‘Yes. I can’t keep quiet about it, Jen. It’s too important to me. But if you really don’t want to, then that’s … I have to respect that. We have to both want it.’
She swallowed a lump in her throat.
‘I do want it,’ she whispered. ‘I do.’
He kissed her hand, then her forehead.
‘And don’t worry about looking slutty,’ he said, into her ear. ‘Because that’s the way I like you best.’
He growled and bit her earlobe before returning to his easel.
‘Besides,’ he said, making delicate final touches with the charcoal, ‘what I really want is for people in the future to look at this and say, “Lucky bastard!” It’s an ego trip, basically.’
But Jenna wasn’t fooled. He liked to play the laddish rogue, but there was much, much more to Jason than met the eye.
She lay there for the final minutes of her modelling stint, seeing herself as those nebulous future viewers might see her. A woman adored, a goddess.
It was not an unpleasant feeling.
He put down his charcoal and threw back his head, taking a deep breath.
She watched him, fascinated by his post-creative behaviour. He was like a man who had just broken through the finish tape after a marathon. Less sweaty, but no less full of wonder at his own achievement.
He took a long look at the easel and then invited Jenna to come and see it.
She picked up her robe from the end of the chaise, but he abruptly told her to drop it, so she padded over naked to stand beside him.
He encircled her shoulders with an arm and pulled her into his side.
‘What d’you reckon?’ he said.
She couldn’t take her eyes from the sketch. How on earth could a few lines and shadings build up to something with such heart and soul? It was as if the charcoal had got inside her and read her thoroughly before returning to the paper to recreate what it had learned. But was she really like that? Was that really her?
She was immeasurably flattered, but was she really as beautiful as that?
None of the thousands, maybe millions, of photographs of her floating around the internet had ever quite dug so deep into her soul. She felt more than physically naked. If people saw this, they would know her. It was almost unsettling.
‘Well?’ Jason sounded nervous. ‘I mean, it’s just a sketch. The actual painting’ll be …’
‘No.’ The word came out as a breath. ‘It’s amazing. You’re amazing.’
‘You like it.’ He kissed her neck, burying his face in it to try and hide his pleasure, but it was obvious enough.
‘I like her. You’ve made me look … better than I am.’
‘No, I haven’t.’ He retracted his face from the crook of her shoulder and stared at her. ‘That’s what you look like.’
‘But it’s more than what I look like. There’s so much to see in the expression you’ve given me.’
‘I want to tell people about you. I want them to see every side of you at once – the part that’s strong, the part that’s soft, the part that’s a down to earth Bleddy girl and the part that’s a superstar. All of it in one. It wasn’t easy.’
‘I’ll bet. But I think you’ve done it.’
‘When I come to do the painting, I’m going to do what the old portrait artists used to do and put in a load of random objects that say something about you. Just a little nod to ’em, like, but in a modern way. So, I dunno, haven’t worked it all out yet, but maybe a lump of coal to show you come from Bledburn, lying on a copy of Hello! mag. Well, that’s a bit shit, but you know what I mean.’
She laughed. ‘It’s not shit. It’s clever. I like it.’
‘Nobody’s ever called me that before.’