Read Online Games People Play by Shelby Reed - Free Book Online Page B

change.”
    “No,” she said. “Well, maybe remove your shirt.”
    The slide of material on skin teased her ears and she focused hard on her toolbox as she picked out a piece of charcoal.
    The wooden platform creaked.
    Sydney peeked.
    Colm had done as he was told, hanging one leg off the side of the stage, the other knee crooked, his bared upper body gleaming in the light. Sydney wanted more of that. His skin was so tactile, his musculature so sleek. But something about his face today . . . not as smooth and perfect. A weariness about the eyes and mouth she hadn’t noted before. Secret unhappiness in a beautiful man. It seemed like a fascinating premise to capture on canvas.
    She wanted more of the shadow touching his chin and nose and left eye, so she adjusted her lamp, rose from her barstool, and approached him. “I’m going to pose you, okay?”
    “Sure.”
    Her fingers threatened to tremble as she gingerly touched his chin and tilted his head ever so slightly away from the light. He’d obviously shaved, but what little shadow remained prickled her fingertips. When she left a smudge on his jaw, she used her other hand to gently wipe it away. “Sorry—charcoal.”
    The whole time he watched her with those all-seeing green eyes, and suddenly she couldn’t help herself. She let her gaze slide down his tanned throat to his chest.
    And there it was, up close. The tattoo over his heart.
Amelia.
Nothing more than that. A shrine on flesh.
    “Who’s Amelia?” she asked, staring at it.
    He glanced down, realized he’d broken the pose she’d created and resumed it. “Someone who means a lot to me.”
    Sydney backed away. “Is she still your . . . ?”
Jeez.
“I mean, is she still in your life?”
    “Yes.”
    Her fingers rolled the charcoal back and forth, back and forth as she moved away and seated herself again. She’d never seen him more solemn, and something told her not to push the subject, although a strange sensation had fisted in her solar plexus, a sort of burn in her that stole her breath.
    She didn’t put on any music; they didn’t talk, nor did he ask any questions this time. They worked in sweet, heavy silence, and her charcoal sketch gradually took on the features of the man sitting in such obedient stillness six feet away. The only thing Sydney couldn’t quite capture was the expression in his eyes, but she told herself that would come with the actual painting.
    “Would you like to stretch?” she asked after she’d finished the preliminary sketch.
    Colm got to his feet, paced a few steps, and raised his arms over his head. The muscles of his back flexed and he yawned, giving a shuddering, full-body stretch. Sydney tried not to watch, but she couldn’t stop herself. Even now, knowing she was still with Max and Colm was a man in love with a woman named Amelia, the female in her couldn’t stop ogling.
A work of art on legs
, Max had called him. Yes, indeed.
    When they resumed working, she felt restless and distraught. Squeezing beads of paint on her palette, she tried to distract herself. “Tell me about your friend Garrett.”
    Colm half smiled. “He’s a good guy. Walks the wild side. That’s why I thought of him for your project.”
    “He’s uninhibited?”
    “In every possible way.”
    Sydney smiled. “Are you?”
    His gaze shot to hers and she grimaced. She needed to stop talking or she would humiliate herself. Women probably fell all over him, and it wasn’t her style. She wanted to be different. She
was
different. “You don’t seem like the type to have wild friends.”
    “You don’t know me yet,” he said softly.
    She quickly returned her attention to the canvas. “To quote your earlier declaration, I’d like to change that fact. So I have a few more questions.”
    “Shoot.”
    “What gives you that expression in your eyes?”
    He hesitated. “What do you mean?”
    “There’s a somberness about you I didn’t see before. I know I’m prying, but it might help