Early Sunday morning, Charlie had to drag her butt down to the studio. Between working on the house in San Jose, a Saturday afternoon barbecue with the Mavericks, then heading straight to another event that Sebastian was absolutely convinced could be critical to her career--she hadn't even had the energy to make love last night. She was pretty sure he'd carried her in from the car, undressed her, pulled the covers over her, then given her the softest, sweetest kiss on the forehead before whispering, "We'll take tomorrow night off. I promise."
God, she prayed that wasn't a dream. Please, please, please, not again tonight.
Utterly exhausted, she dropped down to sit on the bare concrete floor and stared at her magnificent stallions. Once upon a time they'd been so alive to her. Now they were mere skeletons. She just didn't feel them anymore, and she was so tired that she couldn't get her brain to focus on the vision she used to have.
But Sebastian was trusting her to create something truly amazing for his building. And she'd had a powerful vision of the two of them working side by side, showing their art together--a vision she would give anything to see come true. With only three weeks to go before the grand opening of his headquarters, she would get through the rest of the work even if it killed her.
At this moment, it felt like it would. Even her teeth were tired. All she could manage was coffee, hot and extra sweet. Just the way she liked Sebastian, she thought, but smiling was beyond her.
"Have you eaten?"
Thinking about him must have been like a psychic telegraph message, because there he was. Big, beautiful, sexy. Perfectly silhouetted in the open barn doorway.
"No." She was starving. But not only was she too tired to make herself something, she was too tired to get up and walk into his arms.
Sebastian approached, a tray balanced on his hand. "Eggs Benedict." He sat down with her so they could eat right there on the floor, bending over the plates on the tray. She managed half of hers, plus a piece of toast and some freshly squeezed orange juice.
"You spoil me." The food helped. She was still tired, but now she might actually be able to get up off the floor at some point today and start her work.
"I love spoiling you." He leaned in for a kiss that was as delicious and sweet as the orange juice.
When he helped her up, she swore her knees creaked as if she were her mother's age. She might be exhausted, but that didn't mean she'd given up her plan to bring Sebastian out of his artistic shell. "I've got a brilliant idea."
"All your ideas are brilliant."
He was so quick to praise her. But so hard on himself. "Draw me while I'm working, Sebastian."
He frowned at her. "Charlie."
"Please."
"I have work up at the house."
She worked to bite back her frustration. Frustration that had grown monumentally with every day that passed, because he simply wouldn't trust her when she told him he was a great artist. "You own the company, which means that while you might have work to do at the house, you can probably shift the timing of it around if you really need to." She pressed into him. Using their attraction to get him to concede might not be fair, but... All's fair in love, she decided. "Pretty please."
"You know I prefer to draw when I'm by myself."
She wanted to kick something, not him, just something. "It doesn't have to be perfect."
"I know." She could almost hear his teeth grinding when he said it.
Should she push? She knew his past was painful, and she hated bringing it back. But how was she supposed to do anything for him when she didn't know exactly what had happened?
"Who taught you that you had to be perfect?" she asked gently, as though the more softly she spoke, the easier it would be for him to answer.
"No one taught me anything. I just like drawing for myself." His knuckles cracked as his fist bunched. Watching him broke her heart into ragged halves. And she wished she'd kept her mouth shut. He hadn't been ready the last time she'd asked, and he wasn't ready now.
She was afraid he never would be.
She pretended she'd never brought up the subject, adopting a teasing tone. "All right, then I won't look at you while you're sketching. I'll pretend you're not even here." She licked her lips and fluttered her eyelashes. "But you can look at me all you want."
She was surprised by his sudden kiss--rough, raw, and so passionate that her head was spinning by the time he drew back.
"That was way better than just looking," she murmured, her voice breathless. She put her hand over his chest, felt his heart pounding hard and fast beneath her palm. And she understood that his kiss was a way of deflecting the question he didn't want to answer. "Is that a yes to sketching me?"
He breathed in, held it, then finally exhaled on a sigh. "We're different. You go into yourself as if you're not even aware of me while you're working. But for me--it's a hell of a lot harder to know you're watching me make one mistake after another." His explanation was actually a concession, giving her a piece of what she so desperately wanted to know.
She wanted to make him see it didn't have to be like that. "Can't it just be for fun? You don't have to figure me out. It doesn't have to be good." Pressing her lips to the side of his neck, she licked his deliciously warm skin. "Come on, for me?"