Sweet Hope Page 9
She must have seen my expression and added, “Your artwork floors me, so tragically beautiful.” My gut clenched as she spoke those words. Tragically beautiful…
She dropped her croissant, letting out a single laugh. “I remember the first time I saw a picture of one of your sculptures. It was a piece in a magazine on Vin Galanti, and he did nothing but talk about his protégé, the reclusive and mysterious Elpidio. He’d just loaned one of your pieces to the Met as part of a marble statue contemporary exhibit, an exhibit of sculptors who still adhered to the old-fashioned hammer and chisel techniques.” Aliyana’s eyes lost their focus as she pushed her fingers through a small pile of sugar granules that had fallen from the packet she’d used earlier.
“Vin showed your first piece, the only work I’d seen in pictures from you.” A tiny smile pulled on her lips. “And the piece that is still my favorite today.”
I knew which one she meant. The only piece I could barely look at now without breaking.
“The angel…” she said, and I could hear the love for it in her voice. I expected to feel the usual slam of grief I never failed to experience whenever I thought of that piece and what it represented.
But Aliyana sitting here now, telling me she loved the piece, that it was her favorite out of all my sculptures, made me feel… proud… humbled… fucking floored. Floored that out of everything I’d created, Aliyana loved my mamma’s dedication most.
“I was in Austin, Texas, at The Blanton Museum of Art, but when I learned that your piece would be at the Met, I jumped on a plane and flew out for a whistle-stop stay of forty-eight hours just to see it up close.” She laughed. “The same thing I did to get this job actually.”
That blush was back on her cheeks, only this time I enjoyed every dip of her eyes, the flush of her cheeks, the quiet sighs she exhaled. I was just enjoying Aliyana, period.
“It sounds stupid, Elpi, but seeing your angel changed me. I don’t know what it was, but… but… ah, it doesn’t matter,” she said in embarrassment.
“Tell me,” I ordered gruffly. I really needed her to finish that fucking sentence. I needed to understand what she saw in my sculptures that had her so moved.
Aliyana took a long, drawn-out swallow but met my gaze with her brown eyes and said, “I felt you. I felt you in its every curve. I felt like I was looking straight into your soul. I felt the love you poured into that sculpture… It made me reassess everything in my life… It made me want more… it’s difficult for me to explain.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, my hands moving upward to rub over my eyes. “Aliyana…” I growled out, but not from anger, but from the fact that she was telling me things I didn’t deserve… that she didn’t want to get wrapped up in.
“Did I say too much?”
I drew my hands down my face. “Aliyana… if you saw the real me… if you saw straight into my soul, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me now.”
Aliyana’s eyes widened. “What do you mean by that?” Her voice was now shaking. I’d scared her. Good. She should be scared of me. I wasn’t the right kinda guy for her. I’d only just met her, but I knew she should be setting her standards a fucking mile higher than me.
“Exactly what I said. If you knew the real me, what I’ve done in my life, you’d be running away right the fuck now.”
“Wh-what have you done?” Her eyebrows pulled down to form a frown. “Why are you so hard on yourself?”
“Penance. A whole lotta fucking penance I need to pay.”
“But I can’t believe that of you.”
“You’re wrong.”
She shook her head adamantly. “But—” She went to argue.
Slamming my fist down on the table, I gritted my teeth, cutting off whatever she was gonna say. “You know fuck all ‘bout me, girl,” I hissed, my voice too low to be anything other than a rumbling threat. “You might think you know my art, but you know shit about me.”
Straightening in my chair, I waved to get the server’s attention, motioning for the check.
Aliyana didn’t say anything else. In fact, she picked up her purse and walked straight out of the café.
The servers watched her go, nudging each other as they stared at her ass. I jumped from my seat, pulled out a fifty, and pounded over to where the Italian punks stood gaping and slammed the note on the countertop.
As soon as they laid eyes on me, they backed off, hands held high. Their faces drained to white, seeing how much they were fucking me off and I marched out of the café to see Aliyana beside my Camino. I pulled out a smoke and, as always, placed it between my lips, taking a soothing drag. For once, I embraced the shower of rain that was pouring from the always-gray sky.
As I reached the car, Aliyana kept her head down and slid silently into the passenger seat.
My stomach rolled.
I’d really fucking hurt her.
By the time we got back to the gallery, I’d burned through three smokes and a shit ton of guilt. But it was for the best. I was no one a girl should get with, especially one as good as her.
As I pulled the car to the shadowed side entrance, I waited for her to get out. But she didn’t move. The air in the cabin of the Camino seemed to crackle with electricity, and the heat of the stagnant tobacco-filled air built until it was unbearable. I could hear every single breath that came out of Aliyana’s mouth, and with every soft inhale and exhale, my cock seemed to harden more and more, the feel of it trapped under my jeans almost painful. I risked a glance to the right. Aliyana faced forward, gripping her purse tightly on her lap with both hands.
It was only meant to be a glance, one last look at her before she left my car. I was only intending to drop her off here at the gallery, leave, and never come back.
“I need the title and information about the angel sculpture. Could you come by one night to get it done?” Aliyana said. I couldn’t fucking stand how sad she sounded.
I nodded mutely, unable to speak, and turned to stare out the windshield again. But as Aliyana started to reach for the handle on the door, something inside of me snapped. I couldn’t take how upset she was at me. I couldn’t take her leaving and not knowing how she fucking tasted.
Before I knew it, my hand reached out to my right, and wrapping my fingers around Aliyana’s arm, I pulled her against my chest, only briefly catching her eyes widen and her mouth suck in a shocked gasp, before I crushed my lips to hers.
Moving my hands from her arms, I wrapped one at the back of her slim neck and the other to fist her hair. As I forced my tongue into her mouth, both of us groaned at our tongues clashing together.
She tasted amazing, and any part of me that wanted to take this slow was overridden the second her hands dropped her purse to the floor and lifted the bottom of my shirt to my stomach. Grunting as her palm scalded my skin, I pulled her closer still with my hand on her neck until her tits were pressed against my chest. Aliyana released a breathy moan, her fingers tensing until her nails scraped down my stomach, my skin burning at the marks she was making… the marks trailing down my stomach to the top of my jeans.
My cock was pressing against the zipper, fucking begging for her hand, my tongue fighting against hers for dominance. But as soon as Aliyana’s fingers began tearing open my button, I froze.
Fuck.
We had to stop.
What the hell was I thinking?
Aliyana broke away from my mouth, her full lips and wet tongue moving down to lick and nip down my neck. Under her hands, the button on the top of my jeans popped open, and she began pulling down my zipper… the jeans the only barrier between her and my dick.
Squeezing my eyes shut, knowing what I was gonna do was gonna be painful, I trapped her hands between mine. Aliyana’s head snapped up, and unable to resist, I pressed my palms on her cheeks and smashed our mouths together one last time, before pushing her back and ordering, “Go.”
Aliyana fought for breath as I sat with my shirt pulled up and my zipper half down. “But—”
A moment later, I heard the door quietly open and close.
Shutting my eyes, I fought back the sick feeling pulsing through my body. But all I saw was a pair of big brown eyes telling me they could see straight into my soul, that they felt me.
In thirty minutes, I was back in my studio, strong coffee brewing in the pot, pulling my shirt and jeans off as I jumped into the shower.
As the scalding hot water drummed on my head, steam billowing around the small room, all I could picture was Aliyana’s face smiling at me like she didn’t see all my sins. Speaking Spanish to me, her tongue rolling the words, the taste of her Nutella-flavored mouth on my tongue, and the feel of her hands trailing down to fist my cock.
Fuck! What was with this chick? Why was she getting to me like this?
Grabbing for the body wash, I squeezed the green gel out into my hand and ran the fresh-scented soap over my body. But the more I scrubbed the marble scum from my skin, the more images of Aliyana flashed through my head: her eyes, her mouth, her cute-as-fuck dimples popping out on her cheeks as she smiled at me… her breathless voice as she told me she’d flown across the country just to see one of my sculptures up close… and those tits pressing against her shirt, her chest flushed red from looking at me, and the moans she spilled into my mouth from my kiss.
Without conscious thought, my hand wrapped around my stiff cock and I began stroking it up and down. Groaning out loud, picturing Aliyana’s long slim fingers gripping my dick instead of mine, my forehead dropped to lean on the damp tiles. Working my hand faster, my breath coming out in harsh pants, I pictured her naked beneath me, me pinning her down so she couldn’t move, and fucking her hard… and I was gone. One thought of sinking into her wet pussy had cum spurting in waves over my hand, a long grunt echoing off the tiled shower cubicle.
Jerking my cock slower, I worked myself down, my legs still shaking from how damn good that felt… how much I came just imagining having her on her back, her slim legs wrapped around my waist.
But then reality hit and the demons of my past came thundering back into my chest, knocking the breath from my lungs, bringing the usual feelings of hate, sadness, and guilt to every cell…
Drying off, I slipped on a pair of sweats and returned, exhausted but unable to sleep, to my current work in progress and began chipping away at the little boy’s face… the young, torn face crying bullets… bullets that I’d made him fire when he didn’t want to… ruining his damn life.
As I pounded the hammer against the head of the pointed chisel, I pushed Aliyana’s smiling face and haunting eyes from my mind.
I had to forget what had happened between us. There was no way I would fucking ruin her too.
Chapter Nine
Ally
Two weeks later…
So this is it? This is where he stays? I thought to myself, looking at the sculpting studio from my car. The address Vin had given me led me to the waterfront, not too far from Pike Market.
The night was dark and beside me on the seat of my rental was a box filled with the draft text boards and titles. I’d called Vin to ask him to sign off on them, but he’d insisted he was too busy on the East Coast and that I should take them to Elpi himself… at his studio… the studio overlooking the Puget Sound… after two weeks of hearing nothing from him.
As always, the skies were overcast, a slight breeze in the air, but the day was dry. Checking the address in my email from Vin again, I sighed. This was the right place…
I was procrastinating.
A large white square building stood before me. It looked like a small factory, the windows were large but blacked out on this side. It was tucked away down a small pathway, offering beautiful sea views. Vin had said this was his studio, the one he’d used for years, but he gifted it to Elpidio for this exhibition.
My heart beat faster as I watched the wooden double door for any signs of life. There was nothing, meaning I had to get out of the damn car and knock, show Elpi the text boards and get him to give me permission to use them.
Taking a fortifying breath, I opened the car door, shivering at the cold chill seeping through the thin material of my lilac maxi dress and short, fitted black leather biker jacket. My hair was straight and loose, the light breeze causing it to drift across my face.
Reaching across to the passenger seat, I pulled out the box housing the boards and, locking the car, slowly walked across the street to stand at the large wooden door.
Loud music was pumping from inside, and my stomach tightened with nerves. I wanted to see Elpi more than anything in the world, but I doubted he really wanted to see me. My knees shook as I lifted my hand and knocked on the door.
As I waited, I glanced round the small street, noting it was deathly quiet. It suited Elpi completely. A lonely studio on a lonely street for a loner sculptor.
The music continued to blare inside, and there was no sign of Elpi. Trying again, but knocking harder this time, I waited about five minutes before it sank in that he couldn’t hear me.
Feeling colder and colder by the minute, I glanced up the empty street again before shifting the box under one arm and tried the doorknob.
It turned.
The door creaked open, betraying the age of the studio, and revealed a long empty hallway leading in only one direction.
Taking the heavy box in both hands, I edged into the hallway, kicking the door shut with my foot, and called, “Hello?”
My voice was no contender against the blaring heavy rock coming from a room at the end of the corridor. Straightening my shoulders, I forced my feet forward and suppressed my nerves. The closer I got to the end of the hallway, the more I doubted my decision to come here. It was his private space. He most definitely would not want me intruding.
But as I thought to leave, I heard the poetic sound of a chisel chipping away at marble and I stilled.
I wanted to see him work. To observe an artist at work was a rare privilege. And more than that, I wanted, no, needed to see Elpidio again.
I couldn’t help it. I felt a pull within me that refused to let me turn round and leave.
Rubbing my lips together, I bent to place the box of text board drafts on the ground and crept forward to stand in the door-less doorway… And the sight that greeted me took my breath away.
Elpidio stood in the center of the room, dressed only in a pair of black ripped jeans, his top half bare, every inch of his olive skin covered in what looked like thousands of tattoos. There wasn’t one bit of naked skin showing. I’d never seen anyone so covered in ink in all my life. But aside from the tattoos, which had me gripping the doorframe with rigid fingers, were the thick defined muscles protruding over his shoulder blades, the cut pieces of flesh damp with the sheen of sweat, flexing with every blow from the hammer in his hands.
His bulging thighs were rigid as he stood his ground, carefully sculpting the back of a marble slab which looked to be the image of a young boy with a larger boy at his back whispering in his ear.
The heavy rock music filled the room, and before I knew it, my feet were carrying my forward like a moth to naked flame. The closer I got, the more I noticed.
Elpidio’s back was marred with scars. In fact, all of his skin had scars, both long and short, raised and flat, red and white. But one long, jagged scar ran along the back of his thick neck… a neck that was visible now it was free from the curtain of dark hair which was tied on the middle of his skull in a loose bun.
That made me smile. I’d always thought his long hair was like his protection, his mask. It pleased me to see when he was sculpting it was pulled off his face… like he was free of all constraints, pouring his soul into his carefully-crafted masterpieces.
It was overwhelming to see su
ch a ripped and tortured man so raw and unkempt, but passionate all at the same time…
Feeling safe to step closer still, curious to catch a glimpse of what he was creating, I stepped forward, just as there was a change in music. The three-second pause between songs betrayed my presence as my foot pressed down on a creaky old floorboard, the sound of the groan echoing off the walls in the expansive space.
Like he was expecting a blow to the back, Elpidio whipped round, his chisel angled like a weapon. I froze, a slice of fear spearing down my spine.
Elpidio’s eyes widened as he saw me rooted to the spot, eyes shining with shock. His harsh and violent expression changed in an instant. He dropped his chisel to the ground as his dark stare bored into me.
We didn’t move. We didn’t speak. We just stared, our breathing increasing in speed. As my teeth ran over my bottom lip, I allowed my gaze to drift down his heavily tattooed and bulky muscled chest, his ripped and prominent abs glistening with the effects of his labor. His tapered waist boasted a sexy, defined ‘V’ showcased by his low-riding black jeans.
As my eyes journeyed back north, heat spread between my legs, and I groaned out loud feeling the unbearable pressure pulsing in my core.
Strands of loose hair fell over Elpi’s face, making him look like a forbidden dream. As our eyes met once more, the temperature in the room seemed to soar with the intense attraction that crackled between us.
I swayed on my feet, unsure of what to say or do, when on a pained groan, Elpi rushed forward, thrusting his large frame against my body and smashed his lips against mine, one hand clasping my hair and the other gripping my ass in an unyielding hold. I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but be trampled by this man, this strong and commanding man making me lose all rational thought.
The taste of tobacco and beer filled my mouth as he moved his hand from my ass to begin tearing off my jacket. I gasped as my lips broke from his mouth, my jacket landing in a heap on the floor as another rock song pounded through the large speakers from the sound system across the room.