feelings for you, but when I let myself go, the artist inside of me created this.”
His wide eyes focused on the canvas, Justin falls on the end of my bed. He traces the swirls of the painting’s center. On the canvas he stands tall in all his muscled, tattooed glory, wearing only jeans, in front of a painting. He’s reaching out, grasping my hand and pulling me from the painting inside a painting, freeing me from its confines. Though done in my favorite style of modern impressionism, the painting depicts both of us in washed-out colors instead of the bright hues I usually use. Except for the growing burst of color at the focal point where our hands connect. There the painting is bright, the colors vibrant along the skin of our arms.
“It’s beautiful,” he says in a short breath, dropping his hand and leaning back on the bed.
“It’s true.” I lower myself, kneeling on the floor. “You free me from all my insecurities, take away the loneliness I’d grown to accept, and make me feel like the young woman I forgot I was.” I reach for his hand and hold it in mine. “I’m not falling in love, Justin.” He flinches and my hold tightens on his hand. “Look at the painting. I’m completely enamored, head-over-heels, already there. It’s impossible for me to be more in love with you.”
His eyes turn into wide green pools as he glances at the painting and then at me.
I lift his hand and touch my lips to his knuckles. “Yes, you. I want to be with you. I want you to keep pulling me back into life, into you.”
“Damn, Allie.” He heaves me up, draws me between his legs, and presses his face to my chest. He holds me tight. “I’m going to hyperventilate.”
I slide my hands into his hair. “Now who’s freaking out?”
He groans. “I was hoping you weren’t going to kick me to the curb.” He tilts his head up and studies me. “That you love me is…”—his hands clasp my back, gripping me tighter—“so damn amazing. I want to deserve your love.”
“You do,” I say with conviction.
Shaking his head, he gently kisses the side of my mouth that isn’t injured. “It’s like I’ve landed in another dimension. My own imaginary, perfect dimension.”
“You’re here.” My hands tighten in his hair. “With me.”
He glances at my swollen lip and sighs. “Let me sleep with you? Hold you? Help me find solid ground.”
I smile at him. It hurts my lip a little, but I don’t mind. He’s so beautiful. It used to hurt sometimes to look at him, believing we could never truly be together, but now he’s all mine. I push him back onto the bed and fall on him with a laugh.
“Yes. Yes. And please.”
I wake to bright morning light. I wake to the face of the most beautiful, sexiest woman in the world. Her auburn hair spills across the pillow and my shoulder. Her leg is wrapped around mine. She’s soft and sweet in my arms. Digging my nose into her hair and breathing in the exquisite scent of her, I realize I love her with every cell in my body.
That she loves me too is nothing but a miracle.
Until I met her, I’d been a shallow, immature self-centered boy. She’s unknowingly made me a man. What’s important in life has finally clicked together like the last piece of a puzzle. And it’s in my arms.
After watching her sleep for a while, I carefully untangle myself and make a quick trip to the bathroom. In minutes I’m back under the covers, content to hold her. As I’m thinking about how good it is lying here with her, Allie’s eyes flutter open. She blinks at me, then presses herself against my body and smiles sensually. “Morning.”
“Morning to you, beautiful.” I grin. Here I’d been thinking I’d never spent this much time in a bed with a woman without sex, and it was great. But as her hand slides across my chest, I’m thinking sex would make it better than great.
She pushes up on an elbow. “Give me a minute to go—” She pauses, noticing something beyond my shoulder. “Is it really eleven?”
I crank my head around and glance at the clock. “Eleven fifteen to be precise.”
“Oh no!” She flies out of the bed. “I’m supposed to be at my parents’ at twelve for Sunday dinner.” She rushes out of the room, which leaves me staring at the empty doorway.
Dejected but understanding, I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on my shoes when she stands in the doorway a few minutes later.
“You’re coming, right?”
“To your parents’?” I ask incredulously.
She gives me a don’t-be-an-idiot nod.
The idea of meeting her parents disorients me. “Ah, I don’t have any clean clothes.”
She shrugs. “Just throw your shirt in the dryer for a few minutes.”
“What about Ben?”
She comes over and starts tugging my shirt up. “With my feelings for you, it seems wrong keeping you a secret from him.” She yanks my shirt over my head. “We’ll have to take it slow in front of him.” She smirks at me, running a thumb over my nipple ring. “No sleepovers when he’s home.”
Though I’m overwhelmed by the step she’s taking, her hands on my skin are making me forget everything else. “Keep undressing me on your bed, and we’re going to be late.”
“I should have set the alarm,” she says wistfully.
Taking in her tone, I ask, “Breakfast tomorrow?”
Grinning, she curls her fingers around the waistband of my pants. “Oh, definitely.”
Fearful of hurting her lip, I press my own lips to her forehead. “Go get ready. I’ll take care of my clothes.”
Studying my body with a glint in her gray eyes, she stumbles back toward the dresser. “Okay.”
Our gazes meet in the mirror as she hauls out clothes. She lets out a laugh and then a wistful sigh before heading to the bathroom. After taking turns—I was tempted to join her, but then we would definitely be late—in the shower, we’re out the door at five to twelve.
In my car, Allie gives directions and then plucks out the small vial of cologne from the cup holder. As I’m turning out of her apartment complex, she opens it and breaths in the scent with her eyes closed. A dazed satisfaction comes over her features. I almost hit the curb, watching her.
“What brand is this?” she asks almost drunkenly.
“No brand,” I say while mentally storing the image of her expression.
She cocks an eyebrow at me.
“It’s custom made from a perfumer in Paris. I reorder it about once a year.”
“Holy shit, Batman!” she says, and the sound of her cursing has me smiling. “Isn’t that expensive?”
I shrug. “One day soon I’m going to take you there. Not that you don’t smell fantastic…”
She frowns. “I don’t wear perfume. Probably just smell like soap and body lotion.”
“Like linen and flowers,” I say, nodding. “A scent I’ve come to love. I’ll ask them to start with those two things.”
She lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “You know I’d love to go to Paris, but I can’t let you take me.”
“Why not?”
“That would be overboard for even you.”
“In less than two months when I turn twenty-one, I come into the money my grandparents left me. I plan on investing most of it, but a trip to Europe won’t even put a dent in it. And whether I deserve it or not, it’s mine. Let me share.”
Her mouth drops. “You’re twenty?” she asks, almost making me laugh that my age is shocking her more than my inheritance. “I assumed twenty-one at least, with all the wine and bars.”
“Almost twenty-one, but being in the band I rarely get carded.”
