Читать книгу Muse - Sommer Marsden - Страница 12

She was almost out the door, on her way to her car. Dani had a hankering for a big-ass glass of wine, hell, maybe a bottle. The adrenalin rush had reemerged when she’d been told to put her clothes back on. She’d done it. She had actually fucking done it. She found herself clutching her tote bag and her purse with trembling fingers and her legs felt made of wet spaghetti.

‘Hello?’

She turned, one hand rising to her chest to cover her thumping heart, because this hall had no other classes this evening and he’d scared the hell out of her.

Man bun.

‘Um … oh, hi. Sorry, you scared me.’

‘Sorry.’ He shoved his hands into the pockets of his faded skinny jeans. No doubt very expensive jeans that were manipulated and abused to look as if they’d received years of steady use to make them soft and distressed. ‘Wasn’t my intention.’

She nodded, waiting, heart now pounding like some wild tribal drum. What was this?

‘I don’t usually do this …’ He trailed off. She saw, despite his confident personal fashion and roguish straying eyebrow, he was rather shy.

‘Do what?’ she prompted.

He chuckled. It was a lovely self-deprecating, deep sound. ‘Confuse women in the hallway.’ He sighed, leaning against a locker and regarded her. ‘What I meant to say is I don’t usually see women out of their clothes until after I’ve asked them out. This time I’m reversing it. Asking out a woman I’ve already seen out of her clothes.’

‘You don’t know my name,’ she said, stupidly.

‘You could fix that. You could tell me.’

‘Dani,’ she said. ‘Dani Young.’

‘Kevin Buck,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘But I did know your name, remember? The prof told us.’

She took it but a small laugh escaped her. She had forgotten. Entirely. ‘Buck?’

He nodded, eyes shining with amusement. ‘Yep. Buck. I’ve gotten them all. Young Buck, Don’t give a Buck, Quick Buck …’

‘I’m sorry.’ She shook and released, uncomfortable with how much she liked the feel of his hand on hers. ‘I’ve just never heard that name before. I wasn’t making judgement. Sorry about the names too …’

He shook his head, took a step back as if to show her how harmless and charming he was. ‘No big deal. It could have been worse. A lot worse. So about that proposal of mine …’

‘Going out?’

‘A drink maybe?’

‘When?’ Had she just asked when? She’d meant to say no.

‘Wednesday after class?’

Dani swallowed hard. Cheryl’s voice was echoing in her head. Her encouragement to explore. When she opened her mouth again she heard herself say, ‘Yes. Sure. That’s great.’

He nodded – it was nearly a bow – and the samurai bun bobbed. She smiled. A few small tendrils had escaped, and she imagined he liked it like that, but she had the urge to tuck them back into the artfully messy mass he’d created. And to see if his hair was as soft as it looked.

Instead, she pushed her hands into her jacket pocket and said, ‘I’ll see you at class, then.’

‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Maybe when I’m done I can show you my sketch of you.’

‘Oh, I don’t think I want to see that.’

There went that errant eyebrow again.

She cleared her throat. ‘What I mean is, I don’t want to see myself. It makes me … twitchy. There’s a better chance I’ll stick with this if I don’t see myself. If I see myself on paper from someone else’s perspective … I’d probably not like it. It would probably upset me.’

Why was she telling him this? Nerves. It was the only answer she had.

He moved a little closer and brushed her shoulder with his palm. ‘It makes me sad to hear that. Maybe one day you’ll change your mind,’ he said. ‘You’re spectacular.’

The next thing she knew she was pushing out into the chilly night. It felt like they’d get their first frost. Dani watched her breath make ghosts in the darkness as she exhaled. She’d survived her first class and man bun, aka Kevin, had asked her out.

‘Not too shabby,’ she whispered.

* * *

He was painting her. Kevin Buck. With his dark, mussed man bun and his bottomless gaze. But not on paper. Not on canvas. He was painting her. He had his tongue tucked between his teeth as he worked. Every time the slick cool smear of paint touched her skin, followed by the kiss of a red sable brush, she had to suppress a shiver. But worse than that, every stroke he laid down on her skin as he worked acted as a bellows to the heat that was growing between her legs. Dani shifted just a little and he said softly, ‘Stay still, Dani.’

The paint whirled around her nipple. Which instantly stiffened and went insane. The flesh wanting to tingle and ache all at the same time. She squeezed her thighs together and that only made it worse. Vibrant cobalt blue began to cover that small halo of flesh. He dipped, he swirled, he dipped, he swirled, and she found she couldn’t catch her breath.

‘I told you that you were spectacular,’ Kevin said, grinning. Now a small paintbrush was clamped between his white teeth. Teeth, she noticed, that were just crooked enough to be adorable and charming.

He found a larger brush, examined it and nodded as if it pleased him. She managed a small sip of air, enough to steady her buzzy head a little.

The large brush made bright streaks of cool orange paint down from just below her blushing-blue breast and towards her navel. Her stomach muscles trembled and he didn’t say a word. It was obvious she had no control over something as instinctive and primitive as that tremble.

He painted past the shallow divot of her belly button and the thick streak landed right above her mound.

Is he going to paint my pussy? … is he going to stroke that over my clit? … is he going to? … is he going to?

The words were a runaway freight train running through her mind. She bit her tongue and tried to keep her focus.

‘Your colour balance is off,’ said a voice.

They both looked up to find Chris there. She nearly died. The heat between her thighs became liquid and uncontrollable. Now he was here. Watching. Watching Kevin paint her … literally.

Kevin stopped and stared at his instructor. ‘I disagree.’

‘She should be in reds and golds, maybe a touch of copper. It matches who she is.’

‘I think this matches who she is.’

‘She looks like a clown fish.’

Kevin frowned. She said nothing. Her head whipped back and forth as if watching a tennis match. When Chris stepped forward and selected his own brush, all the air she had managed to keep in her lungs fled.

Chris took his brush and it came up crimson and spread the paint, slick and cool, around her other nipple. The lick of the brush was a trailing comet of pleasure. He took his time, face serious, brow furrowed as he painted out in ever widening circles. When her breast was nearly rimmed in red, he changed brushes and painted a trim of gold whirls. He too went and chose a larger brush, as her chest rose and fell in fits and starts from trying to breathe.

Copper gleamed thick and shimmering on the paintbrush. He started at the top of her thigh, bringing his lines up to kiss the V of her thighs. Dani’s body jerked of its own accord and for a moment their eyes met. Those blue eyes of his seemed to see right down into the flaming centre of her. The part of her that wanted, one of them, either of them, hell, both of them, to dip that brush between her thighs. To paint the part of her that screamed the most for contact.

Instead he curled his painted feathering line up her belly to meet the crimson and gold at her breast.

Dani thought they’d pushed her as far as she could go until Chris dropped his brush and squatted down in front of her. His torso facing her bare sex, his face close to her naked breasts, cloaked in nothing but thin cold layers of drying paint.

‘Your brush strokes are messy,’ he said to Kevin.

Kevin cocked his head, frowned, his samurai bun momentarily disturbed by the movement. Chris traced a large fingertip around the brush strokes that dotted Dani’s nipple. That already tight knot of flesh grew tighter still. Surely it would crack the paint, she thought wildly.

His fingertips ran along the seams of the blue that adorned her left breast. When he started to travel the trail of the screaming orange she saw white spots dance in her eyes. Inside her, everything clenched. Everything grew wetter. Everything screamed for that finger to travel all the way to its ultimate – most coveted – destination.

His fingertips licked the top of her thigh, stopping where the paint ended. His bright-blue gaze was on her again and he smiled. ‘You should paint her the way she deserves to be painted. Like the art she is.’ Then he dragged his finger down between her legs and slipped it over that swollen, hard part of her that needed his touch more than she needed air to breathe.

Dani woke tangled in her sheets, panting, her hand shoved firmly between her thighs. Her arousal, while she slept, had reached a feverish level. As the sun came up slowly, turning the light in her room from purple to periwinkle to smoky grey, she slid her trembling fingers over her clit. Abandoning that when it didn’t feel big enough, bold enough. She pushed two fingers inside herself, grinding her clit against her palm as she hooked and curled her fingers. Finally, on the brink of dying or coming, she found her clit with her other hand and with just a few gentle strokes (like the kiss of a paintbrush), she came.

‘Jesus,’ she said to the ceiling. ‘Fuck.’

* * *

‘What happened to you?’ Cheryl was leaning in her doorway, arms crossed, smirk on her face.

‘What?’ Dani finished her coffee, studying the liquid intently so as to avoid looking at her friend.

‘You look like you got slapped. Twice.’ She laughed and touched a fingertip to each of her cheeks to indicate where she meant.

Dani instantly pressed her palms to her cheeks. They were warm. Of course they were warm! She’d been sitting here trying to place a paper fucking towel order for the restrooms and instead reliving her vivid, lascivious sex dream that involved not one but two men. One of them her old friend who’d been more like a brother to her.

‘Oh.’

‘Oh? That’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Did you get laid?’ Cheryl stage-whispered as she stepped inside and closed the office door.

‘No!’

‘Hmm. You sure look like you got laid.’

‘Nope.’

Cheryl kept her blue-grey eyes trained on Dani until she started to squirm. She was like an inquisitor. It was unbearable. Finally, Dani waved a hand and blurted, ‘I had a sexy dream. That’s all. I had a sex dream. I’m a teenage boy, sue me!’

Cheryl leaned against the door. Her eyes were shining in that way that meant she smelled gossip. Dirt. The goods.

‘Tell me,’ she said, sitting down in one of Dani’s two visitor chairs.

Dani leaned back in her chair and sighed. ‘I’m supposed to be doing … this …’ She waved a hand at the mess of papers on her desk and her humming computer.

‘Take a break from that and tell me what prompted zis zex dream,’ she said, steepling her fingers. ‘How does it make you feel?’

‘Well, Dr Freud …’ Dani riposted. Then she shook her head. ‘It was nothing. Just mental junk floating through my head while I slept. Stress, worry, thrill, Kevin Buck. Whatever.’

Cheryl held up a hand, eyes comically wide. ‘Did you say … Kevin Buck?’

Dani was unable to suppress a small giggle. ‘Yep.’

‘What on earth is a Kevin Buck and where did you get one?’

‘Kevin Buck is a student in the Monday-night class. He asked me out for a drink after tomorrow night’s class.’

‘Is he a …’ Cheryl looked at the ceiling as if steeling herself. ‘Young buck?’

Then her head tipped back and she was laughing, trying to suck in air. Dani, sleep-deprived and still shellshocked from her dream, couldn’t help but join in, gave into her own laughter. ‘Actually, he is. I think he’s a few years younger than me.’

‘What’s he look like?’ Cheryl was leaning on her desk now, a stack of colourful sticky notes trapped beneath her crossed arms. ‘Spill. I’m old, I’m married and I need the mental fodder.’

‘First off, I call him man bun.’

‘Ooh, he has the man bun. This is good. Go on.’

‘Dark hair, dark eyes, dark stubble. Tall, lanky but muscled, well built, great smile, nice, funny. You know, typical guy who’d make your shoes melt if he asked you out.’

‘And he did. He did ask you out!’ Cheryl crowed.

‘He did. And I said no.’

Cheryl’s face fell.

‘At first. Then I said yes. We’re going out tomorrow after class.’

‘Good, this is excellent. Good for you, Dani!’

Dani glanced at the clock. ‘If we’re going to waste time, we might as well go eat. I’m not super productive as it is. I feel bad using work time to gossip.’

‘Let’s go. Early lunch, then. It’s slow today. Three cancellations and it was a light day to begin with.’

Together they rode the elevator down and headed to the cafeteria. ‘You know I have sex dreams,’ said Cheryl. ‘Usually about Paul, but sometimes not. Sometimes it’s that strapping, deep-voiced Idris Elba. Sometimes, it’s that guy who plays Sherlock. The one who looks like the human embodiment of a bored feline. Weird name. Anyway, in this one, he takes this ribbon and—’

‘Ah!’ Dani said. ‘TMI, Cheryl. TMI!’

Cheryl frowned. ‘Oh, come on.’

They entered the cafeteria, ordered their food and found a table. ‘Just let me learn to digest my own sex dreams before I have to digest yours.’

‘Fine, fine,’ Cheryl mumbled. ‘But you never told me what it was. What happened?’

Dani stirred her chicken noodle soup and stalled by crumbling crackers into it. Finally, Cheryl had had enough. She took the final pack, smashed it by squeezing it in her fist and dumped it in. ‘Tell.’

‘He painted me.’

Her friend shook her head. ‘He painted you? So? Isn’t he painting you in class?’

Dani shook her head. ‘No, he’s drawing me in class. And I meant, he painted me. He painted my body with paint using a paintbrush. And he … strayed dangerously close to highly sensitive areas.’ Her phone buzzed.

‘Oh … sexy painting. I get it. Cool. He painted you and?’

Dani’s phone buzzed again. She held up a finger and answered. ‘Hello?’

‘Hey, it’s Chris.’

Her face was suddenly on fire. Her pulse a wicked thump and bang in her veins. She could feel it in the very centre of her forehead, a thrumming rush.

‘Hi.’ God, her voice was breathy. Weak. Maidenly.

‘Hey,’ Chris said. ‘Just making sure you’re still coming tonight. That you didn’t get home and decide I was insane to suggest it and you were equally insane to accept.’

Momentarily speechless, Dani was focused on the thoughts running through her mind. The first being: You should paint her the way she deserves to be painted. Like the art she is … What he’d said about her in her filthy, filthy dream.

The other followed swiftly: He sat and watched you stand there nude last night. Utterly naked. Without a stitch of clothing …

‘Hello? Dani?’

Cheryl was watching her, an avid look on her face. She could smell the drama, Dani was sure.

‘Yes. Sorry. I’m here. And yes, I’ll be there. I don’t think you’re insane. The verdict is still out on me, though.’ She forced a laugh and cringed to hear the vaguely lunatic tone of her laughter.

‘Good. I’ll see you then. You did great last night. Spectacular. You looked amazing, Dani,’ he said. A few beats of silence while she tried to prompt herself to thank him but failed. Then he cleared his throat. ‘OK, then. I’ll see you tonight. New class. They’re going to love you too.’

She managed a strangled ‘OK’ and then ‘bye’ and then he was gone.

‘So who was that?’

‘Chris. The friend of mine who thought up this whole crazy thing. He teaches the art class.’

Cheryl sat back looking very smug. ‘Friend?’

Dani nodded, stirring her soup but not actually eating it. ‘Yep. Since we were teenagers. Grew up in the same neighbourhood.’

‘Just friends?’

‘Yes.’ Her tongue sort of stuck to the roof of her mouth so she took a sip of water. Then another.

‘So why are you blushing like a virginal bride?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Oh, darling. You are.’

‘He’s just a friend. I swear.’

Cheryl made a noncommittal noise. ‘Not sure I buy that. I think someone might be hot for teacher.’

Dani decided that telling her friend that Chris had also had a starring role in her dream would be a very bad idea. She stirred her soup and sipped her water until it was time to go back upstairs to her office. She just had to get through the day and then not freak out when she saw Chris. No big deal, really. The dream hadn’t meant anything. Her mother had always called dreams ‘psychic junk’. Whatever was floating around in your subconscious that day came out to play when you slept. A great big amusement park of debris and detritus that made up one giant vat of nonsense soup.

She’d always believed that. She still did. Mostly.