Instead of using a pencil, I picked up the charcoal. Drew his hand not as I’d seen it, but as I’dfeltit.
“Ahh…” he breathed. “Now, the arm.”
This time, it was me who hesitated, but then my hands went there all on their own. The muscles were like steel, the skin silky smooth. On paper, I drew the fine curve of muscle, the way it fell along the bones.
Next, he had me do his feet, with their exotic long toes and short talons. The calf, up to the thigh—my fingers shook when the big muscles tightened beneath my touch. But what I transferred to paper had a dimension I’d never rendered before.
I paused when he had me move around behind him—the wingsemerged from a shoulder joint that had never graced any human. And across the span of his back was a spectacular tattoo of a flying dragon.
“That is beautiful,” I said.
“I prefer the one you did in the bunkhouse,” he confessed.
I didn’t think my drawing was nearly as good, but something inside me warmed at the compliment. I focused on the task at hand—so graceful, yet powerful, and the chest muscles that drove them were truly glorious…
He reached out and captured my hand, before pulling it to his face. “Now this,” he whispered.
His face was narrower than Xandros’s or Zyair’s, the bones of cheek and jaw clearly outlined beneath the skin. If I could capture even half of the guarded kind of arrogance in Rhodes’s eyes, it would be one hell of a picture.
His long fingers drifted up my cheek to my eyes, where they gently rested on the lids.
“Close them,” he rumbled. “Feelme.”
The air seemed to vibrate around him. Every fiber of my awareness was in my fingertips as I built a mental image of the planes of his brow, cheek, and jaw. The surprising softness of his skin over hard bone…
My breathing grew increasingly ragged, my focus fracturing…
He guided my hand lower, and lower, and repeated, “Feel me.”
And feel him I did… My stick of charcoal dropped from my fingers.
“Have you ever kissed someone?” I asked breathlessly.
“A few times.” His lip twitched upward.
“I had to teach Zyair.”
His eyes glowed, and he snorted softly. “Zyair has denied himself the pleasure of female company for far too long. He has coped by reading human books that are full of sexual exploits.”
“Hedoesread erotic novels!” With mysuspicions confirmed, it certainly explained some things. Although the characters in most of those novels didn’t have vibrating tails…
Rhodes tilted his head. “Oh, yes. Of course, I told him of what I learned. Would you like a demonstration?”
“I’d very much like a demonstration.” It came out sounding slightly desperate. Which I was. If this entire artistic thing had been set up to make me hot for him—it had totally worked. His scent swirled around me—evoking images of leather and the sharp aroma of a thunderstorm.
I hungered like he’d been running his hands over me for an hour.
The way his eyes glowed at me, the arrogance in the set of his jaw—those things fired something deep inside. Something that demanded that I rise to him.
“Kiss me, Rhodes.” This time, it came out as an order.
His hand moved to cup the back of my head. “Try to stop me,” he growled, and moved his bent leg out to the side.
It exposed what my hands had already discovered. Fucking hell. These Drakes wereimpressive.
From the first touch, it was as though my very soul leaped to join his. I ached for the culmination of the mating bond between all three brothers—if this wasn’t Fate, I didn’t know what was.
Heat pulsed through to my core as he pulled me to kneel in a cradling position between his legs. The lips that touched my own weren’t hesitant, like Zyair, or gentle, like Xandros, but rather powerful and claiming, his tongue expertly gaining entrance to dance with mine.
