Free Tempting the Artist by Sharon C. Cooper Page A

a year for fun. I had entered an art
contest just for the heck of it, and this woman called and said she
was an agent. She told me she had an offer I couldn’t refuse. One
thing led to another, and two years ago I had my first show in
Chicago.” She touched the edge of a canvas that was leaning against
a paint-splattered chair. “Before I knew it, I had completed four
shows with my fifth one only a month away.”
    “ That seems like a lot in
such a short amount of time,” Luke said absently and turned back to
her work, one piece in particular pulling at his attention. A nude.
Though parts of the faces were shown, he couldn’t make out the
specifics of their facial features. Christina had used black,
white, gray and beige paint to cast a slight shadow over some of
the couple’s contours, but revealed enough of their bodies for an
observer to clearly make out what was going on. The longer Luke
stared at the painting, the more he recognized the scene. New York.
The blues of the bathroom tile behind the couple and the
rectangular rainfall showerhead were identical to the doublewide
shower in his Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan.
    Luke rubbed a hand over his chest as
if the simple move would slow his pounding heart. The thought that
Christina had replicated one of the most provocative lovemaking
sessions he had ever experienced sent heat soaring through his
body.
    His eyes took in more details. Water
cascaded over the couple’s naked bodies from the overhead shower as
the man held one of the woman’s shapely legs around his waist. The
profile of the guy’s head was visible. Luke could make out the
intensity on the man’s face as he made love to the
woman.
    The painting had captured just enough
to take him back to that morning as if it were yesterday. He could
still hear the same heart-pounding music pumping through the
bathroom speakers, spurring him on as he slid in and out of
Christina’s sweet heat. Their moans intermingled with every thrust
as he went deeper, harder, rocking her body as if his life depended
on bringing her to climax over and over again. He remembered not
being able to get enough of her.
    “ Is this one for sale?” he
asked, his voice raspy with desire. The passion and the intensity
between the couple leaped off the canvas. The visual combined with
Luke’s memory of that morning he and Christina had shared made his
body throb with a need that threatened his sanity.
    That day would forever be engrained in
his mind. Not because of the intense lovemaking in the shower. No.
It had everything to do with the night before when he realized he
had fallen in love with Christina. Instead of voicing his feelings
for her right then, the next morning in the shower he had attempted
to show her just what he felt, sharing all the emotions that were
sieving through his veins. The memory had his body thrumming with
desire, willing and ready to pay whatever she wanted for the
painting.
    Luke took a deep breath and released
it slowly, trying like hell to hold it together. Once he felt his
heart rate and that twinge of irritation for the hell he had
experienced over the last few months subside, he turned to
her.
    “ It’s not for sale,” she
said before he could open his mouth again.
    Their eyes met. Clearly, the painting
had the same effect on her. But no way could it mean more to her
than it meant to him. Little did she know, but the picture depicted
a defining moment in his life. The only time he had ever admitted
to himself that he was in love with a woman. In love with
Christina.
    As if knowing he was about to make her
an offer of an obscene amount of money for the painting, she shook
her head no, never taking her eyes from his.
    First to break eye contact, he studied
the painting again. How she managed to capture that moment – that
intense, earth-shattering moment, so perfectly blew his mind. No
one but them would ever be able to tell who the models were and
that made him realize something else. She had