The Clever Fox: Part One (The Pleasure Hound Series) (8 page)

He’d locked the door immediately after sending Emet out this morning. He’d gone down to work on his paintings. But the colors and lines weren’t working, and he’d come back upstairs and unlocked the door. After lunch Emet phoned to tell him he’d need to stay late to prepare his case for the Insemination Bill. Engrossed in his own work, Adom had missed the call and so Emet left a message. His voice sounded strained on the recording, as though there was more he wanted to say, but he either couldn’t or wouldn’t over the phone.

After listening to the message, Adom put down the receiver and locked the store front door once more. That was an hour ago. Now she stood on the other side of his shop. Her bright face sank down as she realized she would not gain entry.

Adom’s feet carried him to the door. His hand hesitated. He caught her eyes through the window pane, watched them brighten like the dawn. Watched the relief flood her like night falling. He turned the lock.

She stepped up to the threshold, but Adom blocked her passage. He leaned his elbow against the door frame. There was no way he could do this. Let her into the home he shared with his bondmate as she battled Emet in the chambers. Insemination meant little to Adom. He had no desire for children. He would never bond with a woman. His proclivities assured him of that. No woman would ever want him to touch her because he’d always feel the need to run a rope over her skin and then tighten it.

“I wore it to Chambers today.” Lady Alyss slid her hands down his dress.
 

Adom felt a tightening in his pants. He watched the slight up and down movements her fingers made as they alternately hit a flat plane of the dress and the peek of a knot. His mouth watered, his fingers itched. He braced his other hand against the opposite side of the door frame, effectively barring her entrance.

“They all couldn’t keep their eyes off me,” she continued.

The sun back lit her, bouncing off the spirals of her hair and claiming them as its own rays. Lady Alyss raised her hands to remove a light wrap around her shoulders. Her hands stretched up to the sky as though she were bathing in its rays; as though she were the one awakening the sun and not the other way around.

“Don’t move,” Adom whispered.

He backed into the store, never taking his eyes off her. He had to capture it all, starting with her hair. There were sparkling bursts of sunlight tiptoeing on each curl. Adom ached to pull one straight, give it a tug so that it would relax for him, even if only momentarily. He reached out his hands to the counter for a pencil.

Lady Alyss watched him quizzically, her hands slowly coming down to her sides.

Adom put up his hands, trying to arrest her movements.

“I’m not going to stand outside like this.” She came in and closed the door behind her. Then she turned around and turned the lock. “If you’re going to draw me, you’ll do it inside, in a proper studio.”

The command didn’t rankle Adom. There was something familiar about the look in her eyes. So many nights Emet came home, skin bunched around his eyes, hands clenched into fists, the cords showing in his neck. When Adom would look into his bondmate’s eyes, he always noted they were a darker shade than his natural hazel.

“I know you have one.” Lady’s Alyss’ golden eyes were nearly a solid, dark brown. “Take me there.”

She hadn’t just asked him to take her to his studio. Her words were a plea. She asked him to take away the pressure. Both she and Emet had had trying days at their work. They each stood on opposite sides of this issue, adding stress to their lives. Adom stood at a different plane seeing a way to relieve them both. And so he led her down into his studio. Once inside the doorway, her steps faltered, and she gasped.

Adom’s heart beat wildly in his chest. In the wall mirror, he saw his face go ashen. His leg muscles tightened, ready to flee. But his knees locked.

What was he thinking bringing her down here where his suspension rig was on full display. Her eyes stretched wide, her hand fluttered to her chest, her mouth constricted into a perfect O shape.

He moved out of her way so she could run from the doorway, from him, from his sickness.

But she didn’t run. She walked forward.

Lady Alyss knelt down to the three canvases lining the side wall of his studio, not once glancing at the rig. But, of course she wouldn’t. She was a proper lady. An unbonded lady. She had no knowledge of sexual perversions such as Shibari and bondage.

Adom released his breath. Along with the exhale, his limbs went liquid.
 

“These are all me?”

He didn’t question how she knew. There was not much to reveal her person in any of the paintings. The hair color was different in each one. The eyes were different shapes, different shades. But her skin tone and her bone structure were the same. If it wasn’t clear to him before, it was clear now. Lady Alyss had an eye for artistic detail.

“These are mounted,” she said. “You’re going to show these?”

“They’ve been accepted into the Jayne Austere gallery.”

Her mouth fell open. Her fingers touched her parted lips on a gasp. Another beat of panic burst from Adom’s heart. With a word she could halt his show, have him arrested for using her likeness.

But a reverent smile spread across her face. Her fingers left her lips and reached out. They fell just short of touching the canvas. “You used the purple.”

Adom let out a bark of laughter. This woman continued to surprise him. He’d depicted her in a series of sensual artworks without her permission, but what caught and held her attention was his color choice.

He looked at the purple on the third canvas. She’d suggested it would go well with her skin tone. “You were right.”

She stood and walked to the blank canvas near the center of the room. “How do you want me for this painting?”

Adom’s throat went dry. “You have no objection to me showing the work?”

She shook her head. Adom watched the darkness evaporate from her eyes in real time. He swallowed as the gold rose to dawn.

“No one will recognize you, I promise.”

The light in her eyes dimmed for a moment, or he could’ve imagined it. She stood erect, her hands on her hips. “Tell me how you want me to pose,” she said.

“Its a series on the Goddess. First she was asleep.” He pointed to the first painting with Alyss’ likeness lying on the blood red ground. “She awakens in the next depiction and then treads the earth in the third.”

He watched Alyss’ eyes roam once more to the second painting and then onto the third.
 

“For the fourth…,” he hesitated, running his words in his head. He filtered them through carefully, trying to clean up the vision he’d just had of her with her hands bound above her head. “When I saw you standing in the sun with your hands stretched up, I realized I’d missed a step. The Goddess giving birth to the sun.”

“So you want me to stand with my hands stretched upwards?” She mimicked the pose from the doorstep.

Adom grabbed his pencil. “Yes, exactly.”

He began his outline of her body. “Don’t have your arms too straight. Bend them a bit.”

She did as instructed.
 

“Now, relax your fingers.”

She followed his cues, posing perfectly.

There was no sound in the room save the scratch of the pencil on canvas and both of their breaths. He didn’t imagine it. He heard the tempo of her breaths change in time with his pencil strokes. Not only did she like the idea of her likeness being captured, it looked as though the sound of it being transcribed was erotic for her.
 

She was a perfect model. A dream. But after a few minutes of holding her in the position, he saw her tire. Adom’s pencil halted in the light of her discomfort.

Her eyes flashed open a second after the last pencil scratch. “Why did you stop? Am I holding the pose wrong?”

Adom rose. He approached her tentatively. “I can’t ask you to hold the pose for over long.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. Her arms trembled the truth.

Adom shook his head. “You look uncomfortable and that’s what my pencil will capture.”

She brought her hands down. She looked at them with disappointment. “What can be done?”

Adom’s eyes flicked to the rig. Alyss’ eyes followed him. No recognition for the purpose of the apparatus shown on her face.

“I could pose you using ropes. It won’t hurt, I promise. The ropes will take away the pressure.”
 

He wanted to tell her it would take away all of her pressure, not just the pressure of posing. But he was certain she would soon feel that if she agreed to allow him to bind her.

Alyss stepped up to the rig. “How does this work?”

“I’ll bind your hands with rope and then suspend you from the rig with a clamp.”

“Do you do this with your other models?”

“Only one.”

“She allows it?”

“He. He allows it. I’ve never had a woman model for me in the flesh. I typically draw from memory or my imagination. I won’t hurt you.” Adom needed to repeat those words, especially after his last encounter with a woman.

She frowned. “Of course you wouldn’t harm me. You’re a man.”

And then she offered him her wrists.

Chapter Nine

Adom caught Alyss' wrists in his hands.

It was the first time in her adult life that a man touched her. Even as a child, she’d shooed away her male nannies. Her experience with manservants had been watching them clean up after the women of the house or standing silent in chambers waiting for a Sister to give them permission to speak. She didn’t want their dirty hands anywhere near her self or her garments. She’d always dressed herself and done her own hair. And she wasn’t interested in anything they had to say.

When Adom touched her skin Alyss felt a smooth wave of heat flow through her wrists and climb up her arms. She expected his fingers to be coarse and callus. They were that way -at his fingertips. But his palms were pillow soft. She didn’t fret over the paint stains and lead on his fingers and palms. He kept his hands from her dress. He’d made the exquisite garment. Surely, he didn’t want it sullied. He only touched her skin.

Alyss couldn’t keep her eyes off the line of his gaze. The way he looked at her body was hypnotic. His pupils darted right and left as though sketching her by sight. His hazel eyes the lead, his lids the eraser. He hardly blinked.

With her hand in his, he walked her backwards until they stood under what he’d called the rig. It looked like an upside down U to her, with a flat top instead of a curve. She saw items hanging from there. Metal shapes, circled chains, and links.

Adom waited until her eyes were back on his. “I promise you…” He wrapped a rope around one of her wrists. “…It will not hurt. You’ll need to trust me.”

Like his hands, the texture of the rope was another unexpected feel. The rope was soft against her skin, not rough.

“I promise you,” he repeated. His eyes continued to read and record her every movement, perhaps her every thought. “But you must tell me if you become uncomfortable, or numb. Can I trust you to tell me that, Lady Alyss?”

Alyss looked again at him. No man had ever asked that of her: trust. No one had ever asked for her trust. She nodded, wanting to give him her trust. She was surprised to realize that she did trust him. How could she not? He’d seen her in a way that no one ever had. He’d captured her essence on the canvas. With each stroke he communicated things she had never dared tell another soul. It felt cathartic just to see it there. And now to know that it would be on display for everyone to see? She felt her soul filling her body once more.

Alyss watched the knots he tied at her wrist. His fingers worked deftly as though he’d done this many times before. But of course he had, with the dress. The knots he tied now were the same as the bodice of the garment. Even something so simple looked like a work of art.

He bound her wrists together, facing each other. A moment of panic hit her when she felt the tension. Her hands went clammy. Her eyes darted to the exit.

Adom twined her fingers with his own. His heat replaced the coldness. Her eyes shot to his calm hazel one’s. His eyes asked her a question.

Alyss licked her lips.

Adom’s eyes followed the movement.

She was at his mercy, but she felt no loss of power.

“Can I trust you, Lady Alyss?”

She nodded.
 

Adom raised her arms above her head. He never lost eye contact with her. His eyes didn’t let go of his question even though she’d given her answer.

The feel of the ropes against her skin, the slight burn, awakened something inside Alyss, like kindling. Her mind had been so weighed down by the events of the day. The weight began with her Mother and Grand Mother hounding her about her preparation for the Insemination Bill. Then the actual presentation before the Chambers hadn’t gone over as smoothly as she’d expected. Then the words of that brute male who spoke for the Male Voice. His words still swirled in her mind. She’d never had a man talk to her like that, as though she were beneath his contempt. Every man she’d ever encountered had been instantly charmed and at her feet. But not that one.
 

It should not bother her. He was a man, and she had no interest in men. She only had interest in securing her place in the Sisterhood and getting out from under the thumb of her Mother and Grand Mother.

She felt a tug at her wrist as though the rope asked her what was it she wanted to do.
Alyss’ eyes snapped open and back to Adom. She hadn’t realized that she’d gone so far off in her thoughts. She focused on his machinations once more.
 

He rose her arms above her head. His eyes letting her know that she still had time to escape. But at the same time they appeared to beg her to stay, to trust him. She sensed how much he wanted this. She wanted him to get back to the easel. To hear the pencil scratch the paper. She saw the brushes and colors from here.

With her hands over her head, Adom tied another knot. She watched his muscles work beneath his linen shirt. His shirt was open a bit and she saw tanned muscles beneath. Alyss had no appreciation of the male form, not even in art. But now her eyes catalogued his movements as he catalogued hers. She thought of using a gel pen to capture the contours of his form. Her fingers flexed from the desire.