Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
A slight grin curled the corners of his lips at that, and his gaze flicked my way. “Of course you do.”
“Can you blame me?” I asked, walking into the room. “May I see?”
“Yeah.”
I stepped around so I could stand beside him, and…Jesus fucking Christ, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It wasn’t finished. He’d sketched out what it would be and had just started painting. My heart thudded, my gaze held captive by the image on the canvas in front of me. Two naked men, one on his knees, arms wrapped around the other’s waist, cheek flush against his stomach, the way we’d been earlier. You couldn’t see their cocks, their bodies strategically placed to hide them. “It’s us, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I can see it perfectly in my head. We’ll be faceless, our bodies blurred and blended together in different shades of blues and grays. Abstract but emotive, in my figurative-expressionism style. No one will look at it and see us. Just two men, lost in an intimate moment. Only we will know it’s ours.”
“That’s incredible.”
“You haven’t seen the finished product.”
“I don’t have to.”
Lane turned and kissed my shoulder. “I’ve never done this kind of art before—outside of school when we worked on nudes. I’ve never played around with erotic art. But then I woke up with the thought, and my fingers twitched with the need to paint. My thoughts were all over the place, and as much as I wanted to be in bed with you, I knew I’d drive myself crazy if I didn’t get out of bed and do it.”
“I love it. How in the fuck do you do this? How do you draw and plan this so quickly? Was I asleep for a week?”
“You know how I get when I’m in the zone. It’s like an obsession. And this is definitely not my best work. It’s messy and rushed, but I had to get it on canvas.”
There wasn’t one part of this that looked messy and rushed to me. “It’s incredible. I make the perfect muse.”
Lane leaned in and kissed my shoulder again. “I’ll never paint you again if it’s going to give you a big head.”
“I’m not sure you could help yourself even if you tried. I’m clearly irresistible to you. One might even say your greatest muse. I think that will be my title from now on…Isaac Pierce, the greatest muse of Lane Ryan.”
He chuckled and wrapped me in a hug. Lane was more affectionate than I’d thought he’d be, not that I was complaining.
“I want to paint you all day every day just so I have proof this is real.”
“I thought that’s what the marks on your neck are for?”
“We can have both,” he replied, right before his stomach gave a deep, loud, rumbly growl.
“Even the magnificent Lane Ryan needs to eat. Keep working. I’ll make dinner.”
“You don’t cook.”
“I’ll order dinner.”
Lane pressed a kiss to my cheek, and then I pulled away. If I didn’t go now, I’d end up on my knees for him…maybe fucking him in the bed or bending over for him. I didn’t much care which way we did it. I just wanted him. “I’ll come and get you when it’s here.”
“Okay.”
When I got to the door, I stopped to look at him. Lane was already lost in his art again. Instead of standing there and watching him, I forced myself back to my room, put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, then ordered Thai food. I sat on the couch in the living room, trying not to stress over how in the fuck we were going to make this work, how we could change perceptions so that our families and the world saw us not as brothers, but as two men in love. It would mean pushing the limits, pushing what was acceptable, but if the outcome got me him, that was all I cared about.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lane
I couldn’t stop painting. Days had gone by since I’d realized Isaac was in love with me, since I’d allowed myself to acknowledge I felt the same. That I’d always felt the same. I’d finished Yours, giving the background a gray-and-black, edgy, paint-splatter style. My brain was exploding with idea after idea, with the need to create, and all of it was about him—just Isaac, or both of us together. I’d never painted him. Drawn him? Yes. I had hundreds of notebooks filled with sketches, but I’d never allowed myself to paint him before. Now, I couldn’t stop.
All of them abstract, faceless, blurred naked bodies and wandering hands that belonged to my brother. Christ, I really had to stop thinking about him that way. We’re not blood-related, we’re not blood-related, we’re not blood-related.
That had become my mantra.
When Isaac was home from work, I’d try to go out into the living room or kitchen with him, but that didn’t always last long. Eventually, we’d end up in the room he’d given me for my studio, where he would watch me disappear into my own world or find himself in his, but still staying close. I’d always worked a lot, but not this much. I needed to get it all out before I lost it.