East of Ecstasy – <br>Hearts of the Anemoi – <br>Book 4

Forcing the chaos in her mind away, Anna dipped her paintbrush into the gray and stepped to the canvas. Motion captured her attention from the corner of her eye.
 
The Dark Man, the subject of her recent paintings, stood in the doorway and leaned against the jamb.
 
Anna jumped and her pulse raced, but this time, anger flooded in instead of fear. “I will deal with you on my own damn terms,” she said, taking a perverse amount of pleasure from putting a figment of her imagination in its place. Because that’s all he was.
 
He didn’t move or speak. Not that he could, since, you know. Figment. Of. Imagination.
 
Anna rolled her eyes, done with being scared and so pissed to have to do this again that she was nearly out of her mind. “I’m doing your damn painting already. So just leave me alone.” She cut her gaze back to the expanse of white, but the desire to see if his image would still be there if she looked again drove her to distraction.
 
Finally, she gave in and…he was still there.
 
Completely still. Blatantly scowling. Totally unfathomable.
 
Was this a vision? Another image she’d have to paint?
 
Her heart tripped into a sprint, and she couldn’t look away from him. Like the compulsion that forced her to paint these images, Anna couldn’t help but return his stare and memorize his masculine features. The sharp angles of his face, the harsh set of his mouth, the dark shadows around his even darker eyes. Black eyes. Blades of black hair hung low over his forehead and just touched the hooded shirt he wore under his short, scuffed leather jacket. He’d crossed his arms over his chest, and the position caused his biceps to bunch up under the worn leather. In fact, everything about him appeared worn—the coat, the threadbare jeans, the scuffed boots. None of it struck her as the kind of shabby chic you could buy in some upscale store for a small fortune, either. The whole effect was rough. Dangerous. Deprived.
 
Deprived? What a strange way of describing him. But as Anna’s gaze swept over him again, the thought stuck. For his height, he seemed thin, with his lean hips, clad in old black jeans, a trim waist, and pronounced cheekbones. Her fingers twitched around the nearly forgotten paintbrush. What would it feel like to cup that harsh face in her hand?
 
Anna gasped and tore her gaze away. She had to blink to pull herself out of the haze of thoughts. Frustration surged through her and tensed the muscles of her shoulders and neck. She didn’t want to be working on another of these paintings as it was, so the last thing she needed was to lose a bunch of time daydreaming. Or would it be daynightmaring?
 
As she stared at the blank canvas, the image of the shackled man behind the prison bars filled her mind’s eye.
 
Definitely the latter.
 
Curiosity pulled her eyes to the left again. The doorway was empty.