Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Jay
I’ve seen people in their element before.
Athletes mid-play. Couples in love. Other artists chasing the thing they can’t put into words.
I capture those moments in an eternal snapshot of pictures.
But watching Liv paint isn’t like that. It’s so much more instinctual, real and awe-inspiring.
I’m not sure if I’d ever be able to capture the essence of her, but I damn well want to try.
Watching her paint is the most interesting and beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed.
Her shoulders are relaxed now, the tension that lived in her every move earlier slowly slipping away. There’s paint smudged on her hand, near her knuckles, and I want to know how she’d react if I reached out and touched it. If she’d pull away or let me feel the roughness of it against my skin.
But I don’t touch her.
I focus on the canvas—bold, messy, unapologetic—then back to her. And I realize I’m not looking at the painting for answers. I’m looking at her. She is a living, breathing emotion of what she’s just created.
A tear falls from her eye, and something deep inside me demands that I catch it. As evidence of what’s happening right now? I don’t know, but the need to soothe her feels like it’s an ache in my bones.
I take a slow step toward her, not to spook the moment or make her feel trapped, and carefully raise my hand to her face, letting the tiny drop of liquid caress my thumb. Her head turns to me then, her blue eyes shining in the dim light.
“I-I… I don’t, I’m sorry,” she finally settles on, sniffing, and it draws my brow tight.
“Why are you sorry?”
“For crying, for making a mess?” The slump in her posture makes me want to pull her close to me to give her something back that she’s lost.
“Liv, that wasn’t a mess,” I start, then quickly realize that’s not what she needs to hear, “you are not a mess, you… you’re”—all the words rushing through my mind aren’t enough for what she is and what I’ve just seen from her—“…you’re exquisite,” I finish quietly, because it’s the only word that even comes close.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to let someone see what’s under the surface? ”
Her gaze flicks back to the painting, then to me, as though she’s trying to see it through my eyes.
“It’s not perfect,” she begins. “It’s messy and dark.”
“I know,” I cut in gently. “That’s what makes it beautiful. You didn’t try to make it perfect. You just… let it out. That’s—” I shake my head, unable to finish without sounding like I’m lying in awe at her feet. Except I am, and she deserves to know that. “Beautiful.”
For a long moment, we just stand there in the faded light, the air between us humming with something both of us have been ignoring for a while now. My hand is still at her cheek, and I let my thumb brush once more along the path her tear left behind, committing the feel of her skin to memory.
“Can I try something?” I ask finally, and she nods immediately, eyes flaring.
I reach for the aquamarine, adding white until it softens into a blue that feels endless, the exact shade of sky when you stand on a beach and look past the horizon.
When I turn back, she’s watching me like she’s not sure whether to be curious or cautious. I hold her gaze. “Do you… have a top on under that?”
Her brows lift, but her voice stays even. “Sports bra.”
I take a breath, making sure my tone stays steady. “Would you trust me enough to take your shirt off?”
“Had no idea that you needed me naked so badly,” she jokes, but I’m not about to let her hide behind that humor.
I hold her eyes, letting her see the honesty in mine. “Please?”
She hesitates, and I can see the battle on her face, the instinct to guard herself and the quiet pull to let me in. Please, let me in, Liv. Slowly, she reaches for the hem and peels it over her head, revealing the simple sports bra and the warm flush on her chest.
I step closer, the brush in my hand. The room is thick with the tang of paint that clings to the back of my throat. I know I’m about to cross a boundary. And yet, I can’t stop myself.
“You’ve been carrying around this story in your head about who you are and what you’re worth,” I say, my voice softer than the bristles touching her skin. “But what I see? I see someone who is brave enough to be messy. To start again. To stand in front of me and not hide.”
The first stroke lands just above her collarbone, a sweep of blue drifting over her shoulder.
The bristles drag with a whisper, leaving a cool trail that makes her shiver, though she doesn’t move away.
I drag the instrument back gently, and her breath hitches, caught between a laugh and a sigh, and my hand steadies against the rise of her shoulder.
I don’t need to know every detail about her past to know that she’s a human who’s been hurt. She carries it like armor, and I’m eager to see past that, to help her see past that, too.
“You think you’re just the darkness on that canvas,” I murmur, tracing the curve of her shoulder and down her arm, “but you’re also every soft color in between. Every detail that makes it whole.”
I paint slowly, with intention that I hope she feels, gliding along the line of her arm, the gentle swell of her breasts, down the slope where her pulse beats against her perfect skin.
Each touch is a sentence I can’t quite say out loud, each stroke a truth she doesn’t believe yet. But I want her to.
She glistens in the dimming light, wet paint silvering against the growing shadows.
Her fresh apple scent, one that now lives in my apartment, mingles with the sharpness from the paint.
I pause, lifting my gaze from the trail of color to her eyes. They shine, catching the light like glass catching flame, and for a moment, the world feels unbearably still, hanging in a balance of almost and maybe.
I let the last words fall between us. “You don’t see what I see when I look at you.” I sweep a strand of hair from her face. “Maybe because you haven’t been looking at me.”
My hand trembles, but it’s not from nerves, it’s from how badly I want to touch her without the brush between us.
She’s watching me like she’s trying to memorize this, too, her chest rising a little quicker, catching each time the brush leaves her skin. There’s a pull in the air now, heavy enough that I can feel it tug in my lungs.
I force myself to keep my pace steady, to give her time to decide what this is. The last sweep of the brush curves just above her heart at the start of her sports bra, and I swear the warmth of it travels through the handle to the tips of my fingers.
Those blue depths are wide, bright, and something in them threatens to rewrite me from the inside out. The space between us feels so small now, I can hear the way she swallows before speaking.
“Jay,” she says quietly, and my name in her voice feels like it’s meant for me alone.
“Yeah?”
Her gaze drops to my mouth for the briefest second, then comes back. “You’re wrong.”
“About what?”
Her breath shivers out, skating along my jaw. It’s not a touch but it ripples down my spine as if she were touching me anyway. “I’ve been looking,” she continues, voice barely there. “I just didn’t know how to trust myself enough to want you.”
The words linger between us as fresh as the paint on her skin, impossible to touch without leaving a mark. I watch her inhale and exhale.
She looks down at the blue streaks on her skin. “But you make me feel beautiful.”
“You are beautiful, Liv.”
“You make me feel safe.”
“You are with me.”
“Will you do something?” she asks, color staining her cheeks.
“Anything.”
Her eyes turn steel blue. “Kiss me.”
It’s not a question. It’s an answer to everything humming between us.
I want to kiss her more than I want to breathe right now, but I also need her to see. I summon every ounce of restraint I have.
“Hold that thought,” I say, reaching behind me for my camera and raising it to my face to take a picture of her.
The quiet snick of the image being immortalized sends a thrill through my body.
The moment she asked me to kiss her, to give her something that she wanted, will forever be imprinted on my brain, anyway.
I lower the camera, letting it hang against my chest, and step toward her again. Her lips part just slightly, like she’s about to say something, but the words don’t make it past her throat.
I cup her jaw with one hand, my thumb brushing the line where the blue paint meets her skin, and it’s drying and feathering with each stroke I make. “You have no idea how beautiful you look,” I tell her, my voice barely above a whisper.
Her eyes search mine, and I can see the moment she believes me just enough to let herself lean in. That’s all the permission I need.
I close the space between us slowly, so she feels the choice as much as I do. Our breaths mingle first, the faint scent of paint still hanging between us. Then my lips find hers, and every nerve in my body seems to wake up at once.
Her lips are full against mine, fighting for dominance that I push back against. It’s not a soft kiss, it’s full of confirmation of everything she’s just laid there for me. It’s testing boundaries of whatever she is and we could be. I’d expect nothing less from my wild girl.
She tastes like something I can’t name because it’s as complex as she is. Sweet and feminine, sharp and witty, and something I want to have over and over like a gluttonous fool.
When I finally draw back, just enough to look at her, there’s a new flush on her cheeks and a glint in her eyes that wasn’t there before.
Then she says one word that has the power to test all of my will.
“More.”