Chapter 9 #2
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.
Still, he did not relent, and still Red painted—quick, precise strokes that brought her subject to vivid, aching life.
Minutes passed. Maybe more. 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 came once, then again and then 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 didn’t notice. He glanced down, and for a heartbeat, he forgot to breathe.
“By God,” he murmured, “this is brilliant.”
The painting that emerged under her fingers was vivid.
Carnal. Stunning. It was not lewd—it was truthful.
Red no longer appeared to witness debauchery; she interpreted it, translated it, consumed it and spun it 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.
He didn’t look back at the chaise again.
He only looked at Red.
And as if 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, too close for sense—and lifted his hand. His thumb brushed the edge of her lower lip in a slow, deliberate stroke.
“You bite them when you concentrate,” he murmured, voice low enough that only sin could have carried it.
Her breath caught—sharp and unguarded. Her chest rose on a ragged gasp.
For a heartbeat she swayed toward him, as if pulled.
Then she jerked 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 aware that the wolf had finally taken notice.
Darcy pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the cool night air of the garden terrace, her breath coming far too fast. 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 as hunger and soft as longing.
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. She felt desperate and furious. Infuriated that a single look, a single touch from the Earl of Raine could reduce her to this.
Darcy snapped her spine straight. She had painted naked flesh. She had witnessed pleasure and captured it on canvas. And still it was his gaze, the velvet rasp of his voice, the dangerous curve of his mouth that unraveled and provoked something completely unknown inside Darcy.
Get hold of yourself, she scolded silently.
Drawing in a steady breath, she turned, her mask firmly back in place and froze.
He had followed her out, leaned against the wall and had been watching her with an intense yet also unreadable gaze.
“Are you well, Miss 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 couldn’t quite suppress.
“You needn’t accompany me. It’s only a kiss. ”
One of his brows quirked. That sinful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, lazy and lethal. “Very well,” he said. “Good evening, Red.”
He bowed, then turned and walked away without another word.
And just like that, she could breathe again.
Darcy stood frozen for a moment before spinning on her heel and heading inside. She went straight to Madame Rebecca’s private salon, still rattled but determined to anchor herself in her work.
“I’m 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?”