Suzanne shivered. There was a wildness and a beauty to nature that was compelling, something so elemental that a person couldn’t help but be drawn to it. Suzanne could see why so many of the great painters through the ages had put it on canvas, capturing it in all its beauty and its terror.

She could even see how an artist could paint the same scene over and over again, as so many of them had. Nature was so changeable. Depending on the time of year, or even the time of day, it never stayed exactly the same. She just wished she felt similarly compelled. Wished that it excited her muse the same way. Looking out at the harsh reality of this winter landscape, she felt a lot of things—small and awed and…human.

But she didn’t want to paint it.

Grady, on the other hand… She glanced over her shoulder at him, and her muse purred. She actually purred!

Sighing, Suzanne headed to the fire, removing the screen to build it up, throwing bigger logs on it and topping it with a handful of pine cones because they burned so prettily and smelled like Christmas.

“Good morning.”

The low, lazy greeting shot a shiver up her spine and wrapped around her heart. That voice wouldn’t be a terrible thing to wake up to every morning.

She turned, and her breath caught at the rugged beauty of him. It didn’t matter that she’d already ogled the bejesus out of him; she just couldn’t get enough of him stretched out naked like this—for her eyes only.

Paint him, her muse whispered. Paaaaaint him.

Taking a deep breath, she smiled at him and let her muse have her way. “Can I paint you?”

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Grady, trying to clear the heavy malaise of sleep from his head, blinked at the suggestion. Was she serious? But he could see that she was, as the hot flick of her gaze raked his body in what he assumed was her critical eye—professional and businesslike.

Not that his dick knew the difference.

If she stared at his junk any harder, there’d be no way she could paint another of those little wieners on him. Which was something, at least.

“Haven’t you already painted me enough?”

She shook her head, her teeth biting into her bottom lip as she continued to peruse his body like maybe she wanted to put the paint on him rather than a canvas. “No, not like that. Not like the other times.” Her gaze met his. “You, as you are now. Lying on this rug, sleepy and lazy and…”

“Sated?” Grady didn’t know how he looked, but he knew how he felt.

A slight smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Exactly.”