As if sensing this, he leans back and turns his head toward me. “See? Easy.”
I snort. “Easy? You were making love to that thing.”
“Make love? I like that.” He laughs. “Well, isn’t that the secret to any great piece of art? You equate it to sex somehow. Sex and art are always intertwined.”
“Maybe in sculpting.”
“Not in writing? Aren’t you writing a romance?”
“It’s supposed to be women’s fiction…”
“But there is a romance, no?”
“Yeah…”
He gives me a weighted look before he says, “Perhaps you need to add more sex.”
“That would be a first,” I say. “And anyway, that scene doesn’t come until later. I was going to fade to black it anyway.”
“Fade to black?”
“You know … imply they have sex but don’t actually show it.”
His brows knit together in pure confusion. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“Because…” But I don’t really have an answer.
Because it’s easier that way?
Because I don’t want to have to live vicariously through my character?
Because I don’t think I have what it takes to write a convincing love scene since my own experience with sex has been … lacking, at best.
“There is no need to shy away from it,” he goes on, his voice lower. His gaze seems to bore into me. “I know perhaps back in Scotland and England things are modest, but here sex is … well, it’s more than natural. It’s a way of life. It’s the joy in life.”
How did this happen? How did I end up in his studio incredibly turned on, with him shirtless, talking about sex?
I open my mouth, not sure what I can say to that, when he suddenly slaps his palm down on the table and goes, “Ooh!”
He reaches over and turns the volume up on the stereo.
I exhale internally, unsure where the conversation was going to go.
The moody opening strings of INXS “Never Tear Us Apart” fills the studio.
“You know this song, yes?” Claudio asks me. His eyes have completely lit up, looking almost manic. I nod.
“Two worlds colliding,” he sings softly, more to himself than anyone. “And they will never tear us apart.” Like his lyrical speaking voice, his singing voice is just as smooth. Then as the guitar hits the familiar notes, he raises his hands in the air, pausing for a moment before he plays an imaginary drum roll.
“Ah yes,” he says as the rest of the song kicks in. “That right there. Goosebumps.”
He grabs my hand and places it on his forearm where his flesh is raised and hot. “Feel that. Have you ever had music do that to you?”
Well, fuck. Now I have goosebumps.
But it’s not from the song.
“You have them too,” he says appreciatively, eyeing my skin. “You will see, when the concert comes, you will have them all the time.”
“Can’t wait,” I manage to say, taking my hand away from his arm. The concert is in a week. I don’t know how I’m going to survive until then. I don’t know how I’m going to survive the rest of the month. Thank god Vanni is coming back tomorrow and I can go back to hiding and working. I shouldn’t be alone with this man. I’m getting too confused. It’s too much.
“What’s happening here?” he asks, gesturing to my face. “You’re thinking and it’s not good.”
“That’s what I do,” I remind him.
“And maybe that’s why you can’t create. You think too much.”
“Well, we can’t all be visited by the muse.”
“Oh, that?” he asks, looking incredulous as he jerks his thumb at his sexy abstract thing. “That’s not a product of the muse. That is just me messing around. That’s what I do. I create just to create and then I destroy it. See?”
He reaches over and pounds his fist into the clay sculpture, flattening it, and I actually gasp at the destruction.
“What did you do that for?” I cry out.
“It’s nothing,” he says. “And that’s how you need to go into it. It’s okay to make mistakes, it’s okay to not know where you are going. You can always mash it up and start again.”
He gets to his feet. “Here,” he says, coming over to me. He stands behind me, his hands on my shoulders and … shit.
He’s massaging them.
His touch feels hot, even though his shirt.
“First, you need to relax. You are too tense. Drink more wine.”
I reach for the glass and finish it, though the reason I’m tense is because he’s fucking massaging me. And I’m not about to tell him to stop.
“Okay, good,” he says, and then leans down, his mouth at my ear. My eyes flutter shut, my body poised to shiver from his breath at my neck.
Dying. I’m already dying.
“Relax,” he murmurs, resting his chin on my shoulder. He takes his hands and runs his palms down over my biceps, over my forearms, all the way to my hands. He guides my hands to the clay in front of me, placing my fingers along the edges, moving them as he would move.
I know there’s a different INXS song playing now, but all I hear in my head is The Righteous Brothers “Unchained Melody” because Claudio is full-on Patrick Swayze right now and I’m a pixie cut away from being Demi Moore. If he starts kissing my neck, I’m going to lose it.
But he doesn’t. He just stays pressed up against me, guiding my hands.
“Let me show you,” he says softly into my ear, sending sparks down my spine. “Then you will know.”
I try to do what he says. I relax back into him.
And the moment I surrender, the more my fingers begin to move on their own, kneading, creating.
“See,” he murmurs, “you just need to stop thinking so much. Let go.”
But it’s too hard to let go. I cling to my worries like a battle axe. I worry about what this means. I worry about what’s next.
I worry that this man might want me. And if he wants me, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Because I want him, too.
And nothing good can come out of hooking up with my agent’s ex-husband. Not if I truly want to start my career over. Not if I want to stand on my own two feet. I don’t care if the divorce was a long time ago, if there is no love lost between them. You don’t do that. And you especially don’t do that to Jana.
She would make me pay.
“Grace,” Claudio says softly, pausing my fingers. “Do you see?”
I kind of zoned out, so I blink and look down at the clay.
I see a face looking back at me.
At first I don’t know whose face it is. Naturally, I don’t have the skill to make anything lifelike. And yet I know who it is.
It’s my heroine.
“Do you see?” he repeats, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
I nod, a flush of pride moving through me, and turn my face slightly to his.
His eyes are right there.
His mouth is right there.
It would take no effort for his head to dip down one inch and press his lips to mine.
Oh lord. He’s going to kiss me.
He has to.