His Canvas (6 page)

Oh
, I thought,
please don't get all mushy on me.
"You're not going to say love, are you?"

He shook his head. "Go ahead. Guess."

I looked around this huge room, and thought about the boxes
moving downstairs. "Peace?" I hazarded.

"Nope," he told me. "The most valuable thing in
the world is the head of a dead cat."

I suddenly felt small and cold. Tendrils of the past tickled at
my brain. "What the hell?" I blurted. "Why would you say
something like that?"

Malcolm looked up from his work in surprise. "It's only a
koan, Sadie. A mental exercise posed by the Zen master Sozan."

I didn't care
who
said it. "Don't say shit like
that. It's creepy.
Fuck
."

Immediately he looked contrite. "I'm so sorry. I've
offended you. It was just a stray thought. I've taken to saying what's on my
mind lately, and I didn't stop to think how it sounded. I'll never mention anything
like that again."

I took a deep breath, and firmly pushed my feelings down. If I
didn't feel them, they didn't exist. "No. No. Why did he say the head of a
dead cat is the most valuable thing in the world?"

He tilted his head. "Because no one can name its
price," he replied. Then he frowned. "But now that I say it out loud
to you, I'm starting to wonder if he wasn't wrong."

I could sort of see it as a sick joke, but it was one that had
completely turned me off from the jittery excitement that had dogged me all
morning. If I were someone else, I might have responded differently, laughed or
something. It was true, in its own way. But still.

Malcolm stood up. "Sadie," he said. "Are you all
right? You look very pale."

Dead cats make me pale,
I wanted to tell him, but I
didn't. Plenty of things would make me pale, and I wasn't about to share them
with anyone. You never knew who could use a weakness against you. Sharing
triggers was a surefire way to get got.  I shrugged, as if to say it was no big
deal. "I'm fine. Why is it so warm in here?" I asked, trying to
change the subject.

"Ah, that." He smiled. "I read that one of the
best ways to keep a model happy is to make it warm enough in your studio. I'm
going to paint you today."

"Yeah, Lis told me." I looked around. "So where's
your canvas and easel and stuff?" All I saw was a large white cloth in the
middle of the room, and a collection of pots of paint and brushes on a small,
low table next to it.

"I had planned on
you
being my canvas."

My eyes shot back to him, but he was deadly serious. "What
do you mean?"

"I mean I want to paint your naked body," he said.

Okay, that got me nervous and jittery again, in the delicious
way that made me warm and shivery all over. "I don't believe we discussed
nudity today," I said.

"Then you do not consent?"

It was such a weird way to say it, but his face was open and
honest, as though he meant nothing by it. He truly wanted me to be his canvas,
naked beneath his brush. The thought excited me. I swallowed.

"I consent," I said. "I would love to be your
canvas."

An almost imperceptible relaxing of his shoulders. He had been
worried I'd turn him down. "If I go too far," he said, "you must
tell me. I will stop whenever you say stop."

A zing of anticipation zipped up my spine. "Okay," I
said. "I will tell you if you go too far." But I had no intention of
telling him to stop.

There was no screen for me to change behind today, so I held his
gaze and shed my coat, tossing it carelessly to the floor. I wore a cardigan
underneath it, and I unwrapped it and tossed it down as well. My ribbed t-shirt
joined them, and I stood before him in my bra, jeans, and boots.

The cherrywood of his eyes was almost eclipsed by the expanding
of his pupils, and the skin of his face became lightly flushed as he watched me
disrobe. I felt powerful, keeping his attention to me. He wore simple clothes
today, only an old t-shirt and jeans, but they showed off his physique quite
nicely. Well-muscled, but not overly so. Long waisted. A swimmer's physique. I
licked my lips and bent to take my boots off.

"Let me help you," he said.

My breath caught, but I didn't tell him no. Instead I stood back
up and waited. After a moment of drinking me in, he closed the gap between us,
his bare feet slapping against the floor as though he were deliberately making
a large amount of noise, as if he were flushing out prey from the shadows of
the woods.

He knelt at my feet, bringing to mind the last time we were in
this position, and he had licked me until I came. His hands ran up and down my
thigh, and I felt the heat of his fingers through the denim of my jeans. I was
already unsteady on my feet, and he made me more with each gentle stroke of his
palms, as though he were soothing a skittish horse. I almost liked that
comparison, actually. Strong and wild, he tamed me, but only with my consent.
He found the zipper on one boot and slowly slid it down. The warmth of the
leather fell away, and he wrapped one arm around my leg, his hand cupping my
ass, as he nudged me onto the other foot, sliding my boot off. It clattered to
the floor, and I winced, realizing I was wearing a thick pair of socks that one
of my friends had knitted for me. It was too cold to wear anything else, I'd
thought, and I hadn't thought ahead.

Embarrassed, I laughed. "Sorry about the socks. I know
they're not—"

"Shh," he said. It was curt, and it cut my babbling
off immediately. I felt the tips of his fingers playing with the sole of my
foot through the fine-knit wool, and I inhaled sharply. Slipping his thumb into
the cuff, he slid it off my foot and threw it away. His fingertips returned to
my sole, and traced a soft pattern. I started to pant. Then he set my foot down
and treated my other leg to the same attention, though this time his fingers
brushed past my pussy on the way to my thigh. Again he peeled my boot away, and
again he ran his fingers over my feet. No man had ever paid such attention to
the less important parts of my body before. It was as though he liked all of
me, and not just the bits that gave him pleasure.

All of me gave him pleasure, I realized.

The thought shocked me, and it suddenly came to me through the
haze of desire slowly building in me, that he wanted all of me. He didn't know
me, but he wanted to know me. Every bit of me.

The realization frightened me, but it aroused me at the same
time.

Then he set my other foot down, this time on his crotch, and I
felt the bulge of his erection through his jeans.

"You don't know what you do to me," he said, looking
up at my face. His voice dragged over my skin, as though all my nerves were raw
and exposed. I swallowed and licked my lips and felt his cock jump in response
to the action of my tongue.

His hands alighted on my waistband, and then he was unbuttoning
my jeans, zipping them down, then reaching up and hooking his fingers into both
my pants and panties. He slid the fabric over my hips, dragging his fingernails
over my exposed ass as he took them off, and when he had to lift my foot from
his cock he made a small sigh of sadness and loss.

My mouth went dry.

"Take off your bra," he said. "I want to study my
canvas."

Shivers raced over my skin. Reaching behind me, I unhooked my
bra and let it slide down my arms to fall to the floor. Malcolm stood and began
to circle me.

I remained still, my head held high, wanting nothing more than
to leap across the space between us, hook my legs around his waist, and ride
him until I came over and over again. What was he doing to me?

Driving me just as crazy as he is,
I thought. Maybe he
was a bit mad. But it was a good sort of mad. The madness of artistry, the
madness of genius. He finally stopped in front of me and reached out, his hands
cupping my small breasts, lifting them up and running his thumbs over my
nipples. My core quivered and I moaned softly at his touch.

"Sensitive there, are you?" he said.

I nodded.

"Good." He slid his warm hands up my chest to my
shoulders, then let his fingers drift down, down, down the back of my arm to my
hands. Gently, he tangled his fingers with mine and led me over to the cloth in
the center of the floor.

"Kneel," he commanded me, and I did so. The warmth of
his palms sliding over my body guided me into the position he wanted, and I
reveled in his every touch as he pushed my face down to the floor, stretched my
arms out in front of me, arched my back so my ass stuck in the air. He lifted
my heavy mass of hair and slid it over one shoulder, then traced his hands over
my spine.

"You have many tattoos," he said after a moment.
"I love them. You are a work of art."

No man had told me I was art before. I closed my eyes, praying
he would paint me and then fuck me. I couldn't take the teasing much longer.

My exposed pussy quivered in the air, though the warmth of the
room kept the caresses of the drafts from being uncomfortable. I ached for him.
I ached for anything. I wished, suddenly, that I wasn't the passive canvas,
that I could touch him as much as he touched me.

He knelt down beside me. "Your back is beautiful," he
said. "You are exquisitely structured." The scrape of the table legs
on the floor echoed around the studio as he dragged his materials over to
himself. I heard the unscrewing of a cap and the rustle of his movements as he
dipped a brush into the paint. Then he touched brush to skin, and I sighed in
pleasure.

Slowly, torturously, he dragged the tip of his brush over my
back, winding down my spine in spirals, wandering where it would. I had no idea
what he was doing. My forehead touched the floor and I could only see his knees
from the cave of my body, but whatever he was doing felt amazing. Swift, then
slow, strong, then soft, he painted my skin. Occasionally he would dip the
brush into the paint again, and I quivered, wondering where he would paint me
next. I was never disappointed. First he painted the back of my thigh, then the
curve of my waist. Then, finally, his brush found my breast. It curled under
and over, circling my nipple, until I nearly moaned in frustration.

"Would you like me to touch your nipple?" he said. He
sounded amused. "Nod if yes."

I nodded.

I watched as he reached down to the hard little point of my
breast. Then my breath caught as he pushed his pointer into his thumb, then
flicked me.

Pleasure laced with pain shot out across me, darting straight
from my nipple to my heart, and I cried out.

"Too much?" he asked. "Nod if yes."

I remained perfectly still, and I heard his breathing pick up
the pace.

"Good," he said. He ran the brush over the now
throbbing nub, soothing it. I was so wet between my legs it was a miracle I
wasn't just dripping down my thighs. He flicked me again, then soothed me,
flicked and soothed, flicked and soothed, over and over, until I was crying out
and twitching with each burst of pleasurable pain.

At last he stopped, then ran his fingertips over my back and
side. He traced the swell of my ass and reached around, brushing his fingers
against my quivering cunt, feeling the soaking wetness there.

"Ah, Sadie," he breathed. "You truly are
alive." He shifted, moving around to my back. God, why wouldn't he let me
touch him? I needed to touch him. I wanted his cock in my hands, in my mouth.
I'd never wanted anyone like I'd wanted Malcolm Ward, and the wanting was all
the more potent because he didn't seem to want me to have him.

"Hmm," he said suddenly. "I need a new brush. But
I have forgotten a place where I could store my used brushes. I truly am an
amateur."

His voice had a wicked undertone, and my pulse quickened. Was he
going to do what I thought he was going to do?

Hot breath gusted between the cheeks of my ass, caressing the
tight puckered entrance there. Then he slid his tongue over my asshole, soft,
sensuous, layering it with moisture, so that when he finally pressed the
rounded tip of the brush handle past the tight ring of musle, it went easily,
and I moaned and quaked around it.

"Do you like it?" he asked me. "Nod if yes."

I nodded.

"Good."

I heard him select another brush, and then he began to swirl it
over the mounds of my ass, dragging paint here and there, tickling and teasing
me until he rinsed it out and then inserted it alongside the first one. Then
another, and another. Slowly he stretched me out, and I quivered with desire to
be used so. My pussy was melting. I needed him inside me, but I knew he
wouldn't give me what I wanted yet.

He selected another brush. "I like this part of you," he
said.

There was a pause and I almost opened my mouth to ask him what
he meant, but then he swiped the bristles of the brush over my burning slit and
I squeaked as they flicked against my clitoris.

"This part is very alive," he said. "It almost
has a mind of its own." He flicked my clitoris with the brush again and I
groaned at the intensity of the sensation. The pleasure coiled and curled in my
belly, and I felt myself beginning the long, slow climb up to the top of the
mountain, and when I finally let go I would plunge into pleasure. My mouth
watered, my body strained, even as I struggled to stay still. The brushes in my
ass filled me up. and I ached to feel the same in my tight core.

"I'd like to watch you come," Malcolm said.
"Would you like that? Nod if yes."

I didn't want to nod. "Yes!" I cried.

He reached around and flicked my nipple again, and I bucked and
shrieked. So much more intense, so much more satisfying, now that he was
touching me where I most needed him. He began to flutter the bristles of the
brush over my slit, gathering the slick juices there, as though he were loading
the brush with paint, and when he dragged it over my clit as if he were
layering paint onto a canvas I couldn't help but cry out and writhe under his
tender attention.