Page 23

Dravin

I t’s official. I’m an idiot, and I’m about to throw up, I’m so nervous.

Remind me again why I agreed to this? It’s a bad idea.

A dangerous one. Every time I’m in the same room as Kael, I can feel the pull of her energy.

It’s pretty useless by now to say that I’m not attracted to her physically, mentally, and in every other way.

The more I get to know her, the more she becomes less Marcus’ little sister, and more her own person.

We’re getting too close. It’s not like we can just bang this out and go our separate ways and never see each other again. The last thing I can do is fuck this up. My promise. Our sort of truce. The almost friendship that I know could develop if I gave it time.

It’s safer for her if I remain by myself or stick to the club. I thought about bowing out of this but figured that having Kael come looking for me to chew me a new asshole would only be an injection of straight fuel into an already flammable situation.

I know that there’s something deeply wrong with me by the simple fact that I’m standing on her doorstep, looking exactly how she instructed me to look for this session.

She sent me a text with the details, I’m uncomfortable with the clothes, but also with how much I wanted to follow her instructions to the letter.

I adjust the right part of my suspenders.

Yes. Suspenders . They’re attached to a pair of old fashioned, high rise black pants that scream more grandpa to me than classic or sexy, but what do I know about fashion ?

Kael wanted a black pressed shirt buttoned up all the way, my combat boots, black leather gloves, my hair slicked back with hair oil, a fake nose ring, three silver tooth caps, and an eye patch.

It’s clear what kind of Hades she’s going for.

The Nineteen Thirties had a baby with a bad boy rockstar from the present vibes.

As I knock on her door, I can’t help but ask myself for the thousandth time if this is the kind of look she finds sexy, or if this is just art. Both?

Either way, the hard truth is that I’d do this a thousand times over for her, no matter how ridiculous I feel. I look like I’m going to a Halloween party.

She opens the door, a smile so radiant that she might as well have swallowed the sun, splitting her face and dimpling her cheeks.

She rakes her eyes over me, letting out a sound so soft that it’s almost inaudible, but her loud swallow is.

I return the stare, at least until I realize that she’s not wearing a bra under the baggy t-shirt she’s aggressively cut the neck away from.

I make sure my gaze travels downward in a hurry, skipping over that detail.

It’s a mistake. She’s either wearing a microskirt, a tiny pair of shorts, or nothing under that t-shirt at all.

I can’t help but ogle her long, tanned, muscular legs.

And wonder what they’d feel like wrapped around my waist. My face. My shoulders. My hand as she rides it from every which fucking direction.

I swallow thickly as my dick twitches in my pants.

It’s going to do more than that right away, and these stupid trousers are far too tight and thin not to silhouette a stark outline of every inch of that thickness if it gets there.

They’re cut so high up and held that way with the suspenders, that my dick has nowhere to go except the most visible places.

Kael claps her hands, her face still so radiant and happy that makes every single second of indecision and discomfort I’ve suffered over this decision to be here, worth it.

I’d donate one of my nuts to see her look this way again after the year of agony she’s endured, but here I am, getting to keep both of them and seeing her so damn gorgeous and lit up all the same.

“Oh my god. You look incredible. Exactly as I pictured, but better. You did good, Dravin.”

Her praise hits me right in the chest. And in the nuts, her words clenching around them like a fist. It’s worse when I imagine turning them around and praising her right back.

Would she glow if I called her a good girl? Why the hell would I even want to do that? That shit is not my kink.

I swallow thickly and follow her into the house, locking the door for her.

She has the room ready. Everything pushed to the far side. Couches, chairs, coffee table. It leaves the far wall completely blank. It’s gray to match the floor. She asked me to come at three, which I figured would be the best time for lighting wherever she wanted to paint, and I was right.

On the couch that she’s set facing the wall across the small room, there’s a large canvas, tubes of paint, and some brushes.

She’s already painted in some of the background in a gorgeously aggressive array of browns, blacks, and grays.

The middle hasn’t been touched and it’s still a bright, angry red.

She’s painting again, that’s what’s important.

As nervous as I am about this, I’m honored that it’s me who can do this for her.

“If you can just stand over there by the wall…” She points. “I’ll pose you in a second. I just have to get something from the kitchen.”

I’ve done a lot of hard jobs in my life, so I almost shake my head at myself over the fact that I can barely stand here without trembling.

I cross my arms over my body, but that seems like I’m trying to work myself into some pose, so I quickly drop them before Kael gets back and notices just how blatantly fucking awkward I am.

And I mean awkward .

These pants are digging up my ass, outlining it in a way that is just strange for me.

It’s the suspenders and the fact that the pants practically ride up to my armpits.

My balls are practically getting cut off, my dick is visible even when it’s not hard, and I had to borrow an eyepatch from a guy at the club called Odin, who has a collection of them, seeing as he also lost an eye—in a barfight, of all things.

I nearly shit myself when I see what Kael has in her hand. She’s clearly confident about whatever this is, but I give her a dubious look when I see the pomegranate.

I’m no good at the myths. I get them all confused, but when Kael said she wanted to do a modern Hades thing, I read every version I could find.

I know the fruit plays a starring role. We joked about that right from the start.

Maybe it’s more the look on her face. A jumble of apprehension, eagerness, and the hard golden bite of desire that covers her in a dewy glow.

There’s no mistaking it.

She’s turned on.

I drag in a breath and concentrate on that before my body can respond to her response.

“Hold onto that.”

She passes me the fruit and skips back into the kitchen. She returns carrying a wicked looking carving knife that has no business cutting one of these. She passes it to me and I’m only too glad to take it and get it away from her.

I hold the fruit in one hand, the knife in the other.

She flounces across the room and flops down on the couch, pulling the canvas into her lap.

“I’m going to get you to cut it soon.” She crosses her legs under the large canvas.

Her hand searches out a tube of paint and she squeezes some black and then some gray, and a big dollop of dark red right onto the canvas.

I try very hard to keep my jaw from unlatching and hitting the floor.

Fuck me, that’s unorthodox and so damn hot.

Her easy command of her craft is ridiculously sexy, aside from the way the t-shirt drapes over her, leaving one shoulder bare, or the way the sun hits her face, highlighting her hair, her full lips, her long lashes, the perfection of her skin.

“How do you… want me to stand?” I ask.

She doesn’t look up. It’s a small mercy that she can’t see how uncomposed I am right now.

I grind my teeth together, but that just makes the insane teeth caps dig into my gums. She gave me a few days to get everything together, and I had to rush order them offline.

They have a distinctly disgusting taste, I have to say.

“I want you to angle to the side but have your chest also facing me. You’ll have to twist a little and it won’t be comfortable, but I’ll work fast and you won’t have to hold that pose for long.

Hold the pomegranate up in front of you like those paintings where that dude is pondering the skull and hold the knife down by your leg.

” I arrange myself as she instructed. Her little squeal and the adorable shuffle of her bare feet along the floor is more than reward enough.

“Yes! Ahh, I love it. Okay. Just stay right like that.”

“Would it not be easier to take a photograph?” I ask.

I instantly regret my words when I see the scowl flash across her face. “Yes, if I wanted to capture a moment. But I want to capture you . I’ll take some reference photos, but I need to get the basics down. Okay?”

She’s right. The pose isn’t comfortable, but that’s more than okay. After a few seconds, I’m not thinking about discomfort. I’m not thinking about me at all. I’m utterly transfixed as I watch her work.

I’m maybe a little too consumed with it. I drop my guard, something I’m only notorious for doing around Kael when that’s the absolute worst time to do it and miss when she says something.

I jerk my head up as soon as her brush pauses on the canvas. She’s patient though, repeating herself. “I said, do you know how to cut it?”

I nod, then proceed to absolutely butcher the thing. Juice runs down my hands as I set the knife down and pry it apart.

Kael laughs wickedly on the couch, kicking her feet a little. She’s utterly adorable. “That was the best thing I’ve ever seen. You’re all yes, and then you just go straight in and hack it apart.”

“In my defense…” I scoop up a fingerful of seeds. “It worked.”

“Put a handful in your mouth.”

“A handful or a few?”