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Especially women, since in my experience they were experts at screwing up a man’s life when pissed off.
This might have been the first time I’d wanted to apologize because I actually felt bad, though, because even after avoiding Kenz for a couple days, I hadn’t been able to put her hurt face out of my mind.
Andsure,I’d also thought about how her skin had tasted, and how I’d wrapped my lips around her tight, pert nipples. However, for once, the gift wasn’t just an attempt to see them again.
She blew out a hard breath, the tension she’d had easing out of her. It made me realize just how awkward we’d been since that night, how much space she’d kept between us, how uncertain her gaze had been. “I’m sorry, too.”
“For what?”
She tore her gaze away, staring instead at the canvas set on the easel. “I’ve been avoiding you.”
“I can’t really blame you for that.”
“No? But if it was reversed, if I’d put the brakes on between us, I wouldn’t want you to treat me like the bad guy. You’re allowed to not want me, to stop things, and I need to not get so hurt by it.”
Hurt?She did me in with that word, especially because it brought back up her expression from that night. It had been hurt, really. I shook my head, unwilling to let her take the blame. “It’s not your fault. I know I’ve jerked you around, and that isn’t something I do. Normally, I’m upfront and clear about what I want and what I don’t. If someone isn’t on board with that, I move on. You, though? I can’t seem to get my head on straight with you.”
“What do you mean?” Kenz didn’t seem to ask that as a ploy—she sounded just as confused as I felt.
“I mean that you confuse me. I know this is temporary, that we’ve got a goal and once that’s over, this is done with. Normally, that wouldn’t bother me a bit. In fact, an entanglement with an end date makes it all easier.”
“So am I just not enough?” Kenz asked. “I mean, I get that. I haven’t lived under a rock—I know the sort of women you’ve dated. Maybe I just don’t live up to that? Convenience isn’t always enough.” If she’d said those things as a way for me to reassure her, I’d have walked out. It wouldn’t have sat right at all.
However, one of the things about her that I couldn’t ignore was how unfailingly upfront she could be. She honestly thought my back and forth was all about her not being enough?
The girl might be sweet and smart, but she has no real idea of what she is.
“That’s not it,” I said, even if I knew I should just keep my mouth shut. “Every other woman, I haven’t given a damn about. If you’d thrown yourself at me day one, I’d have taken you to bed with a smile. No problem. We’d have both enjoyed the hell out of it. Now, though? I just keep thinking about the women from my past. They’re all either still hoping to get a hold of me or they hate me. I don’t think I can’t stand you ending up like that. I guess I’m a coward—afraid to try anything but unable to resist it sometimes.”
She frowned, as though trying to work through it, to decide whether she believed me.
I couldn’t stand talking about it anymore, though, so instead I tapped my fingers on the canvas. “Come on, we’ve only got so long here. So let’s focus on the purpose.”
She pressed her lips together, no doubt catching on to my attempt to change the subject. Still, she nodded and went over to the easel. “What about you?”
I went to the bench in the corner of the room and sat, leaning my back against the wall. “I’m good here. Don’t worry about me.”
I thought she might argue, but the lure of the offer proved too great, because Kenz took her bottom lip between her teeth then turned her back to me, facing the canvas and picked up a pencil set in the tray.
And if there was a place where Kenz really shone, this was it. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time left, a fact that sometimes made me antsy, made me feel like I had to do more, fill my time better, since it was in short supply. However, I wasn’t sure if there was any better way to spend it than watching her paint.
Two hours later, I knew watching her had been the right choice. Something about Kenz with a paintbrush was as lovely as it was painful. She got this look on her face, this concentration that drew me in. It reminded me of what I’d lost, of what I’d never get back.
She sketched for a while, but eventually she moved on to paint, blocking in the basic colors.
The image she’d picked wasn’t entirely clear to me, the sketch lines so light that I struggled to make sense of it. There was a lot of white, and she worked hard to add soft shadows to it.
Was it fabric?
My curiosity got the best of me, even though I didn’t want to interrupt her process. “What are you working on?”
Her hand paused, lifting the brush off the canvas as though coming out of a trance. Then again, I knew how focus could make the entire world disappear. “A dress.” She stepped backward to survey the painting from a different perspective.
I got up and off my bench, wincing slightly at the ache in my hip. While Lorien’s attack had only taken the use of my hand, my entire body felt as though it had aged after that. My joints ached more than they had before, but maybe that was just from getting older. I came to stand beside her, finally able to see more of the details.
“That’s a wedding dress.”
She nodded and set the paintbrush in the water cup. “Yeah, it is.”
