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“I’m starting it right now.” Emerson lets out a sharp breath. “You can’t do that, otherwise I’ll have to start over.”
I glance up into his eyes and find them light. Longing. “Did I fuck it up?”
“You tried.” I focus back on the painting. If I hold it in my head, the water on his skin takes on color. “I understand the impulse to…you know. To make a rash decision when you’re worn out. To maybe say things you don’t really mean. My sister always told me not to decide anything in the moment.”
“Which—” His cock jumps between us as my brush draws closer. I’m not going to touch him with it. He wouldn’t touch me, so this is only fair. “Which sister?”
“Eva. She’s a little older than Leo.” My chest aches from crying. From holding in tears at Leo’s house and letting them out in a rush. The more I paint on Emerson, the less it hurts. “Anyway…”
I drag the brush back up, away from his hips, and Emerson groans. Too bad for him. I have some detail work to finish at the surface.
“Please,” Emerson says. “Tell me what you’re painting.”
“I told you. The ocean.”
“That’s not—” I’m painting over his ribs. They’re sensitive. “That’s not accurate. The perspective changes. You paint from the shore, and out in the waves, and under the water. I felt the moon, but I can’t feel what this is.”
“Yes, you can.”
The surface roils. I’m painting the night he came to get me. The sea was wild and terrifying in a way I wasn’t ready for. Emerson was the one calm place in the center of chaos. You can’t paint one without the other. Calm and chaos always go together. If you can’t show a wild sea on the canvas, you can’t show a calm one.
Without each other, they collapse inward and become meaningless.
It’s like pain and pleasure. They’re meant to be.
“How long do you expect me to stand here like this?” Impatience colors every word. It’s very close to anguish.
“Until I’m done, I guess. Until you understand.”
“Daphne.” His cock twitches again. Power surges through my skin. Into my hands, into my fingers, through the brush. It feels good. Better than I could have imagined. Emerson has no frame, and no rope on his wrists, but he’s held here anyway. By me. “Little painter. I’m begging you.”
“I begged you before, and you made me wait. Besides, I need you to hear me.”
“I’m listening,” he insists.
“I’m painting a man.” It takes much smaller strokes. “Out in the ocean. On a surfboard. When I saw him, he looked like a shadow. I couldn’t see much of anything with saltwater in my eyes, but I felt his hands. He was strong. Stronger than the high waves. Stronger than the cold.”
Emerson’s eyes flutter closed again.
He’s probably the only person I could do this with. Now that he knows, he’ll be able to visualize the painting as clearly as I can.
“There’s calm all around him in the waves. It sounds impossible, but it’s not. He has to be calm, because that’s how he stays alive so far from shore. He’s very good at it. He’s had a lot of practice.”
I swipe underneath his figure, adding the board. Adding the board’s moonlight shadow.
“I sell most of my pieces because I like the idea of my work being out in the world. I’ve taken all that feeling and put it on canvas, you know? I’ve worked out what I need to work out. This time is different.”
His hand comes up like he might touch me, but he puts it back by his side. “How?”
“I’m never going to be done.”
Emerson shudders.
“An artist always moves on to a new project, little painter. A lifetime is too long to spend on one piece.”
“As long as the canvas is good, you can use it over and over again. Infinite pieces.” I drag the brush down toward his hip. Trace over the bone. I’m painting the deep. I don’t normally paint this many phases of the ocean at the same time. “I’ll be art for you.” Emerson’s hip comes forward. More pressure on the brush. “I’ll hang in your frame. I’ll let you watch me paint. There’s just one other thing.”
“What?” I skim the brush so close to his cock that he groans. “I can’t do this much longer.”
