Chapter Nine
‘What? No!’ Winnie stared at him, wide-eyed with shock.
He didn’t speak, just stared at his watch.
‘Jesse, I can’t,’ she said, and still he didn’t look up.
God, how long was twenty seconds anyway?
She should have paraphrased the movie and said five.
She couldn’t take her dress off, that just wasn’t who she was.
But then … who was she? Wasn’t this a chance to redefine herself, not for Jesse, but for her own benefit?
A handsome man wanted to draw her naked at sunset; just six months ago this would have seemed beyond the realms of reality for her life.
She’d probably blame it on the wine when she recounted the story to Stella and Frankie later, but right there and then she didn’t feel like it was the wine talking as she made her decision and got to her feet.
‘Stop the clock,’ she said quietly.
Jesse finally looked away from his watch and stood too, waiting for her to make her move. She looked him square in the eyes for a moment, and then turned her back.
‘Help me with my zipper?’
She said it so quietly that she wasn’t even certain that he’d heard her, but then she heard his breath close to her ear when he stepped in.
‘You’re insanely brave,’ he murmured, and his fingers brushed her neck as he slid the zip slowly down the length of her spine. He let her dress fall to pool around her ankles, leaving her standing in just her underwear.
Closing her eyes, she went for broke. ‘Now unhook my bra.’
He stilled. ‘You’re sure? You don’t have to.’
She swallowed hard. ‘You can hardly draw me naked if I don’t.’
‘It’s enough that you said yes. You’ve proved it to yourself,’ he said, reading her too easily.
‘Just unhook it.’
The sound of his breathing made her heart pound, and then his fingers moved to deal easily with the clips of her bra.
‘There,’ he said. ‘You’re undone.’
He had no idea how right he was. She was unravelling right there in front of him, unpicking the stitches of her personality and re-embroidering herself back together a little braver, a little more daring.
Winnie peeled the white cotton and lace from her body and let it join her dress on the floor, and then without giving herself a second to think or panic, she hooked her fingers under her knickers and pushed them down too.
‘There,’ she said, feeling all kinds of exposed and vulnerable.
‘I’m not going to touch you,’ he said, and she squeezed her eyes tight shut because this wasn’t about sex but it absolutely was too, and because the only man who’d ever seen her naked was Rory, and never like this.
Never standing in an olive grove with the sky overhead streaked pink and rose-gold like abstract art.
She sensed him step away, and it only made it all the more intimate because she knew he was studying her.
He didn’t speak, and she found herself desperate to hear the thoughts running inside his head.
Was he analysing her from an artistic viewpoint, or was he looking at her as a man looks at a woman?
‘Will you turn to face me?’ he asked, and everything about his low, measured voice told her that it was OK if she didn’t want to, and somehow that made it OK for her to want to.
Slowly, one heartbeat at a time, she turned around.
He met her gaze, and she didn’t recognise the look in his eyes because she hadn’t seen it before. He didn’t rush to take in her body. His gaze lingered on hers instead, waiting for her to be ready.
‘OK?’ he said, and she nodded, the tiniest of movements.
‘How do you want me to pose?’ She had no clue how this was supposed to go.
His gaze slid away from her, considering their surroundings.
‘I have this idea of you,’ he said. ‘Sit here.’
He stepped over the blanket to indicate a large smooth boulder.
She followed him, and then shyly perched on the rock. It was smooth and worn, but none the less it came as a sensory shock to feel the cool granite against her bare skin.
He stepped back a few paces. ‘Pull your knees up and then drop them to one side?’ he asked, more detached now as he immersed himself in the technicalities of the pose.
She did as he asked, her hands demurely in her lap.
He studied her, and then came closer.
‘Can I try something?’
‘Yes,’ she breathed, trusting him not to do anything she didn’t expect.
‘It’s your hair,’ he said, touching his fingertips to the braid wrapped around her crown. ‘May I?’
His fingers gently unpicked the grips from her hair and placed them beside her on the rock, and then eased the band from the end of the plait.
Winnie closed her eyes against the sudden rush of emotion that thickened her throat.
Rory had never taken the clips from her hair, and it was such a simple but sensual thing that she frowned with concentration not to blush or, worse, to cry.
His fingers moved to unpick her hair, freeing it into long crinkles as he ran his fingers through it.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘You can open you eyes, you know.’
She smiled, tremulous, and when she opened her eyes she found him waiting, one hand still on her hair as he met her eyes.
‘You’re impossibly lovely, Winnie,’ he said, placing his fingers loosely on her shoulders to straighten them and position them as he wanted.
‘Please feel it. Feel the warmth of the sun on your bare skin, and your hair where it brushes over your breasts. Don’t shy away from the woman you are, Winnie. Don’t blush. Bloom.’
God. He was a man of such contrasts. So many facets.
She’d known him barely three weeks, and yet he seemed to see past all of her layers and defences straight through to the woman inside, as if he wanted to drag her out of the shade to sit in the sun.
How did he do that? How could he be wise-cracking and sarcastic and then tender, empowering and fierce?
It made him difficult to read and a little bit dangerously addictive to be around.
She watched him settle himself on the ground against the trunk of a nearby olive tree, his jean-clad knees pulled up to create a rest for his sketchpad.
‘Sit up a little straighter and look slightly to your left,’ he said, his head on one side as he looked at her. ‘We’ll do ten minutes like this, no more than that, OK?’
She appreciated his consideration of her comfort, and realised that it must come from his experience of posing others. Did he do this often? Arrange naked women? She wasn’t brave enough to ask.
‘Like this?’
He nodded, thoughtful. ‘Can you sweep your hair over your left shoulder for me?’
It would expose her breast. She’d come this far. Tentatively, she did as he’d asked, running her hand down the rope of her hair.
‘That’s good. Twist your hair like that again?’ He made the motion he wanted with his own hand.
‘Like this?’ she said.
He shook his head and came over. ‘Like this.’ He slid his hand beneath the weight of her hair over her shoulder and spiralled it around his hand, laying it down like a twisted rope as he moved his hand down.
His fingers were centimetres from her breast, and although he was careful not to touch her, Winnie felt her nipple tighten in response.
‘Perfect,’ he said, without smiling to lighten the moment. ‘It’s normal for your body to react to being touched, even in a non-sensual way.’
Because it seemed to be his preferred method of communication, she answered him honestly.
‘It is sensual, Jesse. Being naked with you here, like this. Having your fingers almost touch my breast.’
He watched her face. ‘Being turned on is OK too. This is exactly what we talked about up at the lookout point,’ he said.
‘Pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Enjoying a connection with someone.
Enjoying someone looking at you, and touching you, and acknowledging that sex and love don’t have to be connected. ’
‘Are you enjoying looking at me now?’ She shouldn’t have asked, but she needed to know.
‘Very much,’ he said quietly, retreating to his spot beneath the olive tree.
For a while, she turned her face in the direction he’d asked and looked away into the distance.
She ought to feel embarrassed, she told herself so.
She should feel weird, she was sure of it.
But she didn’t feel either of those things.
She felt … liberated, and brave, and, damn it, she felt sexy.
Being naked had gone from terrifying to one hell of an aphrodisiac.
‘Light’s gone,’ he said eventually, placing his pencil down.
Winnie slowly came back from where she’d mentally wandered away to and realised he was right. The sun had dipped below the horizon, throwing the shadows of the trees long and spindly on the ground. ‘Can I see?’
‘It’s not finished.’ He flipped the sketchpad shut, brooking no argument as he came to her on the rock and held out his hand to help her up. Much as she wanted to, she didn’t push the point. He’d show her when he was ready.
‘My legs have gone numb,’ she said, unfurling them from beneath her and stretching them out. She was all at sea, a conflicting mix of lingering shyness and insistent boldness churning in her chest as he led her back to the picnic blanket.
‘How do you feel now you did that?’ he asked.
‘Ready to ask you to do something in return.’
Wary surprise flashed through his eyes. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I’d like to stay naked for a little while, and I want you to look at me as a man, not an artist, and tell me what you see.’
‘I’m not a machine, Winnie. I’ve been looking at you as a man for the last half an hour.’
She sat down, and when he dropped beside her, she lay back, feeling the stretch of her body against the woollen rug.
‘You really want me to look at you,’ he said, soft and low, and when she nodded, he lifted her arm above her head and laid it on the blanket.
‘OK,’ he whispered, lying on his side beside her, propped up on one elbow. ‘Your eyes tell me that you’re anxious, despite the fact that you’re in complete control of the situation.’
‘I know I am,’ she acknowledged.