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He shrugs. “A lot of shit.” Then he grins. “But like I said, life is chaos. It’s not like I’m actually expecting to get any of it.”
God, can I ever relate tothatsentiment.
Dante’s right when he says I understand his philosophy about pity, about life. I’ve wanted a lot of shit over the years too. And, like Dante, I never expect to get much of it and have never been all that surprised when what really happened instead just made life all the harder.
But sometimes, like right now, things actually turn out… kind of fucking wonderful.
I bite my tongue. I don’t want to jinx it, so I’m sure as shit not going to say so, but I’m also full of feelings. Feelings I don’t have words for, or maybe just not the courage to say.
But this is Dante. He doesn’t need words.
With Dante still pinning me down, I can’t reach the paintbrush I dropped near the canvas, but I can reach the palette. I reach for it and drag a finger through the messy swirl of thick paint on it, coating my finger in the vivid red of blood Dante chooses for so much of his art and the deep blue of tears and sorrow and pain. They blend into the same shade of purple in my hair, and in all that mess, there’s a bright, vivid green too. The color of Dante’s eyes. The color of life, instead of all that death that haunts his nightmares.
Dante gives me a bemused look. “You want to paint some more?”
“You’re the one who told me it’s a good way to process things.”
“Fact,” he murmurs, letting me push him back just enough that I’m able to smooth my clean hand down his shoulder and rest it against his chest.
He already has color there. Gorgeous, intricate ink that I could get lost in. But unlike the full sleeves on his arms, his chest still has unmarked skin in some places too.
One of those places is right over his heart.
I touch the messy finger I dipped into paint to his skin. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I’m certainly no artist, but he’s already shown me that neither of those things are necessary for this shit. For working through feelings. For paintingemotion.
“Fuck,” Dante whispers, his cock hardening against me as he swoops down and captures my mouth, trapping my painted finger between us. When he comes up for air, he looks down at his chest. “It kinda looks like my birds.”
I tilt my head. I see it. He means the row of ravens I noticed on his arm earlier, but this one is bigger. Bolder. And not black, but bright. Not a crisp, well-defined silhouette, but messy and chaotic and colorful. It looks exactly how I feel.
He rubs his thumb over the top of my right breast. The paint I marked him with smudged onto my skin too, but unlike the bare spot over Dante’s heart, my entire chest is already a colorful mess. The new mark is just one more slash of color, blending in with the rest.
Dante rolls off me and grabs the brush, dipping it into the blood-red paint and bringing it to my skin.
“More? You already painted all over me.”
“I want to mark you up a little more,” he says, intent on doing just that.
The wet paint is so smooth that it feels like liquid sex, and my nipples pebble with desire as he carefully drags the brush over the fresh paint we smudged onto me when we kissed.
“You were made for this color,” he murmurs, his eyes trained on whatever it is he’s painting on me. He finishes up and tosses the brush aside, then covers my breast with his hand, fingers splayed wide to frame the mark he made and palm rubbing against the hard nub of my nipple. “I like seeing this shit here.”
I look down, trying to see it too.
It’s… not a thing. Not apicture. But it’s definitely an emotion. A curving, spiraling, twisting mark that’s bold and dangerous-looking and hopeful. It’s a burst of color—the crimson shade that Dante once told me is his favorite—that feels like all the sex we just had, and all the reasons we had it.
His cock swells where it’s trapped between us and I spread my legs, arching up against him as I grab the back of his head and pull him down. “Kiss me.”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice a husky murmur. “We can start with that.”
But we don’t, thank fuck,endthere… because apparently, every once in a while, good things actually do last.
29
RILEY
I’mup late enough with Dante that when I open my eyes the next morning to find my bedroom filled with pre-dawn light, the first thing I want to do is roll right over and go back to sleep. I grab one of the extra pillows on the bed and pull it over my face with a groan, sluggishly wondering why the hell I’m actually awake this early. I’ve never been a morning person, and the faint soreness between my legs reminds me of exactly why I deserve a little extra sleep.
I smile, an echo of pleasure rippling through me as my tired thoughts drift back over the time spent in Dante’s studio, but then I remember exactly why I’m awake. I shove the pillow away and scramble out of bed, fueled by a surge of adrenaline-laced anticipation. Logan promised to take me around the city to check out some of the potential areas that Chloe might be hiding out this morning, based on the areas we marked when we went over the map the other day.
