He said nothing—neither agreement nor protest—and so I pressed gamely on.
“I saw your studio space. I saw me.”
“All right,” he said slowly. “And what did you think?”
“The images are stunning, but I told you that last night when you found me looking at the one in the gallery.”
“That was a poignant moment. The beautiful woman unaware she was looking at her own reflection.”
“Beautiful,” I continued, “technically perfect. Pure. But not me. Not really me at all.”
“You’re wrong,” he said.
“The hell I am. I’m not pure. I’m not innocent. Christ, Cole, you had your fingers inside me less than twenty-four hours ago, and it wasn’t me who walked away.”
“Kat—”
“No, listen to me. Please, Cole. Don’t you get it? I’m not the girl you painted. I’m not a goddamn angel. Do you have any idea how badly I wanted you last night? All of you. Your mouth, your cock.”
“Jesus, Kat.”
I heard the heat in his voice, and my pulse kicked up with the knowledge that maybe—just maybe—I was getting through to him. “And when you left me hanging, I swear to god I cursed you like a sailor. Would your innocent little model do that?”
He said nothing, and I pressed on, determined to win this battle. Hell, determined to win the war. “You wanted it, too,” I said. “Tell me. Please. I need to hear that I’m not crazy. I need to know that last night you wanted me just as much as I wanted you.”
“I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you.”
I closed my eyes, my body sagging from the pure relief of hearing the acknowledgment of what I’d been so sure about. I leaned against the dingy wall of this house that would be mine, sighed, and slid down to the floor in bliss.
“You can have me,” I said. “Any time. Any place. Any way you want,” I added, saying the last in a whisper.
“No,” he said. “I can’t.”
I cringed from the resolve in his voice.
“I can’t,” he repeated. “I can’t choose when, or where, and certainly not how. But when I look at you—when I paint you—”
His voice had taken on a lyrical quality, and I held the words close, wanting to soak in this moment, because who knew how many more I would get? “Tell me.”
“Put your phone on speaker,” he said. “Set it beside you.”
I pressed the button to turn on the speaker. “All right.”
“Good. You need to understand that when I paint you, it’s not just an image of you that is in front of me. It’s flesh. It’s blood.”
“It’s me.”
“Yes. The spill of your hair. The curve of your neck. The swell of your breasts.”
Gone was his earlier hesitancy. Instead, each word held masculine power. As if by painting me, he had claimed me, and I had no other choice but to submit.
“Go on,” I whispered. My eyes were still closed, but in my imagination, I saw myself sitting on a blanket at the Oak Street Beach. I was looking out at the water, but Cole was there, too, off to one side, so that I could see him only in my peripheral vision.
But though I could barely see him, I could feel him. Every scrape of pencil over canvas was a tease, every stroke of paint from his brush was a caress.
“You’re mine when I paint you, Kat. Mine to touch, mine to stroke, mine to see.”
My pulse pounded in my ears and my skin felt hot. I pulled up my T-shirt to expose my abdomen, then sighed from the caress of cool air upon my overheated flesh.