“Oh, Heathcliff…” I kissed Heathcliff on the lips. “He’ll be back with mulled wine any moment. While I’m inside with Quoth, maybe the two of you should have a little chat?”
Heathcliff looked miserably at Morrie, who jogged across the square with three glasses of mulled wine balanced in his long fingers. I squeezed his shoulder then turned away, gripping Oscar’s lead more tightly than I needed to as I ascended the steps and knocked on the door.
To my surprise, it swung inward, as if operated by some unseen force. The entire space was pitch black. Oscar encouraged me forward – he could see enough to navigate. My heels clicked against wooden floorboards. The room sounded echoey – I could sense a high ceiling and a half-wall bisecting the space.
“Mina.”
Quoth’s voice boomed through the space as the lights went up all at once. My head flared with pain as a headache rushed my temples. A squiggle of orange light wandered across my vision. Yup, I definitely needed a decent night’s sleep.
“By Isis,” I staggered back, rubbing my eyes. “Warn me next time.”
“I’m sorry.” Quoth stepped out from behind a pillar. “I wanted to surprise you. I wanted you to take it all in at once.”
I blinked as squiggles of green and orange light danced across my vision. Through the pain, I started to make out the shapes and colors of Quoth’s art.
This was like nothing he’d ever created before. Quoth loved fine detail – complex images that illustrated moments drawn from his favorite stories and mythologies. He spent hours painting gilded swirls onto the spines of books, or getting every feather on a bird’s underbelly absolutely perfect.
But these…they were wild. They were expressive slashes of crimson against dark fields, brazen black shapes splashed across electric-blue skies, checkerboards of green that bent and twisted across savage landscapes. They were terrifying and wild and utterly beautiful.
Quoth took my arm and led me and Oscar around the room. Oscar whimpered and tugged on his lead, as if there were something he wanted to show me back in the doorway. Sometimes guide dogs did this – they were dogs, after all. They had good days and bad days, and they could get distracted, especially if they had a full, crazy life like my Oscar.
In the center of the room stood a huge sculpture – upcycled birdcages of various styles and sizes, all painted with a slimy-looking black paint and jumbled together with their doors flung open and empty perches inside. The doors pointed directly at the paintings that dotted the walls – a message about freedom that hit me right in the heart.
We stopped in front of the largest piece – the focal point for the exhibition. Quoth had perfectly positioned three lamps to highlight the crimson arc that soared over the canvas. The paint was thick in places, standing up like cake icing, while in other areas it was perfectly smooth and even, giving the piece a 3D quality.
“I designed these paintings to be touched,” Quoth whispered. “I wanted to create something you could enjoy, too.”
He laced his fingers in mine and pressed my palm to the canvas. My senses lit up as I caressed the waves and slashes and swirls, feeling my fingers bump over where he’d added something to the paint to make it gritty. He’d captured a story in the texture of this painting that was every bit as bold and vivid as the color.
“Quoth, these are breathtaking.” My fingers swept over the surface, following the planes and curves of his lines. He’d made the paintings come alive to the touch – an extra layer of meaning only the two of us shared.
I had so much I wanted to say to him when I walked into this room, about the way he’d been acting, about our fight. But these paintings stole my words – they were Quoth baring his soul to me. His feelings on canvas were more powerful than all the apologies he could give in a lifetime.
“Do you really like them?” Quoth’s eyebrow cocked upward. He shifted his weight from foot to foot. Nervous energy rolled off him – Oscar sensed it, because he responded with nervous whimpers and fussing of his own.
“They’re absolutely beautiful.” I couldn’t tear my eyes from the piece.
“They’re all for you.” Quoth stepped closer, his arms circling my waist, pushing me against him. “None of this would be possible if it wasn’t for you, Mina.”
His lips found mine. This wasn’t like a Quoth kiss at all – it was demanding, all-consuming, desperate and breathless. His hands ran over my body, pulling me closer as if he wanted to crawl inside me. A moan escaped my lips as his hands slid up my shirt, grazing my breasts. Oscar’s harness fell from my fingers as Quoth backed me up toward the painting. My back grazed the gritty paint as he ground his hardness against my thigh, and my fingers dropped to his fly to—
My phone rang, piercing the silent space.
Noooooo…
Oscar barked. Quoth’s lips grazed my ear. “Don’t answer it,” he choked out, his words thick with need.
“It’s Jo. I have to.”Damn you, Jo.I held the phone to my ear as Quoth nibbled at my skin. “Jo, I’m with Quoth right now at the art gallery and he…”
I trailed off as Quoth’s finger slid into my panties, circling my clit and drawing a deep, keening ache from my belly. Jo’s voice shrieked in my ear, but I didn’t hear a word she said. My mouth fell open as Quoth stroked the sensitive bud and my body grew warm and then hot and then liquid fucking magma and green and orange lights flickered across my vision.
Quoth slid a finger inside as he continued his relentless stroking. I rolled my hips against his hand, aching for more of him, begging for release.
“Mina? Mina, are you there?”
I swallowed as the heat between my legs burned. Quoth pushed a second finger inside me. “Um…sort of…is it important—”
“As you’d say – by Isis, it’s important! I just looked in Fiona’s box and it’s missing dirt.”
