Sommer Marsden - Muse

‘Great. I think you’ll like it. I’ve been looking forward to this since Monday.’

‘Me too,’ she said. She’d nearly forgotten but, if she was dreaming dirty dreams about Buck, then she definitely had him on her mind. In a most carnal way.

Chris stuck his head out of the classroom. ‘We’re back, guys.’

When Kevin Buck turned, Dani caught Chris sizing him up. An unreadable expression flitted across his face but it was gone so fast she couldn’t tell what it was.

‘Coming,’ she said, then heat flooded her face. Poor choice of words. Because there had been a few moments in there, being studied and sketched and watched, when she’d thought she actually might. Now she had to go back in and stand there bared to the world, or at least to classroom 213, and not squirm out of her skin.

‘I’ll meet you at the south exit?’ Buck asked her.

Dani nodded. She glanced at Chris and there was the weird look on his face again. Before she could get a handle on it, he turned and strode back into the classroom.

She took her position again and tried to zone out. She listened to the scratch of pencils, the tick of the clock, the whoosh of forced warm air. She let her eyes drift to Chris and found him staring at her. She tried a small smile and he returned it but it didn’t touch his big green eyes, which remained far away, pondering.

He’s an artist. They all look that way …

But she wasn’t convinced and neither was her stomach, which seemed to twist in on itself as she stood there. The room was too warm but then it was too cool. She felt like the bulk of her was too big for her skin, as if it had shrunk. It was anxiety, she kept telling herself. So she focused on her breathing. When Chris finally dismissed her so he could wrap up class, she felt a relief so enormous her legs went wobbly.

She hurried down to get dressed and then made the vain concession of touching up her makeup and fluffing her hair. Her work clothes would have to do for her date because she hadn’t been thinking – had simply been drifting through her day – and hadn’t thought to bring something more casual. Thankfully, her wrap dress was pretty much suited to any damn place she wore it.

‘It’ll have to do,’ she said to her reflection. And it would. It would have to do.

‘Tell me,’ Dani said. ‘What’s your story for being in art class?’

Kevin Buck leaned back in his high-backed bar stool and gave a lazy shrug. Tonight he looked the artist part. A white button-down shirt, collar open past his clavicle, sleeves rolled, artfully messed and shoved up to his elbows, faded jeans, motorcycle boots and, of course, the man bun.

‘I was bored.’

‘Bored?’ She sipped a Shiraz that had a bit of a back kick and a burn at the end. Her face and stomach glowed with warmth from the wine. They’d been picking at a plate of mixed appetisers. All homemade at the restaurant. Not a frozen chicken finger to be found.

‘I’m a trust-fund baby,’ he said.

Her wine meandered down the wrong pipe and Dani found herself choking on it. She covered her mouth, mortified as her body shook.

‘That surprising?’ he asked with a half-smile. He patted her on the back. ‘You OK?’

‘I am. And no, it wasn’t what you said. Just, swallowing wine is a bit too tricky for me, I guess. But, I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting that.’

He gave a nod, picked up the small tasting glass and gave the dark-red liquid a quick try. ‘No one does. I guess I don’t look the part. No preppy clothes, dock shoes or sneering demands. No flashing cash and showing off. No drug problem and/or booze problem and/or gambling problem. Just a long, winding road of semi-boredom and malaise.’ He winked.

Up close he gave off a vibe. A sex vibe was the only way she could describe it. Only to herself; she’d never say it aloud. Magnetism swirled around him like an invisible force field. And the new information that he was a trust-fund baby surprised her. He didn’t fit the part. Didn’t give off that air of entitlement.

‘Well, it’s good that you avoided all the problems and went for something to fill your time. What else do you do?’

‘I want to be an artist, to be honest. But I’m twenty-eight. Who knows if that will happen?’

She laughed. ‘You say twenty-eight like it’s old. Anything could happen. Second acts are de rigueur these days.’

He leaned in, smiling at her. It was a wooing kind of smile, she thought. Hard to resist. It made her want to kiss him. Or, more importantly, be kissed by him.

‘Is that what you’re doing? Is this a second act of some kind? I admit,’ he said, giving another casual shrug and playing with a cocktail napkin, ‘I’m entirely curious how a beautiful woman who clearly has another job got into nude modelling for wannabe artists like me.’

‘How can you tell I have another job?’

‘You arrive in work clothes all the time. They look a bit more buttoned up than I imagine you are if you’re going out casually. But I could be wrong.’ His fingertip grazed the very edge of her hand and the nipples that had calmed down ages ago went into red alert.

Dani suppressed a shiver and tried to put the words together to answer him. ‘You’re not wrong. I’m an office manager at a doctor’s office. Chris and I, your teacher and I, go way back. We grew up together on the same street. Hung out together, wasted long summer days.’

‘Ah,’ he said.

‘Ah?’

‘Sorry,’ Buck said, shaking his head. ‘Go on.’

‘We ran into each other with our boisterous, larger-than-life mothers in tow. And he told me about it. I was ready for … something,’ she said waving her hand vaguely.

‘Something.’

‘Different. Something to shake up my life, I guess. I’m divorced. Officially, now. Things weren’t too great and now I find myself thirty-two—’ She levelled her gaze at him. ‘And see, I’m not saying that like it’s old. This time.’

He grinned at her.

‘And I’m alone and I’m in this life-living rut. I just have the same day over and over again. Until now.’

‘Now when you walk in a classroom full of artistically tortured souls, drop your robe and knock everyone’s socks off.’

She gave a snort of disbelief and quickly tried to cover with a cough. ‘Not quite.’

‘Oh, quite.’ His finger was tracing the edge of her hand again and Dani found herself shifting on her oversized bar stool. She didn’t know that someone touching her in such an innocuous place could make her feel like she was going to burst out of her skin. Or burst into flames.

‘Thank you,’ was all she could think to say.

He leaned toward her so smoothly she didn’t see it coming until it happened. He kissed her. His lips were soft and warm and when they touched hers her entire body seemed to melt into goo. Dani parted her lips and his tongue touched hers ever so gently. A featherlight stroke of tongue on tongue. His big hand, smudged in places with graphite, cupped the back of her head. Holding her tightly but not so tightly she felt the need to extricate herself.

The kiss deepened and, when her head was swimming and her body felt like one big heartbeat, Buck pulled back and said, ‘I know it’s incredibly forward, and feel free to smack me and storm out, but I’d love to take you home with me, Dani. I have to say, I don’t usually see a woman’s naked body before I decide to court her. I know we did this backwards, but I have to admit something—’ He regarded her with those deep dark eyes and her breath stuttered.

‘What? Admit what?’ She sounded a little more eager and desperate than she cared to, but it was out there. Nothing she could do about it.