Page 33 of Illicit Illustration

“Because you said you’d help me with shading if I needed it.”

Taking a deep breath, I tried to turn my inner asshole down a notch and pulled the tablet out of her hand. The image on the screen was wildly different from the last piece I’d looked at on it, but no less impressive.

A detailed grayscale illustration of the inside of the distillery was practically jumping off the screen, my bike at the center of the piece, but the sprawling mountain landscape out the window was what she’d asked for my help on.

I hadn’t even realized one of us had taken this picture. It had to have been an accidental press of the shutter button when she was getting dressed. Right before I’d taken the memory card out of the camera because I was a sick bastard and wanted control of the pictures we’d been taking. I knew if Hazel took the memory card, she’d erase it before she gave it back, and I didn’t want to risk her erasing our time together. Not when my days with her like this were probably numbered.

After I’d pocketed the card, I’d escaped to the bathroom to take care of things that had arisen during our encounter on the bike. I knew I’d never be able to ride with how turned on I was, so I’d shamefully beat off in the bathroom stall at my cousin’s distillery while I bit my fist to keep from groaning loud enough that she’d hear me on the other side of the wall.

To be honest, once I’d finally come back to my place, I’d saved the photos from the memory card into a folder on my remote drive and emailed her the link without looking at them. I’d never stay away from her if I saw how she looked in those pictures.

It was bad enough I carried the memories of how it’d felt to touch her like that. And don’t even get me started on the sexy as fuck lingerie she’d almost been wearing. The entire time, I kept thinking about how easy it’d be to snap the thin satin material holding the thong together and pull down my pants far enough to be inside of her. But I couldn’t let myself lose control. Not yet. And especially not like that with her.

So, for now, I’d focus on helping. “To get the texture on the mountains, you need to focus on layering the shading, not tryingto get it in one pass. The dimension comes from varying the length and angle of the strokes. It takes a while, but it really makes the image jump out at you.”

It was true when working on shading with a needle, too. Mountains were tricky to render realistically, but I’d drawn enough of them on people’s skin over the years I’d perfected the technique. Seemed kind of cliché to get a mountain tattooed on your body when you were surrounded by them, but tourists loved to capture the beauty of Colorado while they were here.

Hazel took the pen back, mimicking my movements, the peaks of the snow-capped mountains slowly coming to life as she worked.

“Perfect,” I murmured, keeping watch over her shoulder. It was mesmerizing observing her draw. I’d never noticed how expressive her face was when she was concentrating. Every moment I spent with her, she became harder and harder to resist. And I was almost afraid that once my restraint had hit its limit, I’d do something to fuck this up entirely.

I’d neverwanteda woman to reciprocate my feelings until now. It’d always seemed inconvenient to involve feelings when I hadn’t been looking for more than temporary companionship, but the embers of the flame that was growing for Hazel inside my heart weren’t showing any signs of going out. And if she decided I wasn’t worth returning those feelings, I was afraid they’d consume me.

“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever tattooed?” she asked, never looking up from the tablet.

Maybe she wasn’t only here to work on her homework. “Hmm. Probably teeth marks.”

“How do you even draw that?” Her nose scrunched while she continued working, and I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t go into the details of that particular tattoo. But I knew her curiosity was piqued, and she’d keep asking if I didn’t tell her.

“You don’t. Skin impression is the best method to get accurate shading.”

“Like they had to be bitten? Did they bring their significant other or something? Is that even sanitary?”

Fuck, I should have never opened my big mouth and told her that. I should have said something lame, like someone’s weird exotic pet. I’d done a few of those.

“Clear film and being careful not to break the skin works really well, actually.” And a lot of hope that you didn’t accidentally bite the wrong spot.

“You never answered my question. Who bit this person?” she repeated, glancing back at me. Her eyes were almost penetrating, one delicate eyebrow arched as she waited for my answer. But we both knew she’d already figured it out.

“I bit her.”

Her eyes narrowed, and something that looked an awful lot like jealousy hardened her gaze. “Seriously? Isn’t that like crossing some ethical boundaries or something?”

Shrugging and pretending I was unaffected by her stare down, I answered honestly. “It was mutually consensual.”

“Ew. Why would you…”

I lifted an eyebrow. She was a smart girl; she knew exactly why I’d done it.

“You fucked her? Like during…?”

A blush crept from the side of her neck up her cheeks as she stared at my lips and the teeth peeking out beneath them, and my mouth watered at the thought of biting her. I knew she didn’t have much experience, but I wondered ifshewould like to be bitten.

The thought of marking her soft, fair skin had me shifting under her appraisal. “That came after, but yeah. She might have gotten a little turned on by the entire process.”

Haz’s nose wrinkled, clearly not liking the thought of me with another woman. “You’re disgusting. I can’t believe you did that.”

But the way she kept staring at my mouth didn’t look like disgust. Maybe she was thinking about me biting her, too. “Sounds like someone is jealous.”

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