Blakeshire (Insight #9)(76)

The room was no longer laced with royal conformity; it was alive with color, it had become living art. With a glance, I moved one of the rugs over to the floor that had dried almost instantly. I took a stance on that rug, then covered the gray stone floor with a mass of paint. I was far too eager this go around. The paint pooled. Wanting to use it, not to let it waste, I called the pool of color up. It rose up in the form of a small tornado as it spun in place. That high took over once again. I made more pools of paint just so I could make more funnels of color. It reminded me of a clay pot shaping into some unseen beauty.

I found myself laughing and jumping in place as I managed to control four of them at once.

Somewhere in that madness, I felt fire bloom through my soul. My heart began to thunder long before I turned to glance over my shoulder. Standing just before my closed door was Drake. He had lost his suit jacket. His shirt was rolled up on his strong forearms, unbuttoned so I could see the undershirt he had on that shaped every part of his sculpted chest.

It was a wonder that my funnels of paint didn’t fall to the floor and wave over my feet.

I held his stare as he moved closer to me. I felt my breath catch as I forgot all of the doubt his absence had brought and I remembered our day together.

Still high on my creative flow, I demanded that some of the paint move to him, that it swirl around the perfection that he was. As it teased his approach, a wicked smile came to his lips. He didn’t stop his advance or dodge out of the way of the paint; he let it stain his priceless suit as if it were nothing more than rags.

When he reached me, he held my gaze as he seductively grasped for my neck. His hand slowly rose and pulled out the pin that was still holding my hair back in the proper way I had worn it to dinner. As the long, dark strands fell down my back, he pulled a lock of it forward and bathed it in the wet paint that had pooled near my collarbone. A breathtaking smile came to his image. “You found your paint.”

“Redecorated,” I said under my breath, hoping that he could not hear the thunder in my chest.

“Put us in our own world, Madison Marie,” he whispered as he leaned in and teased my bottom lip with the soft flesh of his. He playfully bit down, and when he did an explosion of passion erupted inside of me. As I pulled him closer to me, I demanded that the paint surround us as we stood on this irreplaceable rug.

I urged his shirt off, then pulled up his undershirt just so my lips could meet his chest. He sighed just before he reached down and picked me up, wrapping me around his body.

All around us, there was a curtain of paint; it was of every color. They never merged, holding fast to their originality as they shielded us in a breathtaking canopy.

I arched up around him, pulling his lips into a deep kiss. I felt his hands rush across my back. When he urged my tank up, I felt the paint on his hands caress my skin. Within the next heartbeat, we had fallen to the floor and the war of who was in control of this passionate embrace began. I would only give in when I needed my breath, when his touch was too enthralling to fight against. When he let me have control, I showed no mercy. I found every weakness on his body and exploited it. I discovered more than once that he was insanely ticklish.

We managed to roll into the wall of paint a time or two, but he would just arch his strong arms around me and pull me back into our canopy. We were both slick with paint; every color of the rainbow collided against our bare skin. I couldn’t have imagined a more sensual way to hold him. One thing was for sure: nothing with Drake Blakeshire was ever ordinary.

Laughing and near breathless, hours later we lay side by side on the rug, which was stained with an array of colors.

“I don’t want to waste the paint,” I said as I pursed my flushed lips. I knew as soon as I let it go that it would pool and never dry. I wanted to freeze it around us, for it to imprison us within its beauty.

“Then don’t,” he murmured as he kissed my forehead.

“Am I missing the obvious?” I asked as I rolled to my side to gaze down at him. I reached to trace the lines that had dried on his face.

“Guide it to where you want it to go,” he said in a deep whisper.

“I have no idea how I’m still holding it up. Telling it to go back home is not going to be an easy feat.”

He leaned up and captured my lips with his as he rolled me to my back. “Close your eyes,” he whispered as his lips left mine and moved to kiss my lids.

I complied with a sly smirk on my face. I felt his strong hand caress the side of my face, along with the tangles the paint had created in my long, dark hair. “Your mind is your power. The only limits you have are the ones you place there. The entire universe is at your command.”

“Spoken like a true philosopher, Mr. Blakeshire.”

I felt the soft flesh of his lips tease my cheek, my lips, my collarbone. “See it. Where do you want it to go?”

I furrowed my brow.

“No peeking,” he breathed as his hands caressed my side.

“Having trouble concentrating.”

He did not stop his pursuit. “Anyone can do this with a calm mind. You have to learn to control your power while you are distracted.” He said as his hand eased down my thigh.

“Is that your excuse?” I taunted.

“Maybe,” he said as a laugh echoed in his words. “But it’s the truth. Create what you want this room to look like—command it.”