I finish and step back, eying the shell. It’s all vivid color, artistic swoops and heavy black lines. It’s some of my best work, if I’m being honest…
And that itch in my palms still hasn’t gone away. I thought I’d feel satisfied when I finished, but my fingers are already reaching for a pen. I turn from the helmet to the sketchpad on my desk and flip to a clean page so I can try to work out the need that’s burning through me.
It’s broad strokes, rough lines. It’s an angled jawline and deep, quiet eyes that are full of warmth. It’s a spatter of freckles that I shouldn’t have memorized, but I somehow know where to place.
Full lips, the slightest little crease at the corner of his eyes where he smiles too often.
And…
I frown, dropping the pen as a sluice of warmth slides from the place I’d cut myself and into my palm.
Red.
I let the trail of blood drip along my wrist, slide down to my fingers… and then I leave a slash of crimson over black ink.
Red in the lines of his hair.
Red against the blush staining his cheeks.
Red lips.
Red… red, red. I just want to paint Donovan red.
The burning that snaked its way along my spine isn’t dying down. Every drop of blood, every line of my sketch, is only making it worse.
I want…
I want to kill him, right? I slap my bloody palm down so my fingers stretch the length of the lines that I sketched for his throat, but even the little splash of crimson that spatters droplets across his jawline doesn’t make that ache go away.
I don’t think when I shove my loose pants and briefs down my hips, and I don’t hesitate when I spit in my palm and drop my hand between my legs.
I don’t do anything but stare at my fucking sketch of Donovan, caught up in the slash of my blood across the line of his brow and howgoodhe looks as I start to stroke my already half-hard cock to life.
This isn’t normal—I don’twantlike this. I’m content with my art, with violence and death… with the way creating a piece andselling it to someone who has no idea what’s really in the paint makes me feel.
I don’t ache—I don’t burn. I don’tneed,but I don’t know what else to call the feeling ripping through me as pleasure twists along my nerve endings and my fingers slightly crumple the paper where Donovan is looking up at me.
God, his hands were so warm when he touched me in the car.
The thought makes my lashes flutter, my head drop so my entire world is encased in a sea of green and black curls… but I can’t close my eyes. I can’t look away from the image of Donovan’s face staring up at me from the paper as I stroke my cock in slow, sure movements that zip pleasure along my nerves with every drag of my palm.
Not because I’m touching myself—not because the heat of my hand feels good wrapped around my aching flesh… but because when my fingers squeeze, and I let out a groan, I’m imagining that it’s Donovan’s hands on me. Donovan below me, looking up at me with wide, startled eyes.
Donovan with blood on his skin and those big, warm hands scrambling at my body to find purchase, or mercy, or to draw me closer.
I’m not sure what I want anymore.
Blood-streaked fingertips trace across his throat, leaving a line of crimson smeared along the lines of his lips.
“Fuck,” I groan, my hand moving faster as I look at the smeared ink mixed with crimson. My breath comes faster, almost too much pressure in my chest to contain, too much pleasure for me to understand.
Iwanthim. I wantthis. I want the ink on the paper to be real, the warmth that I remember from the car to be something I can touch, that I can taste.
And I want the blood streaking across his lips to be his—I want Donovan in all the ways that might ruin us both, and as myhand works my cock and I feel my orgasm start to build in a tight clench, I realize I’m willing to risk myself for it. In this moment, with the thought of how good it would be to have my hands on him and his heat sinking into the chill at the center of me…
It would be worth it.
“God.” I slap my hand against the page as my body tenses and I give myself over to orgasm. It’s messy, quick. The sudden burst of pleasure leaves me dizzy, and I bow over my desk, not realizing what’s happening until I open my eyes and see the mess that I’ve made beneath me.
