I’d had other boyfriends since Justin. I’d been with one guy for a year before my accident. I’d had a couple of flings, doing my best to patch up a ruined heart, but Gilbert Clark had always been the one who got away.
The boy I’d never forgotten.
God, please stop.
Stop making me hurt.
Slowing to a halt, Gil waved at a small room next to his office. “In there. Don’t be long.” He wiped his mouth, dropping his gaze to the floor. “Strip, put on a bathrobe, and return.”
Not waiting around, he stalked back to his workstation before I could agree.
I watched him.
I missed him.
Get a grip.
Tearing my eyes away, I entered the bathroom and found a much larger space than I’d anticipated. The shower held streaks of paint from others washing off Gil’s artwork. The double vanity held an array of cotton swabs and towelettes to do the same. To erase hours’ worth of detail and perfectionism.
After watching his YouTube videos, it seemed wrong that this was the place where his creations went to die. A miserable death for so many outstanding pieces.
One of my favourites he’d done—black-hooded and face-obscured—had been on two women pressed together into one, their arms folded in such a way that their human forms became a hummingbird.
Thanks to Gil’s technique with metallic and shadow, their skin transformed into iridescent feathers, shimmering with precision.
How did he stand it?
How did he spend so long making something come to life only to take a few photos then flush it down the drain?
My reflection mocked me as I moved toward the vanity and grabbed my shoulder-length dark blonde hair. Twisting it into a rope, I made a bun at the base of my neck and secured it with an elastic from around my wrist.
Once my hair was tamed, I searched the walls for a bathrobe.
No hooks. No robes.
Where is it?
My eyes danced around the white-tiled space until they came to rest on a pile of plastic-wrapped garments in the corner. I’d expected a bathrobe—as in singular. Something hanging on the bathroom door.
I should’ve guessed Gil had multiple canvases to paint. Therefore, he’d need multiple bathrobes. Judging by the pile of them, he ordered in bulk.
Sighing heavily, hurting all over again, I grabbed the top package, ripped open the plastic, and shook out a mothball smelling garment.
I stripped from my leggings and top, leaving my black G-string and sports bra on.
Slipping into the robe, I gave my reflection a shrug, then headed back out to the warehouse where scents of fresh paint, thinner, and citrus danced in the air. The smell grew stronger as I moved toward Gil.
He had his back to me as he mixed something, his head tilted to study what his hands were doing. His left arm looked no different than his right today, even though a bruise still marked his jaw.
Stopping by his side, I asked gently, “Who hurt you yesterday?”
He stiffened. “No one.”
“It was someone.”
Placing the paint bottles onto the mixing table, he turned to face me. For the first time, he studied me. Truly studied me.
And I wanted to run back to the bathroom and slip into three more robes for protection. His harsh eyes stripped me as if he had full access to my depressing, unaspiring life. As if he could see my mistakes, my hiccups, my failures.
Deep in his gaze lurked remnants of the boy I’d loved. A silent apology. A wish for more. That damn connection that refused to be ignored.
But he cleared his throat and shoved such softness away. Cupping his jaw, he cocked his head and moved around me with meticulous slowness.
Somehow, I knew he’d abandoned the realm of humanity and became as brutal and as beautiful as a weapon. A weapon that slashed with paint, murdered with colour, and no longer saw me as a person.
I was just a blank canvas.
A colourless piece of paper, ready for his art. “Take off the robe.”
I shivered.
My muscles seized. My belly flopped. I struggled with prim propriety and the curse of starving lust.
His presence seemed to magnify. His citrusy scent drugged me.
He groaned under his breath when I didn’t obey, sounding as confused and as hungry as I felt. Clearing his throat, he grumbled in a strictly controlled voice. “Off, Olin.”
Commands a lover would make.
Instructions delivered with hail.
I shivered again from the use of my name.
It drenched me in memories of adolescent moments. Of simpler times. Of excruciating times. Where a crush had the power to erase the world and forsake all others. Where affection had the magic to make you believe in fairy-tales.
He cursed something I didn’t catch. Marching away, he dragged both hands through his hair while glowering at the ceiling. For a moment, it looked as if he’d rather throw himself off a cliff than return to me, but then his hands fell from his hair, his back straightened, he retraced his steps to stop beside me.
His voice was brittle with tightly reined temper. “Look, if you’ve gone shy, then leave. It’s best you go. I don’t know what I was thinking, asking you to come back.” His green gaze shot to the door, his shoulders tensing. “I...this was a mistake. You need to—”
“No.” Taking a deep breath, I undid the belt and wriggled out of the comfy warmth. “I want to stay.” Letting the robe hang off my wrists, it cascaded down the back of my thighs.
My stomach quivered as Gil’s eyes stayed resolutely on mine.
He didn’t look.
Didn’t devour.
We stood at an impasse.
Me desperate for him to want me.
Him desperate to show no signs of caring.
His jaw clenched as he arched an eyebrow, settling his features into cool indifference.
I wasn’t half-naked before him for the very first time. I was merely a piece of parchment stretched on a wooden frame.
“You really should have left.” His voice became tumbling rocks, heavy and threatening.
“I need the money.”
“Some things are worth more than money.” His veneer cracked a little. His jaw twitched. Bracing himself, he dropped his gaze from my eyes to my chin, to my collarbone, breasts, belly, thighs, and toes.
He noticed everything.
The slight scar on my kneecap. The belly button ring I’d recklessly done on my sixteenth birthday. The way my hipbones were a little too stark for my otherwise svelte frame.
He stayed in front of me.
Which I was glad.
My back was where my secrets lay.
His body locked down as if he enlisted every muscle not to reach for me. The freezing warehouse suddenly became a furnace. Deceit couldn’t exist in the blistering awareness that things weren’t over between us.
They could never be. Not when our souls still belonged to the other.
“Gil...” My heart drummed against my ribcage. “I—”
He bit his lip, shaking his head furiously. Backing away, he rubbed his mouth as if giving himself time to get runaway desire under control. Slowly, difficultly, he shoved away all hints of need, shutting himself down.
With his body rigid, he nudged his chin at my sports bra with its highlighter peach crisscross straps. “I can’t paint you with that on.” He dropped his stare to my black G-string. “Nor that.” Swallowing back the gravel that’d appeared in his throat, he turned and yanked open a drawer on his mixing table. Another packet appeared, this one smaller than the bathrobe but just as new and untouched. “Put this on and take the bra off.”