Levi's Blue: A Sexy Southern Romance (4 page)

“Won’t they get mixed up?”

Her smile is tolerant, something I might expect to see on the face of a woman who is humoring a child.  “No, I can tell the difference.  Levi, is there a stool over there?” She points at the wall to my right. 

“Yes.”

“Would you grab it, please?”

I do as she asks, bringing the stool back and setting it beside hers.  She turns to face her class.  “Does anybody have something specific they’d like us to paint in class today? Or do we all want to work on something different? Darwin, I know your answer already.”

She smiles and I look back to see Darwin’s lips curve around his paintbrush.  Although Alana is really the only one who has interacted with her, I have no doubt that every person in this room adores Evie.

And I can see why.

“Flowers!  Let’s paint flowers. Yellow ones,” Alana pipes up.

When no one else offers any suggestions, Evie agrees. “Flowers it is. How about a sunflower? It’s yellow and it’ll be a good starting place for Levi, too.”

Evie turns to me, a plucky smile in place. It feels like that smile is just for me.  “I hope you’re ready to get dirty.”

Oh, hell yeah, I am!

CHAPTER 5

EVIE

I BUSY my hands sorting through my painting accoutrements to keep them from trembling.

The man from last night.

He’s here.

And his name is Levi.

Levi. 
God, that’s a really good name. Strong, manly. Handsome.  Conjures up a mental picture that I’d
love
to be able to
actually
see.

But he had a date last night.  Even though he said she was a friend, he had a date.  A date!  And he was flirting relentlessly
with
me. 

I should be aggravated. Cool and aloof.

But I’m not. 

None of the things that
should
matter seem to. They aren’t making a bit of difference to my pattering heart and pounding pulse.  All they seem to care about is the fact that he’s
here. 

That he came to find me.

That he wanted to see me again.

As much as I secretly wanted to see him.

I draw in a calming gulp of air and clear my throat before I speak. “I’ll draw the outline, and then I’ll blindfold you and you can help me fill it in, ’k?”

“Okay,” Levi replies.

His voice is close, so close it gives me chills. It’s almost like he’s speaking right into my ear, like we’re the only people in the room. It seems so…intimate. 

I reach for my paints, trailing my fingers over the braille lettering on the side of the first few until I find what I’m looking for.

“This is quick-drying paint with an applicator tip. I use this kind for class to draw a quick sketch, but when I have more time, I use puff paint for thicker lines.  The idea is to make lines I can feel so then use those borders as guides for where to fill in with the oil paints.”

Levi is silent, but I can feel his attention on me like a physical touch.  It makes me nervous and twitchy, and warm and excited.

“Okay, y’all, let’s start with the stem.  Pick one of your brown or dark green paints and use a thin, light stroke.  Start near one corner of the bottom of the canvas and make an arc that sweeps up toward the center and stops.”

I draw what I described to my class, only
I
use my white paint instead. I walk them through outlining the leaves and then the center, and, after that, each delicate petal arising from it.  In my mind, I can already see the hues I’ll use—the brightest yellows and the deepest golds, the richest browns and the muddiest greens.

When the outline is dry, I rub my fingers lightly across it.  I feel a sunflower. I can feel every line perfectly, visualize it in my head like I saw it only yesterday. 

“Close your eyes,” I instruct Levi, “and give me your hand.”

I turn my palm up, and he gives me his hand. It’s warm and heavy. Thick and masculine. It feels…capable.  Capable of wielding a sword in battle.  Of swinging an axe toward wood.  Of helping a woman out of a car, gently stroking her cheek, turning her into his willing slave.  Capable of making her beg.

Flushing hotly, I turn it over and grip it from the back.

“Close your eyes,” I reiterate.

“They’re closed.”

“Are his eyes really closed?” I call back to the class.

“Yes,” several answer in unison.

“Don’t you trust me?” Levi asks in that husky voice that’s meant for bedrooms and silk sheets and dark nights.

“Am I supposed to?”

“Eventually.”

“Then I still have time,” I tease. After a moment, I get back to the project.  I guide his hand over the canvas, from the stem to the sunflower’s center, running his fingers back and forth over the petals.  The action almost feels too sexy for a classroom, like I’m rubbing his fingers over parts of
me,
letting him feel every line and curve.  I can nearly
feel
the sweep of his touch brushing over my skin.  “See how you can feel the shape of the flower?”

“Oh, I feel it,” comes his hoarse, rumbling reply.

Oh, God!

His words, his tone…they make me twitch. Nearly groan.  My fingers flex involuntarily around his, so I suck in a breath and hold it for a few seconds, struggling for calm indifference.

I don’t continue until I feel sure I can speak like a coherent adult.

“Now we just have to fill it in.  Without seeing.”

“The easy part,” he quips.

“Yeah, the easy part.” I smirk.  “And there’s no cheating in this class, is there, guys?”

I raise my voice at the end, and I hear Alana’s reply, a loud and vigorous, “No! No cheating!”

“We are all equal in here, limited only by the bounds of our imagination.  So for today, I’m going to show you how to exercise yours.”

“My what?” he asks.

“Your imagination.”

“Trust me. My imagination works just fine.”

Again, it’s not his words so much as the inflection he puts on them that causes my stomach to flip over.  He makes me feel like a gangly, horny teenager, ready to strip off her clothes in the back seat of a car just to feel his skin on mine.

I make no comment, just release Levi’s hand and reach into the top drawer of the table that holds my paints.  I feel around until my fingers brush soft cotton. I pull out one long strip and close the drawer.

I turn to face Levi. 

“Hold still,” I tell him.

“Oh,” he says, his tone very telling. Undoubtedly, he’s looking at the blindfold.

I try not to smile. I’m sure a man like him, a man like I imagine him to be, hates not being in control.  But
that
makes a situation like this all the sweeter.  And the best part is,
he
sought
me
out, so he’s got no one to blame but himself.

“I think you’re enjoying this a little too much,” he muses as I fold the material lengthwise.

“So what if I am?” I skim my palm up his chest and neck, toward the side of his face. “I…I have to feel where to put this,” I explain, pausing at his jawline. 

“Feel as much as you want,” he permits in a husky purr.

I slow my touch, switching to my fingertips rather than my palm, discerning, imagining, memorizing.  I allow the brightness that filters in through my sunglasses to give me a vague outline of his head and I touch.

I don’t take my time like I want to, but I go slow enough to get some detail.  I feel a firm, square jaw, lightly dusted with stubble. I feel the hollow of one lean cheek and the high arch of a cheekbone.  I feel the deep-set orbit surrounding his eye, and I wonder what color the irises are. 

I might not be able to see, but I can
feel
and
interpret
pretty well after all these years, and I know it won’t matter.  It won’t matter what color his eyes are.  Green or brown, blue or gray, light or dark, it won’t change what I already know, what I can
feel
.

Levi is gorgeous.

I know from last night that he’s tall, that his chest is wide and hard, and that he’s strong.  I felt all that when I landed in his arms.  The embarrassing way. 

I know from last night that his voice is like smoky velvet, and that his personality is the dangerous kind—devilishly charming and fascinatingly witty—but still, I didn’t know what he looked like.  I will
never
know what he
really
looks like, but I’ve had to feel my way through life long enough to know gorgeous features when I touch them.

And his are gorgeous.

I smother a sigh.

There’s no reason I should be disappointed.

But I am.

He’s tall, charming, probably wealthy since he was at my art show, and that was all fine and good until now. 

But now he’s gorgeous, too.

He’s got the whole package, a package that can land him any woman he meets.  Beautiful ones
who can see
.  And that means I have no shot with him.  That I never did.

And yet, as stupid as it is, I feel disappointed, and my heart plummets.

I stopped believing love would find me a long time ago, so it’s not like I was
looking
for someone,
searching
for a man.  But I’ve never had such instant chemistry with someone before. Not since the days when I could see.  And maybe not even then. I can’t remember the last time someone made me feel this way, blind or not. 

I suppose I just got caught up, caught up in all the sensation.  I stopped thinking and simply
felt.

But that really doesn’t change anything.  Chemistry or not, I should’ve known it wouldn’t end well.

For me, it never does.

If he’d only been flawed, too, I might’ve stood a chance.  But with a man like this?  Someone who’s practically perfect it seems?  Not a chance in hell.

There’s no way he’s
really
interested in me.

No. Possible. Way.

I try to swallow my regret as I stretch the swath of material across Levi’s eyes, leaning against him as I tie it behind his head. He brings one hand up to the small of my back, holding me close to steady me.

Only it does not steady me.

At all.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

It turns my insides to boiled mush.  Hot, liquid mush.

I may not stand a chance with this guy and would be much better off running the other way, but my body has its own opinion. It’s obviously refusing to get on board with shutting this down immediately.  It’s doing, feeling,
reacting
the way it wants to, smart or not.

Some part of my brain is resisting, too, for that matter.  It’s telling me that there’s no harm in flirting, no harm in enjoying this.  It’s nice to have the attention of a charming, attractive man, even if it’s just for a little while.  Nothing wrong with that.  I
am
a woman after all. Human. Made of flesh and bone.  And we all need attention.

Right?

So, despite what the realistic portion of my mind knows and warns me of, the rest of me is running
toward
the danger rather than away from it. 

Basically, it’s a mutiny. 

The cautious, skeptical part of me is totally overwhelmed, of course. It’s being drowned out, efficiently and effectively, and this guy’s proximity isn’t helping.

Rattled, I cinch the material over his eyes and run my fingers around to make sure it’s in place.

“Can you see anything?”

“Nope. Not one beautiful sight.”

“Good. Now you know how I feel.”

“I
do
know how you
feel
,” he replies cheekily as he pulls me in snug against him, molding me to his every ridge and plane, making me catch my breath like a virgin on her wedding night.

Sweet God, what’s wrong with me?

“Maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to treat me like every other woman on the planet,” I mutter quietly as I wriggle out of his grasp.

“Too late.  Can’t unring that bell.”

I don’t have to be able to see or feel his face to know that he’s probably wearing a shit-eatin’ smirk.  I just shake my head and reach back around for my paints.  There’s no point in arguing with either one of us—him or myself. Neither is going to make it easy to resist him.

“Evie?” he whispers, his voice close, sending chills racing down my arms.

God,
the way he says that… It’s like I can picture him saying it during sex, with his hands on me and his mouth on me and…
God
!

“Yes?”

“You smell incredible. Like sweet oranges.  Makes my mouth water.  Makes me want a taste.”

I swallow, which is difficult because my mouth is the opposite of watering. It’s as dry as a bone.  “It’s my…it’s my body wash.  It…cheers me up.”

“It makes me…thirsty.  For something juicy and sweet.” 

I clear my throat and try frantically to collect myself. Out of sheer desperation, I force my attention back to work before this gets out of hand.  I’d hate to get myself in trouble right here in front of a class full of children.

I have
never…

“Okay, everybody, let’s start with the stem.”

Thankfully, Levi goes along with my change in direction. 

I grab four tubes of paint, two that I need and two to show something to Levi, and I squirt a streak of each onto the pallet.  To Levi, I explain my process.

“Over the years, I’ve learned to tell the difference in the way certain colors feel.  The braille on the side of these tubes tells me that they’re van dyke brown and sap green, mars black and zinc white, but to me they
feel
different.”  I take Levi’s hand again and dip one finger into the white.  “Now rub your fingers together.”