Chapter 17 Wet Paint
WET PAINT
AURORA
The studio warms up before we've even finished undressing each other, and I laugh when he almost trips trying to get out of his pants.
Elijah is already getting hard from looking at me as he peels the safety seal off the gold paint with his teeth. I take the bottle of black paint and do the same.
I really have no idea how to start this, but Elijah seems to. He closes the distance between us and squirts a little paint onto his fingers right from the bottle.
I suck in a breath when he settles them onto my neck. It's cool, but not cold when he drags his fingertips over the ridge of my collarbone and the tops of my breasts.
Pouring a little black paint into my palm, we both snort when the bottle makes an obnoxious farting sound, but then I'm smearing paint over his pecs and down the muscular line of his stomach.
He shivers as I coat him in paint, dragging my hand lower, until his cock isn't a little hard, but completely fucking erect.
I lick my lips, and his paint-covered fingers catch under my chin, jerking my gaze to his. A shuddering breath passes from his lips as we swap colors and I paint over his Adonis belt and around his hard cock, careful not to get any on it in case this shit isn't totally huha safe.
When I kneel to smear more paint onto his thighs, his light brown eyes burn into mine.
"Does that feel good?" I ask.
He makes a face that's half pleasure and half pain. "A little too good, Angel. If you keep touching me like that, this is going to be over embarrassingly fast."
My chest swells.
I'm beyond relieved he didn't hate this. I would have felt like an insensitive idiot if he did.
Elijah's heavy-lidded gaze turns hungry as he coats his hands liberally in the black paint and then discards the bottle, lifting his fingers to my hair.
I nod, giving him permission as he runs some through the dark strands and then uses the excess to paint a streak from one cheekbone to the other, over the bridge of my nose, and grins at his creation.
"There," he says. "Now you look like a warrior."
Taking his cue, I paint twin streaks of gold down both of his cheeks, and one on his chin. It really does sort of look like war paint.
And aren't we going to battle?
I gasp when he settles his palms against my breasts, leaving handprints there that he drags down my torso and smears around my hips.
He's careful not to get any on my belly button, but I have a feeling it's going to get coated regardless.
I'll have to make sure I clean it really good after since the piercing still isn't fully healed.
Elijah uses his grip on my waist to spin me around and we swap colors again for him paint over my entire backside in teasing, languid strokes that make my belly squeeze.
"Your turn," I whisper when he's finished painting me all over, and I get to work covering the rest of him in swaths of black and gold paint, choking on a mix of rage and empathy when I have to paint over all the scars on his back.
When he turns to face me, he looks completely ridiculous. I stifle a laugh when I step back to admire my handiwork, and his crooked grin and accompanying laugh as he holds out his hands and does a little spin for me makes it come out in earnest.
"What?" he teases. "It doesn't suit me?"
"No," I joke between laughs. "It totally does."
When I smile back at him, I feel like a kid again.
This is…fun. My hands are wet and slippery, and I can't wait to make an absolute mess on that canvas.
Have I ever played with paint? Surely I must have in school or something, but right now I can't even remember a time when I might've finger-painted something.
My childhood was about survival. Built on neural pathways of self-preservation instead of learning through play.
But I can play with Elijah.
As he comes in closer and curls a hand around my waist to draw me into him, I settle my hands and forearms against his chest, peering up at him. It takes me a second to notice it, the light, the life, in this eyes, but when I find it, I want to cry.
I did that.
I make him that happy.
"What are you thinking?" Elijah asks, caressing my neck in his painted fingers.
"That I'm happy you're happy."
His lips quirk up and I berate myself for ever thinking that Elijah might be too good for me. Not because he isn't good. He is. But because I didn't think I had enough goodness left in me to be enough for him.
I do.
He brings it out of me—the parts of myself I thought I lost in the foster system and with Jesse. Elijah makes it okay for me to be soft. Makes it safe to be vulnerable.
"Want to know what I wished for my birthday?" he asks, and then recklessly pushes his paint-covered hands into my hair to tip my head up so my lips are a breath from his.
My pulse thrums in my ears when he presses his paint-covered body against mine.
"Isn't that bad luck?"
He laughs like he thinks that's cute, and tells me, "I wished that I could keep you."
His mouth is on mine before his words even fully register, and my toes curl as he kisses me with a passion so honest and eager it drags feelings out of me so strong they almost hurt.
My heart aches and flutters beneath my rib cage as he draws his hands down my sides and over the curves of my hips, lifting me against him.
There's a slight grimace in his kiss, and I know it must hurt his hand, but I kiss him through the pain because he needs this. He needs to feel like he can still be the person he was before he hurt himself.
Our bodies slide against one another’s as Elijah steps onto the drop cloth and bends to his knees. He sets me down on the canvas ass-first, never breaking our kiss as he eases me down with the pressure of his mouth on mine, crawling over me as he does.
When our lips part, he pushes up on his arms, staring down at me, at the paint we've already put on the canvas.
"Is this okay?" I ask, needing him to know that we can stop anytime.
He smears a hand over the canvas next to my body and shivers, staring down at the gold mark he made. "It's more than okay, Angel."
Are there tears in his eyes?
"It's perfect."
He kisses me.
"You're perfect."
When his lips meet mine again, I moan into him, arching my back, needing the press of him against my body.
He takes the hint, settling heavily between my legs as his tongue parts the seam of my lips to claim my mouth and steal the air from my lungs.
When he groans, the rumble of it vibrates in my own chest and I dig my fingers into his lower back.
Elijah rolls his hips forward, rubbing himself on my soaked pussy. When he does it a second time, the ball of his piercing rubs against me as he strokes his length on my clit. I desperately try to angle myself, dying for the pressure of him inside me.
He laughs against my mouth, pinning my hip down with his as he continues his slow, torturous strokes, each time edging lower until his tip is so close to pushing inside. I pant into his mouth until I can't take it anymore, and try to reach between us.
But Elijah is quick to stop me, snatching up my hands to pin them to the canvas overhead as he rubs himself all over my clit, and that piercing…fuck, it's so good.
"You're so wet, Angel."
"P-please," I stutter as he almost slips into me, but stops just shy of it, continuing to rub himself against me, in shorter, quicker thrusts that make my core heat and tighten. "I want you inside of me."
"I know, but you're so close."
And I am.
Holy shit, I wanted him in me so badly that I didn't realize how close he has me without even getting inside me.
When I start to squirm and my breaths come quicker, he releases my wrists to push my hips down more firmly as he slides his cock all over my pussy, edging me closer and closer until I cry out. Only once my orgasm starts to rip through me does Elijah push his cock into my pussy.
The sudden pressure and the sensation of his piercing pressing against that perfect spot inside me makes me buck against him. Makes me pull in a strained breath that exits my throat in a whine as he rolls his hilt against me in a tight, quick movement.
He groans with pleasure and I throw my arms out for something to hold on to as he starts to move. He catches my hand, twining his fingers with mine as he coaxes my orgasm to its highest peak, making me shatter on his cock.
"Come here," he says in a husky whisper before I've even come down, and I'm half delirious as he slips out of me and drags me up to a seated position.
"I need you on your knees, Angel."
I lick my lips, a little unsteady in the slippery paint as I shift onto my knees on the canvas and Elijah lays flat on his back in front of me.
I have no idea what he's doing until he shimmies closer and pries my knees open to push his head between them.
"Oh fuck."
Elijah grips my thighs, guiding me so my knees are on either side of his face.
"What are you—"
I moan as he grips my hips and draws my pussy to his face, his tongue hot against my clit as he tastes my release with a moan of his own.
My eyes roll back at how good it feels with the aftershocks of my orgasm still spasming through me.
"Mmmm," he groans against me, and I writhe as he spears me with his tongue and moves his lips over my clit, eating me alive.
His cock catches my eye, and I realize, albeit very belatedly, that if I lean forward onto my forearms, this position becomes a very messy sixty-nine.
As if on cue, a bead of precum rolls over his tip, and I lick my lips, grinning at the splatter and smears of paint we've already made on the canvas. Eager to make some more.
Elijah's body goes taut with anticipation beneath me as I bend forward.
Another drop of precum pushes from his tip when his cock pulses, and I suck it into my mouth.
His grip turns bruising on my hips as he feasts on me, and his cock is already moving, pushing into my mouth, begging me for more that I am wholeheartedly prepared to give.
I open my throat for him as he flexes his hips, fucking his cock up into the tight channel of my throat. I gag, and it convulses against him, making him tremble beneath me. I love that I can do that to him.
I love it so much that I do it again because fuck needing oxygen. I want to make him unravel.
When Elijah withdraws after three more deep thrusts, my eyes are wet, my throat is raw, and air scrapes into my lungs, but fuck if I don't want to do it again. I bet I can take him deeper.
I bet I can go longer.
Especially if he keeps doing exactly what he's doing between my thighs.
This time, I take my time pulling him into my mouth, savoring him as he jerks at every flick of my tongue.
And then I take a nice, even breath and relax my throat, pushing my tongue out to make room for him.
His piercing rolls over my tongue as his cock pushes through the dam at the back of my throat.
He's so deep that hot tears roll over my cheeks, but I grip his thighs to push him deeper, urging him to use my throat how I can sense he wants to.
Elijah moans through every frantic stroke of his tongue against my clit as he begins to move, fucking my mouth and throat like a savage. My eyes roll back and I think, no, this man is definitely not too nice for me.
He's just right.
No sooner do I think it than I come apart on his tongue. The asphyxiation of his cock plunged deep in my throat increases the sensation until my vision darkens, and he has to hold me in place as my legs flail around him.
I grip his thighs when I start to see stars, and he's quick to ease back at the same time I pull up, allowing me the oxygen I need as I fall against him. I bury my face in his thigh as the room stops spinning.
But then he slips from beneath me, canvas replacing warm flesh, but only for a second before his strong arms are hauling me up against his chest, pushing hair from my face, and pulling me close.
"Are you okay?"
"Mmm," I groan, and feel the slight itch of hoarseness in my throat that means I did a very good job. "Perfect."
And his mouth is on mine again. I taste myself on his lips even more than I did on his cock, and I don't know which way is up, or how I got onto his lap. But our chests are pressed together, and Elijah's arm is around me, and his fist is in my hair.
He guides my legs to wrap around his middle and I cry out as he lifts me the few inches he needs to angle his cock into me in the seated position.
It's so sensitive, I whimper into his mouth before breaking the kiss to drop my forehead to the crook of his shoulder.
I grip onto him so tightly it has to hurt, and I try to relax, but it's almost impossible as he begins to move.
"Look at me, Angel," he murmurs against my temple. "I want to see you."
I try to see through the haze in my eyes, blinking as Elijah fucks into me, holding me hard against him so I feel every inch, every nudge of that apadravya against my inner walls, and every roll of his base against my throbbing clit.
Elijah licks his full lips. The lines I stroked down his cheeks are broken and scattered, like the light I find in his eyes. His brows pull together, and his lips part, and I wonder what he sees on my face. In my eyes.
I drop my gaze to the canvas we're seated on, and all around us is the evidence of what we've done. Our art.
The black has mixed with the gold in places, making darker tones that look almost bronze in some areas.
It's a collage of handprints, and there, I can see the print of Elijah's back, scars and all, and there, the curve of my hips, maybe the backs of my thighs, the spots where my knees rested as he ate me out.
It's beautiful.
"One more time," Elijah begs, and his arm around me pulls me tighter, anchors me back to him as he starts to lose the battle with his own restraint.
I nod, finding the last vestiges of my energy to meet him stroke for stroke, chasing what feels good as our bodies find the perfect rhythm.
"I can't," Elijah chokes out. "I'm so close, I—fuck."
He grits his teeth, throwing his head back.
"Angel."
"Yes."
Fuck, I want him to come inside me so badly. I want him to fill me up. I want to feel his cock pulse as he—
Holy fuck.
"That's it, Angel."
Elijah swallows my scream when I come one last time with him as he finishes inside of me.
When our lips fall apart, he rests his cheek against my chest, listening to the thunder of my heart raging in my chest.
I brush his hair from his face, mixing paint with sweat as he catches his breath.
"Happy birthday," I say with a laugh, and feel more than hear his returning chuckle.
"Best one I've ever had."
I hold him tighter, wishing I could freeze this moment. Keep us here, paint-stained and tangled together, where nothing bad can reach us.
But I know better.
The calm never lasts.