Chapter Five

Reena looked at Mitch, imagining what it would be like to paint him. Unlike Gavin, Mitch wasn’t typically handsome with symmetrical features and a nice smile. Gavin was large and muscular but somehow still approachable and friendly. He was a good-looking guy, a man that women felt safe with right away, despite his size.

By contrast, Mitch looked tough and dangerous, and so he appealed to her deeply as a subject. He stood there now, his naked torso gleaming with sweat, his chest and back covered in tattoos and scars and bruises. Reena guessed that he’d had his nose broken a few times, and his massive body was tightly coiled, like he was just waiting to start punching something or someone. His eyes were hard and dark green, without a flicker of softness; his hair was dark and cut close to his head. Even his voice was deep and grating enough to crush concrete, and when he had shaken her hand, she’d felt the hard skin on his fingertips. Not one inch of this man’s body was soft or gentle, and she stared up at him, astounded at his raw, overwhelming, intimidating power.

It would be amazing to paint him, she thought, to try to capture that ferocious energy on a flat, limited surface. She’d use lots of dark colors splashed with flashes of passionate hues: reds, purples, some burnt-orange. His portrait would be fierce and hot; it would practically growl from the canvas, it would fight to free itself from any frame foolish enough to attempt to restrain it.

“Well,” she said. “I do need a roommate, and pretty fast. Do you want to come and see the place?”

Mitch stared at her some more. “Uh. You’d want to live with me? Even though you don’t know the first thing about me?”

She smiled at him. “Adam and Nick have vouched for you. That’s good enough for me. Maybe you need to think if you want to live with me.”

Mitch grinned, and Reena was surprised at what a difference it made to his face. Gone was the hard, brutal man she’d seen in the ring two minutes before, and in his place was a guy who was undeniably sexy. Not soft, certainly, and still not handsome, but some part of Reena just couldn’t help but respond to his rampant masculinity, to his large, hard body covered in muscle with a smattering of dark hair across that broad chest. This wasn’t the kind of guy who’d recite poetry in the moonlight or slowly remove her clothes. He’d rip the material right off her trembling body, throw her on his bed, take her without apology, leave her screaming and breathless.

Now why am I thinking about him ripping my clothes off and throwing me on a bed? Come on, Reena. Focus here.

“What’s the most annoying thing about you, Reena?” he asked her.

“Hmmm.” She looked at him, really thinking about it. “I’m vegetarian, which makes some people think that I’m a smug hippie. And I’m a painter who sometimes gets up in the middle of the night to work, and then I sleep all day, so some people think that I’m a lazy smug hippie.”

Totally charmed by her, he laughed. “Yeah, I can see how that’d annoy some people. Myself, I’m not bothered by either of those things.”

She smiled. “You? How are you annoying?”

“I’m a fucking zombie in the mornings, and I’m not very chatty at the best of times. And I’m always beaten up, or beating someone else up.” He paused, suddenly realizing that he had sworn in front of a lady. “Also, I swear a lot. Sorry.”

Now she laughed and he liked the way that her whole face lit up. “So… that’s it? You’re not a morning person, and you’re always looking for a fight, and you can curse a blue streak?”

He grinned again. “Yep.”

“Well, I can live with all of that.” She cocked her head at him. “You want to come and see the apartment later today? Maybe around four o’clock?”

Mitch gazed at her, wishing that he could touch that golden hair. He bet it would be as soft as silk against his rough fingers.

“Yeah, OK,” he said. “I’ll drop by. What’s the address?”