Entwined Secrets (5 page)

It’s like he treats interrupting a painter like waking up a sleepwalker. A lesson learned from his art historian parents, perhaps? At most, Mason has kissed the side of my face or slipped a warm beverage into an unoccupied hand to make sure I wasn’t thirsty.

“Well, there’s no telling how long you’ll stick around once I’m done,” I reply. “What did you say? The length of time it takes me to finish this painting? At least that long?”

“Did I say that?”

“You know you did.”

“Then something needs to be done about that.”

I hear Mason sit forward on my bed and toss the sheets aside. His morning member will be fully engorged. I want to turn around and look, but I resist the urge. I’m waiting for his touch instead.

His approach takes longer than it should. He’s prolonging the moment on purpose. I twitch a little when his hands finally alight on my calves. He lightly runs his fingers up the sides of my legs, the whisper of a touch.

They travel up under his shirt until he reaches my naked hips. I’m not wearing anything other than his shirt. Mason is kneeling behind me now. I keep looking at the canvas in front of me. Trying and failing to study the details of his painting.

I close my eyes and wait for whatever he’s going to do next.

That’s when he bites my ass.

“Youch!” I squeal.

My body spasms and I lose my balance. Mason catches me and spins my body around onto the mattress as if I were no heavier than a feather.

“I was expecting you to do something else,” I say, secure in his arms.

“That was the whole idea. I wanted to challenge your expectations.”

“How clever of you. Well, I’m ticklish there,” I protest.

“Why do think I picked that spot?”

I try to sit up again. “This painting isn’t going to finish itself…”

Mason straddles me and snatches my wrists, holds them at my side, easily overpowering me.

“You said it yourself. Once this painting is done, I’m supposed to leave.”

“No, those were your words. Not mine. I’m only reminding of you what was said. A woman remembers these things.”

He leans in close to my face.

“Then it would seem I have to do everything in my power to make sure you never finish this painting.”

Mason steals a kiss while I’m pinned.

“Never?” I say, forgetting to filter my thoughts.

Mason goes still. He lets go of my arms and sits up, considering what he just said. His mind begins to race. I can actually see the cogs turning. Is he looking for a way to back out? Did he overstate his interest? People do that in the moment.

“That depends on you,” he finally says. “You might not want me around if you knew my whole story.”

Such an obvious deflection. I laugh out loud. Once.

“Again with the dark secrets. I haven’t seen any sign of them.”

“For good reason,” he counters. “I’ve kept them hidden. People do that in the beginning.”

“In the beginning, you say? Those are loaded words.”

I think for a moment and then decide that now is as good a time as any to exercise my intuition. It’s rarely wrong. Hopefully he won’t find it off-putting.

“Okay, I’ll tell you what I can see, despite what you think is hidden away. Kiss me again, but slowly.”

Mason adjusts himself to lie next to me first. He props himself up on one elbow and leans down, placing his lips on mine. He takes his time. I close my eyes and savor the taste, drinking it in. Swishing the impulse around in my mind.

There’s melancholy, almost imperceptible, but it’s there. That’s where I’ll start.

“So what am I hiding?” he asks.

I let my instinct take over and start talking.

“You’re sad about something. I don’t know what. Something you’ve done. Or something you’ve lost, maybe? No. Something you might lose. Yes, that one. You’re afraid of losing something.”

Mason studies my face, a little shocked.

“How can you tell all of that from a kiss?”

“I have dark secrets too, remember? Figured out what they are yet?”

Mason tilts his head at me, perhaps a little thrown by my lighthearted tone of voice. “Not a clue. But if you do have secrets of your own, they certainly don’t gnaw at you. Or bother you in the least, near as I can tell.”

“And yours do?” I toss back at him.

That gives him pause. Mason flips onto his back and stares up at the ceiling.

“It comes from knowing myself. What I’m capable of doing, despite my own better judgment. I like to think that I’m not a creature of habit, but I’ve been wrong about that too many times to count.”

Now Mason sounds morose. I don’t want to let that happen. I turn onto my belly and look at him across my bed.

“I can’t speak to your past, but you’ve been nothing short of delightful with me in the present. Making coffee. Doing the shopping. Even letting me paint. It may not seem like it while my mind is elsewhere, but I’ve noticed.”

“You know what’s it’s like, Jess. Couples are always on their best behavior at first. Trying to make a good impression.”

“Speak for yourself! I’ve been a slob. Still, I’m flattered that you would want to impress me in any capacity.”

I trace the circle around the wolf tattoo on his chest with a single finger.

“Perhaps that’s the solution. Maybe I should lock you in my apartment. Keep you from becoming a creature of habit again.”

Mason levels his gaze at me. “As appealing as that sounds, I’d be seriously concerned for your safety if you did.”

“Do you really believe that,” I ask, “or is that your way of trying to scare me off?”

Men like to seem more dangerous than they are, especially the immature ones, but that’s not what I’m sensing from Mason right now. He’s actually worried about what will happen to me if he sticks around.

The problem is that by him staying here, not only has Mason gotten under my skin… I like having him here.

Mason turns over onto his stomach again. He stretches off to one side of the mattress, his naked buttocks tightening with the effort. I’m about to bite his posterior like he did mine, but then he returns with my palette and a few tubes of paint.

“What are you going to do with that?” I ask.

“Hush, you, I’m about to start working,” he says with a serious smile. “Maybe answering your question.”

Mason kneels beside my body, his swollen member saluting me. He dips his fingers in the dollop of red on my board.

“Now hold still.”

Mason drags his fingers along my cheekbone and down my jaw. Then again on the other side of my face, mirroring the slash of paint. He draws a streak down the ridge of my nose and dots the end.

I have no idea what he’s up to right now, but I refuse to resist it, especially if this is his way of opening up to me. He circles my eyes with red. Mouth too. Then he starts painting flares of crimson. They radiate outward from the tip on my nose.

The focus in his eyes is unflinching. I don’t think he’s even seeing me anymore. His attention is devoted to the art alone. The clean slate of my skin.

I realize that this is a side of Mason I haven’t seen before. It makes me wonder if this what I look like when I paint. His touch is firm, like always. Deliberate. He either knows exactly what he’s doing or is extremely spontaneous.

“You’re going to use up all my red paint,” I playfully complain.

“Canvases don’t talk,” Mason admonishes. He spares a glance and a grin at me for a split second, but then goes right back to work.

After a few more flourishes, he wipes the red paint off on his chest and then dips two fingers into a dollop of orange, continuing to draw strokes along my cheeks. They travel down my neck and across my collarbone, always radiating outward. He switches to wider controlled lines, three fingers wide. And then more precise strokes with a single finger. Tapering to a point.

Mason is utterly gone. The look on his face makes me think that even if I said his name right now, he wouldn’t hear me.

If he can respect my process, I can respect his.

It makes me wonder if Mason is working out something in his mind. That’s what I do when I paint. I begin to watch him with that thought in mind. Reading the little changes in his expression. I could get lost in those fluctuations.

Watching him paint, I feel like I’m getting to know Mason better than words can express. What we don’t say is sometimes more telling than what we do say. For example, there is pain on his face right now, slowly rising to the surface. Unfiltered. His conscious mind has turned off and creativity has taken over, allowing the emotions to sneak through.

Mason uses his stomach to clean his hand this time, but without taking his eyes off my body. He dips his fingers in yellow paint and starts circling my nipple, drawing a spiral around my left breast. He does the exact opposite on my right.

His careful touch makes me gasp. I hold my breath, trying to stay still. Is he titillating me on purpose? I close my eyes and try to dull the sensitivity in my mind. For all the good it does. His artistry is too exciting.

This is a gift. Mason is showing me what it feels like to be a canvas, but also revealing himself to me. His inner world, exposed on my body. I can’t wait to see it.

Green is next. Curvaceous lines that cross my ribcage. Then blue. Squiggling lines that flow up and down my legs. Mason mixes blue and red next, making purple, which he applies to my nethers in great profusion.

Each time Mason wipes the color off, he adds more streaks to his own body. His chest and belly have become a riot of paint. Once Mason finishes with one color, he doesn’t go back again, traveling the spectrum in single direction. ROYGBIV. Straightforward, like a man.

I thought the indigo-violet would be the end, but he squeezes out black from a tube and takes a deep breath. My belly has been left completely bare, I realize now, on purpose. He left this part of his canvas for the end.

Mason makes a circle, enclosing the area. Then he starts painting on the inside. I’m not sure, but it feels like an animal. I have to guess based entirely on feel. Four legs. A long neck and back. Small ears, but alert.

I try to sit up while keeping my belly still. I don’t want to move his canvas, but my curiosity is getting the better of me.

“Not yet,” Mason says. “Soon.”

He switches to white paint, borders the circle again, and then accents whatever he painted in black. Perfecting the design. Cleaning it up. That’s what it feels like, at any rate. Mason isn’t available for comment. He’s too busy putting the finishing touches on my belly.

A few more flourishes and Mason sits back to take a look. He wipes the remaining paint off on his neck. There isn’t any room left on his belly or chest anymore. He’s back from his fugue. Mason smiles, pleased with himself.

“You were gone for a long time,” I say.

“You were an excellent canvas. Well, mostly,” he teases.

“Can I look now?”

“Yes, but close your eyes first.”

I do as Mason tells me. He helps me to my feet. Puts his hand over my eyes. I won’t peek. I’m looking forward to the surprise. He guides me into the bathroom and takes off the shirt I was still wearing.

“Okay, you can open your eyes now.”

I do, revealing the entire work all at once.

Mason has painted my face to look like a sun. A red ball radiating orange light with yellow swirls of heat. A canopy of green vines grows up one side of my ribcage and down the other, creating a briar. A blue river flows up my right leg and down my left. A patch of purple huckleberries flourishes my nethers at the bend. The canvas of my body is a landscape. Much like I painted for him.

The briar, the huckleberries, and the river. It all surrounds the black and white circle. The most striking thing has been painted inside. Mason either read my mind or somehow predicted the future. He depicted the animal I decided to incorporate in his painting. The creature I was going to add this morning before he woke up.

Mason painted a deer on my belly, in the same Norse style as his wolf tattoo. It’s beautiful. The deer is alert, delicate, and elegant. I would even say vulnerable. Is that what he’s trying to tell me? That I’m vulnerable to him?

Mason stands behind me. I beam at him in the mirror.

“I don’t know what to say. It’s so beautiful, Mason. So much more than I was expecting.”

He puts his hands on my arms and looks at his handiwork. Admires the reflection of us together.

“It worked out better than I thought.”

“You never told me you could paint. All this time, watching me, you kept that little detail to yourself. Brat!”

“That’s because I can’t paint. You can paint. I just mess around.”

“We paint differently, that’s all. What you do is still painting. And I’m going preserve it.”

I reach for my cell phone, which was charging in the bathroom, and turn on the camera.

“Aren’t you afraid that naked pictures of you might end up on the internet?” Mason asks.

“Ha! I’ll post this picture myself if it comes to that. This isn’t pornography. It’s art. Hold still.”

I take the picture of our reflection in the mirror and then turn around to face him.

“Something this beautiful should be preserved.”

I reach up and grab both of his shoulders at the same time. Then I stand on my toes and kiss him, pulling him down to my height. Mason lets his hands fall to my ribs, kisses me back, and then presses his body against mine. His morning arousal is quick to return.

He grabs my waist and tightens, hoisting me onto the bathroom counter. His right hand slips between my legs. The hand he didn’t use to paint with.

His mouth is hungry for mine. I give him my lips as he fingers my cleft. He realizes very quickly that I’m already moist to the touch. His attention to detail excited me this entire time. I reach down blindly and grab for his length. I find it easily and stroke him, hardening Mason in my grip.

“You didn’t sign your work,” I whisper, biting my lower lip.

He smiles at me mischievously. I reach up and hold the sides of his face with my hand as he guides himself between my legs. The head of him teases my breach, coaxing the lips open. Mason throbs with eagerness, but then holds back for some reason.