details of the buzzards’ talons, feathers, and eyes or on the elaborate wing pattern, spindly legs, and slim abdomen of the butterfly. He also didn’t skimp on the details of Nikki’s breasts, because breasts deserved attention. Breasts always deserved his attention.
He was almost sad to move his work down to a slender belly and the flair of hips, with a leg bent to angle conveniently over feminine folds. It was invasive enough for him to imagine what her breasts looked like—and end up drawing them like Madison’s. Adam had no business or interest in imagining what the woman’s pussy looked like. He felt she had to be naked in the drawing, though. Clothes would have taken away from the feeling of exposure. But all of her secrets didn’t need to be completely revealed. He was still futzing over the exact shape of her big toe when he realized she’d fallen silent.
He glanced up to her face, expecting to find her asleep, but she was simply watching him. Perhaps she was tired of talking about Melanie.
“Almost done?” she asked.
“Almost.”
“I can’t wait to see it. I had my portrait drawn by a caricaturist once,” she said, “but I didn’t care much for the results. It only managed to make me very self-conscious about my horse teeth and my chipmunk-fat cheeks and my wide-spaced eyes that are practically on the sides of my head.”
Adam shook his head. He had hated the drawing that hack down by Jackson Square had done of Madison. “There should be a law about taking something beautiful and making a mockery of it.”
“Can I see the drawing now?” She was like a child who couldn’t wait to open a gift.
“Not yet.”
She scowled at him. “You gave me horse teeth, didn’t you?”
He laughed. “No, your teeth are very lifelike. Especially where half your face is missing.”
“I can’t sit still anymore,” she whined.
“You can move. I never said you couldn’t move. Besides, you didn’t have any problem jacking your jaws earlier. Plenty of movement going on there.”
She slapped his leg. “Shut up.”
He laughed, adding a shadow here and there to the nearly finished drawing.
She sat up beside him and opened her beer, which was sweating a huge puddle onto the wooden table near her hip. Her fingers toyed with the water as she took a swallow from the brown bottle.
“It’s hot out here,” she said.
It was rather warm. Adam had been so wrapped up in his work, he hadn’t noticed until she’d mentioned it.
“We should go inside,” he said.
“Not until I see the drawing.”
Poker face in place, he said, “I think I’m going to shred this one and start over.”
Her jaw dropped, and she wrenched the sketch pad from his loose grip. He’d been done for several minutes, but was a bit nervous for her to see the completed drawing. With the exception of the tattoos he’d designed for his bandmates and the sexy image he’d crafted of Madison, he usually kept his artwork to himself. His music was for the world, but his drawings were for him alone.
“I’m naked!” she squeaked, her gaze shifting as she examined every detail of the sketch. “Oh, Adam, it’s beautiful. I’m beautiful.”
“I told you that you are.”
Her eyes widened, and she lifted a hand to hover over the living butterfly he’d drawn in her hair.
“Why did you draw this?” she asked, her tone accusatory. “I never told you about Melanie putting butterflies in my hair. Were you eavesdropping on us earlier? When I told her that I love her?”
Adam shrugged. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. There was just a lot of white space there, and I thought a butterfly would look better than a scorpion, but if you want me to change it . . .”
He reached for the sketch pad, and she clutched it to her chest. “No, don’t change it,” she said. “It’s perfect. Better than perfect.”
“How can it be better than perfect?”
“It just is!” she said, her eyes a bit watery. She watched him warily and when she seemed convinced that he wasn’t going to take the drawing away from her, she tilted it away from her chest to take another look. “Okay, so it isn’t perfect.”
He leaned closer so he could examine his work more critically. “Should have made the teeth bigger.”
She smacked him half-heartedly. “It isn’t that. My boobs don’t look like that.”
“Yeah, well, that’s how I imagined them. So that’s how I drew them.”
“Mine are bigger than that, and this part isn’t that wide,” she said, matter-of-factly, pointing at the areolas. “And my nipples are larger.”
She shoved the pad into his hands and reached for the hem of her tank top. “I’ll show you.”
Adam probably shouldn’t have been shocked that Nikki was taking off her clothes outside in broad daylight—plenty of women had shown him their racks in public arenas—but they’d been bonding on a friendly level, so when her pink tank top went flying in one direction and her lacy bra in another, he could do nothing but gawk.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one gawking. Several low wolf whistles came from the area of the semi-truck parked near the bus. The road crew was taking a break from setting up the stage. Adam hadn’t even noticed them until they’d directed their appreciative attention to the suddenly half-naked woman at his side.
“See,” Nikki said, cupping her breasts in both hands and offering them up for his artistic examination. “My boobs look way different than those.”
Well, he wouldn’t say they were way different. The general structure of breasts was similar in all cases. But the devil was in the details. And she was right. He hadn’t drawn hers properly.
He erased the nipples and the under curves of her breasts and took up his pencil to do a more realistic job.
“Take it all off, baby!” one of the road crew yelled.
Nikki gave them the finger. “Get lost, baby.”
The crowd of men staring at them had gotten uncomfortably large.
“Let’s take this inside,” Adam suggested. “I can’t concentrate with all the noise they’re making.”
“Okay.” Nikki hopped down from the table and retrieved her tank top. She held it over her breasts with one hand, located her bra, and tossed it over one shoulder before picking up her beer and heading for the bus.
“Go get her, Adam,” one of the road crew shouted. “Plow her good and hard for me.”
Adam rolled his eyes and shook his head. Just because he was following a gorgeous, topless woman up the tour bus steps did not mean he was going to plow her. He was just going to draw her breasts properly. He had no interest in sex with anyone except Madison. And maybe once the love of his life figured out what she really wanted, he’d go back to plowing her, but it wasn’t happening with Nikki. Nope.
“Where do you want me?” Nikki asked as she glanced around the interior of the bus.
“The bed.”
Nikki laughed. “So you are trying to seduce me.”
“If I was trying, you wouldn’t have to ask,” he said.
She shivered. “Mmm, I really do think I went after the wrong member of the band last weekend.”
“If you don’t knock it off, I’m going to draw a fifty-year age progression of your boobs.”
Her jaw dropped, and she cupped a breast in either hand, rubbing her thumbs over her nipples to make them stand erect. “You wouldn’t.” She pouted at him. “You said there should be a law about mocking something beautiful.”
“I wouldn’t be mocking them. Just giving you a glimpse of the future.”
He started when her tank top and bra slapped him in the face.
“You are so mean,” she said.
He brushed the clothes away, and they landed at his feet. “If you’re trying to insult me, you’re going to have to try harder than that.”
“I wasn’t trying to insult you. I just want you to make me look beautiful in your drawing.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him.