Page 19 of A Touch of Dark
“You want me to paint you?” His breath fans my cheeks, unbearably warm.
“Yes…” For some reason, I don’t shy from his touch. I let him examine me. There’s more to the manipulation of his fingers than a desire to intimidate. They capture the curve of my face. The swell of my cheek. My hairline.
Finally, he sits back and opens a drawer concealed on his end of the table. From it, he fishes out a fresh sheet of paper, and with the thinnest strip of charcoal, he makes a few soft lines. Gradually, a woman’s face takes shape. It’s round, her features average. Some might call her attractive if it weren’t for her exaggeratedly wide eyes and pursed lips.
Recognition hits in a slow-burning realization. It’s me.
Then again, she isn’t me.
There’s fear in her eyes, more apparent the more of her he reveals in lines of black. She’s thin—too thin—standing tall. Her hands are outstretched, grasping at the air in front of her. Unlike his other creations, she’s fully dressed in a simple, white sheath dress.
I’m tempted to accuse him of feigning blindness again—but the details are vague enough to be guesses. Besides, it’s the woman’s expression upon which he lavished the most insulting attention. Her dour, terse frown could only be described as…lost.
Or terrified.
“Is this meant to scare me?” My voice rasps. I find myself licking my lips and swallowing hard to ease a sudden dryness in my throat. I’ve been standing here, watching him longer than I’ve realized. The angle of light coming in through the window is sharper, dimmer, and my ankles throb, confined in my heels.
“Scare?” With a sigh, Damien finishes off the last stroke. Then he lifts the drawing and offers it to me.
I scoff. That caricature looks nothing like the woman I strive to be. She’s pathetic. Weak. She’s the person I want to drown in a bottle of wine. “That’s the best you can do?”
As I reach for it, Damien withdraws the page just beyond my range. “Uh-huh.” He nods once, indicating my body, I presume. Namely what I’m still clutching in my fist. “Exchange.”
I consider tossing both scraps of paper into the trash. I should.
In the end, I let the discarded drawing fall onto the table within his reach, and he lets me pull the fresh drawing from his grip.
“Do you feel that was a fair trade?” he asks, while I retreat toward the light of the nearest window and observe his distorted creation up close. She’s not me—despite how uncannily familiar her nose is.
She’s not.
“I expended the energy to create both drafts,” he continues. “You stole one without permission and yet bartered it for another. So…” From the corner of my eye, his silhouette flickers. “Is this a fair trade?”
Ignoring him, I sweep my gaze along the drawing again. Then I tear it in half and let both pieces fall. “There,” I tell him, unnerved by how patiently he’s sitting, no emotion revealed whatsoever. “Now they’re both unwanted. Besides, I thought artists like a challenge. That looks nothing like me.”
“Is that so?” He stands swiftly, catching me off guard. He must have had the cane propped against the table, because it’s in his hand now. It extends, tapping the floor before him, and he advances on me far more quickly than he should be able to.
Instinct seizes control of my feet, propelling me backward. Back…back. Until I hit a wall and can’t go any farther. I’m forced to watch as he approaches, but I’m offered no warning when he touches me this time. Bold and sure, his fingers graze the side of my throat, tracing the pulse thrumming there.
“I’m not so sure of that…” His mouth tilts downward, his thumb pressing harder.
“W-what are you doing?” I avert my gaze to the opposite wall—but I don’t move. For some insane reason, I endure the second appraisal, and this time, he extends his search.
Down my throat, following the midline of my collarbone. A ragged gasp escapes my lips as unfamiliar heat creeps through the satin over my rib cage. Too low. Then even lower, down to my hips. He keeps the contact featherlight. Barely noticeable.
Yet inescapable.
Finally, he steps back, and his cane retracts, able to be slipped inside his pocket.
“I would not question my sight if I were you, Ms. Thorne,” he declares, the corner of his mouth quirked. He’s amused once again.
“With all due respect, Mr. Villa, I don’t feel like arguing sight accuracy with a blind man.”
“And you shouldn’t,” he bites back. “How frustrating it must be to have your sight and yet not be able to see things as they are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “I do not think you’d understand.”
