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His eyes lifted.
He halted.
Shit.
I could practically see the gears turning in his mind, even though I could only see the back of his head.
I’d done my best to hide the evidence of my scandalous dreams within the paintings, but that one was one of the clearest images. If you looked closely, there was absolutely no denying it.
His gaze slowly moved off of that painting, and across the walls.
I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing exactly what he would see.
An image of our intertwined hands, pressing against a mattress together.
A small painting of his large, inked hand stretched over my brand-dotted abdomen, which had a few tattoos of its own.
Bits and pieces of the art on his body, embedded in every shadow I’d painted.
In my room, Priel waseverywhere.
The bed groaned, and my eyes flew open just in time to see Priel step behind my headboard, crouching down so he could see the paintings I’d hidden there.
I opened my mouth to give him an explanation, to figure out a way to lie to him, but failed.
Nothing came out.
I knew exactly what he was seeing; how many times had I done exactly what he just had?
Hundreds.
I did it every day.
I’d slide behind the bed frame, into the gap that I’d left there, and lower myself to the floor. And, crouched in that little space, I’d stare at the glimpse of the life of my literal dreams.
Most of them, I could ignore. I didn’t paint everything I saw; I would never be able to. The dreams were too full, too dynamic.
But the image I’d painted behind my bed was one I had never been able to get out of my mind.
It wasn’t anything epic or important.
It was a view from the side of me sitting on a chair, with a wall covered in gorgeous, painted landscapes visible behind me. Not the wall in Priel’s cave that I’d visited—I’d never dreamed of that place before—but a different one.
My hair was at least six inches shorter, and all I had on was a fireproof tank and shorts. Instead of black, they were made of the same colorful fabric on Priel’s practically-trademarked shorts.
Priel was kneeling on the floor between my parted legs, one of his hands holding the magical tattoo gun near my abdomen, and the other draped over my thigh.
At the moment of the painting, he wasn’t actually inking me. Instead, he was grinning up at me, having just told me a joke. I was laughing, one of my palms resting on his shoulder and the other on top of the hand he had on my thigh.
I wasn’t sure what about the image meant so much to me. Maybe the simplicity, or the mundaneness. Or maybe it was just the look of pure happiness on my face, and the devoted humor on Priel’s.
Whatever it was, I had yearned for that moment so damn much that words couldn’t even describe the ache.
I hadn’t known it was the future I was seeing.
I hadn’t even known that my dreams were possible.
I’d chalked it up to an overactive imagination and hero worship for the gorgeous man who had brought me supplies when I’d first woken up in Vevol.
