In Flight (Up in the Air #1)(45)

“Just that we’ve been together since we were fourteen, and he’s always been protective of me, since the day we met.”

“Together? What does that mean, exactly?”

I shrugged. “You know, inseparable. Best friends.”

He reached up and gripped the back of my neck lightly. His touch was light, but his eyes were hard and searching.

“What would I have to do to get you to open up to me?” he asked softly.

I didn’t like this line of conversation. My mind worked furiously to try to get out of it.

“I would imagine you’re as closed off as I am, Mr. Cavendish. So, you tell me. What would make you open up to someone?” I asked, thinking the tactic should work well.

I imagined that James’s answer would be the same as mine. Nothing.

“For you, I’d take an exchange of information. You share something, I’ll do the same. Sound fair?”

I eyed him uneasily. Unwillingly, I was tempted. Within reason.

“Do I get to choose the information I give?” I asked him cautiously.

He shrugged. “I’ll take it if that’s all I can get. I’ll do the same. I’ll start. My parents died when I was thirteen. I was left with an older cousin as a guardian. I detested him. He died a year and a half later, and it was one of the best days of my life. I disliked my next guardian, my Aunt Mildred, but she was a saint compared to the first one.”

My eyes opened wide in shock. It was a random and strangely personal revelation, giving me some insight into James. I sincerely hoped that he didn’t expect the same thing from me. I thought hard of something to tell him that I could bear to reveal. I sighed heavily when I realized the best way to distract him.

“I started painting a picture of you. It’s in the backyard. It’s embarrassing, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself,” I told him. It was a lesser evil by far, of all of the things that had popped into my head.

He grinned, and it was a heart-stopping grin. “So you do think about me, at least a little, when I’m not pursuing you relentlessly.” He headed to my bedroom, where there was a sliding glass door into the backyard.

“One second. I need to punch in the code,” I called, quickly doing so.

“Have I mentioned that I like your security?” James told me as I joined him in my bedroom.

He was opening the barred door that went over my sliding glass. It was an eyesore, but one that made me feel secure, and the bars had become popular in Vegas due to excessive break-ins, so it was fairly commonplace to see them. It didn’t even make my house stand out. I had the thick bars mounted on my bedroom’s sliding glass door, and covering all of my windows.

“Happy to please you,” I told him, and he sent me a hot look.

“You have no idea, Bianca,” he repeated my earlier words back at me. I stifled the urge to respond that I would like to have an idea.

He moved directly to the easel without asking. I just followed him. It was really a small price to pay for the knowledge he had given me. He was an orphan like me, and he’d had a rough time of it. Not homeless, but perhaps more alone. He hadn’t been blessed to find a Stephan, like I had.

He studied the painting like he did most everything. Intently. It was only a rough outline of him so far, just his face and part of his torso, wearing a V-neck as he sometimes did. He hummed low in his throat.

“It’s very good. Were you going to give it to me when you finished?”

I shook my head. “I was going to hang it in my bedroom to masturbate to,” I told him, only half-joking.

His reaction was gratifying. He sent me a look that was pure heat and appreciation.

“You ever want me to pose for you, you let me know.”

I brightened at the offer. “Yes, I do. I get much better results when I paint with my subject at hand.”

I gestured at the view of the mountains behind my house. “It’s why I have so many paintings of those.” I tried to get the courage to ask him to pose nude, but couldn’t quite do it.

“You have an extra bedroom you haven’t shown me. Show it to me.”

I wrinkled my nose at him. He was relentless, it seemed to me, about exploring every detail of my life.

He touched my nose with a finger. “It’s so cute when you do that.”

My nose wrinkled more, but then I tried to smooth it out. Being called cute by him just didn’t do it for me. In fact, it kind of annoyed me.

How many cute girls does he go through in a week? As many as he wants, I supposed.

“My guest bedroom is tiny, and just storage at the moment. It basically holds all the paintings that I don’t have room to hang.”

He started moving instantly at that. “I’d love to see them.”

I let out a frustrated noise, but the man always did what he wanted.

I leaned in the doorway while he rudely rifled through my guest room. There was a small guest bed, but even that was covered by some boxes and paintings. The room embarrassed me. I really needed to get it organized.

James made a sound of pleasure and pulled a canvas out from one of the many stacks of paintings leaning against the wall.

That was yet another reason I usually did watercolors. They took up very little space when finished. Just a piece of paper unless I framed them, whereas my numerous acrylics and few oils were on canvases that had taken over this room, my far more numerous watercolors occupied one small chest in the corner.