Page 104 of Between Now & Heartbreak

What the hell did I ever do to deserve her?

“Yes…your music makes me feel like that.”

She’s drawn herself in blue, not the same as the piano – it’s brighter, lighter, but just as vibrant. She has wings, gold, intricately laced ones. Them and the C over her heart are the only other colors on her body, but it’s her face I see so clearly. She looks like she’s ready to go to battle, and she looks radiantly happy.

“Oh Beth. Wow. I don’t know what to say.” I finally manage to speak around the lump in my throat.

“Then don’t say anything. Justfeelhow much you mean to me. I’ve chosen you and the life you’ve given me a glimpse of. From your family, to your travels, to your music – you’ve broadened my horizons in a way I never thought possible and this painting that you inspired will be my ticket out of here. I know it. I’m yours, Carter, if you’ll have me.” She turns and picks up her bottle of gold paint and then one of the brushes I gave her.

She unties the belt of her robe and lets it fall to the ground, revealing her body to me.

She turns the brush on herself and paints a C over her heart, exactly where she put it in the picture.

Then, she paints Cs her stomach. Her forehead, her corners of her lips and eyes, her thighs and backs of her hands, the center of her neck.

When she finally puts the brush down, there’s not a place on her body that I’m not written on.

“Beth, thank you,” I say the inadequate words as I walk up to the work of art that is my woman.

“Do you see? It’s not a choice. It’s never been. No one could ever be what we are. I want you to trust that.”

I wrap an arm around her waist and haul her off her feet until we’re at eye level.

“I love you. So much. I trust you. I trust us.”

Then I kiss her.

She opens for me and my tongue slides home and my lips close over hers and we’re off.

“The paint,” she huffs when she tries to pull away.

“No, I want it on me. I want to decorate myself with you.”

I reach between us and pull down the sweat pants I’d slipped on after our bath and my dick, hard and ready, presses between us.

I lift her again, and this time, her legs wrap around my waist.

The head of my dick finds the sweet entrance of her cunt- one that I will write odes to for the rest of my life – and we both sigh in relief at the contact.

She starts to rock her hips, taking me into her body an inch at a time. We’ve fucked all summer, I’ve been inside every part of her…but this time, when I push into her body, it feels like an ascension. We’re taking this to new heights, making promises that we won’t let anyone, ourselves included, break.

I thrust up and seat myself fully and her body trembles. Her neck arches and she lets loose a long wail that my brain hears as a song. A new one. One that I think is going to change my life, the way she has.

I walk us to the couch along the other wall and lay her down without once breaking our connection.

“I never want this to end,” I whisper against her lips.

“It won’t end. Not even when our bodies fail us. That painting, your music, we’ll live forever through them.”

She wraps her arms around me, I plaster my body to hers, wrapping my arms around her and holding her to me as I make love to my baby like she deserves. Gently, fully, slow, long.

Each time I push back into her, she calls my name and claims my love for her own.

I won’t let her go.

Not now that I’ve finally found the place where I belong.

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