Intaglio: The Snake and the Coins by Danika Stone Read Free Book Online Page A

wrong.
    “I’ll leave it
to Kip to explain it to you, alright?” Raya said.  “You paint here most
evenings?”
    Ava nodded
mutely and took Simpson's offered card, and then her hand, sealing the deal.
    “Good,” Simpson
said curtly, pulling on oversized sunglasses.  “I’ll send him over when he
gets back.”
    That night, Ava
could hardly sleep.  She called her father in Australia to relay her
excitement, needing desperately to share it with someone.  Cole – her
first choice – was still not back in town. 
    She knew because
she’d called, but had hung up on his machine.
      : : : : :
: : : : :
    Monday she
showed up to class in a good mood, walking to their spot in the centre
(absently wondering to herself when she’d stopping thinking of it as ‘ her
spot’ and had switched to ‘theirs’ ), and then flopping down next to
him.  Cole was reading when she approached, glancing up as she sat. 
He looked tired, she noted, dark smudges under his eyes and a bluish shadow of
stubble on his chin.  Ava thought he looked sexy this way – dark and
somehow more dangerous than his usual clean-cut looks – and she caught herself
grinning at him.
    “How was the
weekend with the family?” she asked, ignoring Wilkins as he turned off the
lights and started the projector.
    Cole sighed
heavily, running a hand across the back of his neck, leaving his dark hair
sticking up at odd angles.
    “Same as
always,” he muttered, his tiredness telling more than his three words. 
Ava winked at him, gesturing to the heavy book.
    “Clem here
didn’t leave you in the best mood?”
    Cole laughed
wearily, and then the prof began droning on about the Impressionists.  The
class went by in flashes of colour and light, punctuated by Wilkins' voice and
the scratchy sound of students’ pens.   Ava was distracted, her body
aching with the closeness of Cole, wanting to reach out and touch him though
she didn’t dare.  Instead, she crossed her arms and settled in for the
tedious lecture.
    Tuesday, the
cold weather lifted in a brief late-Autumn warm spell.  By Thursday,
students lounged on the lawns around the campus, soaking up the rays.  Ava
itched to be out of the classroom, but Cole had reminded her that they had a
midterm exam in Wilkins’ class,  so she made a rare Friday
appearance.  Afterwards, Ava wandered out next to Cole, waiting for the
inevitable moment he would turn away and she’d go the other direction to start
their separate weekends.
    This time,
however, he stepped closer.
    “So I’ve got the
front of the sculpture roughed out, but not the back,” Cole began, his face
serious.  He was staring at Ava’s right shoulder as he spoke, as if
measuring and tracing it.  There was nothing remotely sexual about the
look.  Ava raised her eyebrow.
    “And...?” she
asked.
    His gaze jumped
to her eyes and she felt the snap between them.  Ava caught the way that
his eyes darkened and his lips parted for a second.  ‘ Oh,’ she
thought, holding back a smile, ‘there it is again...’  
    A moment later,
his attention was on her arm again, following the shape to her elbow.  Analyzing . 
The spark narrowed down to sharpened focus.
    “I need to start
working from a model now,” he said.  “Probably should've earlier… and I
could ask someone else, but I want it to be you.  I want this sculpture to
be you …”
    Ava shifted,
wariness pushing at her senses.  She really liked Cole… , but the
fierceness of his reactions worried her.
    “Uh, I’m not
sure, Cole,” Ava said, watching the other people on the lawn.  “I mean,
I’m trying to get my own piece done too.  Wasn’t the agreement that you
pose first?” 
    She turned back
to him, grinning, hoping to make a joke about it.  Cole wasn’t
laughing.  Instead, he stared down at her intently.
    “Look Ava, I’m
just really having a hell of the time with the arms.”  He grimaced, eyes
dropping to the ground.  “It’s okay, though,” he added