by K. L. Jessop
“Let me hear you.” I press my thumb against her clit, and she clamps around me like a fucking vice, screaming my name over and over before sinking her teeth into my shoulder and drawing my climax out of me in raw fire. “Fuck, Pepper.”
Her clammy body falls on top of me. She kisses the absolute shit out of me with an intensity that has my heart sprinting so fast it’s almost unbearable. Her tongue dances with mine, tasting of sarcasm and sin. I need more. I want more. This woman is playing a very dangerous game with my feelings and the more I want it to stop, the more she reels me in.
We’ve lost all track of time after this morning and once I’ve fed a hungry Pepper a proper breakfast and checked over her leg, we’ve ended up back in bed where we have done nothing but kiss. She lies flat out on top of me, her head resting against my heart as I draw circles over her back with my fingers. I’m glad I ordered her to take the day off, and although I should still be working and getting commissions finished, I’ve no regrets lying here with her. For the first time in forever, my mind isn’t racing. I’m completely at ease.
“You’ve been quiet for too long. Have you gone to sleep on me, Blue?”
"What's your favourite colour?"
Her randomness makes me smile. “Yellow.”
“Wow, not even a hesitation.”
“Nope.”
"So, you like my scooter?" I feel her smile against my skin.
“I said I like the colour; I never said I liked your scooter."
She shifts positions, this time lifting herself up a little and leaning an arm across my chest to raise herself slightly. I’m now uncomfortable but I go with it because I don’t want her to move. "I'm surprised.”
“Why?”
She shrugs. “I thought black was more you.”
“Black isn't a colour,” I point out, understanding why she would think this as I’m a moody fucker most of the time.
"It is."
I look at her solidly. “It is not.”
“What the hell is it then, Mr Professional?”
"It's an achromatic colour, meaning a colour without a hue. Just like white and grey. Black is not a colour."
She raises her eyebrows. “Wow, check you out being all intelligent and shit. Next, you’ll be explaining your understanding of fun. Which I’d be intrigued to know by the way.”
A squeal leaves her when I lightly jab her in the side of the stomach before she wriggles off me. I make a mental note of it so I can get her later when the time is right. For now, I’ve other plans in mind.
“Excuse me, sassy pants. I know how to have fun.”
"You do?”
“It’s been known.”
A smirk graces her face. “What do you do, count how many people you piss off?"
I laugh out loud, shifting her off me. Getting up from the bed, I pull on my trousers and T-shirt before I head to the closed door that Tessa's paintings hide behind.
Guilt hits me. I’ve not stepped foot inside in almost two days because my mind has had other distractions.
Looking back at Pepper, I provide her with a stern look, letting her know I mean every word as I unlock the door. “Stay out here.”
On entering the room, I’m anxious to get out again in case she doesn’t abide by my request and follow me in, so I quickly grab my spare paintbrushes, and shove them into the waistband of my trousers, covering them over with my T-shirt. When I come back out, her pretty face smiles up at me as I lock the door.
“I take it you’ve not gone all Christian Grey, either. There’s no playroom behind that door, right?”
I chuckle. “No playroom.”
"So what have you got hiding in there?”
I ignore her question. “You want to have some fun, right?" I pull out a large canvas from the corner of the room and lean it against the wall. Turning to face her, I lift up my shirt to reveal the paintbrushes. "So, let's paint."
When she beams like an idiot and jumps to her feet with a squeal, a grin radiates across my face at how easily pleased this girl is. She doesn’t appear to be a fine wine and dinner dates sort of woman, nor is she one that brags about her wealth as others do—something I now realise I was wrong about and regret causing her upset over.
Wrapping the bedsheet around her, she walks towards me, her blue eyes standing out with enthusiasm and excitement. "I've not painted in years."
"You sound like such a child right now."
"Shut up and give me a paintbrush."
Before I do, I strip the bed sheet from her naked body, lift her chin and press a soft kiss on her lips before removing my T-shirt and placing it over her head.
Her eyes flick up to mine and she pushes her bottom lip out as if she’s sulking. “For a minute there I thought you were into naked painting.”
“I can’t have distractions while I work, and you standing beside me with nothing on would be too tempting. It’s bad enough that my shirt only just covers your backside.”
“Then I’ll try to be good.” She takes a brush out of the top of my jeans and runs it up and along my torso, a devilish glint dancing in her eyes. “But I make no promises.”
“Somehow I can’t imagine you would.”
"What shall we paint?"
"Anything you want." I provided us with some acrylics and give her a palette while she stands looking straight ahead.
I can’t help but smile as I watch her staring at the big white canvas as if she’s waiting for answers.
“I’m not going to judge you, Blue. Just paint.”
“How do you do it? How do you make something spectacular out of nothing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, here you are making art for a living, and here I am lost for ideas on the first go.”
I wrap my arm around her waist and rest my chin on her shoulder. I’ve never really thought about it this way. I take hold of the paintbrush or spray can and it’s like my hand has no control. It starts moving at its own accord, and before I know it, new life is staring back at me.
So I explain in the only way I know how. “Close your eyes and think of something that makes you smile. A time you’ll remember forever. Maybe a childhood memory. A gift from your parents. Anything. Then paint whatever you see or how it makes you feel.”
With that, I sense her smile and she gets to work, picking up the yellow acrylic and squeezing a large dollop onto the palette.
“I thought you said you don’t use acrylics.”
“I don’t. Not often anyway. I tend to spray more and add the acrylics if I need to.”
“Have you ever done really big projects like buildings?”
“Not on that scale, but I’ve helped cover part of one.” Adventuring from chalk and progressing onto spray was easier than I’d thought. Derelict buildings and underground walls were perfect to experiment on.
Going over to my stereo, I switch on the radio, saving her from the heavy vibe I usually listen to and instead, putting up with some flouncy shit that she is now singing along to. With an idea in mind about what to paint, I stride over to where Pepper stands and pick up the blue acrylics. If having her watch me in the gallery had been distracting, having her standing here now is fucking torture, and when she bends to get more paint, the wicked grin on her face tells me she knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
“Am I distracting you, Mr Wilson?”
“Not at all.” I grin. The laughter that comes from her when I angle my canvas so my back is to her is pure gold.
“Such a liar.”
An hour passes and the concentrated silence between us, while music plays softly in the background, is content. I’ve never been so relaxed and at ease in the presence of another, and I’m grateful that Pepper has been able get to know me while I’m having a good episode. The devil still sleeps, so I can let myself be around her without any concern—try and be the person I’ve always longed to be before everything reverts back to solitude and anguish. I’ve never told anyone of my illness: it’s nobody’s b
usiness but my own. However, the longer Blue is around, the more I dread she will learn so much because it’s only a matter of time before the dark days come—and they will. I never know when that will be, and I fear this side of me will be forgotten.
“I’m done. Wanna see?” she asks proudly.
“Of course.”
When I turn around, the glow of excitement on her face is everything as she stands in front of her picture. “Ready to see the evidence of my amazing talents?”
When she steps aside, I press my lips together in a straight smile, trying hard not to laugh.
“Wow.” I clear my throat. “Now that is some painting.” The bright colours of blue and yellow fill the canvas with a beach scene. A big orange sun is in the top right-hand corner, there are birds in the sky and people walking along the sand. “I mean, I don’t know what I’m most impressed by: your skilfully painted stick-men or the life-like, v-shaped seagulls…”
“Shut up.” She grins. “I’ve slaved over a bunch of brushes for this masterpiece.”
“I can see.”
“How much do you think it will sell for?”
I tilt my head to the side as if examining it more thoroughly. “Less than a pound?”
“Fucker.”
I chuckle when she slaps my shoulder. “I take it it’s a good memory?” I question, wanting to know what inspired her to paint it.
“Our last family holiday at the beach.” She smiles before her eyes fill with sorrow. “It’s one I’ll never forget.”
I’m suddenly envious of her because, at the age of twenty-six, I’ve never been to the coast—or even out of London for that matter—but it’s the untold story in her crystal blues I need to know more of. It hasn’t escaped me that there are four stickmen on her painting—now able to assume three of them represent herself and her parents—but I want to know who the fourth one is, and if they have any connection with the pain she carries. The conversation with Emmet plagues my thoughts, and I want to ask, but as her sparkle begins to fade, I want nothing more than to get it back. So I change the subject.
“Ready to see mine.”
She rolls her eyes playfully. “Well, I guess we can take a look. Somehow I doubt mine will be better.”
“Oh, naturally.”
When she turns, the gasp that leaves her says it all. Her hand comes to her mouth, her eyes glistening as she holds on to my arm like she needs my strength to keep her upright.
“Dexter…” she breathes, stepping forward.
The first thing I thought of when I picked up my paints was the woman standing behind me and how her eyes have always had the power to bring me to my knees. On the canvas, a part portrait of Pepper stairs back at us. It mainly focuses on the upper part of her face, two big blue eyes staring back at us. Her eyebrows are shaped exactly how hers are, and flicks of blue and white paint cover parts of the portrait and the remaining parts of the canvas, giving it an abstract and contemporary feel.
“Your eyes haunt me,” I admit on a whisper.
“They don’t look scary in the painting.”
“That’s the point. They’re not scary in real life either.”
She looks at me, her brows narrow with confusion. “And that haunts you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Being around her is fatal. She’s taken every ounce of the trepidation out of me, enveloped her delicacy around my wounded world and made everything stop. She’s making me forget. She’s making me experience things I’ve never encountered, and what’s worse, she’s making me feel things I don’t deserve to feel.
I fear I won’t be able to stop the fall.
But if she deserves anything in this twisted cycle she has inflicted it’s a little honesty. “Because you make me forget, and I can’t work out if that’s a good thing.”
Her hand cups my cheeks and the sincerity in her features soothes the anxiety I suddenly suffer from my declaration. Her smile is warm but the sorrow behind her words is noticeable. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re making me forget, too.”
I’m about to wrap my arms around her, needing her closer, when she steps away from me and towards my painting. Crossing her arms over her stomach, she studies it more. This time a different look of melancholy fills her eyes.
“What are you thinking?”
She sighs heavily and the words that leave her hit me unexpectedly. “It saddens me that you have no idea how talented you truly are.”
For a second, anger channels my body with how transparent I’ve clearly been when it comes to my work. I’ve never looked at my paintings and thought of it as a talent. I’ve never understood why they sell because in my eyes they will never be good enough. I can’t recall ever being proud of what I achieve because there are so many hidden meanings behind them that are often laced with shadows and suffering. The only talent I have is an untold story and a box of memories that will never be restored. I create pieces and for whatever reason, people want to buy them. It’s as simple as that.
As if knowing her words have wedged a discomfort within me, Pepper quickly replaces the void in the room with her sass. “However, having said that. I still think mine would sell way more on this occasion.”
“Is that so?”
“Hell yes. I mean look…” She turns and points at her seaside painting. “Move over Banksy because Livewell is in town.”
I burst out laughing. Her eyes widen at my response, and even though I can see the humour in her smile she’s trying hard to control, I can’t tell if she’s genuinely being serious either, which only results in me laughing harder.
“Are you mocking me, Dexter?”
“Maybe a little?”
“Don’t think I can give Banksy a run for his money?”
I shake my head, trying to compose myself but she quickly stops my hysteria when I feel the wet paintbrush draw down my cheek.
“Oops, silly me,” she quips.
I stand, surprised that I’ve been caught off guard yet loving the look in her eyes.
She wants to play.
“You did not just do that.”
Before I have a chance to register, she dabs the brush in the orange paint and attacks my other cheek, a shit-eating grin on her face. "I think I did."
"You think you're really funny, don't you?"
She shrugs, grinning. "I have my moments."
Bring it on, beautiful.
“Don’t start a war you know you’ll lose, Blue.” Stepping to the side, I take a large brush and scoop up some blue paint, my cocked brow a visual warning that has her backing away.
“Dexter,” she warns, but my grin makes her bolt towards the kitchen, scraping up the brushes from the floor as she goes. Different colours splat across my torso as she flicks the paint at me when trying to escape. The kitchen table is the only thing between us and as I give her leverage to escape, her excitable scream fills the room when I chase after her. Catching her off guard from behind, I grip her by the waist with one arm and lift her off her feet before I swipe the blue paint down her cheek and neck.
"Gotcha.”
“Such an arsehole.” She laughs, trying to wriggle out of my grip.
“Oh really?” Remembering her sensitive spot from this morning, I tickle her waist and a roar of deep giggles that I adore hearing leave her.
“I’m sorry, what was it you were saying?”
“Stop. Can’t… breathe.”
Falling to the floor, I cover her breathless body with mine as she tries to control her breathing, both of us still laughing. When we hold each other’s gaze, something shifts between us. I’m unsure what, but the feeling it generates is like a comfort blanket covering every part of me. And for the first time, I’m not worried about what tomorrow will bring because this woman right here seems to take all my fears away and keep me in the present. And I don’t understand why.
What confuses my wretched heart more than ever, though, is when she takes the paintbrush out of my hand and paints a b
lue heart over the left side of my chest before she places her hand over it. All the while, my own heart pounds rapidly against her palm as she watches me intensely.
“Blue,” I whisper. “What are you doing to me?” I’m struggling with this new sensation I’ve never had to contend with before—one that’s left me more exposed than any other—but when her words of integrity whisper against my lips, my breath catches. I’ve been captured, and there’s nowhere to hide anymore.
“Everything you’re trying to run from.”
Chapter Nineteen
Pepper
As I wake from my slumber, disappointment wraps around my body when I reach out across the bed. Dexter’s side is cold. I’m alone again, and the ache grips my stomach faster than I can push it back down. I know it’s too early to be feeling this way—things are still so new, things between us are still sketchy—but I can’t help myself when it comes to him. I know he has his boundaries. I know he has secrets that he can’t or doesn’t wish to speak of—wounds that run deeper than what my own do—but he can’t label this as just sex. I fail to believe it because I saw a look in his eyes last night, and I believe he feels this growing connection between us. He’s a man that speaks very little and his eyes hold so many mysteries and untold stories, but hidden beneath those brown hues, I’ve seen a pleading that shatters my heart.
He wants acceptance.
He craves freedom.
He is not the twisted personality he often refers to. He is a lost soul longing for change but for some reason fears it. And I’m determined to hold on for as long as he’ll let me because what he doesn’t realise is, I’m longing for that, too. He sets me free. He’s everything I never saw coming.
Getting out of bed, I place on Dexter’s shirt that I find on the floor and head out through the open door that leads to the balcony. Finding him out in the far corner in only his jeans, I watch Dexter standing barefoot amongst the puddles from last nights rainfall. His hair is in that beautiful mess around his shoulders, his body picture perfect. However, I see the tension in his jaw—the familiar sign I’m becoming to know all too well. He’s fighting silent distress today.
