Chapter 5
CHAPTER
FIVE
HUDSON
The room feels different after she leaves. Empty in a way it wasn’t just seconds ago.
I stare at the blank canvas in front of me and try to pretend I didn’t just screw that up. My jaw is tight. My hands are clenched. And for the first time since she arrived, I can feel the muscles in my cheeks relax—not from tension, but because I’m not smiling anymore.
Because there’s nothing to smile about.
God, I’m such an idiot.
I wasn’t trying to hurt her. I was trying to protect something—my space, my habits, my carefully ordered life. But the look on her face… the way her smile vanished like I’d reached out and snatched it off her lips… It guts me more than I expect.
She put herself out there. And I shut her down like it meant nothing. I truly am an idiot.
I rub my face with both hands and sit on the edge of the stool.
My elbows rest on my knees as I stare at the floor.
She's not like anyone I’ve met. There’s a quiet bravery about her—something that softens me and scares the hell out of me all at once.
She wants to be wanted. She’s not trying to take over my world.
She just wants to be part of it—she wants to try something new together. And I shut the door in her face.
Damn it. This is not the start I was hoping for.
I shoot up from the stool and walk fast through the hallway.
My feet are loud against the old floorboards, but I don’t care.
I find her door closed. I pause. My hand hovers above the wood.
I hear nothing from the other side, but I know she’s in there.
Probably thinking I’m some cold bastard who can’t be bothered to meet her halfway.
I knock, gently. “Daisy?”
A pause. Then, “Yeah?”
I exhale. “Can I come in?”
Another pause. Then the door cracks open, just enough for me to see her face. She’s not crying, but she’s blinking more than usual. Her expression is careful. Cautious.
I clear my throat. “You were right. About what you said. About trying new things. That’s kind of the whole point of this… situation, isn’t it?”
She stares at me like she’s not sure if I’m serious.
I force a smile, but it feels softer this time. “You were just following the rules .”
Her mouth quirks up, but just barely.
“I’ve been in my comfort zone so long, I didn’t even realize how much I needed to be pushed out of it. I haven’t painted a person because… I don’t know, maybe I didn’t have anyone I wanted to paint.” I glance at her. “And now you’re here. And I do.”
Her lips part. Her eyes soften.
“I’m sorry,” I say, quieter now. “I didn’t mean to shut you down. I just… you push me out of my comfort zone. And I think that scared the hell out of me. But it’s a good thing.”
She opens the door a little wider. Enough for me to step inside.
Her cat watches us from the bed, tail flicking like a slow metronome.
I scratch the back of my neck and meet her eyes. “So… if you’re still interested in being my first real portrait, I’ll get my canvas.”
She smiles and nods. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have pushed. If you want to paint me you can, but if you don’t, I understand.”
I grab her hand gently but firmly and lead her back down the hallway, back into the little studio room. Her fingers are small and warm in mine, and for a moment I forget what I’m even doing—just focused on the way her hand fits in mine like it was made to be there.
I stop in front of the old stool I use for still life set-ups. “Sit,” I tell her, trying to sound more confident than I feel.
She sits, looking up at me with those wide eyes, waiting. Expectant. Trusting.
It guts me, that trust. I don’t deserve it yet.
I clear my throat and grab my canvas. “Okay, uh… I need to see your knees.”
Her eyebrows lift. “My knees?”
“Yeah,” I say, mixing some paint, trying to act like I’ve done this before. “The shape. How the fabric drapes. You can, uh… just slightly lift your skirt—nightgown—whatever that dress thing is. Just a bit.”
She looks at me like she’s trying not to smirk. “Are you asking me to lift up my dress?”
“Not like that,” I say quickly. “Just—just enough for the reference. I mean, the lines. The form. It’s just anatomy.”
She holds back a smile, then slowly lifts the hem of her dress just above her knees, revealing smooth skin and soft curves that make my throat go dry.
“Like this?” she asks innocently.
I nod, mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah. That’s… yeah.”
I begin to draw, my hand moving quickly at first, capturing the shape of her knees, the flow of the fabric, the way her body naturally tilts just slightly to the side. Then I pause.
“Can you angle your skirt a little more? So it folds like… like waves, kind of.”
She shifts, adjusting the fabric. “Like this?”
“No, more like… actually, maybe like before.”
She shifts again. “Which way, Hudson? You gotta pick one,” she teases, a smile playing on her lips.
“I don’t know,” I mutter, exasperated. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t draw people, Daisy. I draw trees. Rocks. Still things. Things that don’t breathe and blink at me with eyes that make me forget how to hold a damn pencil.”
I toss the paintbrush onto the table and rub the back of my neck. “I thought I could just… figure it out. But this? Drawing you? It’s different. I don’t know how to do it right. You’re not a landscape.”
She’s quiet for a second, and then she says, gently, “Then stop trying to make me one.”
That pulls my eyes up to hers.
“I’m not asking you to be perfect,” she says. “I’m just asking you to see me.”
Then she says it.
“Have you ever drawn someone… in the nude?”
My head snaps up. Her voice is soft, curious, maybe even a little teasing—but my entire body goes rigid.
“No,” I say, a little too fast. “I mostly stick to trees. Flowers. You know... things that don’t look back.”
She steps closer. I can smell the soap on her skin, something clean and warm that makes my head a little hazy.
“Well,” she says, tipping her head to the side. “You’re going to be my husband soon enough anyway. If I take off the dress, you won’t have to worry about painting the fabric.”
Before I can process what she means, she reaches for the hem of her dress and pulls it over her head.
I stop breathing.
Her bra falls next, followed by her panties, pooling soundlessly at her feet. She stands there, proud and still, in nothing but her skin and her steady gaze. My jaw drops. My hands go completely numb.
She is radiant —all soft curves and long lines, the kind of beauty that hits you in the chest and knocks the sense clean out of you.
But she must mistake my silence for something else. Her eyes flicker with panic. “Oh God,” she whispers, reaching for her clothes again. “I’m sorry. That was— I shouldn’t have?—”
“No,” I say, the word coming out strangled. I reach for her wrist before she can cover herself again. “No. Don’t.”
Her breath hitches. Mine too.
I let my eyes wander—respectfully, reverently—but thoroughly. Her skin glows like a sunrise I don’t deserve to witness. Her body is both the most natural and the most dangerously beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
My cock is so hard it’s begging me to be free of my jeans. It’s jealous that she’s free, open, and it’s not buried deep inside of her.
“You’re…” I pause, searching for a word that doesn’t exist. “You’re art. ”
She freezes, looking up at me like maybe she didn’t hear me right.
“All this time,” I say slowly, my voice hoarse, “I’ve been drawing things that make me feel something. But I’ve never drawn what I want . What I crave. Until now.”
Something clicks in my head. No—my soul.
It’s her.
The curves of her hips. The tension in her belly. The shyness in her shoulders. The wild, unflinching heat in her eyes.
I can see it.
The composition. The shadows. The way I could even trace her with charcoal, soft and smudged in some places, sharp and bold in others. I want to capture the tension of her breath in her chest. The slope of her thighs. The tiny freckle under her collarbone.
I want to draw her not just as she is—but as I see her.
“Let me,” I say, my voice low, rough. “Let me get to work.”
She hesitates, her chest rising and falling fast, like mine. We don’t touch—but the pull between us is magnetic, dangerous.
“Can I… can I pose you?” I ask.
“You can do anything you want to do.” She says. Shit . Why does she have to say these things. If I was doing what I wanted, I would be destroying her tight little pussy on the spot. But something tells me the rules discourage that sort of behavior.
I walk over to her and place one hand on each knee. I part them, exposing the sweetest part of her body. The part that begs for me. The part that I couldn’t stop dreaming about last night. Her wet slit is on full display and I can’t wait to study her… thoroughly.
She sits on the stool as I watch her. Like she’s putting on a show just for me. I sketch her legs first—long, slender, gently arching. They’re graceful. Feminine. I drag the pencil down slowly, letting the curve pull something hot and restless from deep inside me.
Then comes her pussy. Her lips are almost like petals on a flower. Damn .
They're parted just slightly—blushing pink, silky-looking even in stillness. I draw the pink fleshy petals, the way they curl at the edges half-unwrapped. Teasing. Inviting. My pencil stutters for a second when I realize what I’m doing, what I’m thinking. But I don’t stop. I can’t.
Each stroke brings the her body more to life, and with it, the fire climbing up my spine.
I shade slowly, building depth in the folds, shadows where light disappears.
The inner slit cradles darkness. A secret place.
Intimate. Private. I imagine her standing in front of me, just like that—barely open, barely guarded, letting me see what no one else has.
I take my time.
And then I get to the center. The part that makes my pulse jump.