She did keep talking to him. Every day for two weeks.
Waking up in Beck’s bed and puking in his toilet were becoming regular features of her day. Even when Jaycee was too weak to stand with him, she talked to him while he worked. Beck didn’t let her not talk to him; at least until he said she needed rest.
When he decided it was time for her to go to sleep, he came over to tuck her in and kiss her forehead. It didn’t matter if she slept for an hour or ten, he never told her to go to her own room, never made her feel unwelcome, and never limited her access to The Abyss.
Jaycee had always enjoyed her work at AD. But her friendship with Beck made it even better. Every time one of them caught the other looking they shared a smile, and often she felt like she could read his mind.
When she’d moved back in, she’d worried that they’d never be able to forge any kind of trust, but it was like Beck was going out of his way to prove to her that he really was sorry for the way things had gone.
Jaycee understood that he was grateful to her for carrying the baby, and despite all the puking and tiredness, she was actually getting excited about the idea experiencing pregnancy. Labor worried her, scared her, but she could put off thinking about that because she wouldn’t have to face it for another seven months.
She had just piled her tips on the front of the stage to begin counting them when she noticed Pascal heading over. The other patrons were being herded out by security as the bar staff began to clear tables, but he was heading in the opposite direction from everyone else… toward her.
“Hey,” he said when he came to sit up on the stage beside her. “How you doing tonight? The show was magnificent.”
Pascal had first come into her life after a show a few months ago. They’d got talking, and she was impressed by his additions on the AD walls. “Thank you,” she said. Pascal was never reluctant to praise her. “I’m doing ok. Great actually, I’m feeling kind of pumped.”
This was the counterpoint of the morning sickness, that unlike a lot of women, Jaycee did actually get in the morning. But that meant she had a crappy start to the day, a long sleep in Beck’s bed, some time working with him, and then a nap before they came to AD. The end of her day was always a high in opposition to the low start.
She’d cut back on her massage clients, keeping on only those who were adamant about only using her. In a few weeks, if the sickness faded, as Doctor Nicks had assured her it would, she would pick up her clients again.
“I like to hear that,” Pascal said. “Because I wanted to ask you something.”
Beck headed to the bar after he and his colleagues finished kicking out the last of the customers. He’d thought he was just going to corral his muse, but she was still at the stage, standing in front of that Pascal prick who was touching her again, why did he have to keep fucking doing that?
“We’re going to Pine’s for poker,” Pete said when Beck got to the bar.
Keeping his back to the bar, he rested his elbows on it to monitor Jaycee. “Has she been talking to him all the time I was upstairs?”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “Think so… I’m providing the liquor. Think we should pick up some food on the way over there?”
“Over where?” he asked.
Beck was intent on Jaycee who stood with her back to him. He wished he could see her face because if he got the slightest hint that she was uncomfortable or wanted to get away from that prick, he would step in.
“Pine’s,” Pete said, jabbing his shoulder from behind. “You should give the lady her privacy.”
“Privacy?” Beck asked, whirling around to glare at his friend. “What the hell have they been doing that she needs privacy?”
Pete grabbed a couple of bottles from the back of the bar and brought them forward. “Pregnancy agrees with her by the way,” Pete said. “She’s been a different person the last couple of weeks… so have you. Guess you’re looking forward to her squeezing out the kid.”
The burst of Jaycee’s laugh made both men look round at her, but it sounded so full of her heart and overflowing with joy that she probably stopped everyone in their tracks, not just them.
Jaycee was just so free and honest with her emotions, usually Beck was enamored with that quality, tonight he couldn’t connect with that fascination. Why was Pete smiling about another guy making Jaycee laugh like that? All Beck could do was glare when he saw Jaycee rest her hands on Pascal’s knees and lean back in another laugh.
“Wonder if he’ll still be interested in making her laugh when he finds out she’s having my baby.”
Pete was collecting other things to put up with the bottles, chips, napkins, beer. “Think he might. Pascal’s been into Jaycee for a while, and he seems like a good guy too, she could do worse.”
Unsure if his friend was messing with him or not, Beck only got angrier at the casual way Pete suggested Jaycee might be happy with that schmuck. Pete grabbed a bottle of vodka to add to the spoil heap.
“How much shit you taking to this party? Are you trying to bankrupt us?”
Pete pushed everything closer together. “I’m getting more beer from downstairs. Pine and Snick have taken tomorrow off, so we’re in for a good night.”
It had been a while since they’d had a boys’ night. They used to do it once a week, but he’d been less reliable with his friends since having Jaycee in his life. “Count me out,” he said. Pete tipped his head in a glare. “I have to take Jaycee home.”
“No, you don’t!” Jaycee said, touching his ribs as she leaned over the bar. “Can I have a bottle of water, Pete, please?”
Pete turned to get a bottle of water from the fridge. “Sure, honey.”
“I don’t have to take you home?” Beck asked.
“Nope,” she said and tried to hand Pete a five-dollar bill when he gave her the bottle.
“Your money’s no good here, honey,” Pete said. “Put it away.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Making eye contact with Pete, Beck silently asked his friend to split and he did, which left Beck alone with Jaycee. “Why don’t I have to take you home? Do you think I’m going to let your friend in to ours?”
Bopping his arm with her bottle, she smiled. “I’m going back to his,” she said like it was no big deal and started to hurry away.
With his feet planted, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her back to him so hard that she ricocheted against his body. “Going back to his for…”
He didn’t like the tight grin that split her face, he recognized that as the joyful look she got when she was over-excited. When she shuffled in closer, she had her bottle in both hands tucked under her chin as she gazed up at him. “He wants to draw me,” she whispered and caught her lip in her teeth. “I always wanted to be a life model. Isn’t it exciting, Beck?”
With his chin practically on his chest, Beck was so close to the woman that he could feel the rise and fall of her breathing. Given that, he couldn’t scream in her face, at this proximity he’d scare her. Calming himself with a few seconds of silence, Beck rested his hands on her shoulders, just at the curve of her neck.
“You’re going to have sex with him?” he asked, trying his best to stay cool. “You do know that’s code, right? You’ve worked here over a year; he’s not the first artist to ask you to take your clothes off, is he?”
She shook her head. “Pascal’s different,” she said. “He’s serious about his art.”
Being jealous about the idea of her getting intimate with another man he could understand. Beck had gotten past the point of denying to himself how he felt about Jaycee Kirk. His feelings were the reason he’d avoided her when she moved back into his place. The feelings he had for her were against every rule he’d laid down.
Every time he’d considered how this surrogacy would work out, he’d never thought he would be the one to muddy the situation with an emotional connection to the surrogate.
But when he’d seen her there two weeks ago, hanging over his toilet, sick and miserable, he’d known he loved her. Jaycee had a way of worming herself into people’s hearts and she didn’t even realize it.
Everyone around here adored her. But she kept people at a distance and didn’t have a lot of friends, didn’t have any real friends if what he’d seen of her life was any indication, not close ones. She’d known folks who’d let her crash, but no one she called when she needed a shoulder to lean on.
“Serious?” he asked, pretending he believed her, though she couldn’t really think he did. “Ok.”
Hooking an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her toward the jittery guy standing in front of the curtain, holding Jaycee’s purse. “Uh… what’s wrong?” Pascal asked.
No accent. This guy was from the goddamn ‘burbs, no doubt about it. What a fucktard. “So, you’re serious about your art?” Beck said.
“I… uh… yeah,” Pascal said, looking to Jaycee as if he expected her to take care of this intrusion.
“What are you doing?” she asked, but Beck just put out his hand to the groupie.
“Guy.” He’d be nice as fucking pie, long as the guy kept his hands away from Jaycee and not for a second longer.
“Pascal,” he said, still eyeing Jaycee as he put a nervous hand in Beck’s.
Ok, the guy was six inches shorter than him, probably younger, but way less built. Yep, Beck had nothing to worry about if this came down to a physical fight, and Pascal’s sweating palms told Beck that the weed knew it too.
“Great,” Beck said. “Jayc tells me we’re heading to your place.”
Pascal’s reaction was shock, and Jaycee elbowed him. “We… We?”
“You don’t mind if I tag along, do you?” Beck asked, pulling Jaycee closer. “She says you’re serious about your art… this will be a learning experience for me.”
Jaycee’s chin shot up and she was probably glaring at him, but he didn’t look down. Beck was waiting for Pascal to object. It didn’t matter to Beck if he ended up at Pascal’s with a naked Jaycee or back at the warehouse with a clothed, and angry, Ms. Kirk. But if Pascal’s plans were for something else, the prick would put up an objection to taking a third wheel home, then Beck could call the guy out for exactly what he was.
Pascal looked at him, at Jaycee, and then at him again. “I don’t know if Jaycee would be comfortable with—”
“Oh, don’t worry about the model,” Beck said, pulling back the curtain that was behind Pascal. “She’s a bowl of fruit, right? You got a car?”
“I… I have a studio just a block over.”
“Even better,” Beck said. “Lead the way.”
Conversation on the walk was stilted. Beck asked questions about Pascal’s training—he had none, had never had a show either. But yeah, he was serious. Uh huh. Sure.
Pascal’s only question was whether Jaycee and Guy were having sex. Jaycee had laughed. She laughed! But when she denied it, he couldn’t argue. They’d literally slept together, but sex was off the table for a bunch of reasons. Still, laughing? She didn’t have to laugh. That was a bit harsh.
They’d ascended a back-alley staircase and found themselves in a large room with an exposed wooden floor and a high ceiling. There were windows on two walls and Beck figured the place could do with more light, but it wasn’t bad.
In the corner, there was a raised platform, just a couple of feet off the floor with some crates on it and a blanket spread over the top. He’d bet that setup had been used plenty, it was too much of a coincidence that this Pascal just happened to have the place ready for Jaycee. Either that or a lot of thought had gone into this seduction and that made Beck despise him all the more.
Pascal had to set up his easel with a weird kind of OCD precision that made the weed seem nervous. Beck couldn’t see anything natural or organic about the guy’s process and there was no overwhelming drive or abandon that came from creation with compulsion.
Jaycee went behind the screen in the corner and was given a sheet. Beck was starting to worry, how the hell was he going to react when she dropped that sheet? At home, fine, no problem, she could live her whole life naked if she wanted to. Yeah, it would drive him crazy, but all the greatest artists went insane, Jaycee would just help him achieve eminence.
Stepping back, Beck looked at the sketches stuck to the wall. Most of them were pencil or charcoal and there were a lot of naked women on display. “If there’s a sink back there, girl, wash your face,” he called out, scanning the pictures.
“Yeah? Why?”
“You look better without that crap on your face,” he muttered.
Some of the life drawings on the wall weren’t as overtly sexual as others, and the guy had some technical ability, but they lacked… something. Jaycee would be able to tell him what it was. He could see what the problem was from an artist’s point of view. There was a lack of instinct, Pascal didn’t push himself, didn’t take it that little bit further than he should.
The watercolors were interesting if a bit wishy-washy. They lacked any unique qualities as far as he could see, but Jaycee would be able to assess their worth. Damn. He ran a hand through his hair. When had he started judging art based upon his muse’s sex drive?
“There’s a lot of boobs up there,” Jaycee said. Beck turned to see her at the edge of the screen, the sheet gathered in her fist above her breasts as she admired the same wall he was looking at.
Pascal was still setting up, so Beck went back to his perusal. “Sure, what else do you think I’m looking at?” he asked.
Jaycee came to him, but she didn’t stop or make eye contact. She caught his hand and pulled him further along to the end of the wall and pointed up. “Look at the bridge against the water,” she said, pointing to the picture high up on the wall.
Beck wanted to look, he really did, but when she raised her arm the sheet moved further down her breasts until just the edge of a nipple wanted to peek out. Torn between pulling the sheet off right now and demanding she get back behind that screen to get dressed, he struggled to support her choice tonight. It was tough because she’d always support all of his artistic decisions, and if she wanted to share her body for art, he should celebrate that. But shit, did it have to feel like this?
“Guy, look,” she said, pushing his chin toward the wall.
Right. Guy. That was just another reminder that they were in foreign territory. “You like the detail,” he said, trying to focus on the picture that he honestly couldn’t give a shit about.
“No, you do,” she said, “the shading against the shore and the line of the moonlight with the—”
“No, you like this one,” he said because the picture she was admiring wasn’t all that great as far as he was concerned. Pulling her back down to the middle section, he pointed to a watercolor. A lake with mountains behind it and foliage in the foreground.
“The warmth of the color is…” Her voice went soft as she moved in front of him and bent over.
Damn. Hell. Fuck. Her ass grazed his thighs. Beck didn’t want the first time she was bent over in front of him without her clothes on to be in some other guy’s studio; they should be in their studio. Their studio. He took a mental pause. When the hell had it become “theirs”.
“I love the way the trees and the scrub act as a frame for the water, makes me curious about what’s behind them. But…”
“But?” he asked, trying to focus on the art on the walls, not the warm, living, breathing art rubbing against his legs.
“I don’t know. I feel like there’s a missed opportunity with the water.” She stood up, her back coming to rest against him, standing just like she did when they were working on The Quag together. “With the reflections of the light, so much more could’ve been done with a tease of the play of colors.” Glancing around at him, she got nervous. “Is it insulting that I just said that?”
She seemed worried that Pascal might have heard her, but Beck smiled. “You were happy to slate the Limitation.”
“I did not slate it,” she said, pressing her elbow into him. She did that a lot to chastise him, there was never any force to the contact, but he felt it and she made her point.
Lowering his mouth into her hair when she turned back to the wall, he hid his words. “Right to my face, you stood right there and said it was shit.”
She elbowed him again, but he heard her faint laugh. “Ok, Jaycee just two seconds,” Pascal said.
When she took a deep breath, Beck could tell she was nervous. But she turned around. Beck knew how determined she was once she’d made up her mind. So, while she looked at the stage in the corner, he began to pull pins from her hair, sending it cascading around her shoulders.
Damn. Her hair smelled amazing and she looked so innocent with her face scrubbed clean and her wide eyes focused up on him with that pure trust. Picking up her hair between his fingers, he used the other fingers to back comb it a little bit, he did this in a few places, giving more lift, but the bedraggled wispy strands that escaped made her look even more vulnerable.
Support.
Yep, that was it. He was here to support his muse… His pregnant muse.
Covering his nervous swallow, Beck took her hand and locked their fingers together to lead her over to the platform in the corner. She was so short that he had to take her waist to lift her onto the crate. When she lifted one foot onto it, the sheet parted, revealing one creamy thigh.
“Should I—”
“No,” he said, closing the sheet and grabbing her hips to move her onto the corner. “Keep your back to the room, but tilt your head.” Grabbing handfuls of her hair, he pulled them forward and was so pleased when he saw the length could cover her breasts. “Give me this.”
When he covered his hands over hers on the sheet, he hadn’t meant to charge the moment, but her eyes ascended to his and he felt a zap of electricity. He’d just asked her to give him authority over her body, over revealing all of it or none of it. The ultimate control over the body he’d already impregnated.
There was something significant about the way her hands slid out from under his as she handed over the sheet. She leaned back, angling herself toward him. Beck had bitten off more than he could chew with Jaycee. She didn’t even understand what she did to him or the power she had over every part of his mind… and anatomy.
Without revealing her chest, he loosened the sheet down her back so it pooled at her ass. He’d done this before and knew how to reveal enough without revealing everything. The sheet was staying over her breasts. This weed could have her legs and her back, both of which she’d revealed in the club on stage anyway. The rest of her was his.
Tucking the sheet tight over her breast, he ignored the way her breath quivered when his fingertips traced her skin. He had to ignore it because what the hell could he do about it? Here? Nothing. Not one damn thing.
He didn’t want to admit that a part of him was dying.
That she was going to let this other guy commit her to paper felt like a betrayal, but it was a ridiculous jealousy. There was nothing physical about what was going to happen, but there was something intimate about it, especially in these close quarters.
Beck didn’t know if Jaycee understood that.
She clearly didn’t understand how passionate some artists could become about their muses. If she had, she’d never have admitted to him that she even considered doing this with another artist let alone tell him outright and bring him along to the party.
Picking up a strand of hair, he curled it around his finger to position it on her shoulder as he hunkered in front of her and patted the other side of the crate. “Put your legs over here,” he said. “Cross them or don’t, but you could be sitting here for hours, so pick a position that’s comfortable… Do you want a pillow?”
“I’m ok,” she said, moving her leg around the corner of the crate, which revealed the inside of her knee to him. “Why is my heart pounding?”
“You said you were excited, right?” he asked, but it wasn’t like Jaycee to sound so unsettled and anxious. He had to remind himself to be supportive and not take the first out she offered. “Keep your chin up.”
Using a finger to angle her face toward the artificial light in the center of the room, he felt his own heart slow in contradiction to hers. Why had he never done this? Why had he never recognized how special it would make her feel?
He’d sketched her face for a minute or two in the kitchen and she’d been overjoyed, why hadn’t he picked up on that and asked to take his obsession with her to a new level?
When they’d been apart, she’d been all he was able to draw. Her, that was it. He now had folders filled with images of the woman who’d imprinted herself on his memory. But this just proved she didn’t have the same need to bond with him as he had with her.
“How’s this?” she asked.
All he could do now was offer his professional guidance. “Watch your posture. Keep it tight, but not tight enough that you’ll strain.”
Standing up, he pushed her shoulder back. Her skin was so soft, how would he be able to convey the way it felt under his fingertips on paper? If she let him, he’d have to try… though he didn’t know how he’d feel about her ability to inspire him after she shared herself like this.
Touching her cheek, Beck had to admire how fluid the perfect angles of her face were and how they blended together to make her the most breathtaking model he’d ever seen.
“Should I smile?” she asked.
“No,” he said, knowing her face would be the first thing to slip as she tired. “Think about something that makes you happy… we’re going for that Mona Lisa smile… Think of a secret, a joke… something that makes you feel good.” It didn’t take long for her eyes to narrow as her lips quirked, yeah, she had it. That distant, mysterious woman look that every artist craved to capture. “What are you thinking about?”
He didn’t expect her to answer at all, but he’d inspired her into mischief. “Can’t you guess?”
Oh, he had an idea, his naughty little muse was so predictable. “The Abyss?” he murmured.
To his surprise, she shook her head, and her response almost floored him. “Beckett Trent,” she whispered and the light in her eyes grew as they danced over his.
She was thinking about him? He made her feel good? Made her smile like that? Damn. And all in some other guy’s studio.
Fixing her hair, he ran a finger down her jaw then rounded the crates to leave her, though he stopped to pull her shoulder back first. “Twist.”
Jaycee did exactly what he told her, she trusted his artistic instincts completely. He didn’t know how or why, but what they shared when it came to art was deeper than the innate. She was a novice, she couldn’t even draw, but she understood his vision, made him want to be better, and to work harder. At least, she had.
“All yours,” Beck said as he crossed the room and walked past Pascal who was positioned with his easel, paper, and pencil, ready to go.
Beck put his hands in his pockets and leaned on the workbench under the display wall. Jaycee was just as he’d left her, and she was a goddamn vision. His fingers itched to grab a pencil. He’d draw her on the floor, he’d paint the goddamn ceiling if he could, but not here, not like this in front of someone, not when his identity was at stake.
Yet, for the first time he didn’t even care about hiding who he was, he cared more about what his passion to commit her to paper would reveal about his feelings for her.
If he kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the floor, he could pretend he was somewhere else, that she was someone else.
“No,” Jaycee said.
He took his eyes from the floor when he heard her distress. “What’s wrong?” Pascal asked before Beck could get the words out.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Pushing off the crates, she scrambled to her feet and pulled at the sheet to cover as much of herself as she could. “I’m sorry, Pascal, I can’t do this.”
Running to the screen, she disappeared behind it. Pascal stood up and started toward it, and that was Beck’s cue to put himself between this guy and his woman. “You think about stepping behind that screen and I’ll make art out of your ashes.”
Staying in front of the confused, pale guy, Beck stared him down until just a minute later, Jaycee dashed out from behind the screen and ran up behind him to grab his hand. “Come on,” she said and pulled him away. “Please, I want to go.”
Oh well, he’d forgo punching the guy given that he was getting to leave with the girl, he just wished he knew what the fuck had happened. She’d been sure. In AD she’d been excited, and he knew her, when she was excited, she had the gumption to do anything at all. And once she’d committed, she was in. Hell, there had been a point when she’d hated him, and she was still carrying his child because she’d promised him she would.
Something in her mind had flipped while she sat there, and Beck had to know what it was.