Curve Effect (A BBW Box Set of Contemporary, Science Fiction and Paranormal Romances) (32 page)

But she seemed determined to get out. She glanced around the room and pointed at his clock. It was just shy of eight. “How about I come back at eight forty-five?” she asked. “That’ll give me time to shower and get the dirt out of the scratches.”

Walt relented. He didn’t want to push too hard, and, by setting a time, she’d given him a ready-made excuse to knock on her door if she stayed away longer than she’d agreed. Lord knew he could certainly use a shower himself. There was no way he was going to make it through another round of sketching her if he didn’t relieve a little tension first. He held out a few more seconds before relenting.

“But you will come back, right?”

Christ, had he really asked her like that? So much for trying to play it cool. But he’d wasted more than half a year trying to play it cool with her, waiting for her to melt as most women did. She’d be back in her safe little apartment already if he hadn’t been so forward on the patio, touching her and telling her directly that he wanted to paint her nude.

Bryce nodded and he knew instantly the old Bryce was resurfacing—her consent so slow and shy that he was rock hard again. He jumped from the chair, sketch pad tight against his crotch as he fumbled out the words that he would leave her alone to dress. He caught the door on his way out, closing it behind him and immediately collapsing against the frame for support.

He tossed the pad halfway across the room to the leather recliner and then pulled back the waist band to his cotton shorts. He wasn’t small by any means, but he’d never seen his cock this swollen with need, the length further elongated and curving back to touch his navel in its search for a warm, moist pocket in which to bury itself.

Slowly he replaced the elastic waist band against his skin and then ran a shaking hand along his jaw line.

If she was going to keep having this effect on him, he needed a bigger sketch pad.

*****

As soon as the door closed, Bryce whipped the robe around her body. She needed to pee badly, or at least felt like it. Her body had roller coastered through so many highs and lows of sexual tension since she’d landed on Diaz’s patio that she wasn’t quite sure what her clit was feeling now. She just knew there was pressure to relieve. A lot of pressure.

Covered by the robe, she quickly scanned the room for something to serve as a makeshift sash. She saw the robe’s regular sash, instead, rolled tight and resting on the nightstand next to the bed. She spent another minute threading the sash and tying a tight bow, and then she plucked the plastic bag from beneath the pillow case. She’d lock herself in the bathroom at home and try either the toga or the chain on.

Percy had said a muse must wear the whole uniform. Bryce might be crazy enough—or desperate enough from her infatuation with Diaz—to accept the proposition that Percy was more than a nut job. That didn’t, however, mean Bryce was ready to risk her sanity wholesale by putting the toga and bracelet on at the same time. And Diaz seemed able to work just by Bryce having the items near her—for the most part. He did pause a lot.

Stop thinking and get moving!

Holding the bag away from her, she crossed to the bedroom door. Diaz was on the couch, his head in one hand, his other hand holding a pillow over his lap.

Probably cursing himself and wondering just what the hell he agreed to,
she thought. She forced a smile and bobbed her head in the direction of the bedroom. “Eight forty-five, right?”

Hearing his mumbled agreement, she retreated out the front door, praying everyone else in the complex was sitting down to their evening television and not hanging around the courtyard.

Chapter Four

The door to Bryce’s apartment was unlocked and she entered holding the bag in front of her at full arm’s length. She ignored the fierce need to pee that pinched at her sides and clit, and decided to lock the front and patio doors before securing herself in the bathroom. Only then would it be relatively safe to try on either the toga or bracelet.

At least, that was her plan.

“What in the name of Hades are you doing holding sacred artifacts like they were a bag of dog shit!”

The voice, deep throated but matronly, roared the question and Bryce spun around to find herself facing a very angry Greek. At least the woman looked Greek. Her toga was a pale semi-transparent rose, and a wreath of the same flower crowned her head. One firm breast was exposed, the other guarded by a strip of fabric and the lyre she held close to her body. Far from Percy’s waif-like form, the woman was full-bodied. Almost six feet tall, her limbs were all soft curves. The outline of thighs visible through the fabric reminded Bryce of the down pillows she had splurged on for her bedroom a few months ago. If Percy truly was the real deal, Bryce had a feeling the woman standing before her was a little higher up in the Muse hierarchy.

The woman’s stance softened and she took the bag from Bryce. “One of the originals, in fact,” she said and removed the ruined toga.

Damn, this mind reading thing is starting to piss me off,
Bryce thought and then took a startled breath as she realized she might as well have said it out loud.

The woman chuckled, the sound an erotic purr that had Bryce backing toward the apartment door.

“Not so fast, youngling.” She held out her hand, her air imperious until Bryce relented and accepted it. “I am Erato. Normally one of Percy’s little indiscretions would be Thalia’s business, but, today, you get me.”

“S-so you’ll take the toga and chain back and this will all be over, right?” A sudden hollowing in the pit of her stomach made her wonder whether “over” was what she wanted.

“Again, youngling, you move too fast.” Still holding the toga and the bag with the bracelet inside, Erato walked over to Bryce’s laptop and jiggled the mouse. The blank screen Bryce had been staring at when Percy first knocked flickered into view.

“You’re taking this awfully well,” Erato looked from the screen to Bryce. “Even those expecting the robe have a hard time adjusting to the real existence of muses.”

Bryce shrugged. “Except for when I was wearing that stuff, I felt like I was in control—so it didn’t matter if it was real or not.” Her hand danced, grasping for a better answer. “I mean, if I’m having a nervous breakdown or something—it’s not all that bad.”

Erato turned and looked at the wall Bryce shared with Diaz, her expression fixed as if she were looking through the wall. “Not bad, indeed.”

The purr was back in the muse’s voice and doing weird things to Bryce’s ability to concentrate. She didn’t think it was relevant that she was heterosexual, the woman gave off an understated sexuality that wormed its way into Bryce’s body. And Erato knew it, the sense of command clearly written across her face as she turned back to Bryce.

“If I let you off the hook, I’m failing your new friend in there,” Erato started, “failing you, too, I think.”

Bryce shook her head. “I’m not an artist or anything like that…I just teach.”

For a second, Bryce thought she saw understanding in Erato’s expression, but then the muse tilted her chin up and the feeling disappeared. Erato ran a finger across the blank Word file displaying on the screen.

“How long have you had this writing assignment?”

“Six weeks,” Bryce answered. If she didn’t have a completed short story to turn in Monday, she’d fail the class and have to enroll in the fall semester to finish her master’s degree. She was already a couple years older than everyone in her class, another five months to finish seemed like an eternity of waiting.

“And you’ve been trying all that time?”

Desperately.

“Six weeks and not one word.” Erato ran her finger across the screen again, the display filling with one of Bryce’s critical essays on the hidden structure in and between Kafka’s short stories. “And yet you know how to write…very well in fact.”

“Different.”
Is this how muses work? Through nagging?

A sharp smile crinkled the skin around her eyes as Erato waggled a finger at Bryce. “If I choose to ‘work’ on you, you’ll know it,” she warned. “Your ass will be sore from twelve hours in this chair. When you stand up, your body will be bent at the waist and unable to straighten. You’ll take a notepad into the toilet with you or carry the laptop in.”

“You’ll walk through the grocery store babbling, laughing and crying right along with your characters.” Letting the screen go blank again, she advanced on Bryce. “You won’t be able to see anything without it reminding you of something else, until you’re tied up in a daisy chain of ideas and connections and ‘what ifs’.”

Chastised, Bryce dropped her gaze. “So, what is it you want, then?” She had no doubt Erato wanted something specific from her. It seemed to be the weekend’s theme.

“I want you,” Erato began, her tone sweet and forgiving, “to continue playing Diaz’s muse. All weekend. If he wants you completely stripped, you’ll do it. No more hiding beneath the shawl. If he wants you standing on tiptoe holding a bowl of fruit for five hours, you’ll do it.”

Bryce gave an unsure nod.

“And, in exchange, you’ll have a passing story turned in on time Monday afternoon.”

“That seems a little…uneven.”

Digging the chain from the bottom of the plastic bag, Erato smiled. “True, but I don’t think I have enough time to wring a better deal from you.” Bracelet in hand, she pointed at Bryce’s bathroom door. “Now, go clean up while I fix the damage you caused.”

Erato’s presence reinforced the fact that the toga and bracelet had real power, and Bryce froze at the thought of having to put either back on. “I don’t think I can,” she whispered, her voice descending to the pitch of a frightened two-year-old.

Erato was pulling the charms from the bracelet one by one and shrugged off Bryce’s concern with a quick roll of her shoulders. “I’ll take care of their effect on you,” she promised. “Now go—and for Aphrodite’s sake, don’t put those damn jeans and sweatshirt back on.”

*****

Bryce emerged from the shower to find a champagne-colored cinch blouse and a flared skirt of the same color on a hanger hooked to the back of the bathroom door. Neither had come from her closet—both were completely unlike anything she owned or would consider buying. Nor was there a panty or bra in sight. Wrapping a towel around her body, Bryce found Erato waiting on the other side of the bathroom door. The muse pushed into the room and grabbed the hanger.

“You don’t need panties or a bra,” Erato said, anticipating her complaint. “You’re going to be stripping, remember? And you don’t need the support up top.”

“It just seems a little gauche,” Bryce said. It was true, though. For all her size, she was smaller up top, her body widening around her waist to begin the bottom drop of a pear.

“Bryce, hon, you have to start working what you were born with—not wrapping it up in bulky clothes.” Erato held her hands up, gave her hips a little shake and then smiled. “Now, doesn’t that look better?”

Bryce looked down to find herself dressed in the blouse and skirt. She looked up, the mist sufficiently cleared from the mirror for her to see that the diagonal slash of the cinch blouse cut across her cleavage and down to her left side. The top exposed a soft-V of flesh, making her shoulders look narrower and presenting the top swell of her breasts.

“You’ve got great tits, hon,” Erato said and cupped Bryce’s left breast. “I should know, I’ve helped write a couple hundred odes to breasts. Small ones, big ones, pale and dark.” She finished with a little squeeze that made Bryce feel like she was at an awards show. “Each set is its own work of art and these are beyond nice.”

“Flawless skin, too,” she added. “And hazel eyes! They call those bedroom eyes, did you know that?” Erato thrust her head closer to Bryce and threw her hands up in despair. “You don’t get it, do you? Beauty isn’t just one thing and it isn’t the same for everyone…like that nasty little Kipling wrote…‘a fool there was and he made his prayer to a rag and a bone and a hank of hair; we called her the woman who did not care, but the fool he called her his lady fair’.”

Feeling like she’d just swallowed a mouthful of milk past its expiration date, Bryce took a step away from Erato. “I get that you’re comparing me to a rag and a bone—”

“By Zeus, you’re dense!”

“And you can stop with the name dropping, okay?” Bryce said. “I don’t know enough about all of you to be impressed any more than I already am. Just tell me that you’ve fixed the damn toga and Diaz can get his painting while I get my passing grade.”

“Well, fine.” Erato sniffed, the sound an indignant little puff. “If you’re only in it for the grade. Not like you’ve apparently learned anything at college, anyway.”

From her robes, she pulled out a bracelet and shoved it at Bryce. “Here, I’ve pared the original down a bit.”

Bryce looked at the bracelet while Erato unhooked a charm from her own bracelet. The silver and gold formed two-thirds of a simple braid. The third strand was made up of linen thread suspiciously like that of the toga. The string of linen was itself a braid, making a total of three strands times three.

“There were nine of us, you know, in the beginning,” Erato said as she took the bracelet back and attached her charm to it. “The arts were simple back then. It was easy and we became victims of our own success, inspiring new art forms. We had to branch out, taking on assistants who could specialize. Percy is one of Thalia’s protégés, though she wants to be one of mine. All told, the original nine supervise close to seven hundred assistants.”