Chapter 5 #2
Back at the marble, he chiseled for a few more minutes before his frown of frustration returned.
Then he was again standing before her, sharing her air, touching her—squaring her shoulders, relaxing her shoulders, tipping her chin up, then down, nudging the back of her head to push it forward to…
She wasn’t sure what precisely he was seeking to accomplish.
All she could do was breathe him in and struggle against improper thoughts about his hands and the muscles rippling along his forearms. The heat of him…
The manliness of him… She’d never been in the presence of such a masculine being, much less had his hands upon her…
For her own peace of mind, she cleared her throat. He glanced down and blinked.
And she knew. He was now seeing her, not as a model to be molded like clay, but her.
The air between them went still and intimate. The sky could’ve crashed down about their heads, and Amelia wouldn’t have noticed for, here, in this instant of time something in her recognized something in him.
Her mouth parted, and her desire, sudden and deep, spilled out of her. “I want to paint you.”
“Oh?” He didn’t seem too intrigued.
“Nude.”
He went still as stone. “I cannot have heard you correctly.”
The boldness that had pushed her desire from her mouth didn’t relent. “Shall I repeat myself?”
He gave his head a bemused shake, breaking the moment. He pivoted and returned to his hammer and chisel. He wasn’t taking her seriously.
She could stamp her foot with frustration, but that would only reinforce his assessment that she was spoilt and didn’t know her own mind, like a child.
So, she sat and steamed and stewed in her humiliation as it settled in that she’d propositioned a duke—a duke!
—to strip nude for her. The sultry Italian air must’ve been having an effect.
“And I want to sculpt you,” he said. “But we don’t always get what we want, do we?”
What an odd thing for him to say. “You are sculpting me.”
He shrugged, and his eyes narrowed on the marble before him. “All of you.”
“All of me?”
Oh.
“All of me.”
“But that isn’t done with members of polite society.”
Polite. Never in her life had she taken issue with the word polite.
Never before now.
Further, she didn’t particularly care for the way he was throwing that word at her. Hadn’t she just been impolite?
She should storm off in a huff, but it struck her that she’d started this impolite conversation and every fiber in her being wanted to follow where it led.
“How much is all of me?” she asked.
His gray gaze caught hers and held it. “Every line. Every curve. Every inch.”
Oh, she felt hot…so hot. And her breath. It’d caught in her throat. “I can’t imagine my lines and curves are all that different from any other woman’s lines and curves.”
“My imagination is telling me otherwise.”
His imagination…
He’d been imagining her…
Her lines and curves…
Every inch of her body.
The very blood in her veins coursed hot, and her skin felt…excitable. As if one touch from him would cause an explosion.
He was ten feet away, and yet he made her feel so…
“You want to sculpt me”—the next word had trouble escaping her mouth—“nude.”
“Yes.”
No longer did his manner convey disinterest or nonchalance. He’d gone completely and utterly intense. Still, she detected a glimmer of distance, of distrust. He didn’t think for an instant that she would agree. He thought he had her. Maybe he did, because how could she…
Except…
How badly did she want it? How badly did she want to defy his expectations of her?
Until she’d met this man, she’d never thought anything wrong with her desire to conform to society’s rules and expectations. But this duke…
She wanted to defy him.
And confound him.
He thought he had her measure. Well…
“You have a bargain.”
His knowing smile fell, then froze. She had flummoxed him. No small victory, that.
“Pardon?”
“You heard me.”
“And, to be clear, the bargain is that if I pose nude for you, you shall pose nude for me.”
“Yes.”
It occurred to Amelia that she could be a different sort of person with this man. Someone who veered closer to the heart of who she truly was. Someone society had never seen. Even her siblings didn’t know this Amelia.
The look in his eyes shifted, no longer distant, but considering. “I’ll get what I want, and you’ll get what you need.”
“And what is it I need?” she asked, a bit breathless.
“Experience,” he said, his gaze unrelenting. “And I can give it to you with my body.”
Yet another blade of heat struck through Amelia, and for a moment she forgot what they were even discussing.
“You need to fully immerse yourself in the human form to deepen your work.”
Were they still talking about painting? Because her body and that secret place down there seemed to have a very different idea—and hope—that he was talking about something else.
He closed the distance between them and extended his hand. “You have a deal.”
She hesitated for the briefest moment, panic threatening to overtake her. She allowed it no air as she placed her hand in his. The contact lasted but a few seconds, but she felt the imprint of his skin scorch upon hers.
A fire lit silver within his eyes. A determination, too.
Anticipation slid up Amelia’s spine, curled in her gut… and lower too. Anticipation of what, she wasn’t certain. But she did know she’d never felt more alive in her seven and twenty years than she did in this instant.
She reclaimed her hand and wobbled ungracefully to her feet. She needed to get away from this man, so she could think. “I’ll, um, see you…soon.”
And her boot heels were clicking against the terracotta tiled floor, and she was exiting through the exterior door, upsetting the peace of his inner courtyard in her mad scramble to be away.
Surely, he watched her through the window.
And, surely, he expected her to go back on their agreement.
In truth, she half expected it, too. Except…
She had something to learn from that man. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew one thing.
Only he could teach her.