Read Online ColorMeBad by Olivia Waite - Free Book Online Page A

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rest of the costume. She found more pieces in the same shade, ripped them out
and lay them to one side. When she’d found all that she could in the mass of
fabric, she put the despoiled garment back behind the screen and took her
plundered scraps to the basin beside the mirror.
    With a casual, matter-of-fact gesture, Hecuba pulled her
black shirt over her head.
    John stood rooted to the spot.
    She loosened her hair from its chignon, tucking pins into
her trouser pocket, until soft waves fell around her shoulders, the ends
curling flame-bright against the pale linen of her chemise.
    Breathing became a Herculean labor and John clenched his
fists hard enough to drive his own nails into his palms. Only that spike of
pain kept him from reaching out for her.
    Hecuba dipped her hands in the basin and ran wet fingers
through her hair until the locks were dripping and twisted around one another.
Reflected ripples danced over her kneeling form as she picked up the tulle
scraps, soaked them and draped them over her upper body—bare shoulders, arms
and the long line of her collarbone.
    She turned suddenly to face him, palms flat on the planked
wooden floor, elbows bent, head low and menacing. Droplets of water streamed
through the hair at her temples while the colored netting made her skin
shimmer, wraithlike and weird in the undulating radiance from the mirror. The
tulle’s sequins became scales, winking treacherously in the watery light.
    A jolt shook him. Had her eyes always been green or was it
simply a trick of the light?
    John was suddenly stretched taut as though he were tearing
free of an old skin long outworn. “ Don’t move ,” he commanded and hurried
back to his easel and the paints he’d spent so long preparing.
    She disobeyed, turning slightly as he changed positions so
that when he reached the easel she was still facing him. John was too enraptured
to thank her and all but threw himself at the canvas.
    He began with the pale colors—shoulders and arms in gleaming
ivory with hints of eerie green. He gave in to temptation and allowed his brush
to trace the curves of her breast and even point out one delicate, dark nipple,
knowing he could paint her into modesty later if she asked him to. The
scale-sequins glittered, sleek and pointed, alluring to the eye but knife-edged
for the unwary.
    John picked up a different brush and loaded it with both
chrome orange and Indian yellow—not so they mixed, but so they unrolled in
tandem as the paint flowed onto the canvas—and traced the sinuous curls of wet
hair on her brow and down the back of her neck. They hugged her arms like
snakes, making her as much Medusa as nymph. He would add other layers later,
glazing to make some areas darker and scumbling others lighter for highlights
and contrast.
    When he finally stopped for breath, a reasonable facsimile
of Hecuba Jones was just emerging from the painted pond, water lapping at her
waist, an alluring smile on her face and a determined light in her eyes. But
the appearance of the nymph meant Hylas’ face had to change as well—James took
his finest brush and made a few careful alterations. The youth was now more
spellbound than shocked, wondering rather than terrified.
    John glanced back at the real Hecuba just in time to see her
shiver. If he hadn’t been observing her so closely for such a length of time,
he’d never have caught it.
    He put his brush down at once, appalled by his lack of
thought. “Your patience verges on saintly, Jones,” he said, walking over to
kneel beside her. “Please know that you can ask for a respite at any time.”
With careful hands he removed the chilled, damp tulle from her shoulders. Her
skin was cool beneath his hands and her chemise had gone nearly transparent
with water from her hair. John ignored this temptation, shook the dust from the
blanket on the ground and bundled her in green wool—not without a nostalgic
pang. He was never going to be able to look at this blanket the same