End With A Bang (Slap/Bang Duet #2)

18. Bloom

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Bloom

The next day, she went to the penthouse alone, clad in an old tank top and slouchy khaki overalls she’d snagged from the clearance section at Ross. As far as Jason knew, she was taking a painting class at LA City College. They did have a class on acrylic pouring tonight. She’d just be trying it here, on her own.

“You’re painting again,” Jason had said. “That’s great.”

She smelled the turpentine before seeing anything. The full sense-memory that it triggered—olfactory, visual, tactile, auditory, even the taste of Pulco lemon soda—was intoxicating. As were the fumes.

She dropped her bag and followed the smell to the living room. It had been completely transformed into a painting studio, furniture pushed to the walls and covered in tarp. Every size of pre-primed canvas, every possible medium on their own rolling carts, and a heavy-duty easel facing the western-exposure wall of windows.

And, as a special touch, the floor was lined with potted sunflowers.

Taking it all in for a long moment, suddenly feeling home again, she picked up a four-foot canvas and placed it on the easel.

First, she needed music. Connecting to the room speakers, she found her long-neglected college playlist, “ paris loungecore” , a mix of classic and modern tracks with dreamy, seductive French voices over slinky beats, starting with “La Femme à la Peau Bleue”.

She pulled the oil cart close. Picked out a palette. Squeezed a tube of paint for the first time in what felt like forever and yesterday at once.

When she pressed her brush to the canvas, a tear fell from her eye. She sniffled, wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, swept the paint across the canvas, and fell into a trance.

“Masterpiece.”

Ivy jumped at the sound of Sever’s voice, turned his way and let out a laugh. That’s when it occurred to her that the sun had set, it was dusk, and she hadn’t turned on a light.

He flipped one on, making visible his expression—smug, proud or smitten, she couldn’t tell. Possibly all three.

“Hardly,” she said.

“Don’t be modest. I know a masterpiece when I see it.”

“Oh,” she said. “You’re doing the thing. ‘You’re the masterpiece.’”

“Bloody right. Look at you,” he said, stalking toward her in the way she liked, slow and confident and loose, tilting his head left to right and down, giving her bedroom eyes. “Glowing from the inside.”

Pretending she hadn’t just creamed, she said, “That’s the toxic paint.”

“I mean it, Ivy. I was there for a bit, watching you.” He nodded toward his previous vantage point. “I’ve never seen you so... in your element.”

It was hard to argue with that. Her life’s passion had just been reactivated, and she felt new. Whole. Alive.

Now, she couldn’t believe she’d avoided it for this long. She’d stopped when her mother fell ill, first because she had no time nor headspace for it, and then because the thought of it was laden with grief.

“Like I said, this is who you are.”

He did say that:. You’re an artist. “Know it all.”

Hands in his pockets, he tore his eyes from hers to regard the painting. “Sunflower, or sunset?”

She’d been experimenting with watercolor. “I’m not sure.” But then she saw that it wasn’t either. It was the bloom of orange hues that surrounded them in her very first dream about him.

“Well, don’t stop on my account.” He whipped off his tie, tossed it on a tarped couch, and sat next to it.

She stood up from her crouch, pins and needles keeping her still for a moment. “Aren’t you here for sexytimes?”

“Always,” he said. “But I like watching you work.”

She stepped back and gave it another look. “I think it’s finished.”

“All of them?”

There were two others. One in oil, one in acrylic. “I think so. I’d have to come back to them with fresh eyes.”

“Start another one.”

“It’s not that simple. I need to be, you know, inspired.”

“Fine,” he said with a burdened sigh, “I’ll get naked. Paint me like one of your French girls.”

She laughed, then agreed with a shrug, “Okay.”

He raised a brow, and in moments he was undressed and lying across the couch, looking for all the world like a satyr at Bacchanal.

She’d posed him like that. “Do that drapey thing you do. You know, the way you sit on a couch, like you own it? Kinda slouchy, with your arm up over the back of it. Knee bent.”

She ignored his saucy looks while she lay another canvas on the floor and pulled the acrylics cart close. Grabbing a pencil, she outlined his form. “Don’t move, or I’ll have to spank you.”

His cock moved.

“You’re such a bottom,” she said.

“Only when you’re not,” he replied.

“Like a yin yang,” she said, blocking the shape of his torso. “ Is that like a yin yang? Balance, right?”

“I got a yang for your yin,” he said, featuring the goods with a pelvic thrust.

She laughed, and pointed at him with her pencil. “Models are supposed to be seen, not heard.”

“Right. Sorry. Crack on.” He was quiet for a moment as she worked, but it didn’t last. “I think you should get naked, too.”

“I’m not the model here,” was her snide response.

“But you’re my inspiration. I’m sorry, but I can’t model without my muse completely starkers.”

She rolled her eyes, pretending he was tiresome, but she liked the idea. Besides, no one had ever called her their muse. Mixing the base color, his skin’s undertones, she said, “Okay, but you’ll have to control yourself.”

“Might get an erection. Can’t control that.”

“I mean you can’t interrupt the process.”

He let out a disappointed gust of air. “You drive a hard bargain, tigresse . I’ll be good.”

She unhooked each strap of her overalls, then stepped out of it, leaving her in her tank and cotton undies.

“Ooh, sheer pink knickers,” he said, instantly horny. “Turn round and peel them off, nice and slow.”

“You are not in charge tonight!”

“Can’t we both be in charge?”

“That’s not how it works. It’s one at a time.” She pulled the tank over her head, loosening her hair tie, then cast it aside. As her hair bounced back to her shoulders, she saw his chest slowly rise and fall.

As Brigitte Bardot sang “Bonnie and Clyde,” Ivy gave him the show he wanted. She hooked her fingers over the elastic straps and bent over so he could see her ass and pussy while her last piece of clothing fell to her feet. When she turned to face him, it was still on her ankle, so she snapped her foot to toss it at him. It landed on his chest.

He was giving her hungry Daddy eyes. He was not going to be good.

Locking his gaze to hers, he picked up her panties and twiddled the fabric between his thumb and forefinger, finding evidence of her arousal. He took a deep sniff, rubbed it over his fully erect cock, then tossed it over his shoulder.

Agile, weightless, Sever squared his hands on the floor, then his knees.

Moving like an apex predator, he stalked toward her, and she involuntarily lowered herself to his level.

Their mouths met. Her hands went to his hair. “Oh shit, paint. Sorry.”

He took her Burnt Sienna-stained hand and ran it down his torso. “Oh, no.”

“It’s not good for your skin,” she said, not moving her hand.

“I’ll risk it,” he said, picking up her brush and dipping it into her palette. “Poison Ivy.”

She trembled as he drew the outline of a peach-colored heart between her breasts.

She picked up a tube of Thalo Blue and a wider brush, and drew a thick X on his chest.

He added brown to the brush, and circled her navel with it. Grabbed yellow and drew lines radiating from the circle. Then a green leaf.

He’d made a sunflower on her stomach.

She found black, then drew a snake sliding up his torso, sloping around the X.

He kissed her again, pulled her up to press their bodies together, to mingle the paint. Then he brought her down with him as he lay on his back.

On a tube of blue paint.

He picked it up, then as she gasped, he circled her nipples with it, and said, “Tits on the canvas. Make some art with Daddy.”

“Looks like your Mitchell painting,” Sever said, covered in various shades of dried paint.

“How dare you,” Ivy said, kneeling beside him. “That’s a masterpiece. This is a mess.”

“I don’t see the distinction.” He was inspecting the tear. “I’ll get this patched up.”

“Why?”

“It’s going in pride of place, naturally.”

“Pride of place where?”

He sniffed. “It’ll look dead good over your bed.”

She gave him a level gaze. “That’s mean.”

“I’m kidding. Gonna put it over ours.”

Ours?

The penthouse bedroom. Ours .

“It’s got our bodily fluids all over it,” she said.

“Ups the value, as far as I’m concerned. I am famous, you know.”

“Very funny.” She used his shoulder to rise to a stand. “Come on. We have to scrub this off before we get all Goldfinger .”

“Ooh, gold paint. Make your tits all shimmery...”

“Stop! I have to get back. And you’ve got to wash this off. You could be allergic, and it probably causes cancer.”

“Aww,” he held his black-painted heart. “You care about me.”

She didn’t respond, just took his hand to lead him to the shower.