Read Online Covered In Paint: Book Five of the Art Of Love Series by Donna McDonald - Free Book Online Page A

thought about it before. It is just something that sort of happens, and I think of it as normal.”
    Brooke nodded, even though it didn’t really make her feel better. Michael’s explanation was more or less what she had expected to hear from him. If she had asked her mother or Will, no doubt they would have given her a similar speech. Michael might not think artists were generic, but she certainly saw the similarities.
    “Okay. Thanks. I guess I’ll head back to campus now.”
    Brooke rose and took her still mostly full glass to the sink. Taking a final sip, she quickly poured the rest down the drain. Afterward, she rinsed the glass and loaded it into the dishwasher because Michael was a fanatic about keeping kitchen chores done.
    “What happened today? You’re leaving more upset than when you came. Tell me that at least,” Michael ordered.
    Brooke shrugged. “Nothing happened that wasn’t inevitable. I went to one of Drake’s classes, thinking to catch him after it and talk. I guess I wasn’t prepared for the reality of what he does as an artist. Naïve of me since he painted his wife in the nude so many times,” she said as she turned.
    “Okay. But what happened? Did you get jealous of the model when you saw her posing?”
    Michael’s gaze meeting hers was sincere and compassionate. It made Brooke as mad at him as she was at Drake.
    “No. I know what you’re thinking, and I was not jealous. I was. . .I was. . .well disgusted…I suppose. It was worse than feeling jealous. No thirty-year-old woman—hell no one over twenty-five—wants to compete with a bunch of naked twenty-year-olds for any man’s ideal of female perfection. Maybe the woman he ordered to point her breast at his face was just ‘art’ to him, but she was very damn real to my eyes. All I saw was her, fully nude, and maybe even aroused by him. I still see her fucking breast in my head. Drake might as well have been having sex with her because that’s how I felt while I watched him looking at her and pointing out her curves and lines. And I don’t give a shit how uptight it makes me sound. It was how I felt .”
    “I hate to state the obvious here, but you’re talking to the wrong person about your concerns. You should talk to Drake about your reaction. Give him a chance to explain what he feels .”
    Michael sighed with genuine regret over Brooke’s head shake, and not just because her reaction was so much like the one his mother would have had. It was obvious Brooke’s female insecurities ran deep. What else could cause a woman who looked like her to worry about competition?
    “Brooke—you’re a beautiful woman—more so than most women. You’re too self-confident not to be aware of your beauty. Why are you so insecure about Drake being attracted to other women? The man was teaching a class. He wasn’t making out with the model. The woman’s body was just an example of lines and curves. That’s all she was—I promise.”
    “You’re right. I’m not insecure, Michael. I’ve never been insecure. But I know what I saw. Her nipple was hard. I could see it from a million miles away in the back of that stupid cavernous room. The woman was either cold or aroused. Those are the only two explanations. I’ve seen the way Drake’s students look at him. Hell—two of them stood in the hall and told me they had propositioned him. Apparently he told them he had some booty-call woman in Louisville. Why hasn’t he mentioned her to me during all this time we’ve been flirting and trying to date?”
    Michael congratulated himself on not laughing, but couldn’t help smiling. He’d never seen such a possessive, jealous woman in his life—well none he had ever acknowledged. Brooke’s reaction was shedding some light on things his mother had often said.
    “Let me ask this again and see if I can appeal to the very logical Dr. Daniels that I first met. Why are you talking to me about this and not Drake? I’ve been on the ass-biting