Page 49 of Breaking All The Rules
Shockingly graphic and utterly scandalous thoughts about inappropriate men.
He turned his head to look at her and grinned. If he noticed her blush, he didn’t say. “Beer would be great.” He flicked off the faucet and, when he couldn’t find a hand towel, ripped a couple of sheets off the nearby kitchen roll and dried his hands. “I’ll get it.”
Bea took a breath, and relief, cool as a mountain stream, flooded her veins as he walked three paces away to the fridge and grabbed a beer. Then he cracked the can open and turned, leaning against the fridge door as it snicked shut behind him.
He took a couple of deep swallows. “Ah.” He let out a long sigh, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, which was hella distracting. “That’s good.”
“Crappy day?”
“Long day,” he corrected as their eyes met. “Better now for seeing you.”
Bea’s breath caught in her throat. Officer Silver Tongue had a way with words. He smiled then but broke their gaze quickly, like he was purposefully taking a step back from the connection she knew he felt, too. Had he decided to keep things in the friend zone as well?
And was she relieved or…disappointed?
He wandered over to the messy coffee table groaning as per usual in assorted stuff, now including his hat as he put it down next to the sketch pad still open from the other day. Bea had been ignoring it, but Austin didn’t. He picked it up, studying the charcoal drawing.
“This is the lake,” he murmured. “Did you do this?”
Bea swallowed, an itch growing under her skin as she suppressed the urge to whip the pad out of his hands and tear that page from the book. “Yes.”
“I didn’t know you were an artist?”
“Oh, no.” She gave a dismissive shake of her head, stalking over to him, then taking the pad from his hand. After flipping it shut, she tossed it back on the table. “I’m not. It’s just some doodling.”
He quirked one disbelieving eyebrow. “Have you always doodled?”
“I dabbled a bit…as a kid. Not for a long time.”
“Well, it’s good,” he said, putting his beer down and picking the pad up again, turning to the sketch.
Her belly looped into one giant knot. “It’s okay.”
“It’s way more than okay,” he insisted. “It’s remarkable.”
Bea blushed at the compliment, somehow both flattered and discomfited. His compliment was like rain on parched earth, but the urge to go out to the lake again had ridden her hard these past couple of days, and his praise only amplified her conflict. “Says the prominent art critic,” she said derisively but keeping it light.
He grinned. “Hey, I know what I like.” Then he waggled his brows at her.
“Well…anyway.” Bea bugged her eyes at him playfully as she once again took the pad from him, tossing it farther away on the couch this time.
“How do you feel about maybe coming out to the ranch and sketching the house? Mom’s been talking about getting someone to do it for years now, and it’s her birthday soon. I could get it framed, and it’d be the perfect present. I’ll pay you whatever the going rate is.”
Bea blinked. Pay her the going rate? Crap. This was getting out of hand. “No. I’m not…” She shook her head, her chest tightening. “I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not? You’re looking for something different to do, right?”
Well, yes…but. He was looking at her like one and one made two, except it didn’t—not in this situation.
“And you’re good at it,” he continued.
Just like that? She was free, she was good at it, so…why not? God, she suddenly felt ancient in the face of all his fresh-faced optimism.
“Did you enjoy it? Out at the lake.”
The pressure to say no, to deny the buzz that had consumed her at the lake, drummed in her brain and pushed against her vocal cords, but that wasn’t what came out. “Yes.”
Her decision to pick up the pad had been intense, and afterward she’d been conflicted, but while she was sketching? She’d freaking loved it. And she couldn’t deny it. Didn’t want to, either, even if it was just to this guy who looked at her through giant rose-colored glasses.
