Page 13 of The Mountain Man's Mail Order Muse
I begin to draw, my hand moving quickly at first, capturing the shape of her knees, the flow of the fabric, the way her body naturally tilts just slightly to the side. Then I pause.
“Can you angle your skirt a little more? So it folds like… like waves, kind of.”
She shifts, adjusting the fabric. “Like this?”
“No, more like… actually, maybe like before.”
She shifts again. “Which way, Hudson? You gotta pick one,” she teases, a smile playing on her lips.
“I don’t know,” I mutter, exasperated. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t draw people, Daisy. I draw trees. Rocks. Still things. Things that don’tbreatheand blink at me with eyes that make me forget how to hold a damn pencil.”
I toss the paintbrush onto the table and rub the back of my neck. “I thought I could just… figure it out. But this? Drawing you? It’s different. I don’t know how to do it right. You’re not a landscape.”
She’s quiet for a second, and then she says, gently, “Then stop trying to make me one.”
That pulls my eyes up to hers.
“I’m not asking you to be perfect,” she says. “I’m just asking you to see me.”
Then she says it.
“Have you ever drawn someone… in the nude?”
My head snaps up. Her voice is soft, curious, maybe even a little teasing—but my entire body goes rigid.
“No,” I say, a little too fast. “I mostly stick to trees. Flowers. You know... things that don’t look back.”
She steps closer. I can smell the soap on her skin, something clean and warm that makes my head a little hazy.
“Well,” she says, tipping her head to the side. “You’re going to be my husband soon enough anyway. If I take off the dress, you won’t have to worry about painting the fabric.”
Before I can process what she means, she reaches for the hem of her dress and pulls it over her head.
I stop breathing.
Her bra falls next, followed by her panties, pooling soundlessly at her feet. She stands there, proud and still, in nothing but her skin and her steady gaze. My jaw drops. My hands go completely numb.
She isradiant—all soft curves and long lines, the kind of beauty that hits you in the chest and knocks the sense clean out of you.
But she must mistake my silence for something else. Her eyes flicker with panic. “Oh God,” she whispers, reaching for her clothes again. “I’m sorry. That was— I shouldn’t have?—”
“No,” I say, the word coming out strangled. I reach for her wrist before she can cover herself again. “No. Don’t.”
Her breath hitches. Mine too.
I let my eyes wander—respectfully, reverently—but thoroughly. Her skin glows like a sunrise I don’t deserve to witness. Her body is both the most natural and the mostdangerously beautifulthing I’ve ever seen.
My cock is so hard it’s begging me to be free of my jeans. It’s jealous that she’s free, open, and it’s not buried deep inside of her.
“You’re…” I pause, searching for a word that doesn’t exist. “You’reart.”
She freezes, looking up at me like maybe she didn’t hear me right.
“All this time,” I say slowly, my voice hoarse, “I’ve been drawing things that make mefeelsomething. But I’ve never drawn what Iwant. What I crave. Until now.”
Something clicks in my head. No—my soul.
It’s her.
