Read Online Escaped Artist (Untamed #3) by Victoria Green, Jinsey Reese - Free Book Online Page B

didn’t take shit from anyone. Especially not the screw-up fresh out of juvie.
    Older and more experienced, she’d wanted nothing to do with me, had done her best to convince me that I’d never amount to anything. Once a convict, always a convict , she’d said to me. And I’d listened. My life had been one failure after another, and I knew she was right. What was the point of trying if I was just going to keep failing?
    But then Rex had put a brush in my hand and told her to sit for me.
    She’d done it because she worshipped Rex.
    He and I had painted her, side by side, day after day. Once in a while he’d look at my canvas and point out where the shadows were off or the shape was wrong, but for the most part he’d left me to do my own thing.
    Sia had changed when she’d seen my painting. It wasn’t finished yet when I found her looking at my canvas, the cloth flipped up so she could see the whole thing. She’d stared at me wide-eyed for a moment, her mouth agape.
    All I could think at the time had been, Was it really that bad?
    Then she dropped her robe, wrapped her exotic, naked body around me, and latched on. She didn’t let go until she left for Amsterdam six months later.
    That had been years ago and, in that time, everything had changed. Including me.
    “I’m here,” I said to Sia now as she hunched back over the guy’s beefy arm. “If anyone else comes in, I’ll take them.” She nodded, and I went to my workspace to prepare it just in case.
    Because, goddammit , someone needed to come in and get a tattoo soon. Hell, I was going to go out on the street and drag them in here kicking and screaming if I needed to.
    Twenty minutes later as I was wiping down my chair, I felt Sia’s arms wrap around my waist and her hips slide up against my ass.
    My head whipped up, and I flinched away. “What the hell are you doing?”
    “What does it look like, Dare?” She slinked toward me, slipping the strap of her tank top off her shoulder. “We’re all alone. Why don’t we have a little fun together?” She took another step forward and began playing with the other strap. “Just like we used to.”
    I shook my head. “No, thanks.”
    “Oh, come on, Dare.” She pouted. “It’s you and me. Remember how good we were together? How fucking hot things could get? We could be like that again.”
    “Sia, that was a fling. It was…nothing.”
    She froze, her eyes narrowing. “It wasn’t nothing . Not to me.”
    “You sure about that?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “You left the country pretty easily as I recall. Rex said ‘Amsterdam’ and you jumped at the chance.”
    “That was six years ago. Things are different now.”
    “You’re right,” I said with a nod. “They are. I’m with Ree now.”
    “ Ree .” Sia rolled her eyes. “Always Ree. You haven’t stopped talking about her since the day she walked through that door.”
    “I love her, Sia.”
    A fire ignited in her eyes. “You don’t do love, Dare.”
    “I do with Ree.” The ease of that statement startled me.
    Loving Ree was simple and complicated, freeing and intense. It was everything I was meant to do. It was my reason for taking this breath and the next.
    And I couldn’t stand another minute without her.

    Ree stirred in her sleep as I slowly shut the door to her room, the squeak of its hinges way too loud in the silence of the rehab center after lights out. I snuck over to her bed and sat down, my gaze immediately drawn to her.
    She lay on her side with arms tucked to her chest, her long, silky hair fanning out around her like a golden halo. Her lips were slightly parted as she let out a small sigh, and the peaceful look on her face caused me to relax a little. I brushed my fingers across her cheek, then traced her mouth with my thumb.
    Before she even opened her eyes, she said, “Dare?” Her voice was gravelly and slow with sleep, my name on her lips so fucking sexy. The corners of her mouth quirked up, and more tension