“I understand that.” She kept her voice gentle. “And I don’t hate you. Please don’t worry about that.”
He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I spent the last week combing through records of the foundation’s incoming and outgoing donations, making Google spreadsheets and desperately searching for another smoking gun so I wouldn’t have to use your story. I didn’t sleep. I lived on coffee and pizza and Chinese takeout.” He dropped his arms to his sides. “I found dozens of inconsistencies and red flags in the records, but no clear examples of malfeasance I could use as a replacement for your Napoleon paintings in my article. Not yet. I wanted to wait, but the election is coming up so soon, and my editor—”
She couldn’t watch him flagellate himself anymore.
Rising from the couch, she walked to within a hairsbreadth of him and framed his face with her hands. His words stuttered to a stop, and he turned his cheek into her palm.
“It’s okay, David. I understand.” She waited until he opened his eyes and looked at her again. “You did the best you could.”
“Every time we talked…” He shook his head, his scruff scraping against her hand. “I got more and more worried about how you’d feel if I couldn’t make everything right. About whether you’d think I sacrificed you and our relationship on the altar of my ambitions.”
In those words, she heard the echoes of accusations she hadn’t made. Accusations she would never make. But someone obviously had, and she could guess the source. “Is that what your ex-wife said you’d done?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“I can see why you’d be worried, then.” She paused. “There’s a lot of shit coming my way, thanks to your article.”
“I’m so s—”
She didn’t let him finish. “I don’t blame you for any of it. I’m the one who decided to tell you my story, and I’m the one who gave you permission to share that story with the public. You don’t need to apologize for honoring my decisions and doing your job.” She stroked his cheekbone with her thumb, noting the gold sparks the table lamp struck against the rich brown of his skin. “But you should apologize for something else.”
The lines bracketing his mouth deepened. “What’s that?”
“Because of you, I felt alone this week. I deserved better than the cold comfort of stilted conversations with uber-professional David, especially if you didn’t intend to kick me to the curb.”
His mouth dropped open. “You thought I was going to end this?”
“Well, what was I supposed to think?” She gave his face a little shake. “By the end of the week, you were barely talking to me. And when you did talk, you didn’t say anything personal. Or affectionate. Or…” Rising on her toes, she pressed a brief kiss on his mouth. “Or sexy.”
His lips felt warm and soft against hers. Welcoming.
And if she understood everything that had just occurred, he wasn’t about to disappear on her. Not at all. In fact, he’d torn himself to shreds the entire week in fear of how she’d react if he couldn’t save her from the consequences of his article.
God, he was a good man.
Still, she needed to know he wouldn’t withdraw like that from her a second time. Given the physical distance between them, she couldn’t handle unexplained emotional distance too.
“Please don’t do that to me again,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes again and let out a slow breath. “I’m sorry, Jenny. I was so tired and desperate and worried, I wasn’t thinking straight. And I’ve been alone for too long. I just…” His arms closed around her, squeezing her tight. “I fucked up. But I won’t do it again. I promise.”
As far as she was concerned, that settled the matter. “I forgive you.”
“Are you sure?” His brow remained furrowed. “Because I’d understand if you didn’t.”
She stroked his cheek again. “I’m sure.”
“At least let me make it up to you.” His hand lifted to cover hers, pressing it closer to his face. “Just tell me how.”
She stepped back, and he let her hand slip away from his. A quick scan of his face and body language told her everything she needed to know.
“First, we wash up and go to bed.” When his eyebrows arched, she clarified, “To sleep, David. You’re obviously exhausted, and so am I. But when we wake up…” She looked him up and down with an exaggerated leer. “I want to see what that decathlete’s body can do.”
For the first time since his arrival, he grinned. “If I weren’t so tired, this is where I’d make some joke about vaulting my pole or the length of my javelin.” His eyes, bright once more behind his glasses, met hers. “And maybe I’d add something about how I’m not eighteen anymore, so you shouldn’t expect ten events in quick succession.”
She snorted, and he looked pleased with himself.
“Fair enough,” she said. “But you can guarantee me a long jump?”
He laughed and slung an arm over her shoulders. “I think you’ll find my final measurements more than satisfactory. Get me on the field tomorrow morning, and I’ll prove myself to you.”
“Ooooh.” She bumped her hip against his. “Promise?”
He began guiding her toward her bedroom. “Promise.”
She’d never been so excited by the prospect of a track meet in her entire life.
6
David had never fought an erection while brushing his teeth. If anyone had asked him before that morning, he probably wouldn’t have considered such an experience likely for a man like him. Not given his age, and not given the decidedly unsexy nature of removing plaque from his molars.
But here he was, his mouth full of suds, trying not to prod Jenny’s powder room vanity with his dick, and he couldn’t be happier about it.
He and Jenny had slept. They’d eaten. They’d turned off their continually ringing phones and ignored the dozens of urgent texts and e-mails they’d received. They’d groomed. And soon they were going to strip down and return to those soft, cool sheets of hers.
This was the best morning of his life.
He spat into the sink and rinsed his mouth, half-dazed with the thought of tugging her beneath him, pushing her thighs wide, circling her clit with his tongue, and finding out what sounds she’d make when she came around his—
Fuck. Brushing his teeth should not be turning him on like this.
Before he left the bathroom, he tried to get himself under control, but there was no containing his excitement. Not with the woman of his dreams so close and so willing. He’d just have to live with the slight embarrassment of approaching her while wearing only a tee and a pair of boxer-briefs tented by his state of advanced arousal.
But she wasn’t in the bedroom when he looked inside there, and the master bathroom door was open. She wasn’t in there either, or in the kitchen.
Finally, he found her in the guest room. Which, he could now see, she’d converted into a makeshift studio, complete with tarps and an easel and canvases and cups of colorful paint scattered everywhere. Exactly what he’d have expected, with one important exception: the inadequate light filtering through the lone window.
Even that minimal illumination, though, was enough to ascertain that she was wearing nothing but one of those thin, white tank tops of hers and a pair of boy shorts. No bra, God help him. No pants. She was all slim legs, smooth skin, dark, tight nipples and a small, round butt.
Jesus, she was perfect.
She was also talking to him, and he really should be paying attention.
“—not finished, but I got further last night before you arrived. Do you want to see it?” She scrunched her face to one side. “I hope you like it.”
A pinpoint of clarity appeared in his muddled brain. His portrait. She’d made progress on the painting of him sprawled on the hotel couch.
He walked toward her, skirting the edge of the easel. “Of course I want to see it.”
Among the many things he wanted to see right now, maybe the painting wouldn’t have
made the top five, but he was definitely eager to see how she viewed him, how her artist’s eye translated humdrum reality into a kaleidoscope of color and life.
For a moment, she blocked his view of it with her body. “If you hate it, my feelings won’t be hurt.” She paused. “Well, they might be hurt, but you shouldn’t lie to save them.” Another pause. “I take that back. Lie to me, as necessary.”
He clasped her shoulders in his hands and moved her aside gently. And then forgot all about the insistent throbbing beneath his boxer-briefs as he took in what she’d accomplished in such a short span of time.
“No lies necessary. This is magnificent, Jenny.” He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her tight to his side. “It’s me, but…” Shaking his head, he tried to articulate what he was seeing. “How did you transform me into something so vibrant?”
In the unfinished portrait, he was lying on a couch, his head propped on his hand, his elbow digging into the cushion beneath him. He was staring at the viewer with a hint of humor quirking his lips, his glasses slightly askew, one knee propped high against the back of the sofa while the other stretched along the length of the cushions.
And the image of him exploded with color. Gold glinting from his skin, blue from the twists in his hair. A hint of pink around his mouth, and so many other shades of green and orange and even purple. He could see each stroke of the brush, how the colors acted as a kind of mosaic to create him and the couch and the room.
She deserved an audience for this sort of talent. She deserved adulation.
“I’ve told you before, David. No matter what you believe, you’re not neutral.” She shrugged, her breast moving against his ribs in an extremely pleasant way. “The rest is just color theory in action.” When she rubbed against him again, this time more slowly, her breath hitched. “And I have to tell you, you’re the most inspiring model I’ve ever used.”
His attention strayed from the canvas. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She moved until they stood facing one another. “And I have a hot scoop for you, Ace.”
He groaned, even as he looped his arms around her hips. “Oh, Lord. Please, no newspaper puns.”
“Too late.” She grinned up at him, those pale blue eyes bright. “You inspired me with all your dirty decathlon jokes last night. So if you didn’t want me to regale you with terrible reporter puns, you should have fucked me first thing this morning, before I had a chance to come up with any.”
That wide, innocent-looking mouth uttering the word fuck undid him. Completely. With another groan, this one not pun-induced, he put his hands on her ass and boosted her up, until she could wrap her legs around his hips and he could slam his mouth onto hers.
Without delay, he staggered toward her bedroom as her fingers slid into his hair and her tongue slid into his mouth. Once inside the room, he dropped her onto the mattress but didn’t follow her down. Instead, standing by the bed and admiring the view of her sprawled across it, he stripped off his tee and tugged down his boxer-briefs.
She was watching him the whole time, her lips parted and wet. And when he crawled naked onto the edge of the mattress, her hands strayed to the hem of her tank top.
“I never got to tell you my hot scoop.” She whipped the top over her head, and her small breasts bounced as she settled back on the mattress. “Extra, extra. Read all about it.”
Hitching his thumbs into her boy shorts, he whisked them down her legs and off the end of the bed. “What’s your story?”
He started at her ankles, skimming his knuckles all the way up the sides of her legs and over her hips, until he nudged the sides of her breasts. Her legs shifted apart at the contact, and she gave a small sigh. Then another as he settled his hands over those pale mounds and rubbed his cheek lightly over the soft curve of one, abrading her with his stubble.
He didn’t want to hurt her. He did want to excite her.
Before he could do more, her hand slid down over his belly. And before he realized what was happening, she was suddenly gripping his cock, pumping him as he gasped and shook.
“I’m tired of waiting.” She played with the wetness at his tip, using it to slick her movements. “I want your column inside me as part of the morning edition.”
Fuck, that felt incredible. Too incredible.
“I think that can be arranged.” But not if she kept stroking him like that. So he took her hands and raised them over her head, until they were touching the wall behind the bed. “Keep those there.”
She laughed, the sound light and breathy. “I like the sound of that lede.”
His thumbs rubbed across her nipples, then plucked lightly until they were tight, rosy points. And again, harder, until her hips rocked and she urged his head where she wanted it.
When he sucked her nipple into his mouth, she moaned and arched beneath him. Her legs spread wider, until he was resting between them, his cock pressed against her thigh. Oh, Jesus, so close to the heat and dampness he could feel against his belly.
He needed to protect them both before he lost control.
She rubbed his back while he donned the condom. Her hands strayed down to his ass, and she gave it a tight squeeze. And then he was through taking it slow.
He settled on his side next to her and slid his fingers into the light brown curls between her legs. Parting her, he began to explore her soft, sweet pussy, circling and caressing her clit with the wetness he discovered there. Her head fell back, and she pressed herself into his hand, grinding against him. She whimpered as he breached her with one finger, then two, her legs spreading wide to take him deeper.
He rubbed inside her, sliding in and out until she was fucking herself with his fingers. And then he lowered his head and sucked her clit into his mouth.
With a long moan, she bucked beneath him and came, her pussy quivering around his fingers as he kept stroking her in a steady rhythm. Fuck, she was burning up inside, so wet he could slide another finger easily inside her, and so he did.
A final sigh, and then she relaxed beneath him. After gently withdrawing his fingers, he planted a kiss on her thigh and maneuvered himself up her body, running his hand along her leg to hitch it over his hip.
But she shook her head, her curls wild around her face. “I can do better than that. I’m basically Gumby, only sluttier.”
Then, God help him, she rested one leg on his shoulder, then another on the opposite shoulder, while he blinked down at her in both abject gratitude and disbelief. Holy shit. She was completely open to him, flushed and swollen and wet, and he didn’t plan to refuse her invitation.
“Jesus, you’re incredible.” Supporting himself on an elbow, he guided his cock into her pussy, closing his eyes at the feel of her slick heat stretching around him. He paused there, only barely inside, and gritted his teeth. “Is this okay?”
For some reason, she was glaring at him. “Enough, Ace. Shut up and fuck me. Hard.”
She ran her hands up his chest and tugged him until he sank another inch inside her. They both gasped, and every last bit of control abandoned him.
With a groan, he pushed deeper, until her pussy had taken every last inch of his cock and Jenny was moaning and rocking beneath his body. And then, as she’d demanded, he fucked her hard, bucking into her while she rubbed her clit and made maddening, needy noises.
She didn’t take long to come again, her keening cry echoing in his ears as her body gripped and released him in rapid spasms.
His own orgasm was an apocalypse. The destruction of over a decade of control, a flood that wiped away all thought and every instinct but to get deeper, hold her tighter, and never, ever let her go. He intended to listen to that primal directive. And given the way she clutched him close as he shook, her short nails biting into his shoulders as her pussy continued to throb around his cock, he was hoping she had no objections.
“Breaking news,” she whispered later, cuddled up next to his side. “You’re really fucking good at that, Ace. Also, I may need to add some turgi
d zucchini to your portrait.”
“Counterpoint.” He cupped her butt cheek, glorying in the softness of her skin. “We’re really fucking good at that. And I love the painting just as it is, even without additional rigid vegetation.”
Her happy hum vibrated against his chest, and he pressed a kiss on her curls.
“Have you exhausted your repertoire of newspaper puns yet?” Not that he cared, really. She could say whatever the hell she wanted, and he knew he’d enjoy it.
She ran a hand down his hip. “I think my orgasm damaged the punnery section of my brain. Expect a lawsuit shortly.”
At the mention of lawsuit, a couple of his napping synapses fired. “I forgot to tell you. Yesterday, I asked the Chronicle lawyer to prepare for some legal challenges from Bigelow, or at least the threat of them. Once he finds out we’re involved, I’m sure he’ll accuse us of entrapment or something similar. Anything to distract from his foundation’s misuse of funds. But he has no legal basis for complaint, so don’t worry.”
Her body stiffened against his. “Would you rather keep our relationship secret, then, as long as you can?”
Wrapping both arms around her, he pulled her on top of him. “On the contrary. I want to acknowledge it in a story next week.”
She lifted her head to look at him, her brows beetled. “What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t include one of your private portraits in the article that ran this morning.” The sting of that defeat would take a while to fade, especially given how much he hated causing Jenny pain. But he hoped his additional news would ease at least some of her burdens. “I did get permission to do a different column, though.”
“About us?” Now she’d propped herself on his chest with both elbows. “You’re going to write a story about how you’re boning a former source?”
“Not exactly.” He smiled up at her. “I’m going to write a story about the trend of Napoleonic portraits among the D.C. insiders surrounding Bigelow. I plan to delve into the backgrounds of the painters Artify Yourself! has hired. Including you. I’ll mention our connection.” He let out a breath and watched her expression. “And I’ll also include at least one image showing the sort of work you normally do. Your portraits in acrylics.”
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