Blood pulsed hard and thick, everywhere. Damn it, she might as well be wrapping that cold hand around the throbbing hardness pressing into the zipper of his fly. It was probably forty degrees in this concrete box, but it felt like a sauna, and it was an easy 120 inside his boxers.

He swallowed. “It’s from…shrapnel.”

He had no idea why he wasn’t stepping back. He should step back. He should have said, Yes, I do mind, told her it was none of her business. He should be finding a shirt.

Find a fucking shirt, idiot.

“Did it hurt?”

Surprised by the question, he glanced down to find the bulky knit of her hat a whisker away from brushing the underside of his chin. “Like a bastard.”

She looked up and they were close—her mouth was close—her fingers a balm to the old wound that still made his shoulder ache on cold winter mornings. His heart thumped like a jungle drum and god almighty, it was hot enough in here to grow bananas.

“Was it bad? Did you bleed a lot?”

His throat was dry as the concrete beneath his feet. “It bled some.” Then, finally getting his shit together, he took a step back, and her hand slid away.

If his distancing bothered her, she didn’t show it, just simply said, “Thank you for your service.”

Grady didn’t know what to say. He never knew what to say to this standard platitude. He appreciated the sentiment, but he’d just been doing his job. So he nodded, his pulse reverberating like a dinner gong in his ears, as she slowly backed out of the room and disappeared from sight.

Reaching for the sink, Grady gripped the curved edge in both his hands and hunched over, dropping his head down between his shoulder blades and taking some deep steadying breaths.

January could not come soon enough.

…

Suzanne returned immediately to the cottage, her heart thumping as she tore off her hat and scarf and jacket with shaking hands. She had to paint Joshua Grady. She needed to paint him. No more of the landscapes she’d been trying and failing to paint the last three days. They’d been an exercise in frustration, so dull and lifeless, and she’d stopped and started so many canvases, it was demoralizing. She was beginning to think her mother had been right about original art not being Suzanne’s strength.

But now… All she could think about, could see, was Grady stripped naked to the chest, an old shrapnel wound marring the taut perfection of his skin. He was a solid, silent presence in her head, beckoning her without even lifting a finger, both mirage and real all at once, and her muse was fully aroused.

Christ, she’d been totally deluded thinking she could control her, thinking she was in charge and not her muse. It was laughable that she’d ever believed she was at the helm of this creative imperative when she was actually at her mercy. The sight of Grady had been like rocket fuel to a muse that had been trying valiantly to take flight for the last three days.