Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

He smiles at me, a wicked, wonderful thing, and then dips his fingers into the red again. He draws another line from my bra strap to the top of my mons, then doubles back, crosshatching back and forth across the lines. It should tickle, should feel strange, but all it does is turn me on. Make me tremble as he adds more and more paint to my stomach, his fingers lingering on my skin a little more with each layer of paint.

I try to look down, to see what he’s doing, but he’s kneeling so close that his bent head blocks my view—until all I can see and feel and hear is him.

When he’s satisfied with what my stomach looks like, he hooks his fingers in the tiny straps on the sides of my hips and pulls my panties straight down my legs. And then he’s right there, his paint-messy hands gripping my thighs, spreading them, as he leans forward and licks his way along my sex. Once, twice, then again and again until he’s thrusting his tongue inside of me and I’m careening over the edge, already so far gone that I couldn’t stop myself if I wanted to.

He rides me through it, using his lips and tongue and breath to drag every ounce of sensation out of me. When I can think again—when I can breathe again—I reach for him. Try to pull him up. Try to curl myself around him.

But he just wraps one big hand around my wrists, then moves me so my arms are pinned behind my back. Then he again dips the fingers of his free hand into the palette—which he dropped on the floor sometime during my orgasm—and starts to paint again.

Over and over again he draws his fingers down my stomach, my abs, my hips, my thighs. Over and over again, he lingers at every sensitive spot I have, slowly stoking the need inside of me until I am nothing but an open, throbbing nerve, every part of me focused on the pleasure he brings with every single touch.

He paints in silence, the only sound my disjointed breathing and the small, breathy moans I can’t control. At least until he murmurs, “Turn around.”

And I do, my body and mind so in his thrall at this point that I can do nothing else. Then he’s unhooking my bra, sliding the straps down my arms.

Once it falls to the floor, I start to turn around, but he says, “Don’t,” and I freeze.

He stands, then, and this time he coats his whole hand with paint. And then he’s cupping my breasts from behind, his fingers swirling and dabbing and rubbing until my knees turn weak once more.

“Hunter, please,” I beg, rocking my head back and forth against his chest as I press back into him.

“I’ve got you,” he reiterates. “Just a little longer.” And then he’s flicking at my nipples again and again, coating them with paint even as he drives me closer to orgasm.

But his sense of time is different than mine, because it goes on forever, him peering over my shoulder as he drives me crazy painting God only knows what on my chest. He’s a perfectionist—or a sadist—because he keeps going over and over the same spots, painting and adjusting and fixing until I feel like I’m actually going to lose my mind.

And then he does it all over again.

I’m on the verge of coming again, just from the feel of his fingers on my nipples, when he finally finishes. “Thank God,” I say, my knees nearly crumpling as I pull away.

He catches me—of course he does—then backs up just enough to grab the rags I keep on the kitchen counter.

He quickly wipes his hands off—thank God I use watercolors to paint—and then he’s taking my hand, pulling me toward my bedroom.

“I want to see,” I manage to gasp even though I feel like I’m literally falling apart, like with each touch Hunter is crumbling me into more and more pieces, pieces that will never again feel right without his touch.

I shove the thought down where I don’t have to think about it as he grinds out, “Me, too.”

And then he’s moving me through my bedroom to my dresser—and the vintage mirror I have hanging above it.

“Look,” he says, and I do, gasping at what I see.

Long, thick stems decorate my stomach in shades of green and brown, strong and bold and powerful as they stretch from just below my breasts to my pubic bone. Above them are bold red flowers, decorating my che

st and breasts and neck. For a moment I can’t believe what I’m seeing—the beauty and the power and the detail of it. It’s gorgeous—I’m gorgeous—and for a moment I’m speechless. Completely overwhelmed by the fact that his hands—his powerful, talented, revered hands—are capable not only of all he does with a football, but also of this.

Even my arousal is sublimated by the shock and joy I feel looking at what he’s created. “Oh my God, Hunter. It’s beautiful.”

“You make it beautiful.”

“No.” I tilt my head, look at the detail of what he’s done there and am blown away that he did it backward, while I was pressed against him and he was looking over my shoulder. “How…how did you do this?”

He grins. “I was inspired.”

“I’m inspired. I can’t believe it’s going to be ruined as soon as I take a shower—”

“Oh, it’ll be ruined sooner than that. But this isn’t about the painting,” he tells me as his mouth skims down my cheek to the sensitive spot behind my ear. “It’s about you.”

I moan involuntarily, my head falling back on his shoulder as heat once again streaks through me. “I’m not done—”