Chuckling, I smudge out more of the portrait, softening the edges. I think I’m actually going to keep this one—
“Are you ever gonna let me see that?” Elodie asks. Her huffy attitude has done a one-eighty; her voice has become far more serious, tinged with an edge of curiosity. She still sits on the edge of the bed, her legs drawn up to her chest. Her thick dark hair falls in messy waves around her shoulders, wayward strands loose and framing her beautiful elfin face. My blood races at the sight of her.
“It’sofyou, notforyou.”
She pouts. “You’re the cruelest.”
“I know.”
She scoots off the bed and crosses the room, the long t-shirt she stole from me to wear to bed doing a piss-poor job of covering the tops of her bare thighs. I devour the expanse of smooth skin, groaning, my dick growing hard as she straddles my lap and sits herself down on top of me. The wicked little witch knows exactly what she’s doing as she rolls her hips, ‘trying to get comfortable.’I close the artist’s sketch pad and set it down next to me.
‘I’d never write aboutyouand then refuse to let you read it.” She feigns petulance.
“You would. You write about me in that journal of yours all the time—”
“Uh, that’s myjournal!”She tries to pinch my nipple, but she has terrible aim. I defend myself, slapping my palms over my pecs, before she can take another stab at it.
“And?” I ask.
“And journals are private.”
“So is what I draw sometimes,” I counter. “For all intents and purposes, that sketchpadismy journal.”
Elodie’s bottom lip protrudes rather adorably. “Maybe one day you’ll draw something for me, then. On purpose. To make me happy.”
“Making you happyismy eternal quest.” Wrapping my arms around her, I cup her ass with both hands, planting a kiss on the tip of her nose. In return, she winds her fingers through my hair, her blue eyes assessing my face, skipping over my features, as if she’s trying to memorize the lines of my face. Fleetingly, her brows bank together, the expression there one second, gone the next. She wanted to say something. To ask something, maybe. Peppering her jaw with a series of light kisses, I give in to my curiosity and ask. “What?”
“Hmm?”
“Say what you were gonna say.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just…well. Pax and Presley. Their whole situation. It’s so crazy, right? I mean…Presley’spregnant. You think Pax is over there right now, asking her to marry him, for fuck’s sake. It’s all so intense.”
“It is.” I agree cautiously, wondering at the strange note in her tone.
“It just made me think.”
“It’s made you wonder what would happen if it wasusin their shoes?”
She nods.
“I’d marry you tomorrow, Elodie Stillwater, baby or no baby.”
“You’recrazy.” But she blushes, and the coy shading of her cheeks is beautiful. I want to bite her. I want to fuckingeather. Consume her whole, until I’ve claimed all of her as my own and we both cease to exist. The silence would be wonderful. Just me and Elodie, souls threaded together, floating on a sea of black.
“Personally, I think we should wait, though,” I tell her, tucking a thick wave of her hair behind her ear. “I want nothing more than a life with you. But I want to enjoy every single aspect of that life. That means savoring it. Dating. Falling in love. We’ve relishedthoseparts. Now we have living together to enjoy, in a place of our own. We have college, and traveling, and a million other adventures to get through before we run head-long into marriage. We aremayflies,” I tell her, giving her ass another squeeze. “Our lives are bitterly short. We wake up, naked and screaming, and before we know it, we’re already on our way out again. I want to savor every single experience I get to share with you on this earth. I want the little pieces of every single day with you. The good stuff and the bad. Important and inane. I plan on savoring you like dark chocolate. Every microsecond of this life with you will be burned indelibly into my soul before I die. Rushing a second of it won’t do either of us any justice—”
She cuts me off with a kiss. Deep. Powerful. Thrilling. She tastes like honey, and springtime, and sunshine, and every good thing I never thought I’d get to have. When she’s finished with me, she bumps the end of my nose with hers, and then rests her forehead against mine, humming under her breath. “You love people to think you’re some kind of morose, depressed artist—”
“Iama morose, depressed artist.”
She shakes her head, laughing. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re actually one of the sweetest, most romantic people I’ve ever met. And you can forget about pulling that face, Wren Jacobi. No amount of grimacing will make it untrue.”
“If you don’t stop talking, I’m gonna dump your ass on that bed, and then I’m gonna pull your panties down, wrap my hands around your throat, and fuck you raw.”
My Little E’s eyes grow round, her eyebrows floating up toward her hairline. Her pupils are dilated, though. She might be mock concerned about the threat I just made, but in truth, the thought of it is turning her on. She’s sweet, this one. So fucking kind and thoughtful that she makes my teeth hurt in the very best way. But that doesn’t mean that she’s meek. There’s a fire in her belly that burns hotter than hell. Her dark side is that much more thrilling because it’s unexpected. She loves me to be rough with her. She loves to be subservient to me. She loves to give me what I want. Even now, I can feel her pretty little pussy soaking through her panties against my thighs.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she says, with a certainty that belies her nerves. I’m not blind. I can see the way her pulse is fluttering at the base of her throat.
