Chapter 14 #2
“It sounds as though you do not. And you were going to quibble price with me,” he teased. He added another slash to the painting. “I have a young cousin who dreams of being a writer one day—he’s not bad. Perhaps you could help him.”
“Perhaps, should the opportunity arise.”
He stood back, considering his work, before turning the canvas to the wall.
“You’re not going to let me see?”
“Only when it’s finished. There must be some incentive for you to return.”
He came over and helped me to my feet. “That’s all I can do today while it dries. Come back tomorrow. At the same time.” His words had a bite, a commanding tone I liked.
“And bring some of your writing,” he called as the door shut behind me. “I’d like to see what goes on in that lovely head of yours.”
I was back the next day at noon, papers in hand. My head swirled, filled with images of what might come to pass inside René’s lair as I drew closer to his street. My hand shook when I knocked on the wooden door.
He threw open the entry and smiled in his particular way, with a hint of I told you so.
“Don’t look at me that way. I had to come. You’re keeping my painting hostage. It was this or call for the police.” I brushed past, the smell of him luring me like a bee to nectar; I wanted to cover myself in all of him.
I sat for the portrait, in the same dress and position, but this time wearing my best perfume, hoping I could intoxicate him with my own presence.
The conversation sparked between us as he painted, thickening with curiosity and passion.
When I moved too much, he’d lift my chin or adjust my hand, his touch sending ribbons of heat through my body.
The more we talked, the more enchanted I became.
René was in charge of his fate, painting when he liked and what he liked, commanding top prices.
“I have an upcoming show—an exhibition. Perhaps you’d like to come?”
“Looking for a patron?” It was not an outlandish offer; I had agreed to similar arrangements with more than one artist.
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t answer, instead standing and sweeping one of my long curls behind my ear. “Are you hungry?” The words caressed my ear.
I gawked at him, confused. It took all my strength to not chase his touch with my own.
“You keep nibbling your bottom lip.”
I blushed but licked the swollen, tender skin I’d just been biting.
He was entirely too delighted with the way I reacted to him, even as he walked to a small table, unwrapping the basket upon it.
He pulled out a dark-red apple and deftly sliced it with thin, even strokes.
He arranged it artfully, spreading the ripe fruit on the tray next to thick wedges of cheese and golden, crusty bread.
“Try.” He held a piece of apple a few inches from my lips. “Bite this instead.”
I tried not to smile at him.
“You shouldn’t move from your pose,” he explained, a grin dancing on his face.
My blood thrummed in my veins. I leaned forward and took the apple in my teeth, never breaking eye contact.
His gemstone eyes burned into mine, and I wanted him to kiss me, but he brushed his hands against his smock, breaking the spell. “And what of your art? Did you bring some that I might see?”
I pointed to my papers. From the top, he plucked my favorite piece and read aloud.
“‘My footsteps echo on the cold white marble, filling the royal chamber with sounds of life. The gold display, dull from lack of care, struggles to glimmer while the moth-bitten velvet from an age gone by molders silently. The kings don’t question my presence. They can’t.
They’ve gone to dust, and the memory of their greatness slides further into nothingness with each passing moment.
I breathe in. I am alive for however brief a time.
“‘The Musée des Monuments Francais is the perfect place to consider your fate. Where better to contemplate your life than at the feet of dead kings? People who, despite having enormous wealth, influence, and impact, could not escape Death?
“‘I spent an afternoon this way, dwarfed by the high curving walls that guard the treasures within, relics of the past before the time of the Revolution. The display of the mortal remains of those who had once ruled the world held my attention the longest of all the beautiful things. Charles V, Louis XII, and Catherine de’ Medici, instrumental in the direction and fate of so many lives, were reduced to bone and ash in death.
What did it all signify? The pain? The plots?
The pursuit of earthly goods and immortality?
“‘It ends in dust, in a quiet room, on a forgotten shelf. I choose not to focus on the end, for that is long and stretches toward forever, but instead, think of the life that flared and thrived in the in-between. For who has a more cautionary tale on the importance and brevity of life than those who have already lost theirs?’”
The silence sang out as René smiled, his teeth pearl-like, as he replaced the sheet on the pile. “I am in the presence of a master. I believe as you do: Life is fleeting. We have but a moment.”
Then he winked, teasing, and added, “Though it is a bit passé to refer so strongly to Death in your work, no?” I blushed, and he nodded to the paper. “What are you going to do with it?”
I squirmed in my seat. After all, this was for Death’s eyes only.
“You should share your work.” He leaned closer to the canvas, daubing in small strokes.
“I do . . . at least, I have pieces published in a few magazines.”
His gaze was assessing. “Not as much as you should, I think.”
I blushed even deeper. “It’s the way of the world. It won’t be accepted.”
René frowned. “Why would I paint if no one could see it?” He gestured to the canvas.
“It’s how I make myself known. It’s how I show the world the value of my existence.
And in doing so, I give the world meaning.
Your writings, they are the same. Keeping them to yourself is a selfish thing.
” He turned his attention back to the painting as I considered what he said.
I hadn’t been keeping my work to myself—it was the editors rejecting them. But I had to admit that the constant rejection made me slow to submit. Maybe I was letting potential noes stop all the future yeses.
His words sent chills over me as I pondered them.
“Come now.” He grasped my hands, cool against my warm skin. “Let us finish our work—so we can immortalize you in another way.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon talking as he painted, and when I returned the next day, we picked up right where we’d left off.
In the late afternoon, he laid his paintbrush down. “It is finished.”
I stood eagerly. He’d kept his work covered when I wasn’t confined to the couch.
He nodded. I walked to the easel and gasped. He’d painted with wild abandon. Shafts of light highlighted my hair as my eyes, regal and powerful, gazed at the viewer. I sat confident in my presence—serene but strong. He’d depicted me as royalty.
“It’s amazing,” I breathed. “Everything you promised and more.” I’d thought him talented, but this was a wonder—the work of a master.
His green eyes held me there, a question open between us. Our business was nearly finished. I had no more reason to stay, and desperately wanted a reason to.
My curiosity got the best of me. “What will you do now that our time is ending?”
He stepped closer, giving me enough time to reject him.
I made no move to leave, and welcomed his touch.
He traced a finger along my collarbone, pressing the pad of his thumb into my birthmark.
He ran it along my plunging neckline. A pulse drummed between my legs and I gasped, my nipples pushing against the fabric of my dress.
His firm hands skated along the outline of my figure, and he lowered his mouth to my neck.
“I believe our time is just beginning,” he whispered, the heat of his breath caressing my skin, making me wild for his touch. “I didn’t tell you the other part of what I knew when I saw you that first day.”
I curled my fingers in his hair, hurrying his kiss along. But he waited, teasing.
“What did you know?” I panted.
“That you would be mine.” He kissed me.
I groaned with pleasure as we crushed together, almost devouring one another in our urgency.
I plucked at his buttons, him pulling at my corset.
We landed on the couch in a pile, limbs tangled as we shed our clothes.
He pulled me on top of him, his clever painter’s fingers sliding down my body, skimming my hips, and slipping into the warmth between my thighs.
I couldn’t look away from the intensity of his eyes, such a unique shade of green.
I sank around his fingers slowly before he filled me.
I gasped with pleasure, every sense, every nerve heightened.
He grabbed my hips, rocking me forward, the spark of pleasure within reach.
It had never felt this together, this perfect.
The sensation raced to my fingertips, through the ends of my hair. I felt ready to break apart.
René’s expression only said more. He knew just where to touch me, familiar with my body as he was with a canvas, rocking me forward again and again, until—with a cry a century in the making—my world blurred.
René shuddered beneath me, and his groan drove the ache within me, making it stronger and stronger.
A wave crashed over us, our voices mingling, our sweat glowing in the golden light of the sunset.
In the aftermath, with René’s arm wrapped around me, I blinked in disbelief. Sex had never been this. There was no pretense, no fear, no dishonesty—only truth and transcendence.
It wasn’t long before I wanted more. We stayed that way, making love again and again before the day slid into the night.
“Marguerite, there is one thing.”
There, the name. I yearned to tell him the truth, but instead I sat up, pulling the sheet around me. I was already thinking of the blond with the rosy breasts. Maybe he, like Jacques, had a secret wife somewhere. “What is it?”
“I hope you don’t think I take this as a form of payment.”
I laughed and pulled him on top of me, not finished with him yet.