If I Were You (Inside Out #1)(31)

“Don’t worry about me or keep apologizing,” I plead. “Really. I’m more than fine, or I will be, when you two men stop watching me like I’m about to go up in flames.”

A waiter appears and sets a new plate in front of me before taking my old plate from Diego and disappearing with it.

“I had them include two sauces on the side for you to try,” Diego explains. “The green is mild. The red is medium. Neither will burn your mouth.”

I give him an appreciative nod. “Gracias, Diego. I should have tested the sauce before I took a big bite but the food just looked and smelled so good I couldn’t resist digging in.”

His face colors with the compliment, but it doesn’t stop him from mercilessly worrying over me a full extra minute before he rushes off. I am now left under the amused scrutiny of this brilliant, too sexy, artist who hasn’t eaten a bite because of me.

“Please eat,” I urge him softly. “Your food is even colder now than before.”

“Try your food first and make sure it’s okay.”

“Oh no,” I scoff. “I’m not going to try it while you watch me do something else ridiculously clumsy.”

Mischief dances across his features. “I like watching you. You spark my creative side.”

My stomach flip flops at the reference to the sketch. “You can’t watch me and eat.”

“I could argue that, but in the interest of getting you to eat, let’s dig in together.” The final word rasps with an underlying meaning, or maybe, I simply want it to.

“Fine,” I agree. “Together.”

His lips quirk and so do mine. Without breaking eye contact, we both reach for a taco, and only look away when we each take a bite. This time spicy, delicious flavors explode in my mouth, and I moan with pleasure. Either this is great food or I am too hungry to know better.

Chris swallows his mouthful of fire without so much as a blink and stares at me with a look that I can only call ‘hungry’. “I take it that’s a sound of satisfaction?”

I find my own fire again but this time it’s in the form of blood flooding various inappropriate parts of my body considering our public location. “What can I say?” I manage. “The end of starvation is quite delicious.” I use the spoon by my plate to taste the green sauce. “And so is that. I like it.”

He holds out his beer to offer me another swallow, and I am all but certain he is purposely reminding me of our intimate act of sharing. I stare at the beer, remembering his mouth, where my mouth had been, before I force my gaze to his. “No. Thank you.”

He considers me a moment, his expression unreadable, and then slowly lifts the bottle to his mouth and takes a deep swallow. Again, I watch the powerful muscles in his throat bob, feeling my muscles, the ones low in my belly, tighten. What is this man doing to me?

He lowers the beer and I quickly, guiltily, reach for my taco and dig in. Chris does the same and I begin thinking about all the questions I yearn to ask him. When does he paint? Where does he paint? What’s his inspiration? His favorite brush? Questions I know he has heard a million times and probably doesn’t want to answer so I hold back.

“This is the perfect corner for watching people,” he comments.

I follow his lead, searching beyond the glass to the activity on the street, thinking about how black and white I’ve let life become, when I want to live it in color. We fall into a surprisingly comfortable silence, both of us watching the people scurry by on the street. A man and woman arm and arm. A woman struggling to get a little boy to put his coat on. Another woman who pulls her coat close to her and seems to be crying.

Chris turns a thoughtful inspection on me. “Everyone has a story. What’s yours, Sara McMillan?”

The question takes me off guard, and I fight the answer that comes insistently to my mind. I have no story, not one I wish to claim. “I’m just a simple girl living out a summer dream of being around the art that I love.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know about you.”

“I have not one single artistic bone in my body, so I have to live vicariously through you.”

“Let me paint you and you can.”

I scrape my teeth fretfully over my bottom lip. “I don’t know.”

“What’s not to know?”

“It’s intimidating to be painted by someone like you, Chris. Surely, you have to know that.”

“I’m just a man with a paintbrush, Sara. Nothing more.”

“You are not just a man with a paintbrush.” And my gaze lowers, caressing a three-inch scar along his jawline I haven’t noticed until now, and I wonder how it came to be. I wonder who the man beneath the art really is. My eyes find his, search the green depths of the stare that has already seduced me ten times over. “What’s your story, Chris?”

“My story is on the canvas, where I’d like you to be.”

Why is he so insistent? “Can I…think about it?”

“As long as I can continue to try and talk you into it while you do.”

I take the opportunity to ask a question I’ve been burning to know the answer to. “How long are you in town?”

“Until it doesn’t feel right anymore.”

“So you don’t have set times of the year you’re here and set times you’re in Paris?”