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"I don't have a sketchbook."
He was finally bending. She could feel it, and she nearly shouted with glee, but managed to contain the victory. This was a start. All the rest would come eventually--at least, she prayed it would. "I've got a clipboard with some paper." Instead of getting them, she pushed against him, his scent and his heat wrapping around her. "I'll give you a reward later."
Looking down at her, his eyes were suddenly deep. "What kind of reward?"
"Whatever you want," she whispered.
"Anything?"
"Anything." Heck, she was almost ready to give him the reward right now, before he'd so much as made a mark on the paper.
He lifted her wrists, circling them with his hands. "Have I mentioned that I have some brand new leather wrist ties at the house that I've been thinking about a lot lately?" She was nearly panting as he added, "Looks like they'll be just the right size."
"So it's a deal?"
He sealed his mouth to hers, stealing all her thought, her breath, before he whispered, "It's a deal."
She danced away to get him the clipboard and pencil, suddenly energized from the gourmet breakfast. From Sebastian all predatory and sexual. From knowing he'd sketch her while she worked. And then there'd be lusciously hot nookie afterward.
Turning to her stallions, the vision suddenly burst to the surface, the shot of energy Sebastian had given her starting her creative juices flowing again. All at once, she could see why the horses looked skeletal. Because they were--just bare metal rods stuffed into pipe fittings. The rods needed filling out so that they emulated the curve of muscle and the suppleness of sinew. Somehow over the past weeks, she'd forgotten the brass pipes she'd found at the construction sale. They'd be a perfect fit.
She dove in to create the effect she wanted. But she didn't forget Sebastian, not for one single second. Seated in one of the deck chairs he'd brought in weeks ago, he balanced the clipboard on his legs, his hands gliding over the page. After a while, he started asking questions, and she was happy to answer them, especially if it meant he would keep drawing.
"You're doubling up on the rods?"
"I'm going to augment what's there with the pipes. The brass will look like sinew and that will flesh out the muscles."
He drew as he spoke, his fingers flying. He looked up, down, tipped his head one way, then the other. He talked, she answered and explained as she manipulated the metal and tack-soldered the pieces into place.
When she got to the welding itself, however, there was just her, the metal, and her torch for long enough that at some point Sebastian got up to leave. Immersed in her work, she hadn't wanted to shut down and pull off her mask to ask where he was going. Not until he waved a ham sandwich under her nose, the aroma so tantalizing that her stomach growled raucously.
"You're a life saver."
Throwing off her gear, she slid down into the deck chair next to his as a new wave of exhaustion hit her. Hard. The work had sustained the flow of energy through her body until the moment she'd stopped. Now she honestly wasn't sure she could get out of the chair.
Seating himself next to her, Sebastian jutted his chin at the stallions. "You were right, they needed filling out. Now you can see they're racing like the wind."
"Before, they were stick figures." She took a bite of the simple sandwich, then closed her eyes and sighed. Sitting down was as delicious as the honey-roasted ham. "This gives them depth."
"You never cease to amaze me. The way you envision your art and how you work. You try this thing, then that thing, changing it until finally the work perfectly matches your vision."
"Isn't that what every artist does?" She spoke without thinking as she drank thirstily from the frosty mug he'd brought.
"No."
The simple word said it all. By this point she was too tired--literally a million miles past exhausted, all the way down to her bones--to keep pussyfooting around the issue. She was going to help him, damn it, whether he wanted her to or not!
"Can I see the drawings you did of me?"
*
Charlie's tone was different. Not harder exactly. Not frustrated, either. But no longer the gentle persuasion she'd used before.
Her love for him still laced every word, but Sebastian instinctively knew that didn't mean she'd back down any time soon. Just as he'd wanted to facilitate her career by finding her all the new commissions, she wanted to return the favor. The difference, however, was huge. She was a brilliant artist who deserved every accolade. He was little more than a hobbyist. Still, he wouldn't hide the sketches from her. He'd made that mistake once, and he wouldn't make it again.
He handed her the clipboard.
"Oh my God, Sebastian." He'd caught her down on her haunches scrutinizing the weld on a horseshoe as if she were a vet examining a hoof for an abscess. "They're fabulous."
