Free For His Eyes Only by Liz Fielding Page A

pad, no longer so knicker-wettingly eager to get her kit off. ‘What you’ve drawn?’
    He handed it over without a word and she studied the small details he’d put down with little more than the stroke of a pencil.
    Her mouth, fuller, sexier than she’d ever seen in the mirror when she’d grabbed a second to slide lipstick over it. The curve of her neck emerging from her collar, the line of her leg, her skirt stretched across her backside as she’d bent to search the fridge for milk—it was definitely time to get on the treadmill. Her eyes, giving away the feelings that vibrated through her whenever she looked at him.
    ‘I understand why some primitive people thought the camera stole away their soul,’ she said, shaken by what he’d seen in those few moments, fixed on paper with so few lines. How much more would he see if he was being serious? She would be utterly exposed—and not just because she’d be stripped to her skin. ‘It’s not what I was expecting.’
    Darius leaned back against the stepladder, folding his arms. ‘Did you imagine I was drawing your internal organs?’
    She swallowed, managed a wry smile. ‘Well, that is more your style. This is just me.’
    ‘What’s on the surface. The image you show the world. I’ll go deeper.’
    ‘You won’t find much muscle definition,’ she warned him.
    ‘You have a lot of everything, Natasha.’
    ‘I was sick as a kid,’ she said. ‘My mother spent my childhood trying to fatten me up. I ran away from home to escape the egg custard.’ She glanced up at the skeletal horse, then at the sketch pad, flipping back through the pages to see what else was there—anything to avoid looking at him, betray her eagerness for him to draw her, sculpt her—and discovered that every page was filled with drawings of her. Far more than he could have done in a few minutes. ‘I don’t understand. You couldn’t have done all this today.’
    ‘No.’ His face was expressionless.
    ‘But the other day... You only saw me for a minute or two and this is—’
    ‘I’ve only scratched the surface.’
    The room seemed to darken as their gazes locked, acknowledging the raw, subliminal connection in that moment when they’d faced one another across Morgan’s office.
    A shiver ran through her and she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the sun was pouring in through the skylights and Darius was still waiting for her answer. He knew it would be yes...
    ‘Will I be a limited edition bronze?’ she asked. ‘On display in a gallery window? Like the horse.’
    ‘It’s possible. If your interior lives up to the promise of the packaging.’
    ‘My packaging!’
    ‘It’s very attractive packaging.’
    ‘An excessive amount of packaging, I think you just said. Will you give me a couple of months to shed ten pounds?’
    ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said, taking the pad from her. ‘Are you concerned that you’ll be recognised?’
    ‘Recognised?’ The tension evaporated as she laughed at the idea of any of his subjects being recognised in the finished sculpture. ‘Unlikely, I’d have thought.’ She hoped. If anyone found out, she knew what interpretation they’d put on it. ‘I might have to make it a condition.’
    ‘It’s all about trust,’ he said, not joining in, and for a moment she was afraid that she’d offended him. ‘So? Do you have any more problems?’
    Problems?
    Only one. The fact that she was more interested in the man than his house. She’d forgotten why she was here, that her future depended on getting this right. That problem.
    ‘How about the fact that you’ll be making money out of your side of the bargain while I’ll be working for nothing?’ she suggested in an attempt to bring them both back to the reason she was here.
    ‘We might both be wasting our time, Natasha,’ he said, pushing away from the stepladder, suddenly much too close. ‘But if I discover depths in you that are worth exploring I’ll...’ His eyes