***
Duncan watched Donna make herself comfortable. There was a look of absolute glee on her face that made him want to smile.
“Is this how you want me?” She’d tucked her feet under her and pulled a cushion over to use as a prop for her book.
Is this how you want me?
Her innocent question made his mouth go dry as images flooded his mind. Donna dressed in nothing but a white men’s dress shirt, reclining on the sofa with the soft early morning light bathing her pale skin. The shirt open to reveal a strip of skin down the centre of her body. Her hair loose around her shoulders, flowing over the blue material of the sofa. Her eyes slumberous with sensuality. He’d paint her surrounded by cool blues and purples, contrasting with the warm tones of her skin and the red gold in her hair.
“Duncan?” Donna’s voice jarred him back to reality. He blinked at her.
“What?”
“Is this okay?”
He cleared his throat. “Take your hair down for me.” Damn. He shouldn’t have added those last two words.
With her eyes on him, she reached up and took her hair from her ponytail she’d put in after their breakfast. “Like this?”
She spread it out over her shoulders. It was thick, luscious, and honey coloured, interwoven with several different shades of blonde and brown, that only truly came to life when the sun hit them in the right way. She was a siren, calling to him. He shook his head to clear it. He was a professional, and he’d painted plenty of people throughout his career. This was no different. He was just a little rusty after more than two years away from his work. That’s why Donna posing for him was affecting him strangely.
“Exactly like that.” The words came out huskier than he’d intended, and he feigned a cough to cover for himself.
“Should I start reading now?”
All he could do was give a terse nod. With a look of uncertainty, she turned back to her book, and Duncan watched her. No, not watched. He studied her.
The graceful line from her neck to her shoulder. The voluptuous curve of her waist to her hip. The elegance of her feet tucked beneath her. Long fingers, caressing the book. A hint of a smile, curving lips that were ripe and lush. Skin so smooth and translucent that it glowed in the soft light from the window.
Today, she wore a peach satin blouse, buttoned up to her throat, with soft pleats down the front. It billowed in the sleeve, falling softly around her delicate wrists. She’d teamed it with grey dress trousers that were far too smart for her pose—barefoot on a sofa with a book. Once again, she’d ignored his suggestion that she dress less business-like, but he knew if he challenged her about it, he would get the same answer: she was wearing what she wanted to wear. For some reason, that made him smile.
“What are you reading?” he found himself asking as he reached for the pastels on his drawing table. He’d sketch her in colour and try to capture the way the peach satin brought out the golds in her hair.
“The Hunger Games.” Thick, long, black lashes lifted as she looked up at him. Today, her eyes leaned closer to forest green than sea green.
He stared at her while his hand moved over the page in front of him. Sometimes it felt as though his talent worked independ
ently of his consciousness. “I don’t know that one.”
“It’s a teen book.” She paused as though waiting for him to comment on her taste in reading matter. He had nothing to say. Who was he to judge what she liked to read? “I’m at the bit where Katniss, she’s the heroine, shoots Marvel, one of the other challengers in the game. She gets him in the throat with an arrow and he drowns in his own blood.”
That stilled his hand.
He looked up from his sketchpad to stare at her. “Cheery,” he said at last.
With a mysterious smile, Donna returned her attention to her book. And he returned his attention to Donna.
***
Donna pretended to read but was all too aware of Duncan’s eyes on her. Even though she was fully dressed, she felt naked under his gaze. His dark eyes studied every inch of her as his hand flew over his sketchbook. Now and then, he’d frown before looking back and forth between her and his drawing, as though trying to work out a flaw in the comparison.
“I thought you were going to paint me?”
“Only an idiot approaches a canvas without a plan.”
His absolute passion for what he was doing made her sad that he’d spent so long without it. A talent like his, skill like his, needed to be shared with the world. Which reminded her of the scheme to get him out of the way during the ball. “You should take the art college up on its invitation to teach.”
His pastel pencil stilled, and his eyes focused on her in a way that made it clear he was now seeing her as a person rather than an object to study. “Where did that come from?”