This, slowly breaking her, should be a good thing. I should be pleased.
I’m anything but.
A pang of regret slices through my chest. A sting I have no business feeling.
The acidic taste on my tongue, that’s the future we can never have. That’s my heart cracking down the middle.
For the last time, hopefully, I shove the pain aside.
After slinging my camera around my neck, I test Elowyn with a light nudge. Nothing. Tonight has been a lot. No wonder she’s exhausted.
I’m still gentle, though, taking care not to wake her as I flip her onto her back.
The gown loosens with the motion. The silk robe parts, gliding over stomach, pooling at her sides.
A scowl tightens my features. My jaw locks, the corners of my mouth dragging down.
I hate myself. Hate that she and I are in this position. But I don’t retreat.
I grab the tube from the nightstand, uncap it, then hover it right below her breasts, pressing my thumb on it.
Red blooms at the tip, thick and glossy.
The first letter I draw is?—
I
When the line starts slanting toward her ribs, my thumb twitches with the urge to trace it barehanded. To fix it.
To fix her.
No.
OWN
Each letter comes out wrong. The O pools too full, the W breaks in the middle. The N is crooked, cutting across the curve of her stomach.
I blame it on the adrenaline coursing through my veins and all this goddamn ache.
It’s got nothing to do with the naked woman I’ve been jerking off to for years. The woman who holds my heart in the palm of her hand.
Nothing.
One more word.
YOU
Once the bottle’s capped and back on the bedside table, I step back. Cross my arms over my chest.
I’ve never used paint for anything other than restoring artworks. Never botched a project the way I ruined this.
But this is personal.
This is the goddamn truth.
She’s mine.
I lift the camera, angling it to capture her stomach and the bed so she’ll know it’s her.
