“Thank you,” she murmurs.
“For what?”
“For showing me what I’ve been missing. I’ve been so focused on surviving that I have not ever taken the time to see Paris, to hear her music. But I hear it now.”
“Good.” Something rustles behind us. “I hear something else, too. Is that Cleo?”
We both glance up at the snake, but she’s sound asleep on top of Cleopatra’s statue. Behind it, the hawthorn tree rustles.
“Who’s there?” I call out into the gloom.
“Gideon, is that you?”
I grip Arabella’s hand and drag her around the corner. The garden opens into a beautiful glade, each wildflower touched by pale moonlight. At the bottom of the slope is a long pool – a crystalline mirror reflecting the midnight sky. A man sits beside the pool, moonlight dappling his features as he hunches over an easel.
It’s Claude.
“Itisyou, brother,” he tips his beret. “And the lovely Arabella Macquart. We have missed you both at La Petite Mort. I am in debt to your brilliance. Ever since I started painting outside, I have found the voice. Now Ifeelthe landscape. I can be bold and include every tone of pink and blue. It’s enchanting. It’s delicious! Pierre-Auguste, Berthe and I are putting together an exhibition to launch our new art movement. How can I ever repay you?”
“You should paint Arabella,” I suggest.
“He doesn’t want to do that,” Arabella snaps.
“I do. Very much.” Claude stands and kisses Arabella’s hand. “It’s been a long time since you last sat for me, Mademoiselle Macquart. You were always my favourite model. The light has never looked more perfect than at this exact moment, and with that necklace around your neck, you are already a queen. Will you honour me by sitting?”
“Very well, if I must.” Arabella sighs, but there’s a musicality to it that lets me know she’s pleased. “Where do you want me?”
“Perhaps there?” Claude points to a statue comprised of several fallen pillars, arranged to look like a Greek temple half-submerged with waterlilies collecting at the base. Before I can do anything, Arabella climbs over the side of the pool and wades towards the statue. She settles herself among the columns and shrugs off the crimson dress.
I gasp as her full nakedness is revealed in the moonlight.
She is resplendent. She ispoetry.
Every curve of her is music, every limb an exquisite dance of flesh and bone. She catches my eye, and I cannot hide my awe. The corner of her mouth quirks up into a satisfied smirk.
It’s that little smirk, more than anything, that makes me hard.
How is this woman real?
Arabella drapes herself over the ruins like a panther sunning herself on a savannah. Only, there is no sun beating down, just the inky moonlight that makes her skin shimmer like a galaxy and rings her eyes in gold.
My breath hitches as her fingers trace the jewels around her neck. My cock strains painfully against my trousers as I follow the swell of her breast, the curve of her hip, to the enticing mound between her thighs.
I’m seeing her.
Naked in bodyandheart.
Arabella Macquart, free from the constraints of her station, free of the position society and prejudice have laid out for her, free of her own rules, is a force of nature. I feel the way an archaeologist must when unlocking the door to an ancient tomb – a witness to history, the first to uncover a precious treasure.
Claude bends towards his canvas and picks up his brush as if he hasn’t at all noticed that he’s in the presence of a goddess.
My body is wrecked with wanting, with all the ways that this woman is so far beyond me.
The only sounds are the stroke of Claude’s brush and the pounding of my heart in my ears.
I have no idea how long I sit beside the painter, my cock a rigid, painful thing, refusing to touch myself and ruin the spell she has over me. Every moment is an exquisite torture, especially when her gaze falls on my tented trousers, and that satisfied smile tugs at her lips.
Finally, Claude stands, brushing off his overalls and carefully tucking the canvas beneath his arm. “Now, we must wait for the paint to dry. I shall bring the finished work to La Petite Mort once I am satisfied.”
