Chapter 11 Amelia
AMELIA
My brushes mock me from their jar. I’ve been standing in front of this blank canvas for twenty minutes, unable to make the first stroke. My body feels like a live wire, electricity running beneath my skin, pooling in my fingertips, my lips, the hollow between my thighs.
I close my eyes and see his hands. Those elegant fingers curved around a wine glass. The way his calluses caught slightly against my wrist when we touched. Piano player’s hands. Killer hands.
Not literally, of course. But the thought sends an unexpected thrill through me.
“Focus,” I mutter, dipping my brush into the deep indigo I’ve mixed. I make a sweeping arc across the canvas, then another. Working quickly, not thinking, just feeling.
When I step back, I see I’ve painted the curve of a back—a spine arching in what could be pleasure or pain. My cheeks heat up, but I keep going, adding shadows, depth, the suggestion of hands gripping pale flesh.
This isn’t like my usual work. No hidden constellations or cosmic patterns. This is primal. Raw. I switch to a wider brush, creating abstract shapes that transform into intertwined bodies as I work.
“What are you doing to me?” I whisper, thinking of Gabe. His voice was deep and smooth like aged bourbon.
I’ve never painted anything like this before. Never wanted to. I’ve always transformed the world into patterns, seeing the mathematics beneath reality. But now I’m painting pure sensation.
My phone buzzes with a text. I ignore it, lost in creating shadows that suggest an open mouth pressed to skin. When I finally check, it’s Maya asking about lunch tomorrow.
I set the phone down without answering and return to my canvas. The painting grows darker, more urgent. Bodies emerging from abstract darkness. Hands everywhere. Possession.
I haven’t even kissed him yet, and already he’s rewired something in me. Unlocked doors I didn’t know existed. It’s terrifying.
It’s exhilarating.
My phone rings as I’m rinsing paint from my brushes. Maya’s name flashes on the screen.
“Hey, sorry I didn’t text back.” I wedge the phone between my ear and shoulder, wiping my hands on a rag. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“New painting?” Maya asks. “I thought you were done with the exhibition pieces.”
I stare at the canvas across the room. The tangled bodies. The suggestion of pleasure and pain is intertwined.
“It’s... something different. I’m not sure what it is yet.”
There’s a pause. “This is about Gabe, isn’t it?”
The directness of her question makes me inhale sharply. “Is it that obvious?”
“You have a particular tone when you’re obsessed,” she says with a hint of amusement.
I sink onto my paint-splattered stool. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, Maya. There’s something about him...”
“Something dangerous?” Her voice is surprisingly neutral.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” I run a hand through my hair, leaving a smudge of indigo. “I get this feeling when I’m around him—like he’s not showing everything. Like there’s something powerful and... dark underneath all that charm.”
“And that scares you?”
“That’s the problem,” I whisper, glancing at the explicit painting drying on my easel. “It should terrify me. But instead, it makes me...” I swallow hard, embarrassed to say it even to my best friend.
“Wet?” Maya finishes for me.
“God, yes. What’s wrong with me?”
I expect her to warn me, to remind me of every red flag I’ve ignored in previous relationships. Instead, her voice is surprisingly calm, almost knowing.
“Not everyone who understands the darkness is a threat,” Maya says carefully. “Sometimes darkness is just... honesty. And sometimes what scares us is exactly what we need.”
I blink, surprised by her response. “That doesn’t sound like the Maya who lectured me for three hours about dating the gallery owner’s nephew, but maybe you’re right,” I say finally. “I can’t tell if what I’m feeling is good or bad.”
“Sometimes it’s both,” Maya replies. “Promise you’ll keep your eyes open.”
“I will. I should go—need to get ready. He’s playing for me tonight.”
After we hang up, I leave my studio in my apartment and move to my bedroom, standing in front of my closet, bypassing my usual paint-spattered jeans and oversized shirts.
Instead, I reach for the dress I bought on impulse last year but never found the courage to wear—midnight blue silk that clings to every curve, with a neckline that dips lower than anything else in my wardrobe.
The woman in the mirror looks like a stranger—someone bolder, more dangerous than I usually allow myself to be.
When I arrive at The Blue Room, the neon sign casts blue shadows across the empty sidewalk. The door opens before I knock.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Gabe says, then his eyes drop, taking in the dress, the skin I’ve daringly left exposed.
Something shifts in his expression—a darkening, a hunger that makes my stomach clench. No man has ever looked at me quite like that before, as if I’m something he wants to devour. The intensity in his gaze touches me everywhere—throat, breasts, between my legs.
The club is empty; chairs stacked on tables. Only the small stage with its grand piano remains ready, a single spotlight illuminating the gleaming black surface.
Gabe leads me to a velvet-covered chair positioned perfectly beside the piano. “I wrote something new,” he says. “For you.”
When his fingers touch the keys, I forget to breathe. The melody starts gentle, questioning, before building into something more complex. Minor chords that mimic whispers in the dark, that make me think of sheets tangled around naked bodies.
I watch his hands—those strong fingers moving across the keys with absolute control—and imagine them on my skin, between my thighs, inside me. The image is so vivid I press my legs together, trying to ease the ache building there.
His eyes find mine as he plays, seeing straight through me, knowing exactly what his music is doing to my body.
The final note hangs in the air, vibrating through me long after his fingers leave the keys. Neither of us speaks for several heartbeats.
“Come, let’s sit together,” Gabe says, rising from the piano bench. “There’s a bottle of Chateau Margaux that deserves our attention.”
He leads me to a secluded corner booth, hidden in shadow. The wine appears, ruby-dark in crystal glasses. We sit close enough that our thighs brush when either of us moves.
“Tell me about your process,” he says. “The way you see the world—it’s different, isn’t it?” His hand settles on my knee, casual yet deliberate.
I take a sip of wine to steady myself. “My ADHD makes everything... more,” I admit. “Louder, brighter, more connected. I notice patterns everywhere—in traffic lights, in the way people move, in the spaces between buildings.”
His thumb begins drawing small circles against my skin. Each tiny movement sends currents racing up my thigh.
“Is that why you hide constellations in city blocks?” he asks, leaning closer.
“I’m not hiding them. They’re already there.” I struggle to keep my voice steady as his fingers trace higher. “I just... reveal them.”
“The compulsive counting,” he says. “Is that part of it too?”
I startle. “How did you know about that?”
His smile is knowing. “I notice things too. How you tapped your finger seven times against your wineglass earlier.”
I’ve never met someone who sees these things about me. Who understands without judgment.
“You see the world in layers,” he says. “Most people only see the surface. That’s a gift. And I wonder...” his hand slides higher, beneath the hem of my dress, “what you’d see if you really let yourself look.”
My breath catches. His fingers trail fire along my inner thigh.
“At you?” I ask.
“At everything. At yourself.” He leans in, his lips a breath from mine. “At what you want.”
When he kisses me, it’s devastating—soft yet commanding. I clutch his shoulders, anchoring myself as his hand slides fully beneath my dress, fingertips tracing the edge of my underwear.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs against my mouth.
I answer by pulling him closer.
His fingers slip past the barrier of my underwear, finding me already embarrassingly wet. As he strokes a finger through my lips, his eyes darken to something primal.
“You’re so fucking wet for me already,” he growls, his voice dropping to a register that vibrates through my core. “I knew it. I knew you’d be like this underneath all that artistic restraint.”
My head falls back as his finger circles my clit with the perfect pressure, like he’s known my body for years instead of minutes.
“Look at me,” he commands, and I force my eyes open, meeting his gaze as his middle finger slides inside me. “I want to see your eyes while I make you fall apart.”
His thumb continues working circles on my clit while his finger curls forward, finding the spot that makes my hips buck involuntarily.
“You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?” His mouth is at my ear now, his voice dark as sin. “Touching yourself while thinking of my hands. Did you imagine I’d touch you like this tonight?”
“Yes,” I gasp, unable to lie as a second finger joins the first, stretching me deliciously.
“Such a dirty fucking mind.” He bites my earlobe, making me whimper. “I bet those patterns you see everywhere include all the ways you want to be fucked.”
I should be offended. Should push him away for being so crude. Instead, I’m grinding against his hand, chasing the pressure building inside me.
“Tell me what you want,” he demands, his fingers stilling inside me.
“Don’t stop,” I plead.
“Tell me exactly what this pretty cunt needs.” His thumb brushes my clit so lightly it’s almost torture.
“Harder,” I whisper, then louder when his fingers remain motionless. “Fuck me harder with your fingers.”
The filthy words are foreign to me, but they ignite something in him. His fingers drive into me with new urgency, the heel of his palm grinding against my clit with each thrust.
“That’s it. Show me how fucking desperate you are.” His free hand tangles in my hair, pulling my head back to expose my throat to his mouth. “I’m going to make you come so hard you forget how to breathe.”
His rhythm is relentless, fingers curling inside me and hitting the perfect spot while his palm grinds against my clit. The pleasure builds so quickly it’s almost frightening—a tsunami rather than a wave.
“Let me feel you come apart,” he growls against my throat.
His teeth scrape my pulse point, and something about the slight pain mixed with pleasure pushes me over the edge. My orgasm crashes through me with shocking force. I’m vaguely aware that I’m crying out, my body clenching around his fingers as wave after wave of pleasure washes over me.
“Fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, continuing to coax me through each aftershock.
When I finally stop trembling, he withdraws his hand.
My eyes flutter open just in time to see him bring his glistening fingers to his mouth.
Without breaking eye contact, he slides his fingers between his lips, sucking them clean with an expression of such raw hunger that I feel myself clench again with renewed desire.
“Sweet,” he says, his voice rougher than before. “With a hint of something wild underneath.”
The way he’s looking at me—like I’m a revelation, like he’s discovered something precious and rare—makes me feel both powerful and utterly vulnerable.
“I knew you’d taste like that,” he tells me, tracing my lower lip with a thumb still damp.
I should feel embarrassed—I’m half-naked, my dress rucked up around my waist, my underwear soaked through. But all I feel is a strange, electrical current running through me, connecting us.
He leans forward, capturing my mouth with his. The kiss is slower and deeper than the first, but there’s still that same savage intensity, tempered with something that feels dangerously like possession.
I taste myself on his tongue and moan into his mouth, my hands clutching at his shoulders.
When we finally break apart, I’m dizzy, my lips swollen from his kisses, my body still humming with aftershocks.
Gabe glances at his watch and frowns. “It’s late. Let me call you an Uber.”
I want to protest, to tell him I’m not ready to leave, but he’s already reaching for his phone. The knowledge that I’d let him do anything—anything at all—right now frightens me enough to stay silent.
He orders the car with a few taps, then helps me straighten my dress. A perfect gentleman. His fingers linger against my skin, leaving trails of heat everywhere they touch. We walk through the empty club, his hand resting on the small of my back, guiding me toward the exit.
Outside, the night air hits my flushed skin like a shock. The street is quiet, empty except for a few parked cars. A notification dings on his phone—the Uber is three minutes away.
Before I can speak, Gabe spins me around, backing me against the brick wall beside the club’s entrance. His mouth claims mine. His kiss is hard enough to bruise, teeth scraping my bottom lip. I whimper into his mouth, my body arching instinctively toward his.
His hand tangles in my hair, fisting the strands and pulling enough to force my head back, exposing my throat. The slight pain makes arousal pool between my legs. I gasp, clutching at his shoulders.
“Next time,” he murmurs against my mouth, voice dark with promise, “I’m not letting you leave.”
Headlights sweep across us as the Uber pulls up.
Gabe releases me reluctantly, opening the car door.
My legs are unsteady as I slide into the backseat.
I’m wet and trembling, my body vibrating with need.
As the car pulls away from the curb, I watch Gabe through the window, his silhouette backlit by the blue neon of his club sign.
I press my thighs together, seeking pressure, relief.
Before I can think better of it, I slip my hand beneath my dress, touching myself through damp fabric.
I bite my lip to stay quiet as my fingers circle slick, sensitive flesh.
The driver keeps his eyes on the road as I rock against my own hand, imagining what next time might entail.