Filled with spirit and creativity.
There's only one thing for me to do.
I have a bad habit of sticking my tongue out the side of my mouth when I'm concentrating really hard, and while painting is normally something that tends to flow naturally, I've been playing with new techniques, so it's requiring some attention to detail. My art forte is definitely watercolors, but I've been playing with mixed media lately. I hope to start working on it with my high school students soon. Tonight specifically, I'm working on a piece I started with a basic drawing done with my graphite pencil, and then filled in with acrylics.
The drawing is simple and slightly abstract. Two cats with elongated necks and triangular heads that make them look slightly alien. I'm painting one in gray and the other in black, and I think it's turning out nicely. It's far too modern for my personal tastes, but Miranda loves stuff like this, so it will be a gift to her.
I put a slight dab of white into the iris of one of the cat's eyes so as to create reflective light. Turning to lay my brush on a side table, I jolt with fright over the figure standing in the doorway of my studio. I immediately recognize Kyle there, actually leaning casually against the doorjamb as he watches me, but my heart is still thundering. I know that has to do with the scare I just had, but it continues on because of how hot he looks in just a pair of jeans hanging low on his lean hips and his muscular and tattooed expanse of abs and chest for me to behold.
"How long have you been standing there?" I say almost breathlessly as I press my fingers to the center of my chest.
"Not long," he says and pushes off the doorjamb. He walks into the room and looks around. It is mostly filled with finished paintings and a few easels, rows of shelving on one wall to hold my supplies, and a tiny desk against another wall where I do stuff like reconciling my bank account or surfing online on my laptop.
"I'm sorry if I woke you up," I murmur as I watch him prowl around the edge of the room, taking a moment to pause by the shelves and peruse my paint supplies.
"You didn't," is all he says without looking at me. Instead, he picks up a brush, inspects it briefly, and then puts it down. I find this reserved attitude a bit disconcerting. I mean, it's always sort of awkward that next morning after some amazing and intimate sex, but I wasn't ready for him to invade my little studio that is sort of like a haven for me.
He turns to me, his eyes sliding to my canvas where the cats are almost complete. "Nice pussies," he says with a smile.
I roll my eyes, but I'm immediately relieved to have him joke with me. "Juvenile," I chastise.
Kyle chuckles as his gaze slides to me. "Nowhere near as nice as yours."
I blush hot, which means my cheeks are probably blazing red. He smirks, which means he notices, and then adds on in a low voice. "I know without a doubt they don't taste as good as yours."
My face gets hotter, but I manage a snappy retort. "Acrylic paint tastes terrible."
Kyle grins at my rejoinder and turns to my desk. To my surprise, he grabs the small wooden chair nestled underneath and pulls it across the floor to sit right behind my stool. He takes a seat and his long, jean-clad legs frame the rear of my stool on either side.
"What are you doing?" I ask curiously.
"Going to watch you paint," he says.
My entire body tightens at the thought. "I don't think--"
Kyle's hands go to my hips. He turns me on my stool, so I'm facing my canvas again. "Paint," he orders.
"Kyle--"
His chin goes to my shoulder, and he softly repeats, "Paint."
A tiny spasm of adrenaline rockets through me at his seductive tone, but also because he wants to watch me do something that's a part of my very being.
"Okay," I whisper, and Kyle lifts his chin.
I continue using white to add highlight and contrast shading along the body of the black cat, my own body in a state of hyper awareness of Kyle's just inches behind mine. I swear I can feel heat radiating off him.
"Where do you get your ideas from?" Kyle asks, and I give a little jump to feel his breath on the back of my neck. I'd piled my hair up when I'd quietly slipped out of bed, only bothering to put on my panties and the t-shirt I'd been wearing.
I give a tiny shrug. "I'm really not sure. Sometimes I'll see an object that will spark an idea, or I'll read about a scene in a book and feel compelled to paint it."
"The colors in this are deeper than your watercolors," he observes astutely.
I nod as I continue with my brush strokes, feeling more at ease as we talk. "Good eye, and that's the benefit of acrylics. I'm not used to painting with this, but I'll get better with practice."
"Why are you using them if it's not what you're used to?" he inquires.
I draw a thin white line of paint along the jawline of the gray cat. "I like learning new things, and I need more than just watercolors to teach my students."
"Makes sense," is all he says.
Kyle's silent as he watches me for a few moments, and just as I start to really relax into my work, his hands come back to rest on my waist. I can hear him scoot the chair forward until it bumps against the back of my stool. He leans forward and presses his chest to my back, his chin coming back to my shoulder.
My brush freezes on the canvas and my breath goes still within my lungs.
Kyle's hands slide down over my hips to my outer thighs. His roughened palms cause goose pimples to rise as he strokes them along my legs.
"I have to say, Jane," he says gruffly, his lips mere inches from my ear. "You sitting here in that t-shirt and just your panties, hair all piled up and that little tongue sticking out the side of your mouth... Well, I had nefarious intentions walking in here."
Kyle's hands pivot and his fingers glide over the insides of my knees. With very little pressure needed at all, he pulls my legs slightly apart and then starts sliding his hands up my inner thighs. I go dizzy from his touch, his sexy voice, and perhaps the fact I'm still holding my breath. As his hands slide higher, my legs press in a little just from the nervous anticipation.
"Relax, baby," Kyle whispers as he puts pressure on my legs so they open again.
My breath comes out in small, stuttering huffs, and I suck another lungful in as his fingertips skim the elastic edge of my panties.
"Want to know what my nefarious intentions are?" he teases me as he runs just one finger along the edge.
I nod frantically but no words come out.
"Let me show you," he murmurs, his hands falling away from me briefly.
I almost call out in distress over the loss of his touch, but then he's banding an arm around my stomach, pulling me back so my ass presses against his crotch. His other hand glides slowly down the front of my panties, his fingers sliding through my wetness before pressing inside of me.
My hips buck hard against his delicious invasion, my head falls back to his shoulder, and my paintbrush falls from my hand. It slaps against my thigh, leaving a white paint streak and landing on the floor, but I don't care one tiny bit.
"Don't stop," I moan as he finds my clit, circling his finger around it gently.
"Just getting started," he assures me as he continues tracing lazy patterns.
"More," I demand greedily, planting my feet into the floor hard and pressing my hips up.
Kyle gives a low groan of triumph. "That's my girl."
My heart constricts hard over those words.
My girl.
"Lift up a bit," Kyle demands of me, so I do, raising my ass off my stool. Kyle quickly dispenses of my panties, leaning to the side a bit to push them down my legs. Once he frees one foot, he ignores them and straightens back up in his chair before once again pulling me back against him.
He brings a palm down in between my legs, cups me intimately for a moment as he again leans to the side.
I'm confused when he says, "Watch."
Kyle dips his fingers inside me briefly before dragging them upward to reveal my clit. He pulls back on the tiny hood covering
it, and I'm enthralled by how swollen and needy it looks.
Then I'm absolutely stunned when I see that Kyle has one of my paintbrushes in his other hand. He must have nabbed it off my supply shelf, but it's one that has luxuriously soft bristles.
I suck in my breath and watch as Kyle takes the brush and swirls the bristles along the inside of one thigh. I jerk because it tickles and laugh nervously.
But my laugh dies down when he slowly drags the brush in between my legs, and ever so gently swipes it right up my center. My hips fly upward. Kyle's arm holds me tighter as he uses his other hand to hold me open.
"Watch, Jane," he murmurs, his voice thick with wonder and lust.
And I watch as he uses the damp bristles to circle around my clit, and the sensation is indescribable. My entire body starts to tremble as I watch him getting me off with my paintbrush. He carefully dips the tip inside of me just marginally... enough to get it wet, and then he makes light strokes against my clit, over and over again.
My body trembles harder and my hands turn into claws that I sink into his thighs.
The strokes are so feather light, and he's purposely going slowly to draw this out, whereas I only want to come and come and come.
"God, this is sexy as fuck," Kyle mutters in my ear as he twirls the brush around my clit, going a little faster. My entire body goes tight. "We need to try this while I'm fucking you."
And just like that, I explode.
I groan out my release as he continues to swirl the brush around me, whispering words of praise and encouragement, and when I don't have any more to give, he tosses the brush to the floor and merely places his large palm over my crotch to gently squeeze me possessively.
"Kyle," I murmur in repletion, still dizzy from that climax.
"Get up," Kyle commands me gently, his hands going to my hips to push me up from the stool. The minute my legs straighten, he's turning me to face him. My hands go out to his shoulders for balance, and I watch as he quickly unfastens the fly on his jeans. He lifts his hips a little, pulling them down just enough to free himself. I watch with wide eyes because that part of him is just as beautiful as the rest, marveling at how quickly he gets a condom out and rolls it on.
I give a tiny gasp of surprise as Kyle's hands go back to my hips and he jerks me forward. He looks up at me with fevered eyes and admits something I think shames him by the tone of his voice. "I can't get enough of you."
Before I can even respond, he surges out of the chair and spins me toward the nearest wall, right beside my desk. He pushes me right up against it, my breasts flattening and my heart racing with his forcefulness.
Kyle's mouth comes to the side of my neck and he bites me gently before giving me a soft lick. His hands pull my hips backward and I feel his body bend, then he's pushing inside of me.
Straight inside, one long, fluid stroke.
"Ooohhh," I moan as I turn my head and place my heated cheek against the cool wall.
Kyle grunts in pleasure before he pulls out and thrusts back in hard. My body jars against the wall as he starts a steady rhythm, and I realize... this is new as well. So many things that Kyle is showing me that in my totally boring previous sex life had seemed like pretty good stuff.
But now... now that I know this...
I think I might be ruined for anyone else after Kyle leaves.
CHAPTER 22
Kyle
I pull a small cooler from the back of my truck, keeping half an eye on Jane as she spreads out a navy-blue blanket on the grass. She'd suggested a drive over to Acadia again. When I picked her up, she surprised me by coming out of her house with a picnic basket. She announced as she jumped in the truck that we'd have to stop for some drinks, and so we graced a rundown-looking mini mart before we hit the ferry and purchased a cheap Styrofoam cooler, a small bag of ice, and a six-pack of Coke.
Here I am, a man in hiding, having spent the past several years selling my soul to the devil, getting ready to sit down with the sweetest, sexiest woman I've ever known to have a motherfucking picnic.
I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.
It's felt like that for the past two weeks since Jane and I have been regularly seeing each other. And by seeing each other, I mean there's been a whole lot of orgasms dished out, intermixed with what you could call "dates," I guess. That included going on a double date to dinner with Miranda and some dude she's banging, but it's totally not serious. It also included a trip to the county fair where Jane screamed and dug her nails in my leg during every ride, except for the Ferris wheel, where we made out like teenagers at the top. We then gorged ourselves on corn dogs, cotton candy, and elephant ears until my stomach hurt so bad I didn't think I'd be able to fuck her that night.
I did, however, persevere.
Jane also convinced me to go to dinner at her parents' house one night. This was something I internally balked at, as I genuinely liked Jane's mom, Meredith, and didn't want to string her along by letting her think this was something lasting with her daughter. I had a hard time sitting at a woman's table, eating her food and knowing I was probably going to hurt her daughter in the long run.
Didn't matter that her daughter knew that going into this and had agreed to it; it still made me feel bad. I only agreed because Jane sensed my reluctance before I could even accept the invitation, and she quickly backpedaled. I saw the clear disappointment and sadness in her eyes that I couldn't give her this little bit of normalcy in this crazy relationship we had, and even as she was saying, "Never mind I asked. I'll come up with a good excuse for my parents," I was saying, "Of course, I'd be glad to go."
Turns out, it was nice and her parents are great, but it only served to remind me how different my world is from Jane's. She adores her parents and has a natural and easy relationship with them. I can't imagine how that might be affected if they knew what was really going on between their daughter and me.
I carry the cooler over to the blanket. After setting it down on a corner so it's not lifted by the breeze, I take a seat on one side as Jane removes items from her basket.
"I made some fried chicken and potato salad," she says as she pulls out some paper plates. "And I was going to make some cookies but decided to buy them instead at the bakery. No sense in ruining this outing for us."
Chuckling, I take a plate from Jane and put a piece of chicken onto it. It smells phenomenal. There's something about the fact that Jane made it that makes me believe it will be the best chicken I've ever had. Today will no doubt go down as one of the best days ever, which I seem to think a lot when I'm around this woman.
As Jane dishes me some potato salad, I take a bite of the chicken and groan. Her eyes snap to me.
"That's fucking amazing," I mumble around my food before chewing.
She ducks her head almost shyly, which is not like Jane, but I've come to find out that she actually doesn't take a compliment very well. She's almost embarrassed when I do. I find that charming and sad at the same time. I suspect that's because she's not had a lot of genuine accolades from men before, which is totally odd given how amazing she is. Also odd is the fact that I hand out compliments to her. Never been that kind of dude, but she brings it out of me and I can't fucking help myself.
"Miranda's thinking about dumping Jim," Jane says off-handedly before licking a bit of potato salad off her thumb.
"The guy who went to dinner with us a few nights ago?" I ask, then take another bite of chicken.
Jane nods as she selects a drumstick from the container of fried, spicy goodness.
"Thought his name was Tom," I say after I swallow and put my chicken down on the plate. I reach over into the cooler to pull out two Cokes, popping the top on one before handing it to Jane.
"Was it?" she asks as she accepts the Coke and takes sip.
"Yeah," I tell her, and then try a bite of potato salad. "And damn... that's amazing too."
"The secret is to add a little poultry seasoning in it," she says with a nod down to the container before lo
oking back to me. "Tom, Jim... whatever. The point is she wants to dump him."
"Didn't care for the guy anyway," I say as I continue to eat. "And I could totally tell he wasn't Miranda's type."
Which also seems to say something about how I've integrated into Jane's life since I've even gotten to know her best friend quite well. I've been around her enough to know that she needs a good guy with a strong hand who won't take her bullshit. Apparently, though, she either gravitates to assholes with low self-esteem or wimps who like to kiss her ass.
Jane snickers. "He so was not Miranda's type. And that thing he did with his nose..."
"That snuffling noise whenever he finished a sentence?"
"What was that?" She laughs.
"No fucking clue, but it was driving me batty," I commiserate.
"Oh, my God," Jane says as she continues to laugh. "Can you imagine them in bed together? 'Oh baby, that feels so good.' Then that god-awful snuffling sound."
I watch, chicken poised halfway to my mouth, as Jane laughs with abandon. With such radiance. Green eyes shimmering whimsically. Completely in the moment... with me... sharing something that we both found funny as hell.
Sharing something with me that I don't remember having in forever and a day.
I drop the chicken to the paper plate and reach across the expanse of the blanket. I lean toward Jane at the same time I cup the back of her head to pull her toward me, and I lay a swift but soft kiss on her mouth before I release her.
Her eyes are wide with surprise when I pull back, because I'm not the most spontaneously affectionate person.
"That was different," she says.
"It was?" I ask, feigning ignorance.
She nods. "You usually only kiss me when you... well, you know... you want sex."
That would be true. I love kissing Jane, which leads to fucking ten times out of ten.
But that wasn't my intent just now. Hell, I'm not even sure what my intent was, but I was filled up with a gloriously warm, euphoric feeling that was due solely to the woman sitting across from me and, before I knew it, I was giving her a kiss.
I try to play it off though. Looking around at the picnic area, I casually say, "Who says I don't want to have sex here?"
Jane rolls her eyes at me, and I grin. Crazy how easy my smiles have been coming the last few weeks.