Page 56 of Hot Greek Summer

‘Relax your fingers,’ he whispered. ‘Imagine you’re alone.’

Concentrating, Winnie let her arm drop and go heavy.

‘Lift your head up for a second,’ he said, sliding his hand under the weight of her hair when she did and trailing it over the arm of the chair.

‘Arch your back a tiny bit more?’ he whispered, and for the briefest of seconds he slid his hand into the gap between the small of her back and the chair and pressed his fingertips lightly against her skin to show where. ‘That’s perfect.’

His gaze moved to her legs, and with the same light touch he eased one knee inwards towards him. ‘Like this,’ he said. ‘It accentuates the curve of your hip.’

Winnie feared that her skin wasn’t strong enough to stop her heart from beating out of her chest, and that he must know from the flush on her neck that his quiet words and every feather-light touch set a new fire beneath her skin. She watched him silently retreat to collect his sketchpad and pencils, and then drag the easel around to position it so he could stand and study her.

‘You can close your eyes if you want to,’ he said as he started to draw. ‘Imagine you’re alone and completely relaxed.’

Winnie didn’t close her eyes. ‘I don’t want to imagine I’m anywhere but here.’

Jesse paused for a second and swallowed, his pencil hovering over the page.

‘Tell me how you feel right now,’ he said, changing tack as he resumed drawing.

It was Winnie’s turn to stall. ‘Womanly,’ she said eventually.

‘Womanly is good,’ he murmured, shading. ‘What else?’

‘Brave,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m braver now than I was when I first came to the island.’

‘As I recall it, you were pretty brave coming over to take your donkey back on that first afternoon,’ he said drily. Had that really only been a little more than a month ago? So much had happened, it felt like far longer.

‘Dutch courage,’ she said, smiling a little at the memory.

He nodded absently, studying her and then returning to the easel again.

‘So. Womanly and brave,’ he said. ‘What else?’

He’d reverted to his safe ground, the place where he was the in-charge guy who knew how to be cool, and she the pupil being taught freedom.

‘Sexy,’ she said quietly. ‘I think I feel sexy.’

Jesse laid his pencil down and stared at her.

‘Youthinkyou do?’

She nodded, and he crossed the room, slow and assured, and dropped onto his knees in front of the chair.

‘Don’t just think it, Winnie. Know it. You were right earlier. You’re Venus,’ he said. ‘So very, incredibly sexy.’

‘Jesse?’ she said. ‘Will you do something for me?’

He nodded, wordless.

‘Take off your T-shirt?’

He looked for a moment as if he might refuse, and then he reached down with one hand and pulled the hem up and over his head and chucked it aside.Jesus bloody God.They went from artist and model to man and woman in the space of a heartbeat. His skin was drenched in sunshine, and countless hours of sculpting and olive farming had given him fireman-worthy shoulders and lean biceps to match.

The atmosphere in the room had already been charged, but Winnie thought that if someone struck a match right now the whole barn would go up in smoke.

‘I want you to teach me,’ she said. ‘Teach me how to turn my head and my heart off.’

‘I’d need to touch you for that,’ he said, trouble in his dark gaze.

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