Now he had the tip of his finger in her ass. Heat blasted at him, but the tight muscles opened sweetly to his persuasion, clamped around him. He’d have to use a lot of self-control when he got his cock into her. Already it dripped for it. He glanced down and caught sight of it, rock hard and straining, the tip wet with his essence. As he watched, a drop slid from it and blended with the water cascading down the drain.
Vashti held steady, but the occasional gentle moan told him she didn’t object. Part of him remained on guard, waiting for her protest. He’d promised. He reached around with the dildo, tickled the sensitive underside of her breasts, felt their weight close around the top part. Vashti had pert, petite breasts, mouth-watering delicacies rather than full-blown feasts. He loved nipping and sucking them, loved watching them jiggle in time to his thrusts. He’d have to get a mirror put in here because that was the downside about doing it this way. He couldn’t kiss her and he couldn’t see the expression on her face, something that would guide him now. He wanted this time to wipe out her previous experience, wanted to show her how good it could be.
Mind-blowing, if his previous experience was any guide, and with Vashti, even more intense.
He took his time, listening to her soft sighs and moans, reading her body as her muscles tensed and relaxed. Her nipples crinkled and hardened for him, and he wanted to taste and nip. Later, he’d do it. He’d make her scream, make her beg him to move on. Or have her do it to him. When she took control in bed she went wild, exploring and experimenting, doing things he’d never dreamt of before. Very imaginative, his Vashti.
No. His nothing.
The dildo collected water, and he slipped it between her pussy lips to nudge and tease her clit until she could hardly bear it. He needed more hands. Someone panted, their breath harsh and he was mildly surprised to discover it was him. She gave him control this time, and he loved it. He had most of his finger inside her ass now, so he introduced another, easing it around the lube at the opening to make it easier for her.
“Zoltan…”
“Mmm?”
“Do it. Do it, my love.”
The last two words froze him, filling him with terror and elation, and he wasn’t sure which was stronger. Zoltan rarely felt terror, but he’d never felt so close to anyone before, never allowed anyone in so deep. This needed to stop.
He dragged his fingers out of her, grabbed the tube and lubed his cock until it glistened. He used his body to protect it from the stream of water, then bent over her, introducing the very tip to her small opening, which he’d worked looser. It still gripped him in infernal heat when he slid inside. So easy, once he’d breached the tight ring of muscle on the outside and persuaded it to accept him.
Oh fuck, she felt so good. Did every part of her body mean paradise to him? Shit, no, but he could come just looking at her sometimes. He gripped one hip, urging her to move back on him. Her hands still had the handles in a death grip, one she used as purchase to ease her body back on to his.
“That’s it, come to me in your own time.”
Then she stopped.
He was still only half in, and he wanted it all. Wanted it now. “Straighten your legs, bring them closer together.”
She did, awkwardly, and he remembered that slight limp.
“Not if it hurts.”
“It doesn’t.” She gasped as he pushed, not stopping until he’d embedded his cock completely in her hot body.
Christ, she was steaming. He ventured to withdraw a little, try to set up a rhythm, and she gasped again, but not with pain.
“Here we go.” He pushed in, pulled out a little more, pushed in. Did it again, deeper each time until he could move easily inside her. He stared down, where her buttocks cushioned his groin and knew that he’d embedded the sight into his mind and that one day it would come out in his art. He didn’t know how yet, and he wouldn’t work on it. In the old days, his days of abstract, it would have come out as a dynamic, a line of pure action, divorced from the inspiration, but now it might appear as a more literal interpretation.
Fuck, he didn’t care. The pause had given him a minute to regain some of his control, but he was going to lose it soon, and do it spectacularly.
He moved the dildo, let it slide down until it touched her opening, at the very heart of her pussy. Her moan had an edge this time, but she didn’t say stop.
So he didn’t. He pushed, easing his cock out of her until it was barely inside, and inserted the dildo. The smooth glass slid in, and he didn’t stop until he’d pushed all ten inches inside her. She winced, gasped when he stroked past her G-spot, but he waited, and thrust home with his cock, so she had two phalluses pushed inside her wet, gorgeous body.
The water still rained down on them, and he leant forward, managed to reach the controls to get a barely-there spray. It misted down as he worked her, eased out and in, concentrated. Cock, then dildo, working out a rhythm that pushed first one into her, then the other. He got into the pattern, let her relax into it, accept it, then he changed, thrusting the dildo in and out twice, before pulling it out and concentrating on his cock. He had just enough sanity left to press the tip of the dildo against her clit, so that every thrust nudged it, drove her up higher.
When she screamed, he let go, unable to hold back any longer, unable to resist the allure of her beautiful, sleek body. When he came, he felt as if he’d given her every bit of what made him Zoltan, all the creativity, all his most precious essence, deep inside her. It couldn’t have a better home.
Vashti shuddered as Zoltan turned her in his arms and switched the shower to pour over them. He rinsed her, soaping them both with shower gel, and when she lifted her face, he dropped a gentle kiss on her lips. His mouth trembled and she knew this had affected him as deeply as it had her. She wanted to stop thinking, to let him care for her. Her mouth twisted. Strange, to go from one protective presence to another, but Zoltan would never control her as her mother had done, from an age when she was too young to know any better. Her mother had divorced her father as soon as she had what she’d wanted from him, and had devoted her life to her daughter in a parody of the stage mother.
Zoltan wouldn’t do that. Would he? He switched off the shower and doubts crowded her mind. He’d asked her if she had enough money not to go back to modelling, and she’d said yes. She’d heard of artists who had muses, women they used to inspire them, then dumped them when they’d had enough. Some of the models had killed themselves, others had lived a half-life. That wouldn’t happen to her. It couldn’t. She’d fight it every inch of the way.
But now she let herself relax as he patted her dry, lifted her and carried her into the bedroom, before tucking her between the crisp, clean sheets with an instruction to, “Sleep now.”
She opened her eyes. “Aren’t you joining me?”
“No, I have work to do.” He crossed the room and grabbed a clean pair of jeans from a drawer. “I’m flying to New York next week, to plan the Guggenheim exhibition. They’re going to have to change their plans now.” He glanced at her and grinned. “They’ll probably hate me.”
He continued to the door and, as if on an afterthought, said, “I won’t need you to model for much longer. Maybe we should decide when you’re leaving? You can stay here as long as you want to, of course, but I’m visiting the foundry for the next stage in the sculpture, and New York, and probably the London venue, too. Don’t expect to see much of me from now on.”
Dismissed, just like that. Vashti lay completely still, stunned by the callousness of his casual announcement.
She’d been so close to telling him more about her aversion to medical procedures. Revealing her inner horror, one that amounted to phobia, had been her declaration of trust, but perhaps he thought differently and saw her as needy, something she hadn’t been for a very long time. He wouldn’t know the battles she’d had with her overprotective mother. The way Vashti had insisted on making her own decisions on her career after she’d hit twenty, tried to break away befo
re the final argument and the moment’s inattention that had led to the car accident. The way she gritted her teeth and got on with her recovery, suffering numerous operations to put her body together until she thought she’d go mad with tension and her therapist had advised her to take time off before she had a complete breakdown.
Perhaps she was a coward, after all. Perhaps he was right and it was time she got on with her life, found out what came next. It wasn’t going to be Zoltan.
So why wait? His comment left Vashti shocked and humiliated. She had never let anyone into her life that far before. And if this was the result, she never would again. She could start the game of ‘maybe,’ but it wouldn’t change anything.
He’d never seen her as a permanent fixture in his life, never considered the possibility. And she wasn’t about to wait around to find out. No more. Fuck him.
When Zoltan returned to the studio with a tray, he found an empty room and a note.
“I need to go. V.”
Nothing else. He tried to go back to work, but he couldn’t manage it so he called it a day.
Chapter Four
Three months later. The GuggenheimMuseum, New York.
Standing outside the retrospective with his agent, Zoltan felt a moment of dread, something he was unaccustomed to. He’d always presented his art for what it was—take it or leave it—but this time he felt undeniably nervous. Not because of the art, but because of her. He’d sent her an invitation, but she hadn’t replied. He deserved that.
Three months hadn’t been long enough to get her out of his heart. Three years wouldn’t be enough, or thirty for that matter. After she left, it had taken him a month to stop reaching for her in the night. When he’d tried to contact her to apologise, to fucking beg her to come back, her agent had refused to say where she was, except that she was not at home. He’d made other enquiries, without result. Until last week, when his agent had received a cool little email informing him that she would attend the Guggenheim opening night.
Right now that was all he cared about.
Crowds were gathering, and some recognised him. He gave his agent a quick smile, trying to relax, but Tom knew him better than that.
His first comment had been, “You haven’t been eating, but that’s nothing new. What’s wrong, Ed?”
Zoltan hadn’t replied, only ordering Tom, yet again, not to call him Ed. Tom never did it when anyone could overhear, but once he’d discovered Zoltan’s first names, he’d howled with laughter and had used the derivative constantly. Deep down, Zoltan liked it. Usually. Not today.
Dressed in a black mandarin-collared jacket, with hidden bright orange satin lining and slim trousers, his unruly hair cut by an artist into a sleek, backswept style, Zoltan knew he looked every inch the enigmatic artist. He always used suits in this style in public, but he had them in a myriad of colours, making up for the lack of colour in his abstract work. Today had been a black day, but he’d kept the orange shirt and jacket lining as his symbol of hope.
So far she hadn’t come but he wouldn’t stop looking for her. Perhaps she’d appear after the opening, when he was busy talking to the public.
He turned to his agent with a smile. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m nervous, I guess. They might hate what I’ve done.”
“Would that make any difference to what you do?”
He shrugged. “No. I’ll go my own way.”
“I think it’s fantastic. It’s more accessible and it’ll bump you up another level, I’m sure of it. I can sell this much easier. Your fame comes from the top down, you were an artist’s artist, but this is something everyone will love.”
His smile turned wry. “Because I used a naked model?”
Tom laughed. “That’s part of it.”
“It wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to show the inner woman. A model is all surface—it’s her job. But this one had scars that might have ended her career and I wanted that flaw.”
Tom snorted. “You artists are fucking ruthless.” But he smiled when he said it. He could hear the cash registers ringing in his head.
The whirring of cameras and a series of staccato flashes heralded the arrival of another guest and without turning around, Zoltan knew who it must be. Although this opening contained many distinguished visitors, none of them drew the cameras like she did.
When he finally turned around, his face was calm and composed, his eyes as cold as he could make them. No way would she see what she’d done to him. Not until she’d seen what was inside the gallery.
“Hello, Vashti.”
“Zoltan.”
Was it his imagination, or did that beautiful jaw firm a little too much as if she’d clenched her teeth? The carefully made-up face and the perfume that wafted around her, creating her own private atmosphere, spoke of exclusivity and expensive taste. He hated it.
He wanted the woman who woke him in the morning by trailing her hair across his cock, the one who laughed with him, loved him. Not this ice queen. But this was her, too. She had a public face, just as he did.
He leant in and kissed her cheek. “Where have you been?” Even that touch of the honey skin against his lips floored him. But he kept his expression calm, and only gave her a friendly smile before he glanced at the photographers going wild around them. “You’ve brought your fan club.”
“They try to follow me everywhere. They don’t know where I’ve been, either.” She returned his smile, wintry and cold. “I’ve been on vacation. Somewhere hot and private.”
That sounded plausible. After she’d left his studio, she’d gone back to her apartment only briefly. He knew because he’d called her a few hours later, ready to beg her forgiveness. Only she’d already left.
Pathetic bastard that he was. He touched the small of her back, urging her forward. “Then I have to thank you for breaking your vacation to do this. Shall we go in?”
“Of course.” He let her walk slightly in front of him so he could watch her. She wore a pair of navy slacks and a crisp white blouse under her butter-soft leather jacket. She looked untouchable, perfect. Her hair was swept up into a swirl that he’d bet took every inch of the hairdresser’s art, although at first glance it looked deceptively simple, but not a hair lay out of place and it shone like glass.
Her frighteningly high heels made her almost dominatrix-like, and she moved in them like a dancer, swaying slightly, showing off her gently rounded hips. So she hadn’t lost weight, not down to model skinniness. Zoltan frowned, but he wasn’t sure why the sight didn’t feel right, then the public were on them.
It took an hour to walk up the long, sloping spiral inside the gallery, and all the way he kept his public face, only talking to the VIP’s that Tom carefully funnelled his way. He’d already decided to pay a surprise visit another time when the public attended and make some time to talk to them. Their dollar was as good as anyone else’s and he resented the fact that money gave some people superior rights. Come to think of it, the VIP’s probably hadn’t paid to get in. He wouldn’t give a formal talk. He never did. The art spoke for itself, or it didn’t. His work passed by, like his life. The sloping part of the gallery was still a retrospective exhibition, but at the top lay the new work, and the reason nerves gnawed at his stomach right now.
He passed one of his favourites and had to stop to speak to someone who asked him about the gleaming aluminium structure—four cubes placed haphazardly on top of each other, each one burnished to a different level of brightness, then invisibly welded together. “Inseparable,” he’d called it. His most recent work was a deliberate echo. He would not explain it to the elegantly dressed elderly woman at his side. He gave her his charming, meaningless smile. “It is what you want it to be. A design for a skyscraper, a man with a silver blanket over his head, or something that heaven and earth hasn’t yet seen. It’s up to you.”
As he guessed, Tom interrupted immediately, getting him away from the lady before he went past subtlety to blatant rudeness. It delighted him to see that he’d unnerve
d Tom to a state of jittery frenzy, but he decided not to play the temperamental artist anymore. He continued to answer their questions, some dumbass ones, some more perceptive, and tried to concentrate. The investors had spent a lot of money on this exhibition and he owed them something for that.
Vashti’s scent and the sight of her body swaying in front of him maddened him the whole way up. Before now he’d loved the space in the Guggenheim, longed for a big exhibition, and now he had one, all he could think of was her. It sucked. Big time.
But he smiled and chatted and answered people as civilly as he could, or as civilly as he ever did. And kept walking.
Finally, they reached the top. At the threshold to the rooms that held the new work, he paused and she turned back to him.
“I want to talk to you,” he said.
“So talk.”
He laughed and made it look like an easy social exchange, although it nearly killed him to do it. “Privately.”
She looked at him then, raked him with a cold glance. “You don’t get more private than this.”
“I want to apologise.”
In the middle of this press of people, they were suddenly alone, and her flash of hurt before she repressed it, seared him. “You do?”
“Yes. Please, Vashti.”
“Okay. Lunch, tomorrow. I’ll call you later.”
He had to be content with that, because it was all she gave him. His foolish heart soared. Perhaps he hadn’t blown it, after all.
They walked in together. Because he had his hand at the small of her back, he felt her freeze.
Vashti stared at the figure dominating the room. There she lay, in the seductive pose of Titian’s Venus, subservient, ready to serve her man. Perfect. No scars. Her hair lay over her shoulder, each strand separately delineated with care and precision. Her figure was polished and gleaming, with not a hammer-mark, not a scar. An icon. He’d made her an icon. One for men to use and abuse, worship and mock, but not to understand, not to love.
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