Intoxicating!. Kathleen O'Reilly

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СКАЧАТЬ of testosterone was limited to twodimensional figures, flat and lifeless, and she liked the safety of the one-way relationship where she was in complete control. In the past eight years, she’d had two relationships in the accepted sense of the word. The one with Leon, which had sadly fizzled into abject nothingness because he was, well…blah, and the relationship with Antonio, which ended when he realized he was a woman trapped in a man’s body.

      After the Antonio fiasco, Catherine was faced with a choice. To be aggressive and search out single men in their natural habitat—bars—or resign herself to days spent appraising the male torso and nights spent dreaming about it. Catherine had wisely stuck with two-dimensional men on a sketch pad, or a canvas. It was easier on her ego.

      While she was busy on her sketch, a bikinied blonde approached him. Catherine frowned because Odysseus should not be bothered by the obviously fake melons that were bobbing in front of his face. Thankfully, his expression didn’t change when tempted by this modern-day Nausicaa, and the loneliness in his eyes stayed constant.

      Classical baroque art would have been altered forever if some Hamptons Hussy had turned Odysseus into Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky Melon-Grabber.

      No, Odysseus was worthy of so much more.

      The blonde, not appreciating the rare masterpiece on the sand, waved blithely and then flitted away. Eagerly, Catherine went back to her work, shading, erasing, sketching, correcting, until, at last, the piece was finished.

      For a moment she was caught breathless by the image on the paper. It was good. Really good. A smile curved her lips because it wasn’t something that she thought often. Even Grandpa would be proud of her for this one. Her sketches were a sideline brought on by too much exposure to great art, and too little talent to do anything serious with it. When you dealt with Van Gogh on a daily basis, Catherine’s pictures of the male form resembled a kindergartener’s. A talented kindergartener, but still—a kindergartner.

      But not this sketch. This sketch was special. She had captured the solitariness of him, the weariness juxtaposed against the noble bearing. The more she looked at the man—the live man, not the two-dimensional likeness—the more she wondered about him. She’d never seen one human being stay so still for so long, a master of self-control. People in New York never looked lonely. It was, like, a cardinal rule of the city. How could you be alone with eight million other people? Yet Catherine knew it was possible. Maybe that was why the man intrigued her so. Maybe…

      Unfortunately, if she kept this up, she was going to get caught, so she stashed her sketchbook away, pushed on her sunglasses and stretched her legs out in front of her. Finally, he moved, rising to his feet, and she drew in her breath. She was still smiling to herself when he turned around, and quickly her smile disappeared in case he mistook it for an invitation. Catherine wasn’t built like the bikinied, sun-streaked blonde. She was a tall dishwater blond, fifteen pounds overweight on a good day, and she didn’t even want to talk about the bad days. She only bought one-piece bathing suits that minimized her butt, which was where most of her weight settled when she overindulged in cupcakes—something she often did on her bad days.

      He looked at her, his eyes skimming over her, not sexually, but automatically, taking in the details of his surroundings of which she was a part. She fought the urge to cover herself. Better to ignore him, as if he were a painting on the wall and nothing more. He paused, and she could sense the indecision, but then he walked forward—toward her.

      As he moved closer, Catherine glanced down, making sure her sketchbook was lying innocently closed on the ground. Check. No reason to be nervous at all.

      He approached her, bare feet sinking in the sand, and sadly she realized that even his feet were glorious. She’d never sketched a foot in detail before, but now she thought she might.

      “I hope I’m not intruding,” he said, and she shook her head as if he had hadn’t intruded on her brain since she’d first caught sight of him.

      “You’re welcome to sit as long as you want.”

      When he was this close, she could see his eyes. A dark, rainfogged gray. His gaze was detached, not in a cold way, but empty and lifeless like the people captured in paintings by Piero.

      “I thought this place was empty, and next door’s been a nuthouse,” he told her, automatically endearing him to her because in her mind she knew next door was a nuthouse. Loud, laughing, filled with happy, beautiful people who splashed away in the pool. Yeah, right. When you worked in art, you learned that anything could be forged.

      “Please, don’t apologize.” She spoke graciously, adapting the lady-of-the-manor poise of her mother. “It’s not necessary. Stay.”

      Restlessly, he shifted on his feet, so staying didn’t seem to be in the cards. She knew the stance. She’d done it often enough. The man was itching to leave her company, but he waited, as if he knew he was only three words shy of being polite. Again, all familiar territory for Catherine. “I’m Daniel,” he said finally.

      “Catherine.” She lifted her hand to shade her eyes from the sun, which was totally a great idea because when she blocked out the glare, and the shadows fell across his face, he seemed more alive. And she could see the neat symmetry in his facial structure.

      Oh, yeah, she was going to draw him. Capture the tiny dip in his chin, capture the stubble that dotted his jaw. Oh, yeah.

      “Thank you, Catherine.”

      “My pleasure,” she answered, because it was.

      All polite obligations now out of the way, Daniel went back to his chair, and there he sat for several more hours until the sun set for the day.

      Catherine stayed in the lounge, sipping on tea and pretending to doze, and not once did he go into the water.

       2

      THAT NEXT MORNING, after a mere three hours’ sleep, Daniel rose, rubbing tired eyes. He’d forgotten the infinite joys of a summer share. The long hours of drinking, the bed-hopping, the endless unfunny jokes. In search of peace and quiet, he’d first tried sleeping on the lounge outside, but when Chelsea and Bill went skinny-dipping in the wee hours of the night, Daniel gave up, creeping over to Catherine’s deck before finally settling into a deep sleep in one of the chairs.

      Sean was going to owe him for this, and Daniel occupied those first waking thoughts creating endless painful punishments for his brother, almost all involving testicles being squeezed into a vise. Only two more days, he reminded himself, rubbing at the empty spot on his ring finger. Still that didn’t stop the nightmares about losing it. With an empty ring finger, the hole inside him seemed impossibly bigger. Some things just weren’t meant to be left behind.

      After a long stretch, he walked back to the nuthouse and was safely on one of the summer share’s loungers when Catherine emerged on her deck. She waved, he waved, and they ignored each other for most of the morning until some dipwad got the bright idea of tapping a keg on the sand, which he couldn’t even do right. Daniel chose not to educate him on the finer talents of keg-tapping. That was long ago and far away. Instead he fled back to Catherine’s beach, praying she wouldn’t mind.

      It took her an hour to approach. “You’re having problems next door, aren’t you?” she asked, collapsing down into the sand next to him.

      Daniel laughed with little humor. “Yeah. I’d love to go home if I could, but the lawyers would report back to my brothers and I’d just have to do it again another weekend.”

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