Covered In Paint: Book Five of the Art Of Love Series Read Online Free PDF Page A

idea of maybe being just a brain in a vat. It would be nice to think someone else was pulling the strings on the mess I call a life.”
    Brooke smiled when Drake walked into the room looking every bit as sexy as he had last time she saw him. Her smile widened as she considered asking him to help her discourage her male students. Drake’s mature good looks would be every bit as intimidating as Shane’s size.
    “Hello, Dr. Barrymore. Are you lost? What brings the art department chair to the philosophy building?”
    Brooke smiled at Drake’s uniform of khakis and a blue polo. It was his teaching uniform, but his shirts did some pretty amazing things to those very wide shoulders of his. She looked at her own khaki slacks and green sweater, shaking her head at the similarities in their clothes.
    “I just came to see you. I hope you don’t mind that I conned your schedule from the admin.”
    “Of course I don’t mind. Did everything turn out all right for Brandon and Chelsea?” Her tone turned serious as she recalled the previous time she had seen Drake. It had been a long two weeks ago.
    “I don’t think Shane has killed anyone yet if that’s what you’re asking. I did hear from Brandon that Chelsea was grounded from dating for three months. Shane and Reesa told her it was for having poor taste in guys. Brandon seemed quite pleased to hear she was staying home these days.”
    “Why are heroic men so rarely kind to the damsels they rescue?” Brooke demanded, laughing at her rhetorical question.
    Drake laughed. “Chelsea’s hero still carries the remnants of a black eye, which covered part his forehead and one entire side of his face. The other guy’s hand must have been huge.”
    Sighing as he remembered Brooke’s help that evening, Drake slipped his hands into his pockets. As usual, his restless fingers wanted badly to explore the young and beautiful Brooke Daniels.
    “Well, all I can say is while you are a seriously lousy date, you seem to be a very good father.”
    Brooke grinned at the obviously nervous man, softening her sarcasm in case he took it wrong. When Drake laughed and grinned back at her, butterflies danced in her stomach. The chemistry between them was always strong and always present. It was everything else that got in their way.
    Drake had a teenage son in college, and the responsibility of one and a half jobs. She was trying to get used to Lexington and trying to be the best first year professor she could be. It also didn’t help she now had a new step-family who didn’t often recognize boundaries. Anyway you looked at it, their very different lives didn’t seem to mesh well.
    So why was she trying so hard to stay available? Exclusivity in any form had never worked out well for her in the past.
    Maybe she was losing her ability to date.
    After a couple seriously lousy ones with men her own age, rescuing Drake’s son and Chelsea was the best time she’d had with a man in months. She’d hung around Drake’s house and held his hand while Brandon had gone over the details several hundred times.
    She had also run interference with her new stepfamily when a frantic Reesa and a worried Shane had come tearing through Drake’s door. Sighing, Brooke pushed away the memories. The evening had not been a date in any real sense. She had obviously sunk pretty low on any dating scale to be considering a family emergency as one.
    “Are you adjusting better to having Brandon back home? Things any less chaotic?”
    Drake shook his head. “I’m glad he picked a closer college, but I’m going to miss the neutrality that came with the distance. Ignorance really can be bliss. Like most parents, I ended up learning that painful lesson the hard way.”
    Brooke smiled. “I picked a school in Columbus. It seemed far enough away from Lexington and Mom, without being too far to come home when I wanted.”
    Drake nodded. “Sounds like a smart strategy.”
    “Not really. It was totally done for