The clouds shifted a little, as there was some wind, and the sunlight intensified. Golden rays landed on the deck, and on Mason, lighting up his hair, warming his skin tone, catching in his eyes.
“I am so sorry, but I think this is it.” David fumbled open his sketchbook. “I swear to God, I’m listening, but I have to…this is what I’ve been missing, I think.” He began to sketch in the rough shape of Mason, which he’d grown very familiar with over the past few days, so it didn’t take long. “You really don’t need to worry about offending me. I’m a low-paid back-end developer with a penchant for unfinished art projects. My mom’s a chemist, my dad’s an architect, and my brother is a literal rocket scientist. I am very used to being the disappointment in a situation.”
“You’re not a disappointment. Not to me.”
David smiled at that, and kept on drawing, glancing up now and then to monitor the light. He wouldn’t have it forever, so he needed to strike while he did. “I appreciate it. But if there’s a problem—”
“It’s bad timing to tell you that it’s the drawing. I think…let’s just call this the last one for a little while. I’m clearly not giving you what you need. Not a good model for anything.”
The curve of his cheek there, a few more lines to give the impression of his hair, tiny dark pupils to really make the contrast with the new highlights in his eyes. David was in the zone, and every time he added something, it felt more and more right. “Give me two minutes and I’ll prove you wrong.”
“You won’t. It’s…you’re an incredible artist, even if you seem pathologically incapable of actually finishing things.” Mason laughed tightly, unnaturally. “You can capture everyone but me, so the obvious answer is to look for the variable that changes. I’m just not an attractive subject for a piece of art.”
“Bullshit you’re not.” David could have fussed with the sketch longer, but the clouds had begun to drift back over the sun. So he turned the sketch book around and showed Mason the result. “Tell me you’re not a good model.”
Mason took the book and held it gently. He turned it a little, cocked his head to the side. “You…that’s good. That’s…I mean, I don’t think it’s accurate, but you drew a heck of a good picture. Might actually make someone want to look at me.”
“Okay, that’s enough of that.” David walked up and grabbed his wrists, pulling his arms down and looking straight across into Mason’s eyes. “You keep making comments like that. It’s not cute, and it’s not accurate. You have some idea of yourself in your head. It’s not the one I have.” He tapped the sketchbook, right above where the graphite hairline met the blank highlight of Mason’s forehead. “This is the one I have.”
“It’s not a fucking coincidence that the chubby guy is the only one you had a hard time making look good.” Mason jerked away from David’s grip and turned to look out over the Puget Sound. His cheeks were scarlet, his chest heaving, his gaze distant, and he stayed that way for a few seconds before speaking again, voice thick and slightly hoarse. “I’m sorry. I try not to cuss too much. But come on. You have eyes.”
“I do.” David considered his options, then stepped up and stood next to Mason, looking out at the gray and foaming ocean water in the distance. “That’s why I wanted to draw you. I have eyes, and they like what they see.” He hesitated, but now was clearly not the time to be subtle about things. He ran a finger down Mason’s cheek. “When you smile, your cheeks bunch up into these apples, and you get little dimples on either side of your mouth.” He kept going, tracing slowly down Mason’s neck, his shoulder, his arm. “And you look like you give amazing hugs, and like you could pick me up and sweep me away somewhere.” He didn’t touch Mason’s midsection, and flicked his fingertip away just before he reached his pocket, which would have been awfully close to straight-up feeling him up. “I have eyes. And those eyes tell me that you’re gorgeous. That’s why I couldn’t get anything right. I had higher standards for you than the others.”
Mason swallowed hard, throat bobbing. “You don’t need to butter me up, okay? I shouldn’t have freaked out.”
David grabbed Mason’s wrist again. He resisted, but not much, following as David pulled and led him around until they were once again facing one another. “There’s one more thing I saw that I really like about you. Well, a few more things but…” He pulled in close and pressed his lips to Mason’s.
The world froze, and even though the sun had disappeared once again behind the clouds, everything was warm and bright and golden until he pulled out of the kiss.
David nodded, and when he spoke, his voice had also gone hoarse. “Yeah. I was right. Nice lips. Good kisser.”
Chapter fifteen
Mason
Asolutionhadbeenfound. The rest of the day, Mason didn’t get in his head once about how he looked or how crappy of a model he must have been or how he was constantly being observed. In fact, by the time Mason was heading back to his hotel room, he didn’t remember anything about the day after that kiss on the roof.
Maybe that wasn’t entirely true. He could remember lots of things, but they felt unreal, veiled in a mist of hormones and confusion and…more than a little happiness, if he was totally honest with himself.
David hadkissedhim. Out of nowhere. He acted like he wanted to do it too.
Mason sat in his office chair, laptop open in front of him…and he just sat. The idea of going through the motions again, filling out his spreadsheet, double checking everything,throwing himself right back into the work, then recording his thoughts like this was something clinical that could be captured in a document, it all felt wrong. More than anything else,thatfelt unnatural.
After a couple minutes, Mason got up. The world would survive one night of him not furiously pecking away at his keyboard…he hoped. After all, it was more than a little bit egotistical to think that he was so important.
He dialed up room service and placed an order. This was the sort of night that called for beers. A couple of beers, at a minimum. Mason had also discovered they had a dang good chicken salad. Mason was not particularly well-versed in culinary arts, so he hadn’t known what to expect from a sumac chicken salad. Once he tried it, though, he ordered it the second night. And now he was ordering the Turkish chicken salad yet again. It was made with gem lettuce, sumac-roasted chicken, tomatoes, cucumber, and these crispy chickpeas that Mason could have gobbled by the handful, if the kitchen would send him enough.
Ten minutes later came a knock at the door. It was quick, but it also couldn’t be that hard to throw together a salad from pre-prepared ingredients, so Mason didn’t question it. He’d eat, then he could put on his responsible adult pants again and do his daily maintenance and record-keeping. He couldn’t just float in the dream-like cloud of getting kissed by a gorgeous man.
A gorgeous man who was on the other side of the door when Mason pulled it open. “David. Hi.” Mason swallowed hard, suddenly feeling like he couldn’t breathe.
David had changed out of his more fashionable look, but that didn’t make it any less suggestive. Either that, or Mason just thought he looked sexy in everything. He was in a pair of black and red harem pants, patterned with roses, although the pattern was severely faded, as if David wore them a lot. That, plus a blacktank top with swooping arm holes, and he looked like a movie-ready boyfriend waiting for the director to say action.
Other than the tense set of his jaw, and the look of discomfort in his eyes. “Hi. Can I step in for a second?”
“Of course.” Mason almost stumbled as he backed up and let David inside, but it seemed like that hazy, horny, elated mist was finally lifting, and he really wished it would come back. “Everything okay?”
David turned and spread his arms wide. “You tell me. I really got caught up in the moment, and I think you’re so good-looking, but that doesn’t mean I have the right to just kiss you out of the blue.” He scratched his fingers back through his hair, which lifted up the hem of his tank top and stretched the skin across his ribs and the muscles along the side of his chest. The ones that looked like little furrows in a field, that looked like they’d be a hell of a lot of fun to run his tongue over.
