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“Rest, angel,” I command. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
With my promise, she finally gives in, her eyes closing the rest of the way as she drifts off to sleep. Sweet thing. After the day she’s had so far, she desperately needs the rest. I’ll give her that, then give her what we both want—my cock buried inside her virgin pussy.
Leaving my woman safe in my bed, I quietly tread down the hallway to the staircase leading to my basement. The basement is a dark, dry storage space, and the paintings I previously set aside for the gallery are stacked against the walls, ready to be packed into the van and driven to the gallery.
I finished the last painting in this series two weeks ago. They’re fully dry and ready to go. But I couldn’t let Sasha leave so quickly—not before we had time to explore what was developing between us.
I trace my fingers over the top of the nearest canvas. It’s one of my bigger canvases, a dense abstract painting inspired by an encounter I had with some deer on an early morning walk. The colors are rich and lush, and the layered, heavily textured paint has dried beautifully. I have no doubt that it will do well at the gallery show.
Yet guilt gnaws at me as I check over my paintings. I wish I hadn’t lied to Sasha to keep her around. But it’s the only lie I’ll ever tell her. I make that promise to myself now.
I grab a blank canvas, already stretched and ready to go, from the storage area in the basement. With it tucked under my arm, I walk quietly up the stairs, and then up into my loft, careful to make as little sound as possible.
I move the in-progress landscape I’d been working on off my easel and prop it against the wall. In its place, I set up the blank canvas. Then I turn on my radio in the corner, keeping it as low as it can go. The quiet classical music is barely audible.
Lowering myself onto my wooden stool, I gaze at the canvas and let myself sink into the familiar empty space. In my mind’s eye, the painting begins to take shape. I see the generous curves of her thighs, hips, waist. I see the flowing curtain of her hair. I see the plumpness of her full lips when she smiles at me before pulling me in for a kiss.
I clear a space on my table and begin mixing the paints, creating the colors I can already see in my mind: rich reds, soft grays, the deep auburn brown of her hair. It’s a palette unlike any I’ve ever used before, and the colors speak to me in a thrilling way.
I pick up my paintbrush and begin to work.
Time melts away as I lose myself in the work. This intense and immersive state of being is the part of painting I love most. It’s the reason I started painting in the first place, and the reason art was able to save me at my lowest point.
But even then, painting has never felt like this. The image arises organically on the canvas, like I’m summoning it into existence instead of just painting it. Painting has never felt this fluid, this frictionless. Even though she’s asleep far below me, I can still taste her on my lips and can still smell the sweet floral of her perfume as I work.
When I finally step away from my canvas, blinking back into reality, the moon is high in the sky. My studio is dimly lit by a single lamp, and the pale moonlight falls in wide stripes through the tall glass windows.
The painting is unfinished, but it’s already a beauty. It’s an abstract painting of Sasha lying on her side, the voluptuous curves of her body dramatically pronounced, her dark hair falling like waves over her body.
Each stroke of my brush is visible on the canvas, as is usual for my impasto style—but this time, it’s different. The brush strokes look gentler, more delicate, while still confident. And passionate. I was moving the brush the way I touched her—with care and intention, but certainty. I was sure of my feelings for her, even before I realized I had those feelings at all.
No one could lay eyes on this painting and misunderstand what my heart wants.
I carefully slide the painting under a covering built into the wall, which is there to protect my works-in-progress. Then I stretch my arms overhead and roll my neck, working out the kinks that developed as I was engrossed in my painting. I’m not the young, spry painter I used to be.
I take the stairs mindfully, careful to avoid the creaky areas. I scrub the paint off my hands, then change out of my stained clothes and into a clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.
Behind the dressing screen, Sasha is sound asleep in my bed, just as I left her. When I slide under the covers to join her, she stirs, then tucks herself into the crook of my arm.
“You came back,” she murmurs sleepily.
“Of course I did.”
She makes a warm sound of pleasure in her throat and nuzzles closer, her belly and her thick thighs pressing against me. My cock was already half-hard from the sight of her in my bed, but when her body comes in contact with mine like that, it leaves me with a steel rod in my pants.
I dip my mouth down to hers and brush my lips over hers, urging her further out of sleep. Her plush lips smile against mine. When her eyes blink open, her hazel irises shine in the moonlight.
“Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi, angel.”
“I missed you.” She laughs softly. “Listen to me. This is ridiculous. I only just met you.”
I nip at her lips. “Doesn’t feel like we just met.”
“No,” she says. She’s fully awake now, but still speaking softly. “No, it doesn’t.”
I smooth a hand over her hip and start to tug off her skirt, guiding it down her plump legs beneath the sheets. Having already ripped off her panties earlier, the removal of her skirt leaves her bare from the waist down. All she has on now is her white blouse, but the buttons pop open easily beneath my fingers.
