Just One Kiss - J. Saman Page 0,24
in sand. It’s cooled and set, I just haven’t moved it to the gallery yet. She looks to me, her expression curious and questioning, and I nod my head. She picks it up carefully, holding the piece in one hand, and delicately runs her fingers over the fine lines of colored glass. “It’s exquisite.”
“Thank you,” I say, a strong surge of pride rushing through me. I was nervous to show this to her. Her opinion of me and the things I make is already more important than it should be.
I snap myself out of my trance and get to work, checking the kilns and the items I have annealing in there.
“You have a lot of power in this space,” she comments, coming to stand beside me, trying to peek inside.
“I have a different generator for here than I do for the main house. A lot bigger and more powerful.”
“Can we make a piece together? I’d like you to show me how you do this?”
I shut the doors to the kiln and turn to her. “What would you like?”
She glances toward the ornament that’s back on the table. “Can we make one of those?”
“What color?”
Her eyes flash up to mine, staring thoughtfully. “Navy blue?”
I chuckle, stepping forward. Reaching up, I capture a wayward piece of her dark hair, brushing it off her face and tucking it behind her ear. My hand lingers for a moment as I stare back into her eyes. Eyes that make my chest clench.
Or is it the woman doing that?
“What about violet?” I already know the perfect color combination.
“What about red? For Christmas.”
“Red it is then.” My eyes bounce around her face and I don’t remember wanting to kiss a woman this badly since her. The way I did so long ago. The last imprint of London Canterbury I have and now here she is. “Transparent or opaque?” I ask, forcing myself to step back and away from her as I go in search of some red glass rods from the large storage unit I have.
“Um. Transparent?”
“Just a round ball and do you want to put something in it?”
“Yikes. All these questions. What are my choices?”
I glance over my shoulder at her. “Anything you want, really. But you can think about it. First, we have to make the orb. I can change the shape depending on what you want, but if you want to put something inside it, there aren’t as many choices.” I pull out what I need, showing her what’s in my hand.
“I think just the ball is good. Keep it simple.”
“These are glass rods.” I hold open my hand for her to see and she reaches out, her fingers caressing one of the pieces. “All glass is made up of sand.” She dips her head like she already knows this. “These rods are basically formed crushed pieces of glass with color already infused into them, which are It’s a hell of a lot easier and quicker to do it this way than to make colored glass from scratch because in order to get the right color, you often need to use different transition metals and depending on what they are, they can either be a bit dangerous to work with or insanely expensive to procure and then work in.”
“Transition metals? Like what?”
“Iron, cobalt, silver, palladium, mercury, gold, the list goes on.”
“Mercury?”
I laugh at her expression. “Yeah. Now you know why I purchase them as rods. But really, they come in any color you can think up and you can purchase them already infused with specific metals if you’re going for a particular look. For this, we’re using basic red. Do you want to put them into the fire through what we call the glory hole while I go over to get my blowpipe?”
“Glory hole? Blowpipe?” she snorts out, taking the red pieces from my hand and doing exactly as I instruct her. “That sounds seriously dirty.”
“Just wait till I put my long rod in it.”
She turns to look at me with wide eyes, a blush creeping up her face. I wink at her as I pick up my blowpipe, showing it to her.
“It’s certainly long, but it’s a bit on the thin side.”
“If you want it thicker, I’d be happy to accommodate.”
I watch as her breath hitches and the pink in her face grows warmer, sexier, her eyes darkening at the blatant suggestion in my voice. Blood roars through my veins, making my cock twitch. I force myself to move back, already teetering on