Craving

(Skye)

“How do you know that asshole?” Kelso snaps at me, his eyes flaring.

My heart pounding, I say, “I don’t, he just came in and started talking to me about my painting.”

He stares at me, his breath huffing and his brow somehow sweaty once again. I hold his stare, daring him to call me a liar but praying to God he doesn’t.

“Get back to work,” he says and goes back down the hall.

My heart is pounding against my ribs. There’s no way I can paint right now, my hands are shaking too much. I sit on the floor and grab my water bottle.

The water fills my mouth and I let it swirl around while I reflect on what just happened.

Hot tattooed guy is Lawson Heywood. The Lawson Heywood. Never saw that coming.

What do I do now? I can’t get involved with some billionaire. I don’t belong in his world any more than he belongs in mine.

But when he looks at me, my insides melt. And when he touches me, my body sets alight with flames fiercer than I ever knew existed.

Frustrated, I gather myself enough to get back to my work. The sooner I get it finished, the sooner I get the money and get away from creepy Kelso.

I work on the base of the temple in the painting, blending it in with the grass and bushes around its stones. It’s not meshing the way I want and I decide to take a break from it.

With my sketchbook and pencil in hand, I decide to get some ideas for the other rooms. I head down the hallway, intending to reach the family room at the back of the property. At least I think it’s the back; it’s difficult to tell in such a big, maze-like house.

I take a wrong turn and up in a short hallway by an ajar door. Kelso and another man’s voices spill out of the room and I turn to flee before Kelso sees me. Before I take a step, Kelso’s voice becomes clear.

“This lawsuit is killing me. I’m going to have to cut my costs everywhere I can.”

“Florida is your best bet,” the other man says.

“Agreed. I’m flying out there tonight.”

My eyes widen. Shit, am I one of those costs? I hurry away, though my feet are heavy and it’s a struggle to be silent.

There’s no point in trying to generate new ideas right now, my head is swimming. I find my way back to the entrance and carry on with my destroyed temple. This painting might turn out to be more prophetic than I thought.

Now there’s an even greater sense of urgency to get these pieces finished. I have to collect my money from Kelso before he runs out of it.

I bite the end of my brush, trying to decide where the line is between quality and speed. Is anyone other than Kelso ever going to see these paintings? What if I sign them with a different name?

The minute the natural light drops too much to work, I grab my things and get out of there. Thankfully Kelso didn’t make another appearance that day. After what I heard, I don’t think I could look him in his beady eyes.

Besides, he might fire me on the spot. If I can finish, he will at least owe me for the work completed.

When I get home, I head straight for my studio. Since the Kelso job, my salvation, might fall through, I want to finish other pieces to try to sell them through Gordon.

I finish the evening dress on the beach painting. It’s the first of the three in that series that I’ve finished.

It’s after eleven. Exhausted, I brush my teeth and flop into bed. The events of the day churn in my head.

Lawson Heywood. The man whose touch fuels the desire within me. The man who I’m supposed to be going to dinner with on Friday. The man who put on a suit and turned into a rich bastard.

How dare he think he can tell me what to do like that?

I try clearing my mind by thinking of the temple, and what stage I need to get it to tomorrow so I can be finished by early next week. My mind runs.

From the ruined temple, to Kelso and his lawsuit. Hold on. He’s going to Florida tonight. He didn’t say when he’d be back. But with him gone, this is definitely the time to paint his bedroom erotica.

My biggest nightmare would be him walking in while I’m in there painting it. If he made all those disgusting comments just talking about it, I can’t imagine what would he do if he found me actually painting it. My skin crawls just thinking about it.

Lawson would never behave like Kelso.

Not in that way, anyway. But he’s still a billionaire, and still against everything that I’ve ever stood for. The man would make me a sellout. I think. I should ask Ava what she thinks. She’ll know what I should do.

In the morning, I lay my completed painting in the trunk of my car, wrapped and protected by dust sheets. I’ll drop it to Gordon after I leave Kelso’s this evening.

My plan had been to save it for the gallery show Kelso is funding, but now that I know about his money problems, I need to secure any income I can get.

It’ll just mean working late every night to create enough paintings for my show.

I dig the sketchbook with the full frontal image out of my bottom drawer, chuck it face down on the passenger seat and leave for Kelso’s.

The plan is to finish is as fast as I can. Even if it means the quality suffers. I can always claim any rushed brush strokes are artistic license. Really, I hope that the painting will be ruined in a fire. No one can ever see it, or know that I painted it.

The sketch is transferred to the canvas in record time. If I hurry, I should be able to finish in a couple of days.

My easel is alongside Kelso’s round bed. The canvas is only a few feet from where it will hang. In amongst all the animal print.

What will women he brings back here think? Though, having met the creepy man with the glandular problem, I’ve got to think any woman getting to this point is only interested in his money anyhow.

I bet even Lawson’s first date, Freya or whatever her name was, would come this far. So long as he gets her a quinoa salad beforehand.

The alarm on my phone goes off at six. I set it to make sure I don’t get caught up in my painting and lose track of time. I’ve got to get to Gordon’s before he leaves for the night.

Not that I needed to worry about losing track of time. Each stroke of this painted woman’s folds is a painful reminder of what I’m doing.

And how no one has ever stroked mine.

I’ve got to go on the date with Lawson tomorrow. I need to feel his touch. My body craves it.

Having made the decision, I feel much more settled. Much more at ease with everything. I’ll deal with anything else later.

I get in my car and head for Gordon’s. Traffic is light, and I make it in no time. As usual, there’s no parking in front of his store. A spot opens up a reasonable distance away and I take it.