Brush Strokes (2 page)

She squeezed those
gloriously fleshy globes, his body tensing and then relaxing in her
grip. This freedom he allowed her, to explore and to
feel
, God, it was a
treasure. Because he offered her himself, she decided she would
take his gift. All of it.

She released him long enough to let a
single digit trace small circles at the entrance to his cleft. With
one hand resting on his shoulder, the small shudder that gripped
him didn’t escape her attention. “Second thoughts, Joe?”

“
No.” He fooled no one. The
strain in that single word, his unwillingness—perhaps his
inability—to say more than that provided all the evidence she
needed. It didn’t stop her from tightening the circle, her finger
transitioning into an up-down motion that should have tickled his
skin.

“
Are you sure?”

His shoulder lifted when his chest
expanded. Running her finger over the crease in his ass forced a
deep breath from him. A sigh of apprehension…or could it be,
anticipation? “I started this. I’ll finish it.”

“
But this wasn’t what we
had in mind when you agreed to model for me,” she said softly, her
voice almost dropping into a murmur near his back. Even as she gave
him a chance out, a way to stop her before they proceeded much
further, she dipped into his crack. He gasped and the sound sent a
jolt to her ever dampening pussy.

“
Jesus,” he hissed. It took
him a moment, but he found his words again. “I wouldn’t allow this
of just anyone. You know that, right?”

“
Bend over.”

“
Tanya…I…”

“
Finish it, Joe. Bend
over.”

She opened her eyes in time to catch
him still, as if weighing his options. She used his hesitation to
study him closer. The view from back here was spectacular. Broad
shoulders. Wide back. Tapered waist. And that ass. His fabulous,
wonderful ass. She’d been very fortunate he’d responded to her ad.
Not too tall or too lean. Not too bulky or too flabby. He provided
exactly what she needed to complete the commissioned
series.

Never before had she
attempted to be the sexual dominant. She didn’t try to kid herself
into thinking they hadn’t crossed a line from detached,
professional interest to something just shy of foreplay any longer.
But really, she liked this feeling. This ability to make him
acquiesce. Perhaps because she had to order him into different
appropriate poses during their times together, plying him to her
will came easily now.
Stand like this. Put
your hand here. Tilt your face toward the light.
Bend over.

His back rounded when his shoulders
descended, his body kowtowing to her demand. He adopted a position
of complete submission. By the time he rested in a final stance,
his hands gripped his calves.

She could have done what he imagined
she would. She had the opportunity to explore his dark rosette
opening, but that had never been her intention at all.

Tanya bent slightly, grazing her
fingers over the taut skin of his testicles, relishing the
tightness of the sac. Heat radiated from his skin, warming her cool
fingertips as she traced the fine line dividing his treasure. This
time she succumbed to licking her lips, her mouth now a desert of
moisture from the moment she began to explore his sensitive
details.

“
Tanya.” His voice
trembled, turning her name into a plea.

“
Finish it,” she soothed,
moving her hand to the stiffened column of his cock.

Later, she might not be able to say
what prompted her boldness. Why she felt the need to stroke over
him, but the surge of power that ripped through her veins when he
bucked encouraged her. She wrapped one hand on his thigh, the
muscles there flexing, and used the other to travel his length
until she met the spongy tip. Joe choked out a low groan while her
fingers glided over the drop of moisture gathered there.

She rested her head against him,
letting her face brush against his leg. His hair prickled her
cheek, a new sensation she’d tuck away for later use. Now, she
focused on touching his sex. Learning it.

The skin was smooth, velvet-like. Each
time she moved her hand down, stopping only when she reached the
base, her movement coaxed the skin into following her path before
it released into its original position again. She’d never focused
on this before. Never put so much concentration into memorizing the
ridges on a cock. The place where the tip flared out, the rim of
sensitive skin. The leaking opening.

So many places for her fingers to
explore.

“
Tanya, please.” He
swallowed, the sound breaking his gulp for air.
“Please…”

“
Please?”

He shifted and she thought
she might have gone too far. Hell, she
knew
she’d gone too far, but since
she already stood on the ledge of a cliff, might as well jump with
both eyes open.

Joe’s hand covered hers and together
they stroked him harder. Faster. His thigh rubbed against her face,
his hips chasing the pleasure they brought him. She slid her other
hand down his leg, then back up his thigh. Her hand found the place
where his leg hair thinned, right beneath the curve of his ass. He
moaned, a coarse guttural sound that sent a shiver down her spine.
“I’m close…”

“
Show me, Joe. Show me how
to touch you.”

Her husky tone, maybe her words, were
enough to send him over his own ledge. Joe’s body tensed before he
cried out. His cock swelled, a subtle change she almost didn’t
notice, before intense heat and wetness spilled into her palm. He
pulsed twice more before he collapsed to his knees.

She pulled her hand free, at first
rubbing her fingers together, testing the smooth stickiness. Joe
turned his face up to look at her. His face was flushed, his blue
eyes dark with arousal. Something about seeing him this way doused
some of the fires raging in her blood, though. Her stained and
spattered smock became the recipient of the remnants of his essence
when she wiped her hand against it.

She wanted to capture this moment in
color and pencil. In vivid brightness and delicious sensuality.
Now. Had to get it sketched out before she lost it. To capture the
sound of his release, his erotic groan, and somehow translate it
for the world to witness and enjoy. Everyone deserved to know the
way he felt beneath her hands, to know what it was like to feel a
man share himself so intimately.

With barely a look back at him, she
walked to the easel and sat on the waiting stool situated before
it. As he’d promised, she’d discovered new textures and wanted to
immortalize them before the memory faded. Her attention squarely on
the canvas, she called to him, “You can see yourself out. We’ll
start at eight on Thursday.”

Silence met her ears, but she didn’t
linger on that fact. The painting called to her.

So much to do.

Chapter Two

For fuck’s sake, how did he end up
here? Never in a million years would Joe have imagined that a
modeling gig placed him—nude, of all things—square in the sights of
an exotic goddess. Tanya’d have him by the balls if she ever heard
him call her that, but the woman’s beauty stunned him.

Rich brown skin. Beautiful dark brown
eyes. A smile that could stop men in their tracks. And those
curves. Damn if he didn’t want to spend every waking minute of the
next year running his hands over the power of her thighs, the dip
in her waist, the fullness of her breasts.

Now look at him. He spent the last
twenty-four hours replaying what she’d done to him. What they’d
done together.

Every second of her skin against his,
her hand cradled in his, her fingers stroking him reverberated in
his mind until today’s resultant erection was hard enough to break
in two. Not like this was the first time she’d left him in such a
condition.

That she didn’t know the effect she
had on him was almost icing on the cake. For the past two months
when he posed for her, every mundane thought, every tedious list,
every repulsive thing he could think of kept his body from
betraying him in her presence. He forced himself into counting
ceiling tiles, memorizing patterns in the carpeting, looking for
forgotten cobwebs in the corners…hell, anything to keep his
attention away from her.

Inevitably though, his gaze drifted
toward her. Sculpted eyebrows always knitted together when she
concentrated on the painting before her. Whenever she focused on
what to do next, or studied him, she’d pull the end of her
paintbrush into her mouth and gnaw on the end. He wanted to
admonish her for that bad habit, noting the streaks of paint and
splinters of wood she ingested, but held himself in check. Tanya
had no clue he existed in those moments. She looked through him,
never once seeing him as a man, but forever an object to be
recreated by her hands.

As the weeks passed, so did her
frustration with her work. Lines beneath her eyes etched deeper.
Her hands spent less time creating on canvas, and more time tapping
against her thigh. He’d heard artists could be temperamental, but
he’d yet to see her lose her cool. Until yesterday…

Never had he once thought she’d end up
running her hands over him. Not once did it occur to him she’d jack
him off by the time they were through. Rushing headlong toward
orgasm, his mind a blur of fantasy and eroticism, the hope of a
future together, starting with something as simple as meeting for
coffee gripped something deep inside of him. He held on to it as
his essence pulsed out of his body, turning his insides to mush.
Reality slammed home the second it was done. And her casual
dismissal afterward reinforced the unlikelihood of unrealized hope
and then cut through him like a knife.

Fuck.

What a mess. The woman had given him
one insane orgasm and it inspired him to now scour rows of a
neighborhood outdoor market for some trinket, an honorarium of
sorts, for that service. No, not just that service. Thinking that
way trivialized what occurred. What he wanted instead was some way
to get her to notice him as something other than muscles and bone
structure.

He ignored the sellers’ calls for him
to look at their selection of fruits and vegetables or to try free
samples of exotic condiments. Used books stacked in rows on tables
that didn’t look strong enough to hold a single sheet of paper,
much less the burden of yellowed tomes, were equally ignored. Tanya
was an artist. She lived in a simple one-bedroom apartment, using
what others meant to be a living room as her bedroom. The single
space meant for her privacy had been turned into an artist’s
studio.

Something about the lone twin-sized
bed placed in immediate sight of the entranceway went with her
personality. Sparse furniture, no doubt thrift store specials,
spoke not of her income-level, but more so, her preference for
simplicity. Paintings and sketches of her design decorated the
walls.

His favorite, the one that caught his
eye every single time he entered her apartment, hung in a small
alcove. In the self-portrait, her eyes glistened with a realism
that mesmerized him. If the eyes were a window to the soul, in this
painting, he saw every act of kindness, every ounce of caring,
every burden of hurt coloring her spirit within. Her smile rivaled
the Mona Lisa’s, her mysteriousness a riddle never meant to be
solved. She looked off-painting, her attention on something in the
distance the viewer did not have the privilege to see. Whatever it
was both amused and aroused her. At least the healthy flush in her
cheeks betrayed her heightened state. Hell, it might have just been
his own wishful fantasy projected onto the painting. Nonetheless,
it was there whenever he looked.

He scanned the different booths as he
walked, trying to sort in his mind what single item she might
prefer. Plants, beat-up electronics, sunshades and cellular phones
passed in front of him. Jewelry…

Jewelry.

He slowed to a stop. The diamond
solitaire stage hadn’t been broached; he wasn’t even in the same
zip code as that thought, but perhaps something else here might
suit his artist. Standing before the glass-enclosed stands, he
sought a suitable match for her capricious nature. Her sense of
spirit. The whimsy in her eyes, the infectious nature of her
laugh.

Wait…whimsy? Yeah, maybe he ought to
spend a little less time in bourgeois coffee shops and a little
more time riding Harleys and spitting.

Stifling a chuckle, Joe leaned closer
to the glass, noting with some dismay that the grime covering its
surface forced him to peer harder at the contents. He flattened his
hand across its dinginess, pushing down a wince. The eager gaze of
the make-shift stand’s proprietor was like a weight on his
shoulders. The man’s ample size shuffled forward surprisingly fast,
but considering how empty most of the aisles were, maybe not.
Business must not be as brisk as he would have liked.

“
May I help
you?”

Joe kept his gaze down, still scanning
the neat rows. “Just looking,” he mumbled.