Sage
“What the hell did you do with my model?” I asked once everyone was gone.
He smirked. “I just told him there was a change of plans and gave him a few bucks for his trouble.” He shrugged. “He was fine with it.”
I shook my head at him. “I can’t believe you did this, Christian.” My cheeks hurt from smiling and I felt like I had a fever with how hot I was running.
Christian tightened the towel around his waist and returned his brace to his knee. “I’m telling you, I thought it was just going to be you, not my mom’s friends. Once I was out here though, I had to commit. They’d seen me in diapers, so what was the big deal?”
I laughed. “Seeing a baby in diapers versus a grown-ass man dick are not the same.”
“They got past it.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “Look at Marine’s. I really inspired hers.” He gestured to Marine’s canvas still drying on an easel. “That’s a ten-inch dong right there.”
Marine’s painting did seem to have Christian’s dick as a major focal point.
I laughed again, my cheeks burning. It really was a nice cock.
It seemed to round out his body nicely, long and thick, his tip round and velvety looking.
That eight pack that I couldn’t help imagining tracing with my tongue, that deep V that pointed right to it, like a framed piece of art.
Christian picked up a couple glasses of paint water while I picked up a paint palette. I’d told him to sit and wait for me to clean up, but he insisted on helping even if it meant he was limping around the studio.
“I think these ladies really exaggerated the model’s features,” I commented, stopping to look at Chelsea Houghton’s painting. “You have a twelve pack in this one.”
“What?” Christian headed over to see what I was looking at. “Wow. I think she really captured my likeness. She saw what most people don’t. My abs have abs.”
I giggled. “No, they don’t. At best you have a six pack.”
Christian scoffed, taken aback. “Rude.” He dipped his fingers in a glass, flicking me with water.
“Christian! Did you really just flick dirty paint water at me?”
His lips curled. “Yes, I did. What are you going to do about it?”
I thought for a moment, then dipped my fingertips in the paint palette, coming away with them painted in blue, pink, purple, white, and green.
His eyes narrowed while his smile grew. “I dare you.”
Not even taking another second to think, I slapped my hand on his bare chest right by that starburst looking tattoo and ran my fingers over the hard planes of his chest and down the abs in question until streaks of color slashed across his torso.
His mouth hung open. “You didn’t just do that.”
My eyes flicked up to his, challenging him while his were already sparkling with mischief. “I absolutely just did that.”
Christian set down the dirty water, picking up his own paint palette and took a step closer.
Despite his knee, he moved before I could react, his fingers dipping into the paint and smearing it along my jaw and my throat, down to my clavicle.
The cool paint made me suck in a breath as he traced the paint over my chest and down to where my cleavage peeked out from my V-neck sweater.
I didn’t hesitate this time, scooping paint from the palette now and slapping an open palm against his cheek before running it down his throat and rubbing it over his pecs.
“Oh, you’re going to get it now,” Christian said, turning the palette over and smearing it all over my shirt before letting it fall at our feet, the rest splattering up.
Seeing him pick up another palette, I threw mine at him, turning on my feet to get away, a nervous laugh gurgling up my throat.
His hand whipped out, grabbing my arm, just as we both slipped on paint, him nearly falling right on top of me while I struggled to get away. Air left my lungs with a whoosh.
Regaining my breath, I turned over to look up at him. His face was pinched in a grimace, the palette still in his grasp. Only my body broke his fall.
“Oh my God, Christian, are you okay?” I asked, immediately concerned about his knee and ribs.
A mere second later, his face relaxed, a smile returning, while he turned the palette over. We both watched as the paint slowly dripped down my chest and pooled between my breasts.
“Damn, I think I ruined your shirt.” His hooded eyes connected with mine, making my breath catch. Heat curled in my belly seeing the naked desire in them.
“Damn,” I repeated. “That’s too bad.” But there was no disappointment in my voice as I reached for the hem of my sweater and pulled it over my head.
His gaze followed my movements, his green eyes growing dark with need. His chest rose and fell. Somewhere in our slip, his towel came loose and he laid between my legs.
“I think it would only make sense if we took your jeans off so we don’t ruin those, too. Besides, it would only be fair if we were both fighting on the same level.”
“That only makes sense.” Apparently, I couldn’t form my own words right now.
Christian nodded, his hand going to the button on my pants.
He looked back up at me as if to ask permission.
I nodded for him to continue. He sat up, leaning most of his weight on his good knee while he started to take off my jeans.
I lifted my hips to help him get it over my ass and down my legs, my toes kicking off my tennis shoes and socks before he pulled off my jeans and tossed them to the side.
He grabbed another paint palette and brush in his reach, settling back between my thighs.
“You’re a work of art, Sage,” he breathed, dipping the brush in the paint as he lowered himself back over me.
My heart hammered out of my chest. I didn’t know if I was breathing while he traced the brush around the top curve of my breasts, along the cup of my bra. I arched my back when he dipped between them, wishing my bra was off so I could feel the bristles of the brush paint strokes around my nipples.
“Christian,” I breathed, my painted fingers digging into his hair. “Take my bra off.”
“What did you say, baby?” he asked, setting the paint brush down.
“Please, take my bra off.”
I rose slightly as he reached behind me to unclasp my bra, his hands reverently caressing my arms as he slid the straps off my shoulders and let the bra fall. His eyes fell to the stiff peaks of my breasts.
“Sage,” he whispered. “You’re so beautiful. How did I get so lucky?”
I smiled, tipping his head back up to look at me. “I guess that Vegas bet worked out for you.”
“I hit the jackpot with you, star fire.” He leaned down, pressing a kiss between my breasts, before picking up the brush again to paint swirls over the curves.
Circles tightened around my nipples, but never touching them, making me ache for more.
My pussy clenched as he took time with one breast and then the next, the brush slowly making its way down until he stopped.
My breath froze in my lungs. His eyes were looking at my left side, right below the bottom curve of my breast along my ribs.
I knew eventually I’d have to explain it.
I rarely noticed it anymore, only seeing it if I was naked in front of a mirror.
Out of sight, out of mind. He knew what I went through, what landed me at his parent’s doorstep, but seeing it was a whole other thing.
His fingertips brushed the raised skin along my ribs, then the numbers that followed the curve of the scar.
“What’s this?” he asked, still not looking at me.
I brushed the hair off his forehead that had fallen into his eyes. “It’s from when I fell into the shelf.”
“You mean, when he pushed you into it.” His eyes flicked back up to mine. They narrowed in anger, not for me but for what Clayton did to me.
“Yes, when he pushed me. The day I left. The day that brought me here. The number that probably saved me because I didn’t go where I was supposed to go.”
“My address?”
I nodded, my teeth scraping my bottom lip as he returned to painting, this time letting the brush stroke smooth over the scar. The tender movement made my chest tighten, like he was soothing my old hurts.
He ran the brush over my belly, trailing south for a moment before arching back up.
He followed the curve of my breast and over my arms where I’d recently tattooed over old scars.
But it didn’t stop him from finding them hidden beneath the ink, so I explained each one to him as he painted over them.
“He pushed me down the stairs and I scraped my shoulder on the wall on the way down. Pretty sure it took off a layer of skin. I have a scar on my ankle from that fall too. Broke it in two places.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Christian growled, his neck turning red.
“Hey.” I tipped his head to look at me. “He can’t touch me here. They’re scars for a reason. They’ve healed. I’m slowly reclaiming each one with every tattoo. It’s a part of me, but it does not define me. Those scars only make my skin tougher, stronger.”
“But none of that should have ever happened to you.”
“It brought me here though.” I smiled softly at him. “I don’t regret that.”
He returned to his brush strokes finding another scar right beneath the tattoo of a paintbrush and flower bouquet.
“That was a kitchen burn. One of the first ones. He was mad that I was cooking dinner when he’d planned a surprise dinner date and I’d insisted we reschedule.”
“Piece of shit,” Christian gritted out.
“Yeah, he is,” I agreed, while he continued to paint down my body, allowing the strokes to trace the outline of my panties, causing my pussy to throb and my hips to shift up to meet him.
My body was begging for him with each caress of the brush, the cool paint like a tease on my heated skin.
But he didn’t stop there, though I wanted him to stay, trailing the brush down my legs, following the floral tattoo down my thigh that I got just because it made me feel pretty, all the way down to my ankle where the jagged scar from my break was still uncovered.
“Are you going to cover this one too?”
“I don’t know yet,” I told him honestly. “I haven’t decided what to put there.”
“Maybe you should put a star.”
My fingertips found the star on his chest, tracing each point that burst out from the center. “Like yours?”
“I got it for you.”
My eyes shot to his. They were pleading with me, like he was hoping this wasn’t too much. “For me?”
He nodded almost shyly. “You’re a star, Sage. My whole world revolves around you. I can’t seem to stop it. I’ve been drawn to you from the beginning. Like my orbit keeps getting tighter and tighter the closer I get to you and I can see you beneath all those walls. I see that fire, that light.”
“Christian.” Tears pricked my eyes. “If I have walls, it's because I don’t want anyone to ever get hurt. I have shadows that follow me.”
“If there are shadows, it’s because there is light. You’re my star fire. You’ve been that to me in my head for a long time now.”
Water welled, threatening to escape. “How can you see all of that without really knowing me?”
“I know you, Sage.”
I shook my head. “Impossible. I don’t feel like I let people close enough to know me.”
“I know you like your coffee with cream. I know you keep drawing green landscapes because they remind you of my eyes.”
“How—”
“I saw some of the canvases stored in the back. The one with my eyes with a forest inside them kind of gave it away.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped, despite the tears that were now falling.
“I know riding Zenith with Arlo at your side makes you feel safe and free. I saw it all over your face when we rode a while ago. I know you wish your brother and I would quit bull riding, because you’re afraid we’ll get hurt which was why you were actually angry with me when you saw me in the ER.
I know you’ve tried to hide your feelings for me almost as long as I’ve had feelings for you. ”
“Christian, I—” I couldn’t believe he observed all of this about me.
“I know you’re proud of your Jeep and the gallery you’re building here, because it’s yours.
You’ve never had anything that belonged to you until you came here.
You worked hard for all of this. Probably the reason why you agreed to pretend to be in a relationship with me in the first place, because as soon as Clayton showed up he was a threat to everything you built here, not to mention the fear he still uses to control you.
But you’ve done the work to break it, reclaiming it all for yourself.
Just like you’ve reclaimed your body with each piece of ink you’ve added. ”
He held my left wrist, his thumb brushing over the road that wound through the trees to the mountains.
“And this road all led you right here. Brought you right where you needed to be.”
A sob rumbled through my chest. I pinched my eyes shut to try to keep the tears from falling. My free hand quickly wiped away those that escaped.
“Oh, baby. Don’t cry. You're ruining my artwork,” he teased, making a laugh break through my sobs. “You should see it too. It looks so good.”
I laughed through the tears now, my hand going to brush the paint off his cheek. “We sure made a mess of each other, didn’t we?”
His lips tipped in a smirk. “I’m not done yet. I plan on making a bigger mess.”
He lowered his head between my breasts, pressing a kiss to my painted skin. I sucked in a shuddering breath, trying to calm my sobs, as he continued dropping kisses down between them and over my stomach.
He tipped his face up, his eyes connecting with mine. “What do you say, baby? Can I make a bigger mess of you? I promise to clean it up after I’m done.”
My stomach sucked in as his lips brushed across my skin, the throb returning to my center.
“Make a mess, rodeo star.” The words left my mouth before I even had a chance to think, his fingers already hooking the sides of my panties, ready to pull them down.