I ignore that part. “Poor Gerald is a sculptor when he’s not driving a limo. I’ve been a model for him before.”
“Quit making stuff up!”
“I’m not. I don’t lie, Shannon.” We’re veering into very explosive territory now.
“I didn’t say you were lying. It’s just...unnerving. How you feel like you own the world.”
Ah. That’s what this is about. A flash of our very first dinner together courses through me, turning from image and memory to blood and bone.
“You’re upset with me because I feel like I have the right to have my own opinions and to be confident in them.” I don’t phrase it as a question.
“Sometimes you don’t think about how other people will feel when you—”
“Because I don’t.”
“You don’t care?”
“I don’t think about other people when I’m doing or saying something that is true to myself.”
Confusion clouds her face. “That’s so...”
I reach for her hands, my warmth in stark contrast to her chilly fingers. Maybe I can transfer some certainty along with a little heat. “It’s not that I don’t care about other people’s feelings. It’s that I don’t think about other people when I’m making a decision about who I am.”
“There’s a difference?”
Her question hangs in the air between us.
“Mr. McCormick?” Gerald calls out. “I have your brother ready to go. Is Ms. Jacoby coming as well?”
My eyes burn, matched by her intensity as we look at each other.
“Please stay,” I ask, turning away and walking out to where Gerald has Andrew drinking a cup of coffee, leaning against the wall in front of the main door.
He grunts a hello and stares at his cup.
“You need help?” I ask Gerald, eying Andrew with skepticism. He’s got more muscle on him than you’d think, and when it’s deadweight...
“No, he’s fine.” I hear Shannon’s shoes click clack on my floor behind me. Gerald eyes me in my robe, then looks at Shannon. He’s smarter than he looks, but that’s because he looks like a pile of lightly-baked bread dough shoved together to form a human being. You’d never guess a guy that big and burly has the heart of an artist in him.
“I don’t need a ride home,” Shannon says quietly, her hand pressing into my shoulder, rubbing in circles over the terrycloth robe.
I relax.
Gerald’s face changes into what passes for a smile. He looks like bread that’s split down the center and baked. “As long as you’re fine, then. And Mr. McCormick?”
Andrew and I both answer, “Yes?”
Gerald eyes Andrew up and down. “I meant Declan.” He looks at me. “We’re starting a new session for nudes next month. If you’re not traveling too much, the class would really appreciate having you model again.”
“Again?” Shannon says, clearing her throat pointedly.
Andrew’s just staring at his cup of coffee like it’s the Oracle of Delphi.
“Sure,” I answer. “Just call Grace and set it up for me.”
“Will do.” And with that, Andrew and Gerald are gone and I’m blissfully alone with a woman who is looking at me like she just caught me with lipstick on my collar and a blow up doll with painted lips.
“You’re a nude model for art classes?”
“In my spare time.” I try disarming her with my most charming smile.
I fail. “I am supposed to be your spare time. You barely have time for dinner most weeks, but you can prance around naked in front of a bunch of women and women who use their hands to recreate your ass—” She continues her nagging, but that’s all I really needed to hear.
Ah, jealousy.
It cures so many ills.
Women hate jealousy in their men. Oh, they want a touch of it—just enough to feel wanted. Special. Craved.
Men, on the other hand, love it when their women get jealous.
It means we get more sex.
Makes no sense, but there it is. As Shannon’s heated rebuke continues I try to hide my self-satisfied (she would call it smug) smile, but I fail.
“Don’t laugh at me!”
I grab the sash of her coat and yank it open, pulling wide the two sides of the coat with a snap that sends her buttons flying.
“Dec! What are you doing?”
Oh, I think it’s clear what I’m doing.
I pull her coat off, drop my robe, and pick her up in my arms.
“Hey! Put me down! We’re talking! I have more to say—”
I cut her off with a kiss, then throw her on the bed.
“You can’t just—”
Another kiss. She moans, that kitten-like little sound so sexy in the back of her throat. She starts to kick her heels off and I break away.
“Leave them on. Consider it my birthday gift.”
“But I have a birthday present for you!”
“This is all I need.” And it’s true. She knows I don’t like making a big deal out of birthdays. The fact that she accepts that and doesn’t force it is part of why we’re such a good fit.
She kisses me this time, then pauses as if she’s thought of something.
“What?” I ask, my fingers fully engaged in brilliant make up sex. The rest of my body is about to follow.
“I’m, um....you know. It’s the end of that time of the month.”
“Never stopped me before.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Shannon, there is nothing about your body that I mind.”