With the cutest frustrated huff, Drea rolled her eyes before tossing the sketch pad on the table next to my chair. I thought she was about to tell me to forget it when her hands came to my hair.
I jerked back before I could stop myself. She gave me an apologetic look. “I was just fixing it for the sketch.”
“I knew that. It’s just I’m really particular about people touching me.”
The glassy look that appeared in her eyes told me she was thinking about how I didn’t give a fuck about her touching me on the dance floor.
Once she adjusted my hair, her hands came to my face. At the slight tremble in her fingers, it took everything within me not to take her hand in mine and bring it to my lips.
“Let’s turn your head this way,” she suggested.
“You’re the boss,” I replied as she placed her hands on my cheeks.
Gently, she eased my face to stare at the left wall. After stepping back a moment, she nodded. “That works.”
When I started to turn my head back to her, she wagged a finger at me. “Uh, uh, uh.“
“Come on. I’m going to get a crick in my neck if you have me like this too long.”
She snorted. “You’re such a baby.”
I fought the urge to argue. I sure as hell didn’t feel like a baby when my hard cock was against her ass. But I knew better.
“Hmm, what should I do with your hands?” she questioned under her breath.
Inwardly, I groaned. She was testing the hell out of me. If she wasn’t Rafe’s fiancée, I would’ve said fuck it all and already pulled her down onto my lap.
Taking my hand in hers, she placed one on the armrest. When she placed her hands on my shoulders, my breath hitched. For a moment, I sat frozen with her intoxicating smell overwhelming me.
After pushing me back to recline in the chair, Drea took my hand and placed it behind my head so that my arm almost made a triangle.
Without another word to me, she grabbed her sketchbook off the table. Although she didn’t take her eyes off of me, she started backing away. Even though I could only see her face out of my peripheral vision, I knew she was in the zone.
As Drea began to sketch, silence fell around us. It was so quiet I could hear every scratch of her pencil on the paper. Even though I was covered by a long-sleeved shirt and dress pants, I felt completely naked under her gaze.
And not in a sexual way.
I feared Drea could see through to the real me. The one who used humor as a defense mechanism to mask his insecurities. The second born who would always feel second best next to his older brother. The inner child that never healed from all his father’s cruelty.
No one had ever been this close to me outside of my family. At the end of the day, not even Caterina saw me like my brothers. Not even Talia.
No one truly had.
But if she kept pushing, Drea would.
And she wouldn’t even have to try that hard.
“Finished,” she pronounced.
I jerked my gaze from the wall over to her. “That was fast.”
“It’s easier when I know my subject beforehand.”
When she held out the book to me, the air around me shifted. She’d drawn a version of myself I’d never seen. The mirror reflected the version of myself that I put forward. Drea had captured everything I didn’t project.
“Wow,” I murmured.
“Do you like it?” she questioned softly.
