“Perfect,” she said after a moment, and she sounded as hoarse as he felt. “Do you think you can hold that for a while?”
He shifted in minute ways, but the discomfort he felt wasn’t physical. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Let me know when you need a break.”
“Sure.”
He lay there in silence for a long minute as she arranged herself in the chair, getting her sketchbook settled in her lap and selecting an instrument to draw with. And then, as far as he could tell, she just stared at him.
He had to turn his gaze away.
The skritch-skritch of pencil on paper told him she’d started working, and he had to fight the instinct to fidget all over again. Relax. Calm. He sank into the bed the best he could.
But no matter how deeply he breathed or how hard he focused on letting his mind drift, the simple truth was there.
He’d been naked a thousand times before. But he’d never felt it.
Not like this.
chapter SEVENTEEN
There was a certain kind of focused, aware calm that settled over Kate when she was really in the zone. Staring at the excess of riches laid out in front of her right now, though, she wasn’t focused. She wasn’t calm.
But she was aware.
Incredibly, brilliantly aware of Rylan’s lips and eyes, the tousled mess of his hair and the stubble on his cheeks. He had the most gorgeous shoulders, taut with muscle without being bulky, and his biceps and forearms were sleek and strong. She’d always loved the feeling of his hands on her body, but she’d never truly taken in the shape of them before. Long fingers and blunt nails. The lines of tendons flexing underneath his skin.
And then there was the rest of him. With the subtle twist she’d made of his body, the crest of his hip stood out sharply, shadowing the hollow beneath it, pointing to the dips and curves of his abdominals. Solid thighs and well-formed calves. Hell, even his ankles and his feet were pretty, and she could scarcely catch her breath when she let her vision encompass the whole of him.
He wasn’t hard, which was possibly the weirdest thing. She’d seen him in various stages of erectness, even seen him gently deflating in the aftermath of orgasm, but completely soft like this was new. She couldn’t help the way her gaze kept being drawn back to it.
She’d touched that part of him. Had him on her tongue and in her hands and pressed up against her spine as he moaned into her ear.
And now it was hers to look at. As much as she wanted to.
With less than steady hands, she adjusted her book in her lap. She’d already done a quick couple of gesture sketches of him, waiting for him to settle. Tension lingered in his limbs, though, and she frowned. He wouldn’t be able to stay still for long if he didn’t relax.
“Do you want to stretch or anything?” she asked. “Get a drink?”
He blinked a couple of times, chest rising and sinking more rapidly. “Yeah, actually.” He sat up in slow increments, rolling his shoulders and flexing his feet.
Just for something to do, she stood and grabbed him a bottle of water.
“Thanks.” He took it from her and twisted off the top, lifting it to his mouth and taking a couple of careful, measured sips before setting it aside.
In the time she hadn’t been looking, he’d pulled the sheet up to his waist. Part of her wanted to tease. He’d seemed so confident in his own skin before, but now there was a self-consciousness to him.
It was just so . . . unlike him.
She picked at her thumb, unable to stop staring at the drape of the cloth across his groin. “We don’t have to do this, you know.”
“I know.” He looked down. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“All right.” She returned to her chair and picked up her pencil again.
After another minute of twisting and stretching, he shoved the sheet away and settled back against the pillows. The pose wasn’t quite the same as the one she’d directed him into earlier, but that was almost better, honestly. What it lacked in drama it made up for in the way he eased into it, some of the stiffness from before bleeding away.
It was even more beautiful, and something in her heart stuttered.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
She looked up to find him gazing straight at her. It took a couple of tries to get the words to form. “It’s perfect.”
Flawed and perfect. Just like you.
She swallowed, forcing herself to relax her grip. She traced all the lines of his body in her mind one last time.
Then she turned the page and began.
It was easier, this time, to quiet his mind. He lay there, splayed out on the sheets, bare but for the chain around his neck.
He should have taken it off, probably. He hadn’t thought to at the time, and with the way she was sketching away, at this point it seemed too late. Sometimes, he wondered why he wore it at all.
The scratching of her pencil on the paper settled over him, and he drifted along on it. He didn’t want to throw her off by staring into her eyes, so he varied his gaze between her hands and the window and the ceiling above his head. Maybe he should have asked if he could pose with a book, or if they could turn on the television, only . . .
It didn’t seem right, did it? He wanted to know how she saw him. She should see him with his attention undiverted.
And more, there was an energy to it. A humming static to the air surrounding them, moving from her to him and back again. This was intimate.
This was exposure.
Trying to hold still, he sucked the inside of his cheek between his teeth and bit down hard.
Maybe this was how she imagined it would be, letting him inside of her. He’d let it go; every time she’d squirmed or looked uncomfortable at the idea, he’d been quick to back off. But for the first time, now, he thought maybe he understood it. He felt vulnerable, lying there naked for her inspection. It wasn’t sexual at all, but that was why it was so difficult for him. Sex he was good at. This—being open like this. It was something different, something he didn’t quite know how to do.
He unclenched his jaw before he could draw blood. If he told her how uneasy he was, she’d probably say that they could stop again. But he felt like he was on the cusp of a revelation. If he could find a way to work through this, it would mean something. To him and to her.
The person he had been a handful of days ago told him it would get him in her pants at last. But a newer voice said that didn’t matter. Whether he got off or not didn’t matter.
If he made it through this, and if she saw in him something worth seeing . . . he’d earn her trust.
How much that mattered to him made him tremble.
For a long moment, he closed his eyes, focusing on the sounds of marks being made on paper. Then he shifted his attention. He relaxed his toes and his calves and his glutes. Breathed air into his fingers and his arms. Quieted the beating of his heart.
He looked again to find her staring at him in a way that made him feel not exactly vivisected, but . . .
Seen.
She smiled at him uncertainly, and he answered with the slightest of shakes of his head.
He let his gaze go soft and aimed it at the gauzy curtains framing the doors out onto their balcony. He gave himself over to it.
And as she kept on drawing, he felt like, somehow, deep in the empty parts of him, he was getting everything he wanted in exchange.
Kate looked down at what she’d drawn and blinked. She tilted her head from side to side and shifted her legs. Rylan had taken two more breaks in the time she’d been working, but she had scarcely moved except to reach for different materials.