Page 4 of Dark Ink

Rian removed the last remaining piece of clothing he had on: his boxers. He straightened in the nip without a lick of hesitation.

The room erupted into a small roar.

“Enough, enough!” my professor chastised the class. “What have I told you of maintaining professionalism? We are to respect the human form in all its myriad of shapes and sizes, now aren’t we?”

“Yes, Professor,” came the red-cheeked mumbles from the class.

I sucked in a heavy breath as my gaze travelled down Rian’s naked form, over the rippling muscles of his back beneath his tattoos, like him, a jumble of styles, a refusal to be categorised, to be confined. I swallowed down the lump in my throat before I dared to look over the swell of his muscled ass, down his tattooed thighs, long and lean, before whispering to myself, “Yes, Professor.”

“Draw, draw, draw!” my professor snapped, clapping his hands as he circled the room.

I dropped the charcoal. It fell right from between my fingertips.

“Clumsy, clumsy, Ms Brady,” my professor grumbled. “You’re wasting valuable time!”

I scrambled for it and stood. But the second I had the piece of charcoal back between my fingers, the second I felt its silkiness, the second I let my eyes fall on Rian’s still form, I needed no time at all.

His form fell onto the page as if he had landed there, the muscled lines, the sharpness, the intensity. My heart raced in my chest. I hadn’t drawn so effortlessly, so confidently, lost completely in the art itself, for so long. It felt like riding a bike again: the thrill of the wind in your hair, the wonderful strain of your pumping thighs, the fear of going just a little too fast down the grassy hill.

“Turn!” my professor shouted. Rian shifted, angling more toward me. “Draw!”

The studio was filled with the noise of pages being torn from sketchpads, pages dropping to the floor, stools screeching as student scooted closer.

I was barely aware of it and I lost myself in the way my charcoal dashed across the page.

“Turn!” my professor called out. Pages tearing. Pages falling. Fingers flying. “Draw, draw!”

My eyes did not leave Rian as my charcoal moved across the page. I had his profile now. I felt the severity of his strong jaw in the angular strikes of my charcoal. It was as if I was drawing my own hand over his skin. The stubble of a few days prickly. The heat of his skin searing me, trickling down my spine, rushing through my blood like a drug.

I could almost feel the bones his of cheek as I pressed the charcoal in harder, deeper. There was the sharpness of his nose. The deep sockets of his eyes staring out over the easels. The brooding brow. I no longer drew with the light touch, half lost in dream. I practically tore at the page, my breath going ragged. Gouged it like my little piece of charcoal had turned into a flashing claw.

“Turn!” my professor shouted. And Rian was turning even further toward me. “Draw, draw, draw!”

I could almost taste him as I shaped his mouth, the plumpness of his bottom lip, the pronounced Cupid’s bow. I could almost lean in and lick the hollow of his throat. Could imagine his scent—musky and masculine—in my nose.

I could feel the heat of him as I shaped his body onto my page. The roundness of his shoulders. The ridges of his six-pack. The tattoos that moved over him as naturally as wind over the emerald hills, wave after wave. Shivers ran up and down my spine as I fleshed out each defined muscle, revelling at the contrast between the curves of his stomach to the sharpness of that hip bone, the V down to…

His cock. Thick and perfect. My mouth watered.

I did not flinch from drawing that, from drawing all of him. From feeling the weight of his cock in my hand, blood surging in my veins as he hardened.

“Whore,” his voice called out in my mind, “just like your mother.”

I kept drawing even as I squeezed my thighs together, even as the shame of arousal threatened to stop me.

“Look at you. Drawing a naked man. Drawing his cock. Enjoying it. Wanting it. Disgusting, Eithne.”

But I didn’t stop. Not even as my knees trembled, as my lungs tightened around every withheld groan, as my nipples pebbled to painful points against my bra. Not even as lust and shame burned me with its poisonous cocktail.

This was beauty. Rian was beauty.

And he was turning even more toward me. One more rotation and he would be facing me head-on.

“Welcome back, Ms Brady,” my professor said as he walked behind me, hands clasped behind his back. “Lovely, very lovely.”

I tore Rian off my pad, unable to take it anymore. Needing a fresh blank sheet. Needing relief.

I looked down only for a moment. Only long enough to grab a fresh piece of charcoal.

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