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Chapter Thirteen
Daphne
Iknow Emerson’s hands even when I’m asleep. Or mostly asleep. Kicking toward consciousness. He runs one palm over my hip. Up and down until I’m awake enough to stretch my legs and roll in his direction.
He makes a soft, approving sound and keeps touching me. My collarbone. My breasts. Each nipple. Back down to my waist. When he slips his hand between my thighs, I roll over onto my back and give him more room.
I’m okay with never getting out of bed.
Emerson slept for most of the day yesterday. After Sin left, he came into the studio and pulled one of the good chairs in front of the other. By the time I looked up from the canvas to ask him what he was doing, he was already sprawled across the cushions, dreaming.
We went back to bed after dinner.
Not to sleep.
Now he balances himself over me and kisses my hipbone. It sends a hot, sparkling sensation running up and out, all through me. Emerson strokes one of his thumbs along my inner thigh until I groan, wanting, and try to roll.
A paintbrush digs into my waist, and Emerson’s hands stop me. He kisses the place where his thumb was just teasing. Emerson, it turns out, likes to be painted. Loves it, even. I should have known better than to think it would be a one-time thing. Now that he knows how it feels to be under my brush, he can’t get enough of it. Might become a problem, honestly, because I’d rather paint on him than canvas any day. Being able to make someone else feel like Emerson does is hot. And good, in a pure kind of way. The painting settles his nerves. He goes longer between those flickers of blank emptiness. Looks at me more closely, if that’s possible.
And, obviously, it turns him on.
I painted scenes on him last night, hence the paintbrush in the bed with us.
He circles both thumbs on my inner thighs and I drag my eyes open to look at him. My heart catches like a dry brush on canvas. He’s beautiful. If I could stop painting the ocean, I’d only paint him. Those eyes. That mouth. Color back in his face. I didn’t realize quite how drawn and tired he looked until it faded.
“I want to paint you.”
Emerson’s eyes light up, but the color deepens and burns as his hands go underneath me. He pulls us both up on the bed, then leans back on the headboard. I end up straddling his hips. He’s already hard between my legs, but his hands on my hips stop me from fucking him.
“Paint,” he orders. There’s more urgency in his tone than I expected. It feels like the time is running out on some hidden clock.
I summon up my best pout, making my eyes huge and sorrowful. “I can’t reach my brush.”
“Use your fingers.”
“What about you? What are you going to use?” I try to wriggle back onto his cock, but he won’t let me.
“Maybe I want to use a brush this time.”
I can’t resist drawing out the initial curves on his chest. Emerson shivers underneath me. The paintbrush matters less than the movement and pressure. He brushes my hair out of my eyes and cups my face in his hand. He has the perspective of the canvas now. He doesn’t realize he’s the most beautiful canvas I’ve ever used. It doesn’t matter that the paintings are all in my head and his. Our own private gallery.
But I want more of him. I don’t half-ass these paintings, even though I could. Still, need grows between my legs. Emerson braces my hip with his hand and strokes down until his fingertips meet sensitive flesh. “Mmm,” he says. “What were you dreaming about, little painter?”
“I don’t know.” I do, though. “The beach, I think. My toes in the water.” That’s what I’m painting now. Not my toes, but the sand they’d touch. The waves rolling up to meet shells and rocks.
“Nothing else?” He circles my entrance, teasing. He makes me chase his fingertips while I paint until finally, finally, he pushes them inside me. “You’re very wet.”
“I woke up—” My muscles don’t want those fingers to leave. “I woke up next to you. With you touching me. I don’t need a dream for—for this to happen.”
“No, little painter.”
“No what?”
“You can fuck my fingers if you want to, but you’ll keep painting while you do it.”
Emerson’s serious. He’s pulled his hand away a fraction of an inch, and his expression is stern. Human bodies shouldn’t be this sensitive. I’m aching for him. Wet. Ashamed. And I can’t help being in awe, because he’s here. He hasn’t pulled away from this moment at all. He hasn’t retreated to the art in his mind.
I trace a ripple in the water, and he lets me sink down on his fingers. “This is hard,” I whisper.
