Page 37 of Illicit Illustration

“No. I don’t need your help anymore. I found what I needed.” I did still need his help, specifically because the scene I needed to illustrate was from a side profile of what I’d just watched, not a front view.

“Yes, you do.”

“You don’t even know what I’m working on. I was doing just fine before you inserted yourself into my business. And I’ll be fine doing this by myself.”

He chuckled, leaning forward and tucking a loose piece of hair behind my ear, but instead of backing off, he just wrapped his hand around the back of my neck. His warm breath fanned over my face, and I fought the urge to whimper audibly. I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of knowing how much his proximity affected me.

“I don’twantyou doing this by yourself. And I don’t think you really want to do these commissions alone either. I think you’ve enjoyed the last week, and Iknowyou’ve been thinking about what other kinds of projects we cancollaborateon.”

“Reid…” I warned, pressing on his shoulder with my free hand, but he responded by flexing his fingertips against my head and pulling my face even closer, which made my heart pound.

“Hazel…” My pulse skyrocketed for an entirely different reason when his eyes briefly flickered to my lips.

“If I tell you what I’m working on, you have to promise this is the last time. I can’t keep doing this with you.” It was too hard to be in these tense situations like this when I knew he didn’t really want me.

And things with Seven had been progressing, too. He was still vague about his job, but he’d told me other things about himself. He was the eldest of three siblings, and he had a shitload of cousins.His family growing up had struggled, but it made him that much more determined to make something of himself. He owned a small business, and he had just finished paying off both of the business loans he’d taken out while he was starting up.

I hadn’t sent him any more NSFW sketches, but he asked how things were going with my illustrations. He’d thought the drawing of Reid’s bike in the distillery was insanely good and reiterated he wanted to teach me to ride when we met in person. I didn’t bother telling him that Reid had already taken me on my first ride as a passenger. Or what had happened on that bike in a dim warehouse earlier in the week.

“Where did you go?” Reid’s voice was almost distant as I stared at the wall over his shoulder, clearly disassociating again because my brain was so overstimulated. “Haz…come back to me.”

It was easier to manage in the mornings when I got stressed out, but in the evenings, when my meds had long worn off, it was difficult to focus on things when I was nervous…or being turned on against my will by my brother’s entirely too charming best friend.

Taking in a deep, shuddering breath, I closed my eyes and tipped my head back, trying to calm my thoughts. Reid couldn’t keep playing with me like this. It wasn’t fair to me, and it wasn’t fair to Seven. I had developed big feelings for a man I’d never even seen, while a man who’d never really seenmewas playing with my emotions.

I knew Reid probably had no idea his behavior was having this effect on me, but the more I let myself see him as a possibility, even for a fling, the harder it’d be when he inevitably moved on.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pulling me against his chest. “I know I keep blurring the lines here. But I want to help you. I can’t seem to make myself stay away from you anymore.”

His fingers combed through my hair as he held me, and I tried to breathe through the drowsiness that was suddenly making itself known.

“Things aren’t supposed to be like this between us.”

“I know, kitten. I know. But I’ve missed you so much over the last two years that I’ve been greedily taking anything you’ll give me at this point. I know I fucked everything up, but I never want to lose you like that again.”

My chin quivered when his words sunk in. I wasn’t sure until now if he’d felt the gaping hole in his life for the last couple of years that I had. It’d been shocking to find him like that, especially because I had a crush on him, but that wasn’t why I’d withdrawn from our friendship and pushed him away. He was always going to be Hudson’s first. And I had Charley, so it wasn’t like I’d lost mybestfriend, but it made me realize how different our lives were.

I was sheltered and inexperienced, and he was the opposite. We were too different. Even though our lives were lived parallel to one another, and he was always around, I wasn’t sure what exactly we had in common. He was confident and charismatic where I was not. He was established in his career and successful, where I was only starting out. He had women lining up to spend time with him, and I definitely did not have men seeking me out.

Seeing him fucking that girl had made me question everything about my life at that point. The physical recovery from my accident had been horrible, and to a certain extent, every bit of pain I felt had further fractured the way I looked at him. And he had just gone on like nothing had happened. Like his behavior hadn’t literally caused me physical harm. He didn’t push me over that crate or stab a piece of glass in my leg, but sometimes it felt like he had.

“Please talk to me,” he whispered, leaning back and wiping his thumbs beneath my eyes. I hadn’t even realized I’d been crying. And I hated myself for doing it in front of him. I vowed back then to never let him have that much emotional power over me again, but here I was practically swooning because he’d finally noticed I was more than just Hudson’s boring little sister.

“You can’t keep hurting me,” I whispered, clearing my throat before I continued. “I know you’re trying to help me, and I appreciate it. I really do. But when you toy with my emotions, it hurts. Thisis my life, my business. And I can’t keep doing this when you act like…”

He nodded, brushing his fingers through my hair before letting go and scooting away from me. “I know, we…Igot carried away, and I let things go too far. But I don’t think you realize what kind of power you have over me.”

Scoffing, I pushed him back, and he settled halfway down on the couch, pulling my legs into his lap in the process. He gently pulled off my slippers, dropping them to the floor before he rubbed the arches of my feet, laughing when I failed to hold in a groan. While my life as an artist had me relatively sedentary, I spent a lot of time on my feet downstairs in the bar.

As his fingertips crept up my ankles and dug into the muscles on the back of my calves, I winced, trying to pull my leg out of his grasp.

“Hey,” Reid whispered, drawing my attention toward his face and away from the scar his palm was currently covering. “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” I knew that; I did. But I’d held onto an unhealthy amount of resentment over the last few years. Wearing shorts was rare because of the long scar that wrapped around the back of my calf and crept up toward my knee. Even though the scar had faded over time, it was still there for the entire world to see.

“Yeah, it was. I know I didn’t push you, but I was the reason you were back there to begin with. Hudson asked me to bring that case to the bar, and I’d gotten distracted and left it on the floor there. So yeah, it was my fault. And I never apologized to you for what you walked in on, either.”

Closing my eyes, I avoided looking at him, trying to push the images that still haunted me to this day out of my mind. How mesmerized I’d been at how his body moved while he’d been…

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