Chapter 9 #2
Sebastian watched Red. She sat with her spine straight, chin tilted in concentration, lips slightly parted.
The flicker of candlelight played across the curve of her cheek and the slope of her neck, gilding her in warm hues.
He found himself wondering, not for the first time, who she truly was.
What had brought her here? What story lay behind the mask, and what desperation had driven her to paint scenes so clearly at war with her sensibilities?
Red gasped suddenly, her hand lifting to her throat in a startled, almost helpless gesture.
Sebastian lifted a brow and shifted his gaze to the chaise.
Lavinia sprawled against the chaise, her legs thrown over Dunmore’s shoulders as he licked her pussy with obscene greed.
The wet sounds of his tongue and fingers working her slit mingled with the low rhythm of Lavinia’s panting breaths.
Lavinia gripped the arm of the chaise, knuckles white, her body arching helplessly into the relentless lash of his mouth.
Red gasped again, and this time her hand shot for the brush.
“Do not stop, Lord Dunmore,” she said, her voice suddenly sharp and clear. “Hold her there. I must capture that expression.”
Lavinia moaned, a sound pitched between pleasure and torment, and Sebastian watched as her limbs trembled.
Her mouth fell open, eyes wild and unfocused.
That moan deepened into a cry as her body jerked, thighs clenching around Dunmore’s head.
Dunmore did not relent, and Red continued to paint in quick, precise strokes that brought her subject to vivid, aching life.
Minutes passed, perhaps more than Sebastian realized, for time bent strangely around Red when she painted, folding in on itself as if caught in the grip of her focus.
Her initial shock had clearly faded, burned away by something stronger: her passion for art.
Lavinia climaxed once, then again, and finally a third time, her cries sharp and frantic as she twisted against Dunmore’s mouth.
Sweat glistened along her skin, and her hair clung in damp strands to her temples.
Red’s brush flew, recording every grimace of rapture, every note of surrender carved into the courtesan’s face.
Her eyes flicked between subject and canvas with single-minded devotion, her lips moving faintly as if reciting some silent rhythm between light and shadow, motion and stillness.
Her hand trembled once, then steadied. Only the image on the canvas lived.
Sebastian approached her, drawn by the need to see the work she painted.
She did not notice his approach. He glanced down, and for a heartbeat, he forgot to breathe.
“Good God,” he murmured. “This is extraordinary.”
The painting emerging beneath her fingers was vivid, carnal, and stunning.
It was not lewd; it was truthful. Red no longer appeared to witness debauchery; she interpreted and translated it, transforming flesh and surrender into beauty.
There was enchantment in the surrender she captured, in the way Lavinia’s limbs slackened into pleasure, in the sheer honesty of ecstasy.
Sebastian did not look back at the chaise.
His attention belonged entirely to Red.
As though she felt the weight of his gaze, she lifted her head. Her eyes widened behind the mask, and the rapid flutter at the hollow of her throat betrayed her.
Something wicked and hungry unfurled inside Sebastian.
He stepped closer, too close for propriety and too close for sense, then lifted his hand.
His fingers paused an inch from her face, giving her time to retreat.
When she remained still, his thumb brushed the edge of her lower lip in a slow, deliberate stroke.
“You bite them when you concentrate,” he murmured.
Red’s breath caught, sharp and unguarded.
Her chest rose on a ragged gasp. For a heartbeat she swayed toward him, as if pulled.
Only then did she jerk back as though scalded.
Before he could say another word, she lurched to her feet, gathered her skirts with trembling fingers, and fled the room like a frightened rabbit who had only just realized the wolf’s attention was fixed entirely upon her.
Darcy pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the cool night air of the garden terrace, her breath coming in quick, uneven pulls.
She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth, trying to erase the ghost of the earl’s touch, but it clung to her, wicked and warm.
Lord Raine had barely grazed her lips with his thumb, and yet the sensation pulsed through her, sharp with hunger and achingly tender.
Her face burned. Darcy’s entire body ached with a heat she did not understand, a maddening ache that curled low in her belly and made her thighs press together.
Desperation and fury tangled inside her, for a single look and one fleeting touch from the Earl of Raine had reduced her to this trembling confusion.
Darcy snapped her spine straight. She had painted naked flesh. She had witnessed pleasure and captured it on canvas. Yet it was his gaze, the dark, alluring rasp of his voice, and the dangerous curve of his mouth that unraveled her and awakened something wholly unknown inside her.
Get hold of yourself, she scolded silently.
Drawing a steady breath, she turned with her composure firmly restored, then froze.
He had followed her outside and now leaned against the wall, watching her with an intensity she could not read.
“Are you well, Red?”
His tone was laced with provocative humor.
Darcy delicately cleared her throat. “Yes. I have enough of Lord Dunmore and his lover to complete the canvas. I am ready for the next room,” she said evenly, though her voice still betrayed a breathlessness she could not quite suppress.
“You need not accompany me. The next scene is only a kiss.”
One of his brows lifted. That sinful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, lazy and lethal. “Only a kiss?” His smile deepened. “Then you are surely in no danger at all. Good evening, Red.”
He bowed, then turned and walked away without another word.
Only when he disappeared inside could she breathe freely again.
Darcy stood frozen for a moment before spinning on her heel. She went straight to Madam Rebecca’s private salon, still rattled but determined to anchor herself in her work.
“I have finished with the lovers,” she said calmly. “Someone may collect the canvas once they are… quite finished.”
Rebecca glanced up from a ledger, smiled slyly, and arched a brow. “Running off to capture sweet innocence now, are you?”
Darcy managed a tight smile. “Yes. Door five, was it?”