AllFreeNovel
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Never do that again.
Is it a game, or real? Does he mean I can stay here forever, or is he just saying it?
A brisk uncertainty fills the foyer. That same, urgent dread. Like this will all end too soon. Like there’s very little time to show Emerson what he needs to know.
Unless.
I sink down to my knees, right there on the hard floor. Emerson takes a half-step forward, as if he’s going to stop me, but instead he watches as I lower myself. Carefully. Without causing any damage to his piece.
It’s a game, and real.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, my mouth dry. My thighs wet.
Emerson’s eyes flash. “How sorry?”
“Really, really sorry. Please. Let me show you.”
He comes to me in slow, measured steps and curls his fingers through my hair. Tilts my face up. “What will you do to show me?”
“Anything.”
I mean it.
Emerson strokes my hair one more time, then lets go. “Wait here.’
His footsteps go up the stairs, and I’m left naked in the foyer in a puddle of my clothes. I don’t move at all while I wait. I watch the front door. His porch light shines through the cracks, hanging the outline in the air.
He comes down a minute later and stands in front of me, rope in his hands.
I offer him my wrists without him having to ask.
Emerson binds me with total concentration and care. He checks to make sure I can wiggle my fingers, and then he helps me to my feet.
“Are you going to put me on the wall?”
“No.”
My heart sinks. I don’t want to be kept out of the frame. But I don’t argue.
We enter the gallery. The lights are on low. Emerson must have been in here while I was gone. Missing me where he could see my paintings. He reaches for the switch on the wall, and the lights go out.
Emerson keeps me by his side and pauses at the furniture. He takes a blanket from the back of one of the chairs. A pillow. My frame hangs up on the back wall, empty and waiting.
He ignores it. Goes to the window instead.
Moonlight traces a neat square on the floor. Emerson spreads the blanket over it.
“This is your frame tonight,” he says. “If you want your place on the wall, you’ll have to earn it.”
“How?”
“Get down.”
He guides me to the floor. Knees and elbows. And then he does something to one of the panels. A rounded hook pops out of the floor. I recognize what it’s for. A support for a pillar installation, or something hung from the ceiling.
Emerson crouches down in front of me. “Hold this, little painter. And spread your thighs.”
Doing what he said puts me in an incredibly exposed position, which Emerson then adjusts with a firm touch. He wants my back arched. Breasts pressed to the floor. Ass on display for him. He laughs when he feels the inside of my thighs.
