Reaper's Fall

“Are you cold?” he asked, his voice a husky whisper.

“No.”

His eyes burned through me, and I thought I saw the same aching need in his that had to be in mine.

“Okay.”

Things sort of blurred together after that. He kept my head up, refusing to let me watch as he traced patterns across my chest and down along my stomach. Aside from the occasional finger on my chin, he never touched my skin once . . . Just that soft, cold brush passing across my flesh, over and over, deep and strong.

After what felt like hours, he had me turn away from him, straddling the chair so he could start on my back. By this point my entire body was humming with need, but also a strange sense of calm. Like we’d transitioned into some separate reality, where there was only me, him, and the cool slide of the paint against my skin.

He started down my shoulder blade, pausing to slide my bra strap to the side. I heard a sound of frustration, then he was dabbing at my skin with a damp paper towel.

“Do you want me to take it off?” I asked, the words hardly more than a whisper.

CHAPTER TEN

PAINTER

I stared at Mel’s back, wondering if I’d actually heard her right. Hell yeah, I wanted her to take it off.

For the painting, of course.

This was about art, not about being a perverted horndog who wanted to get laid. Not even a little bit.

“Yeah, that would be good,” I said casually, reaching out with my left hand to unhook it before she could change her mind. Shit. Should’ve set the brush down and used two hands—no need to advertise how many times I’d done this. She didn’t say anything, just sitting there quietly while I lowered each of the straps, reaching up to catch the front against her chest.

Her back lay open in front of me, the perfect canvas. It was lightly muscled, tapering in at her waist before flaring out to her hips. She wore jean shorts that were stretched out and loose, gaping ever so slightly at the small of her back, giving me a glimpse of black satin below. God, I hoped they matched the bra she’d taken off. That thing was fucking perfect—sexy, but also sort of sweet and almost virginal compared to what most of the women I knew wore. Not that Mel was a virgin . . . I’d done enough checking up to know she had some experience.

Shouldn’t matter to me—I had zero intention of sleeping with her—but knowing she’d been with other guys was a relief, in a way. Less pressure not to fuck things up, which was a nonissue because we absolutely weren’t going to do a damned thing together.

Fucking hell, this friend-zone thing sucked. For the first time I admitted to myself that maybe it wasn’t going to work out.

Gee, what gave it away, asshole—the shirt coming off or you unhooking her bra?

I dipped the brush back in the paint, noting that I’d have to get up early and go buy more tomorrow morning. I’d run most of the way through the green and the red already, and had made good headway with the yellow and purple, too. I was painting flowers. Lots and lots of flowers, a tangled mass of them like something you’d see in the rainforest. Lush and sweet and ripe and deadly, just like Melanie. Vines to tie me up and hold me prisoner until I didn’t even care anymore . . .

She lifted an arm, pulling her hair out of the way as I started up the back of her neck.

“Do you have one of those little thingies?” I asked.

“Thingies?”

“Thingies for your hair. I can put it up for you.”

“Oh yeah. There should be one on the coffee table.”

“Be right back.”

I walked into the living room and found a purple elastic sitting right next to her phone, which had just lit up with a text.

I swear I didn’t read it on purpose.

JESS: I just heard painters back in town and that he went over to our place looking for you. Don’t let him in or I’ll kill you dead with my bare hands. Xx

Frowning, I turned the phone off, then tossed it onto the couch. It might’ve fallen behind the cushions—hard to tell.

Mel could read the message later.

Yeah.

No need to worry her about something that probably wouldn’t even be an issue.

MELANIE

This was stupid.

Really, really stupid.

I sat in the center of the dining room, dreading every stroke of the brush, because sooner or later I was going to snap and things wouldn’t end well . . . But it felt so good, and it wasn’t like we were doing anything bad. Just painting. And his work was truly beautiful—I’d snuck a peek while he was grabbing my hair elastic, stunned by the riotous explosion of vines and flowers he’d painted using my skin as a canvas.

It was amazing. Almost unreal. How something like this could be created by the same brushes responsible for the Ladybugs of Death and Dismemberment was almost impossible to comprehend. Raw talent, I guess.

That and technique.

I wondered if he had any idea how good he really was. Hell, whatever he was doing for the club, if he just sold those paintings of his to the right people he’d be able to make them more money that way. Except it probably wasn’t about money. What did they have him doing, and how likely was it that he’d get himself thrown back in prison?

“Let me get your hair,” he said, his soft voice sending shivers all through my body. I still held the cups of my bra against my chest, like somehow it held the power to protect me.

Assuming I wanted to be protected.

“Thanks,” I whispered as his fingers started combing through the tangled mass. It took longer than it should have. I’d like to think he was as mesmerized as I was, because for all his insistence that we could only be friends, even I was smart enough to know that guys don’t sit around on Friday nights painting flowers on their half-naked, platonic friends. His head lowered next to mine—was he smelling my hair?