Chapter Twenty-one
I want to touch her, kiss her, wrap her hair around my fist and tilt her head back. I want to claim her for everyone to see, but I can’t.
She is entirely oblivious to the stares she’s receiving as she skips through the store, shoving random shit into the cart I’m pushing. Her iced coffee is making my hand wet, but you know what, I have a great view. Her tight jeans cling to her shape and the sway of her ass makes my mouth water. And I know, under that denim, on her right ass cheek is a small bruise caused by my mouth. She is marked. No one can see it, but I know it is there.
Doesn’t stop me from throwing warning glares at the men who get a little too comfortable undressing her with their eyes .
“What do you think of this?” She pulls out a cushion the color of a periwinkle sunset, a mix between pink and purple. Her style and mine are a complete contradiction, I am shades of grey where she is a rainbow, she is the periwinkle sunset to my storm clouds, but I’ll take her color, and her sunshine and I’ll let it break the fogs and the shadows in my life because she warms where no one else can.
I doubt she even really knows how she slid into the fissures of my broken soul and melded them together with gold.
I nudge the cart toward her, telling her without words to put it in with the rest of the colorful items she’s placed in there. Nothing matches. There’s no rhyme or reason to the things she has selected but it all has her name stamped on it. She selected furniture before we came here, and it should be arriving this afternoon.
Trailing behind her, I follow her down the section with all the art and immediately she pulls out a piece that should honestly be burned.
“This is so pretty!” She hums, moving to put the framed work in the cart.
“No.” I grumble.
She freezes, “What?”
“If you’re going to have art, Savannah, you’re not buying printed work that has no meaning. Art should speak to you.”
“This does speak to me,” She frowns, “It says, ‘I’m pretty and want to be on your wall’.”
My expression falls flat, “No.”
“And you’re an expert?”
“I can do you something better than that.” I take the piece from her and put it back on the shelf.
“Prove it.” She crosses her arms and juts out her hip, “Or is this something you want to bulldoze too?”
“That attitude is going to cost you,” I keep my voice low enough only she can hear, and my words hit exactly where I want them to. Her cheeks bloom with color and her fingers curl into her palms. “But fine, you want proof?”
I slide my hand into the inside pocket of my jacket, pulling out the little notebook I keep there with my pencil and hand it over.
“What’s this?”
“Proof.”
She takes it from me, flicking her eyes to me once with hesitation before she opens the black leather cover, worn from use and cracking at the edges.
The first page… her on stage, a quick rushed sketch during her show a few months ago while I hid in the shadows, so our friends didn’t see what I was doing. The lines aren’t perfect, and her features are not refined but it’s her.
Her throat works on a swallow as she flicks to the next page, a hummingbird, and the next, her again in a coffee shop, hands cradling a mug as she watches out the window.
“That’s me.” She breathes and flicks the page to another drawing of her. This one she’s smiling in, her eyes crinkled at the edges and several strands of her hair fall across her features.
She keeps looking, flicking through the countless drawings I have in there. Some are things I’ve seen, a river during a storm, a boat in foggy waters but mostly every page, it’s her. Her laughing, her dancing, her sleeping…
Her hands stop moving when she gets to the last page, a sketch I’d done late last night, before I ended up at her house and in her bed again. There’s two people in this one, her and me, my body between her legs, her spine pressed against the wall, both our clothes on but skewed, trousers hanging around knees while her dress is shoved up to her waist. The image of it burned into my memory, I could see every line, every expression and my hand worked the pencil on the paper so effortlessly it was like I was reliving the moment.
My desperation for her came out in a raw, primal claiming, my blood sang for her, it still does.
“Proof enough, Tiny Dancer?” I whisper, my fingers a fleeting whisper against her ribcage, “Or would you like to feed me more so I can immortalize us forever?”
A tremor works through her and her lashes flutter.
“You like that idea, hm?” I lean close, my breath brushing against the shell of her ear, “That I draw our bodies on a piece of paper? That I remember every detail, every sound and expression, that I can memorize exactly what you look like when you fall apart for me?”
She darts her eyes around as if to check no one can hear me but the aisle is empty, no one is around to see how hard she is blushing or how tight her thighs are now pressed together.
“You are art,” I rasp, “A masterpiece I will never tire of creating.”
“Killian,” She whispers.
My mouth turns up at the edges, “Yes, Tiny Dancer?”
“I won’t buy the art,” She swallows thickly.
“I will create your pieces, sweetheart,” I promise her, “I will create you anything you want.”
Her eyes bounce between mine, “I really want to go home now.”
My head cocks to the side, “You haven’t finished.”
“I want to give you inspiration, Killian,” This time she grins, “Get those skills working.”
She starts to wander off, but I know with the added sway to her hips and the way she flicks her hair over her shoulder she’s feeling confident about providing me with a new muse to work with.
I’ll bite .
I follow her up to the front and pay for her cart before she has a chance to pull out her card and I walk it to the car to load it up next to the paint we picked up earlier. She has at least seven different colors, ranging from muted greys and creams to pinks and light purples. An idea comes to mind, but I want it to be a surprise for her.
Opening the passenger door, she climbs into the Audi, purposefully running her fingers across my chest.
“Stop playing with fire, Savannah,” I warn her.
“But I’m cold,” She presses her tongue against her top teeth playfully.
With her, everything is light, like there is no weight, no past, no nightmares. And this, this playfulness, this flirting, it’s like we’ve done this before. It’s natural.
She belongs to me.
But not as much as I am hers. She can take my soul and wrap it up in her own, shine her light into each deep, dark chasm.
I lean into the car and grab her belt, giving a subtle glance around to my surroundings before I slant my mouth over hers and steal a kiss. She melts back into the seat but when she lifts her hands, I circle mine around her wrists to stop her, pinning them back down.
“Keep your hands to yourself, Savannah,” I order her.
She traces my bottom lip with her tongue and then I feel the quick, sharp sting of her teeth as they sink into it.
“We’re going home,” I pull away from her, “And you’re going to do exactly as I tell you to, do you understand me?”
“Yes,” She breathes.
“That’s my good girl,” With one last quick kiss to her mouth, I slam her door and round the car, my cock aching, my stomach in knots but the anticipation of what’s to come, of what I am about to have makes everything else irrelevant.
There is only us.