Free Jamison (Beautiful Mine #3) by Gia DeLuca Page B

just delivered. “I’d hate to see all those years of school and research down the drain over a hot piece of ass.”
    “Trust me, you need not worry about me.”
    You never have. Why start now?
    “You’re really putting me in a bind here.” He swirled his wine and sniffed the rim of the glass. I wasn’t getting through to him.
    “Please,” I said, trying to mask my disgust with kind words. “I’ve never asked you for a thing. I’m asking you now. Are you willing to work on my patient?”
    He stopped what he was doing and looked across the table, his face softening for only a moment, as if he were looking into the eyes of a little boy asking his dad for help.
    “Can you do it next week?” I asked, unable to stop pushing for the one thing I wanted and the one thing he owed me.
    “Next week?” he scoffed, swiftly returning to arrogant-asshole mode. He sighed and shrugged, staring down at the table. “I’ll call my assistant and see if she can move my schedule around. You’re really putting me in a tough spot here, you know.”
    “I know,” I said. “I appreciate this.”
    He glanced down at his watch.
    “Somewhere to be?” I asked.
    He pushed himself out from the table, tossing his unused napkin over his place setting and downing the last of his wine. “I’ll be in touch.”
    ***
    I found myself standing at Sophie’s door. Sometime during my walk home, I’d crossed the street across from my apartment, heading to her building and not my own. I had to see her.
    I knocked on her door, praying she’d be home, and my prayers were answered the second the door pulled open and a smile spread across her pretty mouth.
    “Evening, stranger,” she said, eyes sparkling as she placed a hand on her hip. Smears of paint on her cheek and chin and across the faded t-shirt that hugged her frame told me she was in the midst of crafting another masterpiece. “Come on in.”
    I stepped into her warm apartment, pulling off my hat and unbuttoning my coat and setting them in the first place I could find. Sophie didn’t have a coat rack or any other type of organizational system that I could see.
    She slid into my space, her arms slinking around my hips as she stood on her toes to kiss me. My entire relationship with Daphne was a series of carefully scheduled dates and events. Red marks all over my calendar, placed by Daphne herself, told me exactly where I had to be and when. Sophie was the exact opposite. Nothing was scheduled. Everything was of the moment. She brought out a spontaneous part of me I never knew existed before.
    I placed my hands on her hips and pulled her in closer, tasting bergamot tea on her lips and smelling the warm musk that radiated from her wild hair.
    “Let me show you what I’m working on,” she said, beaming proudly as her hand found mine. She led me across the apartment to her little studio. “It’s you.”
    Against a backdrop of blues and grays was a portrait of me. Clear blue eyes stared back at me and a serious expression consumed my face.
    “I haven’t been able to paint people or things for years,” she said, eyes glued to her work as if she couldn’t believe her hands had created such a thing. “Until you.”
    I stood behind her, unable to resist her any longer. I moved her hair from her shoulder, exposing the flesh of her neck, and leaned in to taste it. Pressing my lips into her soft skin, I closed my eyes and breathed Sophie in. Pure, unadulterated intoxication filled my lungs as tiny gasps escaped her lips, responding to each peppered kiss.
    She spun around, gripping me as she forced me backwards to her bed. We fell together, she on top of me, as she straddled her thighs around my lap. A force to be reckoned with and a hunger in her eyes like I’d never seen before, she lunged for my mouth. But I was hungrier. I wanted her more than she could ever possibly want me. I needed her like the air I breathed, like the hot blood that coursed through my body and kept me alive.
    I