He didn’t argue with what I’d said. He didn’t acknowledge that I loved him, but he also didn’t say he didn’t feel the same. And I did…love him, was in love with him. It had hit me last night, and now that I’d seen it, I couldn’t keep quiet about it. Not with Isaac, the man I’d seen from the start as I looked through that window. The one I’d been fascinated with and had wanted to know. The one who’d given me his secrets in everything except for this.
“It’s why you pulled away, isn’t it?” I asked Isaac, who stood directly in front of me. He’d clearly showered somewhere, but it didn’t hide his weariness.
“Yes.”
“All this time… We were eighteen years old when you left early for California.”
“I knew even before that. Really fucking inconvenient to spend your life in love with someone you can’t have. It definitely screwed with the image of myself I wanted to project to the world.”
I smiled. “God, you’re so fucking ridiculous.”
Isaac reached up and cupped my face. He brushed his fingers over my cheekbone. My eyes fell closed as I leaned into his touch. He felt warm and alive and…right. Isaac felt like he was mine, and he always had been.
“You’re a mess. You have paint everywhere.”
I opened my eyes. “Um…it might be all over the room too.”
“I don’t care. You can cover the whole fucking condo in it. What are you saying here, Lane? You really love me? It’s okay if you don’t, if you’re not sure. I just… God, it’s been killing me, eating away at me for fourteen years. I tried to hide it, tried to make it go away, but I couldn’t, no matter how much I knew I should. You don’t realize how irresistible you are. I nearly went to jail for murder because of it.”
I frowned.
“I wanted to stab the fuckface slimeball with a butter knife at dinner.”
I laughed, my chest vibrating, in a way only Isaac could make me do. “You were always braver than you let yourself see.”
“Because I wanted to kill someone?”
“No…because you didn’t spend your life in denial about how you feel.”
His hand trembled against my face. I grabbed his wrist, kissed his palm, then laced my fingers through his.
Isaac went easily when I moved toward the studio room. I tugged him inside. The canvas I’d been working on wasn’t facing us, and Isaac didn’t mention the ones stacked or leaning against the wall, splattered with paint and random colors, but nothing real, nothing true.
It wasn’t finished. I’d had no idea what I was going to paint when I started, the evidence was on all the canvases, but I wanted Isaac to see it, wanted him to know what I was thinking about him last night, that I was with him, even though we hadn’t truly been together. That I was with him in this, these feelings that were going to get us both in so much fucking trouble.
I led him to the front of the easel. It was different from my typical style—a little darker, edgier. It was a forearm and a hand, my forearm and hand, and inside my palm was a heart. Not a cartoonish one, but a realistic, throbbing heart, there for him to take.
Isaac’s hand trembled when he reached over, touched unmarked areas of the canvas. He ran his finger down it, not speaking, as I held my breath.
“It’s called Yours,” I said, to break the quiet.
Because I was just that. His. My heart was his. I’d kept it to myself when it always wanted to be with Isaac, and now I was handing it over to him.
Still, he didn’t respond, just dipped his fingers into the red I’d been using, wielding them like a paintbrush and smearing the color on my chest, over my heart.
I breathed in a shaky breath, watching him, unable to turn away as Isaac tugged his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor. He took my wrist, dipped my fingers into the paint, then pressed my hand to his left pec.
He didn’t need words for me to know what he was saying…that my heart was his, and his was mine, and Christ, we were so goddamned fucked, but I didn’t care. Not about anything in that moment except for us.
I grabbed him, hands on Isaac’s hips as I pulled him forward. Our mouths crashed together, hard and hungry, tongues delving. He groaned into me, tangled his hand in my hair, fisting the strands until there was a slight burn in my scalp.
“Jesus, I can’t fucking believe this is happening. I’m going to devour you, Lane.” His kisses trailed down my neck. I dropped my head back, and Isaac took advantage, pushing his face into my neck, biting and sucking, like his goal was to mark me. “Tell me you want me. I’ve been waiting fourteen years to have you.”
Guilt and regret pummeled my heart, like fists slamming into it as if it was a punching bag. We’d wasted so much time. He’d wanted me, known he’d wanted me all this time, and I hadn’t let myself see it. Hadn’t let myself wish it was possible. And maybe it still wasn’t. Maybe we were fooling ourselves, and doing this would tear our family apart, but right then, all I could focus on was Isaac.
“I want you. I need you—oh fuck.” Sharp pain pierced me, Isaac’s teeth biting into my shoulder, before he licked the pain away.
“Do you like that?”
“Yes, fuck yes.” My body was on fire, my balls full and achy, my dick hard and throbbing. For a brief moment I wondered if he’d been with anyone the night before, but just as quickly as the thought came, it left my mind. I knew he hadn’t. Not after our kiss yesterday and how he’d come home.
I grabbed Isaac’s face, and our mouths were pulled together again, a collision of pleasure and years of pent-up desire. Red paint smeared on his face, and I had no doubt it was on me and in my hair, but I didn’t care.
It really felt like Isaac was trying to devour me, like he wanted to consume every part of me. His kisses were hard, his hands too. We stumbled backward, and I hit the table, upsetting the paints there.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I usually have more finesse than this.”
“That’s what they all say,” I teased.
“I’m scared you’ll change your mind,” Isaac admitted softly, and with so much vulnerability, it stole my breath. How could he love me that much? I didn’t understand it, not someone as bright of a light, someone so confident and desired as Isaac.
“I won’t.” I brushed my fingers against his cheek. It was the hand with paint, leaving streaks behind.
“Good…because I’m about to give you the best blowjob of your life,” he said, boastful Isaac back.
“You think so?”
“Oh, Lane, I guarantee it.”
Shivers racked my body, desire shooting up my spine and exploding into fireworks there.
Isaac dropped to his knees, leaned in, nuzzled his face into my underwear-covered bulge, and inhaled. “Fuck, you smell so good. I’m going to sleep right here tonight, with my face between your legs so I can smell sex on you and lick and suck your cock anytime I want.”
My knees nearly gave out. My hand slipped on the table, hitting the yellow paint and causing it to spill. “We’re making a mess,” I said, hands in his short hair.
“I don’t care. It’s hot. I want to paint you the way you’ve always drawn me.”