Page 88 of The Pocket Pair

“There’s no way I’ll be bored watching you, Tiny.”

I expect him to kiss me first, as there’s no way I’m the only one feeling this palpable buildup. But maybe because he knows that kissing right now would lead to not painting right now, he backs up and settles on a nearby stool.

“Pretend I’m not here,” he says.

Impossible.

And yet, within a few minutes, I’m lost again, only stepping back when my arm is cramping and I have that sense of completeness about my canvas. I blink, coming back to myself, to the room, to Chevy. When I glance over at him, seated on a stool nearby, I almost drop my brush.

If I thought his gaze was appreciative before, it’s absolutely adoring now. My instinct is to shrivel up in embarrassment, to start to babble. But instead, I let myself feel proud. Of myself. Of my work. I bask in the warm glow of Chevy’s gaze.

“Come here,” I tell him, a brash confidence in my voice I hardly recognize.

He responds immediately, closing the gap between us. Just as before he keeps the slightest amount of space between us.

“You always have paint somewhere on you,” he says, and that embarrassment I fought off only moments ago rises. I examine my hands, then rub one over my face, wiping away any bits of stray color or flecks of blue. Chevy catches my hand, holding it between us. “Don’t. I like it.”

His eyes rove everywhere over me. Though I’m wearing my usual coveralls and tank top underneath, my sweatshirt discarded by the door, I feel bare before him.

“I like looking at you, studying you. Searching for paint on your cheeks, your hands, your hair.” His thumb grazes the inside of my wrist, and my pulse practically beats through my skin to reach him. “It’s you,” he says. “Completely you. And I happen to really, really like you, Tiny.”

Feeling emboldened in a way I never have before, I say, “Bring the stool here. Sit.”

Chevy raises an eyebrow but does as I ask. When he’s seated again, legs angled wide and hands resting on his thighs, eyes curious, I step closer. Plucking a fan brush from my jar of dry brushes and palette knives, I step closer still, my heart ramming against my ribs.

I’m not the kind of woman who usually takes initiative with the men I date. Not to say I’m some passive, wilting flower. But I’m not bold. And I’ve never been particularly creative or innovative. I’ve certainly never done anything like this.

“Close your eyes,” I tell him. He does, but only after giving me a smoldering expression, one side of his mouth turned up in a smirk.

I start there. With the brush angled comfortably in my hand, I sweep it oh-so lightly over the corner of his mouth. The smirk disappears, his lips parting as his breath quickens. I brush up over his cheekbone and then up to his temple and across his forehead. Down the slope of his nose, slightly crooked from that time he broke it playing football, and over the other cheek. Slow, slow, slow.

Without lifting the soft bristles of the fan from his face, I skim over one eyelid, then the other. Along the edge of his jaw, which clenches, and then down his neck. His Adam's apple bobs when I pass over it, and when I dip just inside his collar to the hollow between his clavicles, he grabs my wrist, nostrils flaring.

“Tiny.” The word strangles its way out of him, like he’s on the very verge of losing control.

I lean forward, kissing the spot where my brush stopped.

And then Chevy does lose control.

Or at least, that’s how it feels as he stands, sweeping me up in his arms. My brush falls to the ground, and I’m only slightly aware of it because everything else is homed in on Chevy. He’s the beat of my heart. The breath in my lungs. Is it too dramatic to say he’s the completion of my soul?

Yeah, probably. But also … very true.

Our mouths meet messily, driven by something deeper than hunger. His stubble adds a rough edge while his lips are so soft, even in their intensity. All the tension building since Chevy walked into the studio has exploded in the very best way. I’m not sure I can come down from this, not when his hands grip my waist fiercely, like he wants to consume me but also protect and keep me safe.

My back arches, body bowing forward like I’m a whole field of flowers, tilting toward the sun as it crests the horizon. I’m lost. I’m found. I’m his.

Yet I’m more fully myself than I ever have been.

He pulls back, letting us both catch our breath. Gently lowering me until my feet touch the floor, he drops his forehead to my shoulder, sliding his hands up my back until he’s hugging me tightly.

“I have a new appreciation for art,” he says, finally, turning his head to nuzzle my neck. When he smiles, I can feel it against my throat. “A new appreciation for you.”

“Good,” I tell him, “because I hope we can do a whole lot more appreciating in the future.”

That is … the relatively near future and then when I come back from Costa Rica. But for now, I let those words and my fears about the distance and the time and everything else stay unspoken.

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