Chapter 25 Iris #2
I ease back.
“You can use the safe word if you want me to stop,” I tease.
He smiles faintly. “The safe word is only for you, dark one. If it pleased you, I’d endure far worse.”
I let his remark sit, unrepentant. But for the sake of both of us, I give his cock one last suck, then turn, offering him my back.
He understands immediately. The zipper of my dress lowers with care beneath his fingers as kisses rain on my exposed spine. Then he bares me, as if I’m something to be uncovered, not taken. I feel worship in it, respect, and something dangerously close to devotion.
When I face him again, I present myself, and he meets me there. Skin to skin, breath to breath. It feels less like an embrace and more like an alignment.
“What do you want me to do?” he asks.
I guide him toward the canvas laid out on the floor, still unfinished, still waiting. I ask him to pause while I reach for the paint. Crimson goes first, spread generously. Then, I thin it with pure distilled water until it flows before adding gold, laid in slow veins through it.
When I’m done, I lie back against the canvas, flat and open, the colors cool beneath me.
He follows.
Our bodies find each other without urgency, without instruction. Our masks brush where our foreheads nearly meet, the edges of them grazing skin instead of lips. It should feel like a barrier, but instead, it heightens everything.
Paint transfers the moment we touch. Crimson streaks across his chest beneath my hands, and gold gathers along my wrists as I explore further, leaving traces of glimmer. Every touch leaves evidence, and every movement alters the canvas beneath us.
We tangle slowly. I smear color along his abs, across the planes of him I already know by heart. His breathing roughens under my touch, and his chest lifts harder now. His head also tips back like the sensation has driven him into a corner.
Then he looks at me again, a small smile playing on his mouth. “They didn’t teach this at art school, surely.”
“If there were a school for it,” I say, my hands coasting lower and hinting, not quite touching his cock. “I suppose I’m self-taught.”
He dips his head, our masks colliding with an unavoidable knock. His restraint is palpable as he keeps his mouth from mine by force alone.
He’s different tonight. But damn, he still defends that one stupid rule.
He straightens, his palms heavy and sure as he paints my breasts. My back arches into it, accepting whatever he gives me. It isn’t a kiss, but it’s close enough that my body doesn’t care. The sensation still outpaces anything a mortal touch could offer.
“Wolf, it feels so incredible,” I moan as he toys with my nipples.
My legs wrap around him instinctively, pulling him nearer, and the paint blooms between us, patterns neither of us could have planned but both of us recognize as ours.
He makes his move, a hot, wet invasion that stretches me.
And I let out a moan as my body adjusts.
The deeper he goes, the more I crave him, and I help myself by pushing harder and making my intentions clear, showing him how much I want to take him.
He’s done this before, so he knows what sets me off. And he responds with a reassuring push.
We collide over and over as he plunges further.
“Don’t stop,” I beg.
He keeps pushing, daring me to falter.
“I gave you control,” he says close to my ear as he glides more slowly, dragging the friction. “Now prove you can keep it.”
I nod, not entirely sure I can. And the rhythm returns, with more devastation.
“Wolf!” I gasp. His thumb is a burning brand on my clit, tweaking and baiting pleasure.
“Can you take more?” he rasps.
“Yes. Yes…Yes, I can.”
So he gives it. The sound of his cock driving in and out is the sexiest noise this barn has ever held, louder than the slick drag of wet paint against our skin.
“God, you’re close,” he says. “So close. You want it now?”
“Yeah,” I pant.
“You want it now?” he repeats
“Yes!” I exclaim.
His hand leaves my clit, both his palms coming to my throat. “Let it go, Midnight.”
Something in me recognizes the pressure before my mind does.
“No. Wait. Wait.”
He releases me instantly.
“What is it?” His voice wavers. “Am I hurting you?”
“No. No.” I suck in air, trying to process what just came to me. “I don’t want that.”
The first time, it was amazing. It was all stars and fireworks. But it was incomplete.
I shake my head and say, “I don’t want to be alone there. I want you with me.”
“Tell me straight, Midnight.” His shoulders heave up and down. “What do you want?”
“I want us to come together.”
His breath leaves him slowly. I can’t see his face behind the mask, but I feel the change in him. His body softens, and his hold on me turns sweet.
“I’ll wait for you,” I say, feeling how hard he still is.
“I’ll follow you,” he responds.
I move, and he moves with me. Stronger, surer. His thumb finds my clit again, exact and unrelenting.
“Yes, there. There!” My voice breaks. “Don’t stop. I’m—”
“I’m almost there, Midnight,” he growls.
And then everything explodes.
No stars. No fireworks. Just him. Just him inside me, the surge rolling through every part of me and leaving nothing untouched. He’s everywhere—on me, in me, and around me. It’s a color I’ve never known before. And it’s beautiful.
It’s fucking beautiful.
Wolf’s mouth opens, and he drags in a breath like he’s been holding it for far too long. He’s not looking at the room. He’s locked onto me. Onto this second, onto the line we’ve circled all night.
“God,” I whisper, the word trembling out of me. “Let me kiss you.” I swallow, the weight of it pressing behind my ribs. “Please, let me kiss you.”
“I’m not stopping you, dark one,” he says softly.
The permission lands like a key turning.
My hands slide up his chest, feeling the power there. Our masks brush, lacquer against skin, a reminder of the rule I’ve carried with me every time I’ve wanted this.
Then my mouth finds his.
It’s not rushed. It can’t be. This has waited too long. His lips part, and when we finally meet, the kiss is deep, stripped of the game. Just our breaths and the disbelief that this is finally allowed.
I break on it, on the way his hand comes to my waist and the way he answers me without taking, without leading. He lets me have it, on my terms.
Emotions rush in too fast. I kiss him again, savoring the reality of it, the taste, the closeness, and the fact that nothing pulls us apart.
When I finally rest my forehead against his, our masks touching, I laugh softly, breathless and overwhelmed.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I murmur. “Kissing me.”
“Well,” he says with an edge of amusement in his voice, “technically, you kissed me.” His finger lifts, brushing the tip of my nose.
I chuckle. Yes, I did. Because he trusted me with it.
He gathers me in, and my cheek settles against his chest, his arm firm around my back.
The air cools around us, and I become aware of it, of the paint tightening and drying where it shouldn’t.
“Okay,” I say, glancing down at the streaks all over us. “We should probably clean up before we permanently transform into gold flamingos. These paints are a nightmare once they set.”
He huffs out a quiet sound that might almost be laughter.
I rise onto my knees on the canvas, take his hand, and help him up. Then I lead him toward the shower tucked into the corner of the barn. It’s small, utilitarian, and designed for exactly one person who isn’t covered in art supplies.
He finds the bin and disposes of the condom, and it hits me then how effortlessly he’d handled it.
“Turn the light off,” he says.
I do.
Darkness folds around us as the water starts. The space becomes comically tight, our elbows brushing, shoulders bumping.
“Well,” he murmurs behind me, “this is…intimate.”
“Barn luxury,” I quip.
“So let’s clear something up,” he says. “I don’t have an intimacy problem.”
I laugh. “Just because the shower forces us into it doesn’t make it proof.”
“I let you kiss me,” he reminds me.
“And whose idea was that?” I counter.
A low sound rumbles from him. “Don’t push it, Midnight.”
I lean back into him, content to stay exactly here and let the moment exist without reaching for more.
My hand finds his wrist, guiding him closer even though there’s nowhere else for him to go.
The water streams over us, softening the paint, ribbons of gold loosening and sliding away in the dark, vanishing down the drain like something temporary finally released.
I lift my hands and remove my mask before setting it on the shower shelf. The absence of it is instant, and even in the dark, I feel bare.
He stays behind me, tracing my shoulders and back. Then, his hands come forward, the initial touch attentive.
Suddenly, he withdraws altogether.
“I’m going to take off my mask,” he says. “Promise me you won’t look back.”
The request catches me off guard, testing the last of my restraint. But after everything he’s already given me, I don’t need to see him. Not like that. The knowing is already there, implied and potent.
“I promise,” I murmur.
Behind me, I sense movement, something lifting, something like skin brushing my hair.
I stand still, not turning even a degree.
All I see is his arm extending past me, the faintest spill of light from outside catching the edge of it.
The wolf mask appears in his hand, then settles beside my own on the shelf, close enough that I could touch it if I wanted to.
I let the moment pass.
The water keeps running, and my pulse does, too.
His hands return to me, warmer now. He rinses what feels like the last traces of paint from my skin, then his touch changes. One finger, then another, invasive and provoking, lifting me onto my toes as if my body has no choice but to follow.
“Wolf…” I whimper.
“Did you think I was going to give you less tonight?”
“I forgot how generous you are,” I tease while my core is dealing with his force.