Free The Reluctant Nude by Meg Maguire Page A

I don’t,” she snapped, more surly toward him than she’d been all week. “Just get started, already.”
    Max slid his hands from his pockets and held them out, inviting her to do the same. Her fingers shook visibly. She held her breath as he sandwiched them gently between his palms, and the heat and roughness of his skin made her flinch.
    “This is very hard for you,” he said softly, eyes on their hands as his thumbs rubbed her wrists.
    “Yes, it is.” She could admit that. What she couldn’t admit was that it wouldn’t be nearly this hard with anyone else on the planet. “Only because it’s been built up so much.”
    It felt as though Max had been warming his hands by a fire, his skin was so hot. “I hope it is not triggering any bad memories.”
    “No.” It was triggering something much different. A breed of sensation Fallon had spent her entire adult life avoiding.
    “You’re very cold.”
    “I have low blood pressure,” Fallon offered. “Unless you meant that figuratively.”
    “No, just your hands,” he said carefully, focused on their point of contact. His fingertips traced small circles over her knuckles. He slid them up to her forearms, raising all the tiny hairs, raising the fear bubbling in her core. She began to shake hard.
    “Oh.” Max’s eyes widened and he yanked his hands away, holding them at a safe distance. “You’re not ready for this,” he said, alarmed. It wasn’t an expression she’d ever seen him wear before.
    “No, I can do it. I have to. I’ll do whatever we have to do to get this statue made. Keep going.”
    “That’s enough for today.”
    “No. It’s fine .” Fallon’s anxiety spiraled. “If this ridiculous project fails, it’s not going to be because of me.”
    “I understand. But understand too, that this is useless to me right now. I don’t need to feel your body . I need to feel you, all that energy. I cannot do this if you are a mess. You’re not ready yet.”
    Anxiety spiked to anger. “I’m doing my best.”
    “Well I’m not carving you when you’re like this. I may as well sculpt you out of sand, you feel so unstable.”
    Fallon pressed her palms to her neck. “God, this is so stupid.”
    “What is stupid?”
    “This. All your energy nonsense. The way you make everything so freaking intense and complicated and weird .”
    “I can’t help that.” His calmness looked as if it was taking a concerted effort.
    Fallon groaned.
    “Why are you angry?” he demanded. “I’m trying to make you as comfortable as I can, yes?”
    “Well, you’re failing.” Fallon narrowed her eyes. “You make me very, very un comfortable. You’re going to have to work around it, because it’s not going to change.”
    Max stepped away, scraping a chair across the floor and sitting, burying his head in his hands, defeated. He rubbed his eyes and stared up again. “I thought we were making so much progress.”
    “We still would be if you’d just keep going. I’m going to be uncomfortable, doing this. Deal with it. I am.”
    “You have no clue what this is about, do you?”
    “I’m proud to say that everything about you is incomprehensible to me,” Fallon cut back. “Especially all this touching BS. But I’m going along with it. Try and extend me the same courtesy, okay?”
    Max stood, face steely, patience abandoned. He leaned his back against the rail of the spiral staircase and held Fallon’s eyes.
    “What?” she said.
    “Touch me, then.”
    “You?”
    He nodded, neutral.
    “That’s supposed to help?” Her gaze zigzagged over him.
    “Maybe. Maybe not. But try it, Little Miss Scientist. Suspend your empirical disbelief for me.”
    “If that’s what it takes to keep this project moving forward, fine.” She nodded and took a couple of steps closer, studying his face, his arms, the black hair at the collar of his shirt.
    “Fine,” Max agreed, that wicked gleam coming to his eyes. “Fair is fair.”
    He peeled his shirt up from the waist,