Free His Canvas by Ava Lore

 
    His Canvas: The Billionaire's Muse
     
    Ava Lore
     
    Part II
     
    Chapter Four
     
    "So did you fuck him?" Felicia asked me the next
morning when I showed up at the door of her studio, an unlighted cigarette
dangling from my lips and a six pack of Pabst swinging from my fingers. I
pinched the cigarette out of my mouth and glared at her.
    "Depends on what you mean by fuck," I said.
    "Sounds like you have a story to tell." She opened the
door wide and I followed her inside.
    The place was familiar to me. It had been Felicia's apartment
before she had married Anton, but now she kept it purely for her sculpture. A
huge wad of clay sat in the middle of the floor on a large tarp, ringed by
tables covered in tools large and small of her own devising. The only other
piece of furniture in the apartment was an old mattress sitting on the floor,
the bed she used to sleep on before she found a better one with the world's
most eligible billionaire.
    Felicia returned to her project. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt,
but padded around the studio barefoot, even though it was freezing cold. Gray
clay coated her feet and arms in patches, evidence that she had been working on
something real. Creating.
    God, I envied her.
    "So tell me everything," she said, resuming her
sculpting. I watched her for a moment as she picked up a table leg and began to
pound on the wad of clay. Wet smacks echoed against the walls. I lit my
cigarette and inhaled the smoke into my lungs. One of my many vices. I just
can't seem to give them up.
    "Well," I said, "I showed up. His house is a
mess. Like, a real mess. It's kind of like a hoarder house. It's full of stuff."
    Felicia frowned. "What kind of stuff?"
    I thought for a moment. "Like if you crossed Sotheby's with
a flea market."
    She stopped whacking at her clay. "Seriously?"
    "Would I shit you?"
    "Yes."
    Okay. That was true. But still. "Well, I'm not shitting
you. And then he took me up to the top floor of his house where he had a
photography studio installed that morning, and then he asked me to take
my clothes off and wrap myself up in white satin so he could take pictures of
me."
    "You look good in white," Felicia said, which was a
very artist thing to say.
    "Yeah, I know. But then he kind of fingered me and then
went down on me and when I was done he freaked out and left!"
    Felicia's eyes narrowed at me. "It went from pictures to
finger fucking just like that?" she asked. She was clearly not buying it.
My best friend, disbelieving my innocence.
    I sucked my cigarette down and blew a stream of smoke at her.
"You know how things just happen," I said. Granted, I had sort of decided that those things would happen and then done my level best to ensure that
they did, but come on. Finger fucking just happens all the time.
Sometimes it just needs a little nudge.
    She studied me for a moment. "Uh-huh," she said at
last, then shook her head and sighed. "You always go for the crazy ones,
don't you?"
    I scowled. "Malcolm Ward is not crazy. Weird and
probably damaged, maybe, but crazy, no. And I don't always go for the crazy
ones, thanks."
    "You don't remember Simon?" she asked me. "Simon
who thought you were cheating on him with his brother who lived in Tokyo and
burned all your underwear in revenge?"
    I shrugged. "Fine. Maybe Simon."
    "And Jorge? The one who refused to look at mirrors and
wouldn't enter through front doors?"
    "That was just a quirk of character," I said.
"That wasn't really crazy."
    She crossed her arms. "And what was Misha?"
    "A drunk."
    Felicia rolled her eyes at me. "You have a thing for
damaged guys, you nutbar. And you just said yourself that he's damaged."
    "I said probably damaged." I couldn't help but
feel stung, insulted, and a bit annoyed. Before Anton, Felicia's previous
boyfriends had all been dumb as rocks. The last one she'd had before she got married
had called himself Steele. Steele, for Christ's sake. Where did she get
off judging me?
    "Yeah, but you're so good at picking out the