Drawing Closer
Drawing Closer
www.escapepublishing.com.au
DRAWING CLOSER
Jenny Schwartz
A story about taking love off the page and into real-life…
Zoe Loyola is keeping a secret between her and her sketchbook. She loves sculptor Nick Gordon. Her drawings of him are hot…and naked!
Nick has a secret, too. He’s being blackmailed. Protecting his family means ignoring his desire for Zoe.
But in the world of art, passion breaks every rule and secrets are made for sharing.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
About the Author
Excerpt from Summer Fling
Excerpt from Short Soup
Excerpt from The Danger Game
Chapter One
Zoe bit the tip of her paintbrush, grimaced and reached hastily for her bottle of water. Ugh, much as she needed to break the habit of biting the tip of the paintbrush while thinking, perhaps coating it in gag-inducing Vegemite was a bit extreme.
“You can’t be a true Aussie. Every Aussie kid loves their Vegemite sandwiches.”
The laughter in Nick Gordon’s deep voice sent a shiver down Zoe’s spine. Not that she was about to show him how he affected her. No way. No how. She’d seen how he treated the women who responded to his sex god looks. He had it down pat, one long gaze down and up the length of their body, then one blond eyebrow lifted in derision and he turned away. Zoe valued their friendship too highly to risk him turning away.
Carefully, she replaced the bottle of water at the base of her easel. “I thought you were buying clay.”
Nick was a potter. It was his studio she shared in the heart of the port city of Fremantle. The marina where he kept his yacht was only metres away. Tourists ambled past daily and her vivid paintings of the Australian landscape lured them in just as much as Nick’s pots with their incredibly sensuous shapes and stunning glazes. It was a perfect set up, but one she knew Nick hadn’t wanted to share with her. When his previous studio partner, John Li, headed for Europe, she’d forced Nick to overlook the fact she was female—and therefore, in his experience, susceptible—by a nifty bit of emotional blackmail.
And she wasn’t ashamed, nope, not one little bit.
“I’ve got the clay. Claude came through with terracotta from a different supplier. It’ll work for the chunkier pieces I’m planning for summer.”
“Huh.” She turned back to her painting. Like Nick, she was already planning for summer although it was only early spring. She’d chosen beaches for her theme this year: the blues of the sea and sky, the warm browns of driftwood, white sand and the grey-tinged green of dune grasses. She never painted people into her pictures, although a swimsuit or towel would add a focal point of bright colour. The dilemma of ‘to people or not to people’ was the reason she’d been chewing her paint brush. On the whole, she thought she’d stick with pure, unsullied landscapes, leaving it empty for people to colonise with their own dreams.
“Do you want a cuppa?” Nick headed for the kettle and mugs tucked in a corner of the room.
For all that it exuded an untidy, casual welcome, every inch of the studio was planned with care. The two front rooms displayed Nick’s pots and her paintings, plus coffee and tea facilities for customers, art reference books and the reception desk—a century old, solid jarrah office desk that wore its scars comfortably. She and Nick had separate work spaces in these public rooms—hers defined by her easel and corkboard, and his by a potter’s wheel and blue tarpaulin laid out to catch the messiness of his craft. When they worked out here, they were like performance artists. People enjoyed the sensation of looking ‘behind the scenes’.
Not that customers ever got to see the real back rooms. Nick had the use of most of them for his clay, pots and kiln, but she had her own snug room with canvases and paints, sketch books and photos. She had photos everywhere. She’d sorted through them and pinned her favourite beach snaps to the public corkboard. She took photos wherever she travelled in Australia—and she loved to travel through Australia’s varied landscapes, from tropical beaches to desert and the snowfields that everyone forgot were part of Australia, too. Although she never painted a picture directly from a photo, she liked the reminders of colours and shapes. The photos sparked her memories of how the various landscapes felt. How they smelled, their immensity, the feelings that she wanted to evoke via her paintings.
Nick handed her a mug of tea and took his own with him to the sofa. Its battered leather was stained with paint smears and clay dust. It suited Nick as he lounged there in his faded jeans and a grey corded cotton shirt. He’d rolled up his sleeves.
He usually did, but she was as distracted as always by the sight of his powerful forearms. They spoke of his mastery of clay, the pursuit of his craft and the sheer strength that was Nick.
She didn’t even care that there were traces of clay under his nails that even the nailbrush he used couldn’t eradicate. Today’s clay was orange, the terracotta he’d mentioned.
“Earth to Zoe.”
She took a hasty sip of tea. Normally, she was more discreet in how she watched him. A girl couldn’t wear her heart in her eyes.
He set his mug on the floor and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I’ve been thinking…”
“Ooh, dangerous.”
He flashed his wicked grin. “The cruise ships will start calling in, soon.”
She nodded. Fremantle was one of the cruise lines main Australian stops, but it was a summer thing. Winter was the town’s quiet time. “Tourists. I can’t wait.” Tourists meant people with money to buy mementos.
“You say that now. Wait till they all come shuffling in, hoping for an air conditioned retreat from the heat.”
“If they buy my paintings, they’re welcome to all the cool air they desire.”
“Fair enough. But my point was that we ought to take advantage of this breathing space before the panting hordes arrive.”
She glanced back at her painting. “I am.” She was painting steadily, aware how lucky she was at twenty-four to have a studio and be working at her art full time.
“I was thinking more of taking a break than working flat out.”
Now he had her full attention. Nick cultivated a relaxed air, but she knew how intensely he worked. Collectors sought out his pots and he already had three in the National Gallery. He might be the only son of one of Australia’s wealthiest businessmen, but Nick was no dilettante.
Her heart squeezed as she suddenly guessed why he’d want a break. She held her mug tightly and turned back to the easel. She didn’t want him to see her face when he told her he had a new girlfriend and would be spending time with her. Just listening to his slow drawl hurt.
“I have a weekender down south, near Walpole. Tall trees and sea. I thought you might be interested in coming with me.”
She whirled around. Tea spilled over the rim of her mug. Absently, she shifted her mug to her other hand and licked up the drops.
Nick’s gaze followed her action.
She blushed at her gaucherie and whipped her free hand behind her back. “You have a house in Walpole?”
“Nearby. You can see the sea from the front veranda. I thought you might want to take photos.” He glanced at the corkboard. “Of the beach.”
She didn’t mention that there were beaches in Fremantle and all along the coast or that she had hundreds of photos already. “I…um…”
“Obviously, you don’t have to. But there’s plenty of room. I’ll be driving down Thursday to avoid the weekend traffic.”
“What will you do, there? I mean, do you have a potting studio?”<
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“No. For me it’ll be a complete break. I’ll surf a bit, maybe fish.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“It’s okay, I wouldn’t make you clean them.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“No problem.” He finished his tea and stood. “Anyway, think about it. The offer’s open. We all need a break sometimes, even if we love what we’re doing.”
She nodded as her heart beat fast and heavy. She wondered he couldn’t notice it pounding beneath her cotton shirt. Nick had invited her to his house. It was a sign of trust that she treasured, but without the distraction of work and customers, would she give away her feelings? Could she risk stealing this time with him?
She watched him walk out of the room and realised she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on her painting now. She cleaned her brushes and forced a smile as one of the three art students, who helped out as casual sales employees, entered.
“Sorry,” Marly called as the wind caught the front door behind her and slammed it shut. It might be early spring, but the weather was still blustery. The Indian Ocean could brew up a powerful storm.
Two customers entered on Marly’s heels.
Zoe welcomed them easily—years waitressing in her uncle’s restaurant had honed her customer skills—before leaving them to Marly and retreating to her back-room. She needed breathing space.
Instinctively seeking comfort, she lifted the top three sketchbooks from her desk and picked up the fourth. It fell open at a sketch of a hand and arm. Nick’s hand and arm. This book was her guilty pleasure. Here she indulged her artist’s soul’s craving to record the beauty of his body and how she ached for it.
She’d done life classes at art school. Other pages showed Nick as she imagined him, stripped even of the body suit he wore for surfing.
If she spent a week with Nick, would he let her sketch him for real? It would seem a natural enough request from one bored artist to another?
Her tummy clenched at the thought of having permission to study Nick as long as she wanted. She ached to draw him as he lay stretched out in front of a fire or lazing in a hammock with an invitation in his eyes.
It was all too easy to imagine taking his hand and falling on top of him in the hammock, loving and touching till the hammock tipped them both softly to the ground.
She shivered and dropped the sketchbook onto her desk. It was dangerous how real her dreams seemed sometimes.
Common sense dictated that she refuse Nick’s invitation. To share a weekend house with him would be the most torturous illusion of intimacy. She would smell him fresh from the shower, laugh with him in front of the television, cook and eat with him.
“I can’t.” She abandoned the sketchbook and moved clumsily to the far corner of the room. Her hands closed around the edges of the most damning evidence of her preoccupation with Nick.
She lifted the painting out of the stack of discarded canvases that waited for resurfacing.
Unlike the delicate detail of her landscapes, this square canvas was filled with bold slabs of colour, all centring into the male figure that stood in a doorway, arms raised to grip the frame. It was Nick’s characteristic pose, straightening his spine after hours spent bent over his pots. Yet somehow, in her painting, his braced posture showed so much more. He occupied the edge, claimed and owned it, but wouldn’t venture into the room.
It was how Nick lived his life, not risking being trapped into a relationship.
She sighed and replaced the painting in its hiding place—not that anyone here would be rude enough to rummage through her private room.
“Hey, Zoe, about Walpole…”
She spun around and lunged for her desk so fast that Nick rocked back on his heels in the doorway.
“Whoa.” He braced his hands on the doorframe. “Secret project?”
Her heart galloped as she slapped the sketchbook shut, hiding her drawings of naked Nick. “Uh, you could say that.”
If he’d seen her sketches, he’d have retreated like a man burned and she’d have died of embarrassment. She’d have had to give up the studio, his friendship, maybe move country.
She hugged the book to her chest. “Walpole, you said?” Too bright, too cheerful. She sounded like an inane game show host. No wonder Nick was giving her a narrow eyed look. On him, suspicion was sexy. Worse luck.
Nervous, she flicked her tongue to her top lip.
Nick swayed forward in the doorway. “About going away together…”
Chapter Two
“Hey, Nick. Visitor!” Marly shouted.
He closed his eyes for a moment in frustration. His arms dropped from the doorframe and he strode into Zoe’s room, into her space. It was as filled with colour and vibrancy as Zoe herself, and that long sofa covered in a patchwork throw taunted him. He had dreams of Zoe and him on that sofa, dreams that left him sweating.
But that little touch of her tongue to her lips was the first time she’d displayed any sexual awareness of him. It was a tiny thing to pin so much hope on, but hope surged in him anyway. The week’s break in Walpole was a wild throw of the dice, could his self-control outlast his need long enough for their time together to teach Zoe to see him in a new light?
It was ridiculous. Other women threw themselves at him, but the one woman he wanted saw him as an older brother, best friend to her cousin Steve. And it was his very closeness to her family, the Loyolas, which had him acting so cautious. He couldn’t put the moves on the Loyolas’ baby girl. But if she showed an interest, hell itself wouldn’t stop him.
Bless her little, darting tongue. Desire flashed through him as her eyes widened at his approach. Finally, she was aware of him. Come on, Zoe. Want me.
“Nick, darling.”
No. The blood froze in his veins because this was a voice from his past, a voice that brought every one of his bloody mistakes thundering back. “Hannah,” he said flatly. All the enjoyable anticipation dropped from him like an old coat.
“Hannah.” Zoe couldn’t retreat any further without tripping on canvases.
He turned and put himself between her and the witch in the doorway. “What do you want, Hannah?”
“Do you ever think of old times, Nicky?”
He hated the purr in her voice. Once, a decade ago, he’d been young and naïve enough to find that huskiness sexy. Now he knew it was as false as the curvaceous promise of her body. Hannah looked like a sun kissed Marilyn Monroe, but she was as cold-blooded as a snake. Only in the presence of money did she warm up.
“Oops. I’ll just…customers…” Marly vanished back to the front room.
Whatever Hannah wanted, he wouldn’t have her contaminating Zoe’s room.
“We’ll talk outside.” He walked forward, waiting for Hannah to give way. He didn’t glance back. He’d be a fool if he let Hannah know how important Zoe was to him.
Hannah held her ground long enough for her breasts to brush his chest, then she smiled up at him under her lashes, pouted and walked in front of him, swinging her hips, encased in tight black trousers.
“There’s a café on the corner.” No way would he take her across the back courtyard to the Loyolas’ family restaurant, The Sainted Cook. He pushed open the front door, aware of Marly watching with bright eyed curiosity even as she dealt with a middle aged couple.
The wind blew in cool off the ocean. He inhaled deeply, cleansing his lungs of Hannah’s heavy perfume. He preferred the sharp clarity of Zoe’s sandalwood scent.
Their waiter at the café was young and too easily impressed. He gawked at Hannah’s breasts, set off by her tight red shirt, and blushed when she gave him a slow look of sexual invitation. The kid stumbled backward with their orders of two espressos.
“The look’s wasted on me.” Nick leaned back in his chair. “Say what you’re here to say.”
“Once you’d have taken me to bed for that look.”
“Ten years ago, I was an idiot.”
“You’ve grown up nicely since then. Very nicely.”
“You haven’t.”
Whatever she’d done to her lips prevented them thinning, but their sexual pout vanished as she compressed them. She ignored the waiter with their coffees. Blonde hair falling in calculated disarray, she rummaged in the small bag strung from her shoulder.
The boy hovered.
Nick looked away, painfully reminded of his own youthful infatuation and the damage it had brought in its train. He concentrated on the streetscape, watching the passing crowd and the two silver gulls, squabbling over a discarded sandwich. Students from the local university hurried in groups, talking and occasionally laughing. They looked young and carefree, like Zoe.
“I heard your father remarried,” Hannah said.
“A few years back.” The muscles in his shoulders tightened. He liked his stepmother, though Cecy was only nine years older than himself. She’d been a lawyer in his father’s company. She headed a non-profit organisation now, but she still worked. She’d been good for his father and now her own dreams were coming true.
Trust Hannah to choose this moment. She was a freaking harpy.
“And now she’s pregnant.” Hannah smiled.
Nick stared at her without responding. Cecy had been trying for a baby for five years. His father was as proud as a first time papa. Three more months till the youngest Gordon was born. Boy or girl, it would be loved.
Hannah’s smile held the anticipation of a damned vampire. She held out her phone.
He glanced down at the screen—and away. A man didn’t want to see his father having sex.
“Photos, Nicky. I have photos of your dad and me.”
“If those photos had any value, you’d have used them years ago.”
“Or saved them for the perfect moment.” She took the phone back, made a production of stowing it safely in her bag.
“Cecy knows Dad was no monk. He’s been faithful in his marriage.”
“How sweet.” Hannah picked up her cup, pursed her lips and blew gently. She sipped.
“I’m not paying blackmail. Nor will Dad. No one’s interested in a set of old photos.”