Brush Strokes (10 page)

“
It means…”

“
Is that your model, Tanya?
Nice!” someone called as they passed by.

She thought she recognized the voice
of a former classmate. She smiled in acknowledgement, but that
didn’t slow the tirade building inside of her. “I did a fucking
fantastic job painting my model. The last piece is probably my
best.” The pace of her steps increased, the force with which she
brought her feet down sending bolt-like stabs through her legs.
“Your bone structure. Your muscles. Your coloring. All of it is
damned near perfect.”

“
Tanya—”

“
I fucking defy her to
render my model better than I have. I want to see my damned
painting on the wall because it is
good
. No one has to tell me that. For
Christ sake, even the way I captured your damned pubic hair is a
work of genius.”

“
Tanya, enough!” His voice
echoed out over the room, hushed conversations smothered beneath
the weight of his agitation. He gripped her elbow and turned her to
face him. Erica’s description of his eyes as stormy had never been
more apt. “Do you hear yourself?”

She vibrated with ire. The
nerve of that woman…and Joe was getting loud with
her
? “What?”

“
My model. Bone structure.
Muscle. Coloring.”

“
And?”

His voice dropped to a hush. “Is that
all I am to you?”

“
I’m not following you.
You’re not making any sense.” She noticed that none of the other
conversations in the spacious room had resumed. Apparently, their
words, amplified by the layout, combined with their heated gestures
made quite the spectacle.

Joe noticed too. He hustled them to a
far wall where some monstrosity of intricate basket weaving preened
on a pedestal. “With all that we’ve been through in the last couple
of days, our first date out, and you and your friends parade me
like some sort of object.”

“
That’s not true.” She
dropped her gaze, unable to look him in the eye. “And they’re not
my friends.”

He took a deep breath. “I care for
you, Tanya. I care for your art. I care for your future, but you
make me wonder if you even know I exist.”

Where was he going with this? She took
a step back, putting a little space between them. “Of course I know
you exist.”

“
You study me. Scrutinize
me down to the finest detail. But do you ever look at me? Really
look at
me
? When I
asked you to touch me, taste me…when we took things from friendly
to something more, did it ever stop being an art lesson for you?
Did you ever notice that a man who loves you offered himself in the
only way he knew would get your attention?”

Keeping her hands at her sides took
all of her strength of will. Why she kept them there she didn’t
know. “Why are you so upset?”

“
If you don’t know, I guess
I’ve been wasting your time.” He took a few steps back before
turning. “Oh, look. Your display is right behind you. I’ll leave
you to admire the colors and muscles and other sundry details of
your model in solitude.” His jaw tightened before his gaze dropped.
“Sorry to have taken up so much of your time,” he mumbled and
walked away.

She almost called out to him. Almost
asked him to come back and make her understand. Instead she watched
him push through the glass door to be swallowed by the sunlight and
outside world.

Chapter Eight

Joe paced the sidewalk, pissed with
the world. Furious with himself. Why in God’s name had he walked
away from her? He’d fallen in love with an artist. What did he
expect for her to see when she looked at him? If Tanya was an
architect, she’d notice the way buildings and bridges were
constructed. If she had been a florist, she’d notice the way
gardens could be spruced up with more color and variety. It only
made sense that when she saw him, she saw the best way to capture
him on paper. At what point had he lost his own perspective and
forgotten that about her? If he’d push aside his fucking ego, he’d
realize that ability to see him in a different light had first
attracted him to her.

Jesus.
A limited number of options were open for him to salvage this
mess. The most obvious meant doing an about face and going inside
to apologize. If he wanted her—and God knew he did—he’d suck it up
and do just that. Yet, he stood in place.

So what kept him from going back
in?

Her hesitation. The way she’d dropped
his hand, putting some space between them when someone she knew saw
them together. Again, the ugly question of whether she dated
outside of her race reared its ugly head. All of this time,
everything they’d done had been behind closed doors. In a roomful
of people like herself, maybe she didn’t want anyone to know the
white guy next to her meant something a little more… She had no
problem letting him perhaps make love to her, but when together in
a public venue she raised shields he didn’t know she had. Maybe it
was easier on her if she perpetuated the belief they were nothing
more than artist and model.

He’d never
ever
thought their races
would come between them. He would have picked a thousand other
things before this one, yet there it was. An unpleasant truth of
reality. That little scene in there didn’t help matters.

He took a deep, cleansing breath.
Okay. Maybe it wasn’t race. Maybe the problem was more global.
Perhaps she had a problem with him. Good enough for sex, but not
good enough for much more. Perhaps she preferred a man who offered
more. An established safety net like Mr. Killian. Someone who could
support her and her artwork. Then again, she didn’t want much. So
maybe she wanted an artist like herself. Someone who understood the
aches and pains she went through.

Oh for fuck’s sake, he could spend the
next hour throwing out what-ifs and never know the real answer. As
his older brother would say, time to put on his big girl panties
and suck it up. Go back inside now and figure out where their
relationship, as he preferred to think of it, was headed. One way
or the other. He just had to decide if Tanya was worth a little bit
of his pride.

Turning to face the expansive picture
window, he peered inside. She didn’t appear as he hoped, but the
sight of couples milling about, stopping to admire various art
didn’t escape his attention. Goddamn it he wanted to be in there
next to her, if not admiring her work, at least enjoying her
company.

So yeah. His pride would have to take
a beating.

Each step back inside bolstered his
confidence. She’d seen something special enough to hire him in the
first place. The times they celebrated her successes together; the
past couple of days when they sorrowed together. All of it meant
something. Something with which they could build a future. He had
to find out if she thought they could. God knew he did. He had to
hear the verdict from her mouth. And the certainty he could
convince her they deserved a chance grew as he rounded the corner
where her paintings hung. He slowed to a stop when she looked up,
the astonishment on her face not good news.

“
Joe? How—”

Oh, Christ, he’d forgotten. “I meant
to explain, but got carried away earlier. Back at the condo.” The
illicit reminder had the desired effect. Her eyes lost some of the
stun arcing in them long enough for heat to flare in them for a few
seconds.

She stopped looking at him, and stared
once again at the paintings she hadn’t expected to be there. The
ones whose charred edges and black overlay seemed a part of the
design and not the result of a horrible fire. “Why did you do
this?”

Joe had convinced Tanya to stay at
home and let him deliver her paintings because of this hasty
decision. He’d considered letting her in on his plan, but he’d
wanted to spare her from the crushing blow if her hope had been
raised but then dashed to pieces if Mr. Killian had said
no.

He’d saved what he could. Working
quickly, praying like hell for more time and a steady hand, he
extracted the best portions of her paintings with a straight edged
knife. That she’d never actually completed them all had been a kind
of help. The paintings on the outside of the stack were toast, but
the ones nearer the walls, parts of them deserved to be framed. And
he found a shop willing to do the rush job. The resultant display
made it look like she painted only portions of her model on
purpose. Getting Mr. Killian to agree to their showcase took a
little more work, but in the end, he’d relented.

“
I should have told you
about it. I really don’t have an excuse.”

Speaking of, the devil sauntered up
before Joe could finish. “Here you are, Tanya. I should have
expected you to be right here. Ah, and with the ever charming Mr.
Boyd.” The smile splitting Mr. Killian’s face made him seem less
like the enemy and more like a dark-skinned Santa Claus. “I thought
you should be the first to know, my dear, that your work has
generated some great interest.”

Tanya shot Joe a look. It didn’t fill
him with the warm and fuzzies. “That’s good to hear,” she said
between tight lips.

He studied the paintings as he spoke.
“I wasn’t so keen on the series, the look you were going after, but
that’s the good thing about art. Just because I don’t like it,
doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it. And girl, they love
it.”

She tried to smile, Joe had to give
her credit, but what happened to her face didn’t make her look
friendlier at all. “Well, you know what they say about taking
lemons and making lemonade and all that.”

Mr. Killian shrugged. “I suppose.
Although now I’m torn as to whether we should sell them
individually or as a true series not to be separated. Do you have a
preference?”

“
Not this second, but if
you don’t mind, I need to talk to Joe in private. Could you give us
a minute? I’ll get back to you, I promise.”

“
Well, sure!”

Tanya waited for a respectable
distance to separate them before meeting his eyes. “You decided on
your own to salvage my art?”

Damn, this wasn’t good. “Yeah, I’m
sorry. I should have asked you first.”

“
You’re right. You should
have.” A minute of silence passed before she spoke again. “Why did
you do it?”

He had to pause to think of a
satisfactory answer. The real one sounded crazy. “Because I like
seeing you happy. I told you.”

She stepped closer, her hand reaching
up to clasp his shoulder. “Now tell me the truth about why you did
it.”

“
What?”

“
The truth, Joe. I want to
know what compelled you to do this.”

“
You don’t like
it?”

“
I am so grateful to you
for it, but I want to know why.”

“
Does it really matter why
then? I did it and hopefully your partnership with Mr. Killian is
salvaged. It sounds like you have sales coming your way as a
result…”

Her hand traveled to his face, stroked
his jaw. A voice as smooth as silk blanketed him. “Please…Tell me
why.”

What did she want? It accomplished the
goal. Didn’t she understand he’d do just about anything for her?
“You couldn’t afford to miss this show.”

She reached up with her other hand,
cupping his face until he had no other choice but to look straight
into her brown eyes. “You said it once. Please…tell me again.
Why?”

“
Because, Tanya—” He wanted
to drop his gaze. The intensity of emotion surrounding them was
almost too much to bear, but he stood firm. So much tender
expectation stared back at him. “Because…I love you.” He found his
courage trying to shirk away and forced it into submission. “I have
for a while now.”

“
Thank you,” she
murmured.

The last thing he expected when she
lifted herself on her toes was a delicate kiss placed on his mouth.
He closed his eyes, relishing in the feel of her, the loveliness of
his artist’s touch. She made a soft noise against him, and he
wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close. The small tentative
spark of fire grew into a conflagration he had no plans of
taming.

Her hands trailed over his back,
bringing him closer, igniting more passion. He whispered the words
over her lips again and again. Anything to keep this contact, this
pleasure flowing over them. “I love you. I love you…”

By the time they pulled apart, he
wasn’t so sure he’d be able to wait for the ride home to show her
the full extent of his feelings. The need to be next to her, their
bodies rocking together toward oblivion consumed him. She voiced
his thoughts before he could though. “Can we go now, you think?
Back to your place?”

He’d double dog dare anyone to get in
the way. She clasped the hand he held out. “C’mon,
sweetheart.”

Together they made it to the door in
record time. A frowning Mr. Killian stepped through it from the
outside as they sidled past. The scent of a rich, spicy cigar
hovered around him. “Leaving, Tanya? You never told me what you
wanted to do about the series.”