Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
My skin crackled with need. “Yes.” I wanted to do that, wanted to pose for Crow. Wanted to be his inspiration, always.
He nodded, then began to pick up supplies—a canvas, a case, an easel. I frowned as I watched him, but then he turned to me and simply said, “Come.”
I went.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Crow
I wanted to paint Cyrus from life rather than memory, and I wanted to paint him in my bed, in our bed.
He helped me carry the supplies into the house. We set them down, took off the coats, gloves, and other winter wear, then headed to our room.
It had been hard to share my art with him, to give him that piece of me.
I wanted Cyrus, my sun, my little lamb, to see all of me.
“Take off your clothes. Show yourself to me. Let me see what’s mine.”
“Jesus.” Cyrus visibly trembled, his voice shaking on that one word.
You brought me food.
You took care of me.
You risked your life for me.
You give yourself to me.
You love me.
And he deserved to know all of me.
Cyrus did as I said, his beautiful, flawless skin on display for me. He’d gained a little weight since moving to the mountain, his bones not quite as prominent, a little more softness to him that I loved exploring with my eyes, my hands, my tongue.
“Where do you want me?” Cyrus asked.
“Our bed,” I replied, voice rough and feeling strangely unused even though I’d been talking to him. An ear-to-ear smile spread on his face, and it felt like it crossed the distance between us and landed in my chest.
I cocked my head, and Cyrus answered my silent question, “I like it when you call it ours.”
“I like it too.”
He lay down while I arranged the easel and laid everything out. Once I was finished, I went to my Cyrus, brushed my fingers down his shoulder and arm. Goose bumps followed in their wake. “I’m going to paint these too. I love seeing how much I affect you.”
“It feels like no one has ever touched me before you.”
I growled in response, knowing what he was saying, that none of that had been real, none of that he’d ever really felt, because none of the other men had been me. “They haven’t. Not the real you.”
I positioned him the way I wanted him—on his back, arm up and over his head, which tilted down just slightly. One leg bent to the side, the other straight, blankets messy and slept in around him.
I didn’t need him to stay like this. How many times had I painted him from memory already? Every freckle, every muscle, every crease and plane of his body. But there was something incredibly erotic about seeing him like this, knowing he was lying there for me and me alone, that he would let me do with him as I pleased.
I ran my fingers through his hair, brushed my thumbs over his nipples, watched his skin pebble in response again, before I went to my easel and got to work.
Cyrus’s eyes held fast to me, like there was some kind of magnetic pull that wouldn’t let him look away. My need for him rumbled inside me, grew and begged for me to go to him, take him, claim him over and over and over again even though I knew he was mine. It was an animalistic urge, a necessity that would never go away.
When the snow melted, I didn’t know how I would let him out of my sight. While I knew he belonged here with me, I understood that he was different too, that he did things in the outside world that I didn’t, and I would have to learn how to be away from him.
“You growled. Why did you growl?” he asked, a smirk on his lips as though he had a glimpse into my head and liked what he saw.
I just shook my head, words trapped inside me again, the way they likely would always be sometimes…and I painted. For hours. Cyrus fell asleep, while I tried to perfect what was on canvas the way the man in our bed was perfect to me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it right, would never be able to get it right, but I would continue to try until I wasn’t physically able anymore.
He moved around in bed, curled into a little ball the way he often did, but the exact image of him I tried to create was still seared into my mind.
I wanted this to be perfect, as perfect as I could make it, wanted to show him how I felt, even though that was impossible. There weren’t actions or words strong enough for that.
So I just kept painting, putting all I had into every swipe of the brush. Everything except me and the canvas became blurred edges and fuzzy white noise around me, until a soft but sharp intake of breath pulled me out of the world I’d slipped into.