Chapter Text
Nesta bustled into the Lambeth College’s Vauxhall Centre with her best friends Gwyn and Emerie at either elbow. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s 7.15pm on a Thursday night, we could be in the pub or the theatre. Or anywhere but here. Are you serious that we’re doing this for eight weeks?”
“Yep. We are. Feyre convinced us that art therapy was what you needed after that ultra messy break up. Well, break ups.” Gwyn’s words were soft, but they still made Nesta bristle and blush simultaneously. Perhaps dating two men at the same time wasn’t a recipe for finding true love. Exclusivity had neither been promised nor requested from any of the three parties. Despite her best efforts, the two men had found out about each other, and it had sort of fallen to pieces at that point. In a very unpleasant way for all concerned.
Elain and Feyre had rallied around, less so Feyre who had emerged from her own abusive relationship with Tamlin Hoggarth and almost immediately fallen into the arms of another man. One who she seemed to be fighting falling in love with but was certainly quite happy being with him. A new relationship that had been going on for nearly two months and Feyre’s older sisters hadn’t met him yet. That set of all kinds of alarm bells.
It was her youngest sister who had struck the bargain with Nesta. I’ll introduce him to you and Elain if you go to the two month introduction to painting course at Lambeth College. Gwyn and Emerie, can you go with her because I don’t fully trust Nesta not to run off. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for all three of you.
The suspicion of where the money had suddenly appeared from was traced back to this mysterious new beau in Feyre’s life. However, the youngest Archeron sister had stood firm on this point, with even Elain reluctantly agreeing that Nesta needed to do something to ground herself after finding herself suddenly single again just before her twenty-fifth birthday.
So here they were on a balmy Spring evening, instead of having a laugh over one too many bottles of sparkling rose wine in a pub by the river Thames.
There were no more words as the three women marched into a spacious art studio. Immediately the smell of canvas and paint assailed Nesta’s senses. Very familiar as she had always been around Feyre when she had painted from a very young age, but this time it was different. It felt older, more powerful.
She missed Gwyn’s nudge to Emerie, her eyes shifted over the high ceilings and huge panes of glass. The evening sun streamed through the western facing windows, creating their own magical glow in the room.
In the centre of the room was a plinth, it was surrounded by ten seats with large easels in front of them and several sheets of thick paper held in place. “Here, you go.” Emerie opened her bag and passed out pencils, brushes and acrylic paints.
“Welcome to the advanced life drawing class,” came a voice from behind them.
“You what?” hissed Nesta. “We signed up… were signed up by my little sister for the eight week Beginner’s course.” She focused a hard stare at the older woman with short cut white hair, who seemed completely unperturbed as a piece of paper was examined. “What are your names?”
“Nesta Archeron.”
“Gwyneth Berdara.”
“Emerie Havenwind.”
A few more people drifted in, chatting amiably to each other. “Nope. You’re all down here for this class. Ah, here’s an added comment. They’re better than they think they are. Feyre. So, that’s cleared it up. Apparently, you’re all art geniuses in the making. You just need a suitable challenge. One to completely focus your minds on. No drifting away in this class. Capiche?”
The three women nodded silently. “Oh, by the way, my name is Jesiba Roga. Focus and don’t mess about and we’ll make expert painters out of you incredibly quickly.”
It didn’t take long before the three friends set up at their stools, with Gwyn and Emerie casting sympathetic glances at Nesta. Being stuck in an unexpected situation – especially where she was out of her depth – was an anathema to Nesta. But she had to admit Feyre was right. If her friends weren’t here, she would have walked out of the door and never come back. Her little sister was a sneaky little shit and had found the mark perfectly. There was no way Nesta would start something and not finish it with every piece of willpower and effort that she could muster.
“It’s going to be a long eight weeks,” murmured Nesta to Emerie who was sitting to the left while Gwyn was on the right hand side.
“Pay attention class!” Jesiba’s voice rang out and silence ensued. “We have a new model today, who will be with us for the duration of this course. He’s new to live modelling so be kind.” She smiled and it didn’t reach her eyes. “He’s easy on the view, if you know what I mean. In deference to this being his first time as a model, we’ve allowed him to wear shorts instead of going fully nude. For the next course it’s the Full Monty.”
The door behind Nesta clicked open and she could see the other art class students opposite her crane their necks to get an early view. She watched their eyes widen. There was the sound of a robe falling to the floor and then he walked past her, between herself and Gwyn.
A massive man, tanned, hair in a man bun wearing a pair of the shortest navy blue shorts in existence. With two thin white stripes on each hip. With surprising agility for a such a large man, he hopped onto the plinth, still facing away from Nesta. A deep, melodious voice formed the words, “Where do you want me, Jesiba?”
“In my bed, about ten minutes ago… errr… did I just say that out loud?”
There was good natured chuckling in the studio, including from the suddenly sexually objectified model. “This is Cassian, by the way. You can all introduce yourselves after the sketching session this evening.”
Finally, he turned and Nesta’s breath caught in her chest. This was an extraordinarily good looking specimen. The ruby ear stud and scar through his eyebrow seemed to make him look disgustingly rakish. In that selfish, reckless way of a man who Nesta could be scooped up in his arms, thrown onto a mattress and pounded mercilessly until she was a boneless mess.
“Ahem. Focus,” came Gwyn’s soft voice and teasing grin. Nesta blushed hard as her eyes dropped from his face, down the hard planes of a chiselled chest and an eight pack abdomen until it alighted on the outline of something truly huge in the dark shorts. Heat bloomed in her body, while her rational mind felt a slight stab of apprehension at whether it could actually fit inside her.
“Now, Cassian.” Jesiba’s clipped tones cut through the room bringing all the painters out their deliberations on the man’s body. “Why don’t you go through a series of poses… you know similar to those bodybuilders we see in competitions. Then we, as a group, can vote for the best position. Feel free to flex away.”