Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 73091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
I’d laughed more in the last couple days than I had in years.
It felt good. Damned good.
“So you do want to see it.”
“Of course I want to see it! I’m an artist. I love art. I love looking at art.”
“Makes sense.”
“But I won’t look if you don’t want me to. Please, Charlie. Paint. Be an artist. Be true to yourself.”
She smiled again.
Then she began mixing colors.
“Okay.” She set down her palette. “Done. For now. Some of it needs to dry before I continue.”
I nodded. “All right.”
Watercolor wasn’t a medium I used a lot because of that very thing. I tended to like immediate results. I didn’t have the patience to let something dry before I moved on.
She rubbed at a few marks on her forearms. “Nice thing about watercolor. It’s a lot easier to clean up than oils.”
“True.”
I walked toward her, consciously avoiding looking at her work, though I had to force myself.
Honestly? I didn’t care if the portrait sucked. I cared that she painted it.
But I’d promised I wouldn’t look, so I didn’t.
I pulled her away from the easel and pressed my lips to hers. “How did it feel? How did it feel to have a brush in your hand again?”
She closed her eyes. “It was…heavenly.”
“It’s a part of you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It works through me.”
“Charlie. Silver. Those are the words of an artist.” I kissed her again. “Come with me.”
I led her through my bedroom to the small bathroom and turned on the shower. “Just rinse off.”
Her eyes widened. “Aren’t you going to join me?”
I smiled. “If you insist.”
We undressed quickly and walked under the warm pelting water. I eased her hair out of her ponytail and then ran my fingers through it as it got wet.
My cock had jutted out in a full erection. Naked Charlie did that for me. Actually, it had been straining against my jeans during the entire sitting.
She reached forward and touched my hair, now flattened against my head and shoulders by the water. “You have the most beautiful hair, Roy.”
I smiled. “You’ve told me.”
“I’ll say it again and again. You’re magnificent.”
The Wolfes were genetically gifted. It was common knowledge. Derek and Connie Wolfe made pretty kids. None of us could deny it.
But to hear Charlie Waters say I was magnificent took it to a whole new level.
I wasn’t magnificent. Maybe my looks were. Riley’s sure were, and I was supposedly the male version of her.
But magnificent wasn’t just on the outside. To be truly magnificent, the inside had to be a part of it. And on the inside, I was broken. Tormented by a secret I still hadn’t let out.
Derek Wolfe was dead. He couldn’t harm me.
But the others?
I didn’t know who or where they were, whether they still existed.
If I spilled what I knew—those facts I kept buried in the innermost part of me, so buried that I didn’t even allow myself to think them—bad things could happen.
If something happened to me, I could handle it. At least I liked to think I could. But my brothers and sister?
I couldn’t be responsible for anything befalling them. Riley was dealing with her own pain. She had issues I still didn’t fully understand. Rock, although newly married and seemingly happy, was also hiding something. I was sure of it. And Reid? He was a loaded gun. He’d had his birthright stripped from him and was prone to being an asshole anyway. Of the four of us, Reid was most like our father.
Which was a scary prospect.
“Roy?” Charlie cupped my cheek.
I jerked out of my thoughts.
“You okay? You were staring into space.”
The warm water soothed me, and her touch soothed me even more.
“I was staring at you.”
“Nice try. You were a million miles away for a minute.”
“I’m here now.” I bent my head and captured her mouth.
She opened her soft lips and I swept my tongue around hers. Her tongue was so soft and inviting. So perfect against my own. Her lush breasts crushed against my chest as our bodies slid together under the warm droplets of water.
I kissed her, banishing the troubling thoughts from my mind.
And I knew one thing for sure.
I was going to Montana with her tomorrow.
13
Charlie
His kisses were magic. Pure magic. How else to describe something that transported me to another world—a world without anything negative.
Bliss.
Pure bliss.
Our lips slid together as he deepened the kiss. How long had we been standing under the water? The last bit of watercolor on my body swirled down the drain. I clung to Roy, gripped his broad and muscular shoulders, tangled my fingers in his wet hair.
We kissed, and we kissed, and we kissed.
Until the water became lukewarm.
Even then, he didn’t pull from the kiss, just eased me out of the shower and turned off the water.
Still he kissed me as he pulled a giant cotton towel from the chrome rack and wrapped it around both our bodies. Though his hands were busy, our mouths never separated.