her. A heavy sense of anticipation seems to pulse around us, and I can’t be the only one who feels it.
“You’re soaked,” she says, her voice shaking slightly, breathless. Her chest rises and falls against my hands.
I press the towel against the soft swell of her breasts, and my dick immediately hardens against my fly, threatening to send me over the edge, an edge I’ve been flirting with for a long time.
I have a hard time speaking. “It will dry.”
I pause with the towel at her collarbones, my eyes drifting up to hers. They’re wide, glimmering with something I want too badly to believe. Then I look to her neck, her hair. Finally I glance at the statue behind her.
“I want to ask you for a favor,” I tell her, my throat feeling thick.
She blinks at me, mouth parting. “What?” she asks softly.
I take the towel and put it over my shoulder before I place my hand at her neck, letting my fingers trail up the curve to her ear.
Her eyes fall closed and I reach back, winding my fingers through her hair before making a fist and pulling it off her neck.
“You have no idea how perfect you are,” I whisper. “Your skin. Your bones. Your build. You’re art, Grace. And I think you might be my muse.”
Her eyes open, brows raising. “Your muse?”
I nod, sucking on my lower lip. Her gaze drops to my mouth. “Sì. La mia musa. But you do more than inspire me to work. You inspire me to make art out of you. I would like to sculpt you, Grace Harper.”
Her mouth falls open. “Me?”
She really doesn’t see it. There is something so beguiling about that, how someone who possesses so much charm and beauty can be so fully unaware of it. It’s both a shame and a mystery.
“You,” I tell her, taking another step closer until I’m pressed up against her, and I know she can feel how hard I am against her hip. I see it with the slight flare of her nostrils, the heat peppering her liquid eyes. “I want to sculpt you. I want to make a copy of your beauty, of your soul, for the world to see.”
“I … I don’t…” she stammers.
“Yes,” I tell her. There are dark smudges beneath her eyes where the rain has mixed with her mascara, and I cup her small face in my hands, running my thumbs gently under her eyes, wiping it away. “You, Grace. You.”
I was so close to kissing her last night that I’m not letting another opportunity pass me by.
I lean in, my face closing the gap between us, and kiss her. It is soft at first, my lips pressing against hers, taking her in like fine wine. Her mouth is warm, beautiful, and relaxes instantly, her lips opening against mine. My tongue slides in, feeling her mouth, while the need that’s been building inside me threatens to overtake us both.
I let it.
I press my fingers harder into her face, sucking her lower lip into my mouth like it’s a piece of sweet candy.
My sweet Grace.
But I can’t be so sweet anymore.
The desire crashes over me, like it just realized what’s happening, that I have her in my hands, that my mouth is devouring hers. My lips grow hungrier, our tongues moving at a faster, more frenzied pace.
A hand drops to her breast, pulling down one side of her bustier, delighting in the soft flesh, while my other hand slips down to the back of her neck, holding her in place while our kiss gets rough and messy and wet.
Her hands have been static this whole time but now they reach for my collar, tugging on the damp corners, pulling herself to me. My cock rubs against her through my pants and she lets out a breathless moan against my lips.
“I’m back!” Carla’s voice divides us like an axe swinging down.
Shit.
We break apart, breathless.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned on.
Disoriented.
“Claudio?” Carla asks, her heels clacking across the gallery floor as I hear her approaching the room.
Grace and I stare at each other, wide-eyed, breathing hard. My mouth burns from her lips and I slowly rub my fingers across it for a moment before I yell back to Carla. “We’re in here!”
Grace seems to snap out of her daze, and she immediately turns around facing the statue, discreetly tucking her breast back into her dress.
But me, I stand there like a man on the verge of becoming undone.