An artist, lost in his art.
Lost in his mind. His heart.
Lost in me.
I was filled with tenderness, watching him sleep. A frown furrowed his brow. I knelt, and then sat beside him. Smoothed the frown away with my fingertips, and he stirred. Rumbled wordlessly in his chest. Stirred again.
His eyes fluttered, opened, fixed on me. “Cass.” His voice was so low I could barely hear him, but I felt the sound of it.
“Hi.” I reached for him, and he shifted toward me. I pulled his head into my lap, stroked his hair.
“You’re here.” He wrapped an arm around behind me, cradling my waist.
“You’ve been busy, I see,” I said, letting humor fill my voice.
He snorted. “Yeah. Found your little folder of goodies.”
“I’m not sure what came over me. I’ve never done anything like that before. Never taken a single nude or even a partially nude photo of myself.”
“I’m glad you did.” He glanced over my hip at the nearest painting—a photorealistic version of one of my photos, me in nothing but underwear. Instead of holding a phone and taking a selfie, though, he’d made it so I was just gazing at him, one hand gathering my hair at the back of my head, the other at my side. Sensual, sultry. I felt sexy, in that painting. Looked like…a strong, powerful, lithe warrior goddess. Fearless, bold.
I swallowed hard. “You’re so talented, Ink. You could put these in a gallery.”
He hummed. “Some of them are pretty intimate and personal.”
I laughed. “I mean, maybe not the fully nude ones.” I frowned, my fingers dancing over his temple, through his beard. “I don’t know. I’m not an exhibitionist, but I…they’re incredible paintings, Ink. Truly remarkable.”
He shifted to sit up, facing me. “I couldn’t display you like that.” He got up, pulled one out from the middle of a stack—I was kneeling on a bed, upright on my knees.
Naked. My weight was on one side, as if I was in the act of sliding off the bed. My hair was down and loose, and I wasn’t looking at the viewer, but off-screen so to speak, laughing at something. Joy suffused me. It was an intimate moment, private. It had the air of us, Ink and me, post-sex. I was clearly climbing off the bed to clean up, to pee, wash my hands, whatever. Laughing at Ink. It was just…private.
But there was something that just drew you in. It wasn’t sexual, and even my nudity wasn’t the focus. It was the moment that was being captured—it was a beautiful, private, delicate, joyful moment.
I wondered how I would feel letting strangers see it. See me, like that.
Oddly, it was okay. It was art, and I was confident in myself.
Even with the fact that he’d lovingly and, in exquisitely personal detail rendered the scars on my leg.
“Sell them,” I said, abruptly. “They deserve to be seen.”
He blinked, shocked. “What?”
“Unless you don’t want to.”
He shook his head. “I did them for me. To express…I don’t know. How I feel. How I see you.”
“But they’re too amazing to just…sit up here collecting dust.” I sighed. “I don’t mean that as anything about me—it’s you. It’s your art. It deserves to be seen.” I met his eyes. “I’m okay with it. I want you to show them.”
He rubbed his jaw. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought you’d be creeped out by how many different times and ways I painted you.”
I shook my head. “I’m not.”
“It was… I had to. I saw those photos you took, and I just…had to paint you.”
I stood up, faced him. Took his hands. “Thank you, Ink.”
He tilted his head to one side. “For what?”
“Giving me time.”
He just shrugged. “I should’ve…I don’t know. Not been so harsh with you. I’m sorry.”
I stepped closer. “No, don’t apologize. I was angry for a while, yes. But I realized it was what I needed. I had to be pushed. And then I needed to be left alone to deal with myself. To figure my shit out.” I dragged my fingers through his tangled beard. “So, thank you, Ink. For giving me what I needed when I didn’t even know I needed it.”
He gazed down at me, and his hands captured my hips. “So, did you?”
“Figure myself out?” I nodded. “Yes, I did.”
“And?”
I stepped back, out of his hands. Crouched, leaped, landed in a plié, straightened and did a series of turns, spotting on him.
“You’re dancing again.” His grin was contagious.
I bit my lip, feeling overcome by emotion. “Yeah. Not all the way back, but mostly.”
“And what are you going to do?” He was happy for me, overjoyed, proud. “Go back to Paris?”
He managed to suggest that without any hint of worry or fear.
I shook my head. “No.” I sighed. “That season of my life is over, Ink.”
“So…what, then?”
I grinned even more widely. “Well, I’m going into business with Baxter. I’m going to teach dance and dance fitness classes at his gym, and eventually yoga, and do some personal training. We’re buying the building next to his, connecting the two, and renovating it into a facility for classes.”
He let out a breath I hadn’t known he was holding—and I got the impression he hadn’t known he was holding it either. “So you’re staying in Ketchikan?”
I nodded, returning to him, putting myself in his arms. Gazing up at him. “With you.” A pause, as I swallowed fear and doubt, letting hope bubble and rise. “If you…” My voice caught. “If you still want that. Want me. Want us.”
“You’re staying for you? Because that’s what you want for your future?”
I nodded. “I’m crazy excited. I’ll get to dance again, but no pressure. No stress about staying at the top. No more living out of hotels and suitcases. No bickering with the other girls. Just…dancing. Teaching. I’ll get to be in the gym all day, every day, and I love working out and being in the gym almost as much as I love dance. This lets me do both, and make money at what I love, but without the stress of the troupe.” I bit my lip and stared into his eyes. “I’m also staying because I…” I lost my breath, my courage. Summoned it, and used it. “Because I love you. I want to grow a love with you. I want to be your muse every day of our lives. I want to do life with you.”
His eyes were dark, wild, boiling with tumultuous emotion. “Cassie, god, babe.” He wrapped his hands around my hips. “Say it again.”
I grinned up at him. “I love you.” I lifted on my toes, whispered against his lips. “That part?”
He picked me up, his hands cradling my ass and gathering me against him. “Yeah. I like hearing that.”
“You want to know how it’ll sound even better?” I asked, reaching down to find him over his shorts. “If you bring me over to that bed. Make me scream, and I’ll scream how much I love you.”
He snarled. Turned. Took two long steps, and deposited me on the bed. Knelt over me. “You gotta hear it from me, though, Cass.” He planted his huge arms beside my head. “I love you more than I know how to say, Cassandra. Truth is, I spent the weeks up here painting like a crazy man because it was the only way I could stay up here and give you time and space you needed without losing my goddamn mind. And I may have lost it a little bit, I don’t know. I just know I need you. I fuckin…I need you, Cass.”