Selling Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 1) (9 page)

"Let's go," I told him, nodding to the door.

Onyx just gave me one more of those enigmatic, knee-wobbling smiles before stepping out so that I could follow after him and lock up behind me.

Chapter Ten

*

Sure enough, Onyx's study happened to be only a few blocks away, close enough to walk. Idly, I wondered whether Carter had helped the artist rent out this space, before Onyx glanced over at me with those dark eyes and thoughts of any other man fled my mind like shadows from a spotlight.

"This is where I work," he said, spreading his arms wide as he stepped back into the big, open space.

I nodded, following after him (although being careful to keep a couple of feet between us, just in case that proximity-based seduction field of his seized control of my brain again). Trying to keep my mind off of Onyx, maybe sweaty and holding a hammer and chisel, peeling off his shirt as he worked, wiping the sweat from his dark brow... er, right. I quickly focused my attention on the space.

In all honesty, it really was a very nice living and working space. The interior of the warehouse was largely open and untouched, with exposed steel girders overhead and windows set into the walls along the top of the structure to let in tons of natural light. Beams of sunlight lanced down, illuminating rectangles across the ground.

On one side of the interior of the warehouse, I saw the workshop - big blocks of stone were stacked on pallets, and I saw several boards on the walls holding a wide variety of tools. I saw chisels galore, of course, as well as all different sizes of hammers, but there were plenty of other stone carving tools that I couldn't even name.

On the other side of the warehouse, a wooden multi-panel screen shielded the far side from view. "What's over there?" I asked, nodding towards it.

Onyx smiled at me. "That's where I eat and sleep when I'm not working on my art. Would you like to see?"

"No, that's okay," I replied casually, as my heart nearly leapt out of my chest as it thudded. Onyx's bed! Someplace horizontal, where he probably slept naked, his muscled form on display on top of the silk sheets, where he brought back the women he picked up so that he could show them his own prodigiously sized statue...

I quickly moved across the warehouse floor towards the workshop side. "Are these some of the finished pieces?" I asked, nodding over to where a sheet covered up a bunch of lumpy but otherwise unclear shapes beneath.

Onyx nodded, moving after me. "In fact, this is one of the pieces that I haven't yet managed to move," he said, reaching for the sheet. "I approached Preston about displaying it in the gallery, but he wasn't sure that he would have enough floor space."

Before I could respond to that, Onyx twitched the sheet aside, and I gasped out loud as I saw what lay beneath.

Holy crap. Talk about an imposing statue! The piece that had been hidden beneath the sheet was smooth black stone, much like Onyx's other pieces, but this one was most definitely oversized, big enough to make any woman's eyes water with pain as she imagined it in real life, and definitely more than big enough to make any man, no matter how much heat he packed down south, feel totally inadequate. Hell, I could straddle the thing and practically ride it around like a horse!

"Oh my god," I gasped out.

Onyx smiled again at me. "My inspiration came from a beautiful documentary on Africa," he said. "The unsullied beauty of the wilderness there lit an inner fire in me, and despite the lateness of the hour, I couldn't sleep until I'd carved the rough shape of this piece. It took far longer than I expected to finish, but I truly believe that it's one of my finest pieces, and an incredible representation of my work."

"Yeah, Africa," I echoed faintly, wondering if the documentary, more specifically, had focused on elephants. "I, um, I can see why Preston might not have wanted it in his gallery."

Onyx frowned. "He said something about not being sure if the floorboards could accommodate the weight of the carving, I believe."

"Right, right, that's what I meant, too. The floorboards." Not because my Uncle Preston didn't want to have a five-foot stone cock sitting front and center in one of the rooms of his art gallery. My uncle had a fairly open mind, but I couldn't imagine even him going quite this far in embracing the art.

Hah, embracing the art. Looking at the massive shape, I doubted that I could even get my hands wrapped around the thing. Onyx certainly had a grandiose imagination.

"I wonder if he measures up," Portia's voice whispered inside of my head, and my face momentarily went blank as I clamped down on that line of thinking before it could progress any further.

Fortunately, a different line of thinking had instead started up in my head, one that could probably do a much better job of helping me out in the short term. "But you do want to sell this piece, right?" I asked Onyx.

He nodded. Was that a glimpse of regret in his eyes? I couldn't tell in the shadows and dappled sun streaming in through the high windows of the warehouse space. "Yes, although the price is quite high. This is a piece for a true collector, one who can appreciate the imagery that I'm trying to capture."

"Or someone who just really, really wants to brag," I added, but I made sure to say it under my breath, soft enough so that Onyx wouldn't hear.

In my head, however, I was already running mental calculations. I had already seen the prices on some of Onyx's smaller statues in the gallery, and I knew that they commanded impressive prices. From what Uncle Preston had told me, they actually sold, too - people really wanted to pay thousands of dollars to have an oversized stone penis sitting in their house! And if those little ones went for thousands, this one probably had to cost at least ten, maybe twenty times that amount...

I thought about five percent commission on a six figure sale, and my pupils practically transformed into dollar signs like I was a cartoon character. That would be enough to pay Barry back for everything, to get me clear of this whole divorce once and for all, just on its own! Any other commission that I made would be free to go to other areas, like helping me pay for a nicer apartment, or giving me a buffer in case I decided to switch jobs, or maybe getting a new wardrobe so that I could move on with a new man...

"And you're willing to let me work with you to sell this?" I asked Onyx, just to confirm.

He looked over at me. "Yes, I haven't shown it to anyone else. I planned to put it up for public auction in another month or so, but I would be satisfied if you sell it, too."

"Great," I murmured, my mind dancing away on piles of imagined dollar bills flooding into my bank account.

Onyx drifted in towards me. I'd been distracted by the big statue he'd unveiled (who wouldn't be distracted by one of that size?), and didn't notice him drawing closer behind me until he reached out and gently laid a hand on my shoulder. "Rebecca," he murmured.

I nearly jumped a foot in the air. "What?" I squeaked.

"You have a lot of stress in your life, I can tell." Onyx's hand remained on my shoulder, and I felt the heat of his body soaking into me. Almost against my better urges, I leaned slightly back against him, feeling his strength behind me. "You need to release some of that."

I really didn't want to start down this path, especially in a warehouse with a whole bunch of erotic black stone penises on one side of me and a bed on the other side behind a screen. This seemed like the perfect place for me to make bad decisions.

"Yeah, I know - I'm working on it," I told Onyx, fighting a raging internal battle to try and move away from his warmth, his touch. "But I don't think that I'll be able to get any of it out until I've made some changes."

"If there's any way that I can help, just let me know."

God, he even made those innocent words sound like practically an invitation to go join him in a sweat-soaked love fest. Even glancing up at him, I still wasn't totally convinced that he wasn't suggesting I peel off my clothes and join him for the two-person horizontal tango, right here and now in the shadow of his giant stone dong.

"Just don't sell the piece until you've given me a chance," I said, finally managing to win the battle against my libido and step back so his hand slid off of my shoulder. "If I can sell this, it will really help with my problems, more than you realize."

Onyx nodded. "You've got my word." He smiled at me, and those white teeth even glinted in the dimness of the warehouse. "But perhaps, in exchange, once you've released a bit of that anxiety you carry..."

"Then what?"

"I'm always looking for a model to provide me with inspiration," he murmured, and this time there was no denying it. His low-pitched, rich voice practically dripped sex and arousal, making new beads of sweat break out as my body yelled at me to not be a fool and jump on him before this perfect specimen got away.

"I'll, uh, I'll keep that in mind," I stammered, turning towards the door. "But hey, look at the time! I really ought to get back to the gallery and reopen - I'm sure there's a line of senior citizens out the door by now, all of them waiting anxiously to buy something. Wouldn't want to disappoint them, would we?"

I knew that I was babbling, but Onyx didn't interrupt me. He watched me go, back-pedaling out of his warehouse studio and home, a smile still flickering around his lips. I couldn't tell if he was happy because he'd flirted with me, because he'd gotten me off balance, or just because I'd promised to sell his big ol' stonework penis for him, and I didn't stick around to ask.

I knew that, if I stayed for a minute longer, I'd be lost.

Outside the warehouse, I took a moment to get my breath back in the bright midday sunlight. "Be logical, Becca," I told myself. "Just because the guy drips sex appeal, that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do anything about it, or even think about it."

That's right. Don't think about Onyx's warm hand on you, how his coffee-with-cream skin would look against yours, about all those muscles that he's probably hiding under that tight black shirt, muscles that he's earned from swinging a hammer and chisel, about how he's probably got a nice big flesh model of his statues inside his pants, how good it would feel to sleep with someone who isn't Barry...

Okay, the deep breaths weren't helping me. I hurried back towards the art gallery, away from the warehouse, before I lost my fortitude and threw myself at Onyx's mercy, tearing off my clothes and begging him to ravage me until I couldn't even remember my own name.

Get back to the art gallery. Maybe eat something, calm down.

And then, I told myself, I'd figure out how in the hell I was going to go about finding a buyer for a massive, five-foot stone dick.

Chapter Eleven

*

Back in the office, I did some digging through the back office, trying to make sense of whatever strange form of an organizational system my Uncle Preston used. Eventually, I concluded that he didn't really have any sort of system in place at all, and just started pawing through everything.

What was I after? I wasn't completely sure if it existed, but I suspected that my uncle kept a list of all the "big fish" clients, those who were repeat visitors, or didn't blink an eye at dropping thousands of dollars on art that happened to grab their fancy.

I just needed to find a list of these whales, I thought, and then I could see about approaching them with the massive Onyx statue, convincing them that they totally needed to have this "rare, one-of-a-kind symbol of male virility" sitting somewhere on their property.

"These papers are totally mixed up," I finally said aloud, sitting back in the adjustable chair behind the desk and glaring at the stacks of mismatched sheets. "I'm never going to find anything here."

Still, I didn't have much else to do. I needed to keep watch for customers, of course, but that wouldn't occupy most of my time. I grabbed a big stack of the papers and carried them out to the front desk, where I could both sort through them and keep one eye out for any customers who wanted to actually buy something.

By mid-afternoon, I'd sorted the huge, disorganized mass of papers into several rough stacks. One stack just held receipts and other materials related to previous purchases. If nothing else, I told myself, I could dig through those and look for repeat big spenders. Another stack held purchase orders and other invoices, while a third pile seemed to be made of nothing but scrawled notes that Preston left in his distinctive wobbly cursive.

A couple of customers did come in, but they were of the little old lady variety. I had already started to figure out that, just from looking at the customer when he or she entered the shop, I could tell whether they were interested in buying, or if they were just going to browse for ten minutes and then leave empty-handed. These customers didn't warrant a second look. I let them browse at their leisure while I focused on peering at Preston's writing to try and read his scrawl.

Finally, just as I was considering giving up on the whole thing and dumping all the papers back into their disorganized mess in the back room once again, I struck pay dirt. Uncle Preston had written out, on several sheets of lined paper, contact information and lists of purchases for several people.

These were my whales.