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“No. If it’s like this, it doesn’t matter. ” He bowed his head down next to her cheek, felt her arms wrap around his damp shoulders. Inhaled the silk of her hair, inhaled her into all of himself.
And remembering Komal, he thanked God for miracles.
Marguerite made her way out to the Aphrodite garden, her cup of tea in hand. The statue gleamed in the morning sun, the bronze tresses of hair wound around the manacles on her wrists, face turned up in ecstasy. Freedom found inside the binding of love and pleasure. Trust, commitment. Friendship. They’d always been words belonging to other people, something she watched like television programs about experiences she could never have.
But the way Tyler had left her this morning… With a soft kiss
and regret in his eyes that he had to conduct some business in his home office. He’d promised to join her within an hour. Consideration. The desire to spend time with her.
The grass around the statue was soft. Taking off the slippers he’d provided, she sank her toes in the springy mattress and at the same time set her mug of steaming Earl Grey like an offering at the feet of the Goddess. Next to her sandals from last night, she noted with amusement. After a moment of contemplation, she slipped the belt of the robe and began to slide it off her shoulders.
A discreet cough arrested the motion. She looked over and found the statue was not the only aesthetically pleasing thing in the garden. Josh leaned back on the bench, wearing his jeans of the prior night and an open shirt, carelessly thrown on. His hair was still tousled, the wire rims of his glasses unable to disguise the beauty of his gray eyes.
“I don’t wish to stop you in any way, because I’m poised to sketch. ” He waved the blank pad. “But I find my models usually prefer to have a choice in the matter. ” She nodded, her fingers on the lapels of the robe, fingering the silky fabric. The skin beneath still felt sensitized from Tyler’s frequent touches throughout the night. “Your wife doesn’t mind you sketching a naked woman?”
“It’s sort of like the foot on the floor rule. ” He smiled. “As long as I keep ten feet between us, it’s fine. ”
She noted there was about twelve feet, the bench hugged by the hedge of fragrant honeysuckle behind him. He nodded. “I’m an erotic artist, so of course she knows what my work requires. I’d love to sketch you. ” A shadow crossed his eyes. “With her gone, it’s hard to find inspiration. ” He lifted a shoulder. “Elements of you remind me of her, so I’m asking you for the honor. Mistress. ” He gave a little half bow from the waist.
It warmed her like the sun soaking into her shoulders, which was making her drowsy, reminding her of her long night and how little sleep she’d had. Or wanted, at the time. “If I can see the rest of the tattoo work. Fair is fair. And we’ll maintain that ten feet. ”
Josh chuckled. “While we’ve discussed women getting naked in front of me, I’m afraid we haven’t really covered vice versa. However, I’ll show her the sketch when I’m done and see if she thinks it was worth it. ” His gaze gleamed. “If it wasn’t, then it means I didn’t do a good enough job of capturing the subject matter and I deserve whatever punishment she deems fitting. ”
The Mistress who’d snapped up the heart of this beautiful and interesting man had to be quite something. Marguerite thought he’d better make it a very good sketch.
She dropped the tie of the robe, let the garment fall into a pool of satin around her ankles.
Josh was certain she wasn’t aware of the correlation between her and the statue behind her, the proud stance, the graceful lines of the body, the smooth, pale skin against the bronze.
“Whatever you were about to do before you knew I was here…” He spoke quietly, too moved by the sheer beauty of the picture to raise his voice above a murmur. “…go ahead and do. ”
She hesitated, then turned on the ball of one foot, bent her knees. With elegant sensuality, she lay down on her side, her back facing him, her arm curled as a pillow under her head, the other arm lying loosely before her. Her knees drew up, a loose fetal position, the silk of her clipped-back hair spilling perfectly onto the robe’s folds. The orchids near the fountain wall flickered shadows over her skin.
The hesitation had startled him, for she’d not struck him as modest in her manner, but when he saw her back, he understood. As she settled, getting comfortable, the air grew still, telling him she was aware he was studying her.
“Will they be there? In your picture?”
Her voice was quiet, smooth, no inflection to betray her thoughts.
“I’m a sculptor, Mistress. The sketch is to help me remember. But…” He paused, starting to move his pencil rapidly over his page, inspiration overtaking him, making it hard to focus on a response. “No,” he said at last. “They won’t be. They helped make you who you are but they didn’t make it all the way to your soul and that’s what I try to sculpt. ”
Her hand curled into the well-tended grass. “Josh, that may be the most lovely lie anyone has ever told me. Thank you. What will you do with it, if it becomes a sculpture?”
“Not if. When. ” His fingers were already itching to begin, could feel the way she would evolve under his hands. He could visualize how he would handle the different shapes of the orchids in bronze, the contrasting smooth expanses of her skin.
“I’ll show it to my art dealer, Marcus. He’ll set an exorbitant price on it which Tyler will pay three times over to make sure it becomes part of his private collection and never sees the inside of a gallery. If I wanted to be really terrible, I’d let Marcus know that. Tyler would have to mortgage this palace to acquire it. ” Josh assumed a grass blade must have tickled her calf when she lifted a leg to rub at the offending itch. A few moments later her silence and the easing of her shoulders, the rhythmic rise and fall of her upper torso, told him she’d drifted off.
Over the next half hour, he sketched. Rising once or twice to circle her, squat by the base of the Aphrodite and study all the angles. He saw the evidence of her night with Tyler. Faint bruises from passion unleashed in two strong people, the flesh abraded along her fair-skinned breast from a man’s rough jaw, even the light impression of teeth on her neck. His nostrils told him she’d not yet showered. He could smell the mesh of their two scents as he chose an angle near her feet to better fill in the slope of her thighs.
For Josh, immersion in the sensual elements of his subject matter was all-consuming, so his pencil picked up pace, his eyes flickering quickly, the ideas, the concept forming.
As he moved around her, he kept his bare feet quiet on the grass, but she was sleeping the sleep of the well content, her body relaxed. Not until the sun rose over the statue did she move, shifting so she could lie on her back and turn her face away. When Josh moved so he blocked the light from disturbing her slumber, her brow eased and she returned to her side again.
The loneliness in the pit of his belly, the ache for Lauren that could become unbearable if she was away for too long, became somewhat more manageable as he performed this small act of service for this lovely Mistress. His art reached out to comfort him, a manifestation of the peace he found in Lauren’s arms, something so much like it that he knew both were miracles. As he studied the scars, he wondered if Marguerite often slept this deeply, or if she too had finally found her port in a storm.
Based on his high regard for Tyler and what he’d seen of her, he hoped so.
He turned to retrieve his sharpener and found Tyler sitting and watching them, his arms stretched out over the back of the bench. His eyes were nearly gold in the full light of the sun. Josh extended the pad and Tyler took it, looked down at it. His finger followed the sketched line of her shoulder down to her waist, over her hip, the shadowing.
