“Pardon?” she exclaimed, outraged.
“I’ve seen your paintings,” he said. “I’ve seen who you really are. Or, at least, a glimpse of her.”
Amelia’s breath decided to stop. Could it be? That he saw…her?
Troubling, to be sure.
She’d opened a box of troubles last night, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret it. To be seen, fully seen, was a novel experience, and that it was this man of all people made her feel special. That he appreciated her work…
With a will of their own, her hands reached up and removed the fichu. It was only a scrap of lace, not her virtue, after all. A cooling breeze chose that moment to brush across her skin. Her eyes drifted shut in bliss. When they opened, they found his upon her, a look in his eyes she didn’t recognize.
Her body seemed to. It seemed to want to melt beneath it, even as a feeling curled deep within her stomach, and deeper still to a place only she knew—and, quite honestly, not all that well.
Meanwhile, he kept working—placing chisel, striking chisel, cocking his head this way, then that, the crease in his brow growing ever deeper in the plain script of dissatisfaction. “Tilt your head slightly left,” he said.
Amelia obeyed.
“I saidslightly.”
She overcompensated to the other direction, which only increased his grumpiness.
“Slightlylift your chin.”
She lifted her chin.
“Slightly.”
She exhaled a rough breath. “Are you a horse’s arse to all your models?”
His eyebrows drew together. “I’m giving you direction.”
Amelia snorted for perhaps the first time in her life. It was a surprisingly freeing experience.
He started up on the marble again, but his dissatisfaction only increased until he set his tools down on an abrupt clatter and made for her. Alarm streaked through her. What was he—
Then he was standing squarely before her, not a foot away, staring intently, seeing her and yet somehow not seeing her in the objective way an artist viewed his subject. And there was his scent again—clove, sandalwood, and sweat.
She cleared her throat and opened her mouth to speak when he did it: he laid his large hands upon her shoulders and cleared all rational thought from her brain. His hands were warm, almost hot, his heat seeping into her with every rapid beat of her heart. Strong, too, their latent strength apparent. They could crush her if they chose, but they were gentle, one remaining on her shoulder and the other tucking beneath her chin, nudging it up by small increments, his intense gaze upon her…
It was only when he said, “There,” that she realized her eyes had drifted shut.
“Stay exactly as you are,” he said, the words a deep, velvet rumble across his throat.
An involuntary quiver shimmered through her.
Back at the marble, he chiseled for a few more minutes before his frown of frustration returned. Then he was again standing before her, sharing her air, touching her—squaring her shoulders, relaxing her shoulders, tipping her chin up, then down, nudging the back of her head to push it forward to… She wasn’t sure what precisely he was seeking to accomplish. All she could do was breathe him in and struggle against improper thoughts about his hands and the muscles rippling along his forearms. The heat of him… The manliness of him… She’d never been in the presence of such a masculine being, much less had his hands upon her…
For her own peace of mind, she cleared her throat. He glanced down and blinked.
And she knew. He was nowseeingher, not as a model to be molded like clay, buther.
The air between them went still and intimate. The sky could’ve crashed down about their heads, and Amelia wouldn’t have noticed for,here, in this instant of time something in her recognized something in him.
Her mouth parted, and her desire, sudden and deep, spilled out of her. “I want to paint you.”
“Oh?” He didn’t seem too intrigued.
“Nude.”
