Muse

‘Can I just …’ She smiled slightly as she mimicked his words. He looked up at her, straightening. Dani reached up and pushed her fingers into his dark bun. The hair an artfully tousled mess. She found the elastic that held it and tugged until it uncoiled and set his dark hair tumbling free.

Dark hair, smooth and silken under her fingers, fell around his rugged face, brushing the top of his wide shoulders. He was a Viking warrior, a hero, a wild man.

‘You have gorgeous hair,’ she said.

‘You have gorgeous everything,’ Buck countered, drawing her back to him. This time as he kissed her that soft hair brushed her cheeks.

He tugged the tie on her dress, spread it wide, and hooked his fingers in the sides of her panties. When he slid them down her thighs and then her calves, she lifted one foot at a time to ease the removal. Next he pulled off her thigh-high stockings. He tossed all her clothes in a pile and arranged her on the bed. His bedding was simple. Definitely didn’t scream money, but, when her body touched down on the duvet, she felt that it was indeed expensive. It was the softest bedding she’d ever laid on. ‘What is this, a million thread-count?’ she murmured as he studied her.

He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m too busy looking at the work of art splayed out on it.’

She felt herself blush, her body wriggling slightly at the praise as if she couldn’t stay still, couldn’t bear to hear the words in stillness.

She opened her mouth to protest. To brush off the compliment. Something small and new in the centre of her whispered, Don’t … So she shut her mouth and reached her hand up to him. When he took it, she drew him down.

His mouth began a slow tour of her throat. Teeth nipped her ear and her body tensed before letting go. A lazy kind of pleasure filled her. Dani laughed when he whispered directly into her ear, ‘I really thought you were going to smack me when I asked you out right after staring at your naked body for an hour.’

‘Why would I do that?’ His clothes were still on. Annoying but somehow adding to the excitement. Just like in class, he was dressed, she was bared.

‘Because … you’d think I’m a pervert.’

Dani shook her head, accepted another searing kiss. His hands tangled in her hair, his big body pressed down against hers. She could feel his heartbeat, steady and banging against her breast.

‘No. Not a pervert. If I thought people who drew naked people were perverts, I’d be a hypocrite, wouldn’t I? Given that I’m the naked person.’

He braced himself on his forearms and looked down at the narrow passage that had opened between their bodies. ‘Yes, yes, you are. And I’m grateful to whatever boredom gods decided that fate for me. It’s hard to draw you.’