Read Stabled (The Stables Trilogy #1) for Free Online Page B

panic in public. For all intents and purposes, it looked as if she was meeting someone’s eye. His, though, she couldn’t avoid for long. They demanded her attention.
     
    She sucked in her breath. One blue eye, one green. Mismatched. Hypnotizing. This was what had seemed off about his eyes all day. She’d been so nervous with the interview, with his overwhelming presence, she hadn’t recognized it. Now she did. His heterochromia was inescapable. Her pulse quickened. The imperfection was perfection.
     
    “Y-you don’t have to answer,” she muttered. “I’m sorry.” Her tongue darted out to lick her lip. His eyes followed, lingering on her mouth. When the pause between them weighed too much to bear, she changed the subject. “We didn’t, um, discuss pay. Do you need me to fill out paperwork? Things like that?”
     
    J.B. nodded slightly, his gaze never leaving her. His look was smoldering. “We can do that now. Let’s go to my office.”
     
    As she followed him, she kept seeing more and more of the larger, more abstract paintings. “That artist must be thankful for your patronage.”
     
    “I reckon so.”
     
    “Who is he? Or she? I don’t recognize the work.”
     
    “Why would you?” J.B.’s legs were long, and he did not slow his clip.
     
    Maple stumbled as she fought to keep up, trying to answer without sounding too winded. “Well, I studied art history in college--”
     
    They came to a hall branching away from the main house. All of the doors on it were closed. She remembered his warning-- if they were closed, she was not permitted to look around. It didn’t pique her curiosity; it was his home, this was probably where his bedroom and bathroom were. It wasn’t like the lone stable, looking new and yet forbidden. That was a mystery, far more than a few closed doors.
     
    Besides, he was with her now, opening a door and welcoming her in. She forgot what she’d been saying as she entered his office.
     
    It was the opposite of the living area. Dark, chalkboard black walls. The couch inside the office was dark grey and distinctly masculine. The desk made of glass. A back wall of books, most of them appearing to be ledgers but a few were beautiful, leather bound novels. On the marble floor was a large cowhide rug, its rustic coloring a stark contrast to the simple lines and dark features of the room.
     
    One wall had an interesting piece of art: ten feet of bamboo switches hung vertically in varying lengths and thicknesses.
     
    He gestured to the couch and she sat, forgetting what they’d been talking about. That is, until he sat opposite her, setting a stack of papers on the steel coffee table between them. She reached and grabbed them. As she began to rifle through, he asked her “why art history?”
     
    “Well, not only art history. Double major in that and psychology. I liked learning about people through their art.”
     
    “That’s why you’re curious about the artist? What do you see in the paintings?”
     
    “The ones that caught my eyes first were the large, abstract ones. I thought they were your standard angry and lonely paintings. But there’s more to it. Like, in the ones with blue it seemed like the artist was celebrating the emotions instead of wallowing in them. The paintings are about the seduction of the darkness, reveling in the unattractive emotions.” When looking at them Maple had felt the artist was painting her past. The darkness and the celebration.
     
    Maple was only able to speak to him this much, this openly because her attention was torn between J.B.’s questions and the paperwork on her lap. There was a lot more than she’d expected, much of it with very fine print.
     
    “You paid more attention to the others, though. The ones that aren’t abstract. How do they make you feel?”
     
    Horny. Desperate. Like I’m trapped inside my skin and need someone to whip me out. “They seem like Goya, but if there is any metaphor or allegory in them, I’ve