34. Mia #2
His eyes moved over me. He studied every line and shadow the way he studied a canvas. His gaze traced my throat, my ribs, and the small scar below my navel. He ran his fingertip over the scar. Gentle.
His thumb brushed my collarbone and left a streak of cadmium red. He watched the color sit on my skin. His expression opened.
I unbuttoned his shirt. My fingers slipped on the first button.
The second one gave way. By the third, his breathing shifted.
His chest felt warm under my palm. His heart beat hard.
Paint marked his ribs and a smear of blue sat above his hip.
I pressed my mouth to the spot where his pulse beat strongest, just below his jaw.
He let out a long breath. His hand cradled the back of my head and held me there.
We moved to the pile of drop cloths and old cotton in the corner. The fabric smelled like linseed oil and him. It felt rough under my shoulders. The floor stayed hard. None of it mattered.
His hands moved over me. They learned every curve. Tonight they shook against my skin. I knew why. The day had broken something open in him too.
I pulled him closer and pressed my forehead to his. Our breath mixed in the small space between us.
"I'm here," I said.
Something shifted in his eyes. Permission.
His forehead dropped to my shoulder. His mouth found the curve of my neck, then lower. He kissed the ridge of my collarbone where the red paint dried and the hollow between my ribs. I arched up. A raw sound left me.
No secrets stayed between us now.
His body pressed full against mine. Skin met skin. The thick length of his cock rested heavy and hot against my thigh. He rocked once so I felt every inch slide over my slick folds.
"Fuck, baby," he said against my ear. "Feel how wet you are for me already."
I reached between us and wrapped my fingers around his cock. I stroked him slow and firm. Paint from his hands streaked blue and red down my belly. He hissed and pushed into my grip.
"That's it," he murmured. "Touch me."
I guided him lower. The blunt head of his cock nudged my entrance and eased inside inch by inch. He stretched me open until he sat buried deep. My walls clenched around him. A moan slipped out of me.
He stayed there a moment, full and thick inside me.
Then we moved together. Slow. Deep. Each roll of his hips dragged his cock along the spot that made sparks flare behind my eyes.
Paint transferred everywhere—ochre on the inside of my thigh from his grip, red across my breast when he cupped it, blue along my wrist when our fingers laced.
"You're so fucking tight around me," he whispered. "Like you were made for this. Made for me."
I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him deeper. "Don't stop. I need all of you."
His rhythm stayed steady but grew heavier. Each thrust pushed a soft sound from me. Each pull back left me aching for the next push. Our foreheads pressed together. Our breaths tangled.
He whispered something against the hollow of my throat. Quiet. I felt it more than heard it. A sound that meant everything and nothing. Only we would ever know it.
The slick glide of him inside me filled everything.
The wet sounds of our bodies meeting mixed with our breaths.
My climax built slow until it rolled over me in long waves.
I trembled and gasped his name. He followed right after.
His hips jerked as he came deep inside me, warm and thick. A groan left him against my shoulder.
His weight settled against me. His breathing matched mine again.
Afterward, the studio was quiet. Paint on the sheets. Paint on my arm. A line of blue on my wrist like a vein made visible.
Tony lay beside me. He traced the blue line with his fingertip. Slow, deliberate strokes.
The way he traced everything. The way he studied the world through touch.
"I found Ava at the store," I said.
His finger stopped.
"She was standing in the bread aisle. Crying. Alone."
He turned his head toward me. Waiting.
"She has cancer, Tony. Stage IV. It's spread to her kidney."
He went still. The kind of still that had nothing to do with calm.
"How bad?"
"Bad. But the doctors say there's a chance. It's only spread to one site."
He closed his eyes. Quiet for a long time. I watched his jaw work.
He'd barely dated Ava. It was brief and empty and he'd ended it without much thought. But she was part of this town. Part of the web of people that held this life together.
"She hasn't told Emma," I said. "She hasn't told anyone."
"She told you."
"I was there. I was the body in the room."
His eyes opened. The studio light had gone amber with the sinking sun. It caught the paint on his forearms. Turned his skin gold.
"You're extraordinary," he said. Not soft. Not sweet.
Like he was stating a fact. Cataloging it alongside the other things he knew to be true.
I shook my head. "I'm just someone who's been on the floor before."
He pulled me closer. My face pressed into the warm hollow below his collarbone. Linseed oil. Soap. Skin.
"I told her she doesn't have to do this alone," I said.
His chest expanded under my cheek. A long, slow breath. His arm tightened around me.
"Of course you did."
My eyes closed. The day had been too much. Ava's tears on my shoulder. The cancer. The bread aisle.
The shaking in my hands I'd hidden until she couldn't see. And then Tony. The studio. The paint. The way he'd held me like he was trying to memorize the weight of me.
Everything hurt and everything was warm.
His lips against my hair. The shape of his mouth through the strands. Not a kiss. A promise.
I slept.
The last thing I knew was his arm pulling me closer. Paint drying on our skin. The studio going dark around us.
Tomorrow I would sit him down in his father's study. Read him the words I'd found in the journals.
The answer he'd been afraid to find.
Everything was about to change again.