Page 49 of Painted

With Early, he felt none of that. He felt strong and protective, like he could take on the world and make it a better place for Early. And yes, it was ironic, because the very sense of control and experience that he felt now had been part of the list ofexcuses he’d come up with not to get involved with Early in the first place.

That list was out the window now. It had been born out of fear at any rate, and although he was still terrified of everything that could happen between him and Early, he was certain it was worth the risk now.

“We don’t have to talk about anything,” he whispered across Early’s soft, searching lips.

Early made a tiny sound of confusion and tensed. “I thought you said we should talk things through before we try—” they swallowed and sucked in a breath, “—having sex again,” they finished in a whisper.

Rhys smiled, more aroused than he could ever remember being as he kissed Early’s lips gently. He breathed in Early’s fresh, flowery scent, reasonably certain it came from shampoo and not any sort of fancy perfume, then kissed them again.

“We’re not going to have sex tonight,” he said, brushing his thumb across Early’s cheek.

“We’re not?” Early instantly worried and their lower lip wobbled.

God, they had no idea how sexy they were.

“Nope,” Rhys said, kissing them again, then rocking back. “I have other things in mind.”

“What other things?” Early asked, their voice wispy with expectation.

Rhys stepped back farther, turning to the side, and said, “Take your clothes off.”

“You want me to…but we’re not going to….” Early blinked and twisted awkwardly as they followed Rhys with their eyes.

Rhys headed to a cabinet by the side of the room and opened it to take out an array of painting supplies from the stuff he kept in his flat. “You’re an experienced model now,” he told Early over his shoulder with a grin. “You know all about posing nudefor an artist. I said before that I wanted to work with you outside of that class.”

“You want me to—” They stopped themselves and smiled. “Okay,” they said, then went to work slipping out of the glittery gown they’d worn that had ignited Rhys’s imagination all evening.

The supplies Rhys kept in his flat were rudimentary. He only had acrylic paints upstairs, and he hadn’t used most of them for years. It was pure luck that he had a small, cheap canvas board in his cupboard, but he didn’t have an easel. It didn’t matter. The board was small enough that he could rest it on his knees or a side table, and it wasn’t like he was creating a masterpiece anyhow.

That thought tugged at something darker in him as he headed to the kitchen to fill a cup with water. Downstairs, still waiting in his studio, was Raina’s landscape. He should have been putting his effort into working on that, not playing around with Early.

He should have been thinking about Raina and mourning her instead of pulsing with desire for Early and contemplating getting on with his life. Every step he took to move his life on took him one step farther away from the brother Raina had known. She would never know the man he would become.

“Is this okay?”

Early’s voice from the sofa stopped Rhys from spiraling in those sad thoughts. He turned around and found Early draped seductively across the sofa, one leg bent slightly and one arm hooked back behind his head. If ever a pose said “Come over here and fuck me”, it was that pose.

Not tonight, Rhys reminded himself, though his cock lifted eagerly against his trousers as if it hadn’t gotten the memo.

“Perfect,” he said, returning to the chair across from the sofa and setting the glass of water on the side table.

It didn’t take him long to set up, though it was amazing that he could focus on his paints and palette with Early’s gorgeous body splayed for his own personal view. It didn’t help either when he noticed a dead-sexy pair of black lace panties sitting with the discarded dress on the chair near the sofa either. That was something he definitely wanted to know more about.

“Don’t you need to sketch me first?” Early asked, a cheeky sparkle in his eyes. “Or apply an underpainting of some sort? Wasn’t that what you taught your class to do?”

“Shush,” Rhys teased him with a wicked grin. “Models are supposed to be silent and lovely, not mouthy little tramps.”

The words spilled out of him before he could check himself. He tensed with the fear that he’d said the wrong thing, but Early just laughed low in their throat.

“Mouthy little tramp,” they repeated. “That’s something no one has ever, ever called me.”

“If you want an apology, I’ll give it,” Rhys said as he squirted a few colors onto his palette and started to blend them to get the base color of Early’s beautiful skin.

“Oh, no,” Early said, sounding more relaxed at precisely the moment when Rhys thought he’d get super nervous. “I like it. It gives me something to aspire to.”

Rhys chuckled, then spent a few minutes sketching the basic shape of Early’s stretched body with broad strokes.

“This reminds me ofTitanic,” Early said when the silence between them had stretched on too long. “Paint me like you do your French girls,” they paraphrased.

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