Page 47 of Ruthless Enforcer

I step back from the canvas and stare at the sweep of burnt sienna I’ve spent the last twenty minutes applying, removing, and applying again.

It’s just not right.

I scrape it off. Again.

Day four of married life is apparently going spectacularly. I have a four-carat diamond on my finger, a husband I barely see except at dinner, and a painting that I can’t get a handle on.

Gabriel disappeared after breakfast this morning with his phone pressed to his ear and that particular expression that suggests someone, somewhere, is about to have a very bad day. I assume he’s doing whatever ruthless enforcers do when they’re not kidnapping women and marrying them.

I wouldn't know. He hasn't told me.

And I haven't asked.

Mostly because we're married in the strictly business sense, which means wondering where my husband is every fifteen minutes would be ridiculous.

Only I miss him, which is even more than ridiculous.

I stare accusingly at the canvas.

A week ago, Gabriel Reyes was a man I'd never met. He was a photograph I occasionally looked up to torture myself with what I couldn’t have—a fourteen-year-old girl's bad boy crush that somehow survived into adulthood.

Now he's been gone a few hours and the house feels different without him in it. I feel different without him in it.

Somehow, despite knowing him for less than a week, being with Gabriel feels strangely familiar—as if I've known him much longer. Maybe because, in some small, secret way, I have.

I look back at the painting.

I don't want to paint this. I want to paint Gabriel.

My gaze slides to the sketchbook lying open on the worktable. It’s open to this morning's drawing.

Gabriel in my studio doorway. Barefoot. Half-awake. Tattoos sweeping over his shoulders. Gun at his side. Magnificently naked and turned on, morning light defining every plane and shadow of his body.

I've drawn it six times. Seven, if we're counting the study I tore up.

The problem is, memory isn't enough. I want to study the way the light moves across him. The lines of ink over muscle. The shift of his body when he relaxes. All the tiny details memory inevitably gets wrong.

I want him to pose for me.

Naked.

I laugh softly to myself. Right—like he’s going to agree to that. Gabriel’s spent the last two days establishing boundaries with the enthusiasm of a small country fortifying its border. Asking him to stand naked in my studio while I study his body for several hours seems unlikely.

Sighing, I glance down at the sketchbook again.

Then I notice the hands.

Even in the rough charcoal study, I've drawn them with more detail than anything else. Long fingers. Scarred knuckles. Strength held carefully in check.

Those hands killed a man to save me.

Those hands put a wedding ring on my finger.

They made me a workspace so I could paint.

His hands belong in What We Hold.

The thought lands with such absolute certainty that I go still. Not Gabriel—his hands. That I could ask for.