by Simply BWWM
“That will work. I like old jazz, too.” He smiled a little at her, and she glanced up at him. It was a sweet smile, a genuine smile with true emotion in it, and she held her hand up in a flash.
“Don’t move! Stay just like that, with that expression, that smile, all of it. Your hand held out just a little that way, just stay exactly like that please.” She turned the music on and reached for her camera, holding it up to capture his perfect moment as strains of an old Billie Holiday song began to play, surrounding them with nostalgic notes and romantic nuances. She realized too late that old jazz was probably not the right thing to play while she was trying to keep her thoughts about him clean and professional, but there was no changing it, as they had already started. She was just going to have to work through it.
He kept his gaze on her while she picked up her paintbrush and took a deep breath, reaching for her palette and telling herself that no matter what he looked like, she was going to capture the essence of him on her canvas and show who he was inside, no matter that the outside of him had her totally spellbound.
Chapter3
Chanel had never focused on any painting so intently as she did on the one she began creating for Nick. She kept trying to keep her eyes from meeting his, as his gaze was incredibly intense, and it felt endless, like she might fall into it and keep falling. Her heartbeat had begun to race when he’d dropped his robe to the floor at his feet, and it continued to beat swiftly as she painted him.
Her eyes moved over his skin slowly, the way that a lover’s touch would, inches at a time, replicating the light and color on the canvas before her, in the recreation of his flesh. With every passing minute she felt as if the room was slowly growing warmer, as if the heat in her body was permeating her and filling the room up like a blazing fire in a fireplace.
Sultry notes of old jazz sounded around them, filling the silence between them as well as filling their minds with thoughts of hot summer nights and the impassioned lovers the singers crooned about. She painted on, stroke after stroke, her eyes moving so slowly over his body as she worked to capture all of it.
Nick watched her, staring at her form, her concentration, her mouth as it opened slightly, her lips as she bit at the soft fullness of her lower lip now and then, and he felt himself drawn to her with a powerful gravity. He knew that he shouldn’t, but somehow the nascent chemistry between them was evolving into a tension, humming with a sparking current, and thickening with mounting desire. As time drifted slowly between them, the willpower that he had fortified himself with before began to disintegrate gradually, as if it was melting before the intensity of the heat between them.
Even when he tried to push them away, his thoughts kept turning to her as he wondered what it would be like to be near her, to hold her, to bury his face in the soft curve of her neck and breathe in the scent of her skin and her hair, to run his fingertips over her curves and lines and pull her close to him, to close his mouth over hers and taste her kiss.
“Don’t you think so?” she asked, her eyes steady on him.
He blinked and gave his head a little shake. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Chanel had done as much as she could do and had as much of the heat in the room as she could take. It was growing more and more difficult for her to concentrate on her work and forget the intimate thoughts of him that refused to leave her mind. She spoke a little louder, wondering if she’d actually said her thought out loud or if she’d only hoped that she did.
“I was asking if you needed a break. I was thinking it would be a good time for one.” She needed a break; she needed fresh air and a clearer mind. He looked as if he had woken up from a dream. He turned his head away from her.
“Yes, I think it is a good time for a break. You’ve been going for a long while. Perhaps we can have dinner and make it an early evening. If you’d like to continue, you could paint after we eat.” He bent over and picked up his blue robe, sliding it back on and tying it at the waist. Chanel was relieved that he redressed so quickly.
Chanel realized that it would probably be best to get as much work done as quickly as possible because the faster that she was done with the basics of the painting, the faster she would be off of the boat and the easier it would be to continue her work in her studio, where she would be alone and in peace and solitude, rather than staring at a naked man who made her think heated and intimate thoughts.
“Yes, I guess that’s the best thing for us, isn’t it? We can take a break and eat; you can rest, then we’ll get back to it and work on the painting some more.” She thought about the time away from the room, and though she knew she’d be eating dinner with him, at least he would be dressed, and they could talk about other things and hopefully she would be distracted enough to re-center herself and clear all the thoughts from her mind that she desperately wished weren’t there.
“Let’s leave this all set up then, and we’ll go and eat. I’ll need a few minutes to get ready for dinner, and I’m sure you’ll want some time as well. I’ll meet you in the dining room upstairs in fifteen minutes. Andrew will likely be waiting out in the lounge at the end of the hall. Please ask him to let the chef know that we’ll be eating.” He gave her a smile and then turned toward the bathroom to redress.
Chanel smiled in return and headed out of the cabin and down the hall. Andrew was waiting in the lounge, as Nick had said that he would be, and she gave him Nick’s message. Andrew nodded in silence and then headed up the spiral staircase. Chanel went to her cabin and closed the door behind her, heaving a great sigh of relief that she was in a place of peace for even a short time.
Frustration and even some semblance of shame flushed through her, and she chastised herself silently for allowing her thoughts to go places where they had no business going and for feeling the things that she had felt for him while they were together in the bedroom.
Such a thing had never happened to her before and she felt wretched that it was happening at all. It seemed like an epic failure in her professionalism, and she swore to herself as she readied herself for dinner with him that she was going to figure out a way to finish her work without letting herself feel any attraction for him.
Straightening her hair and her dress and touching up her makeup just a bit, she took a deep breath and focused on being Chanel Barry, professional portrait painter, and she let herself out of the cabin and headed up to the dining room.
Nick was already there, waiting at the bar at the end of the room. He turned to face her, and as he did, he flashed her a devilishly sweet smile, picked up two glasses of wine, and walked toward her.
She felt her heart flip in her chest at the sight of him in his button up shirt which was left unbuttoned at the collar and a few more buttons down than that. He had dress pants on and his hair, which he had combed since she had seen him in his bedroom, still had a tousled look about it, as if it wouldn’t be totally tamed.
He reached her and handed her one of the glasses of wine i, wishing that the very sight of her hadn’t taken his breath away, because he wasn’t certain if the wine in his hand was going to be enough to sway his mind from the thoughts he was trying to control.
He tried not to notice the way that her dress moved around her as she walked to him, though it was close to her body, sculpting itself over her curves and her form. The skirt of it was loose and the hem of it danced around her legs as she walked, swirling as if there was music playing that moved it with rhythm.
Chanel took the glass of wine gratefully and had half of it gone in moments, hoping that it would calm her and steady her nerves. She didn’t like feeling as if she wasn’t in as much control as she normally was, and it seemed like everything about Nick Thomas unnerved her beyond her.
She noticed that he had swallowed a fair amount of his own wine as well, and he made no mention of how quickly they had drunk it as he poured more for them, filling her glass and his a little fuller than he usually would.
He toasted her with the second glass, lifting
his toward her. “To beauty, in every form,” he said quietly, meaning both her art and her, though he didn’t say it.
“To beauty,” she agreed, toasting with him and swallowing much more of the wine yet again.
They talked about the boat as he showed her different and various things about it, and then they were seated for their meal, and she felt tremendous relief that they could be distracted by it. It was a delicious, though early meal, somewhere between a late lunch and an early dinner, and she knew that eating so early would enable her to get more work done on the painting and would, she hoped, get her off of the yacht sooner so that she wouldn’t have to contend with her wandering and lustful mind.
Conversation at the meal was predominantly about her artwork, where she had gone to school and studied, where she had first begun working, the galleries and places where he had seen her work, and how he had discovered it. It was safe talk and there was nothing truly personal in it or about it.
By the time the meal was finished, they had both had quite a bit of wine, and she could feel that her head was lighter than it should be, but she was also glad that her tension had eased some and that she was not nearly as nervous as she had been earlier. She wondered if she would be able to continue painting him without being so bothered by him, and she was ready to give it a try.
Chanel said that she would meet Nick back in his room so that they could get back to work, and he agreed. He told her to meet him there in ten minutes, and she took the opportunity of the extra time to walk on the back deck of the huge yacht and look around at the sea, watching it move in undulating waves beneath them.
She breathed in as much of the fresh air as she could, telling herself that she was in control, that she could remain in control, and that her intense attraction to him could definitely be controlled as well. She was there to do a job; she was being paid more than she had ever been paid for any job, and she was going to complete it, with a good deal of professionalism.
Andrew appeared almost out of nowhere at her side and beckoned her to go downstairs, telling her that Nick was ready for her. She nodded her thanks to him and headed down to the master cabin, feeling slightly more confident, though she wasn’t sure if it was true confidence or the wine making her believe more than was really there.
She knocked at the door, and he told her to come in. She entered and saw that he was standing nude again, as he had been before, with his foot up on the little box, and his eyes settled on her. A rush of heat moved through her from the inside outward, and it was as if they hadn’t left the room at all. He was every bit as enticing as he had been before, or perhaps even more so, as she was slightly dizzy with wine running through her.
Chanel was so distracted that she forgot to put her smock on, and instead she reached right for her brushes and focused all of her thoughts and energy on the painting before her. It took every bit of effort that she had.
Nick watched her, as he had before, and as the music hadn’t been turned back on, the silence grew very loud in a short amount of time. He decided to fill it with some of the million odd questions that were buzzing around in his mind, questions that he hadn’t been brazen enough to ask before their meal. With the courage gifted to him by the bottles of wine they had opened, he felt much more confident about voicing his thoughts and queries to her.
Her brush was creating the solid lines of muscles along his thighs when he spoke first, and she faltered ever so slightly for a second.
“Is this overnight stay with me keeping you from someone? A partner or someone special like that, perhaps?” He spoke in a quiet voice, his eyes studying every nuance of her face. He wanted to know that more than anything, right from the start. He had been struggling with his growing desires for her as they ate their meal together, and he had decided that if she was alone, and if she had no opposition to it, that he might push a little to find out if she would be interested in him at all.
His question caught her slightly off guard, and she blinked and tried to get her thoughts lined up to answer him, not really taking the time to think about it much before she replied. “No, there’s… there’s no one like that. I’m single. It’s fine that I’m here.”
A wave of happiness swept through him at hearing her response, and he found it a surprise that he was so pleased to hear it. He hadn’t expected to react as relieved and happy about it as he had, but he was, and there was no denying it.
Stopping short for a moment, she realized that there was a second side to his question, and she looked away from his nude form on her canvas and met his blue gaze with her own. “What about you? Have you stepped away from someone to be here doing this?” She wondered then if the painting that she was creating would be something like a gift for a wife or lover or someone in his life who was a partner and would appreciate having a re-creation of his body in the nude, showing his strength and incredible build.
He shook his head slightly, and some of his black tousled hair fell down into his face. “No, there’s no one in my life at the moment.” He hesitated for a minute and then continued. “Have you been on your own for very long?” He couldn’t imagine any man who was lucky enough to be with her letting her go at all, and the fact that she admitted to being single surprised him a good amount.
Chanel kept her eyes on her painting as much as she could and only looked at his body when she needed to, trying to keep her thoughts in order. The questions he was asking were little more than a distraction to her, and a welcome one, keeping her mind off him.
“I have been single for a long while,” she admitted. “I’ve just been focusing on my work mostly. What about you?” she asked, not really thinking about the question until it was out of her mouth. She was surprised as the sound of the words she had asked echoed in her own ears, but then she realized that she did want to know the answer to her question. Was there someone else and if there wasn’t, how long had it been? The very edge of the idea that they were both single began to tug at the corner of her mind, and she tried to ignore it as she painted on.
“I was engaged for a little while, but I guess my fiancé decided that she didn’t want to be with me any longer, and she left me. We broke up,” he said with a seriousness to his voice that made her look up at him. Her heart ached for him that he had been through something that was obviously so painful and difficult. It had to be horrid for him, thinking that he was going to spend his whole life with a woman he loved, only for her to walk away from him and leave him. It astounded her that anyone would leave him.
“I’m so sorry. That must have been so awful for you to go through.” She empathized with him and gave him a heartfelt look. When their eyes met, a jolt of electricity shot through her, and she wished that she could have stopped it, but there was no stopping it, and there was no denying that just being around him was having a powerful and significant effect on her.
“Thank you, it was really difficult, but I have spent my time since then bettering myself. I guess I just look at it as a learning curve. We can take the lessons we are given in life and use them to improve ourselves, can’t we?” He spoke quietly, his eyes locked on her. He was feeling even more drawn to her than he had been before they had eaten and had so much wine to drink.
“That’s true,” she agreed, doing her best to concentrate on her work. She had learned many of her own lessons in life, and she knew that one of them was acting in a professional manner in the aspects of her job, though it wasn’t happening very easily for her just then.
She worked on for a long while and finally set her brushes down and walked over to the sink in the bathroom there to wash her hands. Her mind was swirling with thoughts of him and what she was doing there, with frustrations over wanting someone she had just met, someone who was a client, and someone she should be looking at as a subject and not with any kind of desire at all, but still it was there, and it was growing stronger with every passing minute.
As she dried her hands, she felt him behind her, standing so near that he was almost touchin
g her. Her heart jumped and began to race, and she felt her breath catch in her chest. Turning slowly on the spot where she stood, she looked up at him and felt as if she was on fire, melting before him right there.
“How long has it been since you were with anyone?” he asked in his quiet tone, his blue eyes searching hers.
Her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest. She swallowed hard. “Five years,” she answered, trying to ignore the fact that he was standing nude before her, still. He was not posed; he was not in conjunction with his form on the canvas. He was inches away from her, and she could feel the heat from his body and breathe in the sweet, salty scent of his skin. It filled her nose and lungs, and she wished that she could just stand there and breathe him in and keep breathing him in without needing to exhale.
He blinked in shock. “Five years? How is that possible?”
Chanel wasn’t sure what he meant, and she shook her head in confusion. “I… I guess there just hasn’t been anyone who’s been interested, and I haven’t gone after anyone.”