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I deliver this low and soft, because this is a crucial moment. Daphne’s eyes are locked on mine. It’s very nearly unbearable. I’m turning it into art second by second. Frame by frame. It feels fucking filthy to do it. Resentment flashes through me. Hurt. It’s been chipping away at my resolve. What that bastard said cut into me, though I’ll never admit it. It’s shaken something at the foundation of me. The world keeps breaking through, breaking in.
No. None of that now. Only Daphne. Focus on her eyes. On her face. The shadows playing there, the light. Her expanded pupils. Trust me, little painter. Don’t look too close.
“I think—” So tentative. “I think I would like that.”
As if she’s asking me. As if she wants my permission for her to like it. Jesus fuck. By the time I’m done with her, she’ll be formed to me. Commissioned for me.
“You don’t think, little painter. You know.”
“I know you want more. You told me you want more.”
“I’m going to take more.”
Attake, her lashes flutter closed for a split second, her chin tilts up, and her balance shifts ever so slightly toward me.
“I want that,” she says. “I want you to take more from me.”
I lean down and kiss her. Daphne’s tongue meets mine. She lets me in. It feels like falling. I have to arrest the drop. Just a little longer now. For her. So she won’t try to escape.
When I pull back, her hands come up and twist into my shirt. I let her hold on for a beat. Brush my thumb over her cheekbone.
“Be brave for me.” Daphne nods.Hummingbird, I think. Quick. Flighty. Delicate. “Go over to your canvas and take off all your clothes.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Daphne
The only easything is the walk to the easel. I’ve walked up to a canvas a million times in my life. Except this one has a spotlight. The spotlight reflects in Emerson’s huge windows. I won’t be able to see the ocean like this. I’ll have to paint it by memory.
I’ll have to paint it with my pulse beating in my ears and all of my skin flushed with heat.
I’ve imagined this moment every day since Emerson first asked me to come with him. I never imagined I’d be brave enough to do this. Or reckless enough to do this. I never imagined I would feel this much guilt.
Or desire.
Except when I get to the canvas, and find myself under that light, I can’t do it.
Emerson is opening drawers, moving around the room, gathering things. And I’m frozen. I try to get my bearings. There’s a little table near the easel, narrow and tall, and a stool. I haven’t moved at all when he slides a palette onto the table. Lays out three brushes.
“Choose,” he says.
I force myself to look at him. He has a portable case of paints open in his hands, and it’s momentarily distracting enough to ground me. White. Black. Different blues. I pull them out and try not to think. Emerson takes the case away while I put paint onto the palette. It’s made for oil paints. Wooden and solid and traditional.
This is the least traditional painting I’ve ever done.
I set it back down.
Emerson moves behind me and skims his hand over my elbow. He did this that night in the gallery, too. I remember it. It calms me. I don’t know how he knows to do this. To move his hand slowly up my arm to the side of my neck.
“Are you embarrassed?”
I’ve never been naked in front of a man before, and now I’m in an actual spotlight, reflected in the window. “Yes.”
His hand moves down. Slides under my sweater. Works into the fabric of my leggings. I stop breathing. His fingers move gently between my legs.
“The little painter likes a bit of shame,” he comments. Emerson pulls his hand away. “But you’re testing my patience.”
Warning edges his tone, and my heart pounds. He’s eaten me before. I can be brave for him. I can do this.
