The Clever Fox: Part One (The Pleasure Hound Series) Read online

  Alyss stepped aside to allow them in. The male allowed Eryka to proceed him and then he shut the door behind him. Alyss stared at the closed door, knowing she should leave and get to work.

  She turned into the Chamber. The curtains of the Chamber windows were cast wide open and Alyss felt the sun’s rays dance over her body. The itch in her back, in her hands, was gone.

  “You can just set it down over there,” came Eryka’s soft voice.

  The male did as instructed.

  “Hello, Lady Alyss.”

  Alyss looked up to see Sister Mychelle. Today, instead of her purple robes marking her station, she wore the same, orange, black and white colors as Alyss; only in a different pattern.

  “We’re twins,” Sister Mychelle grinned looking over Alyss’ dress with approval. “I’ve been working on a series with butterflies. The orange, black, and white pattern belongs to the Monarch butterfly.”

  Sister Mychelle extended a canvas she carried in her hands. Alyss could only nod as she looked at Sister Mychelle’s sketches of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.

  “Are you finally ready to cross the hall to the side where you belong?”

  Alyss ducked her head as Eryka always did. “I was just holding the door open.” Alyss indicated the closed door behind her.

  “Your welcome any time. Though today might not be the best day. We’ve come into possession of several erotic artworks. The work is banned outside of these walls.”

  Alyss didn’t answer. Her gaze fixed on a canvas depicting a man kneeling before a woman. The woman’s breasts and thighs were bare. A dark triangle of hair was exposed between her thighs. The man’s pink tongue extended towards that dark area. Alyss knew she should look away, but her eyes held fast to the lines of the brushwork, all drawing attention to that focal point between the woman’s open thighs.

  “In ancient times, Neanderthals drew the human form on the walls of caves to communicate with one another and relate their history. But today, in a civilized society we can’t show any of these historical artifacts because the women depicted are naked.” Sister Mychelle shook her head, her eyes bright and open as she regarded the painting. Not half closed in shameful curiosity, like Alyss’.

  “We can show the pottery of ancient Greeks upon which the sex acts of male love is depicted. We can show the phallic sculptures of art from the Africas. But this society deems obscene anything that depicts the female form nude or in a sexual situation.” Sister Mychelle turned back to Alyss. “Its a crime, isn’t it?”

  Alyss didn’t answer. She didn’t know how to answer. She shouldn’t even be in this room right now.

  “Art is the expression of someone’s soul. You can’t just silence someone’s soul.” Sister Mychelle looked to Alyss for confirmation, but Alyss kept her mouth closed. She’d never considered erotic art. She’d never seen any. Her fingers itched to hold a brush and paint out loud.

  Sister Mychelle’s eyes peered into Alyss as though she saw her personal confinement, but the older woman said nothing. She gave Alyss one last smile that rang somewhere between sympathy and pity. Then she flitted away with her drawings pressed to her chest. Sister Mychelle aimed her artwork outward so that every one would see. In fact, she stopped to talk with another lady whose eyes were riveted to the canvass. Sister Mychelle presented the canvas for the lady’s closer inspection with pride and excitement.

  Alyss scratched at her chest. She took one more glance around the room. Then she turned away from the sun, turned her back on all the art, and reached for the door.

  “Allow me, my lady.” A dark, masculine hand reached in front of her. “You can’t open the door with your fingers in knots.”

  Alyss started at his words. Why would he use that particular word? Knots?

  He nodded his head downward.

  Alyss looked down at her clasped fingers. She wrenched them apart, then stepped aside.

  “There’s paint under your finger nails.” he stated matter-of-factly. “Is that some new feminine fashion I’m not aware of?”

  Alyss held her nails up. There was the tiniest speck of purple beneath her right index finger. She looked up into the face of her adversary and felt naked under his gaze. His eyes moved from her nails to her wrists. She felt like he knew. Like he knew where each marking, not just the rope impressions but the paint, came from. She felt like he knew how desperate she was to keep each.

  But that was impossible, her wild imagination at play. She tried to wrangle it in, yank the idea out before it could root. Her Mother had always warned her of the dangers of an active imagination. Methodical, peer-reviewed contemplations was the only lane to allow the mind to travel.

  Alyss ducked out of the door. She heard the door click closed behind her.

  “Lady Alyss?” His voice was soft, but it carried to her. “Let’s keep the fighting inside the chambers, shall we?”

  Alyss turned. He was right there in front of her.

  “My husband is off limits,” his soft voice was firm.

  “Your husband?”

  “Adom.”

  Alyss blinked. Adom? Her Adom? She didn’t even know that Adom was bonded.

  “Use whatever tactics you want against me,” he continued. “Bat your eyelashes, flip your hair, show off your breasts. But don’t use him.”

  “Tactics? You think I’m using Adom-“

  “Stay away from him or I’ll tell everyone you’ve been posing for his artwork.”

  The threat didn’t have the bite Alyss expected it to. She merely blinked. She saw the dawning on his face when he realized her lack of fear at the prospect. He changed his tactic.

  “I’ll tell them how you’ve been posing. That you were…roped into it.”

  Alyss ran her fingers protectively over her wrists. “What Adom does…”

  She couldn’t finish the sentence. She knew little about love, but from what she witnessed of her sister and her cousin, she knew when you loved someone you helped them achieve their dreams. Not dash them away.

  “Why would you want him to stop?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t you want him to share his talent with the world? I’ve never seen a male who could do what he does.”

  Alyss would never have that opportunity to even try to achieve what Adom could do with a brush. Her artwork would never see the light of day. But Adom’s work, it had to. It was important. She didn’t know why, but she knew it was the truth. When people saw what he could do with color and lines…

  “He has a chance to change the world,” Alyss continued. “The way we all see the world, and you would stop him?”

  The male looked at her, dumbfounded. “Tomorrow you will go into a chamber and try to take away one of his basic rights; a basic right of all males to determine their own destiny. Yet you want to lecture me on my relationship?”

  They stood outside of the door of the Chamber of Health and Sciences. If someone heard their conversation she could be thrown out of the Sisterhood. Her spot as an apprentice, her future forfeited. That thought didn’t terrify her as much as the thought of not returning to Adom’s studio. The idea of not returning to Adom this afternoon was unbearable.

  “Stay away from my husband.” He walked away.

  She didn’t know his name, so she couldn’t call out to him. She scurried after him and grabbed his arm. The corded muscles of the strong bicep pulsated under her fingers. He stopped, stiffened, at her touch.

  “I’ll make a deal with you.” She heard the desperation in her own voice, felt her body being shoved back into the cocoon, felt her fingers suffocating.

  He yanked his arm away from her.

  Alyss reached into her bag. She pulled out the printed report from her Mother. His eyes widened seeing the title of the document. She knew he didn’t have access to this information. “It’s yours…”

  He reached his hand towards it.

  She withdrew the document at the last second. “As long as you let me see Adom.”

  He put his hand away.

&n
bsp; She placed the document between them like an offering. “If this bill is as important to you as you say it is, then the information in this report will be of great value to you. The price is a few more hours with Adom. A few colors on a canvas.”

  He studied her. “Why? Why do you want to sit for my husband?”

  How could she explain how Adom’s art made her feel alive? How his ropes took all the pressure away? Alyss needed it, or she would suffocate. All around her her skin was cracking and something was trying to break free from her soul. She couldn’t stop it.

  “Do we have a deal?”

  Want to keep reading? Part Two of “The Clever Fox” is available NOW.

  The Pleasure Hound series is written with my naughty pen, but I do have a sweeter side. Just because its sweet, doesn’t mean its not hot! Check out my fairytale retelling romance series. Enter a world where single mothers get a second chance at their one true love with the Cindermama series.

  Single mother Malika “Pumpkin” Tavares lost faith in fairytales after she fell for a toad. Now she believes she’s not cut from the storybook, heroine cloth and searches for Mr. Good Enough amongst the sidekicks and supporting men of the town.

  Love at first sight isn’t a cliche for town royalty Armand “Manny” Charmayne. For generations the Charmaynes have spotted their soulmates by seeing a golden aura the first time they laid eyes on The One.

  When Manny meets Pumpkin he sees…nothing, but sparks fly off the richter scale. The more he gets to know her the more he considers defying fate, if only he can convince her to take a chance on love again.

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