Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
“No. You were perfect.” He let us into the apartment. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do that.”
“But I offered.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He lowered me onto the couch cushion. “Anyway, it’s better for you if you’re not involved in my work.”
“Better how?”
“Too much controversy.”
“Since when are you shy about controversy?”
He pushed the ottoman closer so I could rest my foot on it. “I’m not shy about anything. But the backlash wouldn’t fall solely on me. It would mark your career before it even started. Better they see you as an artist first, and as my daughter second. Not as my subject."
“Who’s they?”
“Critics, dealers, other artists.”
“But I don’t care how they see me.” I couldn’t believe I was fighting him on this, considering how badly the session had rattled me. But when the alternative was moving out of my father’s light and back into the darkness... I couldn’t let that happen. I didn’t care whether the piece went viral, or never amounted to anything more than kindling.
I could not handle losing him again.
“Dad, I’m doing this for you, not for them.”
“I thought you were doing it for you.”
“I am. I’m doing it for both of us.”
“You’re not hearing me, Paige.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’m not going to paint you.”
“Because you’re worried about my career prospects?”
“Because you’re mine.” The edge in his voice told me not to push, but there was something in the way he said the word mine that hooked its claws in me. A twinge of anguish, the threat of darkness buried, something protective about his straight-backed stance.
No, not just protective.
Possessive.
Maybe there was a reason my father had turned his mouth toward mine yesterday, the same reason he’d chosen not to confront me about spying on him. What if, when he spread my legs and touched my pussy and got hard watching me masturbate, it wasn’t just a biological response?
I had spent the last twenty-four hours wondering if I was going crazy, when perhaps the truth lay somewhere on the ground between us.
Like the apple that never falls far from the tree.
“The kiss,” I said, gazing up at him from the couch. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”
He eyed me like he would a predator, like I was something dangerous. Maybe I was. He shook his head.
“Then, this is real,” I said, “what I’m feeling. It’s not just in my head.”
“Only you know what you’re feeling. But no, it’s not all in your head.”
I brought my fingers to my lips. Now that the pain in my foot had subsided, all I could think about was the fact that he’d wanted to kiss me. Not on the cheek or the forehead. On the lips.
This attraction, this completely inappropriate desire I was battling, wasn’t one-sided. He wanted this as badly as I did, so much that he hadn’t been able to stop himself from kissing me, touching me, watching me.
A current of arousal quivered up my spine, making my skin tingle and my inner muscles clench. I was turned-on again—and confused and conflicted.
But still.
“I’m sorry, Paige,” he said. “I can’t imagine how uncomfortable you must be. You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to touch you, or ask you to sit for me again. I’ll keep my distance, let you have the run of the house, the studio—”
“No.” I didn’t want to stop sitting for him, and I sure as hell didn’t want him to keep his distance. I wanted him to pull me closer, run his fingers through my hair, and then kiss me for real. A kiss with intent and the power to turn back the clock and make me forget he’d ever left me.
“Okay then.” His expression shuttered. “I’ll drive you to the airport and get you a first-class ticket home.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said.
He looked deflated. “Tell me what to do here, Paige, and I’ll do it.”
My thoughts were scrambled eggs, piping hot and caution-tape yellow. For the life of me, I couldn’t drum up the words to tell him what I needed, all the things I wanted him to do to me.
Shameful things. Unspeakable things. Nasty, dirty, forbidden things.
Fortunately, some languages are universal.
I untied the sash around my waist and let the robe slide off my shoulders. His gaze dipped to my breasts, the look on his face equal parts apprehension and arousal.
“Paige?”
I reached for him with trembling hands, my fingers closing around the fabric of his shirt. I drew him toward me. He let me pull him down onto the couch. Before I had a chance to overthink what was happening, I swung my leg across his lap and straddled him.
“Kiss me again,” I whispered.
I tipped my face and wetted my mouth and waited.
Chapter Ten
My father stared at me, unblinking, then cupped my face with both hands. He pressed his lips to mine. This wasn’t a chaste kiss, like the one he’d initiated in my bedroom. This was slow and deliberate sensory overload. I melted, letting the robe fall from my arms to pool around my hips.