Brush Strokes (4 page)

“
Humor me, Tanya,” he said,
withdrawing from her embrace at last. He went to the stack and
extracted the first painting, the one he’d spent the most time
reviewing. “This one is fantastic. Start with this one and see what
happens when you try to finish it.”

It was a damned good
painting. He seemed celestial in it, but still, she had her
reservations about any further progress at this point. She loved
that he wanted to help, but he didn’t get it. “Joe, I have moved on
since that one. That was one of our first together.
Months ago.
I’ve grown a
little since then and even what you’ve shown me yesterday comes
across clearly
today
in what I paint.”

“
I don’t accept you cannot
take what you’ve learned and apply it now.”

“
On top of what’s already
there?”

“
Of course.”

“
It’s not the same style.
What makes my paintings mine will be there, but the signs of my
growth will contrast sharply with what’s already there. At least it
should.”

He moved away, painting in hand, and
headed toward her studio. “What choice do you have?”

None. The answer was
simple.

She stood rooted to the spot, unable
to call out to him to stop. Hell, to even come up with a better
game plan. Joe wasn’t an artist; he couldn’t understand what he
asked was impossible. Her mind didn’t allow her the luxury of
starting something and then stopping, at her whim. Her creativity
came in unexpected bursts of energy. She was either ready to deal
with it the moment it hit or she wasn’t. With the disorder of Mr.
Killian’s visit weighing heavily on her mind, the last thing she
felt was creative.

Art burned inside of her. Thrived. She
didn’t know how not to create. Even in the past when she’d decided
to pursue a career a lot more lucrative and a lot more stable, she
always found herself drawn back to the canvas. But just because art
was a part of her didn’t mean it always came when called. Bitch of
a thing.

Maybe she could give her benefactor a
call. Have a serious heart to heart with the man. Maybe he’d
understand.

Maybe she’d hit the lotto on the way
over to his place, too.

With a resigned sigh, she headed
toward the studio. She’d try. She could offer nothing
more.

Once inside, her stride
broke the moment she spotted Joe. He’d stripped and waited
expectantly for her arrival. As many times as she’d seen him naked,
she couldn’t get used to her immediate reaction. Her perusal of his
body forced a small mental utterance of thanks for
man
-kind.

And when he struck that pose? The one
that made his entire body stretch into its own work of art, a
stance of power. One that made it very clear he knew the level of
his own sensuality, her heart thudded loudly against her ribcage.
Every. Single. Time.

Focus.
Employee, not lover. Employee, not eye-candy.
Employee.

Oh, but damn. Her mind betrayed her
with the image of him on his knees yesterday, weakened by an orgasm
they’d wrung out of him. A strange thrill of exhilaration made her
blood pump wildly in her veins from the knowledge she’d done that
to him. Maybe, just maybe, he shook loose thoughts of her as his
employer and could slide easily into a different kind of
relationship with her instead.

One day she’d have to find out what he
felt like. How spreading her legs for him, pussy dripping with
cream, breasts taut with anticipation, hands curled into fists at
her sides…she would find out what it meant to fuck him. Lift her
hips to heaven and let him sink his cock into her velvet-lined
folds. The same folds she stroked with trembling hands after they
finished an art session. Sometimes before he’d even made it to the
sidewalk outside of her apartment.

Employee.
Right.

Tanya donned the smock hanging from a
peg on the wall and walked to the easel. A frown crossed her
features when she reached for the palette because her stupid hands
were trembling. Trembling! What was that about?

She shrugged it off; she
had other things to worry about. Despite the little homage she paid
when she ogled Joe, she sent a loose petition for help to her muse
and got ready to work. Thoughts of art shows only four days away
were shoved aside and she uncapped a tube of paint.
Focus.

“
It’s time for a
break.”

Tanya looked past the canvas.
“What?”

Joe rolled his head over his shoulders
in an exaggerated motion. “Time for a break. My muscles are locking
up on me.”

“
But Joe,” she griped,
looking toward the wall clock. “Oh.”

He chuckled. “Not as hard as you
thought it’d be, huh?”

Five hours. When the hell
had that much time passed? She’d spent so much time fussing and
prepping and fixing. There wasn’t a lot of progress on the painting
to speak of, but there
was
progress.

Joe sidled next to her, his attention
on the canvas. “You are…amazing, Tanya. Wow.”

His arm wrapped around her waist and
she settled into his touch before realizing what they were doing.
The move, his closeness was so natural. That he complimented her
work didn’t hurt, either.

Neither did the presence of his nudity
against her clothed body.

“
It’s not finished yet,”
she said, more so for some distraction from his heat.

“
No,” he agreed, “but
you’re right. You’ve grown since you started this piece and I can
tell the difference with what you’ve done already.”

His jaw brushed hers when he spoke. It
took every effort to not imagine what the slightly rough feel of
his face might feel like against other sensitive parts of her body.
In between her spread thighs, for instance… “I have you to thank
for a lot of that.”

“
Oh?”

“
I don’t think I’ll ever
forget yesterday,” she replied slowly, softly.

“
Me neither.” His thumb
made some very delicious circles beneath the denim of her overalls,
right over the thin slip of t-shirt covering her belly. Between his
touch and his proximity, she could have curled her toes in bliss.
If he could elicit that reaction with her clothing on, for heaven’s
sake, what could he do when nothing separated them? Hell, she’d
never noticed when his hand slipped between her clothing. Odder
still, his removal of it when he shifted away left a mild ache.
“I’m starving. How about you?”

She shook her head. “I’ll eat later. I
need to work now. Take five though.”

He stopped. “When’s the last time you
had something to eat?”

“
I had some coffee this
morning.”

The corner of his mouth edged up. “No,
I mean real food.”

If a bowl of cold cereal counted,
she’d eaten early last night. “Dinner yesterday.”

“
It’s past four in the
afternoon and the last time you ate was almost twenty-four hours
ago?”

“
I guess.” Put that way, it
sounded so criminal.

His face set into a look of distaste.
Reaching down, he retrieved his pants from the floor and then
slipped into them. “You have until I come back to work some more.
Then you and I are both taking a break to eat something. You mind
if I pillage your fridge?”

Oh shit. “Joe, it just struck me that
today’s Wednesday.”

“
Yeah.”

“
I can’t pay you for today.
You’ll have to take tomorrow off to balance it out.”

“
We’ll work something out
later, okay?”

“
But—”

“
I can either go out and
get something for us to eat or we can eat what’s here. What’ll it
be?”

The abrupt change in topic distracted
her for a nanosecond from the state of her dwindling finances.
Reimbursing him for food expenses went beyond her budget. “Uh,
here’s fine. There’s some fruit or something around.”

“
Good. Then I’ll be back in
a few.”

In her mind, she captured a snapshot
of his retreating form for later use. Perhaps an in-motion painting
that immortalized his smooth stride. For now, though, she’d better
pay attention to what rested in front of her.

The painting wasn’t bad. Actually, to
use Joe’s words, it was amazing. Not complete yet, but a few more
hours and she might get it there. His insistence that she learn
what he felt like paid off in spades. The subtle changes in
texture, the depth of feeling that existed now hadn’t been evident
more than five hours ago. Granted, her work could always use
improvement, but the difference between now and then was like night
and day. He’d inspired her in thirty minutes with something she
hadn’t grasped in three years of free-lancing.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he
stepped through the doorway with a plate balanced in his hand. A
simple cloth napkin covered its surface. She’d have to lift it to
see what he’d come up with for them to snack on. Tanya reached out
when he approached, intent on helping him out, but Joe pulled the
plate away.

“
Not yet,” he tsked. “I
want you to come with me.”

She cocked an eyebrow at that and
utilized his earlier one word question. “Oh?”

He crooked a finger at her with his
free hand and resigned, she followed. What was he up to? She got
her response a minute later when they settled against the small
love-seat.

“
Lesson two,” he
announced.

Her gaze traveled to the still-covered
plate. Perhaps she should be a little bit apprehensive about what
lay hidden beneath. “Joe?”

“
You trusted me yesterday,
so trust me today.”

Good point. “Fine,” she said, albeit
reluctantly.

Heat flared in his eyes. “You shied
away from ‘taste’ yesterday, but I think that’s where we should go
next, okay? It’s the next simplest.”

Taste? There were only so many things
he could want her to put her mouth on. Parts of his anatomy that
she needed to run her tongue, her lips over.

Her breathing picked up.
Employee,
employee
, oh hell…

As with yesterday, she quickly lost
ground to that way of thinking.

“
There’s always smell,” she
offered. The squeak in her voice might as well have belonged to a
virgin on her wedding night.

He considered that for a moment.
“True, but taste suits my needs about now.”

His
needs
? Oh my...

He glanced toward the plate and then
looked at her again with a grin pushing up his cheeks. “You can
lose that panicked expression. I’m just going to feed you, you
nut.”

Oh. The breath she’d been holding
escaped in a rush. “Okay.”

“
Good. Close your eyes.” He
leaned closer. “And
keep
them closed.”

Despite every compulsion to giggle
with a cross between relief and disappointment, she did as he
asked. When was the last time she’d allowed a man to pamper her
like this?

“
Open,” he
commanded.

Her mouth parted and Joe slipped a
small wedge between her lips. The sweet, tangy taste of apple
exploded through her senses a second later. She crunched down on
the morsel, her stomach offering up a rumble of contentment at
finally being fed. So maybe a single bowl of cereal in twenty-four
hours wasn’t enough to subsist on.

“
What does it taste
like?”

“
An apple.”

He laughed. “No, describe the taste of
apple to me. Act like I’ve never had an apple before.”

She thought about that as she chewed.
“It’s floral. You can smell it inside your head before you actually
taste it. And when it finally strikes, it’s this sweet and tangy
flavor rolled into one.”

“
What else?”

“
The texture is soft on the
surface, but you have to really bite down to get through to the
core. It’s slightly rough, but not like sandpaper. Rough like the
way a piece of construction paper feels.”

“
Excellent description.
Anything else?”

Something pressed against her lips and
she opened them. He offered her another bite of the apple and she
took it in for more analysis. It went on like that. Apple, banana,
peanut butter, some stale crackers. She never knew what would come
next, but he refused to let her get away with not describing it to
him, no matter how simplistic. One thing she did notice was the way
his fingers lingered against her lips when he fed her. The more
food she ate, the more decadent she felt. Surprisingly, also more
aroused.

Minutes passed by quickly and although
guilt for abandoning her painting tried to creep its way in, she
refused to turn her attention toward it. If Joe hadn’t been there
at the right time, she might not have accomplished as much as she
had. Yesterday he’d earned her respect. Today, he deserved her time
without interruption.

Only her bird-like appetite prevented
her from enjoying their snack for too much longer. About to
proclaim her fullness, she opened her mouth one last time. Her lips
pulled on the long rectangle of cheese she recognized almost
immediately, but when they closed, brushed against a new
texture.