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“What?” Lia demanded. “You don’t like them?”
“I love them. All your subjects are erotic.”
Lia blushed pink.
“Not all of them,” she said. “There’s this one.”
She turned a page to another sketch.
In it a girl slept on her side in a woodland glade. A shadow fell over her, the shadow of a man. Or was it a man?
“Ariadne,” Lia explained. “After Theseus rejected her and left her abandoned on the island of Naxos.”
“Ah,” August said. “The most famous unexplained breakup in all of Greek mythology.”
“Theseus just dumped her,” Lia said. “Discarded her completely. And that was after she gave him the thread and helped him through the labyrinth, saved his life when he killed the Minotaur... Why take her away from her home and family and then leave her alone on some random island? And he didn’t even have the decency to break up with her properly. He sailed off while she slept.”
“She’s you.”
“She is not,” Lia said.
“They’re all you. Briseis, so beautiful she’s taken captive. Andromeda, betrayed by her mother. Ariadne, betrayed by her lover. You weave your heartache and longing onto your loom.”
“My mother didn’t betray me,” she insisted. “She had no idea about me and him.”
“But it felt like betrayal, didn’t it?”
“I’m over it.” Lia closed the sketchbook and put it back in the drawer of her nightstand.
She switched off the lamp and settled down into the sheets. August pulled her to him, her back to his chest. Lia sighed as August lifted her hair and pressed a hundred kisses onto her neck and shoulders.
“Are you trying to shag me?” Lia asked.
“I’m kissing. Just kissing.”
“You have an erection, and I can feel it. It’s poking me.”
“Just because someone knocks on your door, doesn’t mean you have to answer.”
August kissed her gently on the lips.
“Go to sleep, you wicked kitten, before I force myself on you like Achilles. And then Patroclus. And then Achilles again. And then Patroclus again. And then Achilles after that...”
“Yes, I remember it, August. Thank you for reminding me what a massive whore I am.”
“Wasn’t it so much fun?” he asked, grinning in the dark so that it seemed that the darkness itself smiled at her.
Lia flipped onto her side and returned the grin.
“It really was,” she said. “The most fun. Ever.”
“Ah...” August ran a fingertip over her lips. “There it is.”
“What?”
“That smile—that’s why I do this job. This...” He tapped her cheek. “This is a happy girl.”
Lia touched his smile in return. “You are very good at your job.”
