Page 89 of Captive Souls
It didn’t bother me, him not returning my smile. I didn’t need such benign things from Knox. I just needed … him.
A lifetime simmered in the moment we stared at each other before he broke the gaze and dipped his brush into the paint.
“Don’t expect a masterpiece,” he grunted as I tried to focus on the words in front of me. This wasn’t a killer. A monster. Just a self-conscious man.
I glanced up at him, smiling. “I’ve already got one.” Corny, but I wasn’t lying.
He didn’t respond.
He just started painting.
He painted for hours.
No breaks.
Not that that surprised me. Knox was not a man to do anything by halves. My limbs had started to cramp from sitting in the same position, but I didn’t dare complain. I would take a little pain to watch Knox like this. Forever. I’d let my bones calcify, my body waste to ruin if that’s what he needed. And I knew that he’d never let me wither. That even in his trance, he’d be aware of my needs. He’d asked me intermittently if I needed water, food, bathroom breaks. The smallest shake of my head was all I’d given him, unwilling to puncture his groove.
His brows were pinched in concentration, his hands moving in sure, careful strokes.
I’d never seen his face move that way. Be so expressive. Maybe when he was inside me, but that was it. I watched at first, him being tense, like an animal out of their habitat, unsure of the air, the environment, the threats.
But then I saw it, the muse, the art… whatever it was took over him, and he changed. He was still Knox, but he seemed … lighter somehow. And heavier too. All at the same time, embodying all facets of himself in a single moment.
Over the hours, I read the same page over and over again. Most of the time, I just watched him.
Until he stopped painting to stare at me.
“You keep looking at me like that, Petal, there will be no more painting, and you’ll be on your back, screaming my name, milking my cock.”
My body jolted at the words, puncturing the silence I hadn’t realized had been so heavy. Need flooded my sore limbs, and Ifought not to react. Although I really wanted him to do those things, I wanted him to paint more.
I painstakingly ripped my eyes off the masterpiece that was the killer painting me and stared at the words on a page until he was done.
He didn’t tell me he was done; he just stepped away from the canvas, rubbing his jaw and staring at his work with a critical eye.
After waiting to make sure he wasn’t just taking a break, I stretched, my aching muscles thankful for the movement.
Knox’s eyes snapped up to where I moved, running along the bare skin. His gaze was no longer critical. It was hungry.
“Uh-uh,” I waggled my finger at him, snatching my robe and ignoring the groan of my hips as I jumped quickly off the bed before Knox could prowl toward me and make me incapable of coherent thought.
I tied the robe quickly and walked to the canvas, tentatively, as if I were walking toward a bomb.
“Am I allowed to…?” I motioned to the painting.
Knox’s posture was ramrod straight. He barely moved his head in a nod that I took as permission.
Gingerly, I stepped around the easel so I could look, suddenly scared that he painted like shit and I’d have to pretend it was good. And I wasn’t good at pretending. Knox would see through me in a minute and feign not being wounded. But he would have to be since I’d coaxed him to do something creative and good, and if he got a bad reaction to it, he’d slither back into his dark shell, never to come back out.
I hadn’t really put much thought into the carnage I’d wreak if my little plan backfired. Not smart of me, considering what was at stake.
But I needn’t have worried.
I blinked when I stared at the canvas, my jaw slackening. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
The painting was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I didn’t know why I was expecting a simple portrait. Knox was anything but simple.
It was me. Naked and reading on the bed. Painted in exquisite and painstaking detail. I could feel the reverence, the worship he had for my body in it. There was a radiance to me that I couldn’t describe, soft pinks and whites merging together to elevate my form. I was perched on a bed, but the walls of the cabin weren’t behind me.