Jaycee tossed her purse onto the counter and pulled off her jacket.
She felt like an idiot.
She was an idiot.
What the hell had she been thinking?
The feeling of violation had kept the tears in her eyes all the way home, which was why she’d kept her attention on the side window. Beck had asked if she was ok about twenty times, but she didn’t want to talk to him.
Because she was an idiot.
“You hungry?” he asked.
She shook her head and bent over to pull off her shoes. At least he’d moved on from asking if she was ok. “I’m going to bed.”
Turning away, she began to plod toward her bedroom. “Do you want a minute alone with The Abyss first?”
Her lip wobbled. Oh, he knew exactly what she needed. Jaycee nodded and adjusted to head for the studio. Beck had shown her that there was one switch on the pad that lit the lights around the bed and nothing else. It was this switch she flicked when she went into the studio.
The Abyss was at the other end of the room, but the dull glow was enough for her to share a private moment with the piece that meant so much to her. Going to it, she leaned on the wall beside it, staying as close as she could without actually making physical contact. Just being here, near its beauty, was enough to make her feel better.
Yet, a sob escaped her lips. Damn. It was probably the pregnancy. Her hormones were all over the place. While she felt better about her own sense of security, her guilt skyrocketed.
She didn’t know how long she’d been there alone with The Abyss when Beck came up behind her and slid his arms around her. But she didn’t argue, she rested her forearms along his and appreciated the strength he shared with her.
“Please talk to me, Muse,” he whispered into her crown. “You were so sure, so excited, and then… tell me what happened.”
With her arms crossed over herself, Jaycee gathered her hands over his upper arms and pulled them tighter around her. “It’s nothing. It was silly… you’ll think I’m silly.”
“I won’t, I promise,” he said. “Please, girl. It hurts me that you’re hurt. So talk before you send me Vincent van Gogh.”
“It’s nothing, I… I didn’t want to be under his pencil,” she said, tracing her fingertips along his forearms and back. “I don’t want to be under any other man’s pencil… I only want to be under yours.”
His lack of response made her think that she was right; he thought she was crazy. But it had been such an odd sensation to feel Beck walking away from her in Pascal’s studio.
Jaycee had put the fast heartbeat and the butterflies in her belly down to nerves about getting naked. But Beck had made sure that she didn’t have to get naked and then as he left her there she felt… bereft.
Something overcame her so fast that she’d lost her breath. No, she couldn’t sit for Pascal. Maybe it was looking at his art and comparing her feelings for it to that of her feelings for Beck’s, or maybe she just didn’t want to be vulnerable for another guy.
But without Beck directing her she felt awkward and out of place. Pascal’s studio wasn’t her sanctuary, Beck’s was.
His arms slid away, and she sighed, but instead of walking away from her, he took her hand and led her away from The Abyss. Jaycee didn’t know where they were going. But she went with him anyway, she was fast coming to realize, she’d follow him anywhere.
Beck took her to stand at the bottom corner of the bed. “Stay here,” he said.
He darted off to grab a chair and a sketch pad.
Smiling, she realized what he was doing. He was going to draw her. Dumping the pad on the vintage armchair he’d dragged over, Beck went to a drawer, grabbed up a handful of pencils and put them on the pad before he came to her.
Something in Beck’s eyes made her smile fall, there was something predatory about the way he was looking at her as he came over to spin her away from him. Jaycee gasped at the sudden move, but he seized her shoulder to steady her.
A different kind of gasp slipped between her lips when he began to unzip her dress. Oh. He didn’t have any screen. Didn’t have any sheet. He was a hands-on kind of guy… Beck was undressing her himself.
The tickle in her belly became a thump. But Jaycee wasn’t nervous, not like she’d been before. His large hands pushed under the straps of her dress and he inched them forward to slip the garment from her body. As it pooled around her feet, he unhooked her bra and she caught it over her chest.
“Beck,” she whispered, tipping her chin to her shoulder.
She didn’t know what she wanted him to say, but when the tips of his fingers drifted up her arms, he communicated everything that she needed to hear.
Dropping her arms, she let her bra fall to the floor and seeking more of that strength, Jaycee swayed back against him. His fingertips glided up to her shoulders and he skimmed them across her collarbone, then dropped his palms to her upper chest to stroke them back to her shoulders.
Her quickening pulse infused her with energy, but all she could do was what he needed her to. When his hands moved to her waist and drove downward under the elastic of her panties, he paused, he wasn’t going to expose all of her without her permission.
“Yes,” she whispered, drifting on their intimacy.
Pushing down, he crouched to guide her panties down her legs and after they were gone, he rose. The whisper of his lips floated over the back of her hip. When he stood up, she tucked her arms backwards to hold his hips, staying in front of him with her back to his chest.
One of his hands curved around her throat and ascended to her chin, forcing her head back at an angle so he could whisper in her ear. “You’re the only woman I want under my pencil,” he said.
A whimper warmed her chest and he urged her forward, guiding her toward the bed. Going onto the bed on her knees, Jaycee lowered and then turned onto her back. She had to. It might not be the most dignified moment, but he’d stripped her down, and she hadn’t objected, she couldn’t be shy now.
On her back, she was exposed to him from top to toe and she tried to tell herself that it was his artist’s eye that was scrutinizing every inch of her body, but she knew so much of her wanted it to be more.
“Your bowl of fruit, Maestro,” she said and when his eyes leaped to hers, she smiled.
If he was worried about her taking offense, he didn’t understand how she felt about him and his talent. “Can’t decide which part to eat first,” he said.
She laughed.
Beck bent to trail his fingertip from the tip of her big toe, up the front of her leg, across her hip, to her belly and… Jaycee curled her lip into her mouth when he kept going up over her breast, slowing as his finger mounted her nipple and trickled down the other side. The stimulating motion made her stifle a gasp and his finger stopped on the swell of her upper breast.
“Sore?” he asked and she shook her head. The last thing she felt was pain when he touched her like that. Hunkering down, he finger-combed her hair. “I want you to get comfortable.”
“Because I’m going to be here for hours?”
Rising, he went to the top of the bed and grabbed his pillow, which he stuffed under her head, and then he began to arrange her hair as he crouched again. “Because I want you to sleep. It’s been a long day and if you wake up sick, you’ll be down all day and The Quag wants some quality time.”
So, they were spending the night together and he was already anticipating spending the day with her tomorrow. “I thought you were going to draw me.”
“I am,” he said, backing up to grab his things from the armchair, though he was close enough to prop his feet on the end of the bed. “Just close those eyes, Muse… Let me do the heavy lifting.”
He wanted her to sleep naked in his bed. To relax and slumber when her body was exposed for him. “What if I move?”
“Then I’ll start again,” he said. “And again, and again, until you’re comfortable.”
“You have to sleep too and—”
“You talk a lot for a bowl of fruit,” he said. “Quicker you close your eyes…”
“You’re bossy,” she said and snuggled her face into the pillow. “I like it.”
“Then prepare to be told what to do more often,” he muttered. As soon as her eyelids relaxed, she heard the first swipe of his pencil on the pad.
The next thing she was aware of was the warmth of his breath on her hair.
Jaycee’s eyes flickered open to find she was in Beck’s arms. Their bodies were facing each other, their legs interlaced while her arms were tucked over her breasts between their chests.
Because they were the right way on the bed, she figured Beck must have moved her. Though she had no memory of being moved or him lying down with her. The hairs on his legs rasped against her smooth ones. It was nice, intimate, right.
Wriggling her hips, she felt fabric over her crotch, so he’d put her panties back on. Well, that was embarrassing, because he’d have gotten up close to do that. Skimming her leg upward, she felt that he too was wearing his underwear, but his bare chest was practically against her nose, so she knew that was all he wore.
Wow, they’d slept together like… together.
Yeah, they’d crashed on the same mattress before plenty of times over the last couple of weeks, but this was the first time she’d slept in his arms and the first time either of them had been close to nude.
Had Beck taken her into his arms on purpose or had their bodies twined like this of their own volition in their sleep? Opening her hand, she twisted her wrist and pressed it to the solid muscle of his pectoral. Jaycee was always horny in the morning, or she had been before she started getting sick in the morning.
Sick.
Huh.
Why didn’t she feel sick this morning?
This was the first morning for more than two weeks when she’d woken up and felt… normal.
While Beck was asleep, she was going to take advantage of this cocoon of safety he offered. He’d had access to her last night and God only knew what he might have done to her. Except, she wasn’t scared or angry.
It was arousing to know that she’d been on offer to this man and he may have taken advantage of her. Although the fact that he’d put her panties on sort of suggested either he wasn’t interested, or he respected her so much that he wouldn’t ever dream of violating her.
From the corner of her eye, Jaycee saw The Quag and her body shifted, loosening his arms as she twisted enough that she could get a better view of it. Great, if she hadn’t been feeling frisky before seeing that, she had no chance of calming now. What chance did a woman stand when she woke up in the arms of a semi-naked hunk while being watched by one of the most arousing pieces of art she’d ever seen?
The last time they’d kissed, Beck had freaked out and their relationship had imploded. They couldn’t go through that again. She couldn’t go through that again.
Losing him once was difficult. But after all they’d been through, she had come to rely on him. Jaycee wanted to see him and wanted to spend time with him. Beck was her best friend, there was no other way to put it, and she didn’t want to lose him again.
Maybe if she just slipped carefully from his embrace, she could sneak out of bed without waking him. Inching back, she kept her head down and made progress slipping from his arms, but one of her legs was still clamped between his and she couldn’t… couldn’t…
“Sick?”
Tipping her head back, she saw Beck’s tired eyes peeking at hers. “Horny,” she admitted before she thought about whether or not it was a good idea to be so honest.
Beck didn’t move or react, which was fine, except her leg was still trapped between his. If he was awake, he should be letting her go. She was about to ask for her limb back when his palm slid onto her back, it went lower, down her side and around to her belly. The roughness of his hands was a testament to how often he washed and scrubbed them. But it felt nice to have the rasp of his stimulating digits sailing across her responsive flesh.
She didn’t expect his fingers to go further, but they did. Sneaking down the front of her panties, he pushed his finger between her thighs. Jaycee was so shocked that she drew in a sharp breath. “Open or tell me to go to hell,” he grumbled in his rough morning voice.
That voice, she’d been treated to it so many times. Every time it made the cells of her body rub against each other and heat to a fever. Something had changed last night when they both admitted the strength of their connection. It didn’t take her long to make a decision. Sinking to her back, she relaxed her legs and he shifted and inch closer, his arm still curled under his pillow.
As his finger delved between her folds, his eyes closed. Jaycee hoped he wasn’t going to fall asleep halfway through the act but as his fingers sped over her clit, she sank deeper into the mattress and her worries fled.
“I’m not supposed to have sex,” she muttered, moving her hips to match the rhythm of his hand.
“This isn’t sex,” he said, lifting his arm to shift his head and pillow closer to hers. “This is jerking-off by proxy.”
That was so funny that she turned her head toward him. He was so close to her, right there, with his eyes closed and his hand working to bring her to climax beneath the covers. One thing would speed that journey.
Picking up her head, Jaycee angled it to let her mouth breathe against his. She couldn’t have him turn his back on her again, but this would be the test, if she kissed him and he flipped out, she’d know she couldn’t trust him.
Rising higher, she opened her lips, begging him to return the gesture. When he did, she moaned and relaxed, just as his finger slid into her. “Oh, Beck,” she said, taking her mouth back.
He moved further over her, giving her back the kiss she’d given to him. As his mouth pampered hers, he pushed another finger into her and pulled back, fucking her slowly with the digits she worshipped.
“My muse,” he said, licking her lip before shifting to taste her neck.
What a way to wake up, not only with the man who’d been wheedling his way into her affections, but the man whose talent made her weak, and now he was proving his skills stretched into other areas.
Jaycee was so grateful that he’d taken the role of dominant here because she wouldn’t have been able to keep up with his kiss as she moved faster toward the height of her climax. Right now, she wasn’t a person, she was completely his concept, an extension of his brilliant mind.
Panting his name, she gritted her teeth and hissed as her body clenched around his fingers.
It had been a long time since she’d had an orgasm delivered by anyone other than herself and she’d forgotten how powerful it could be. With her eyes closed, Jaycee felt the pound of her heart and the sheen of moisture across her breasts. The experience with him had been so profound that she was sweating with the passion that tried to seep from her body.
When the bed moved, and his heat lessened, she reached out for his torso. “Don’t leave me,” she said.
“I’m gonna take a shower,” he said. “You can—”
“Not before,” she said, wriggling herself against him.
His brows closed in on each other. “Muse, we can’t—”
“Go all the way, I know,” she said, but that didn’t stop her from sinking both of her hands into his underwear to take hold of his dick. The grumbling exhale that joined the relaxed expression of satisfaction on his face told her that he was ok with her touching him. “Doesn’t mean I can’t repay the favor.”
“You jerk-off twice a day; I don’t,” he said, pushing himself into her fist. “I don’t mind taking on that responsibility for you.”
“Don’t worry, Maestro,” she said, boosting up to kiss his lips. “Under my guidance, we’ll get you up to speed in no time.”
After another kiss, she slithered down his body and took him into her mouth. There was no way this was simply business anymore. It might be a stupid idea to get this involved with each other, but it felt too good and it was too easy to surrender to the moment. She’d let tomorrow worry about itself tomorrow.