Chapter 6
Jana
“He’ll be here soon, Teddy. Should I or shouldn’t I?” I rolled my eyes even though she couldn’t see me, the phone in a precarious position between my shoulder and ear while I pulled Francesco’s from its delivery packages. I invited Max over for painting and more.
“I can’t tell you what to do with your body, Jana. That’s just wrong on so many levels.”
Times like this made me wonder why I so desperately wanted friends. “Fine, do you think it’s too soon to consider sleeping with Max?” I knew after the first kiss that I wanted to lose my virginity to him, because no man had ever made me feel so wanted. So desired. And if I was going to open my body up to a man, it would be one who made me feel like the most desired woman on the planet.
“No, I don’t. He’s hot and clearly he’s hoping for a taste of you, I say go for it. Just go in with your eyes open.”
I nodded as I put the risotto Milanese into a big ceramic bowl and covered it. Next was the chicken marsala and then tiramisu. “Meaning don’t fall for him?”
“Fall for him if you want, it might do you some good. But before you decide, ask yourself if you’re okay with him walking away.”
I froze. “You think he’s going to walk away?”
“Honey no, but there’s always that chance with men. Usually we don’t know until it’s too late. I think you should go for it, but if you let whatever happens between you and Max color what happens for the rest of your life, you’ll regret it.”
That didn’t really give me any answers. “Come on, Teddy, it’s not like guys are pounding down my door and certainly not men like Max. I want, just once, to have sex with someone who wants me. Not just any warm body.”
“Then that’s your answer. Good luck and make sure you use condoms. Bye, love you,” she said in one breath and hung up before I could ask another six dozen or so questions.
“Thanks Teddy,” I grumbled and put the tiramisu in the fridge. Max would be here in the next fifteen minutes and I still needed to get dressed. We were painting tonight so I couldn’t get too dressed up, but I opted for a lacy tank top to wear under my smock and a cute little denim skirt. It felt flirty and cute, like something a woman might wear on a first date. Or a third, if I didn’t chicken out.
So maybe I kind of chickened out right away because when Max arrived, I already had on my painting smock. “I figured we could paint in the back until the sunsets. Then, we eat.”
He grinned, a hungry look in his eyes. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He walked beside me, our fingers lightly brushing as our hands swung back and forth. He smelled good, like what a man should smell like, outdoors and leather. Man and musk. I didn’t know what exactly it was, only that it made me want to flare my nostrils just to take in more of that intoxicating scent.
“What are you going to paint tonight?” I didn’t want to paint, I wanted to sketch and I wanted to sketch him.
He stopped dead in his tracks. “You mean you don’t have a nude model or a plate of cheese for me?”
I laughed at his convincing delivery. “I would consider being your nude model but I’m afraid that the end result might give me body image issues.”
He pouted and then his face transformed into a magnificent smile that made him look a decade younger. Lighter. Like a man without a care in the world, rather than a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “That’s a good point and we can’t have a body like yours thinking there’s anything wrong with it.”
The man was potent and I had no protection against it. “Um, thank you.”
“This is nice.” He stopped and looked around the yard where the lights strung throughout my trees were on, providing a soft glow to the early evening sun. “What are we painting?”
“The setting sun.”
He grinned again. “Sweet.”
Quietly we both sat and began mixing paints and sliding our brushes across the canvas. I had bigger canvases than Moon had at her shop, but with the stunning view we had tonight, I didn’t think it would be a problem. When I snuck a glance to my left, Max had already began splashing red and orange paint across the canvas. His face was a rugged mask of concentration, so compelling that I knew I had to at least paint him now. I’d commit every plane of his face to memory to sketch later.
“Shouldn’t you be watching the sky?” He grinned to show me he wasn’t bothered at all by my blatant staring.
“Nah, you’re a much better subject.” I don’t know what possessed me to act so bold, but his gray eyes flared with desire each time I did. I felt like I had some kind of power in the moment, but just power to turn him on. He wore an outfit that looked more at home on fifties biker gangs rather than what he was, which was so much more than a man who belonged to a motorcycle club. A crisp white tee clung to his massive chest and arms, looking even starker white against skin that had seen too many days out in the sun, and jeans. Good lord the man did things for jeans I didn’t even think were possible. They hung low on his hips, hugged his thighs and ass and fell to a rumpled heap over a pair of well-worn leather motorcycle boots.
My whole body lit up like the Vegas night sky just looking at him, and that had never happened. Not even when I did research online. But I forced my mind to focus on the canvas and to look only at Max as a subject. At least until we were done.
Almost an hour later the sun had set and Max sat back. “I don’t think mine is gettin’ any better than this, sweetheart.”
I leaned over and stared, stunned. “Max, this is really, really good.” He’d captured the sky just as real and three dimensional as it appeared. Hot and fiery, transforming the entire desert landscape around it. “Wow.”
“Don’t blow smoke, honey.”