“It wasn’t easy.”
“I bet. It’s absolutely ethereal.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” But still, pleasure works through me at the compliment.
“I would.” He reaches for the painting, then stops himself at the last second. “Can I—”
“Of course.” I hand it over, then simply stand there, feeling uncomfortable and thrilled and exposed all at the same time.
“I know this view,” he says after a few moments. “This is downtown San Francisco at night.”
“It is.” I’m a little shocked that he recognizes it as, for me, the painting has always been more about the lights in the darkness than it is about any specific location.
“It’s beautiful.” He smiles as he lowers the painting to the ground. “Show me another one.”
“Seriously?” I’m beginning to get annoyed. I’m all for a guy expressing interest in my work, but come on. I can see how hard he is through his tuxedo pants and I’m certainly more turned on than I’ve ever been. I want to fuck, not listen to him wax poetic about my work.
He just smiles, though. “Seriously.”
“Fine.” I paw through the stacks of paintings along the back wall of my apartment until I find the one I’m looking for. Done at the beach during one of my ridiculous and spectacularly unsuccessful “get over my fear of water” phases, it’s a picture of a sailboat out on the open water.
The sun is going down in the background, the sky—and the water—lit up with reds and oranges and purples. And to the left of the painting, about to sail right off the canvas, is a single sailboat. The Cora Lee. I still remember standing there, desperately trying to get the sketch down—the colors down—as she sailed straight past me into infinity.
I find it all the way in the back—it’s been a while since I’ve looked at it—and start to pick it up to hand to him. But Hunter is already there, those deep green eyes of his contemplative as he studies every detail of the painting.
He takes so much time that I start to grow nervous even as I tell myself it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need to like the painting, doesn’t need to get what I’m trying to do with it. But then, when he finally does speak, he says something that has me standing at attention.
“This one’s older.”
“What do you mean? How do you know?”
“Your brushstrokes are really unique. You have a strange kind of pattern to your crosshatching, like right here.” He points to the edges of the painting, where I bled the colors together. “But it’s more tentative, exploratory in this one than it is in the San Francisco night one. Like here, it feels like you were trying it out. You’re torn between the traditional methods you learned in school and the one that feels most comfortable to you. By the time you get to the other one, there’s no hesitation. You’ve embraced the style, and have learned to do more with it.”
Okay. So my mouth is open as I stare at him, shock radiating through me. “How do you—”
“I’m not just a dumb jock you know.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t have to.”
“You know what? You don’t get to be offended by this. A lot of people who aren’t dumb jocks don’t know enough about art to discuss brushstrokes.”
“I guess I should have said, I’m not just a dumb jock. I’m a classics major. With a minor in art history, so…”
“So you actually know who Charles Baudelaire is.”
He grins. “I do.” And then he puts the painting down and turns to me, a predatory gleam in his eyes. I’ve been trying to rush him into bed since we got here, but now I can’t help but take a cautious step back. Then another and another.
He watches my retreat, then matches it step by step. “You know, I’ve always been a little bit of a frustrated artist myself.”
“You are?” I’ve made it halfway across the room now, but so has he. For the first time in my life, I know what it feels to be prey stalked by a sleek, powerful jungle cat.
“I was,” he stresses. “Back in school.”
“Oh, yeah?” I’m starting to babble now but I can’t help it. Having him look at me like that makes me nervous. Very, very nervous. “What kinds of things did you like to draw? Do you still have a sketchbook around? What style did you—”
He stops me with a look. “Take your dress off.”
“What?”
“Take your dress off,” he repeats. “And I’ll show you.”
“Show…me?”
He nods, then waits for me to do what he asked. Or, rather, what he ordered.
For long seconds, I don’t move. I just stare at him, the tension ratcheting up between us as I try to figure out what just happened.
Hunter stares back, waiting to see what I’m going to do.
He doesn’t push me, but then he doesn’t have to. The sense of urgency inside me is as powerful—more powerful—than any trepidation I might have.
And so I do what he asks, bending over slightly to reach the hem of my dress. It’s tight and I wiggle my hips a little to get it moving up my legs to my thighs, my hips, my abdomen.
My eyes are locked on Hunter’s the whole time. I expect him to look away, to follow the progress of the dress as I slowly slide it over my head. But his eyes never waver from mine until I’m forced to cut the connection as I pull my dress over my head.
I drop it on the floor, then stand in front of him in nothing but the lingerie I picked out just for him when I got dressed this evening. I don’t have a lot of sexy lingerie sets yet, but this is my favorite among the ones I do have. Black and lacey and see-through in most places, it’s delicate and beautiful and revealing. So revealing that I feel myself start to shake a little as I stand here, the object of Hunter’s scrutiny.
Maybe it’s ridiculous—after all, he’s already had his fingers and his tongue inside of me. Already given me numerous orgasms. Already made me want like I’ve never wanted in my life. But he’s never seen me like this before—stripped down and all but begging for his favor—and it’s harder, perhaps, than it should be.
He’s Hunter freaking Browning, after all, and his body is perfect. Absolutely perfect. And mine…isn’t. My breasts are too big, my hips too curvy, my legs too short…and as I face his scrutiny, these flaws are all I can think of.
Until Hunter releases a breath I didn’t know he was holding and says, voice hoarse and aching, “You’re so beautiful. So goddamn beautiful you take my breath away.”
My knees buckle a little at the sincerity in his tone, and relief swamps me. Unfreezes me. And I move toward him, reach for him.
He takes my hand, lifts it palm first to his mouth. Then slowly, gently—eyes once again locked on mine—he bites down on the fleshy mound at the base of my palm. I gasp, pull back a little in surprise. But he doesn’t relinquish his hold. Instead, he holds me tight as he licks over the slight hurt.
Heat radiates through me, makes me weak in the way that only Hunter can. But then he’s holding my hand out, using the leverage he gains to spin me around so that my back is to his front. I’m still in the five inch heels I wore to the gala, so our height difference isn’t too terrible, and I relish the feel of his hard thighs against my ass, his erection against my lower back.
“Do you have any idea the things I want to do to you?” he growls against my ear.
I nod, slowly, because there are a million things I want to do to him.
“I want to wreck you,” he continues, voice low and raspy. “I want to give you more pleasure than you’ve ever had. So much that you cry for more, beg for it, and then I want to start all over again.”
His hand slips up my stomach to cup my breast to squeeze my nipple tightly between his thumb and index finger.
“How does that sound?” he asks.
I nod, because he’s robbed me of breath and I can’t force any words through my tight throat.
“But first, this.” He trails his lips over my jaw, down my neck to the curve of my shoulder. He stays
there for a moment, pressing hot kisses to the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck, the back of my shoulder. I sag against him, suddenly unsure if my legs can support my weight as pleasure sparks through me.
But Hunter is having none of it. Instead, he steadies me with hands on my hips and then—when all my leg muscles are working again—he steps back from me.
I make an instinctive sound of protest, but he uses two fingers to tap sharply at my hip and I quiet down immediately. Strange how I’ve never done anything like this before, never given a guy any kind of control over me in bed or out, but I know instinctively what he’s asking for. What he wants. Because with Hunter it’s different and I want—need—nothing more than to give myself over to him completely.
And so I wait for him, for whatever comes next.
But the last thing I expect is for him to drop to his knees behind me. For him to bend my knee and lift my foot so he can slip off first one shoe and then the other. Then he unfastens the top of first one stocking and then the other from my garter belt before slowly, carefully, rolling them down my legs. As he does, he skims his mouth along each inch of skin he reveals, paying careful attention to the sensitive skin at the back of my knees.
I tremble when he kisses there, cry out, and he laughs, a dark, wicked sound that has heat slamming through me. I start to turn, to press myself against him, but his hands clench at my hips, his fingers digging in just a little as he locks me in place.
I freeze at his unspoken command, then wait impatiently for whatever he’s going to do next. But when he pushes to his feet, walks away, I can’t help but whimper just a little. I need his hands on me, crave the pleasure he can give me like an addict craves a fix.
He hushes me from his spot across the room and I watch, confused, as he picks up my palette from where I left it on the top of my painting shelves. He peels off the cover I use to keep the paint moist, then slowly walks back toward me.
“What—” My voice breaks at the look in his eyes, the intensity on his face. I moisten my lips, try again. “What are you doing?”
“Showing you my painting style. It’s what you wanted to see, isn’t it?”
Right now, there’s a lot I want to see, starting with his chest, his abs, his mouthwatering V-cut. But I’m curious, too. I want to know what he’s planning. What he’s going to do—to my paints and to me.
And then he’s right here in front of me, so close that I can reach out and touch him, kiss him, press myself against him. But just as I start to reach for him, he holds out my palette and says, “Hold on to this for me, will you?”
I take it from him—of course I do—then watch, mouth watering, as he shrugs out of his tuxedo jacket and loosens his bow tie. Then he’s unfastening his cuffs, unbuttoning his shirt. “You don’t mind if I take this off, do you?” he asks as he slips it off. “I don’t want to get it dirty.”
I nearly swallow my own tongue as his beautiful body comes into view, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to drop to my knees in front of him. Not to run my hands over his powerful biceps and lean, strong back.
He smiles like he knows what I’m thinking—what I’m feeling—then steps close for just a moment and crushes his mouth down on mine. I gasp at the contact, my tongue tangling with his as he delves deep. But just as I start to melt, he pulls away again, slips the palette from my hands.
And then he’s dipping two fingers in the well of red paint and sliding them slowly, sensuously, down the center of my body.
I gasp at the wet chill of the paint, my body bowing backward in an instinctive effort to get away. But he just wraps his free hand around me, resting his hand on my lower back. “Stay with me,” he growls. “Don’t move.”
I’m helpless to resist the command in his voice, any more than I can resist the soft stroking of his fingers against my skin. “Okay,” I whisper.
He smiles at me, a wicked, wonderful thing, and then dips his fingers into the red again. He draws another line from my bra strap to the top of my mons, then doubles back, crosshatching back and forth across the lines. It should tickle, should feel strange, but all it does is turn me on. Make me tremble as he adds more and more paint to my stomach, his fingers lingering on my skin a little more with each layer of paint.
I try to look down, to see what he’s doing, but he’s kneeling so close that his bent head blocks my view—until all I can see and feel and hear is him.
When he’s satisfied with what my stomach looks like, he hooks his fingers in the tiny straps on the sides of my hips and pulls my panties straight down my legs. And then he’s right there, his paint-messy hands gripping my thighs, spreading them, as he leans forward and licks his way along my sex. Once, twice, then again and again until he’s thrusting his tongue inside of me and I’m careening over the edge, already so far gone that I couldn’t stop myself if I wanted to.
He rides me through it, using his lips and tongue and breath to drag every ounce of sensation out of me. When I can think again—when I can breathe again—I reach for him. Try to pull him up. Try to curl myself around him.
But he just wraps one big hand around my wrists, then moves me so my arms are pinned behind my back. Then he again dips the fingers of his free hand into the palette—which he dropped on the floor sometime during my orgasm—and starts to paint again.
Over and over again he draws his fingers down my stomach, my abs, my hips, my thighs. Over and over again, he lingers at every sensitive spot I have, slowly stoking the need inside of me until I am nothing but an open, throbbing nerve, every part of me focused on the pleasure he brings with every single touch.
He paints in silence, the only sound my disjointed breathing and the small, breathy moans I can’t control. At least until he murmurs, “Turn around.”
And I do, my body and mind so in his thrall at this point that I can do nothing else. Then he’s unhooking my bra, sliding the straps down my arms.
Once it falls to the floor, I start to turn around, but he says, “Don’t,” and I freeze.
He stands, then, and this time he coats his whole hand with paint. And then he’s cupping my breasts from behind, his fingers swirling and dabbing and rubbing until my knees turn weak once more.
“Hunter, please,” I beg, rocking my head back and forth against his chest as I press back into him.
“I’ve got you,” he reiterates. “Just a little longer.” And then he’s flicking at my nipples again and again, coating them with paint even as he drives me closer to orgasm.
But his sense of time is different than mine, because it goes on forever, him peering over my shoulder as he drives me crazy painting God only knows what on my chest. He’s a perfectionist—or a sadist—because he keeps going over and over the same spots, painting and adjusting and fixing until I feel like I’m actually going to lose my mind.
And then he does it all over again.
I’m on the verge of coming again, just from the feel of his fingers on my nipples, when he finally finishes. “Thank God,” I say, my knees nearly crumpling as I pull away.
He catches me—of course he does—then backs up just enough to grab the rags I keep on the kitchen counter.
He quickly wipes his hands off—thank God I use watercolors to paint—and then he’s taking my hand, pulling me toward my bedroom.
“I want to see,” I manage to gasp even though I feel like I’m literally falling apart, like with each touch Hunter is crumbling me into more and more pieces, pieces that will never again feel right without his touch.
I shove the thought down where I don’t have to think about it as he grinds out, “Me, too.”
And then he’s moving me through my bedroom to my dresser—and the vintage mirror I have hanging above it.
“Look,” he says, and I do, gasping at what I see.
Long, thick stems decorate my stomach in shades of green and brown, strong and bold and powerful as they stretch from just below my breasts to my pubic bone. Above them are bold red flowers, decorating my che
st and breasts and neck. For a moment I can’t believe what I’m seeing—the beauty and the power and the detail of it. It’s gorgeous—I’m gorgeous—and for a moment I’m speechless. Completely overwhelmed by the fact that his hands—his powerful, talented, revered hands—are capable not only of all he does with a football, but also of this.
Even my arousal is sublimated by the shock and joy I feel looking at what he’s created. “Oh my God, Hunter. It’s beautiful.”
“You make it beautiful.”
“No.” I tilt my head, look at the detail of what he’s done there and am blown away that he did it backward, while I was pressed against him and he was looking over my shoulder. “How…how did you do this?”
He grins. “I was inspired.”
“I’m inspired. I can’t believe it’s going to be ruined as soon as I take a shower—”
“Oh, it’ll be ruined sooner than that. But this isn’t about the painting,” he tells me as his mouth skims down my cheek to the sensitive spot behind my ear. “It’s about you.”
I moan involuntarily, my head falling back on his shoulder as heat once again streaks through me. “I’m not done—”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs in between flicking at my ear with his tongue, “neither am I.”
“I meant with the discussion. Your art—”
“My art is the last thing I want to talk about right now.” To prove it, he cups my breasts in his hands, his palms smearing the paint as he squeezes my nipples just to the point of pain. “It’s nothing compared to yours. Nothing compared to you.”
“No—”
“Yes,” he grinds out. “You’re beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
And then his hand is on my face, his fingers stroking down my cheeks, leaving small streaks of red paint in their wake. “Look,” he says again. And waits, patiently, until my eyes meet his in the mirror.
“Your eyes slay me. So blue and infinite, sometimes I swear I can sink into them if I stare long enough. I can never tell what you’re thinking, never know exactly what that twisty brain of yours is thinking up. It frustrates me even as it gets me off.”