So focused on her plan for the painting, his comment startled her. She had planned to have him lean against the wall for the next painting, but that was before she’d had the oils. She was anxious to use them. When they arrived, she envisioned him lying back like Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, vegetation, festivity, fertility, and madness. She paused in pulling a new paintbrush from a drawer. Genius talent and madness were far too closely related and the path she followed now could well bring both. Shaking her head at her own whimsy, she closed the drawer and set the new brush on the clean wooden palette. She scanned all her items to make sure everything was in reach.
She looked up to give Andrew instruction, but found him sitting in the chair next to the table with the tea service. “What are you doing?”
He held up the half-eaten fruit cake. “I’m eating. You wanted me to be quiet and since you obviously have a scene for this painting in your head, I thought I’d wait for directions out of your way.”
He was right, of course. She’d ignored him as if he knew what she wanted. “Thank you. When you finish, could you please remove all your clothes?”
The cake dropped back to the plate. “I thought this was practice.”
“It is. I’ll need to get your skin tone correct and I want to try this image first. I don’t have a vision for the final painting yet. I need to see most of you.”
He rose and pulled off his shirt. “You saidmostof me. What would you like me to keep covered?”
The telltale heat was back, but she forcefully ignored it. He was simply a model for a painting that she had to do correctly. He wasn’t the man who kissed her the other night until she wished her clothes would fall from her body. No more than blancmange was her favorite food, which it was. “I would like you to remove all your clothes then lounge on the settee with the violet silk draped over your, umm, groin area.”
Oh, horse feathers. She could feel her entire chest and face turning red. Quickly, she spun back to the canvas, having only caught a glimpse of his amused smile. She kept her back turned and focused on opening her paints and creating her palette of base colors. She didn’t see a need for three of the colors at all.
“Is this what you wished for?”
She glanced up and stared, her breath catching in her throat. He sat on the settee, legs crossed at the ankles in front of him, his hands behind his head. The dark skin tone of his torso seemed to glow as it disappeared beneath the deep violet silk. His large, muscled thighs were revealed below in a far lighter shade, tiny golden hairs catching the light. His legs tapered down to where his feet were set one upon the other. She breathed in. He truly looked like a Greek statue, but alive and warm and filled with color and nuances.
She wasn’t sure which excited her more, the vision he made for her painting or how she felt looking at him. Her stomach seemed to be filled with tiny fairies buzzing to and fro and a strange ache started deep inside her.
“Amelia?”
At his use of her name, she blinked as if coming from a trance. “Yes. I mean, not quite.” Flustered, she moved forward, but this time, she hesitated to touch him. She swallowed hard as she tried to focus. “Could you lean against the side and bring your legs up on the settee more?”
He dropped his arms and readjusted. The violet silk fell away a bit more, revealing the crease below his hip.
She couldn’t seem to take her gaze from the area. She tried to think rationally. Joanna’s book was very explicit in what was beneath the cover, and she’d seen Michelangelo’s David and a copy of the statue of Laocoön and his sons. But to have a living breathing male before her caused her heart to race, making her breaths shallow.
Forcefully, she turned her body away to meet his gaze. “That is more what I had in mind.” Unable to resist touching him, she moved closer and laid her fingers under his chin. “Tilt your head back a little as if you are being fed grapes.”
His head moved, but his gaze remained on her. “Grapes?”
She lifted one shoulder. “I’m imagining Dionysus enjoying himself.”
A slow smile lifted his lips before he darted his tongue out and licked them. “I can imagine that too.”
Heat filled her and she quickly dropped her hand. “Good. Think of yourself as a god.”
A quiet rumble sounded in his chest as if he were holding back a laugh. “Only for you.”
At his words, her gaze roamed back to his and there was far more meaning in his eyes, but she didn’t want to know. Instead, she touched his thigh, the heat radiating from it as hot as inside her chest.
He jerked slightly, and she pulled back as if she’d touched hot coals. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
He grasped her hand, his abdomen contracting as he held himself up. “Your touch could never make me uncomfortable.” He released her. “Touch anywhere you like.”
Mischief had her thinking about touching him beneath the silk, just to see how much he meant it, but she was far too much a coward. So she laid her hand against his thigh again. “Just move your leg a little to the left.” As his leg pulled away from her pressure against it, she silently wished there was somewhere else she could touch, but he was exactly how she’d wanted him. “Perfect.”
Quickly, before she invented an excuse to touch him further, she turned away and strode back to her easel. When she had her paintbrush in hand, she paused. He reallywasmagnificent. “If you get tired, please tell me. Oil takes longer than pastels or watercolor. I may get lost in the painting and forget you need to move.”
“You have had other models?” Though he spoke to the ceiling, his tone proved he didn’t like the idea.
She dipped her brush into the Naples Yellow and mixed it with the Raw Umber. “Only female models and even those were very few.” She started with his torso. “And only on the continent. I doubt thetonwould appreciate my artistic efforts even with a female model.” And thetonwould surely shun her if they knew what she was about now.
Returning her gaze to him, she studied the planes of his chest. Something about it had her yearning to touch him again. Was this why male models weren’t allowed for female artists? Was this longing she felt what led to a woman losing her innocence? Refocusing on the painting, she remained where she was. No matter how she felt, her goal was far different from other women. She just had to keep that in mind.
