Body Of Art by Nikki Winter Page B

Rhona talk about Sully more times than she could count over the two years they’d been friends. Sully’s smart, Sully’s funny, Sully’s so talented, blah, blah, blah. But she’d never paid much attention, didn’t even really notice when Rhona flashed her pictures of him or mentioned his tattoo shop in L.A. A lot of the time she was busy doing full on ice baths to keep herself from going slightly insane due to overworked muscles. As a dancer who’d trained in almost everything from ballet to Latin, Channing spent most of her days teaching classes of all ages and styles when she wasn’t on the road with various music artists.
              Her life, however, was in Seattle. No matter how far she traveled away from home, Washington was the only place she could ever truly feel comfortable living. She’d been born and raised in Tacoma by her Nana. When her parents decided the best place for her was with Tessa Harris, that’s where she’d remained. Well, aside from on top of her best friend’s brother fucking him until he had an epileptic fit and a mild coronary. But that didn’t count did it?
              No, no, it couldn’t count. But she wanted it to. Jesus, the man was...he was...he was...he just was goddammit! And yes that made perfect sense in her twisted mind! Sullivan Byrne needed to be in a kilt with leather boots, a sword in his hands and slapped across the cover of some story romanticizing  a barbarian raiding a village, taking a virgin, and defiling her; preferably with Channing playing the part of the defiled virgin. Even though she hadn’t been a virgin in quite some time...
              For a second she allowed her eyes to take him in on one fell swoop. From what she could tell, he was just over six foot three with mile wide shoulders and a body that was made solid; strong. His face was formed from hard angles with floor sweeping lashes just a shade darker than the auburn shoulder length tresses on his head and the stubble over his granite like jaw. His nose was romanesque but his lips were a full soft pink. There was a dimple in his chin and those eyes, good Lord above those eyes, were a cerulean blue so deep that they reminded her of her first spring break trip to the beaches in Huatulco Mexico.
              Being that Rhona herself was absolutely gorgeous, Channing figured that of course, Sullivan would be good looking too. Well wasn’t that just the understatement of the year?
              Channing wasn’t oblivious to her looks, she just chose not to let them define who she was. Outer beauty lasted briefly and once it was gone, you truly got to see what you were left with. Unfortunately, her last three boyfriends didn’t have that same viewpoint. The way she looked was just about everything to them and the fact that she had men traipsing in and out of her class bothered each one. The fear that she’d suddenly hand over her body the same way she did her name, caused some ugly behavior and every relationship was extinguished quickly.
    Now she understood that fear because even though the majority of her clients had been good looking and charming not one of them had ever been able to make her feel as though she were coming out of her skin from just a look. Sully had accomplished that in all of the five minutes that he’d been standing in front of her. If he’d come around while she was in a relationship, she would’ve slipped and fell on his dick. At least she was honest with herself about that.
              Rhona and Keith were set to get married in just two short weeks and she’d told Channing that she planned to ask Sully to do her father-daughter dance with her being that their own father was no longer alive. Channing knew how close the siblings were so she wasn’t surprisedand when Rhona had asked her to be the one to teach Sully the waltz, she figured it would be easy enough. But standing in front of the man in question now, , Channing knew