Page 157 of Go Luck Yourself
Loch comes around me as I step again, hypnotized.
“I, uh—see the spaces around you, eh?”
His voice shakes. Heisnervous.
I bend closer and the breath evaporates right out of my lungs.
He didn’t just use paint strokes to create me. He used words, lines from—oh my god, lines from the books I gave him, and lines from that letter to my mom I showed him.
“It’s what I started on the night you came down, after Belfast,” he says. “And I kept on it. Hoping I’d get to show it to you.”
I stand up straight, throat thickening.
“I used that letter you showed me”—he’s stammering now—“and you left it in the guest room, and I—”
“Oh.” Blood rushes to my face. I leftallof my writing in that guest room. Including the flowery, indulgent stuff I wrote about him.
Loch holds up his hands. “I did na read any but the letter you showed me already. Not for lack of wanting, mind. But I only used that letter.” He waves at the painting. “It’s meant to be all of you, because that’s what I want.Allof you, even the messy bits. And if, one day, you want me to read the rest of what you wrote, or show me that story of yours”—I told him last night, one of the breaks between touching and kissing and devouring—“I’ll add words from that, too. We can build on this. Together.”
Every muscle in my body is gilded and heavy. I look back up at the painting, can’t get myself to break out of this incandescent spell.
“Kris,” Loch whispers. “Say something.”
I smile at him.
The strain in his eyes alleviates and he breathes out a sigh, and I realize he was afraid I’d be upset. Or afraid I wouldn’t like it. Or this painting is a piece of his soul now, and he’s showing it to me, andI’mpart of that soul.
Every reason is at once equally unbelievable. I’m stuck in a dreamstate, suspended between him and this painting and this is somehow real, that he would see me, in all these pieces, and find a way to make those broken pieces beautiful.
I kiss him, throwing my arms around his neck, his body immediately fitting to mine in a way that feels like locking in place.
“We’re going to be late,” I inform him. “Like, really late.”
“No, we arenot.” Loch manages to push me off of him. “I’ll win Coal over, you’ll see. And it will na involve torturing him with gory paint.”
“Of course it won’t. Coal’s not the squeamish one.” I wriggle past his grip and kiss his jaw. “But you should’ve thought of that before you showed me this painting. You cannot expect me to go to some treaty signing now. To sit in a ballroom and pretend I’m not slowly dying with wanting your cock in me.”
I’m not playing fair. He’s an expert at dirty talk, but it turns out he likes it just as much, maybe even more, when I talk dirty too.
Proven by the way I canfeelhis body temperature increase, his hands clenching tighter on my hips.
I suck at a spot below his ear. “Andfuck,Loch,” I moan licentiously. “I want it so bad. Need to feel you plunging into me again. Owning me. Need you to make me scream.”
Loch grunts, choked. “Kris—shite—no, no, we’re leaving.Now.”
I whimper overdramatically, but he gets me to walk for the door.
“Devil man,” he mutters, one hand wrapped around my forearm, steering me ahead of him while he adjusts himself.
I laugh. Bright and happy.
“The question is”—I glance back at that painting—“where are we going to hang that?”
Out in the hall, the chill air has me leaning into him.
Loch threads our hands together. “Oh, the foyer,” he says matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, sure, us making out is a totally respectable thing for any visitor to see when they first enter your castle. No way. That painting’s forme.”
