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Emerson steps back as I pull my sweater over my head, and then my tank top. At first I think it’s to give me space.
Then I see him in the reflection.
He’s a shadow at the edge of the light but his eyes gleam. He’s looking at me the way he looked at my paintings in the gallery.
I should be indignant, that he’s seeing me as an object right now.
I’m not indignant.
I’m simultaneously ashamed and hot for it.
Leggings next. The socks I wore underneath.
Emerson moves back in as I’m wriggling out of my panties, out of breath, my cheeks burning. When I straighten up he puts his hand on my elbow again. I already know this touch. I know how he’ll run it up my arm, to my shoulder, to the side of my neck—
He makes a collar of his hand, and I can’t breathe. I can’t move. His grip is more commanding than it was in the gallery, and I’m wearing far less clothing. With his other hand, he makes soothing strokes down my arm.
“One more,” he says.
I lift shaking hands to take off my bra and drop it to the floor. He’s closer now. His expensive clothes brush against my back. He’s hard underneath those clothes. Every part of him is hard—abs, chest, cock.
“Such a good little painter,” he murmurs into my ear. “Now pick up your paints.”
I have to bend to do it. The motion pushes my ass against him. He doesn’t give at all. He wants to do this. I’m on fire with shame, and with this heat between my legs, and with his hand on my throat. I have a brush in my hand, though I don’t remember choosing one. I have the paint.
“Deep water,” Emerson says. “Paint how it feels right now.” He moves me around to the front of the stool by the throat and tugs me onto it. I have to step back and up, but I make it. And then I’m painfully aware of how naked I am.
Protests rise to my tongue and drown in his touch. I normally start with a sketch. But his hand across my airway, his other hand playing at my hip, the hard stool under soft flesh, oh my god—it’s all so much that I don’t know how to sketch.
The moment hangs.
And I understand.
He’s going to be still—he won’t touch me, won’t take this further until I paint.
Blue goes onto the brush.
The moment I touch it to the canvas, his hands move. One stays firm on my throat while the other presses flat on my belly and rises to circle my nipples with a fingertip. I paint the suggestion of a wave, way up near the top of the canvas. Add black near the bottom. I hardly have any control over my brushwork. I don’t know how I’m supposed to, when Emerson’s touching me. Goose bumps chase after every trace of my skin. It’s like I’m being outlined. It’s like he’s finding my edges.
I want him to find another place.
But I don’t have the words to beg him for it. I’m concentrating too hard on painting. I’m trying to ignore the fact of my body’s responses. Not because it doesn’t feel good, but because it feels so good that I’m losing my composure. I’m in the middle of filling in a swath of roiling blue when I discover myself rocking on the edge of the stool, my thighs spread for him without Emerson having to say a word.
He notices at the same time I do—or maybe he’s waited for me to notice first.
Slowly, tortuously, he runs his hand down to my thigh. All the way to my knee. He skims his fingers back up. I open for him even more, making furious swipes with the brush.
He avoids the wet, aching place I want him to touch and a frustrated noise escapes me.
Emerson laughs. He smells so good, like an icy wind with a core of warmth, a hint of something spicy and male. His laugh is delighted.
It’s almost cruel.
He rolls one of my nipples between his thumb and forefinger. Pleasure feels like the roots of a plant, driving deep into the ground in thin tendrils. It reaches down the length of my body. I want him to touch me. I want him to make me come. And he is touching me, but not where I need.
Layers of paint go onto the canvas. The water is so choppy it looks like it’s going to explode into my face. Arousal drips down the inside of my thigh. Oh, Jesus. On instinct I try to close my legs, to hide it from him, but Emerson’s hand blocks me. He yanks my thighs back open and squeezes at my throat. A bolt of real fear flashes through me. He must feel it, because he wraps his other arm around me and holds me still.
“Shh,” he says into my ear. “Just paint.”
