The Girl in the Painting

We lose ourselves to chasing each other’s pleasure, chasing our own pleasure, chasing the high that is us, together.

There is no going back for me after this.

Indy

Inside this room, Ansel’s room, there is nothing but twilight and shadows. Soft breaths and gentle caresses surround us in a cocoon of warmth and sated limbs.

His strong body supports the weight of my lax one, and a delicious ache pulses between my legs.

And the lingering memories of what we just did fill my head.

I know what Ansel feels like inside of me.

I know what he looks like when desire consumes him.

I know the way his eyes melt and his lips part when he’s close.

And I know what he sounds like when he comes.

When I’m truthful with myself, I can admit I wanted to know all of it. Fantasized about it, even.

And now that I’ve experienced it, I know my fantasies were nothing more than bland placeholders.

Silence spreads across his bedroom, and we both let it linger as we continue touching each other. Never stop caressing each other’s skin. Never stop glancing into each other’s eyes.

It’s magic. He’s magic.

The guilt will come later; I know it will. But for now, I refuse to let it root itself in a moment I don’t want ruined.

I’m loyal by nature. When I make a commitment to someone, I stick by it. I know what I did goes completely against that, I know I let myself play much too closely to the fire, but there has to be a reason I’m here.

A reason I’m unable to pull myself from Ansel’s arms and leave like I should.

“Are you okay?” His voice is soft, and he tightens his grip on my body, pulling me as close to him as physically possible.

“Yes,” I say. For now, it’s the only answer I’m willing to explore.

When it comes to this man, it’s like something inside of me shifts, and I can’t resist him. I can’t ignore the way he makes me feel. I can’t turn a blind eye to all of the crazy things that have brought us together. The things that I don’t understand at all.

I can’t do anything but follow my heart.

“What are you thinking about right now, Indy?”

“The girl in the painting.”

“What about her?”

“Do you think she’s really me?”

“Indy…” He hesitates and averts his gaze.

“Just tell me,” I whisper.

“It’s hard to tell you something I don’t even really understand myself, but deep down, yes, I know she’s you. The way you move, the way you talk, the things you do. They’re all the things I love about her.”

All the things I love about her.

“It doesn’t make sense.” A soft, incredulous laugh leaves his lips. “In fact, it’s the most irrational thing that’s ever happened to me.” He reaches down to brush a few pieces of hair away from my forehead. “I wish I knew why. But, Indy, I don’t. All I know is there is some intangible thing that draws me to you, and as hard as I try, I can’t avoid it. Can’t resist it. Can’t do anything but give in.”

“I know what you mean,” I whisper.

Delicate and haunting, Ansel’s knuckles slide against the flesh of my cheek, down my neck, and across the top of my breast.

“Let me paint you, Indy. Just like this.”

My heart flips inside my chest, and I can’t come up with a single reason to say no.

I can’t, and I don’t want to.

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” he asks, eyes widening in surprise.

“Yeah.”

I sit up, but Ansel pulls me back down on the bed.

“What are you doing?” I question. “Don’t you want to go to your studio?”

He shakes his head and drags his body to the end of the bed and out of it. “Stay here. I’ll be back with the paint.”

He leaves the room without a single stitch of clothing, and I collapse into the sheets.

My heart is racing, and I lean into the smell of Ansel all over the bed beneath me.

He has a clear toolbox full of paint and a handful of brushes when he returns, but no canvas.

I sit up, and the sheet falls down to my hips.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He raises an eyebrow like he doesn’t understand.

“The canvas,” I say, even though I feel like it should be obvious.

“You are the canvas, Indigo.”

“What?”

“I want to paint you. I want to feel the curves of your breasts and the pulse in your chest as I move the brush across you. I want to paint you in a way I’ve been dreaming about since before I knew you were real.”

My teeth dig into my lip, and a new ache, this one needy and consuming, starts up between my legs.

We don’t speak anymore as he positions me flat on the bed and gets to work.

The glass-and-gold table in the sitting area becomes his workstation at the side of the bed, and his paints get lined up one by one on the top.