Loving Grace (7 page)

She frowned. “Why do you say it like
that?”

“You have that expression, that serious
air.”

“I did admit that.” She shrugged. “You are,
thirty?”

He nodded. “A very good guess.”

There was silence, broken only by the weather
battering the outdoors.

“Can we take off the trousers today?”

She tried to hold to the fact he’d said it
matter-of-factly, but given that his voice was so smooth and deep,
it still sounded intimate. Grace sighed and felt a flush under the
paint. “I’ll try it.”

He nodded, stood and collected his palette.
He told her. “You take them off and stand there...I’ll paint the
rest and make repairs.”

The black slacks came off easily. Too fast
for Grace. She removed the shirt and didn’t look down at the silk
panties she wore; high cut legs, but low, just covering her curls.
She’d put on a sable brown without thinking. Or maybe it was
subconscious?

“That really tickles.” She looked straight
ahead. He was down on his knees, painting her, and so close at
times she felt his breath on her skin.

“Widen your stance.” When she did, he
corrected, “Put your foot up here, on the table.”

She did it, pretending he wasn’t painting
near her groin, and closed her eyes. He was behind her eventually,
and it seemed like forever before he was done and standing again.
Her breathing was choppy, her body tingling and aroused. She
decided it was going to happen, no matter what and she had no
ability to separate the artistic and the personal in her mind.

“We’re ready.”

She padded over and climbed on her perch,
feeling the fan, soon, hearing the loud music. He had her stand
still, then once more in the crouch. Her arms between her splayed
knees while her fingers touched the edge of the stump. Noel told
her to look at him.

An easy request to submit to.

It was a long session with few adjustments.
Grace watched him hold the brush in his teeth, switch to another,
and saw different emotions flicker across his face. Unable to guess
what they were helped to take her mind off her stiffening
muscles.

“Tilt your head back, look from under your
lashes.”

She did so, glad to move even one muscle.

A half-hour passed.

“Stand straight. Now arms reaching up.”

Eventually Grace moved without permission,
standing and shrugging, pointing to the bathroom. When he nodded,
still painting, she went to the restroom, standing again in awe of
the she-creature he created just by painting her skin. It made her
look taller, tauter, and feral. She bared her teeth at her image,
then laughed shortly. Temporary insanity, surely.

She was back, and this time, he had her stand
behind some high foliage and stare through the fanned branches. She
did it until he motioned her out and cut the music. Not saying much
as he walked to the cell phone and ordered lunch.

She was dressed when he answered the door.
They sat across from each other eating pizza, drinking soda, to the
same steady patter of rain.

When they were done, Noel stood and made
another call. Grace knew he was talking to Elise. She heard little
of it, and gave him privacy. She wandered around, seeing more of
the living area through the chain drape. Somehow, his mess wasn’t
mess. The rumpled bed was sexy with its red and champagne silk
covers. The clutter was mostly a pair of jeans over a chair, a
white dress shirt hanging on the wardrobe door, shoes at the foot
of the bed. She would have liked to view the canvases propped along
the wall, but they were turned away and she didn’t know if he was
touchy about that sort of thing.

She walked back to overhear him say he’d pick
her up later, and to tell Elisa to confirm their reservations.

Noel clicked off the phone and set it aside.
“We’ll work Wednesday if that’s all right?”

“Sure.” She went in search of her shoes and
pulled them on.

“I’ve got this press thing, and a dinner date
tonight. Tuesday I’m at the gallery. Are the morning hours okay
with you?”

“Yeah.” She took a quick shower then dressed
and got her coat and purse. She sensed he was distant, already out
of the groove when she left.

~ * ~

Tuesday Grace went to the gallery. She didn’t
go in, but parked out back and sat until closing. This time using
the high-powered lens and larger camera, she took shots of Elise
and Bryce going in after the guard locked up.

It so puzzled her that she timed how long
they stayed inside. She’d bought a tablet and began taking notes.
When they came out, she saw they were laughing, and then...Grace
held her breath as Bryce kissed Elise. Not a good-bye peck, but a
full embrace and a mutual one too. The petite woman kissed him
back. Even from a distance, it was passionate. Bryce’s hands were
hidden under the short hem of Elisa’s blue leather skirt and hers
were in his hair. Grace snapped a shot. They parted, talking
intimately with heads turned toward each other before he walked her
to her car.

Chapter Eight

It so bothered Grace, that she found herself
laying on her bed later, replaying it and wondering why Elise was
worried about Noel cheating when she was obviously doing so
herself? In addition, she certainly couldn’t imagine why Elise
would choose him over Noel. Of course, the man was like William,
suave and urbane. Noel was, well, he was different. A different
type of man; not slick, smooth, or even… Hell, what did she know?
His model-artist, relationships were likely different from his
affairs. She recalled that sexy offer to his girlfriend outside the
club. He was still a red-blooded male.

With her, he was entirely different,
objective, even distant.

She arrived at the loft on Wednesday,
wondering how much in love he might be with his beautiful
fiancée.

She’d worn another new outfit—a pair of red
jeans and a snug white top, with her hair simply piled atop her
head and a few strands blowing loose. She sat on the sofa, already
kicking off her black boots before she noticed that he hadn’t been
painting yet. He was sipping coffee, sitting in the green chair,
and he wore a T-shirt and darker jeans, some much worn and paint
spattered converse running shoes.

She sat under his gaze awhile. He hadn’t
spoken as she came in. “Want to reschedule?” She finally broke the
silence.

He placed the mug down between his feet and
sat back, ruffling his hair, mussing curls as he did so and
confessing, “I’m having an off day.”

“Everyone does.” She slid her boots back on,
then sat back a moment. “Maybe you should get out? Walk, do
something that doesn’t involve art.”

“Maybe.”

Grace eyed his pensive face. “Personal or
professional problems?”

“Neither... that is, I don’t think so. I’m
just not adjusting to the business side of things.”

“You have people handling that?”

“Elise, my fiancée, and Bryce who pretty much
manages the gallery.”

“So you just paint? I assume you set your
price too?”

“I am glad to have the gallery. I’m happy
people embrace my art.” His eyes were smiling now. “I’m just bored
in meetings with accountants and...Business.”

“Mmm, sounds like my brother.”

“What does he do?”

She lied. “He’s a reporter. Social stuff.
Nothing deep.” She winced, mentally apologizing to Seth. She asked,
“So, Elise and Bryce, is it? They run the business end?”

“Yes.”

“You trust them?”

“Of course.” He nodded, staring at nothing.
“I’m amazed at how fast my paintings are selling.”

“They’re very good.”

His gaze flickered to hers. “Half the gallery
has sold out.”

“You must be very rich then.” She smiled.

He shrugged. “That’s what they tell me.”

“It’s an artist’s dream, to have his work
selling, and to have people to handle the details, so that he can
focus on painting.”

“Pretty much. That’s what I want, to be able
to live off my art. To paint, to have people react to it, and draw
something from it. I’m not painting for an audience, but I think,
deep down, there’s a need to make a connection, to make people
understand what I see. At the same time, I want them to see more in
themselves, beyond the skin, maybe even the mind.”

Grace thought that was a beautiful concept,
also, spoken by an exquisite voice. “But something bothers
you?”

He shrugged slightly.

She tried a different angle. “Did you fall in
love with Elise right away?”

He stared at her a long time. “No. It
happened...as I painted her.”

“Sounds rational. How do you know, by the
way, how does any artist, what’s a temporary muse or an attraction
that becomes more?”

“I suppose, when the feeling remains after
the painting is done.”

“So you’re attracted to them all, in a sense,
that is. I understand that they inspire you. The instinct part and
everything. But... you are on some level—”

He cut her off softly, “Not all. But it has
happened. Not since, I became engaged. No affairs. But a healthy
sort of attraction that facilitates my technique.”

“Will you marry her?”

He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Likely.”

Grace felt horrible for him. She really did.
However, she smiled and said lightly, “You make a striking couple.
It’s the perfect sort of partnership too, I suppose, since she sees
to the business end.”

“Have you a lover?”

Grace waited a beat, using the time to slow
her heart rate. “No.”

He was scanning her face. His voice dropped a
notch. “You’ve had a lover?”

“This is getting too personal.”

“It helps,” he murmured, “to see beneath the
surface, to know more of the subject.”

“Subject. Not woman?” Grace, Grace, what are
you doing!

“Yes. I didn’t mean that in a cold way.
Merely that some things stay hidden and add to the mystique, while
knowing others helps me understand.” He shrugged, leaving that
hanging.

“I had a lover.” She said it flat,
unemotional.

His gaze skimmed her. “How long ago?”

She sighed and looked away. “Eight
years.”

“None since?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why is that?”

Grace glance flickered his way. “It just
hasn’t happened.”

“But why?”

“No time, no inclination to repeat stupid
mistakes.” She smiled dryly. “No effort on my part to seek it
out.”

He leaned up, his elbows on his knees as he
looked at her.

“That’s very disconcerting.” Grace looked
back at him. “When you stare that way.”

“I’m fascinated.”

She snorted and shook her head. “Because I
have no sex life?”

Noel didn’t laugh. “You make an effort to
appear cool, very poised. You even describe yourself in terms that
relay an image of practicality. But when you are painted, when I
paint you I see a warm, yes guarded, but very real woman.”

“I don’t pretend to not be real. Sexual isn’t
the only realness a woman has.”

“It’s a big part of both sexes.”

“Men seem to think so.”

He smiled, flashing white teeth. “Women too.
You’re shy?”

“Not really. I don’t think being modest or
slightly reserved equates to shyness."

He sat back. “So very complex, Jane. Nothing
fits, the clothing, the hair, the name, the face.”

“Is that supposed to be flattering? I’m
starting to feel like a bug under a microscope.”

“Not my intention. I like drawing you
out.”

“I noticed.” She looked around. “Why do you
turn the paintings around like that?”

“I like to focus on what I’m working on at
the moment.”

“Can I see the one you did before me?”

He got up and walked back to one of the sets,
flicking on the light and calling her over.

She stood beside him and looked at the
canvas. The painting was of a of the black woman in a panther pose;
shimmering ebony skin, sleek, sensual, and incredibly beautiful
against a backdrop of deep forest.

“Breathtaking.”

“Thank you.”

She glanced up at him. “How many will you
do?”

“I never know. Like anything, I’m finished
when I’m finished. When I feel I’ve reached the limits.”

He shut down the lights and they walked back
to the sofa. Grace wondered if she’d get to the point of posing
nude...she wondered what it was going to be like when they were
done and she went back to living her real life. Her honest one.

She hoped her attraction to him was as
explainable as his temporary one to some of the models. Maybe the
whole episode was simply a part of her that needed to be explored
at this moment and this time. She was fantasizing, something she
never did, having those semi-sleep mental images where they were
more than artist and subject. Grace found her imagination too
vivid, having memorized his voice, his hands, and her daylight
arousal brought on nighttime fantasias that portrayed them as
lovers.

And, like some fascination, it would wear off
once he had painted her. It was too much like a novel or movie.
Yes, she’d been drawn to him, and considering she was playing a
role which was the opposite of herself just to be near him, she
held out for the hope that it would fizzle out. She did have a real
life, two weeks away from today. No way could she work with him
after that.

She was Grace Dean, the accountant in
tweed.

“Your eyes are full of thoughts.”

“It’s that kind of day I suppose.” She smiled
at him. “Seems we’re both having one.”

“Tell me about your lover.”

She couldn’t look at those soft, bedroom eyes
and do it. She also had to think of how to explain it without
giving much of her real life away.

“I was working in an intense and charged
atmosphere, high pressure, very out of my element. At twenty, I
thought my future lay in that direction.” She sighed and admitted,
“Politics.”