Free The Reluctant Nude by Meg Maguire

something beyond mere tolerance and familiarity. She wondered if Max Emery wasn’t growing on her. He looked a little taken aback himself.
    “When do you think we’ll start the marble?” Fallon was curious to watch the process. She’d come to know the menagerie of marred statues in Max’s garden intimately in the past two weeks. What he did was breathtaking, astounding. She could admit that now. She wanted to see him at work.
    “Soon. We are close. Closer. But we’re not quite there yet.”
    “You mean the touching bit?” she asked, body tensing. Since bringing it up Max hadn’t pressured her about it, but she’d been living in fear of the inevitable day when it couldn’t be put off any longer.
    He nodded. “I know you’re not thrilled, but I hope you trust it is necessary now.”
    “Yeah. I do.” She shivered nonetheless. She wasn’t a great fan of being touched, handshakes and the platonic hugging of friends aside. It was probably why her relationships never made it past the three- or four-month mark. She dreaded to think how uncomfortable Max’s touch would be—his eyes alone often felt like a brand on her skin.
    “Perhaps this afternoon we will try?” He cocked a cautious eyebrow across the table at her. “It must be soon if you wish to stay on schedule.”
    “Yeah, I do.” Fallon frowned. It had become startlingly easy sometimes to forget why she was here, whose statue she would ultimately be posing for. “But don’t expect me to be comfortable or anything. You may have to sculpt me wincing.”
    “I am sure I won’t. It is all that energy nonsense I am sure you’re sick of hearing about.” He held his hands up and wiggled his fingers like a close-up magician. “Nothing personal. In your job, when you’re working outside, what is it you do?”
    “A lot of plant and animal collection…checking on populations of weeds and algae and mollusks and things, looking to see what’s declining and what’s thriving in a given area.”
    “And what if you had to do that with your eyes closed?”
    She nodded. “I get it. It’d be really difficult.”
    “And I understand you do not want to be treated like a specimen. But you see what I’m saying?”
    “Yeah.”
    He smiled deeply in his wicked way. “So you better keep drinking.” He refreshed her glass and gathered their dirty dishes.
    As Max puttered, Fallon sipped her wine and tried to imagine what it would be like, having Max’s hands on her. She shuddered, though not entirely from trepidation.
    For over a week now she’d been having dreams about him, the sorts of dreams she’d never been disposed to before. Dreams that had her waking up in cold sweats in the early hours of the morning. Stark visions of this man’s predatory body and dark eyes, rough hands, rough voice. Dreams about commanding him and being commanded.
    Across the room she could see the long ridges of muscle flanking each side of his spine, his shoulder blades, his shirt pulled taut against these shapes as he washed dishes. In her dreams those muscles twitched and tightened with other kinds of labor. Fallon hadn’t felt the protracted touch of his skin since they’d shaken hands her first day at the studio, but neither had she forgotten it. Calloused fingers and palms on her bare body. She swallowed.
    Max dried his hands on a dishtowel. “Ready?”
    “As I’ll ever be,” she said, heart pounding. “Can we do this in baby steps? Can I keep my clothes on?”
    He nodded.
    “Good.” She shrugged her sweater off and stood in jeans and a tee in her usual space near the center of the studio. She trembled harder with each step he took toward her. By the time Max was directly in front of her, Fallon was shaking.
    “You look terrified,” he said, hands tucked safely in his pockets.
    “I’m fine.”
    “You look like you might cry.” As he said it, Fallon felt the pressure mounting in her tear ducts.
    “I won’t cry.”
    “You can if you want, you know.”
    “Well,