Page 67 of Illicit Illustration

This situation was so fucked up. And I was still having trouble believing this was my life anymore. Between the unexpected connection with Seven, both aurally and then through sharing our typed words—and some suggestive amateur photography—with each other, and now Reid turning his considerable charms on me at the same time, I kept trying to pinch myself to wake up from whatever dreamland I’d been transported to.

“I can wait out here all night,” he taunted through the door, clearly waiting for me to come out of hiding.

“Or you can go home.”

His deep chuckle made the hairs on my neck stand on end. “Not a chance, kitten. We’re doing this. Now come out and set up your camera or I’ll come in there and get it myself.”

Part of me wanted to see how far I could push him until he broke, but I also knew he’d push right up to the edge of my boundaries,but never actually violate them. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t torture me in the meantime.

“Keep your pants on.”

“Pretty sure you need them off for this,” he laughed, his voice close like he was leaning against the door while he waited for me. “But I’ll wait to take them off until you can appreciate the process.”

“You’re so full of yourself,” I muttered, a smile pulling at my lips as his chuckle filled my chest with warmth.

He was quiet on the other side of the door as I gathered my equipment, getting the memory card loaded into my camera, glad he couldn’t run off with it for once while I was distracted this time. Although I wouldn’t put it past him to steal my memory card to use as leverage to keep the line of communication open between us.

When I finally emerged from the bedroom, I found him in the living room with my tablet in his lap, stylus in hand, sketching something on the screen.

“What are you doing? You better not have messed with any of my files.”

“Chill, Haz. I opened a new one. I didn’t jeopardize the integrity of your peen pics.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I asked, grabbing the stylus from him before he could get into anything else.

He willingly offered me the tablet, winking as I looked at the screen. An abstract outline of a kitten was sketched in the middle of the screen, but upon zooming out, I could see one of my female 3-D anatomical models in the background layer, the decoration carefully rendered in the dip of her hip. “You think I do all my sketching the old school way? I know how to use illustration software, Haz.”

“Well, you don’t need to use mine to sketch tattoos for other women.”

His grin almost turned feral as he reached forward, gripping my hip and pressing his thumb into the same place the tattoo had beenon the model on the screen. “Who said it’s for another woman,kitten?”

Shaking my head, I decided not to take the bait, stepping out of his hold and setting up the tripod next to the couch, aiming it toward where he was manspreading across my chair in a way that was way too alluring. I could probably count the number of times I’d seen Reid wearing something other than his typical bad boy uniform, and him in a suit was making things that shouldn’t be fluttering inside me take flight.

“Can I do a quick warm up sketch before we…?” I trailed off, but Reid’s eyebrow lifted in challenge, and I knew he was going to say something suggestive.

“Before I stroke my cock while you watch?”

“Do you have to make everything hard?”

His grin was almost sinister as he reached down, intentionally adjusting himself and drawing attention to the fact he was hiding something firm inside his snug dress pants. “I’m not the one making this hard.”

“You knew what I meant.”

“Hmm, not sure I do. Why don’t you tell me, in detail, how I’m making things hard? Maybe I can give you a demonstration while you talk.”

“Shut up,” I hissed, pulling my phone out of the pocket of my leggings, and shoving one of my earbuds in after I pressed play. Reid watched my every move, his fingertips tapping on the armrests of the chair.

My stylus moved across the page quickly while I roughed in the general outline of the scene. The chair underneath his powerful form. The way his thick neck met the strong slope of his shoulders. To his credit, Reid sat still, letting my eyes flicker across his chest and along the strong jawline my fingers itched to caress.

Meanwhile, the audiobook in my ears detailed Serafina’s reaction to the powerful mafia boss showing up on her doorstep to collect on a promise to watch her. They’d been dancing aroundeach other until this point in the book, her pushing him away at every turn and him unable to resist the pull of her.

They weren’t supposed to even know the other existed, but a chance meeting ignited a clandestine friendship between the two that violated the blood feud their families had been engaged in for decades. He shouldn’t want her, and she shouldn’t want him, but despite it all, they couldn’t stay away from each other.

I hadn’t sent Reid the audiobook on purpose, knowing it’d mirror our situation a little too close for comfort. And I hadn’t wanted him to know about the scene leading up to her watching him pleasure himself in a chair across the room.

But I knew he’d read the scene as he watched me, his eyes focused on my every move while I tried to capture how he looked right now. Strong. Determined. Dangerous.

I didn’t need to warm up, I’d spent the entire day working on another project, my wrist aching with all the abuse I’d put it through in the last few weeks as I flew through commission after commission—inspiration racing through my veins unlike it ever had before. But as my cheeks turned pink when Serafina pulled out a vibrator and settled in across from Gio to use it on herself while he watched, Reid’s fingers dug into the chair in a way that told me everything I needed to know.

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