He pounds into my mouth like he’s trying to fuck the grief out of himself—like his only hope of survival is buried in the back of my throat. His rhythm is brutal. Beautiful. His hands fisted in my hair, holding me steady as he drives deeper.
I gag, eyes watering, spit dripping down my chin. But I don’t pull away. Ioffer.Open wider. I give him control—my mouth,my breath, all of it—because I want him to fall apart on my tongue. Ineedit. Because this ismine.Heis mine.
His moans get rougher, dirtier. Filthy praise spilling from his lips between gasps. “Fuck, baby—look at you.” “Such a good girl like this. So fucking perfect on your knees.” “My goddamn heaven—on your knees for me.”
His thighs tremble. His voice breaks. He’s close. And Ifeelit—the way he’s unraveling just for me.
Then he jerks back—pulling out of my mouth with a wet pop that echoes through the studio. I’m breathless, soaked, and dizzy. But he’s not done.
Not even close.
He grabs me by the wrist, yanks me to my feet, and spins me around. My chest slams into the table—paint jars tipping, brushes scattering to the floor. His hands are everywhere. Skimming my ribs, shoving up my camisole, and dragging down my thighs, painting his worship straight into my skin.
“I’m gonna ruin you,” he growls, voice low and cracked. “Gonna take you apart piece by piece so you forget your name, forget the grief, forget everything but me.”
He palms a wide streak of crimson from the palette and smears it down my spine. Then violet. Then black.
Paint. Everywhere. His hands. My back. The floor. A mess of color, lust, and noise. And I want it.
The sharp bite of turpentine clings to the air, mixing with sweat and something deeper—like grief turned physical.
He lines himself up, the tip of him nudging against me, slick with need. And then—slow. So fuckingslow. He pushes in, inch by inch, like he’s imprinting himself into my soul.
I gasp. Grasp the table. Arch, like, I can take more. But he pulls out—thenslamsinto me.
He pulls out—slams back in—sets a brutal rhythm that has my knuckles whitening on the table edge. Then his hands are underme, greedy, finding my breasts. Paint-slick fingers dragging over my nipples, squeezing, shaping me like I’m clay he owns. “Fuck, look at you,” he breathes, palms cupping and lifting, smearing color across my skin. “My goddamn work of art.”
My hip knocks the easel—the canvas I’d been working on all morning tips, crashes to the floor. I gasp, half in surprise, half in want, but he doesn’t stop. Doesn't even slow.
Instead, he hauls me back against him, feet tangling as he takes us down to the floor. Paint smears across my back as he rolls me over the fallen canvas, pressing me into it like I’m part of the art. “Gonna press you into this canvas, make this our masterpiece… so we never forget—so no one ever forgets.”
He thrusts once—hard—then holds me there, my body arched, my chest and hips grinding into the wet color. The paint is cool where it touches bare skin, hot where his body covers mine. I feel it coating me, his hips driving me into the canvas, my breasts and pussy imprinting into the work I’ll never finish—a perfect outline of the only thing either of us has left tonight.
He starts to move again, each thrust grinding me harder into the slick mess beneath us. Paint drags over my skin, cold at first, then warmed by the heat between us. My palms slip against the floor, catching on the edge of the canvas as his hips drive into mine.
“Look at you,” he growls, voice frayed to nothing. “Mine”
I brace, pushing back into him, forcing a ragged moan from his throat. He answers by fisting a handful of my hair and bending over me, his chest pressed to my back, breath hot against my ear.
Every shift of his body smears more color across my spine, down my hips, and over the insides of my thighs. I can feel it—the way he’s marking me, not careful, not clean. Just like us.
I twist beneath him, dragging my nails over his forearm until he hisses, then flip us in a messy tangle that smears more paintbetween us. He lands flat, and I straddle him, grinding down into him until his eyes go black.
“This is ours,” I tell him, my voice nothing but rasp and ruin. “Every inch. Every drop. Every goddamn breath.”
He grabs my hips and drives up into me so hard I cry out, the sound muffled by the kiss he steals at the same time. I taste sweat. I taste turpentine. I taste him.
And we move together—desperate, greedy, relentless—until the canvas beneath us is nothing but a riot of color and skin.
And then I can’t move. My body folds over his, paint-slick and shaking, forehead pressed to his shoulder like I’m bracing for impact. But it’s already here.
The gates rip open. It comes out in a sound I don’t recognize—too loud, too broken, too much. Sobs tear through my chest, every one dragging the loss back to the surface, every one making it harder to breathe.
Donovan doesn’t let go. His arms lock around me, holding me tight enough to keep me from shattering all the way. His mouth finds my temple, my hair, and my jaw, dropping kisses like they might anchor me. I feel the smear of paint where his hands grip my back, streaks of crimson and violet marking his skin too—proof of what we made, what we survived.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, voice rough but steady. “All of it. All of you. I’ve got you.”
And I let him—just this once—hold the weight I can’t.
