But when I opened my eyes, ready to begin laying out the sharp line of his cheekbones, I paused in confusion.
There was something off.
The painting didn’t line up exactly with Alex today.
“You’re slouching a bit to the right,” I said, glancing around the canvas, trying to make the images match. “Could you sit up?”
I watched in dismay as the shadows and highlights across his face changed, still not right. Nothing lined up properly with what I’d already painted.
“Can you go back to what you were doing before?” I asked unhelpfully.
He flexed his shoulders but it still wasn’t right.
I studied the painted portrait and the boy before me. They looked so similar but still didn’t add up.
“Just tilt your head a bit…The other way.” I watched him try twice before setting down my palette. “Like this.” I came around the easel to gently cup his face, angling it back into his pose. I hoped he might lean into my hands, press a kiss to my wrist, and all would go back to normal.
“I know!” he exploded, striking the arm of his chair. “I know what I’m supposed to do!”
His words burst from him like cannon fire, startling me. I’d never once heard him raise his voice before and was floored to have so much frustration aimed directly at me. Retreating, I sat behind the easel, shocked, and hid from his angry eyes. “Why don’t we…why don’t we just call it a day? It’s clear nothing is working right. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”
Though I managed to hold back tears, my voice quavered.
On the other side of the easel, there was silence. Then a sigh. “I…I’m sorry, Ver.” His wheelchair creaked and from under the canvas, I watched as the wheels pushed forward, only to pause with indecision. “I didn’t mean to shout.”
“It’s all right,” I said, even though it felt anything but. “We’re both tired.”
“Too many late nights, too many parties,” he agreed. “Dauphine seems determined to show us off at every event of the season.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it.
“I am sorry,” he said again, and he pushed himself over to peek around the edge of the portrait. His face was stricken with contrition. “Please forgive me.” And then he leaned in and kissed me.
It was soft at first, tentative and apologetic. I stayed still and motionless, but he let out a soft sigh and kissed me again with renewed vigor. It felt differently from our other kisses. His mouth was insistent, enticing. Intrigued, I tilted my head, offering him a better angle. He murmured his appreciation and his tongue parted my lips.
He’d never kissed me like this before.
I hadn’t known kissing could be like this.
His hands explored over me, sinking in here, smoothing over there, pulling me closer until I was pressed against his chest. His embrace was powerful, possessive, as if he was trying to leave his mark upon me.
And for the first time ever, I wanted him to.
I closed my eyes. My skin tingled, yearning for more of his touch. It was electrifying, a bolt of lightning striking a tree over and over, sending me into a sweep of sparks and embers.
“Alex?” I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a question or an exaltation.
He grinned and his fingers sank into the thick of my chignon, pulling my head back and baring the length of my throat. His mouth roved hungrily over my skin, drawing out a gasp so feral, I didn’t immediately know it had come from me.
I kissed him back, wanting to respond with as much fervency as he was showering upon me, wanting to explore this new and exhilarating side of him. Of me. Of us working together, each spurring the other on to untold, dizzying heights.
So often, I felt like a clipper, held in check by the weighted anchor of others’ expectations and demands of me. Alex’s kisses snapped that chain apart, freeing my little ship to race off with the wind.
What others wanted no longer mattered, only what I did.
And I wanted him.
I wanted to laugh with delight.
This, this was what all the fuss was about.
This was what a kiss could be.
I tugged at his hair, returning his lips to mine, and he groaned. The reverberations echoed down with my racing pulse, festering in my middle like a squirming, aching, wild thing. Oh Pontus, how I wanted him.
The kisses grew faster, more frenzied. He tasted of spiced tea and almonds.
I lost the notion of where our hands were, caressing and stroking, raking and tugging. It didn’t matter where they were, what they were doing—I only knew I wanted more of it.
He pulled me from the stool and lowered me onto his lap, my back stretched against his chest as he worked his way down the column of my throat, kisses wet and ravenous.
“You smell so good,” he murmured, his voice low and dark, his lips against the curve of my ear.
Words failed me utterly. It was too much of an effort to speak. His kisses were like champagne, effervescent bursts of joy that I craved more and more of, even as they muddled my mind, spinning it like falling blossoms.
“I hate that perfume Dauphine bought you. It’s so cloying and sweet. It’s not you at all.” He nipped at my earlobe, then drew it into his mouth, sucking and soothing. “This…this is just you. And it’s perfect.”
His hands grew bold, running over my bodice and even unbuttoning the first few clasps of my blouse. His palm pressed against the bare skin of my chest, searching for its racing heartbeat, and I felt him smile against my cheek when he found it.
“I’ve wanted to do this for so long, Ver,” he whispered, toying with the lace edging of my corset. “You’re just as soft as I thought you’d be.”
I leaned back against his chest, studying his profile as his fingers slipped lower, bunching aside the fullness of my skirt to race brazenly up my leg.
“Alex, I—” My hand grabbed his, stilling it against my thigh, fingers splayed long, his handprint as hot as a branding iron. “Not…not just yet.”
His eyes met mine, dark and heavy-lidded. His pupils were wide with desire and I nearly dropped my hold of him, longing to bring his mouth back to mine and sink into the wicked ecstasy of his kisses. What would those fingers feel like if I let them sneak up another inch? And an inch after that?
But my breath caught in my throat as I noticed something strange about his eyes. Strange about the thick line rounding his irises.
They were the wrong color.
A ring of bronze circled the green.
It was impossibly subtle, but I’d spent hours studying Alex’s face, memorizing every bit of him, the fullness of his lips, the sharp, proud line of his nose. I knew his eyes better than I did my own, and these were not Alex’s eyes.
This was not Alex.
I fell to the ground in my haste to break away from him. To put a good amount of protective space between us. To get away.
The boy who was not Alex watched me hurriedly button my blouse up with an expression of interest, but not alarm.
Amusement, not fear.
He knew I knew.
And then he smiled.
“Who…who are you?”
“What do you mean, Ver?”
As he said my name, shortened into an unfamiliar diminution, so many things came together for me. I saw all the details of his face that were almost Alex, but not quite. His eyebrows were slightly thicker, the plane of his cheekbones almost imperceptibly higher.