Inhaling carefully, she composed herself as he started to remove a silver cross from around his neck. It looked like an antique.
Approaching him, she touched the metal with the tip of her finger. “This is lovely.”
“It was my great-grandmother’s. She hid it during World War I and was the only thing she had left.”
There was a story there that she wanted to know but she said, “Leave it on. It’s gorgeous.”
“My grandfather gave it to me when I was a boy.” There was sadness in his eyes and she knew he was no longer living.
Meeting his eyes, she was captivated by the brilliant blue surrounded by lush lashes. Reaching out, she picked up a soft leather strap. His gaze flicked to it and back to her.
“I’m going to bind your wrists and suspend you from the ceiling. You’ll be able to balance on the balls of your feet. It won’t be for long. I need to get a few quick impressions.” He nodded. “Will you sit for me again?”
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse.
She wondered if he realized what he’d gotten himself into with her. The thought made her smile.
Securing the black leather around both his wrists, she attached it to a hook hanging above his head. Walking to a switch on the wall, she used the pulley system to raise him up.
Once his weight was fully supported on the balls of his feet, she stopped. Pausing in front of him, she asked, “Okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Nodding, she turned on the track light directly above him. Pulling her wheeled drafting table in front of him, she used the remote to turn on classical music.
Using various charcoals, she started to sketch. The fever overwhelmed her and she submitted to it completely.
She glanced up at him every ten seconds or so and her hand flew over the heavy paper. She could not believe how beautiful this man was. Couldn’t believe he wasn’t modeling.
Spencer was so visually stimulating.
Chapter Nine
As if he was in another dimension, Spencer watched Shania work through his lashes. The scratch of her pencils and the lull of the music was hypnotic.
More than an hour passed before she startled sharply and stood. “Oh my god! I lost track of time! I’m so sorry!”
She ran to the wall and lowered the pulley. He stifled his grunt as he slowly balanced his weight and rotated his shoulders. Shania untied the straps from his wrists and frantically rubbed circulation back into his hands.
“I got caught up. You should have yelled at me. I’m truly sorry. Come sit down.”
She took his hand and he admitted every second of discomfort was worth it to have the opportunity. Leading him across the room, she nudged him down to the couch and sat across from him on the ottoman.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. I zoned out watching you work. No worries.”
He stared into her eyes and watched as she transitioned from relief that he wasn’t injured to the fever that clearly dominated her mind and body. Subconsciously, she tapped the fingers of her drawing hand against her thigh.
“Your fingers are twitching again. The need to create takes control of everything, doesn’t it?”
Intense green eyes didn’t look away. “I don’t notice when I do it. It used to make Mama crazy.” She took a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh. “I’m strange. I know.”
“I don’t think you’re strange. I think you’re fascinating. Is it because you want to keep drawing?” She nodded slightly. “I don’t mind.”
“Really?” she asked hopefully.
“Really. Do you want me to move?”
A crazy beautiful smile broke over her face and it felt like it stopped his heart. “You’re great, Spencer. Stay right there.”
“Okay.”
Jumping up, she was back in moments with her sketchpad and pencils. Taking a seat in front of him, he looked straight at her, unmoving. She sketched his entire face, separate aspects of his face, his head and shoulders, at speeds that baffled him.
Everything about her made him ache with need.
While her hand moved over the page, a single tendril of long, red hair dropped over her shoulder and curled along one edge of the pad. Her strawberry blonde lashes lifted like butterfly wings each time she glanced at him.
The lighting directly above them highlighted the pale freckles that covered her fair skin. He wondered if her entire body was covered in them.
She was built small and it made him smile to himself. He felt comfortable around her, at ease.
Spencer was enthralled.
It took him a moment to comprehend that she was talking to him. “You have excellent bone structure. It’s simply magnificent.”
Five minutes passed and she offered another compliment. “Women would positively kill for your lashes.”
Another three minutes and she added, “The separate pieces of you come together and form the perfect whole. It’s magic for someone like me.”
More sketching. His shoulders, his arms, his hands. Occasionally, Shania reached out to move his face slightly, stretch out his fingers, or have him clench a fist.
“Can you flex your upper body?” she asked after several more minutes. He did so without taking his eyes off her face. “Th-that’s certainly impressive.”
He felt his blush and was promptly amazed by it. No one had ever been so focused on him physically. Especially not a woman. The intensity of Shania’s attention threw him off balance and kept him in a perpetual state of arousal.
All his life, he’d remained firmly in control of his sexual appetites. Desire never ruled him or his choices.
Until he was in Shania’s presence for thirty seconds.
He managed to hold her gaze. “No one has ever analyzed my body in such detail. I don’t even look in the mirror unless I’m shaving.”
Only the fact that he was watching closely let him catch the way her eyes glazed and her lips parted for a moment.
Almost inaudibly, she asked, “Will you avoid shaving for a couple of days?”
She looked positively mesmerized at the prospect of having stubble to work with. It was impossible not to laugh.
“Sure but I insist on showering and brushing my teeth.”
Realizing he was teasing her, she chuckled as her hand continued to fly over the sketchpad. “I obsess. I apologize in advance for my odd behavior now and in the future.”
“You’re an artist. You’re allowed to be quirky,” he replied truthfully. “Does this happen to you a lot?”
She stilled. “Obsessing over a person or object?”
Spencer nodded. She stared off through the large windows, lower lip between her teeth. The track lights lent a soft glow to the space.
“There was a little girl once named Quincy. I saw her in a park near where I grew up in Georgia. I asked her mother if I could sketch her. She had features perfectly in balance.”
“How old were you?”
“I was fifteen and she was six the first time I saw her. In the past eleven years, since that little girl, I’ve obsessed over objects. A Fabergé egg, a tree, a window…” Her eyes were brilliant as if they were lit from the inside out. “Never another person. Today, I found the same balance of features in you.”
“How long did you paint the little girl?”
“Six years. Then she grew up and her face changed drastically during puberty. She’s lovely and I’d still paint her. I just don’t obsess anymore. I no longer need to capture her, if I’m making any sense at all.”
Shania lightly touched his jaw and brought his face closer to her as her other hand sketched and she barely glanced at the paper.
Her fingers were a combination of soft and rough. Gentle hands accustomed to holding drawing implements for hours on end. He never wanted her to take her touch away.
“The fever tames after a few weeks. I still feel the need but I can control it. The thing with you, Spencer…you’re a grown man. You’ll age but your face, your features, won’
t change much over the coming years.”
“That’s a good thing?”
She smiled. “A very good thing.”
Dropping her hand, she worked on capturing his eyes. A few minutes later, she walked to her table and returned with several pencils in different shades of blue.
Lowering to the ottoman, she blended blues with blacks, making small circles along the side of her pad. She worked at it for a long time, until she held the edge of the pad beside his face and exhaled.
“Exactly right.”
She flipped to a fresh page and sketched him entirely. His elbows on his knees, hands dropped between them, his face directly in front of her.
He’d been in agony from the moment she opened her front door. Having her attention on him so unwaveringly made his heart race. Using every ounce of control, he had, he schooled his features and steadied his breathing.
Shania was so close.
She smelled like honey and vanilla with a hint of cinnamon. Never in his life had he wanted anyone as much. Her intensity was like a physical touch and he was not immune.
She worked in silence, until she sat back and turned her pad toward him. It was like staring at a photo of himself.
The black of his hair, brows, and lashes were filled in but the only color was the dark blue of his eyes.
“You’re…amazing.” There was nothing else to say.
Shania laid back on the ottoman, the sketch pad clasped to her chest. “I finished one.” She held the portrait over her and traced the lines with a smile. “Not even Quincy’s first portrait came together so quickly.”
Spencer’s stomach growled loudly and Shania sat up with wide eyes. For the first time, she was fully present.
“What time is it?” She turned to look at a clock on her wall and groaned. “It’s after eleven! You cannot allow me to neglect you, Spencer. I’m selfish when I work and I’ll do this constantly. I’ll order food.”
She jumped up and found her cell phone. He put his shirt back on and listened as she called a local Chinese place.
When she looked at him expectantly, he told her, “I’ll have what you’re having.”
She tripled the original order and hung up. Without a word, Shania walked to her easel and placed a medium canvas on it. Her sketchpad was balanced on the lip as well. He stood behind her, watching as she began to draw his upper body.
When the doorbell rang half an hour later, she absently told him there was cash on the counter. She didn’t take her eyes off the canvas.
Spencer grinned and picked up his wallet. After paying for the food, he spent another ten minutes watching her before he realized she wasn’t going to stop.
He laid out the food and took her an eggroll wrapped in a napkin. She held it in one hand while she worked with the other. Every so often, she took a bite of it. When it was gone, he carried over a carton of boneless spare ribs.
“Open,” he murmured.
Shania’s mouth opened obediently and every cell in his body focused on the movement. She took the food from the end of the chopsticks, chewed, and swallowed. She ate two additional bites before noticing she was being fed.
She turned to him in shock. “I must seem like a complete lunatic. I keep you in restraints until your hands go numb then make you starve for hours while I sketch. Now you’re feeding me. It won’t be this bad for long. A few days, then I’ll be slightly normal again.”
“You’re single-minded. I like it. Don’t let me distract you.”
Her smile made him positively stupid.
“I’m being rude. I’ll sit and eat like a grownup. Then you can get some sleep. I’ll pay you each time you sit for me. The way I feel right now, I’d invest everything I own for the opportunity to sketch you.”
“Paying me isn’t necessary.”
“I insist.”
He shook his head, unable to look away from the woman he’d been waiting for most of his life. “We can eat together and that way, you’ll have to take a break.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “You’re willing to work for food? They must not pay you well as a messenger.”
Shania’s voice held disdain for the boss she imagined didn’t pay him enough to buy groceries and he laughed.
“I do alright. I’m good with money. I love to eat but hate eating alone.” He shrugged.
“You don’t have any family?”
Spencer swallowed. “I lost my parents when I was a baby and my grandparents raised me. They died in May.”
She reached out and held his hand tightly, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Spencer.”
“They were my only family so it’s been too quiet the last few months. You sketch and I’ll have meals with someone else breathing in the room.”
“Deal. Thanks.”
He shook his head. “I should be thanking you. This is the most interesting evening I’ve ever had.”
“We nutty artist types are good for entertainment.” She ate but he knew the canvas called to her.
“Shania,” he whispered gently. She turned her head and there was a little crinkle between her brows. “Go. I’ll clean up.”
She gave him a smile that lit up the room and practically skipped back to her easel. Spencer straightened up and watched her work for a long time. There were few things in his life that had interested him like this woman.
When he felt exhaustion creeping up on him, he walked to stand behind her. “I’m going to go.”
“You’ll come back?” she asked him distractedly.
“Yes.” He kissed the crown of her head. The scent of her hair filled him with a sense of well-being he hadn’t felt in a long time. “Goodnight, Shania. Try to get some sleep.”
He was halfway across the room when she murmured, “I’ll try but I can’t promise. The symmetry…”
With a grin, he took the stairs to the first floor and waved to Beth sitting in her recliner.
She stood up and joined him at the door to lock up behind him. “See you soon, Spencer. That girl is caught up.”
A block from her house, his driver pulled to the curb. Smiling, he got in for the short trip to his apartment.
Gratefully dropping into bed, he felt asleep quickly with a smile on his face. His schedule was about to get a little crazy.
Shania Murphy was worth it.
Chapter Ten
October 2009
Over the next few weeks, Spencer made pickups and deliveries for Shania daily. Some days, he made several visits to her office in the same day.
Each time he walked into her office, her fingers twitched.
He’d stop long enough for her to sketch whatever took control. Following her into her office, he’d remove his shades and hat, sit where she asked him to, and give her the time she needed.
It could be thirty seconds or five minutes or an hour. When she gave him a relieved smile, Spencer knew it was okay to leave. Not that he ever wanted to.
Shania’s receptionist grinned when he got off the elevator. “She’s been watching for you.”
“How are things, Patti? How’s your son?”
“Things are good. That child is nothing but trouble. I don’t mind because he keeps me laughing.”
He pointed to the sketch of her and her little boy, framed in one corner of her desk. “Did Shania do that?”
Lovingly, she touched the corner of the frame. “Yeah. Isn’t it great? One morning, I brought Baker with me to work because school was closed. She took us to lunch and we went to the park.” Her smile told him how much the day meant to her. “When she gave me this, I cried like a baby.”
Patti was a lovely woman with dark skin who wore her curly hair loose and natural.
“She captured you perfectly.”
“It’s her gift.” Tilting her head, she added, “I don’t know what it is about you. She’s drawing more than I’ve ever seen in the three years I’ve worked for her.” She examined him closely. “I feel like I’ve seen you before, Spencer.”
Nervo
us, he shrugged. “Shania likes my symmetry. As much as she’s drawing me, not surprising that I seem familiar.”
Patti chuckled. “You’re probably right. Go on in before she starts biting her nails.”
With a sigh of relief, he tapped lightly on Shania’s door and absorbed her brilliant smile.
Breathlessly, she murmured, “Spencer…”
The way she looked at him, the way she said his name. It made him feel simultaneously weaker and stronger.
Standing, she walked around the desk. “Do you need a drink? Your job keeps you running.”
She was the only client he hit the road for anymore. He kept several changes of clothes in various locations so he could slip in and out of his corporate life when she needed him.
His staff helped maintain his cover by driving him from place to place some days.
He didn’t want to lie to Shania about who he was. Being a Bishop came with a lot of unwanted attention. It was also a heavy responsibility. He wanted her to get the chance to know the man behind the name.
A chance to fall in love with who he was.
Right now, she was more interested in his bones and muscle and skin. He didn’t want to shift her focus to the chaos and inconvenience of being connected to him.
He needed to let things take their course.
“I’m taking you to lunch.” Her invitation made him gesture at his super casual attire. “It doesn’t matter. There’s a local place you’re going to love.”
He didn’t mind when she sketched him while they ate. It gave him the perfect excuse to look at her.
* * *
Every evening and on the weekends, he met Shania at her home so she could work in her studio.
Her mother steadily worsened but tried to avoid taking pain medication until she spent a few moments with her daughter.
Spencer reached out to every specialist he knew to find options but all of them assured him that everything that could be done for her had been done. The day he confessed his failure to Shania, she hugged him tightly.
“Thank you for trying. That means a lot to me.”
Arabella maintained her cheerful demeanor to spare Shania but it cost her.
One evening, he arrived as Beth was changing the hospital sheets. He offered to assist, holding the frail woman as the bedding was tucked in place.
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