Chapter 31
The acrylic tubes in Gunner’s bag click against each other like bullets being loaded. Bougainvillea pink, the color that started everything. In an hour, he’ll paint me with it. In two hours, he’ll fuck me covered in it while three hundred strangers watch.
Heat pulls low in me at the thought, already wet beneath my soft cotton trousers. We've both spent our lives avoiding the gazes of others, in our different ways. Tonight, he's taking me in front of everyone. The symmetry of it makes my whole body hum with anticipation.
The backstage prep room at the Gilded Lily smells like old velvet and cigarette smoke that's seeped into the walls despite the smoking ban.
This is Delgado territory. Adrian arranged this through family connections, making space for us in their late-night world.
What we are planning is not appropriate for La Sirena.
A single warm bulb casts shadows that make Gunner look even more massive as he sets down the bag of supplies on the worn table.
The click of paint tubes against wood is the last quiet sound before everything starts.
My fingers find the hem of my soft cotton trousers, pulling them down and stepping free.
The thin shirt follows, pooling on the floor beside them.
Underneath, the conservatory leotard clings to my body.
Deep navy, the same one I wore at the bandshell last week, the same one that got me dismissed seven years ago for "unprofessional conduct. "
The fabric is thin enough that my hardening nipples show through, and I watch Gunner's eyes track over them before moving lower, to where the leotard cuts high on my hips.
His eyes move over me with the focus of a man preparing for delicate work. Not the operational assessment I've grown used to, but something hungrier. An artist studying what he's about to claim.
He'll paint me in flowers, and I'm already soaked knowing what comes after.
He opens the bag carefully, laying out each tube in a neat row. Pink first, green for the leaves. White for highlights. A plastic palette. Two brushes, one fine, one broader.
"Turn toward the light."
His voice is rough with want.
I rotate slowly, letting him see all of me in the leotard that leaves my arms and legs bare. His breath catches, and I see his cock twitch in his dark trousers.
He squeezes pink onto the palette first, mixing it with white and orange until it matches the exact shade we both know by heart.
The paint smells sharp and chemical, but when the first brushstroke lands at my collarbone, it feels like foreplay.
A single bougainvillea bloom takes shape, each petal deliberate, the bristles dragging across my skin in a way that makes my nipples tighten further.
For the next hour, he paints me with total focus.
I guide his hand sometimes, but he is remarkably skilled.
His cock hardens each time his fingers brush my skin to steady me.
Blooms cascade down my chest, stopping just above the leotard's neckline.
When he paints along the small swell of my breasts, his fingers graze the fabric and I have to bite my lip to keep from moaning.
"Hold still," he murmurs, dropping to one knee to paint along my thigh.
The sight of him kneeling makes me so wet I worry it'll show through the leotard.
This massive man who could break me without effort, his face level with my pussy, close enough that I can feel his breath through the thin fabric.
The warm light catches the hunger in his eyes when he glances up at me.
He saves the handprint for last. His palm dips into the pink paint, and he presses it against the inside of my left thigh, high enough that his thumb nearly brushes where I'm aching for him. The contact makes me gasp. His hand marking me in a way that feels like a promise of what's coming.
He holds it there longer than necessary, and I know he can smell my arousal.
A quiet laugh escapes him as he stands, and I see the thick outline of his erection straining against his trousers.
"Ready."
I take a deep breath and flash him a smile. He must be even more nervous than I am. The man who can't look at himself in a mirror, standing vulnerable and open on a stage.
The Gilded Lily's stage stretches before us, bathed in warm amber light that makes the audience look like they're underwater. Hundreds of faces turn toward us as we step from the wings, and I hear it. That collective inhale that means they understand what they're about to witness.
I spot several of our men near the exits, positioned where they can see everything. This is still Delgado territory. Everyone here knows it. We're claiming this space as ours.
The music starts, something slow and sensual with Spanish guitar that makes my hips want to roll before my mind gives permission.
I step forward first, feeling the bougainvillea shift on my skin as I extend my arms. The paint pulls slightly where it's drying, making me hyperaware of every mark he made.
Gunner moves behind me, his hands finding my waist, and I feel his cock press against my ass through our clothes.
We've never rehearsed this, but our bodies know each other.
The choreography emerges from pure need.
My back presses to his chest, his breath already fast and uneven against my neck, all the more feral now that he's stopped holding himself back.
He grinds his cock against me through the thin layers of our clothes, and I know half the audience is staring at the outline of him, the other half at the way my painted skin glows under the lights.
The stage, for all its artifice, is more real than anything I've ever done in my life.
There is no orchestra pit, no wings to vanish into.
Just the gold-drenched velvet of the old vaudeville curtains, the plush red chaise at the center, and the attention of a huge crowd.
I register the heat of Gunner's hands on my waist, the squeak of his bare feet on the wood as he pivots me toward the audience, and then the world condenses to the two of us and the knowledge that we could combust at any second.
His hands skim my sides, palms rough, and move up to the buttons of his own white shirt.
He doesn't hurry. He has the patience of a man who knows how to stretch out agony, and the certainty of a wolf who's scented blood.
His fingers work the buttons slowly. One, two, three.
The fabric parts to reveal the chest I've memorized with my tongue. Four, five.
By the time his shirt is open to the waist, I'm shaking with anticipation. My nipples are hard enough to throb in the cool theater air, and the crotch of my leotard is soaked, the fabric darkening visibly the lower his hands travel.
His abs flex as he shrugs the shirt from his shoulders, letting it fall to the stage floor.
The audience inhales again, sharper this time. Hundreds of people seeing what makes me soak through my underwear every night. The scars, the ink, the massive body built for violence that knows exactly how to make me scream.
His body is at odds with itself: built for violence, yet now moving with almost balletic grace as he circles me, hands never leaving my body for more than a second.
He guides me toward the plum-red chaise with a flat palm against my lower back.
My knees nearly buckle with every step. Every time I catch sight of the audience—an ocean of eyes, glittering with hunger and jealousy—I get another spike of arousal.
Some are watching with pure lust, some with envy, a handful with the disgust of people who think themselves above this.
But no one is looking away. No one even blinks.
He spins me at the last second, so I land on the chaise facing away from him, spine arched like a bow.
The velvet is dry against my bare thighs, a sharp relief from the swelter of lights and my own fevered skin.
I can feel the paint drying on my body, the slight tug of pigment every time my ribs expand with breath.
The colors look obscene under the spotlights, stranger than any bruise, more permanent.
Gunner stands behind me, hands braced on my shoulders, and then he slides down to one knee, so he's level with the small of my back.
I don't know if he's doing it for the audience or for himself, but I feel a pulse of possessive pleasure as he brings his face close to my skin, almost but not quite kissing it.
In one movement he stands again and starts with my hair, shifting it to one side to bare my shoulder.
His lips graze the exposed skin, careful of the paint, but still leaving a ghost of warmth where his mouth travels.
Then lower, the tip of his tongue tracing the outline of my shoulder blade, following the painted petals.
The audience is silent. Not even a cough or whisper.
The rustle of Gunner's breath and the low hum of the house lights are the only sounds.
He takes my right arm and lifts it with the gentleness of a man who knows how easily a body can be bruised.
He kisses the inside of my elbow, then lower, down to the wrist. I realize he's showcasing the art—the way it curves around the bicep, the details, the hyperreal wetness of each painted bloom.
He wants them to see it, to see me. To see what he's made and what he's about to destroy.
He leans in closer, mouth at my ear, and whispers, "Beautiful. So fucking beautiful. You have no idea what you do to me."
His words are quiet, but the front row can probably hear.