When I was done with the eggs, I made us both another coffee and retrieved my sketchbook before sitting down again. My mind was beautifully vacant, the kind of mental state artists strive for but only the best are capable of achieving on a regular basis, and I wanted to take advantage of it. My pencil twisted over the paper in loose, languid strokes.
I wasn’t surprised when something distinctly sexual emerged from the grey mass of swirls but I was by the dark taint of the image, the stark disobedience of it. A woman with shadowy hair that wrapped around her arousal swollen flesh like bindings yelled across the page, her mouth invitingly wide but dangerous, temperamental.
I realized as I stared at her, that she was me. This woman who dared you to fuck her, dominate her and then dared those who would condemn her to resist her charms. It was so ironic that the more sexually powerful I became, the more I wanted someone to leash me.
“What are your plans for the day?” Sinclair said.
He had been watching me. I knew because I had harnessed that scorching gaze and locked it around the fierce woman in my drawing.
“I need to paint.”
“Of course, you’re exhibition is in two weeks.”
I stared at him for a second. “I didn’t think you knew.”
He frowned at me. “Elle, not only is it my business to know about the goings on at my gallery, but it is your first show in America. I assure you, the date has been noted on my calendar since it was decided upon.”
I smudged the shadowy lock of hair falling over my drawn woman’s face with my thumb and mumbled, “I just remember you saying that you didn’t want anything to do with it.”
He sighed and a second later my stool was tugged towards him, so that I was between his spread legs. His fingers threaded through my hair and tilted my head until I was looking up into his eyes. Instantly, I relaxed as my ricocheting thoughts bounced against his palms and slunk back into my skull like chastised dogs.
“How can you be so confident under my hands and otherwise so unsure? Giselle, I said that because you had upset me. You came into my office looking gorgeous and unflappable and then this soft-spoken woman told me to go to hell.”
I blushed because that had been a little unfair. “I didn’t mean it.”
“We both said a lot of things we didn’t mean that day.”
I felt the hook that connected my heart to his sink deeper into my left aorta.
“I do not want to stop seeing you.”
My eyes fluttered close to better savor those edible words. When I opened them, his lips were ever so slightly tilted in a bemused smile.
“We see each other all the time,” I reminded him.
Just because his admission made me ecstatic didn’t mean I was going to be an easy catch.
His gaze narrowed. “It’s difficult to play hard to get when you’ve already told me that you are in love with me.”
I bristled, but he did have a point. Instead of answering, I gathered our dirty dishes and put them in the dishwasher, taking my time as I did so, completely avoiding his burning stare. I was just walking past him to grab my sketchbook when he grabbed me around the waist and tugged me between his legs, wrapping his limbs around me so that I was trapped.
“Get off me,” I ordered in my haughtiest voice.
“Don’t feel like it.”
“Sinclair,” I said, laughter seeping into my tone. “Tu es con, let me go!”
“Nope, maybe if I keep you captive long enough you will remember that time you said you loved me. In fact, I think you said it multiple times.”
I rolled my eyes and even though he couldn’t see me do it, he gave me a tight squeeze.
“I have no idea to what you are referring.”
His fingers dug into my sides and began to tickle. I writhed in his grip as laughter exploded from my lips, huge unfeminine guffaws that made my entire body shake.
“Stop… please… Sin,” I begged breathlessly, tears streaming down my face.
He spun me around in his arms, smiling that boyish smile that made my heart forget to function.