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“I can’t do it again,” I tell him.
“You will, little painter. You’re going to show our guests how beautiful pleasure is.”
He’s so skillful with his fingers that I can’t get the word no out. I don’t want to. He’s less gentle this time. He fucks me harder with his thick fingers. He’s much more insistent. So much so that my body is rocked against the wall. The canvas creaks. It’s loud.
It’s bolted down, but I can still feel it shifting ever so slightly. The sound is dramatic. I try my hardest not to make anymore noise but it’s the only way I can handle being finger-fucked while I’m tied up in this frame in front of people.
Emerson puts his thumb on my clit.
“It’s going to be too much.”
“No. It’s not. It will be just gorgeous. Show them, Daphne. Don’t keep it to yourself.”
All the sensation overwhelms me. His fingers. The heat between my legs. The stretch.
A hint of panic. I’ve never done this in front of anyone but Emerson before.
And they’re—they’re watching so closely. Three sets of blue-green eyes, filled with lust. They’re all hard, pants bulging, but I’m still nervous as hell. My breath catches.
“Here,” Emerson says, and somehow I understand what he means.
To look at him.
Not them.
His eyes are different. The same color as his brothers’, except for a little variation, but he’s the only one who looks at me this way. Like he’s seeing into my soul. Owning it. Like I’m the most valuable possession he’s ever had. The most precious. It feels like a physical heat, spreading up into my belly, into my chest. The ropes are nothing compared to his gaze. That’s what holds me in place more than anything else.
“For me,” he says, his voice low. “I want you to show them, little painter.” His thumb circles my clit. “Show them, Daphne. I want them to see how beautiful you are when you come on my fingers. When you’re good and sweet in your frame.” He fucks me a little harder. The trembling starts in my toes and comes up like a wave. He’s making this happen to me. With his voice. With his hands. With his eyes.
I suck in a breath. I’m not sure what I was planning to say.
I don’t get a chance.
Pleasure rolls over me. Shakes my body. Tosses me in my bindings. It rattles the frame.
“Yes,” Emerson says. He’s pleased, and that makes me come harder. “Look at you. The pleasure on your face is priceless. What a good little painter. This is why I wanted you to be part of my collection. I never want to look at anything else.”
He pushes his fingers in deep and makes me ride it out on them. I wish I could cover my mouth, but I can’t. I just have to let the sounds happen.
The aftershocks last and last. Emerson’s fingers feel even thicker inside me. In the hazy aftermath I manage to look at his brother’s again.
They look entranced. Jealous, almost.
It takes a while to catch my breath. Emerson circles my clit in slow, soothing movements.
“When you find a piece like this,” he says, “you do whatever it takes to acquire it. When the art is evocative, you make it yours. When you feel…” He pauses, and I feel another, separate aftershock. His eyes. They’re sincere and open, exactly as intense as always. “When a painting makes you feel something, it’s essential that ownership transfers to you. That’s what a good collector does. He recognizes value. Beginners can only understand technique and provenance, but those things aren’t as important as emotion.”
My throat closes. My heart pounds. This is the most I’ve heard Emerson say about the way he feels about art. About his collection.
About me.
“I’ve seen hundreds of paintings. Thousands.” The corner of his mouth turns down, just a little, and I see all those paintings flicker through his eyes. “I’ve bought and sold countless pieces. The ones I choose for my personal collection are different. There’s a feeling.” He lifts his free hand and puts it at a place near his heart, and his gaze goes distant for a blink. “It’s this faraway ache. When I feel that, I know a painting will become valuable if it’s not already. I’ve felt it about older paintings before. I’ve made millions on them. The pieces in my collection will only appreciate in value. Not everyone can recognize an evocative painting the way I can, but they trust me to tell them.”
A door opens into his life. He can see things that other people don’t. It explains so much about him. The way Robert talked about him at Motif. The way people murmured his name at the charity gala. Emerson’s skill makes him valuable, just like the art he chooses.
And he chose me.
“Of all those pieces, one stands apart.” A shiver moves down my spine. “Only one took that faraway pain and sent it through my heart. My soul. I knew I couldn’t let it go. I still can’t let her go. Whenever I’m apart from it, I wake in the night thinking about it. If I ever lost it, I’d never dream about anything else. This piece—” A shadowed emotion crosses his face too quickly for me to name. “This piece draws me out. That’s what it does.” It’s completely silent in the room. His brothers are transfixed. “It draws me out of myself. I don’t have to hold the world at such a distance.” Emerson takes a breath. His tone hasn’t changed, but his words are a taut line between us, almost vibrating with emotion. “I need to be with this piece. I have to have it. In every way that it can be had. In a frame. On canvas. Whatever the form, I have to own it. To bind it. That’s what a frame is. A little binding to keep the art where it belongs. To keep it with me. Not because of its monetary value, but because it means so much that it transcends money.”
