When you look at me I just can't lie

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Lena was staring at the depressing landscape while Zander was getting supplies together. He had painted and airbrushed the whole thing in less than an hour. She wondered what he could do with more time because this was jaw dropping beautiful in that heart aching way. She hadn’t told him, it’d only make the air more awkward if she started paying him compliments. He didn’t seem to be embarrassed like she was though. He wasn’t fazed they were both nearly naked, her because the shot called for it and him because he didn’t want to get paint on his shirt. The paint was on his chest instead. Smears of red and black on his hands and arms. Against her better judgment her eyes kept dropping and looking at his chest. It was a nice chest in her defense.

Zander wasn’t bulky like the guys she normally hung out with; he had this graceful sinewy quality in every part of his body and every step. He moved around the room like a cat slithering around the furniture. She forced herself to stop watching him and instead look at the wall.

She turned minutes later at the sound of his voice. “Come here.” He said.  Lost in her head she hadn’t heard him pull the table off the wall and into the center of the room. “Hop on.” He patted the smooth wooden table.

Her brow went straight up. “Pardon?”

“I need to paint you to match that.” He was holding a brush and used it to point back at the wall.

That made sense, it made a lot of sense, and yet her legs felt like jell-o as she stepped forward. He had to paint her, literally her body, putting them very up close and personal with each other. She got on the table. “Can you tell me what exactly you’re going for here?”

“That would ruin the magic. Lay flat.”

“I feel like a piece of cattle waiting for the knife.”

He chuckled, a nice low sound. “That’d be cruel even for us Princess. If it helps the title of the piece is called Fallen Angel.”

“And I’m the angel?”

He leaned over into her eye line. “The only time I’ll accuse you as such.”

Lena rolled her eyes. “You’re such a dick.” He really was, a complete dick with beautiful blue eyes with green speaks she had never noticed before. They had never been in such close corridors before either.

“Yeah well.” He was messing with something near her feet where his supplies were spread out. “This is going to be cold at first.”

She turned her head to the right and peered down the side of the table to get a look at what he was doing. There was what looked like a marker in his hand but much shorter and wider. He was in complete stony focus as he moved up to her left thigh and began to sketch.

He moved his hand under her knee and arched her leg up. It she had known how intimate this was going to be she probably would’ve said no. No amount of money was worth this uncomfortable sexual torture. It was freaking her out that her body was responding to him.

“You’re shaking.” He put down one supply and reached for another.

Lena took a deep breath. “Like you said its cold. I know you don’t want to tell me the whole vision but what exactly are you doing to me?” the question had so many meanings. What artistic way are you using my body? Why am I highly attracted to you right now?

“I’m using a mix of make-up, oil pastel, and paint to transform you into the angel that landed in that despair in the backdrop.”  

“Ok.” It helped knowing what he was doing, it’d help more if she knew what he was thinking. She turned her attention back to his hands and watched him work. With the fine tipped marker he had written the word Terror and was now filling it in with the black pastel.

Next he wrote the word Fallen across her waist at a slanted angle. On her right arm went Freedom before he stopped and looked at her face. “There’s one more.” He looked down trying to figure something out, his eyes were right on her chest. “Here, sit up.” He took hold of her wrists and helped her up. “I’m going to put this one right over your heart.” This being the most up close and personal he warned her before hand.

She couldn’t watch him without getting in the way. She looked ahead and tried to ignore the feel of his jeans on her legs, the arch of his shoulder and the muscles of his arms moving beneath his skin all right in front of her.

He decided to break the silence this time. “You’re being much more cooperative than I thought you’d be.”

“I thought about making it hell but I am hired help and you haven’t given me a reason to hate you since I got here.” That was the truth, most of it. She couldn’t find it in her heart to hate him and lust after him at the same time. She mentally shuddered. Of all the guy’s to lust after her body was reacting to her sister’s annoying dork of a friend. Life was unfair.

“I get really focused in my art and I’ve forgotten sometimes that you’re actually here.”

Lena couldn’t stop herself from scoffing. “I’m invisible now?” 

“Don’t take it personal.” His breath fanned across her neck as he continued to write over her heart. “I ignore all my models.”

“That’s so nice of you. How much longer do you think this will take?” she had already been there going on two hours.

“After you’re all dolled up it shouldn’t take long.”

“Aren’t you almost done?”

“Nope, not even close.” She was confused again and he knew it. “I want the words to look like they’re ripping through your skin and that takes some work.” That’s where the mane-up and paint came in she realized.

“Don’t read too much into this, I still hate your guts and all, but that sounds pretty amazing.”

Zander stepped back, blue and green swimming as one looked at her with a frustrating unreadable expression. “Thanks.” He said after the longest thirty seconds in the world.

He went back to work and Lena clenched her jaw tight. He used one hand to pull her skin taunt and the other to write. His fingers carried the same grace his long body did; effortless. Never again was she volunteering for such torture.