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Except for one.
“Who’s this?” I ask, pointing at the figure in the middle.
“That’s Blaze,” he answers.
“Oh, Blaze Walker.” He graduated last year and is currently already a starter in the pros, playing for Philadelphia. “This is incredible, Liam. I know the guys would love to see it.”
I glance up at him to see his cheeks turn a light crimson.
“Yeah, I know,” he says, reaching up to rub his palm up and down the back of his neck. “It’s just …”
“I understand,” I say, snuggling closer to him, hoping that my warmth and my contact can ease some of the anxiety I can tell he’s feeling from opening himself up. “When you’ve internalized that you have to hide a side of yourself, it’s hard to stop, even when you don’t have to anymore.”
His piercing green eyes bore into me. Then, he does something that makes my breath catch with even more intensity than when he grabs hold of my waist and whispers something dirty in my ear—he dips down and plants a soft, chaste kiss on the top of my head.
He flips through a couple more drawings, explaining each to me.
“And this one,” he begins as he flips another page.
“Wait,” I stop him. “I think you skipped one.”
“Huh?” I can hear a flustered sound in his voice, like butterflies are flapping their wings in his chest making his breath warble. “Nope, it’s just …”
He obviously just tried to turn two pages at once—and the blush in his cheeks tells me it’s for a reason.
“What are you trying to hide from me?” I wheedle him with a grin.
“Nothing. It’s, uh, a work in progress …”
“Well,” I tease, inserting my finger between the two pages, “let’s check your progress.”
He pauses for a beat, before taking a deep breath and surrendering. “Alright.”
He lets the page he was trying to sneak past drop, and when I see what’s drawn on it, my chest swells.
“Liam …”
“You don’t like it?” he asks immediately, sounding like his throat is clenched with anxiety. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have drawn it, it’s just …”
I cut him off by placing my palm over the back of his hand.
“I love it,” I say.
It’s a drawing of me, from the night we met. It must be from his point of view, as he looked across the club and our eyes met for the first time.
All around me is a crowd drawn in a blurry, impressionistic style, that contrasts with the sharp lines and intricate details with which he drew my figure. I’m wearing the costume I wore that night. It’s clear that he drew every line and detail with so much care, paying painstaking attention to each stroke. To think that someone would put so much care, so much thought, into drawing an image of me from their memory, something that no one else was ever even supposed to see … and to think that someone is Liam Newcastle …
I frame his face in my hands and press my lips to his. This kiss isn’t rough and intense like most of ours are. It’s a soft summer breeze instead of a raging storm; a sweet, soft melody instead of a pounding bassline; a gentle caress instead of a lusty grope.
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
A boyish blush colors his cheeks. “That’s all thanks to the subject matter.”
I giggle, pulling my gaze away from his and looking down. “That was so sweet I think I have a tummy ache.”
His gravelly chuckle gives me a warm feeling low in my belly. “You like the sweet side of me, though,” he teases. I yelp as he nuzzles his mouth against the crook of my neck, pushing me down onto his bed.
I think I like every side of Liam Newcastle.
