“I know. But the exhibition’s in less than a month, and I need to get busy. And if they don’t work, we’ll try something else.” Her lips curved into a smile. “So I was thinking...’
Which was how Caleb found himself naked in Ava’s shower not ten minutes later, hands behind his neck with water cascading down over his upturned face and down his chest and abdomen, while Ava sat on the lid of the toilet seat and scribbled feverishly in her sketchbook. She was drawing his torso, he knew, and drawing the line at chin and hips, but for the life of him he couldn’t rid himself this feeling of being watched, and it showed.
“Do other life models have this problem?” he asked, his cock swelling with every passing minute.
“Quit complaining,” she simply said.
“It’s hardly fair,” he said into the stream of water. “I’m standing under here naked and you’re fully dressed.
“Is that what you’re bitching about? If you promise not to move, I can fix that.”
“What did you say?” he spluttered.
“Don’t move!”
So he stayed right where he was with the water pouring over his head but somehow the knowledge she’d got herself buck naked too didn’t help with his problem one little bit. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know exactly how she’d look sitting there without a stitch on, with her slim shoulders and her slender waist flaring to her hips, and her breasts peaked with those gorgeous dark nipples he was a major fan of.
He groaned. “It’s not helping!” If this wasn’t water torture, he didn’t know what was.
“It’s okay. I’m done.”
“Thank god. So what have you got planned next,” he asked, snapping off the taps and reaching for a towel.
And she rose from the side of bath to meet him wearing a smile and nothing more. “Me.”
Chapter Five
They made love on her big bed watching the sun go down outside her big picture windows and then she sketched him lying on his stomach, his arms splayed, on the unmade sheets while the sunlight streamed through the window, making his skin glow.
“I’m going for a look of utter abandonment here,” she told him, her pencil flying in strokes over the page.
From the pillows where his head was buried came a muffled groan. “I think I’ve found it.”
She smiled. He had good reason to look spent. They both did. But she’d got to feeling sexy as hell watching Caleb in that shower with the water running in streamlets over him, so what was a girl supposed to do but ravage him?
And she owed him. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d enjoyed her work more. Maybe it was because that last still life had been so problematic, but it was refreshing to be working on something completely different. And now, given Caleb’s cooperation, she’d have the thirty artworks she’d agreed to supply for her upcoming exhibition without having to resort to including any she wasn’t quite in love with herself, the ones that didn’t quite make the grade for whatever reason.
Because she had no doubts about this series though, as his beautiful body took form on the page. These were definitely going to make the grade. Maybe it was something she should do more of. It was such a pleasure to be working with the human form again, something she hadn’t done for too long.
The buzz of her phone interrupted her. “Hang on,” she told him, conscious of the setting sun and wanting to finish her sketch while she still had the light. “I’ll be right back.” There were only a handful of people who had her number and even less who had cause to call tonight and she’d already decided before she picked up that it must be the Evan from EJ’s Gallery wanting a progress report from her before actively promoting the upcoming exhibition. There were times she almost wished she had someone who could handle all the administration and marketing of her career so she could fully concentrate on her art, but then she remembered Rene and his lies and the bitter disappointment of learning yet another person had betrayed her and she wasn’t prepared to go there again. Besides. The way the collection was coming together, this was one call she wouldn’t mind taking. It would only take a moment.
“Evan,” she said, picking up.
Except it wasn’t him.
And as she listened, just like the fading colour in the sky, all the light and colour in her life leached away, until she sat down trembling in the half-light, her hand still cradling her phone, traitor to the dark world she’d never quite left behind.
“Ava?”
She blinked, sucking in air, not knowing how long she’d been sitting here in the gathering gloom. “I’m here,” she said, although her voice even to her sounded a long way away.
“What’s wrong?” he said, kneeling down on his haunches alongside her. “Who was that?”
She stared blindly ahead of her through scratchy eyes, although there were no tears. She’d always known there would be no tears when it happened. It was half her life ago and she’d shed all the tears she was ever going to shed, until there was nothing left behind but a cold, hard anger. Although she’d never expected to feel so – blindsided.
“It was someone from a law firm in Singapore. I didn’t catch his name.” She didn’t even know how they had her number. How the hell did they get her number?
“What did they want?”
“It’s my parents.” She turned her head towards him, saw the concern in his eyes, and had to turn away. “There was a car crash. They’re dead.”
“Oh, Ava.” He put his arms around her, and yet all she could feel was the oppressive hand of her father lifting, knowing he could never hurt her again. That, and a dank blanket of remembrance.
“It’s okay,” she said, shrugging out of his embrace, wishing she could shrug off the memories as easily. “Really, it’s okay.” She looked out the window, saw the day had
