she’d wear sexy little panties like that? I had you down for white cotton, Katie.”
She seethed, caught so easily when she’d scoffed at his gift. She stayed silent.
He chuckled. It took no imagination to see the corners of his mouth kicking up, his icy blue eyes flashing with unholy glee.
Anger and embarrassment surged through her. Would he never leave?
She heard a chair drag across the floor, the rustle of stiff pages turning. His soft grunt of satisfaction as he found what he wanted.
Something moved in the corner of her vision. She slid her eyes around. Matthew sat, tilting a big sketching pad on his lap, looking directly at her from quite a different angle to the one Lottie had chosen. His charcoal stick raced over the paper, capturing her curves. He regarded her intently, and rubbed a finger to smudge the black to a softer shadow. Eyed her again. Drew some more. Stroked and blended. Kate became acutely aware of his hands as the pad of his thumb shimmered along her thigh. Pushed at her buttocks with a lighter touch, shading and buffing her skin.
She had no idea what Lottie was doing. Matthew had taken her over. He worked with absolute concentration until he was pleased with his sketch, then he ripped it noisily from the pad. He showed it to Lottie. She passed a quiet comment.
Kate heard the scrape of the chair again, and then he stood right in front of her, and laid the sketch on the floor for her to see. She drew a sharp breath. Lottie might be turning her into an ambiguous stretch of countryside, but Matthew was a consummate draftsman. He’d drawn a flesh-and-blood woman, faithfully recording her long back and shapely rear end and the barely-there panties.
“Great backside,” he whispered. “Butterfly would look very hot.”
She squeezed her eyes shut to remove the devastating image from her brain.
“This is still comfortable for you, Kate?” Lottie asked.
Never been less comfortable in my life.
“I’m fine,” she called back. “How’s it going?”
“Will be good I think. Not too much longer now—hard for you to hold the pose, even lying down, and the sun will alter all the shadows soon.”
Matthew sat again—much closer this time—and surveyed her in silence. Then he took up the charcoal and she saw he was roughing in her shoulders and breasts and tumbling hair. His face became serious as he concentrated. His lips grew sensuously fuller as he pursed them together, but his eyes stayed alert and assessing.
Kate kept her eyes on his lips. Anywhere but his eyes, she decided desperately.
He kissed me. Tasted me, teased me. With that sinful mouth.
He saw where she’d fixed her eyes and flicked his tongue briefly out, drawing it down the centre of his top lip and back out of sight again. Kate felt a devastating slippery flick much further down her body. She wriggled and caught her breath. He grinned.
She clenched her eyes shut and kept them that way. A short time later she heard him relax, sigh, and lay down the sketching pad somewhere close.
“How did I do?” he asked in a husky drawl.
She opened her eyes at last and stared at the black and white woman with the wet lips and peaked breasts and wild hair.
He’d captured her more accurately than any camera. The desire was palpable, the wanting extreme. Did she really look like that to him? With drowsy come-to-bed-eyes? A mouth swollen already from kisses? And nipples demanding to be sucked and bitten?
He hadn’t showed this one to Lottie. This was for him, as private at his tattoo, perhaps. And for her, to confirm the invitation of his kiss.
CHAPTER NINE
Lottie’s wheels squeaked faintly on the polished timber floor. “Enough Katie—you do very well. I finish another time.”
Did that mean she could relax? Could escape? Could try to recover her dignity? She sagged down onto the cushions, finally hiding from Matthew behind her curtain of hair.
She’d not acknowledged his drawing. Would not. Could not. She was totally drained with the effort of holding still for so long, and from her pent-up emotions. She’d never survived anything like that before. Hoped never to have to again.
She heard Matthew stand. The sketchpad rustled up from the floor. And a warm finger landed gently between her shoulder blades. As he stepped away he drew his finger slowly downward, slid it under the thong, pulled, and let the elastic snap back against her flesh. Her humiliation was complete.
If Kate was a mass of nerves, Lottie seemed not to notice.
“Come and see how you’re looking.”