Big Daddy Wants Me

BOOK TWO: SKETCH ME.

“What are those things you have there?”

I jerk up, startled. His question washes over me like a wave upon a shore, and I shoot him my most insincere smile. He edges closer, his eyes dead set on mine, his steps firm, curiousity wafting off his sharp features as he picks up the sketch. s**t, I really didn't see him coming. I thought he had his hands full with his customers.

He stared at the sketch for what felt like hours, but was just five minutes, and set it down in front of me. Our eyes lock, and I know I'm about to be f****d. Hard.

Well, it won't matter as long as he's the one doing the f*****g.

“You know what would be much better, baby girl?”

I gulp, shaking my head. The tease in his tone is making my toes curl.

Before I can process what is happening, he takes his shirt off, and pushes his pants down. I stifle a gasp as his hardened c**k springs free, dangling as he strikes a pose.

“Sketch me. Up close, and personal.”

—

Ever since Waverly discovered the lush pub at the corner down her street, she's been obsessed with the place.

No, she's been obsessed with the owner.

Kyle.

Hot, in his forties, and jovial, Waverly has an unhealthy attraction for him that burns hotter than coals. He's a magnet that pulls her towards him.

Kyle has a body that belongs to a grand painting, and each day Waverly drops by, she sketches him in secret. His rough, capable hands. The curve of his lips whenever he smiles. His full, black brows, and his stunning set of teeth.

He becomes her muse.

When Kyle catches her one day, all bets are off. He agrees to model for her for real.

Up close and personal.

Can Waverly withstand the heat?

-------------------------

1 - Waverly.

The bar is quieter than usual tonight. Music thrums from the speakers on the wall: a mellow country tune to suit the rain pattering outside. Locals huddle in a few booths, chatting and laughing while one group deals out cards, but the atmosphere tonight is laid back. Warm and lazy.

That’s fine by me.

Sometimes, when the sun has blazed hot all day against the mountainside, it can get real wild in here. I’m talking smashed glasses and folks yelling loud enough to make your ears ring; boots thudding against wood as people dance on tables. Nights like that, it’s so electric in here that my hair prickles against my scalp, but I still jam myself in a corner and keep sketching, trying my best to be a fly on the wall.

Not tonight, though. Tonight I’m perched on a stool right by the center of the bar, my sketchbook spread out on the scratched wood, luxuriating in all this elbow room. One of the bartenders, Maria, smiles at me as she slips out to collect empty glasses from the booths, and I smile back as my pencil swoops across the page.

This is my Kyle’s sketchbook. It’s a project idea I had—a whole summer drawing one location. Focusing in on the patrons, the workers, the furniture, the vibe, soaking it all up and working on my art. A cool idea, if I say so myself.

Except summer’s been and gone and I’m still here, walking through town to Kyle’s each night to sketch. I guess something keeps pulling me back.

Or someone.

“He’s in his office,” Maria says to me as she returns to the bar, two fistfuls of empty glasses clutched expertly in her hands. How on earth does she carry so many without dropping them? “But he’ll come out and check on us soon.”

I nod, chewing on the end of my pencil. There’s no point pretending I don’t know who she means. That ship sailed weeks ago.

Because Maria’s not dumb, and she’s peeked over my shoulder plenty of times in the last few months, checking out my sketches. She knows that I draw one person way more than anyone else, his handsome face glowering from page after page of my sketchbook.

I can’t help it, okay? There’s something about that man…

Well, every time I lay eyes on him, my fingers itch for a pencil and blank sheet of paper. Let’s just say that.

“Huh.” Maria props her elbows on the bar a few minutes later, leaning over to get a better look. The dishwasher rumbles through its cycle down by her legs, the vibrations tickling my shins. “You have a real good memory, Waverly. That’s the boss exactly.”

Yup.

Chewing the inside of my lip, I shade my subject’s earlobe. And Maria’s right—it probably is weird that I know the exact slope of this man’s nose by heart; that I can close my eyes and recall the fine lines on his forehead, the flecks of silver at his temples, the angular shape of his jaw. Probably strange that he lives rent-free in my brain like this, in perfect HD.

Especially when he’s said maybe three words to me all summer.

Now the weather has turned, the nights have grown darker, and there’s a glittering layer of frost on the ground when I first step outside each morning. And still I’m here, sketching the gruff older man who owns this bar, my body heating each night as my pencil shades the strong column of his throat. Heating until I squirm on my bar stool, pressing my thighs together.

Kyle.

I’m a mess.

“Have you had a good day?” I ask my onlooker. Maria brightens, rocking back on her heels to chat about the baked oatmeal recipe she tried for breakfast, some pushy customer she had two hours ago, and the wedding planning she’s doing at the moment with her adventurer fiance. I do my best to nod and smile and make encouraging noises in all the right places, because I’m not great at small talk—but I like Maria, so I try to make the effort.

She rattles out jokes and wild stories, a skilled enough conversationalist for the both of us, all while snatching up a cloth to scrub down the bar. Even though it’s frosty outside tonight, it’s hot and humid enough in here that her short black pixie cut is all ruffled, sticking straight up at the back.