Chapter Four

O’Keefe’s dark hair was heavy with the damp drizzle he’d strolled through while I ate. It highlighted the thick mass of waves and made it gleam. Then when we returned to his studio, his cheeks showed more color and his hands were cold as they brushed past my ear to loosen my hair and let it fall.

“Only the hair this time,” he said, before turning away.

It was uttered in a totally neutral and professional manner. Not hesitant. Not bossy. Not a request or an order.

Just an inevitable pronouncement of what was to be.

And yet I sensed that he wasn’t as professionally detached as he pretended to be.

I let the sheet slip to the floor and I curled my legs to the side as if I was going to pick up a book and begin to read. What I truly wanted was for O’Keefe to join me on the velvet settee. He hadn’t touched this time. Not to measure the slight curve of my lean hip. Not to gauge the softness of my thighs…or the temperature of other things.

He did position me several times, but each time he drew less until I sensed a frustration in him that I attributed to lack of progress.

“Am I doing something wrong?” I finally asked.

I was stiff and sore from long moments spent in the worst position yet.

“No,” O’Keefe said.

He jumped up and closed his pad.

“I’ve lost focus. Probably best to begin again tomorrow.”

I stood and gratefully stretched a cramp in my quad. It was 3:00 p.m. according to the grandfather clock that had just chimed in the hall. I’d been mostly naked all day. I didn’t reach for the sheet. When I straightened, I saw that maybe I should have. His dark eyes watched my movements. He had forgotten the pad in his fingers.

It was mutual.

It didn’t even matter to me if he’d wanted every woman he’d ever sculpted. O’Keefe wanted me. Maybe the attraction accounted for his loss of focus.

I could have grabbed for the sheet. Or him. Either would have been a cop-out. I could have hidden behind Egyptian cotton or a hard, fast lay and either one would have been a lie.

Because if I was ready to move on from safe relationships, then I was also ready for a real connection. O’Keefe was as real as it got. I saw it in the depths of his eyes. His empathy with my pain. His anger. His art. I had exactly one week to begin something I hoped might last much longer.

“Tomorrow then,” I said.

I scooped up the robe, but shrugged into nothing but the barely there panties and bra. I had been too careful with my bravery for too long. It was time to show some real courage.

I draped the robe over my arm, then I slowly walked away.