Selling Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 1) (15 page)

And finally, objective three: get as much eye candy as possible, so that later, when I was back home in the privacy of my shower, I could play back some of these scenes for my own private enjoyment.

I'd begrudgingly added objective three just to satisfy my libido. After spending the entire afternoon fantasizing about Onyx practically nonstop, I had to give it something. Otherwise, I feared that it might revolt and shut down entirely, preventing me from ever experiencing another orgasm in my life.

I was certainly already succeeding at objective three, I now thought to myself as I cast my eyes over Onyx, taking in how his shirt clung to his damp skin, the little beads of sweat glistening on his broad forearms and his brow. "Working hard?" I asked, trying not to drool at the sight of him, like a big bar of chocolate.

"Like I said, inspiration struck," he nodded, waving a hand towards the side of the warehouse that served as his studio. "Come take a look."

I moved in the indicated direction. Yep, there was the studio, with a dozen carved stone dicks of various sizes sitting around. The big one, the "landmark piece" that could end up being the solution to my financial troubles, still sat on its own pallet, separate from the rest.

"Over here," Onyx said, and his hand touched me lightly on my shoulder to guide me past the sea of penises (penii? Penes?). I turned, and my next words caught for a moment in my throat as I looked at his latest, half-finished work.

It was a woman. It was, I thought distantly to myself, most definitely a woman. A rather abstract, idealized woman, but there was no mistaking that shape, half-finished and still lacking detail and polish, as a female figure.

"Wow," I breathed out, taking a step closer. My hand drifted out, but I caught myself before touching the stone, and glanced back at Onyx to see if this was a breach of some sort of artist's etiquette. "Can I..."

"Go ahead," he nodded, and I reached out and ran my hand over the lines of the half-finished carving.

The block of stone had been shaped into the torso of a woman. It had no arms, and the legs ended just about halfway down the thigh, but I could already see the lines of the woman's hips, her swelling bust, the curve of her stomach. This was a woman who didn't have a single flat surface on her body; no stick-thin Sports Illustrated model would measure up to this statue. This was the carving of a woman who exulted in her curves, whose round hip could drive men crazy from a hundred yards away. Most of the bust was still rough stone, the final lines not yet separated from the rougher rock that still enclosed them, but I could see that this statue would be an hourglass, just as well endowed above the waist as below.

"It's amazing," I confessed honestly, my hand lingering on that curve of the hip. Somehow, with just a few strokes of the chisel, Onyx truly managed to capture the essence of a woman, maybe even that of a goddess. "This is incredible."

I glanced back over at the man, and he just shrugged. "Something new. It came to me in a dream, and I had to capture it in a more solid medium."

I'd totally forgotten about my objectives. "Will it be done soon?" I asked. "I mean, if you let me try and sell this, I'm sure I could get half a dozen offers-"

He shook his head. "Not yet. Not until I'm happy with it, until I feel that she's done. She's not there yet."

I looked back at the unfinished bust. "Right. Not yet." Still, my hand lingered on the stone, feeling the scores and marks from where the chisel had struck, running over that curve of the hip. Of course, no hip bone truly existed inside the stone, but I could almost believe that I was touching cold flesh, rather than carved rock.

I heard the sound of a footstep behind me, and Onyx reached forward to also lay his hand on the statue. He slid it up, and I could see him imagining out the lines that still had to be carved from the rock. "She will be beautiful," he said softly.

I found myself nodding. "Yes."

"But I need to finish her," Onyx continued, and now he turned to me, his hand transferring from the statue to my own forearm. "And although my inspiration got me this far, I need to see how a real woman moves, how she bends and turns and her muscles shift, to capture that for the sculpture."

I really ought to say something, part of my brain said nervously. Remember objective two? I should say that I'd been on a date with Carter, that I had kissed Carter, that I might even be imagining some sort of future with Carter. That was the sort of thing that Onyx might want to know before he started seeing how I could bend and turn.

But just give it a minute, another part of my mind - the part more connected with the mindless wants and desires of my body - pointed out. Besides, you and Carter might have something in the future, but what do the two of you have to share right now? A single date, and one kiss. That's it.

Is that really enough for you to block out all other possibilities?

As these two voices inside my head argued back and forth, my mouth remained shut, and Onyx slid his other hand over to me. I felt it settle on my hip with a thrill, and he gently but firmly guided me, moving me and posing me like I was a doll for him to adjust.

"Like that," he murmured, and I tried hard not to shiver as I felt the warmth of his breath against my neck. "That is the pose I imagined. Hold it right there..."

I did my best not to move, but my skin felt hyper-aware as he slid his hands up from my hips along my waist, pressing my shirt in against my back. His fingers pushed in, and I felt almost like I was on the receiving end of a massage.

And then, suddenly, he'd stepped away.

"What?" I asked out loud, wondering if I was free to move yet. I tried to turn my head to look at him without shifting anything below the neck, probably coming off as a creepy mannequin in the process.

I saw that Onyx had stepped simply over to his workbench and picked up a pad of white paper. "I need to capture this," he replied, grabbing a stick of charcoal and slashing across the page.

I held the pose for another minute, fighting hard against my urge to go see what he was sketching, but I finally succumbed to a combination of curiosity and muscle fatigue. I dropped my arms down and walked over to glance over the top of the pad of thick sketch paper.

"Wow," I said, looking at the stylized figure that he'd drawn. I could see the same lines as he'd carved into the half-finished statue, but now the lines continued up, spreading out into the curve of heavy breasts, the swell and heft as they hung down from the chest. Clearly, Onyx wasn't a man after the fake tits that models showed off these days; the breasts on his sketch were full and natural, not quite sagging but definitely sitting with gravity, like I saw when I looked in the mirror after a long day and before climbing into bed.

"It's you," he said, his hand still flying over the page and adding more charcoal lines.

"What?" That couldn't be me. The figure on the page, although without limbs or a head, was the image of a lush goddess, the kind of primal figure that would make savage tribes in the Amazon jungle drop to their knees in worship. "No, it's not."

He put aside the sketch, rising up and stepping forward. His hands reached out again for my hips, drawing me in closer. "It's you."

I started to shake my head again, but instead made the mistake of looking up into his dark eyes.

They paralyzed me.

I'd always wondered why, on those nature shows, the mouse or the gazelle froze when it looked at the face of the lion. "Run, you fool!" I'd shout at the television, gesturing furiously to the prey animal. "Don't just stand there - run! Get out of there before you get eaten!" I didn't understand why they just remained frozen in place.

Now, I understood, as I felt that same paralysis seize me. Onyx's gaze swept over me, holding me in place and freezing me, disconnecting my brain from any sort of conscious motor control. He drew me towards him, his hands sliding up from my hips, pushing up at the hem of my shirt and lighting my skin on fire as they slid up and pressed in against me.

"It's how I see you," he murmured down to me, those lips of his still quirked up in the slightest of smiles.

His hands kept on sliding up, up past my waist and pushing my shirt higher. It rose up, caught briefly at my bra, but then cleared it as it kept moving up into my armpits. I wasn't consciously helping him to undress me, but I let it happen, leaning in towards him, my lips slightly parted. I swear that his fingers only slid over the clasp at the back of my bra before it parted, seemingly of its own volition.

"Onyx," I whispered, but I didn't know what else to say, didn't want to be speaking at all.

He drew me in, and I gasped as my body pressed against his. He didn't give an inch, acting like I weighed nothing. Maybe I felt like a feather to him, compared to the blocks of stone that he hauled around and carved. His hand slid up to below my chin, guiding my lips up.

I met him, my white skin against his darker tones, melting against him as he kissed me.

Chapter Eighteen

*

Onyx didn't kiss quite like how I'd expected.

I saw him as so strong, so powerful, that I expected his kiss to hit me like a raging flood. I expected him to be fierce, to sweep me off my feet and claim me, already moving towards his bed where he could take me, impatient and wanting the kill.

Instead, he was softer, more gentle with me - at least at first. He drew me to him, but he didn't force me, instead letting me explore his lips with my own, letting me gently part my own lips so that his tongue could gain entrance, so that he could taste me. His hand tightened against my hip to draw me in, but his lips remained soft, gentle, taking their time with me and exulting in each new inch gained.

We broke apart, my breath coming heavily in little gasps. He, meanwhile, didn't seem the slightest bit perturbed, and still wore that faint little hint of a smile, its ghost dancing around the edges of his lips.

"I definitely shouldn't be doing this," I murmured to him, making no move to remove myself from his arms, not even trying to catch the straps of my bra as they slowly but surely slid down off of my shoulders.

"Rebecca," Onyx murmured back, still smiling a little.

He didn't say anything more. He didn't need to say anything more.

He drew me in again, this time kissing with a bit more force, hungry for me. His hands rose up, and peeled my shirt easily off of me. With the shirt gone, my bra had nothing left to offer it support, and it slid off of my shoulders, falling away. For a moment, I hesitated, but he drew me to him and his hands pressed in against me, and I remembered that sketch, how he looked at me.

The bra landed along with my shirt down on the floor, leaving me bare from the waist up.

Onyx kissed me again, but this time moved his head sideways. His lips walked their way along my chin, along my neck, down across my newly bared shoulder. His hand slid up my side, up to caress the fullness of one of my breasts in his palm, and my breath caught in my throat as he held me. He slid his thumb ever so lightly across its surface, brushing very gently over my nipple, and I nearly cried out at how agonizingly good that touch felt.

"Bad," I breathed out again, my brain clinging to that word even as the rest of conscious thought dissolved away. I knew that I shouldn't be doing this, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember why.

"You won't feel that way soon," he murmured up to me, even as he bit down softly on my neck. I gasped again, my back arching slightly, and he pulled me towards him. He'd moved back, his ass now resting against his workbench, and he pulled me up to straddle his thighs, his leg separating mine. I rubbed against it, driven almost mindless, as he pulled me forward, his arms around my back and keeping me from tumbling backwards.

Onyx bent down over me, kissing lower, down across his chest. I looked down at him - just in time to see his lips run over my breast, down to draw my nipple into his mouth.

Oh god. Oh my fucking god.

Had Barry, even on our wedding night, ever made me feel so good? Onyx didn't just kiss me, didn't just paw at me like Barry had done, like a squirrel eager to get at the nut. No, this man was clearly a master of romance, and he teased me along, making me gasp and moan and almost break down and beg for him to do it, to take me, to blow my mind and make me lose myself forever in him.

"More," I breathed out, and he hauled me in closer, kissing at me. He didn't care about any imperfections in my skin, about how my breasts weren't perfect, how they sagged like normal skin instead of floating and defying gravity like those of a porn star. He loved my form, and he promised me that he would make me lose myself in ecstasy.

But even still, I couldn't quite let it happen. As much as I wanted this, as much as my body cried out for it, I couldn't quite relax and give in.

"No," I finally managed to force out from between gritted teeth, leaning back and struggling to disentangle my arms from around his neck, from where my fingers had knotted themselves into his thick midnight black hair. "No, I can't."

Onyx just looked at me, slowly releasing me so that I didn't go tumbling back onto my ass. He didn't say anything, but I sensed that he was waiting for an explanation.