Every few seconds, inquisitive eyes would glance back at the motionless Alpha, run over whatever part of the outline she needed to adjust, and then go back to the paper. Quickly, the line of his jaw, his closely shorn hair, were captured in shades of black. Concentrating on her work, Claire began to create his mouth, with the scar she had once called beautiful slashed across it. Had they not been marred, Claire would even admit Shepherd’s lips would have been considered handsome—their fullness almost pretty. His nose, now that she looked far more closely, was not straight; there were places, small deviations, where it had been broken and reset more than once.

Tiny scars were in his stubble, all over his hairline and forehead.

Picture nearing completion, only one key feature neglected, Claire took a deep breath and made herself look into Shepherd’s eyes. The silver was so familiar to her, she could have painted them a thousand times without looking, but every study would have been eyes focused on intimidation, on drawing out fear. At that moment his eyes were almost complacent, the animal aggression, the focus of a predator, contained.

As he was, it seemed to take ages to translate such an expression onto the paper. She tried, but her interpretation was never quite right.

How could anyone capture eyes like that?

“You are growing agitated,” Shepherd commented, displeased when she began to glare down at the painting.

Again she tried to capture his expression. “I can’t get the eyes right.”

Slowly, his hand reached out and took the paintbrush from her stained fingers. The portrait was turned, Shepherd asking, “Is this how you see me?”

It seemed a strange question. Of course that was how she saw him, that was why she’d painted him that way. “I am better at painting landscapes.”

His voice was odd. “You made me different.”

“The eyes are wrong.” Gathering up her supplies, she stood and rounded the table so she might clean her brushes. A large hand stopped her progress, pulling her closer. The paints were taken and set back on the table, his arm snaking around her middle.

Shepherd just looked up at her, regarded the dark-haired woman who’d painted him.

Holding her messy hands away so as not to smear his coat, she stood awkwardly, unsure why he was looking at her with such an expression. She had done nothing to soften him in the picture; every mar, every scar, every part of him was on that paper.

Shepherd pulled her to his lap.

Watching him as one watches a snake, Claire sat stiffly. He began to touch her face, to thread his fingers in her hair, and then those lips, the full lips she had translated perfectly, came to hers.

He was insistent even in a languorous slow kiss, even when she complained against his mouth, “I’m going to get paint on you.”