Page 8 of The Beast’s Hidden Rose (Obsessed #8)

seven

. . .

Guy

I've posed her a dozen ways in my mind, painted her in hundreds of positions, but nothing compares to this—Iris standing willingly in my studio, watching me with those dark, curious eyes as I prepare my workspace.

Three days since she discovered my obsession, two since I first touched her, claimed her.

Now she's here by choice, a living, breathing muse ready to be immortalized with her full knowledge and consent.

My hands tremble slightly as I arrange my paints. The fantasy made real.

"You're nervous," she observes, trailing her fingers along the edge of a workbench. "I've never seen you nervous before."

"You've barely seen me at all," I remind her, though the observation stings because it's true. I'm not accustomed to being anxious, especially not in my own domain.

"I've seen enough." She picks up a brush, tests its bristles against her palm. "More than most, apparently."

There's no accusation in her voice, just a statement of fact.

We've moved past that initial shock, that revelation of my years of watching.

Now we exist in this strange new reality where she knows and hasn't run.

Where she's chosen to stay despite—or perhaps because of—the darkness of my fascination.

"This is different," I say, selecting a fresh canvas. "Before, I painted from memory, from glimpses. Now you're here. Real. It changes things."

"How?" She sets down the brush, moving closer to me. "How does it change things?"

I consider my answer carefully. "Before, you were... perfect. A creation of my imagination as much as my observation. Now you're flesh and blood. Unpredictable. The real Iris rather than my version of her." I meet her eyes. "It's better. Terrifying, but better."

She smiles, a small, private expression I've never captured accurately on canvas. "So where do you want me?"

The question, innocent on its face, sends heat coursing through me. I've spent countless hours imagining exactly where I want her—in my bed, on my floor, against my walls, bent over my workbench. But today is about art. About creation. About capturing her essence with her full participation.

"Here," I say, leading her to the chaise lounge in the corner by the north-facing windows. The afternoon light falls perfectly across it, highlighting without being harsh. "Sit first, let me find the right position."

She obeys, settling onto the velvet surface with natural grace. I circle her, studying angles, how the light catches her hair, the curves of her body still hidden beneath her simple dress.

"You're looking at me like I'm a technical problem to be solved," she says, amusement in her voice.

"You are." I stop in front of her. "The most beautiful, complex problem I've ever encountered."

A flush spreads across her cheeks at the compliment. "What now?"

"Now you take off the dress." I keep my voice neutral, professional, though my body instantly responds to the idea of her naked before me.

She hesitates, just briefly, then stands and reaches for the hem of her dress.

In one fluid motion, she pulls it over her head, leaving her in nothing but simple black underwear.

My breath catches. No matter how many times I've imagined this, how many times I've painted it from fragments of observation, the reality of her near-nakedness steals the air from my lungs.

"These too?" she asks, fingers hooking into the waistband of her panties.

I nod, not trusting my voice. She slides them down her legs, then reaches behind to unclasp her bra. Both items join her dress on the floor. She stands before me completely bare, vulnerable yet somehow powerful in her nakedness.

"Beautiful," I murmur, circling her again. "Lie back on the chaise. On your side, facing me."

She complies, finding the position awkwardly at first, then settling into it with increasing confidence. I adjust her slightly—tilting her chin, arranging her hair over one shoulder, positioning her arm to accentuate the curve of her waist.

"This is more intimate than sex," she observes as my fingers brush her shoulder, arranging her just so. "You're seeing all of me, not just my body."

"That's the point of art," I tell her, stepping back to assess the pose. "To see beyond the surface. To capture essence, not just form."

I make a few more adjustments—bending her top leg slightly, angling her face toward the light—until the composition satisfies me. Then I move to my easel, already set up at the perfect distance and angle.

"Try to stay still," I instruct. "But breathe naturally. I don't want a statue. I want you."

She smiles again, that same small, secret expression. "You have me."

Something shifts in my chest at her words—a tightening, a warmth.

I push it aside, focusing on the work. The first strokes are always the most crucial, establishing proportions, capturing the essential lines that will form the foundation of the piece.

My hand moves with practiced precision, mapping her body onto the canvas.

Time slips away as I work, falling into the familiar rhythm of creation. Iris proves to be an excellent model, holding the pose with minimal shifting, her breathing steady, her gaze direct whenever I look up to study some detail of her face or form.

"What are you thinking?" I ask after nearly an hour of near-silence, mixing a particular shade of ochre for the undertones of her skin.

"That I understand now," she says. "Why you painted me all those times. There's a power in being seen this way. In being the entire focus of someone's attention."

I look up from my palette. "You're always my entire focus."

"I know." She shifts slightly, the movement causing light to play differently across her breasts. "That should frighten me more than it does."

"Why doesn't it?" I'm genuinely curious. Most women would have run screaming from the evidence of my obsession. Yet she's here, naked on my chaise, voluntarily submitting to my gaze, my brush, my direction.

She considers her answer. "Because it feels like... recognition. Like you saw something in me that I couldn't see in myself." Her eyes meet mine, dark and thoughtful. "Is that strange?"

"No." I return to the canvas, adding definition to the curve of her hip. "That's exactly how it felt when I first saw you. Like recognition."

We lapse into silence again, the only sounds the scratch of brush against canvas and our breathing—gradually syncing without conscious effort until we inhale and exhale in unison. The intimacy of it strikes me, more profound than our physical joining has been.

I lose track of time, lost in the process of creation, in the miracle of having her here, real and willing. The painting takes shape beneath my hands—her form emerging from the canvas like she's being born directly from my mind onto the surface.

But as the session extends, something changes.

The professional distance I've maintained begins to crumble.

Each time I look up to study some aspect of her body, my gaze lingers longer.

The clinical eye of the artist gives way to the hungry regard of a lover.

I find myself dwelling on the parts of her I've touched, tasted—the softness of her inner thigh, the salt-sweet flavor of her nipples, the wet heat between her legs.

She notices the shift. Of course she does. Her breathing changes, quickens. A flush spreads from her cheeks down her neck to her chest. Her eyes, when they meet mine, hold knowing heat.

"You're not looking at me like an artist anymore," she observes.

I set down my brush, acknowledging the truth. "No. I'm not."

"Show me." She shifts on the chaise, abandoning the pose, stretching like a cat waking from a nap. "Show me how you're looking at me."

The invitation breaks the last of my restraint.

I cross the space between us in three long strides, sinking to my knees beside the chaise.

My hands, stained with paint, reach for her—one cupping her face, the other sliding along her ribs to her breast. She arches into my touch, a soft sound escaping her lips.

"I've painted this a dozen times," I murmur, lowering my mouth to her breast, taking her nipple between my lips. "Imagined tasting you here." I suck harder, drawing a gasp from her. "Reality is infinitely better."

Her hands tangle in my hair, holding me to her chest as I worship her breasts with lips, tongue, teeth.

Paint transfers from my fingers to her skin, leaving colorful smudges across her flesh—blue against the pale brown of her areola, yellow along her ribs, red streaking her hip as my hand moves lower.

"You're marking me," she observes, breathless.

"Good." I raise my head to look at her, at the colors blooming across her skin like bruises, like brands. "I want everyone to know you're mine."

She shivers at my words, pupils dilating. "Then mark me properly."

The invitation sends blood rushing to my cock, already hard and straining against my pants. I stand, stripping off my shirt, watching her eyes track the movement, drinking in my body with the same hunger I feel for hers. When I reach for my belt, she sits up, batting my hands away.

"Let me," she says, fingers working the buckle with deliberate slowness.

I let her, savoring the sight of her naked on her knees before me, hands working to free me from my clothes. When she finally releases my cock, her intake of breath is deeply satisfying. She looks up at me through her lashes, a question in her eyes.

"Not like that," I tell her, though the sight of her mouth so close to my erection tests my resolve. "I want to be inside you. Want to feel you come around me."

She rises, a new confidence in her movements, and turns to bend over the chaise, looking back at me over her shoulder. "Like this?" she asks, the position an exact mirror of one of my more explicit paintings.

The realization that she remembers, that she's deliberately recreating my fantasy, nearly undoes me. "Exactly like that," I growl, moving behind her, hands gripping her hips to position her perfectly.

I enter her with one hard thrust, burying myself to the hilt.

She cries out, back arching, hands fisting in the velvet of the chaise.

There's no gentleness in our coupling this time—just raw need, primal claiming.

My hands leave more paint on her skin as I grip her hips, her shoulders, her hair, marking her in every way possible.

"Mine," I pant with each thrust, the word becoming a chant, a prayer, a declaration. "Mine. Mine. Mine."

"Yours," she gasps back, meeting each drive of my hips with equal force. "God, Guy—yours."

Hearing my name on her lips as I take her pushes me closer to the edge. I slide one paint-stained hand around to find her clit, circling the sensitive bundle of nerves with firm pressure. She moans, head dropping forward, body tightening around me.

"Come for me," I command, voice rough with exertion and need. "Let me feel you. Let me see you come apart."

She obeys, her orgasm crashing through her with a violence that triggers my own. We come together, her inner muscles pulsing around me as I empty myself inside her, claiming her in the most primitive way possible.

Afterward, we collapse onto the chaise, a tangle of paint-smeared limbs and sweat-slicked skin. I hold her against my chest, feeling her heartbeat gradually slow to match mine.

"Look," she says softly, pointing to where we can see our reflection in the large mirror across the studio.

We make a striking image—her olive skin decorated with streaks of color, my larger, scarred body curled protectively around hers. Like a living work of art.

"Beautiful," I murmur, pressing a kiss to her temple. "More beautiful than anything I could create on canvas."

She turns in my arms to face me, her expression suddenly serious. "This changes things, doesn't it? Between us."

"Everything's already changed," I tell her honestly. "The moment you found this room, found the paintings. There's no going back now."

"Do you want to?" she asks, a hint of vulnerability creeping into her voice. "Go back to watching from a distance?"

I shake my head, tightening my arms around her. "Never. Now that I've had the real you—touched you, tasted you, heard you come apart beneath me—I could never go back to mere observation."

She studies my face, searching for something. "What does that mean for us? For... whatever this is?"

"It means you're mine," I say simply. "And I'm yours. In whatever way you'll have me, for as long as you'll have me."

She presses her palm against my cheek, fingers tracing the scar that most people flinch away from. "Even if it's not normal? Not healthy?"

"I've never claimed to be either of those things." I turn my head to kiss her palm. "But I promise you this—whatever darkness is in me, it belongs to you now. My obsession, my art, my body, my heart. All yours."

She kisses me then, soft and sweet, a stark contrast to our frenzied coupling moments ago. When she pulls back, there's a certainty in her eyes that wasn't there before.

"I don't want normal," she says, echoing words she's said before. "I want real. And this—" she gestures between us, at our paint-smeared bodies, at the half-finished portrait on the easel, at the room full of her image, "—this is the most real thing I've ever felt."

I press my forehead to hers, something like peace settling in my chest for the first time in years.