Reaper's Fall (Reapers MC, #5)(43)

It was amazing. Almost unreal. How something like this could be created by the same brushes responsible for the Ladybugs of Death and Dismemberment was almost impossible to comprehend. Raw talent, I guess.

That and technique.

I wondered if he had any idea how good he really was. Hell, whatever he was doing for the club, if he just sold those paintings of his to the right people he’d be able to make them more money that way. Except it probably wasn’t about money. What did they have him doing, and how likely was it that he’d get himself thrown back in prison?

“Let me get your hair,” he said, his soft voice sending shivers all through my body. I still held the cups of my bra against my chest, like somehow it held the power to protect me.

Assuming I wanted to be protected.

“Thanks,” I whispered as his fingers started combing through the tangled mass. It took longer than it should have. I’d like to think he was as mesmerized as I was, because for all his insistence that we could only be friends, even I was smart enough to know that guys don’t sit around on Friday nights painting flowers on their half-naked, platonic friends. His head lowered next to mine—was he smelling my hair?

“Almost finished,” he whispered, warm air touching my ear.

Then my hair was up in a messy ponytail-slash-bun thing and he was lifting the brush, ready to start torturing me again.


PAINTER

I finished way too fast.

The original colors had run out, forcing me to mix my own. I think that made it better—toward the end, the greens were darker, projecting something shadowy and almost angry.

Frustration.

Fair enough, because that was exactly how I was feeling. I’d spent more than two hours painting Melanie’s perfect body. Now my cock was like a f*cking diamond, so hard it could cut glass. I want to push her down across the table and pound her until the paint smeared with our sweat . . .

Christ. My dick was going to explode.

“You can go look now,” I said, standing up. She rose from her chair awkwardly, still holding the black silk in front of her tits, which made no f*cking sense.

“There’s a mirror up in Jessica’s room,” she said. She brushed past me, and I shuddered as her arm touched mine. I tended to get very focused while working, but just being near her was a class A mind f*ck. She started up the stairs, then turned back to look at me, a puzzled frown on her face.

“Aren’t you coming?”

Coming? No, not yet. Not until you wrap those lips around me.

“Um, sure,” I managed to say. “Didn’t realize you wanted me.”

She stared at me, her expression so intense that I swear the air between us sizzled. Okay, it didn’t sizzle at all, because that’s f*cking lame, but it did something. Felt like there was a tight string—no, a piano wire—stretching between us, quivering and pulsing with every beat of my heart.

Mel started up the stairs and I followed her, eyes glued to the gentle, feminine sway of her ass. Those legs weren’t half bad either, and seeing my work all over her body made me feel something strange . . . I had no idea how to describe it, but I liked it. I liked it a lot. Felt like I owned her. Now if I could just tattoo my marks all over her permanently.

No, probably not a good idea to cover her face, even I had to admit that. But the thought of my work across her back, so I could look down on it while I wrapped my hands around her waist and f*cked her ass?

That’d do.

“Here’s the bathroom,” she said, pointing to a door at the top of the stairs. “And here is Jessica’s room. Mine’s at the far end of the hall, over the porch.”

I glanced down toward her door, the step up into her space. I wanted to see where she slept, but she pushed through to Jessica’s room instead. The place was all clothes thrown in piles across the shaggy green carpet and posters half falling off the walls. I had an ugly feeling the plaster was so weak it couldn’t hold them . . . The place felt about as solid as a wasp’s nest.

“The mirror’s on the back of the door,” Mel said, closing it behind us. She stood still, studying her image, and I came to stand behind her. The lines of green twisted across her body, spattered with flowers that bloomed and faded in a pattern I wished I could keep forever.

No, I wanted to keep her forever.

God, I deserved to be shot, because I wanted to defile her. Defile her and then lock her up so no other man could even see her, let alone touch her.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, touching her face. I reached up, setting a hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own, winding our fingers together. Her eyes burned through mine in the mirror, and that’s when my world shifted.

I’d fallen in love with Melanie Tucker.

Not some little-boy, bullshit needy “love” like I’d felt for Emmy Hayes—this was nothing like that. This was deep, almost painful in its unholy intensity. It was like she’d sent tendrils burrowing deep inside, binding us together so tightly I’d die if I ever tried to pull them out.

I was truly, deeply, and utterly f*cked, because I f*cking loved this girl . . . and she wasn’t for me.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Hey . . .” she whispered back.

“I think we should—”

Suddenly the door flew backward, knocking Mel right into me. My arms flew out to catch her as Taz lurched into the room, Jessica riding on his back.