Chapter 9
Even the swath of sunlight that traveled across her face, waking her up, couldn’t erase the smile that tilted up the corners of Phil’s mouth. A delicious ache throbbed between her legs. She smiled at that, too. It had been a long time since she’d experienced that kind of ache.
“God, I needed this.” She sighed. Her body still hummed with the pleasure of being good and properly fucked by a man who knew exactly what to do with the tools he’d been given. And those she’d purchased through an erotic online store.
She lifted her head and tilted it toward the bathroom, listening for running water or some other indication that Jamal was in there.
Nothing.
Phil pushed up from the bed and walked over to the bathroom. It was empty.
“He left?” she said with disbelief.
She unhooked her bathrobe from behind the door and wrapped it around her, tying the satin sash at her waist. When she went into the living area, she immediately noticed the door to the spare room off the kitchen slightly ajar.
A shimmer of disquiet rolled down her spine.
She stalked over to the door and threw it open. “What are you doing in here?” she asked.
Jamal whipped around. In his hands was the unframed canvas of the pond on the edge of Gauthier. She’d started the painting months ago but had not found the time to finish it yet.
“Are these your mom’s?” he asked, nodding toward the nearly two dozen paintings leaning against the walls, all in various stages of completion.
Phil propped her shoulder against the doorjamb and crossed her arms in front of her. “They’re mine,” she answered.
His eyes widened. “Damn, Phylicia. What can’t you do?” He looked back at the canvas in his hands. “How long have you been painting?”
“Most of my life,” she said.
“These are”—he shook his head—”amazing,” he finally finished.
“That’s Ponderosa Pond. Have you ever been?”
“No,” he said. “But if it’s half as nice as this painting, it’s somewhere I definitely want to visit.”
“Thank you,” she said. His praise triggered a warmth that spread throughout her body. Phil was still unsure how she felt about his snooping around her house while she was asleep. Though, after the way she’d opened her body to him, he probably felt as if her home was open to him as well.
“Do you want coffee?” she asked, moving away from the door and taking the painting out of his hand. She leaned it against the wall with the others and pulled him out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Jamal stopped their progress and stared down at her for several moments, his brow furrowed.
“Sorry if I intruded,” he said. “I came upon the room by mistake. I was looking for a pantry because I was going to make coffee for you.”
“It’s okay.” She tried to pull him farther into the kitchen.
He didn’t budge. “I’m getting the sense that it really isn’t.”
Phil expelled a frustrated breath. “It’s just that I haven’t worked on any of that stuff in a really long time. Whenever I step into that room, it’s a reminder that I’ve been neglecting my painting.”
“Why did you stop? Too busy with your restoration work?”
If only…
“That’s one of the reasons,” she said.
“But when you’re that good at something, you need to make the time.”
“Really? So, before last night, when was the last time you’d played your sax?” she tossed back at him.
“Touché,” he said, a grin pulling up the corner of his mouth.
God, his mouth was gorgeous. And so very, very talented.
“However, since I did play last night, I think you should paint today,” he reasoned.
“I will,” Phil said. “I’ve got panels of wainscoting waiting for a fresh coat of paint. Why did you let me sleep so late? We should have been at the Victorian hours ago.”
He shook his head. “We’re not working on the house today.” She started to protest, but he stopped her. “I just spoke to my contractor. His crew finished their previous job early, so they’re starting on Belle Maison today. We can afford to take a day off.”
“Since when?”
He leaned over and nibbled her ear. “Since I discovered the sounds you make when your friend Bob and I work together.”
Phil’s entire body blushed. Just the mention of what he’d done to her last night heated her from the inside out.
“Come on, Phylicia. We can pack lunch and drive out to Ponderosa Pond. You can finish that painting.”
“We can’t,” she said, but her protest lacked conviction.
The moist tip of his tongue traveled down her neck. “What will it take to convince you that we can?”
A shudder rolled through her body.
“I’ll get dressed,” she said.
“I’m going to run to my place and get something more comfortable than the clothes I wore last night. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Be ready.”
Twenty minutes later, Phil pointed to the dirt road off Highway 439. “Turn here,” she told Jamal. He took a right, his shiny black truck kicking up dirt she saw in the rearview mirror.
“How much farther?” he asked.
“It’s just beyond that curve.”
They rounded the bend in the road and a small meadow opened up, the pond in the distance. The left side of the water was blocked by a copse of trees of varying heights.
“Who knew this little slice of paradise was hidden back here?” Jamal commented.
A curtain of moss hung from the branches of a huge oak tree that sat just at the edge of the pond. Tall reeds bowed to the will of the gentle breeze blowing across the pasture.
“It’s a well-kept secret here in Gauthier,” Phil said.
She collected her canvases and painting supplies from the back of Jamal’s double-cab truck, while he carried the easel. She set up her painting area a few yards to the right, using the truck to block some of the breeze.
“Do you mind if I watch, or will it make you nervous?” Jamal asked.
She looked back at him. “I don’t mind.”
Within moments, she was lost in her work. Jamal sat just beyond her shoulder, but it didn’t bother her in the least as she rediscovered everything she loved about what used to be her favorite pastime.
Phil wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she put the finishing touches on the tree.
“We need to move closer,” she said. “When I started this painting, the reeds weren’t this high. I want to make sure I get the water right.”
They moved closer to the pond, setting up shop just outside the drooping moss. Phil dabbed touches of gold onto the canvas to reflect the sun’s rays on the water.
She turned back to find Jamal lounging in the grass underneath the tree branches, his elbows bent, his legs crossed at the ankles. He looked incredibly sexy, his leanly muscled body stretched out the way it was. A work of art.
“You look as if you’re posing for me,” Phil said.
“Have you ever painted a human subject?”
She shook her head. “Just landscapes.”
“I thought all true artists had to master the human form in its natural state?”
Her mouth dried up. She swallowed hard, unable to stop herself from licking her lips. “I guess I can’t call myself a true artist, then,” she said. “I’ve never had the opportunity to paint the human form in its natural state.”
Jamal’s brows rose. “You want it?”
“You offering?”
“Depends.” He stood and toed off his shoes, kicking them a few feet away.
Phil pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “On what?”
Jamal’s eyes traveled the length of her body, the makings of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“What I get in return,” he said. He caught the hem of his shirt.
“We can, uh, figure out a modeling fee,” she said, slightly dazed as she watched him pull the shirt over his head. “Maybe I’ll shave some of the price off my bill for the work I’m doing at Belle Maison.”
An entirely too-wicked grin broke out on his face. He unzipped his shorts and pulled them, along with his boxers, down his legs.
“I think we can come up with something better than that.”
Phil tried to close her mouth, but it didn’t work. A nude man should seem out of place in these surroundings, but Jamal looked as if he was right where he belonged. She’d spent the night in close quarters with his naked body, but this was her first chance to actually see him.
Magnificent didn’t even come close. He was just the way she liked her men—lean, but sculpted with tight, defined muscles. Even though he had given up baseball years ago, he still had an athlete’s body.
“Where do you want me?” Jamal asked.
“That’s a loaded question,” she answered, and he let out a sharp laugh. “Are you serious about this?”
He spread his arms wide. “What do you think?”
Another loaded question.
She couldn’t describe what she was thinking right now. That he was too sinfully put together for words? That she wanted him to sprawl out on the grass so she could lick him from head to toe? That she wanted to strip out of her clothes and join him?
“Assume the pose you had before you undressed,” she said, grateful she’d snatched a blank canvas before leaving the house. She removed the painting she’d been working on from the easel and replaced it with the blank one.
Jamal lowered himself to the ground and stretched out again.
For several moments Phil just stared at the picture he created.
His abs were ripped like the proverbial washboard, those sinewy legs sculpted with powerful, lean muscles, his very generous male parts thick and resting against his inner thigh.
Lickable. So, so lickable.
“I’m not sure where to start,” Phil murmured.
“Start with whatever catches your eye,” Jamal said.
She looked at him over the canvas and couldn’t help but laugh. Reining in the nervous, giddy flutters floating around her stomach, she called on the serious artist she knew was hidden somewhere within her and got to work.
Looking at him through a painter’s eye, she caressed the canvas with the charcoal, mimicking the long lines of his torso. She captured their surroundings, sketching the base of the huge oak tree, imagining how she would bring the painting to life with the brilliant greens and soft browns.
Twenty minutes later, Phil had the sketch complete. “I think I’m done,” she said.