Rough Canvas (Nature of Desire 6)

Marcus snorted. "You start singing In the Navy, you're sleeping in that junk car of yours. "

Chapter Five

Marcus woke early, for him. Most of his work involved lunch meetings and nighttime gallery showings, networking parties that might not start until close to midnight. But as if his subconscious knew that every moment with Thomas was precious and not to be wasted, he stirred when the sun was still in the process of rising.

Not only that, he'd surfaced several times during the night. Once, he'd found Thomas' head on his chest. Marcus had his arm resting across his back while Thomas had his arm securely wrapped around Marcus' side and waist, his leg twined over one of Marcus'. Holding him in sleep as if Thomas was afraid he'd lose him.

"I missed you too, pet. " Marcus had stroked his head, pressing down to increase the weight of that precious skull against his heart. Thinking of how Thomas pressed on the burning spot in his belly so often, he wondered if this gesture was the same thing. A way to assuage the pain.

Fuck, saying he'd missed Thomas didn't cover it. He thought he'd understood the full extent of it, but when Thomas had pulled into the driveway, it had landed on Marcus like an asteroid.

It pleased him how deeply his farm boy slept. He'd made sure to wear him out physically. Just thinking of it made him want him again, but for now, Marcus wanted Thomas to sleep like this, shed some of his emotional and physical exhaustion.

But holy God, he was a beautiful kid. Broken down, the individual features didn't seem like much. At a glance, his nose appeared small, precise. But when the light hit his profile, it was a sharp blade sharing the same angle with the jaw and cheekbone, perfectly aligned.

Dark eyes, large to balance that small nose. Thomas' ears were larger, but again, somehow it worked. He had heavy brows that Marcus at first thought should be trimmed, plucked down, but very quickly he'd realized they were the perfect accent for the dark eyes and all the emotions that moved behind them, like silken streaks of clouds over a stormy sky. One dropped lower over the eye than the other, giving Thomas' face further intensity.

Though it was starting to curl, Thomas' hair was soft and short under Marcus' stroking fingertips, a conservative cut appropriate for a man raised in a rural county all his life. Shaved short sideburns, the hairline sculpted up and over the ears and trimmed properly above the collar. Marcus could almost imagine Thomas sitting in his mother's kitchen getting the cut, his eyes closed, nearly asleep after a hard day as her hands, those working woman's hands, touched his man's neck, the nape.

As she did it, Marcus was sure Elaine would be remembering the vulnerable shape of it as a boy. Isolated, that part of the body never lost the ability to project innocence.

He knew she loved Thomas. He'd never doubted that. The love was in Thomas' eyes as well when he spoke of her, protected her. It didn't make any of it easier. If anything, it made it harder.

His mother wasn't completely wrong. Marcus was well aware Thomas would never be an urbanite. He was at heart what he'd been raised. Modest, quiet. Not flamboyant in the least. Shy even, at times. He had a bashful tendency to look away when he smiled, but the smile was sexy, black Irish. Except when painting or at ease with Marcus, he typically had nervous gestures while he was talking with strangers.

Thomas was the type of person to hold a door for a woman, no matter what. He'd avert his eyes, uncomfortable and yet a gentleman if a woman's breast was exposed when she leaned over in the grocery line, or if he saw one nursing a baby in public.

Then, just as Marcus would decide Thomas was too gentle and boyish, something would raise his ire. That brow would lower, the eyes sharpening, all those straight lines of his face hardening, such that you were looking at the face of a man who wouldn't back down, wouldn't think of it, no matter the odds.

A man as irresistible as a hearth fire in winter. His proximity was heat and comfort at once.

Marcus had drifted off to sleep again reluctantly, only because he knew he'd need rest to enjoy Thomas fully. Now he found himself alone with the rising sun. He made himself lie there, pushing down panic. Glancing toward the half-open door of the bathroom, he located Thomas' shaving kit, along with a hairbrush with bristles so thinned out it looked as if Thomas had possessed it since puberty. Marcus suppressed a smile.

Rising, he slid on a pair of sweatpants and followed intuition out to the main room.

Coffee was brewing. Thomas didn't drink it often, but he knew Marcus did. Getting a cup, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he padded out to the back deck.

And there Thomas was, as welcome as the sunrise Marcus was rarely up to see.

Marcus leaned on the rail, looked down at the lower patio. Thomas had set up three easels with pads and there were two more sketchbooks on the ground, held open to the desired place with rocks he'd found from the surrounding natural area. He was doing a combination of pencil and charcoal renderings.

Thomas had always been fascinating to watch work, and Marcus knew he was one of the few who'd gotten the privilege. He compared it to the chance glimpse by a hiker of a rarely seen wild creature. Some part of his subconscious realized what a gift it was to be trusted to stand this close.

Knowing the creature might disappear any second made every moment it lingered that much more precious. Impossible to compare this to seeing its facsimile inside the manufactured environment of a zoo. Because of that, this was what Marcus wished Thomas' mother could see.

Had he given Thomas any room to think last night, Marcus was sure he would have started to worry. What if the muse didn't come? If she was truly dead? A worry Marcus had known to his marrow was completely without merit.

She'd obviously dragged Thomas out of bed sometime in the early hours before dawn. Marcus would have liked to have seen it, but he would enjoy this and not regret the missed moment.

Thomas would take the three or four concepts he was developing and bring them together into one layered image before he was done. Marcus knew he should be studying what Thomas was doing from a marketing standpoint. Start planning how he'd present it, reach the target buyer. But all he wanted to do was look at the artist. As incredible as Thomas' work was, it was nothing next to the work of art the artist himself was.

Marcus watched Thomas balance himself on his heels as he studied the work he'd done thus far. He had the unconscious grace of a dancer when he moved. It wasn't obvious, but with the dropped weight, it was even more enhanced.

His skin was brown from the Southern sun, the muscles on the rawboned physique nevertheless rolling beneath it like the powerful curve of a waterfall at the break point.

He ran a hand through his hair, back and forth, a gesture he made when he was thinking. It amazed Marcus, how he remembered every detail about him. It was as if he'd reviewed every gesture and feature in a photo album daily since he'd left, but he had no pictures of Thomas, except the painting he'd bought.

Now Marcus wondered why he hadn't gone after him sooner. But he'd always told Thomas when he wanted out, he wouldn't hold him, wouldn't make it uncomfortable.