My patience was nil. Tiredness made me short-tempered, the strain of fighting with Gil pushed me to breaking point. He hadn’t given me space to patch up my holes, which meant I was precariously close to snapping at the slightest thing.
I glowered at myself in the mirror.
It’s not important who he’s been with.
My heart did not believe that.
Knowing Gil had been shopping with other women was the most important, painful thing I could endure.
He might have slept with me.
He might say things that made my soul sing with second chances, but today, I was nothing. He didn’t want to date me, love me, keep me.
I was just his employee.
I’m no one—
Gil’s knuckles rapped the door. “You done? I’ve got to get started.”
“Give me a sec.” My voice wobbled with tears and temper.
He heard.
“Olin.” The lock rattled as he tried to open the door. “Let me in.”
“I’m fine.”
“I said...let me in.”
“No. I can do—”
“O, unlock the goddamn door.” His angry tone slipped into sympathetic soothe. “Please...let me help.”
I didn’t want his compassion, but I couldn’t stop whirling around and wrenching open the door. I stood with breasts out and body pebbled with goosebumps. A woman perusing the same skirts I’d eyed up gasped at my nakedness.
Gil shot her a glower before shoving me deeper into the changing room and joining me.
The door slamming behind him made guilt throb and wishes that things were different suffocate.
His eyes locked onto my breasts.
My nipples instantly hardened.
He groaned under his breath. “If I had time, I’d bend you over right here, right now.”
“Your willpower not to touch me again is abysmal.”
His lips twisted. “I know.”
“Touching me is a mistake, remember?” I deliberately poked at my wounds.
“The biggest mistake.” He nodded. “But it’s also the only thing that’s keeping me from giving up.”
All thoughts of the commission and his past love life vanished under a wave of love and lust. I licked my lips, my breath turning papery. “You can use me to keep going...to keep fighting whatever it is you’re battling.”
His fingers latched around my throat, pushing me against the full-length mirror. “Stop being so goddamn good.”
I shivered as my naked flesh met the cold surface.
“Fuck, O.” His head dipped down; his eyes turned hazy. “I have no control around you.”
I waited for a kiss.
A kiss that would probably end with him inside me and us banned from the shop for life. But as his lips grazed mine, he groaned and pulled away.
His struggle to ignore the blazing chemistry and desire between us laced his voice, turning it rich and rough. “Give me the pasties.” He held out his hand. The same hand that’d been on my body. His fingers twitched—the same fingers that had been inside my body.
I sucked in a needy breath as I dropped the hated pasties into his palm.
“After I’ve painted you, I’m going to peel these bastards off and fuck you.”
I trembled. “How long will the painting take?”
He sighed heavily. “A while.”
“And you’ve made me wet for what purpose?”
His eyes flashed. “You’re wet?”
“I’m trapped in a tiny cupboard with you. You’re talking about fucking me. You were seconds away from kissing me. What do you think?”
His voice lowered to a thick whisper. “I think I’m fucking hard for you and wish I could put us both out of our misery.” Ripping off the double-sided tape from the pasty that I’d struggled to use, he crowded me against the mirror. “But...time is our enemy.”
“As always.”
His gaze dropped to my breasts. “At least your nipples are hard. Makes putting these things on a bit easier.”
My lust instantly switched into resentment. “You have a lot of experience applying these?” My jealousy flared again, turning my voice sharp and sullen.
He studied me coldly. “A little.”
“For your canvases?”
He nodded. “If you’re not used to them, it’s hard to apply with minimal wrinkling. I don’t want my painting ruined, so I...offer to help.”
“Did you enjoy touching them?” Prickly self-pity raced down my spine.
His temper billowed, etching his face. “You know, you’ve chosen a strange time to get possessive.”
“It’s a by-product of sleeping with one’s boyfriend.”
“Ex. Ex-boyfriend.” His nostrils flared. “I’m not yours, O.”
My stomach twisted painfully.
You don’t have to remind me.
I know.
Believe me...I know.
I didn’t speak. Tilting my chin, I stuck out my chest. “You’re running out of time. Let’s get this over with.”
His teeth ground together. For a second, it looked like he’d either attack me or make love to me. But then barriers shuttered his gaze, and he dropped his attention to my left breast.
I sucked in a gasp as his cool fingers pinched my nipple. His head bent, and he placed a dry kiss right on the tip before covering the highly sensitive, tingly sensation with the pasty.
I wasn’t expecting sweetness mixed in with the sour.
My enviousness of other women swept back into blistering obsession. “I hate you right now. I hate that I’m tired and tetchy. I hate that I keep letting you confuse me when I should have the balls to tell you to either commit or leave me the hell alone. I hate—”
“Finally.” He sucked in a harsh breath, squeezing my breast painfully. “Finally, you’re doing something sensible. Hate me. Fuck, out of anyone, you’re the most entitled.” His eyes glittered. “Hate me, Olin. Hate me...but don’t leave me. Not yet.”
My limbs turned to water as he pressed my nipple, smoothing out the pasty around my areola.
“It’s you who’ll leave,” I murmured. “Just like before.”
He flinched.
The mirror never warmed behind my inked back, reminding me that out of all his canvases, I wasn’t the most ideal.
Unresolved anger made me mutter, “My scars and tattoos...will they be an issue with this commission?”
I didn’t know why I brought up my flaws. Self-sabotage? A cry for help? A final attempt to push him away so I could be free?
He skimmed his nose down my throat. “They’re a pain in the ass. But I can work with them.”
Our conversation was all over the place, but I chased him regardless. “How? How will you work with them?”
“I’ll keep that part of you facing away from the photo.”
“You’ll hide who I am?”
“My paint hides who you are.” Guarded eyes met mine. “I know what that tattoo represents, Olin. I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were.”
“Yeah, well.” He sneered. “I get it.”
“I don’t think you get anything.”
His eyes heated to green fire. “Really? You think I don’t know that tattoo represents us. Our past. Our love—”