Fixer: A Bad Boy Romance (38 page)

I had the photographs already, from my visit to Onyx's studio, but maybe I would see about going back and taking a few more, just to make sure that I captured the statue from all angles. I'd wait a couple of hours at least, maybe even a day, before emailing Albrecht, just to make sure that I didn't come off as too eager.

Just like dating, I thought to myself. Couldn't seem overly eager, or I might come off as desperate.

Maybe I could even throw in a mention of other potential buyers; nothing solid, nothing that would lower his hope of getting the sculpture, but just enough to maybe make him think that time was a bit of an issue here. The competition would just serve to raise the stakes a little bit, that's all.

I reached for the phone, but paused as I realized, receiver in my hand, that I didn't actually know Onyx's number. No problem - I had plenty of papers sitting around. Surely, the artist's home phone number would be on one of those sheets.

Twenty minutes later, I finally uncovered a payment receipt to Onyx that had a number on it. I punched the digits into the phone, held the receiver against my ear, and listened to the other end of the line ringing.

Onyx picked up after four rings. "Yes?" Nothing else - no introduction. If I hadn't recognized his smooth, deep voice over the telephone, I might have thought that I had the wrong number.

"Onyx?" I asked. "It's, uh, Becca, from the Halesford Gallery."

"Hi." Nothing more, but the warmth in his voice grew several notches stronger, and, lord help me, I blushed a little! Even his voice over a telephone line sounded sexy.

"Listen, I had a client come by, and he's interested in seeing more pictures of that big piece that you have in your home studio," I plunged on, trying not to get sidetracked from the heat in his voice. "I was hoping that maybe I could come by this afternoon after I finish up here and take a few more pictures to send to him."

I waited, but Onyx didn't respond for a moment. "Does that sound okay?" I finally asked, wondering if I'd somehow overstepped some invisible boundary.

"Of course," he answered finally, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. "But in exchange, I'll need something from you."

"Yeah, anything." My brain wondered if my mouth should be running so blithely ahead, but too late to take the words back now. "What do you need? Want me to bring you some takeout or something?"

"I'm exploring a new direction with my next sculptures," he said, ignoring my words. "The female form." He paused for a second. "And I need a model."

Little goosebumps popped out all over my skin as my imagination threw up half a dozen embarrassing, revealing situations that Onyx might want to put me in - although I didn't exactly object to some of them. "Um, what exactly do you mean by that?"

He chuckled, the deep sound rolling over me like waves of warmth from a fire. "Nothing that pushes you beyond your boundaries. Strike a few poses, perhaps flex some musculature so I can see the differences between the male and female forms."

"Musculature?" I bit my lip. "I hate to tell you, Onyx, but I haven't been quite keeping up with my normally rigorous gym training schedule as of late, so there might not be quite as much flexed musculature as you're hoping for. Are you sure that you don't want to go find some female model? I'm sure you wouldn't have trouble getting one." Especially not after they saw his dark skin and heard his sexy voice, I added privately to myself.

"Unfortunately, I don't have the time to deal with finding one." We both knew that this was a flimsy excuse, and we both knew that the other understood this fact as well. 'You'll do fine. Just come over at five."

"Okay," I said, hoping that I wasn't committing myself to something crazy.

"Great. See you then, Becca." I heard him smile as he said goodbye, but the receiver clicked as he hung up before I could answer him.

"See you then," I echoed into the empty line, putting it back down and trying to keep my imagination from conjuring up lurid, erotic fantasies of Onyx doing all sorts of deliciously tortured things to my body.

A little part of me pointed out that, while Onyx was undeniably sexy, I also had Carter in my life, offering all sorts of wonderful little teases of a happy future together. Heck, just the other night, I'd felt his lips on mine, had nearly shattered and melted just from the heat in that kiss! Did I really want to complicate things by bringing Onyx into the mix?

But on the other hand, I rationalized, Carter and I weren't really dating. In fact, I was exclusively not dating, at least until the divorce was completely handled and over. I'd told Carter that I wasn't dating. Instead, as Portia had suggested, I needed a palate cleanser before getting involved in another serious relationship with a man. Onyx, with his sexy, smoky gazes, dark skin, and quiet sensuality, might be exactly what I needed to move past Barry and be ready for a fresh start.

"You're getting ahead of yourself again," I murmured out loud, shaking my head. "Just get the pictures, Becca. You can worry about the romance stuff after it happens, not before anything ends up occurring."

Still, it was a good thing that no more customers came into the gallery for the rest of the afternoon. I spent the time just sitting at the front desk, gazing off into space and fantasizing; thieves probably could have carried half the art out of the gallery, right past my nose, without my notice.

Chapter Seventeen

*

Onyx let me in once I knocked on the door of his warehouse studio. "Little late," he observed as he held the door open for me.

"Yeah, well, you ought to put up some signs around here," I fumed at him, momentarily not even distracted by the fact that his black tee shirt clung very tightly to his heavily muscled chest. "This is the third different building that I had to try! I circled around two other ones, trying to figure out if they were were you lived, or really just abandoned!"

He shrugged. "I like my privacy," he admitted simply.

"Still, at least turn a light on for me, or maybe hang a red handkerchief out the window as a signal, or something." Now that I'd finally found the place, however, my annoyance quickly drained away. As I turned to look at Onyx, I quickly reminded myself of my objectives.

I'd considered these as I headed over here, before I got all frustrated and turned around amid the empty warehouses in the area. I had three objectives, and I hoped to not deviate from them.

Objective one: get the pictures of the big dick sculpture so that I could send them on to Robert Albrecht, and hopefully convince him that he needed a huge, black stone cock in his life, no matter the price.

Objective two: make it very clear to Onyx that I wasn't about to just throw myself into bed with him, and that I might have something going on between Carter and myself. I wasn't just free for the taking.

And finally, objective three: get as much eye candy as possible, so that later, when I was back home in the privacy of my shower, I could play back some of these scenes for my own private enjoyment.

I'd begrudgingly added objective three just to satisfy my libido. After spending the entire afternoon fantasizing about Onyx practically nonstop, I had to give it something. Otherwise, I feared that it might revolt and shut down entirely, preventing me from ever experiencing another orgasm in my life.

I was certainly already succeeding at objective three, I now thought to myself as I cast my eyes over Onyx, taking in how his shirt clung to his damp skin, the little beads of sweat glistening on his broad forearms and his brow. "Working hard?" I asked, trying not to drool at the sight of him, like a big bar of chocolate.

"Like I said, inspiration struck," he nodded, waving a hand towards the side of the warehouse that served as his studio. "Come take a look."

I moved in the indicated direction. Yep, there was the studio, with a dozen carved stone dicks of various sizes sitting around. The big one, the "landmark piece" that could end up being the solution to my financial troubles, still sat on its own pallet, separate from the rest.

"Over here," Onyx said, and his hand touched me lightly on my shoulder to guide me past the sea of penises (penii? Penes?). I turned, and my next words caught for a moment in my throat as I looked at his latest, half-finished work.

It was a woman. It was, I thought distantly to myself, most definitely a woman. A rather abstract, idealized woman, but there was no mistaking that shape, half-finished and still lacking detail and polish, as a female figure.

"Wow," I breathed out, taking a step closer. My hand drifted out, but I caught myself before touching the stone, and glanced back at Onyx to see if this was a breach of some sort of artist's etiquette. "Can I..."

"Go ahead," he nodded, and I reached out and ran my hand over the lines of the half-finished carving.

The block of stone had been shaped into the torso of a woman. It had no arms, and the legs ended just about halfway down the thigh, but I could already see the lines of the woman's hips, her swelling bust, the curve of her stomach. This was a woman who didn't have a single flat surface on her body; no stick-thin Sports Illustrated model would measure up to this statue. This was the carving of a woman who exulted in her curves, whose round hip could drive men crazy from a hundred yards away. Most of the bust was still rough stone, the final lines not yet separated from the rougher rock that still enclosed them, but I could see that this statue would be an hourglass, just as well endowed above the waist as below.

"It's amazing," I confessed honestly, my hand lingering on that curve of the hip. Somehow, with just a few strokes of the chisel, Onyx truly managed to capture the essence of a woman, maybe even that of a goddess. "This is incredible."

I glanced back over at the man, and he just shrugged. "Something new. It came to me in a dream, and I had to capture it in a more solid medium."

I'd totally forgotten about my objectives. "Will it be done soon?" I asked. "I mean, if you let me try and sell this, I'm sure I could get half a dozen offers-"

He shook his head. "Not yet. Not until I'm happy with it, until I feel that she's done. She's not there yet."

I looked back at the unfinished bust. "Right. Not yet." Still, my hand lingered on the stone, feeling the scores and marks from where the chisel had struck, running over that curve of the hip. Of course, no hip bone truly existed inside the stone, but I could almost believe that I was touching cold flesh, rather than carved rock.

I heard the sound of a footstep behind me, and Onyx reached forward to also lay his hand on the statue. He slid it up, and I could see him imagining out the lines that still had to be carved from the rock. "She will be beautiful," he said softly.

I found myself nodding. "Yes."

"But I need to finish her," Onyx continued, and now he turned to me, his hand transferring from the statue to my own forearm. "And although my inspiration got me this far, I need to see how a real woman moves, how she bends and turns and her muscles shift, to capture that for the sculpture."

I really ought to say something, part of my brain said nervously. Remember objective two? I should say that I'd been on a date with Carter, that I had kissed Carter, that I might even be imagining some sort of future with Carter. That was the sort of thing that Onyx might want to know before he started seeing how I could bend and turn.

But just give it a minute, another part of my mind - the part more connected with the mindless wants and desires of my body - pointed out. Besides, you and Carter might have something in the future, but what do the two of you have to share right now? A single date, and one kiss. That's it.

Is that really enough for you to block out all other possibilities?

As these two voices inside my head argued back and forth, my mouth remained shut, and Onyx slid his other hand over to me. I felt it settle on my hip with a thrill, and he gently but firmly guided me, moving me and posing me like I was a doll for him to adjust.

"Like that," he murmured, and I tried hard not to shiver as I felt the warmth of his breath against my neck. "That is the pose I imagined. Hold it right there..."

I did my best not to move, but my skin felt hyper-aware as he slid his hands up from my hips along my waist, pressing my shirt in against my back. His fingers pushed in, and I felt almost like I was on the receiving end of a massage.

And then, suddenly, he'd stepped away.

"What?" I asked out loud, wondering if I was free to move yet. I tried to turn my head to look at him without shifting anything below the neck, probably coming off as a creepy mannequin in the process.

I saw that Onyx had stepped simply over to his workbench and picked up a pad of white paper. "I need to capture this," he replied, grabbing a stick of charcoal and slashing across the page.

I held the pose for another minute, fighting hard against my urge to go see what he was sketching, but I finally succumbed to a combination of curiosity and muscle fatigue. I dropped my arms down and walked over to glance over the top of the pad of thick sketch paper.

"Wow," I said, looking at the stylized figure that he'd drawn. I could see the same lines as he'd carved into the half-finished statue, but now the lines continued up, spreading out into the curve of heavy breasts, the swell and heft as they hung down from the chest. Clearly, Onyx wasn't a man after the fake tits that models showed off these days; the breasts on his sketch were full and natural, not quite sagging but definitely sitting with gravity, like I saw when I looked in the mirror after a long day and before climbing into bed.