I hadn’t exactly been in my right mind when I’d fallen asleep last night. For way more reasons than I wanted to actually entertain.
If I had been, I would have drawn my blinds and black-out curtains to get a bit more sleep. As it was, I still felt like my brain had been replaced with cotton batting. Whether it was from a very busy night with my own personal rockstar, or the two-day painting binge I’d just come off of, I wasn’t sure.
Regardless, a handful of hours wasn’t enough.
“Yeah.” He blew out a breath. “I understand. No, I know what an opportunity it is.” His shoulders tightened and his back muscles rippled.
I reached over my head for the sketchbook I kept on the shelf above me. A nub of a pencil rolled down with it as if it was meant to be. I quickly sketched a swirl of messy hair, swept down to the lean lines of his hips, his ridiculously wide shoulders…all of it came together in a few lines.
Because he was beautiful to draw?
Because I was very familiar with the subject matter was probably more like it. I didn’t care. A few real-life character studies were too tempting to resist.
I couldn’t help a smile as I filled in a shadow at the crack of his perfect butt. His jeans were falling down, held on by the surprising junk in his trunk. Especially since I knew firsthand he was packing in the front as well. It was rare for a man to have both without having to work for it.
While he was definitely muscular, I didn’t think Ian would ever be labeled a gym rat. I also had to hand it to him, he’d left his jeans on all night. And he’d slept around me the entire time.
At least I was pretty sure he had.
I was as sore as if I hadn’t moved for hours. But at the same time, I felt lighter, which was also new for me. Normally, I’d be ashamed of the tears I’d shed, but he’d just held me. He didn’t ask for anything last night. Orgasms, comfort, laughter—I’d taken it all. I’d been stressing about my collection for so long, it seemed like it was always over my head like a guillotine.
Okay, so that was a little over the top, but considering one of my studio-mates was building one to chop her work in half during her show—well, let’s just say it was on my mind. That, and my advisor thought her work was awesome.
Mine, not so much.
The point of my pencil crumbled under the pressure of my fingers.
It also made a pretty sprinkle of ebony charcoal across his shoulders in my drawing. I used it to smudge in the hint of his tattoo.
I pushed away thoughts of my collection and focused on my flesh-and-blood model sitting in my studio. Gosh, he was pretty. Couldn’t deny that.
Suddenly, he glanced over his shoulder at me and the sharp line of his nose struck me. He narrowed his eyes at me before tossing his phone on my bed.
I did a quick study of his face with a few swipes of the barely there pieces left of my pencil.
“Are you drawing me?”
“Maybe.”
“Let me see.” He crawled toward me.
Suddenly shy, I folded my arms over my sketch pad and held it against my chest. “No.”
He grabbed my ankle and dragged me down under him. “Let me see.”
I laughed and bucked under him. I was still naked from the waist down and the hard line of his cock against my thigh made my blood rush and my skin tingle. But he didn’t seem to notice his…problem. I flung the pencil piece over my shoulder into the box I kept on the sill of the window, then managed to flip the page before he could pry it out of my hold.
“Oh, is that how it is?” He pinned me to the bed by straddling my thighs and grabbing my wrists.
“Yup.” I tried not to stare at the hard-on he was sporting, but it was seriously difficult to concentrate.
He gathered my wrists together with one of his hands. God, his fingers were long. And I so remembered just how talented they were last night.
He glanced above us and snatched one of my cameras off a shelf.
“Hey! You have enough of my cameras.” I wiggled under him and tried desperately not to drool over the sheer artistry of his chest and abs. Outrage was far easier to manage. “I’d like Matilda back, by the way.”
“Matilda?”