She blinked and let out a long breath. Alright, Sam. Get it together. It was time to cast a critical eye. “Please just sit in the chair and get comfortable.”
He did. Leaning back, legs stretched out in front of him, large hands casually folded low on his waist, staring at her dead on. She sucked in a breath as her stomach did a quick double flip. No, this wouldn’t do, not at all. Sam frowned.
“Is something wrong?”
“I, um, I just realized that this composition won’t work. I’m going to have to reposition you.”
He grinned. “Can’t say that’s not the first time I’ve heard that.”
She raised a brow and shook her head, happy to have the tension broken. “Move it, model.”
Sam turned the chair so that Mark was in profile, gazing out the window at lower Manhattan and the Hudson beyond. He leaned back. This was better. She didn’t think she’d be able to work with him staring at her like that. It was as if he was seeing into her and somehow through her. No, she couldn’t take it, not at all.
“Now this is better,” she said with a smile as she headed toward her table, pulling her hair up and going for her ponytail holder.
“As long as you’re happy, Miss Leighton.”
She paused and turned back to him, leaning over the chair, looking him in the eye. “Not in here. In here and in here,” she said, her hand going to her heart and then, as if on its own, reaching out to his. His pulse was strong and steady underneath her hand. “You call me Samara.”
She watched his eyes go soft. Any bit of toughness and swagger that he had seemed to dissolve and all she was left with was blood and skin and muscle and man. “Samara.”
“Thank you, Mark.” She stepped back and he didn’t stop her. He just turned away and looked out the window.
Sam went to her iPod and flipped on her music, letting classical strings fill the taut silence of the room. Sam twisted her hair and picked up her charcoal. She leaned back on her stool and imagined the pencil as an extension of her fingers. Quickly and roughly she sketched out shapes. The rectangular panes of the window, the wide curve and arch of the chair, and then she zeroed in on Mark. Swallowing, she slowed her pace. As her pencil moved she imagined it running across his body. A strong oval for his head and squared off jaw. His nose a sweeping slope with a slight bump its only irregularity. Circular bumps, shadows and ridges, punctuated and highlighted his pectoral muscles. She then went to his biceps, felt a quiver in her lip as her eyes went over his tribal tattoo. Glancing lower to the mountainous hills that were his thighs, straining against the worn fabric of his jeans, she felt her hand come up to wipe at her brow. Then she looked down near the floor and frowned.
“Take off your shoes.”
Mark startled as if jolted from a dream. “Why?”
“The sneakers just don’t fit. But wait!” She leaned back to her shelf and picked up her digital camera, quickly taking a few shots. She then picked up her phone and took some photos with that too. “Just for good measure. I like to play it safe.”
Mark shook his head and went for his sneakers, tossing them aside. “Is this better?”
She looked at him and nodded. “It’s perfect.”
What seemed like hours later, Mark coughed and Sam blinked, him and the canvas coming into separation of focus. She stepped back. There was now color on her canvas that, though not a total picture, she felt she had begun in a way to capture at least a bit of the strength and beauty that was Mark Thorn. She frowned. Also surprising to her was how she’d played with color, pulling on the silhouettes of the cityscape and the night sky behind him, the deep blues and the blacks, hinting at the sparkle of One World Trade in the far background. All this wasn’t in her original plan and Sam usually never veered off of what she had originally mapped out to paint.
Sam frowned, biting her bottom lip as Mark’s voice floated over to her. “Am I that awful a subject?”
Her eyes shot up as she suddenly remembered that she wasn’t alone and her subject was a living breathing entity and in the room with her. “What? Oh, I’m sorry.”
“You’re way too quiet and after hours of this silence. I’ll admit, you’re shaking me, woman.”
Sam shook her head and gave a small grin. “Well, you needn’t be shaken. Come on over and take a look.”
Mark flexed his feet and rolled his shoulders as he eased out of the chair, sauntering over toward Samara. Leaning down and kissing her bare shoulder, he sent a ripple of pleasure running through her body. Then he looked up at the large canvas and stilled. Staring for what felt to Sam an insurmountable amount of time, she finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“Hey, dude. Now it’s you that’s making me nervous. What’s running through that pretty little head of yours?”
Mark looked down at her and then back up at the canvas again. Finally he pulled her around. “Can I kiss you? Because I really don’t know what else to do in this case.”
Her smile was wide as his lips came down on hers, taking her in fully, his breath becoming one with hers. His chest warm and solid and strong against hers, he wrapped his large arms around her. One gently around her back, the other slightly less so as it came around her behind and pulled her into his hardness as she let out a soft moan. “You are amazing,” he said softly, pulling back slightly.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Though in this position I do think you may be a bit biased.”
He leaned in and gave her lips another nibble. “Now why would you think that?” Then he paused and turned to the canvas. “Although … ”
Sam stilled. “Although what?”
Mark raised a brow and Sam gave him a hard stare as she noted the glint in his eye. “Although?”
He gave her behind a gentle pat as she crossed her arms and he grinned before continuing. “Although, I’m no art critic I just have one question. Am I really that pasty a color?”
Sam snorted. “Really? That’s your critique, tan boy? I’ll have you know you are that exact color.”
He shook his head, now crossing his arms over his bare chest. “I doubt it.”
Sam gave him a grin, baring more teeth than smile. “I wouldn’t doubt me if I were you.”
Mark looked at her, his eyes full of challenge. “And why is that? What, are you always right?”
“When it comes to color I am.” And with that Sam reached for her brush, dipped it in her mixture of white, Naples yellow, and raw sienna and then ran it in a wide arc across Mark’s chest about an inch above his right nipple.
“You didn’t,” Mark ground out, staring down at her in shock.
Sam grinned up at him. “I think what I did is prove my point. That is a perfect match.”
He chuckled, his pure white teeth gleaming with mischievous intent. “So it is.” And then he reached around her and dipped a finger in her palette.
She grabbed his hand. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Oh, sweetheart, you started this. And now you’ve got me curious to see what color you are. I’m wondering if this rich mahogany can do justice to the gleaming perfection of your skin.” He pulled his finger away from her palette and ran it along her upper arm. She felt a zing and a tightening in her center. “Or if this pretty pink can even compare to the blush of your sweet lips.” He swept the pink across her collarbone and her nipples tightened to hard peaks.
“You’re wasting my paint. Not to mention making a mess,” Sam protested.
Mark leaned around her with the other hand causing her to lean back and trapping her further. He dipped another finger into a deep shade of crimson and brought it up and along her thigh. “Believe me, Wildcat, I haven’t begun to get you as dirty as I plan tonight.”
Samara felt her knees begin to go weak at the same time Mark brought his paint filled hand up to catch her fall.
• • •
“Are you always so quiet while you work?”
They were sitting in Samara’s steam filled tub having just washed paint off of each other in the shower, and Mark’s voice came rolling at her from behind. “I don’t know. I guess so,” Samara answered, leaning back onto Mark’s hard chest. She was feeling blissfully satisfied and more content than she had felt in a long time. Here it was well after midnight and she was dead tired from the hours of work and not to mention the sex with Mark, but still she was somehow energized. She didn’t know if it was the work or a combination of the two, but it was good. “Like I said, I don’t normally have people in my studio so there’s no one to talk to.”
“And you like it that way?” His words rumbled against her back and she liked the relaxing feel of it.
She contemplated his question. “I don’t think of it much, but I guess I do. I’m not much of a talker. Despite what popular opinion may be, I’m a bit of a loner.”
Mark was quiet for a while and she wondered for a moment if he had fallen asleep. His arms held her loosely around her waist as the warm water lapped around them. But then he spoke up. “I can believe that. Like I said before, you don’t seem to be what the tabloids make you out to be. Despite your recent choice of company.”
It was then that Samara noticed his sudden tension and leaned forward, turning around slightly. She hated the tightness that was creeping into her own back at the thought of Peter. Of the outside world. “Are you talking about Peter?”
Mark’s eyes were midnight glaciers. “Why? Is he worth discussing?”
Sam felt a sudden chill, scared of answering honestly, but also not feeling the desire to lie. She swallowed. “I don’t know how to answer that. Things with Peter are complicated, but then again what else is new? He is a part of my life that is necessary right now, like my family, like my work, part of what I must do, if that makes any sense. But worth discussing? I’d rather not. Not right now.”
• • •
Mark stared at her, not knowing what to say or how much further to press. How could he demand more of her when she clearly stated that she didn’t want more from him? Could he put his foot down and say he was going to walk away when he knew it was a lie and he wouldn’t do it? Couldn’t do it? The smart thing would be to just be quiet and not ask any more questions. But he was never all that smart.
He lifted her and turned her around, sending water sloshing and pulling her down hard against his erection. “Tell me this, Samara, how much are you willing to do with him to make your family happy?”
Her eyes went downcast and came back up clouded as they met his. “At this point, I truly don’t know. Can you just deal with that for now and be my neighbor and my friend?”
Friend. Mark closed his eyes and leaned back as everything went silent and still. He would swear he felt all the atoms working to make time and space happen so that he could just function and take a next breath. This went against everything he was. How could he be what she wanted? How could he continue to lie to her and to himself and play this role of nothing while someone else claimed her as his own?
Mark opened his eyes again and there she was, staring at him. Her big brown eyes soft and liquid and in that moment, no pretense. No Leighton games. No takedown. There was just her. The girl of his youth. The one who woke up and for a moment turned his world to color. But now he could see clearly that she was even more broken than he ever was. Her, the bright star that smiled and gave him all the drive to be all that he ever was. To take every step that he ever took. And now she wanted to be his friend. Well, damn, how could he ever say no even to just that? No matter how much it hurt.
He pulled her toward him and kissed her. Long and deep. And then he was suddenly hungry for her all over again, the need to have her so urgent it felt like his next breath. He took her bottom lip in between his teeth and gave it a suckle as he slipped his hand between her legs, reaching for her hard nub as he slid a finger deep into her channel. She gasped and the sound made him throb even harder. It was practically painful. “I have to have you now. Please tell me I can.”
She looked at him hard for a moment, all the shades going down. “You can trust me,” she said.
He let out a breath and blinked back tears. “And you can trust me,” he croaked out before lifting her and replacing his finger with his full length, throwing his head back against the cool porcelain in complete ecstasy as her perfect, warm tightness wrapped around him like a handmade glove.
She placed her gentle but firm hands around his head and guided, pulling him toward her breasts. Following her direction, Mark happily lapped at her wet nipples, drawing the dark peaks into his mouth, circling them with his tongue and tugging on them with tiny bites. Samara clamped tightly around him, her thighs clenching on the sides of his hips as she let his head go and suddenly put her hands on either side of the tub, using it for leverage to piston herself up and down, over him faster and faster.
He felt her reaching her peak, as her inner walls tightened and she quivered around him. “Oh God, Mark. Oh God.”
He looked up at her glorious face, flush with beauty, and once again all he could think of was forever as he felt an overwhelming tightening deep within his balls. Mark bit down on his bottom lip as he fought against the inevitable and thankfully at the last moment something in his mind clicked and he grabbed Samara by the hips and lifted her quivering body from his length one moment before he spilled into her. He leaned his head back against the tub, once again laboring for breath as Sam came forward and crashed into him.
“Let’s never let the outside world in here with us okay, neighbor?” she said. “In here with you is perfection.”
Mark just nodded, pushing his own ache aside, and kissed the top of Samara’s head as he rubbed her smooth back. “Sure, neighbor. Why mess with perfection?”
Chapter 20
Samara walked a virtual duality tightrope for the next few weeks. True to Mark’s words, she was like the woman with two, really, sometimes it was three faces, and though she was tired she’d never felt more alive.
She’d just gotten home from yet another brunch with her mother, where thankfully they were not joined by a drop in Dominique or Peter Moss, but it was clear the Mosses had become quite intertwined with the Leightons in the time that Sam had been hiding out in Paris. Sam frowned as she contemplated that turn of events. Peter’s father, Thomas Moss, was obviously looking to get in on the back end of some of her father’s upcoming deals, as was Peter with the Harlem project. The whole thing rubbed her the wrong way, but with her show coming up so soon and her vow to keep out of her father’s business she didn’t really see a way to stick her nose in more than she had already.
Sam kicked off her low heels and tugged off her slim, silk pants as her eyes hovered over the settee at the foot of her bed. Her breath hitched as she recalled the erotic position that Mark had her in over the curved edge not that many hours before. She shook her head and sat down hard, stopping to catch her breath. Jeez. This burning at all ends was starting to tire her out. How much longer could she go on being all things to all people?
She had adopted the one face of dutiful daughter, meeting her mother for lunches and not even grinding her teeth too much when her father would join them and hound her about coming back to work in the family business. He was actually backing off a bit. And she was sure that was due to her acquiescing and seeing Peter on a more regular basis, or maybe it was her newfound interest in the Harlem project. Daddy didn’t seem to like her line of questioning.
As for Peter, they had gone out a few more times. Always to one of his restaurants or clubs. And, it just so happened, always when there was a strategic photographer there to capture their arrival or departure. The press so far had all been kind. It seemed her dust up from weeks ago had died down since an underage starlet had been caught shoplifting at a trendy boutique. New Y
ork, it seemed, was now ready to bring Sam back into its good graces.
Sam shook her head. There was no time for this. She shoved her coral painted toenails into the legs of her jeans, quickly pulled on a tank, and headed into her studio to put the finishing touches on her current project before Lauren came by to view where she was on the pieces.
Pulling back from her current painting, Sam gave it a critical look as she put her brush down, satisfaction blooming in her chest. It was a night scene of children playing baseball on an overgrown little league field up in Harlem. All the talk about her father’s current project had her curious and she ended up having Mark take her up to the location one night. There they came across the boys playing on the field and she reeled off a few shots as inspiration.
If she admitted it, inspiration has been hitting her hard and often since she’d finished the portrait of Mark, since she’d given herself over to her feelings for him. Now her work had never been better. She grinned. And neither had her sex life. But it wasn’t just the sex. She and Mark now had an unspoken rapport. A thing that neither of them defined, but still, they had it. She’d work for hours and then come knocking on his door or he’d come knocking on hers after he’d gotten through with a job. They wouldn’t always make love, though it often ended up that way. If he came by and she was still working, sometimes he’d just sit and watch her. Sit in what she now thought of as his chair until she was done and her brushes were cleaned and put away. He never rushed her or pushed her but still somehow his energy seemed to spur her on. And sometimes she’d go and watch him work on his own projects, though he didn’t seem to like it all that much. He really was way more talented than he let on. Making beautiful, pieces of modern, functional art out of hunks of what some would consider nothing.
But how much longer could this go on? Her show was in just a couple of weeks and it would be time for life to change and decisions to be made once again.
Seduction’s Canvas (Crimson Romance) Page 18