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I’d painted it six months after my father died, painting for nearly a week straight, barely stopping for food or sleep. When it was done, I had collapsed into a heap on the couch, much as I had this evening, just staring at him as if it held the key to my salvation.
It was a masterpiece, and it would never see the light of day. It was mine and only mine.
Locke, on the other hand, seemed to smolder on the canvas. I’d always wondered why the fabric didn’t smoke beneath the paint. It was him, in all his dominant, self-assured, unbelievably sexy glory. His head was just slightly cocked, chin down, one coal black eyebrow raised the tiniest bit. That expression would be enough to stop the heart of any woman from eighteen to eighty.
That was partly why I almost always kept it at the back of my closet—because that look was just too intense for comfort.
I’d portrayed him the way I always saw him—in crisp slacks and his black shirt—but had taken the liberty of making him look much more rumpled than I had ever seen him. As if he were just recovering from a particularly deep, sexual kiss and was about to reach for me to turn me onto the desk beneath him. The usual black cotton shirt was pulled out of his waistband, several of the buttons of his shirt opened so that it hung just artfully enough to display the smattering of chest hair over the tanned, muscular ripples beneath. He was leaning back against a desk, his arms folded on his chest.
I always imagined that that must be what he looked like just before sex.
That painting wasn’t so much a portrait as a desire unfulfilled. It was the way I wished, in my heart of hearts, that he would look at me.
It was funny, because if he ever did look at me like that—as if he were going to sweep me up into his arms and carry me to the bedroom to ravish me—I would turn tail and run into the next state.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want Locke. I did.
More than almost anything in the world. My passion for him was as deep and true as my passion for painting, but it was also more raw and uncontrolled. That was one of the reasons that, although I had always been close to Locke and maintained that relationship even after my father’s death, I had never allowed myself to become particularly comfortable around the man.
My feelings wouldn’t allow for comfort, and seeing him too regularly, being reminded of what I would never, ever have, was just a bit too much.
My only saving grace had been that I didn’t think my father knew of my fixation on a man completely out of my childish league.
After Locke had spanked my bare ass, my dad had noticed that I tended to refuse to go to dinner with the two of them like I used to, and that I rarely made an appearance at the house if I thought Locke was going to be there, and he told me outright that he understood.
That Locke made a lot of people nervous.
That Locke’s world was a scary place, and he didn’t want me to be part of it at all. Hypocritical since my father had been delving even deeper into the Godwin family and making deals with even darker men on the side.
I had choked on the lemonade I was drinking, and managed not to disgrace myself by telling Dad that the reason I was uncomfortable around Locke was that he could make me wet just by his mere existence. I let my dad think what he wanted to think.
No one in this world knew just how vulnerable I was—or could be—to his best friend.
Most particularly not the man himself.
My phone rang, and I picked it up instantly, expecting her call.
“You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” Fiora said on the other end.
“I should, but no.”
“Good. Because tomorrow is opening night, and they have a party called Heathens. It’s this really cool pagan-like party that kicks off the event. Now that you’re signed up, you can go with me.”
I wasn’t really a party person, but I could already tell that Fiora wasn’t asking. She was all but telling me that I was attending whether I liked it or not.
“Sounds good. Do we wear clothes?” I was half joking, but then realized there was a chance we wouldn’t.
Jesus Christ, what had I gotten myself into?
“Yes. But you do need a mask. Everyone wears a mask to the party. To get us all in the animalistic mood.” She paused. “And before you say you don’t have one, I do. You can be a butterfly.”
“Great,” I said with a smile. “It’s a date.”
Frankly, I was excited. Anything to distract me from my current thoughts.
After hanging up, I got up and poured myself a glass of water, coming back to stand in front of my version of Locke and eying him with a glare I would never dare use in real life. I loved him. I wanted him. But at the same time, I hated him because he’d only see me as his friend’s kid and nothing more. I knew he loved me. But as family.
Uncle Locke.
