I’m also thinking about how tender he was. How he read me like a book, each word, each need, and gave me an experience that I have never had before. I’ve never felt so beautiful in someone’s eyes before. Never felt so exquisitely sexy beneath someone’s touch.
Was it just him? Or was it some kind of connection between us? I’m too scared to let myself think about it, even though I can’t stop thinking about it, because what if thereis a connection between us?
I’ve been trying everything to distract myself.
I spent almost two hours in the gym. I thought that if I could exhaust my body, it would be too tired to want him. But I forgot how much the exercise energizes me, so that was a colossal failure of an idea.
I showered, only cold water. So unlike me, but I tried it, and it didn’t work, either.
I walked the entire layout of this mansion, studying each piece of art, every beautiful painting, every detail. I asked Yugoslav to have one of the guards go out and buy me paints and canvas, because drawing on my iPad wasn’t even working.
Now I am tucked away in a sunlit corner of the library, hopefully hidden where he can’t find me, and I am painting.
I haven’t painted in years, but finally, with intense relief, something might be working to keep my mind off him.
I start to lose myself in the process. My paintbrush drags over the canvas, leaving smears of colors and emotions spread out on the clean white surface. Quickly, it becomes splashed with my thoughts, my feelings, the stories looping in my head. I lose myself, and I stop thinking about him, and I am content and at peace.
An hour goes by. Maybe two. I don’t know.
I’m quiet in my own little world.
Until I step away from the canvas to see what I have created.
“Fuck!” I shout in anger at myself.
It’s a portrait. A damn good one, actually. His eyes are gray and stormy, and somehow, I have perfectly captured thatintense stare. His lips, kissable. The dark framing of his brows and black eyelashes…his jaw and thick muscular neck.
Angry, I scream again and toss the paintbrush at the canvas. It hits the corner and bounces off.
I lean down to get the brush, horrified that I’ve got paint on the beautiful carpet. But in my hurry, I knock over the pallet of paint I was mixing. It flips up into the air and then lands right against the side of my face and slides down my arm.
I yelp, stumbling to catch it before it lands on the carpet, too, and now my hand is coated in paint.
I get one hell of a fright when I stand up, and Anton is right at my side.
“What happened? Are you okay?” he blurts out.
Embarrassment floods me instantly, realizing he will see the painting. He will see what I painted, and I will die inside.
But he hasn’t looked at it. His concern is entirely for me as he tries to figure out why I screamed. His hands are brushing over me, searching for an injury, and my body is spiking with desire so intense it’s overwhelming me.
“Stop that!” I shout in a rage. “What are you doing!?”
“Are you hurt? You screamed so loudly,” he says defensively.
“You can’t just run in here and start putting your hands all over me and then…” I have no idea what I wanted to say. But I’m angry.
He cocks his head to the side and lifts his hand to wipe some of the paint of my cheek. I shove his hand away and glare at him. “Stop touching me, dammit. I’ve already made enough ofa mess as it is, and now you come in here, and you think you can just…”
“Is that me?” he asks, and my heart hits rock bottom as I see where his gaze has drifted, locking on the canvas behind me.
I quickly step in front of it to try to hide it.
He takes a step towards me and wraps his hand around my jaw.
“You painted me?” he asks, his voice husky and low.
“It was an accident,” I say weakly, fully aware of how stupid I sound.
