She smiled. "I have a system in place, even if you can't tell. But no, that's not it." She motioned toward a smaller easel she had set up on a table. "Come over here a second."
As she placed a small canvas on the easel, she could feel the second he stood next to her. As silly as it sounded, heat radiated from his body, and he smelled faintly of some manly soap.
Her dragon yawned and woke up from her nap, which she always did when Cat painted, and said, I smell more of the male than the soap. He smells better.
Cat nearly took a deep inhalation to see if she could notice it, but she quickly pushed that thought aside. This was Lachlan, after all. He'd probably call her mad and ask for someone else to be his co-coordinator, for someone who didn't randomly sniff other people.
Her dragon was about to reply, but Cat spoke aloud, silencing her beast. "I have a little paint leftover, so I thought you could try your hand at it."
She glanced at him, noticing the faint, dark stubble on his jaw. He was probably a male who had to shave twice a day if he wanted smooth skin.
Not that Cat minded a little roughness.
Willing her cheeks not to burn, she focused on grabbing a paintbrush and handing it to him. "And don't worry, we'll just try something abstract. That's just a shorthand way to say you can do whatever you want and call it art."
Adjusting his grip on the brush, he dabbed it into some blue paint and created a straight, diagonal line across the rectangular surface. "There. I'm done."
She rolled her eyes. "No, that was you being a cheeky bastard."
She wrapped her hand around his fingers. Her heart skipped a beat at the feel of his warm, rough skin under hers.
Maybe she had gone too long without sex. Because this was Lachlan, the opposite of everything she was.
Someone most definitely not for her.
Her dragon hummed. But he's here, and his heart rate ticked up.
Probably because he's nervous around dragon-shifters still.
Tell yourself that, but I think you're just a coward.
Ignoring her dragon, Cat cleared her throat and fell back on her art teacher persona. She moved his hand to dip the tip into the paint and put it back in front of the canvas. "Just put the brush on the surface and let it flow. Try to show a bit of yourself on the canvas. And don't say that you're a straight line. I know you well enough to call bullshit on that."
She saw him smile, the action making him less formal and, dare she say it, a wee bit more handsome. Lachlan replied, "One part of me is that straight line. But the other…"
He trailed off, and with her hand still on his, he moved it to one side, swiped up slowly, moved back, and created a curvy, complicated design out of blue paint.
He lifted the brush off the canvas, and Cat finally released his hand. She stared at the intricate pattern and then looked up at Lachlan. "That's more believable."
"What would your pattern look like?" he murmured.
"Probably not that different."
He turned the brush toward her. "Show me."
She took the brush, her fingers brushing against Lachlan's, and her heart thundered in her ears.
Part of her wanted to clear her throat and suggest they clean up. It'd be a lot easier to collect herself that way and reinforce that he was most definitely not worth the trouble.
But unlike how she grew tired of painting the same things repeatedly for art lessons or when she demonstrated painting stroke techniques, she actually wanted to show him her design.
So before she could talk herself out of it, Cat dabbed off as much blue as she could and then dipped it into the yellow. Putting her brush on the surface near the top, she moved in broader strokes, curving around and through some of Lachlan's, the paint turning green wherever they touched, until she lifted her brush off the canvas. "There."
He traced the design without touching it. "A bit more open than mine."
"Aye, but they complement each other, I think."
As soon as the words left her lips, she wanted to take them back. He'd probably interpret them wrong.
But he murmured, "Aye, I agree." Then he picked up a brush from the table, dipped it into a cup of water he must've gotten while she'd been painting, and did his best to blend where the two colors melted into one.
As the paint thinned and he spread it, she could do nothing but watch. When he finished blending every time their two lines intersected, he said, "And now you can't tell it wasn't meant to be painted this way."
She glanced up at his face. "For someone who says he's never painted, you seem to know quite a bit."
He smiled—a real one this time, not merely the corners of his mouth ticking up slightly—and her heart fluttered a second. When had Lachlan become so handsome?
He replied, "I'm a quick learner, and I learn from the best."
She snorted. "I highly doubt me telling you to draw a line constitutes the best teacher."
He shrugged. "Maybe not that, but I watched you as you painted earlier. So aye, you were my teacher."
He'd watched her paint? And she hadn't felt his gaze on her while she'd worked?
Her dragon spoke up. You wouldn't notice a naked man standing in a corner whilst you painted. Especially since I always sleep when you do.
Ignoring her beast, she studied Lachlan's blue eyes, surprised to see them full of heat and maybe even…mischief?
She wondered if this was who Lachlan truly was when he let his guard down.
And without thinking, her gaze dropped to his mouth, to the lips she'd had such a hard time painting in the past.
But as she stared at the plumper bottom one, she didn't care about sketching him right now. She wondered if he became even freer, or at least a bit more open when he couldn't talk.
Such as when he kissed someone.
Her dragon all but shouted, Yes, yes. Kiss him. Just once. It's been too long.
Kissing him was a bad idea, aye, a very bad one.
And yet now that her dragon had mentioned it, she couldn't think of anything else but how he'd taste or how he'd groan into her mouth.
His husky voice filled her ears. "What does your dragon keep saying to you?"
Her eyes moved back to his gaze, and she nearly sucked in a breath at the intensity there. Gone was the cool composure, replaced with a warm, inviting one that looked as if he wanted to lick every inch of her body.
Which was wrong. They shouldn't do any of that. After all, they had an event to plan.
And yet, it was almost as if she needed to kiss him. Only then could she forget about him and focus on her work.
Before she could stop herself, she leaned closer toward him until their bodies were a scant inch apart. She replied, "You really don't want to know. Dragons are a randy bunch."
"Oh, aye?" he murmured. "Why do you say that?"
Her beast said, Don't tell him, show him. Just kiss him already. For once, do something for yourself and not for other people.
If her beast had merely nagged her or said he would scratch an itch, or even guilt-tripped Cat into trying to kiss him, she might've been able to resist.
But Cat rarely did something because she wanted to, apart from her art. And maybe if she hadn't learned the night before about how she'd probably be helping her mother for many more years to come with yet another sibling, she might've resisted.