Page 64 of The Painter and His Poet

Deep inside, he pulled me free,

Free to be.

To be me…

But how can I hold on to someone,

Who makes me feel so undone?

How can I be his, when I’ve never been anyone’s?

My breath catches as I notice the date. She wrote this the day after we met for the first time.

“Fuck,” I mutter, aching for her in that moment.

I flip the pages at random, reading line after line, absorbing a part of her that she’s hidden from the world. Every word is like a heartbeat that echoes in my chest, each line pulling me deeper into her soul, revealing thoughts and feelings she’s kept locked away. There’s a rawness to her words, a vulnerability that makes my chest tighten.

Electricity races beneath my skin,

A flash of blue, a spark within,

That flares beneath the darkness of sin…

She wrote this the day after the wedding, and I can’t help but wonder if this is about us, about the undeniable magnetism we share. “Damn it, Harlow…” I murmur.

When I reach the last entry, my fingers tremble as I trace the lines with my fingertips. The words are simple, but no less powerful.

Lost to the heat of his desire,

I want his touch so much I’m on fire.

Troubled by the intensity of his stare,

Yet I want his attention, please strip me bare.

Catch me alight, catch me alight,

Oh stranger in the night…

I’d known it all along, of course. She feels it too, this pull between us, the way we’re drawn to one another, not by choice, but by something deeper, something inevitable. I glance back at her, still sleeping peacefully, oblivious to the fact that I’ve expressed my feelings for her in much the same way. She uses words, and I use paint, both of us creating something that speaks without needing to be said aloud, something that exists between us in the lines of a notebook, and in brushstrokes of colour. Something secret, yet painfully exposing if anyone were to take a closer look.

Closing the notebook gently, I’m suddenly aware of how much of her I've just uncovered. It’s almost too much, but I can’t stop myself from wanting more as I pad across the room, my footsteps muffled by the thick carpet beneath my bare feet.

“You’re a poet,” I whisper, placing the notebook exactly where I found it. “You’remylittle poet.”

Mine, she’s mine,I think, that possessive, obsessive part of me wanting to claim her in sleep, just as I have claimed everything else about her. I know thatthisis the moment I should leave.

Yet I don’t.I can’t.

“Harlow?” I whisper, a small part of me, the part that is a decent human being with morals and boundaries wants her to wake up, to put a stop to this.

But then she moans, “Please…” and my heart stills, that one word igniting my desire into a blazing inferno, and turning every single piece of morality I thought I had into ash.

Seconds tick past, her legs shifting beneath the covers as the duvet slips between her parted thighs, exposing more skin, teasing me with more temptation.

“Can you sense my presence, my little poet?” I ask, reaching for her once more, the back of my knuckles grazing against the exposed skin of her thigh. Her cotton nightie has risen upwards revealing her hip and part of her stomach. It’s only then I realise that she’s not wearing any underwear.

“Fuck, what are you doing to me?”

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