I glanced up at him in surprise.
"What?" Was this another attempt to get a response from me?
"How much for the painting?" He waved a hand at it. He'd pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, so the veins in his arms were visible, obscured here and there by tattoos.
"You want to buy my painting?" I forced myself to focus on his face, not his veins and not the way his biceps were pushing at the seams of his shirt. "What for?"
"What do you think I want it for?" He frowned. His brow slowly smoothed out and he smiled. "You think I want to put it on the front of my dartboard and take potshots?" He mimed doing just that, closing one eye as he aimed at a pretend target.
"Do you?" I asked.
"That would be a waste," he said. "I was thinking I could hang it over my fireplace. I'll be sure to leave room for my nude."
"I'm not painting you naked," I said.
Seeing himself through my eyes would only inflate his ego further. He was a pain in the ass, but he was too attractive for his own good. I'd bet he wasn't born with a humble bone in his body either. Or his vocabulary.
"I was thinking you could do a self-portrait," he said easily. "Then anytime anyone walks into my house, they can see your pretty little pussy." His gaze dropped to the apex of my thighs as though he could see straight through my jeans.
I could almost see him mentally stripping them off me. Tearing my panties away and pressing his fingers into me.
Heat crept up my face. "I don't do self portraits," I mumbled. Especially if he was planning to turn it into something dirty. Nudes were supposed to be artistic. A celebration of the human body. Not cheap porn.
"What about I paint you then?" he said.
"Can you paint?" I arched an eyebrow at him, trying to regain my composure.
"Only houses." He grinned. "But I'm willing to give it a try if you are."
"I think I'll pass." I started to pack up my things. It was almost time for lunch and I was starting to get stiff from sitting for so long. I should know better, but when I was caught up in something, it took up all my attention. When I used to be able to…
I forced myself not to head down that line of thought.
"Suit yourself," he said with a shrug. "You don't know what you're missing."
"I have a pretty good idea," I said, managing to sound suitably unimpressed.
"I think you just implied I'm a two pump chump who doesn't know how to find a clit." His frown was back.
"I didn't imply anything, but if that's where your mind went, maybe you should get some help," I said lightly.
He didn't look like the kind of man who couldn't find a clit. He looked like one who knew how to make a girl scream two or three times in quick succession. I carefully avoided looking in the direction of his groin. At half a glance, I could already tell he was packing.
"See, that's the problem with city girls," he said slowly. "They think they know everything. I've got news for you, sweetheart, you don't know fuckinganything." He was looking at me the way he was in the café on my first morning in town. Like I was a waste of the clean air up here in the mountains.
"I don't think I know everything." I crossed my arms, pushing my breasts up in my tank top.
His gaze dropped down to them, widening slightly before he looked back at my face.
"You should get out of town while you can," he growled softly.
"Or what?" I asked. He was a few inches taller than me, and a lot wider, but I still wasn't intimidated. All I had to do was shout and half the town would come out to see what was going on.
He leaned in to speak in my ear. He smelled of leather and some kind of fuel. Earthy and heady. The men back home didn't smell like this. I was more accustomed to cologne and clean laundry. Pleasant, but not intoxicating like this.
When he spoke, he spoke slowly, barely breathing. "Or you'll find yourself on your knees, choking on my cock. I see the way you look at me. You think you don't want me, but you do. If you stick around town, you're going to be begging me to fuck you."
"In your dreams," I whispered. No way was I going to let him see he was getting to me. It was only because he was so close and it had been so long since I'd been intimate with anyone. A dry spell like that would make any girl lose herself for a few moments.
