Marriage Lessons

by Katie Allen

  When she dragged her gaze off Louis’s flexing forearms and met his eyes, she realized he was smirking at her. “What?”

  “Are you ignoring me, Annabelle Shay?”

  “No,” she said honestly. “I wasn’t exactly listening to what you were saying, but I definitely wasn’t ignoring you.”

  Those thick eyelashes that she loved so much—and kind of envied—lowered, turning his eyes into hungry slits. “You checking me out?”

  “Well, yeah.” She gestured at the perfection that was his ripped form. “Who wouldn’t? I mean, look at you.”

  The heat in his gaze went from smoldering to blazing, and her breath caught in anticipation. He prowled toward her, and the look in his eyes could only be described as menacing—in the most promising way. “I’d rather look at you,” he said, his voice taking on that low, growly note that never failed to get her hot and bothered. He stopped right in front of her, close enough that she imagined she could feel the heat radiating off him. She didn’t understand how he could smell so good after packing crates all morning. “How about we take a break and have another painting session?”

  She couldn’t have asked for a better opening. “I’m all for that.” The hunger in her voice was obvious. “Only...can I paint you this time?”

  His head reared back slightly, as if he was surprised at her offer, but then his eyes lit with interest. “You want to paint? Okay.” He strode over to his worktable as he grabbed the back of his shirt with one hand and hauled it over his head.

  Torn between desire—she loved that one-handed de-shirting move of his—and shock that he’d accepted her offer so easily, all she could do was stare. When he boosted himself onto the table without removing his pants, she blinked, breaking her fascinated gaze, and then smiled wryly. That was why he didn’t fight her. He was intending to cheat. Too bad she wouldn’t let him. Her smile widened until she suspected that it looked just as wicked as one of Louis’s best grins.

  She moved to grab her box from where she’d tucked it under her desk, and Louis’s curious gaze followed her as she crossed the studio. “What’s that?” he asked, shifting so that his leg and the prosthesis were on the table, stretched out in front of him.

  “I don’t want to waste your expensive watercolors or wreck your brushes, so I ordered some stuff.” Opening the box, she started pulling out the jars of paint and a couple of cheap paintbrushes. “These are nontoxic and...um, made for human consumption.” She muttered the last part, but she was pretty sure he heard it anyway, judging by his teasing chuckle.

  “Are you planning on...eating me after?” he asked, his voice even huskier than before.

  Tapping her lips with the end of one of the paintbrushes, she gave him her best sultry smile. “Maybe. If you’re good. Now turn over.”

  He groaned, the sound part-teasing but mostly want, and obeyed, lying on his belly with his arms folded into a cushion for his head like she’d done when she’d acted as the canvas. As she unscrewed the lids on the paints, her hands trembled slightly. Checking to make sure that his eyes were closed, she silently shook out her hands, blowing out a long, silent breath as she mastered her nerves.

  This was Louis. He’d painted her just like this. There was nothing to be nervous about, but she was worried about pushing his boundaries. What if she messed up and went too far, destroying his confidence—and hers? She gave her head a sharp shake, attempting to knock those concerns out of her mind. They weren’t helpful. She just needed to trust her instincts and know that she was doing this for the right reasons. He made her feel beautiful—every part of her. She only wanted him to feel the same.

  Dipping the brush into the green paint, she hesitated, hovering over his left shoulder. A single drop of green dropped onto his back, and she saw him flinch, ever so slightly. The movement told her that he was waiting for the contact, and she knew from personal experience how nerve-racking the anticipation of that first touch was.

  Lowering the brush, she stroked it from his spine to his shoulder. She saw him shudder, a tiny tremor of his muscles, and she suddenly felt immensely powerful. That small bit of painting, just that single brush of green across his skin, had affected him so strongly that he’d actually trembled under the touch. Her body started to warm, liquid heat centering at the base of her belly, and she bit her bottom lip as her heart started to beat more quickly.

  Her next brushstroke was blue, a straight line down his spine. Her painting skills were limited, and the body paint was basic, so she didn’t bother trying to mix the right colors before adding it to his back. Instead, she just played with patterns and shapes, colors and blending, knowing that it would be gone after a shower. Because it was temporary, she felt free to do whatever she wanted, without agonizing first about how it might look.

  She was caught up in painting but, even more than that, fascinated by Louis’s reaction to the sensation of colors being streaked across his back. Each tiny twitch, every micro-flinch, all the small flexes of his back muscles drew her attention, and soon she was choosing where and how to lay a brushstroke more by how she thought he might react, rather than how it would look.

  She shifted back, pausing for a moment as she noticed that his skin was completely covered in swirls and lines and shapes of paint. Carefully laying the brush across one of the paint jars, she reached out and slid her fingertips under the waistband of his track pants. This time, she couldn’t miss the way his hips jerked from her touch, but she wasn’t sure if it was positive or not.

  “I’m out of room,” she said. Although she tried to keep her voice low, her words sounded loud in the silent studio. “Can I slide your pants down?”

  She held her breath during the beat of silence that followed her question. When he answered, his grunt was almost unintelligible. “Yes.”

  Although she tried to keep her relieved exhalation silent, Louis snorted, letting her know he’d heard. She eased the fabric of his pants down to the tops of his thighs, her eyebrows rising when she found nothing but a beautiful bare ass beneath them.

  “Commando, huh?”

  “Figured I’d free Willy.”

  Her startled laugh burst out of her. After the earlier silence and his one-syllable answer about moving her painting to his ass, his joke had been unexpected. “I prefer to call it free-balling.”

  “It’s Scottish underwear.”

  She smiled but didn’t respond, since she was out of new euphemisms. Instead, she picked up her paintbrush again and went to work on those gorgeous, untouched buns. Painting his butt was even better than his back, since his reactions were more extreme. Not only did he clench and flinch with each stroke, but he also added the occasional gritted moan.

  “You okay?” she asked, only to get another grunted affirmative.

  Too soon, she’d covered both muscled cheeks with paint, even drawing a yellow line between them. That stroke of the brush had nearly made him come off the table, and his breath started coming quick and fast.

  “Good?” She knew he could tell her to stop at any time, but she still wanted to check in, worried that she might unintentionally stumble over one of his boundaries.

  “Yes. Fine. No. Shit. I have to turn over. This table is killing my dick.” As he spoke, he shifted to his side, and Annabelle’s eyes widened when she saw his enormous erection. When he’d painted her, she’d felt peaceful and calm, despite the desire still brewing inside her, but it was obvious that Louis was having a different reaction. There was no way he could feel serene and relaxed with a rock-hard cock pinned against the table.

  “Turn over—wait.”

  He paused, still on his side.

  “You’ll get paint on the table.”

  “Don’t care.” He finished moving over onto his back and stared at the ceiling, still breathing hard. “Holy fuck. This is intense.” Turning his head, he looked at her. “Was this how you felt when I painted you?”
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br />   “Yes and no.” She stroked the paintbrush along his collarbone and saw him close his eyes and swallow hard. “I was turned on like crazy, but the painting was soothing, too. It wasn’t until I stood up and you touched me that I felt like I’d die if you weren’t inside me.” She snuck a quick glance at his furious-looking erection. “I didn’t have the...ah, physical discomfort to worry about, though.”

  He huffed out what sounded like a laugh and a groan mixed together. “You’re killing me here, Annabelle Shay, petting me with that paintbrush while you’re talking about my dick and how you needed it inside you.”

  Even though his eyes were closed and he couldn’t see her, she shrugged. “That’s pretty much my constant state—well, except for the paintbrush part.”

  This time, the sound he made was a hundred percent groan. With a small, smug smile, she painted his chest and down to his belly, which twitched and jumped every time the brush moved across his abs. She was eager to move on to painting his cock, torturing him a little more before trying out the human-consumption thing, but her original motive for painting him nagged at her.

  “Louis?”

  He opened his eyes, and she sucked in a breath at the burning heat of his gaze. “Yes, Annabelle Shay?” His voice was rough enough to make her shiver with need.

  “Can I see you naked?”

  He stared at her, his face unreadable, and she bit back the nervous babble that wanted to escape. Instead, she stayed quiet and held his gaze, waiting for his answer. “Are you sure you want to see that?”

  “Yes.” Relieved that he’d finally spoken and that it wasn’t a flat no, she let a little babble escape. “I do want to see that. ‘That’ meaning everything. I want to see all of you. Naked. Completely naked.”

  After staring at her, expressionless, for another agonizingly long few moments, he sat up. She slumped slightly, disappointed that he was ending the painting session and that her attempt to get him to bare himself to her had failed. Instead of getting off the table like she’d expected, however, he shoved his pants down below his knee.

  Once she recovered from her shock that he was actually going along with her request to see him naked, she hurried to help, pulling off his shoe and sock and tugging his pants off his foot and the prosthesis. When she tossed his shoe over her shoulder, his expression lost some of its grimness.

  “Eager?” he asked, an edge to his voice. She wasn’t sure if it was caused by nerves or anger or irritation that she was pushing him to do something he didn’t want to do, but she ignored the sharpness in his tone and just answered honestly.

  “Oh, yes. You’re beautiful, Louis. I could stare at your naked body all day.”

  He paused, studying her face with that inscrutable expression. Finally, he said, “Please go get my crutches.” He pushed the button on the side of his prosthesis that released the vacuum seal. The sound was familiar, since he often took his leg off in front of her now, but he’d always kept the residual limb covered by the liner and his pant leg. “I don’t like to take my leg off if I don’t have my crutches handy.”

  “Okay.” She hurried toward their living space and grabbed them from where they were leaning against the armchair. Rushing back into the studio, she couldn’t believe that he was really doing this. He was going full-on, bare-ass naked in front of her, and in a well-lit room, no less. As she reached the table, she saw he’d taken off the prosthesis and was rolling down the white liner that covered the end of his residual leg.

  “Can I move this off the table?” she asked, patting the prosthesis. “I’m afraid it’s going to get paint on it.”

  He gave a short nod, his mouth tight and the muscles in his face tense again. She hated that her request was making him so uncomfortable, but she hoped that it was just temporary, a step toward making him truly believe that his amputation didn’t bother her. Just like his injured hand, it had become a part of him. It wasn’t a disfigurement or a blemish. It was him—Louis Dumont. Talented, gorgeous, hilarious, occasionally aggravating, affectionate, super-hot Louis. And he was hers.

  When she turned back around after carefully setting the prosthesis against the wall where they wouldn’t accidentally knock into it, she saw he’d lain back down. His erection had mostly subsided, so when she picked up the paintbrush, she decided to focus on other areas. She stroked red wavy stripes to outline his groin and an entire row of daisies across the tops of both thighs. His flinches and jolts seemed different now, more guarded, but she continued decorating his upper thighs, alternating back and forth until the residual leg was completely covered.

  The multicolored paint somehow both highlighted his scars and made them seem like an intentional pattern. She’d expected to be sad seeing his injuries and thinking about what he’d lost, but his body wasn’t in any way tragic. It was beautiful and perfect because it was Louis.

  She moved on to his knee and then his calf and shins, spending extra time covering his whole foot with a multitude of colors. Gradually, as she painted his toenails red to match hers and then moved back up his leg, blending the different shades together in looping whorls, she noticed that he relaxed, bit by bit, until his muscles barely twitched under her ministrations.

  One part of him hadn’t relaxed, however. As she returned to his groin, she saw his erection had returned, as hard and eager as it had been before. She reached toward it, paintbrush in hand, but then hesitated.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice rough, but with passion rather than nerves this time.

  “I don’t really want to find out how this paint tastes.” Without waiting for a response, she leaned over and took the head of his cock into her mouth.

  He hissed out a surprised breath as his hips jerked off the table, driving his erection deeper. Dropping the paintbrush and not really caring where it landed, she wrapped her fingers around the base of his cock and lowered her head, sucking and moving her tongue against him as best she could with her mouth stuffed full of his thickness.

  “Annabelle...” Her name ended on a groan as she pulled her mouth up, tightening her lips just under the head. She felt him tangle his hand in her hair, not pushing or forcing but just there, and the possibility of what he might do was making her impossibly wet. Slowly, she lowered back down, farther and farther until she knew she couldn’t take any more, and then she pushed a little more. She’d never understood the lure of giving blow jobs before, but now, with Louis making those arousing, needy sounds, his fingers fisting in her hair and his hips jerking upward in desperate need, she got it. Completely.

  As she bobbed her head up and down, pushed him deeper each time, her cheeks sucking at him, she slipped her free hand down the front of her shorts and burrowed into her panties. Giving Louis head was driving her wild, too, and she could feel that all she needed was some attention to her clit and she’d explode.

  “Annabelle... Fuck, I’m about to come.” His gritty warning was forced out between his clenched teeth, and she looked up past his painted torso to his tortured expression. Inhaling through her nose, she took him deeper yet, swallowing so the muscles in her throat worked around the head of his cock, wanting to make him explode, to finish inside her, even if that meant in her mouth, rather than her pussy.

  With a bitten-off shout, his hips bucked upward, driving him deeper yet. She rubbed frantically at her clit, sending her over the edge with him as he came down her throat.

  His hips relaxed back onto the table, and she lifted her head and wiped her mouth. When she saw how boneless and relaxed and satisfied he looked lying there, she couldn’t help but grin. She’d done that. He was completely naked in front of her, and he was happy.

  His fingers were still tangled in her hair, and he used his grip to pull her down so her forehead rested on his. “Thank you.” His voice sounded hoarse, as if he’d been screaming through his orgasm. “That was amazing.”

  “I know, right?”

 
He laughed softly. “Give me a minute, and it’ll be your turn.”

  “Oh, I already came.”

  Heat flared in his eyes. “You came from giving me a blow job?”

  “I did—well, with a little help from my fingers, but mostly because sucking you off was really hot.” She was still a little startled by that fact—thrilled, but startled.

  He kissed her, hard. “Guess I don’t need a minute.” He tugged her down on top of him, and she gave a laughing shriek against his mouth as she toppled forward. Although she hadn’t expected to have round two on the paint-covered table, she wasn’t opposed to the idea—even if she was going to end up as colorful as Louis was.

  When he deepened the kiss, Annabelle shifted so she was lying more squarely on top of him. She mentally cursed her clothes, wishing she could just vaporize everything she was wearing with just a thought. As if he could read her thoughts, he pulled up her tank, sliding his hand across her back over the bare skin he’d just revealed.

  Needing to say something before she burst, she pulled her head back just far enough to speak. He followed her, taking her mouth again before the words could escape. With a laugh that threatened to turn into a hungry moan, she retreated again, knowing that she was just seconds away from forgetting everything except losing herself in Louis.

  “Wait,” she said, her voice breathless. “I have a very important question to ask you.”

  “Later.” Reaching up, he cupped the back of her head to urge her face down to his. Vaguely, she noted the cool feel of his painted palm slicking against her hair, and she could only imagine what a colorful, smeared mess she’d be once their fun time was over. The way his full lips tilted up in that wicked way of his tempted her, but she managed to resist the lure of his mouth...at least for a few moments. She braced her hands against the table, pushing herself a little higher.