Page 5
But he does.
His hand closes around my jaw, those long fingers settling against my face with a grip that should have felt invasive, perhaps even presumptuous. He turns my head slightly, angling it, thumb near my cheek, and then he hums like he’s adjusting a vase instead of physically rewiring my nervous system.
“Hm,” he murmurs. “Stay like this.”
I freeze.
Which is humiliating.
No, worse than humiliating. It’s treason. A betrayal of self. My own traitorous, defective body goes completely still under his hand like it recognizes something I don’t.
Absolutely the fuck not.
And yet I don’t move.
He lets go eventually, stepping back to his original place with the sketchbook in hand, but by then the damage is done. My head stays exactly where he put it, my pulse climbing up my throat like it wants to strangle me from the inside.
What the hell is wrong with me?
His eyes drag over me once, checking the angle, and something about the look on his face makes heat creep up my neck. Not because he is pleased, although he is, annoyingly, but because he looks mesmerized.
Like he isn’t just seeing me. Like he’s consuming me in pieces. Translating me into lines and shadows and whatever sick little language he speaks in that sketchbook.
“That’s good, beautiful.”
Beautiful.
He says it so naturally. So unashamedly.
“Just like that,” he adds, pen moving across the page. “Don’t move.”
There’s a blush spreading across my face now, and I hate it with the fury of a thousand dying suns.
My face must be giving me away, my ears probably red, my whole body locked in place while this infuriating bastard stands a few feet away drawing me like he summoned me into existence himself.
Why can’t I move? Seriously. Why?
I want to move. I want to lunge at him, bite his throat out, steal the sketchbook, set it on fire, and then maybe throw myself into the fountain to reset my system.
Instead, I stand there like a decorative idiot while he draws.
And the worst part is that he seems so absorbed in it that I can’t even convince myself he’s doing this just to mess with me. If this is a game, he is too good at it. His focus is frightening. His gaze shifts between me and the page like the rest of the park no longer exists.
His brows knit slightly at one point, and he tilts his head the smallest bit. Every now and then his mouth parts like he is about to say something, then doesn’t.
He’s looking at me the way priests probably look at divine visions, and I don’t appreciate inspiring religious experiences in men who annoy me.
A breeze moves through the park and lifts a strand of my hair across my forehead. I don’t dare fix it, because his voice is still wrapped around my spine and every muscle in me has apparently entered some kind of cursed waiting state.
If anyone sees me right now, I’ll kill them. I refuse to let this become public knowledge.
He glances up again, catches that same angle, and satisfaction flickers across his face.
“Good,” he says softly.
What is it about praise from him that feels like being struck by lightning?
It’s disgusting. It’s revolting. It’s doing things to me I plan to litigate later.
