Chapter twenty-five

Poppy

I’d just finished taping drop cloths to the studio windows when the doorbell rang. Hopefully it was dinner and not someone I had to get rid of before Theo arrived.

I grabbed my wallet and opened the door just as the delivery guy drove off with a friendly honk. Typical Theo. He used to cover everything when we were friends, even though I always tried to treat him. I grabbed the large bag and walked to the kitchen. There was a bottle of ketchup in the fridge and nothing else. I slid the plastic containers of sushi inside, along with the edamame he’d added to the order. He’d also gotten the green tea mochi ice cream I loved. I stashed the mochi in the freezer, which was half full of frozen entrees. If Rowan or Mom saw the contents of Theo’s fridge, he’d be getting a lecture and weekly meal deliveries from our house.

Since I had everything ready in the studio, I decided to set the table before remembering Theo didn’t have one. I opened the cabinets so I could at least have plates ready and took out two of the four basic white dishes he had. I slid open one drawer and then another. All were lined with ’90s floral shelf paper and bare except for a box of plastic cutlery. Theo hadn’t lived here long, but surely, he’d had time to hit up Target for silverware.

I opened the Notes app on my phone and jotted down a few things I could get him to make the place feel homier. I wandered down the hall to the bathroom and cracked open the closet door. The towels we’d wrapped up in last night were the only ones he owned. He did at least have a pack of toilet paper and a first aid kit.

I worked on my list in the studio while I waited and almost missed the sound of the front door opening and closing. I’d been so occupied, I hadn’t had time to freak out about what I was about to suggest.

“What’s all this?”

Theo asked as he entered the studio. He walked around the canvas I’d laid on the floor and kissed me deeply before I had a chance to answer. Yep. Dinner was going to wait.

“Well,”

I said, wrapping my arms around his waist. “You made me such a thoughtful gift, I wanted to make one for you. But I’m afraid you have to help me.”

He looked at the canvas spread across the floor and the drop cloths covering the windows. “Are you spray painting something?”

“Nope,”

I said. I pointed to the disposable pie dishes and washable tempera paint on the worktable. “You need something for your bedroom wall. Personally, I was thinking gray and an accent color. Red would work well, but it will clash with the carpet until Aiden changes it.”

“I’m still not following.”

I smirked at him. “I’m going to take off my clothes, and you’re going to cover me in that paint. All of me, except, you know. Then you’re going to take off your clothes, and I’ll cover you. Then we paint.”

His eyes widened and a slow smile spread across his face. Playful Theo was back, just like I’d hoped he’d be.

“Do you have green?”

he asked, reaching for me.

“Just primaries, black, and white,”

I said as he kissed my neck and started unbuttoning my shirt dress.

He left my dress half undone and brought me over to the worktable. “We’ll put the black and white on me.”

He grabbed an empty pie pan and started mixing blue, yellow, and white. “Look at me,”

he said, his tone urgent. He added more blue and held the spoon he’d used to mix the paint up to my face. “This is yours.”

The man color matched my eyes. I lunged at him and started yanking at his shirt. A few moments later, we were both naked and smearing paint all over each other.

“Damn it, I want to touch you,”

he said as he grabbed my ass with a handful of green.

I knew exactly what he meant. I’d had to stop myself from wrapping my fingers around his erection several times. I dipped my hands in the black and white paint and ran them up and down his legs while he poured paint down my back. Glad I’d covered the floor in plastic.

“Good enough,”

I said, standing. I grabbed the condom I’d put on the worktable earlier, which I’d bought in Jericho because I wasn’t hitting up the pharmacy in Peace Falls for protection any time soon.

My hands shook as I tried to tear open the foil.

“You OK?”

Theo asked, wrapping his paint-covered hand over mine.

Yes. No. I couldn’t tell him that I still didn’t believe this was real. Like any moment I’d wake up and have to suffer through another day of wanting him, wondering what it was that made me so unlovable. “I just really want you, and both our hands are covered in paint, and I’m not sure what would happen if I got paint up my vag.”

He chuckled and tore a paper towel from the roll I’d taken from the kitchen. After he wiped the green paint from his hands, he grabbed a new condom from the table and rolled it on before dipping both hands in the green again.

We ran for the canvas. He stretched out on his back and smiled up at me. “Probably best if you start on top to minimize internal paint splatter.”

I loved seeing him like this, excited, his eyes shining with light. I wondered if this freer version of Theo was more like who he’d been before the accident.

I lowered to my knees, placing one on each side of him, spreading my legs wide. I positioned myself where I thought I needed me to be, but had to shift a little against him before I was able to take him in. He groaned as I lowered myself down.

It felt different from this angle, my clit rubbing against him every time my body met his. I started to move faster, sparks of pleasure growing to an inferno. I was moments from falling apart when Theo flipped us. My back rubbed against the canvas as he rocked into me slowly. The friction of the cloth, contrasting with the slippery paint, woke every nerve in my body.

“Sorry, baby,”

he said. “I wasn’t going to last with you riding me like that, and I have a couple more positions in mind to cover this canvas.”

He lowered his face and kissed me gently, reverently. His thrusts became languid as he broke the kiss, his warm eyes locked with mine. He laced our fingers together and took me with such tenderness, I almost cried.

My orgasm started to build again, but just before I came, he rolled us across the canvas and stopped us on our sides, facing each another.

“Are you purposefully keeping me from coming?”

I asked as I arched against him.

“One more position,”

he said, through gritted teeth, pulling out of me.

“For Pete’s sake, Theo,”

I yelled. “Want me to stand on my head?”

He pointed to a corner that was almost entirely blank. “Hands and knees.”

“Want me to crawl there?”

I asked, only half joking.

The heat in his eyes had me dragging myself across the canvas on all fours. I glanced over my shoulder and watched him lower to his hands and knees and follow my path across the canvas like a hunter stalking prey. By the time he got to me, I was so turned on I was practically hyperventilating.

He wiped his hand on the canvas and grabbed his erection. I cried out as he entered me in one swift thrust. With his hands gripping my hips, he drew himself back and then pounded into me with so much force, my hands slid forward on the canvas.

“Tell me if it’s too much,”

he said, pulling out again.

His strokes became frantic, almost wild. My knees started to shake, and for the first time in my life, I was afraid to come. Afraid of how powerful it would be. I held back as long as I could but when Theo shouted my name, I exploded. An intense pleasure shot through me like an electric current, ripping a scream from my throat. As I started to come down, I felt Theo swell inside me as he found his release.

We collapsed to the canvas, looked at each other, and burst out laughing. His thick hair was covered in paint and sticking out in every direction. I’m sure mine looked the same. His face, which I hadn’t touched, was speckled with dots of paint. No way my vag had escaped the splatter.

“Too bad Aiden hasn’t put the sink in yet,”

he said, rubbing his hand down my arm.

“It’s not my first time getting messy,”

I said pointing to a bucket of water under the worktable.

He raised an eyebrow at me, and I smiled. “I meant, I get messy all the time when I sculpt, and my studio didn’t have a sink. If we clean our feet, we should make it to the shower with minimal fallout.”

“You really are perfect,”

he said, pulling me close and wrapping his arms around me. “Thank you. This was just what I needed today.”

He got to his feet and pulled me to mine. We stepped off the corner of the canvas onto the plastic sheeting and faced the entire work. To anyone else, it’d just be an erratic abstract with several feet and handprints. But as I studied the canvas, I could see the different ways we’d come together and apart. The area where Theo had made love to me slowly had the most paint.

He gripped my hand, and I glanced up to find him staring at the same place on the canvas. I wanted him to say something. That he’d felt the same powerful emotions I had. That maybe I wasn’t the only one falling.

“This is the best gift anyone has ever given me,”

he said without taking his eyes from the canvas.

I squeezed his hand before I dropped it. “We should wash up before the paint dries.”

He continued to study the canvas while I walked to the bucket, washed off my feet, and silently left the room.