Page 41 of Married to My Sis’s Bratva Fiancé

"I was studying anatomy. I wasn't staring at men."

The more she explained, the clearer the images got in my head.

Elena behind an easel, calmly looking over some stranger's bare body. Maybe she bit the end of her pencil when she didn't like a line. Maybe she stepped closer and used her fingers to check the direction of his muscles.

Unless he was dead, he wasn't staying unaffected by the way she looked at him. He would've seen her brows knit in thought, seen her tongue touch her lower lip without her noticing—then he would've sat there with that damn hunger while she studied him.

Heat flared in my chest.

"Don't draw them anymore." I snapped the sketchbook shut.

Elena didn't get angry. She just looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

"They are just models."

"Their bodies aren't worth your time."

"There isn't any 'worth it' or 'not worth it' with the human body. Everyone's bones, muscles, age, everything they've lived through—it all leaves different lines."

"Then you need better models."

Before she could even process it, I started unbuttoning my shirt. First button. Second. The brush slipped from her fingers and hit the floor.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"You said you need a figure model."

I pulled the shirt off and tossed it over the back of a chair. The scars crossing my chest showed under the light. This body had been wrecked by too many fights—nothing like those clean-skinned young models in her book.

If the scars ruined what she wanted to draw, then stripping like this was fucking stupid.

Elena's gaze tracked from my stomach to my chest. Her ears went red.

"You don't need to do this."

I didn't answer. I unbuckled my belt and bared the rest of me.

Her eyes slid down before she could stop them, then snapped back up to my face like she'd touched a hot stove. The blush on her cheeks deepened.

"Kiryan."

She said my name like a warning, but the little tremor at the end gave her away—shy, rattled.

"You said it is basic training." I sat down on the window bench.

She let out a breath, grabbed a charcoal pencil, and set her paper. She made a few measuring motions, but she didn't look at me once.

"Why aren't you looking?"

"I am thinking about composition."

Her mouth pressed tight. The charcoal scratched over the paper. After a moment, she finally glanced up.

"When you drew other men, did you stare between their legs this long?" I caught her gaze.

Her charcoal nearly snapped in half.

"If you talk less, I'd finish faster."