by M. Leighton
When he leaves me just inside the door to my apartment, his fingers lingering as they cling to the tips of mine, I wonder why the hell I’m not running in the opposite direction.
********
I wake early. I forgot to close the blinds before I collapsed onto the bed and fell into a deep and turbulent sleep last night. And just like anyone else, the bright sun streaming into my face wakes me. I can’t see anything beyond that brightness, of course, but I can still tell when it’s morning if the sun is shining.
I don’t get dressed, and I don’t get coffee. I slip out from under my tangled sheet, wearing nothing but my old Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, underwear, and socks, and I pad into the third bedroom.
Shortly after we moved in, we converted it into a studio for me. Since I can’t see, lighting isn’t important, so I can work from virtually anywhere, as long as it can hold my supplies, which this room easily can.
I slide onto my stool, the smooth wood caressing my mostly bare butt, and I reach for the quick-drying white paint that I use to line with when I’m in a hurry. With an urgency I’d rather not delve too deeply into just yet, I begin to draw.
Normally, I paint things that I’ve seen before or that I can piece together from things I’ve seen before. Landscapes are fairly simple. Animals, celebrities, people I saw when I had my sight. But I’ve never tried to paint a person I’ve never seen.
Until today.
I don’t know what Levi looks like. I know what he feels like, and what he feels like he looks like, but I have nothing more than what I touched and what he and Cherelyn have described to me to go on.
But I have to try.
He’s swirling through my head in swipes of color and wedges of light. He’s tingling at the tips of my fingers in the smooth tan of his cheek and the firm square of his jaw. But more than that, he’s burning through my blood in bold crimsons and hot oranges, like flames licking along my veins.
Furiously, I sketch, my foot tapping impatiently as I wait for one section to dry so I can feel it, feel my progress, and add the details that will make him come to life. At least I hope they will.
My interpretation of him might not look anything like his real face, but I know I have to try. I have to commit him to canvas like I’ve committed him to memory.
I don’t know how much time has passed when I hear Cherelyn’s voice from the door behind me. I jump, which is unusual. Normally I hear her coming from three rooms away.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” Even she is surprised. I can hear it in her tone. “You want coffee?”
“No, thank you,” I tell her. I don’t really mean to, but the moment I answer her, I dismiss her. I’m already drifting back to my canvas, body, heart, and mind. I’m once again losing myself in Levi Michaelson’s gorgeous face.
I don’t know how long after that it is that I hear someone else at the door. Not a single word is spoken. It doesn’t have to be. The instant he clears his throat, I feel his presence. It’s like static. Warm, frenetic static that teases my senses and sets my nerves on edge.
Slowly, I turn on my stool to face the door. My belly flutters violently. I’m hyperaware of what I’m wearing.
And what I’m not.
His tone is low, a gruff rumble in the darkness of my world. “If I could paint, this is what I would paint.”
My stomach flips over at the sound of his scratchy, softly spoken words.
“What?”
“You. I’d paint you. Just like this. Sitting in the dark, wearing a T-shirt and socks, hands covered in paint, hair wild and messy.”
“Why?”
“Because you look like art. Beautiful, brilliant, chaotic art.”
I would laugh, but I can’t. I’m breathless. Spellbound. I feel his words like touches, like brushstrokes. And he paints me with them, syllable by syllable.
I have to dig deep for the glib shell that protects my soft underbelly. “That’s good stuff. You should write that down.”
I try to smile, but my heart is beating so fast my lips tremble. Since last night, since he kissed me and turned my world upside down, frenzy follows Levi. I felt it the instant he cleared his throat, and I feel it now. He’s movement and light and color on the canvas of my mind. He’s want and need and courage in the scarred pieces of my heart. He’s what I can’t have and what I wish for, what I should reach toward and what I should run from.
He’s everything I shouldn’t risk, yet here I am risking everything.
He says nothing, but I know he’s coming for me. I hear the muffled sound of him crossing the room. I feel the electric buzz of his attention. I smell the scent of his skin, like the forest and the rain. And I want him. Oh Lord, how I want him.
He doesn’t speak again. Levi Michaelson simply weaves his fingers into the hair at my temples and crushes his mouth to mine. Instantly, I’m catapulted back to last night.
But this isn’t last night’s kiss. This is a new day. And a new need.
The need…God! It’s like an ember, hot and red, that lies dormant within me until he breathes life into it. It’s ever ready to flame and rage and blaze out of control.
His tongue tangles passionately with mine as he tugs me to my feet, wrapping me in his strong arms and holding me to his broad chest.
I melt. Body and soul, I melt into him, giving in to the feeling, opening up to the possibilities.
When he finally releases me, I hear Levi’s hushed chuckle. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I reply with a big smile. I can’t seem to help it. After a few seconds, the details of our embrace penetrate the fog in my brain. “Uh, I hope you’re not wearing nice clothes.” I pull my arms from around him and hold up my hands. “Paint. If you’re wearing something light, it probably won’t come out. Ever.”
“I don’t care. I was gonna burn these anyway.”
At that, I laugh outright. “Burning soiled clothes? More money than you know what to do with. Got it.”
“That’s sort of what I came here to talk with you about.”
“You want me to help you burn your clothes?”
“No.”
“You want me to help you burn your money?”
“Definitely not.”
I gasp. “You want me to help you burn a body, don’t you? Is it Julianne? You can tell me. I’ll plead blind. They’ll believe me. Trust me.”
He chuckles again. “Although that admittedly holds a strange amount of appeal, no. Not that either. However, we may need to revisit that later. I’m not sure what I’ve done to make you think I’m homicidal.”
“Oh, you haven’t done anything. But I did meet Julianne, remember?”
“Good point. She does inspire some pretty…violent feelings, doesn’t she?”
“You could say that.”
I reach up with my hands, feeling for Levi’s chin and then traveling up toward his mouth. I want to know if he’s smiling. If he’s not talking, I can’t hear it in his voice, but something tells me that he is.
My touch finds out different, though.
“You really need to stop doing that,” he whispers hoarsely.
“What? Checking to see if you’re smiling?”
“Playing with my mouth. It makes me want to use it.”
“Is that right?” I try to keep my tone light, but my insides are jittering like I’ve had a whole pot of coffee.
“That’s very right.”
An arm sneaks around my waist as warm fingers brush my hair away from my neck, gently pulling my shirt down over the ball of my shoulder. Moments after the cool air rushes over my skin, hot lips follow.
Levi kisses my neck and shoulder, along my collarbone, moving the worn cotton of my tee out of the way as he makes his way toward the center. When he reaches the hollow of my throat, I let my head fall back and he drags his mouth down into my cleavage, his tongue leaving a deliciously moist trail behind. Warm breath pours into my top and washes over my nipples, bringing them to tingling life. I arch toward him, and he leans forward
, bending me over the arm wrapped around my waist.
“You know what I’d like to do?”
“What?” I ask, only half-thinking. His touch is like a drug, dulling my other senses, making him the focus of my whole world.
“I’d like to take this shirt off you. Slowly. So you could feel it sliding over your skin, inch by inch. Then I’d like to dip my fingers into your paint and put color all over this porcelain skin. Emerald green on your arms.” With his free hand, Levi skims my arm from shoulder to wrist. “Onyx black on your back.” Fingertips skitter down the length of my spine. “I’d put fire engine red on your chest, I think.” A wide palm floats over my chest, barely brushing the nipple that’s begging for something more. “Probably Levi’s blue on your legs. Because, God, these legs…” He groans, winding his hand around the top of my thigh and lifting until my leg is bent alongside his hip. “But it’s this ass that gets me,” he whispers, palming my butt so that the tips of his fingers slip inside the edge of my panties. With a squeeze, he teases me just a few inches from my throbbing core, dragging a tiny whimper from the constricted alleyway of my throat. “I’d paint this ass purple. Plum purple,” he declares, snugging me in close to him, his hips wedged between mine.
My eyes are closed as I listen, and I’m gripping his shirt so tightly my knuckles ache. I can’t speak, and even if I could, I have no idea what I’d say.
When Levi’s mouth closes over the stiff peak of one nipple, sucking at it through the material of my shirt, I buck against him. “I would paint these with my tongue.” He moans as he lifts his head and takes the other one into his mouth, nipping it gently with his teeth.
A shockwave of pleasure ripples through me and lands in my core with a boom. I grind my hips against his, craving the friction, greedy for any part of him, clothed or not, that can satisfy this ache within me.
“Then I’d lay you down on a crisp white sheet and I’d make love to you for hours, just to see what the sheet would look like afterward.” Boldly, he flexes his lower half until the ridge of his erection rubs tantalizingly against me. Oh God! More, more, more! A guttural groan slips from my lips. “Say the word, and I can make that happen. I don’t want to stop,” he whispers.
In my mind, I can see it. Swipes of passion, smudges of desire, swirls of ecstasy in all the colors of the rainbow—it would be exquisite in a way that only I can imagine.
But the one small part of my brain that’s still able to think is throwing up red flags, screaming at me that this is too soon. It’s with the dying breath of my resistance that I reach for and cling to my wits.
“Is that how you paint? Because I think I could get on board with that.”
My voice is a hoarse croak of raw desire and shaky desperation.
“That’s how I’d paint with you.” Levi kisses his way back up my chest, my throat, licking and biting.
“Maybe we should put that on the to-do list,” I muse, trying desperately to keep my head.
“Consider it done,” he murmurs, sucking my earlobe into his mouth and giving it a soft bite before he releases it.
I feel his pause like an audible question. Do you want me to continue? My body says yes. It yells it from every cell of blood, every piece of tissue. But that tiny part of my mind has still managed to hold on, clamping my teeth shut to keep my tongue from begging him to take me,
With a sigh I can feel swell inside him, pushing his chest against my own, Levi hears my answer and straightens.
I’m a little disappointed when I’m back on my feet again. I’m glad he didn’t try to press the issue, though, because I know the time isn’t right yet. This is all happening so fast. It feels so good, so right, but it’s so much, and so overwhelming. It’s like being on a runaway train and feeling terrified of the crash, but still never wanting to get off.
We stand face to face, not enough distance between us to slip a piece of paper through, and let the silence curl around us like a warm blanket of intimacy. Once again, I feel a change. Something has shifted. Something is slightly different.
In these moments, in the quiet, I don’t know what it means for us, what it means for how we will go forward; I only know that, eventually, I won’t be able to say no. And that day is fast approaching.
Maybe that’s why I’m already anticipating the next time I get to see him.
Although I don’t need to hold on to Levi anymore, I don’t let go. I’m nowhere near ready to back away yet.
As always, I reach for levity. In this case, breathless, aching, needy levity.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re easy? Shouldn’t I have to buy you dinner or something first?”
The huff of Levi’s laugh tickles my cheeks and I inhale, pulling the warmth, the scent and taste of him deep inside. “I’m not that easy. It takes a minimum of a blind tour of the bayous and dinner to get into these pants.”
“Wow, that’s very…specific.”
“It is. And it just so happens that I have to leave town a little earlier than expected and make a trip to…” He gasps dramatically. “New Orleans! What a coincidence! It’s the perfect opportunity for you to wine and dine me. My defenses are weakening.”
I loosen my hold on him, my thinking brain kicking swiftly back into gear. “When do you have to leave?”
“Two days. Something’s come up with customs, and I need to be there when one of our ships comes in to port on Friday.”
“Friday. Oh. Okay.” All I can wrap my head around is that he’s leaving, he’s leaving, he’s leaving.
I knew he would.
He told me he was only in town for a few days, but he’s been so persistent, so I thought I really did have those few days with him. Four good dates, just so he could prove me wrong.
He’s so stubborn, he’d convinced me that he’d actually do it.
But two days.
That seems so…soon.
I feel Levi bend, and I wonder if he’s looking into my face. My eyes are likely pointed in the general vicinity of his throat. He’s so tall, when I look straight ahead, that’s probably where my unseeing gaze ends up.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes. Friday. You have to leave Friday.”
“Right, but did you hear the other part?”
“What other part?”
“The part where, evidently, I did a really shitty job of asking you to come with me to New Orleans. Let me take you to the bayou. Let me see it the way you see it.”
“I’ve told you—”
“You know what I mean,” he says with an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “Come on. Come with me.”
“We…we hardly know each other,” I argue weakly. It’s true. Technically. But to me that doesn’t seem to matter. I feel like I’ve known him longer. Like my heart has known him for years, has wanted him for years. My parents feel more like strangers to me than Levi does.
I’m just…I’m not ready for this to be over. Not yet.
Not by a long shot.
“What better way to get to know each other? I can take you to a place that you’ve always wanted to go. I can be your eyes. And you can be my…everything else.”
My shoulders slump as I think about the logistics. This is when it gets real. “All I’ll be is a burden. You have no idea what an undertaking this is. You don’t know what you’re signing up for.”
“I do. You’re not helpless, Evie. I know fully grown, sighted women who don’t do half the things you do. Come on. Let me do this for you. Let me do this with you.”
I take a step back, physically and figuratively. I bring two fingers to the ache that’s begun to throb between my eyes. “It’s a bad idea, Levi.”
“It’s not. It’s a great idea, and I want you to say yes.”
I shake my head. He’s definitely determined. I’ll give him that. “You just…you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Yes. I do. I’m asking you to take a very short, once-in-a-lifetime trip with me. I’m asking you to let me show you s
omething you’ve always wanted to experience. But more than that, I’m asking you to give this a little more time because I’m not ready to let you go.”
I’m not ready to let you go.
His words thrill me more than I care to admit. They’re like an echo of my heart, bouncing back at me.
“Levi, I…” I trail off, all my disputes becoming less and less important in the face of letting go now or letting go later. In the face of getting more time.
If I were smart, I’d end this now. Before I get too involved. Before I get hurt. Before I fall.
But I don’t want to be smart. I want to be happy. I want to have fun and live life. I want to be brave enough to do this. I might not get another chance.
“Look, I’ll get us a suite so you can have your own space. That way I’ll still be close enough to help if you need it. I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t make myself readily available to you. You know, make sure you eat breakfast, make sure you don’t wear one black shoe and one blue, wash your back if you need me to.”
I can almost feel the brightness of his grin. I imagine it to be lazy and lopsided. Sexy as all hell.
“Washing my back will be harder in a hotel?”
“Absolutely. Hotel showers can be tricky.”
“I had no idea!”
“I’m a font of lesser-known facts. Ask me anything.”
“What’s the square root of pie?”
“I said ‘lesser-known facts’, not impossible math.”
I can’t help smiling at that. “And just when did you plan on leaving for this once-in-a-lifetime trip?”
“Friday morning. No later than six AM, but if you’ll come with me, we could leave Thursday and take our time on the drive down. Scenic route and all that jazz.”
I point to my face, my eyes specifically. “Scenery is sort of lost on me, remember?”
“I just meant that I wouldn’t have to drop you off at the hotel and go straight to the docks. We could get acclimated first.”
My misgivings return. “See? You’ll have to rearrange things for me, take extra thought for the simplest stuff.”
Levi cups my face in his big, warm palms, his thumbs tracking out over my cheekbones in a soothing arc. “I pay you extra thought regardless. I’ve thought of little else since I met you. It’s the damnedest thing. So trust me. This will be a breeze.”