Chapter 3 #3
He pulls down his mask and smiles with a hint of an apology, looking pointedly at my hand that I didn’t realize had thrown itself over my beating heart.
I draw my hand down purposely, slowly. I am in control, I remind myself.
But as I look up at his face as he drags his eyes up my body, the carnal energy he’s exuding has me wondering if in fact, I am not in control.
“No one’s here,” I offer up more meekly than intended. “Normally people are here on weekdays.”
“I asked that we have the studio to ourselves today,” he says simply. He tilts his head and takes a step toward me.
“Why were you wearing your mask when you came in?”
He smiles and rolls his eyes. “A few bloggers are starting to get wind of my new spot”—he gestures to the space—“I’d prefer they not snap a picture of my face.”
“And why is that, Devo?” I emphasize his pseudonym.
“Well, Miss Faure—” He takes another step forward and I think he’s maybe about to touch me, but instead he bypasses me and heads for our small kitchen. He has that same smell of aftershave and acrylic I’d first caught on him at McArthur’s.
He yells back over his shoulder, “I’d like to keep some semblance of a private life during this ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ I’ve been granted.” I can hear him flick on the sink, and when I catch up to the kitchen doorway, I see he’s washing his hands.
Devlin runs the soap over his fingers and then thoroughly scrubs it off. He turns to me as he pulls a paper towel and I realize I’m staring.
At his hands.
I look back up to his face and he raises his eyebrows. “A woman of many words today, I see.”
He brushes past me once again, leaving me flustered. I’m determined to pull myself together.
Devlin makes his way deeper into our rather large studio. It used to be a warehouse for storing copper and had been equipped for pre-installation welding operations, thus the name, Copper Works.
I hang back for a moment and chew on what he’d said when I’d asked about his mask.
“Wait—” I finally jog after him as he makes it to the end of the long room.
“What do you mean your ‘fifteen minutes of fame’?” The exertion from my jog builds upon my already elevated heartrate, and I land beside him unexpectedly out of breath.
Devlin’s not paying attention to my question.
Instead, he’s opened a door to a storage closet and is visually surveying the contents.
Now that I’m just inches from him, I don’t know what to do.
The last time I saw him in real life he had me up against a wall.
And the last time I saw him in my mind, he’d had me against a tree, and had taken things quite a bit further…
just thinking about it has me blushing again.
Of course, he takes this moment to turn his head out of the storage space and look at me.
I adjust my stance and turn my head, trying to nonchalantly obscure my face with a curtain of hair.
To my great relief, he keeps any commentary on my shifting energy to himself.
“Apologies,” he says, “I normally know what the set-up is going to look like ahead of time, but I had my assistant set everything up for me this morning.” I’m confused until he opens the door wider and allows me to see inside.
Our usually messy storage room filled with partially used or ripped canvases and forgotten supplies, now looks more like a lounge.
An ornate red velvet settee sits in the front of the room; its wooden legs and edges are intricately carved and painted gold.
The large circular base that’s normally used to roll out large sculptures now has a cream-colored tarp draped over it, with what must be a four foot by six foot unframed canvas laying atop it.
Not only is there a velvet couch in our storage closet, there’s also a Persian rug covering the cold concrete floor, stretching from the settee to the platform.
I spot an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne sitting inside it, and is that…
is that music? Coming from where? I look around, trying to find a source.
My eyes must look wide as saucers because Devlin’s rich laughter shakes me out of my stupor.
“So, all of this”—he waves at the room with one hand while his other holds the back of his neck—“is actually supposed to make you more comfortable.” He squints his eyes at me slightly and tilts his head.
“It’s not supposed to make you more on-edge. ” Devlin offers me a sheepish smile.
Once again it feels like he’s heavily observing me, memorizing all my expressions and interpreting them all, well, correctly.
I am a little on edge. And it’s frightening that he can just see through me so easily.
“Stop perceiving me!” I blush as I force out the first joke that comes to mind.
For the first time, it’s Devlin’s turn to look confused.
“Stop…?” he says with his head cocked.
“Yes, stop perceiving me, I don’t want to be perceived,” I emphasize, chuckling again and concurrently wishing I could just say normal things.
Devlin cuts my self-consciousness short though.
In a quick but gentle movement, he pulls his jagged mask back up over his mouth and nose and steps toward me, causing me to bump up against the the doorframe to the converted storage room.
He places one hand on my collarbone and one hand on the doorframe above us.
The proximity forces me to tilt my head up to look into his light-colored eyes.
They’re not quite as icy as they were in my dream, but I can see a definite hunger in the way his irises dance across my face, landing on my lips.
“Yes?” I whisper up to him, shaky—my senses heightened. This is a familiar position between the two of us, and I’d wanted more then just as I want more now.
“Hmm—” he muses, and moves in closer to my neck before running his mouth down to my collarbone.
I can feel his hot breath press through the mask and whisper down my bosom.
“I certainly hope—” he continues, while shivers wrack my whole body.
He moves back up in front of my face and holds a hand gently to my cheek— “that you’ll allow me to do more than just perceive you. ”
He steps away and sweeps into the room. I pry myself off the doorframe and pray that at no point in time this man sees my underwear.
He affects me more than anyone I can remember.
Past boyfriends be damned. I gingerly step into the storage room and look back out into the larger space one more time to see if there’s anyone loitering about.
This mysterious assistant, perhaps? Not a trace.
I close the door behind us.
“So, why are we working in here? If uh, no one is out there?”
Devlin’s back is turned, and he pours champagne into two fluted glasses he’s inexplicably procured.
“I thought it was cozier in here, more amenable to the type of environment I like to work in,” he replies over his shoulder.
“But then, why would you need the space cleared? Out there?” I gesture to the door.
“Precautionary measures,” he says turning around, handing me a flute of champagne—the effervescence is fresh and dampening my fingers.
“Just in case there are sounds we want to keep private.” His lips quirk and his eyes alight upon my face for a reaction.
My heart leaps but I try not to emote. Instead, I take a sip of my champagne and sit down, crossing my legs and pursing my lips.
“Are you now going to explain to me what exactly you’ve asked me here to do, Mr. Devo?” I try to take the bold, playful route; I don’t want to fall prey to my nerves. I came here of my own accord, and I’d like to remind myself to act with conviction when it comes to my own choices.
“Ah, ‘Mister’.” He takes a step in front of me but remains standing, forcing me to tilt my head back to look up at him.
He places his pointer finger under my chin, and I see that his mask is no longer on.
Now it’s his turn to take a swig of the sweet golden drink.
“Not my first preference, but I can work with Mister.” He winks, and steps away, taking another large sip.
Once again, he’s left me confused. “What do you mean? What do you prefer?”
“That’s likely for another time.” Devlin comes back to sit beside me on the couch and brings up a slate of papers with a pen atop them. “First though, I must ask you to do something. I’m sorry.”
I look at the papers and take in snippets of legalese.
“So, an NDA is involved?” I raise my brows and search his eyes for validation.
“Unfortunately, I had an incident earlier on and it was strongly recommended to me that I have each, uh, collaborator I work with look this over and sign.”
I take a deep breath. Legal documents aren’t my strong suit, and I’d never been one to read the fine print.
“I don’t really—” I struggle to respond.
He waves his hand at me. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to sign it.” He looks at me with sincerity. “We just won’t collaborate on any art in that case, and that would be fine by me, Charlotte.”
I slowly nod as I weigh what he’s saying.
He continues, “But even if you do sign it, we can still stop at any time.” He rubs the back of his neck.
“And to be honest, I don’t think I’d act upon anything anyway”—he gestures to the paper—“but I’m told it’s a deterrent for talking to the press and I, well—” He looks around the room. “I value the privacy of my process.”
I think back through all the videos of the young women who’d claimed they’d been a “muse” for one of Devo’s paintings.
Their eyes shone with the excitement of a secret kept, of a special nostalgia for something they’d never forget.
They hadn’t seemed traumatized or frightened.
.. or even upset that they weren’t Devo’s only muse.