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I come over to another stack leaning against the opposite wall and go through it.
Me, sleeping on the bed.
Me, with Pushkin.
Me, jogging.
Me, shirtless, a torso-long portrait with tattoos that are identical to mine but with fewer details.
When did she study them?
I pull another one from the stack, and my heart stalls.
It’s me again, a full-body portrait, from the back. Naked…
When has she seen me naked? She hasn’t.
But the tattoos on the canvas are unmistakably mine. My face is lifted upward, my hands rubbing my neck. I’m painted in long messy strokes, my body exactly as I see it in a mirror, my bare ass holding my gaze longer than it should. It’s so… erotic.
Fuck, this painting is sex. It’s lust. It’s making me want to put it in the living room and, as soon as Lu gets home, confront her and do all sorts of dirty things to her.
Lick her like a popsicle head to toe.
God help me!
There’s a sketchbook on Lu’s nightstand. I open it and go through random sketches of hands, subway riders, the Verrazano Bridge. There’s a bar scene. I recognize Tito.
Phew, so she sketches her other friends, not just me.
And then, by the end of the sketchbook, there’s me again. My portraits, with glasses, without glasses, me in the kitchen with a coffee, me against the Manhattan skyline on the terrace, my back to the viewer, Pushkin next to me.
There’s a sketch of my shark tattoo.
Oh, hell.
It ends at the line of my sweatpants.
Oh, Lu…
My heart expands threefold, and I feel something tugging at it so powerfully that it gets hard to breathe.
She does like me.
She does paint me.
In every. Fucking. Detail.
I didn’t imagine it. I’m not a fool. I do have a chance.
Jace Reed, I tell myself,if you don’t get your shit together, you might miss the biggest chance of your life—getting your dream girl.
44
JACE
Roeyand I are off to an assignment in Ohio.
As usual, it’s unexpected, Roey yanking me away like he does this on purpose.
