Chapter 17
Yasmine
While I’d seen the damage that bitch had done to Hawk on his body, I hadn’t realized all the things she done to his mind.
I hope that bitch dies in jail. I hope someone sets her ass on fire.
“I don’t want to stop either.” I slid my hands underneath Hawk’s shirt, my fingers bumping along his defined abs and the scars. His smooth skin might’ve been decorated in marks, but it felt better than high-end silk.
I’ll never let that bitch hurt him again.
Although Hawk had grown up into this muscular guy—twice as big as me and all full of power and strength—he needed me to protect him from himself. He’d healed me when I was a kid and even with my recent battle with writer’s block. Now it was my turn to heal him.
“Remember.” I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’ll always be there for you.”
“I can’t ask that of you.” Hawk buried his fingers in my dreadlocks.
“You can.” I stood on my tippy toes and kissed him.
Hawk broke from our kiss. “No, I don’t want my muck touching you.”
I backed away from him. “It’s not your choice.”
“It is.” He tugged me toward him, brought his lips to my neck, and kissed me slowly, working his way along my collarbone.
“It is not.” I moved away from his mouth and met his stubborn gaze dead on. Those blue eyes looked more beautiful than the sky on a Caribbean day and I didn’t ever want to look away. “You healed me.”
“How did I heal you?”
“I’m writing again. I started a new book. It has a mermaid in it. I always wanted to write about a mermaid.”
“And is the hero a pirate?”
“No, I wanted a twist. He’s a street hustling gangster that kicks ass.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“Good. Anyway, I’m writing again. You healed me. Now, I’m going to heal you.”
“You can’t save me, baby. Many have tried and raced away crying.”
“None were me.” I giggled as I guided him to his studio. “Let’s do some painting. Art is cathartic.”
He followed. “I don’t want to paint right now. I want to fuck.”
“Maybe, we can do both.” I pointed at one of three massive canvasses. It was so huge, it covered most of the wall it leaned on. “Can we paint on that?”
“That’s a big one. It would take us days to cover it.”
“Not if we use our naked bodies. Do you have any paint that we can put on our body?”
A wicked smile spread across his face. “I love the way you heal.”
He rushed away like a mad man, locking the studio’s door and taking off his clothes with each step. He almost tripped over his own feet. Still, that didn’t deter him. He went into a metal closet, yanking out huge jars of color.
“We’re lucky.” He stacked jars of red and white on the floor. “Mom bought boxes and boxes of finger paints for the neighboring schools last winter.”
I twisted off the tops as he brought more cans over—black, violet, blue, and pink. “She made sure a bunch of the boxes were delivered to my studio. At the time, I couldn’t think of what I would do with all this finger paint.”
“And now?” I winked.
He pierced me with a hungry gaze. “Take off your clothes.”
“So bossy.”
It took me no time. The more I hung around Hawk, the less I enjoyed wearing clothes. While I undressed, he dragged the large canvas to the center of the room and laid it on the floor. It represented the funniest sight I’d witnessed in years. The whole time, his cock jutted out in front of him as he knelt to each corner of the canvas and snatched away the wooden frame.
I really should take a picture of this.
I stifled a chuckle.
“You’re enjoying this?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
When he finished, the canvas’s white cloth lay flat on the floor.
My clothes dropped to the floor and fell around my feet. Cool wind nipped at my skin. Lust blazed in my heart. Already, I was wet and hungry for him.
For a silent minute, we stood in front of each other and just studied the other.
How did I get so lucky?
With heat in his voice, he whispered, “Lay down, baby, and take those beautiful locs down. I want them falling all around your naked body.”
I did as I was told. While I was supposed to be the one taking care of him, I knew that he always had to be in control.
“Damn, you’re beautiful laying on the canvas.” He walked around me with that hard cock, stroking the tip and licking his lips. “I almost don’t want to add anything. You’re already enough. You’re already a masterpiece.”
Hunger burned between my wet thighs. “Join me.”
He dragged over several more jars of paint and then scattered different paint brushes around me. “I’m going to paint your body.”
I took a brush from him. “And I’m going to paint you.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes. We have everything we need to create an abstract painting on love and lust.”
“Love?”
“Yes.” I swallowed down my fear. “Love.”
He ran his fingers through my hair. “I do love you, but it might not be—”
“No, just stop at love and don’t try to explain it. In the end, love is all we need. Not definitions or labels. Just this.” I touched his chest. “Just our hearts.”
And then I trailed my fingers down to his cock. “And this most of all.”
“Lay down,” I whispered. “On your back.”
Surprisingly, he complied, still holding the wet brush of red paint in his hand.
“My turn.” I straddled Hawk, this succulent man that could do no wrong in my mind. I rested my wet sex right on his thick cock, grabbed my own brush, dipped it in sky blue, and drew little flowers all over his scars.
“Fuck,” he moaned, growing even harder under me. “I don’t think I can ever go back to painting normally.”
I moved my leg to feel him better and bumped the jar of red paint with my knee. It tumbled over and spilled red all over the canvas and parts of us.
“Damn it. I’ve already made a mess of our work.” I giggled as the paintbrush dropped from my hand.
“No, that’s perfect.” He reached his hand up and knocked over the jars of purple and blue pain until there were nothing but puddles of color pooling around our naked bodies.
“Well, this is definetly going to be abstract.” I tried to pick up another paintbrush. “What should we do now?”
He took the new brush out of my hand and knocked over a jars of black and white paint. “Let’s use our bodies to finish the painting.”
Just from his words, pleasure echoed through my body. Everything else fled my head. No longer was I worried about Greg, Hawk’s haunted past, or even Cindy and Victor’s worries. The rest of this crazy world fell apart and crumbled around us, drowning into colorful pools of crimson reds and blushing pinks, somber sky blues and earthy greens.
Rising to kiss me, he gripped my ass and moaned into my mouth. “How did I live without you?”
I hummed in pleasure.
“How did I fucking breath without you near me?” He slid his hand behind the nape of my neck in an electrifying grip that told me he would never let go.
“Baby,” he whispered. “You’re wild and beautiful.”
“Only for you.”
“Only for me.”
He toyed with my nipples, delivering desire to my core. I gasped, and he went after the soft sound as if trying to taste it.
“You’re so hard,” I moaned.
“Only for you.”
“Only for me.”
His other hand went to my back, pulling me against his hard body, caging me to him. Already, he was inside of me without pushing his cock between my flesh. I shuddered against him. He was all around me—his lips on my skin, his scent mingling with the smell of paint. It was intoxicating. I drowned in him, barely able to catch my breath as he bent his head and kissed me again, searing his lips to mine.
Paint slipped along my skin, dripping all over us, but I didn’t care about any of it. Our tongues twisted around the other like a category five hurricane. It was like we were trying to devour the other, tear each other apart, just to lick what was inside.
I ran my fingers through his black hair now dotted with drops of red and blue. “Stop teasing. Fuck me.”
“No. I want you soaking wet. I want you dripping all over this canvas. I want to be able to smell you after I’ve hung the painting up in my room.”
“You’re teasing me.” I arched against him.
“You should be teased, tasted, and fucked until you can’t remember your name.”
Aching seconds went by. Hot, scorching desire pooled low in my stomach, the tips of my breasts, and between my thighs. He blessed me with those lips…harder, hotter, deeper and longer kisses, slowly addicting, making me beg and writhe within his arms. I couldn’t breathe or think. All I could do was explode with more hunger. All I could do was fall into him.
“Please,” I begged.
“Maybe.” He lifted me up, twisted us around, and lay me on my back, smearing more paint onto the canvas and me.
“Oh, baby,” I moaned.
“I’m not sure that I’m done painting.” He grabbed a paintbrush and stroked my clit with the silky end. A low moan rose from my lips.
“Damn it, Hawk.”
He dropped the brush and teased the throbbing flesh with his fingertips.
I grabbed his cock, needing it in my hands, in my mouth, inside my body, pumping and pushing until I lost control. “Please.”
“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re ripping me apart.”
And that was when he gave up with his teasing and lowered onto me, letting that stiff cock brush against my thighs as I spread them open.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered as his cock caressed my wet folds, but didn’t enter. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know what, baby?”
He pressed the swollen head at the entrance. My body shivered in anticipation.
“I didn’t know how good this could feel, Yaz.”
Before I could ask anymore, he thrust into me, taking away any rational thought. All my focus went to that thick sensation slipping in and out of me, causing shrieks of pleasure to rush up my throat.
We moaned together. Paint splashed and rippled around us. Hot sex filled the air. Our breaths flowed in and out, hard and fast, and the whole time he was pumping into me, deeper and deeper, stretching my wet flesh around him. Hard and long. Shockwaves thundered through me, triggering pleasure to burst in every cell.
We bucked like wild savages, barbarians, hungry and horny. Lost to humanity. My breasts bounced against his hard chest. Sensations flooded my very core. My heart hammered, our lips barely keeping out our moans, pumping shifting to pounding.
It was insane ecstasy. Maddening pleasure. Only God knew how long it took, until our bodies collided, cock to g-spot, heart to heart.
But in that final moment, when our bodies erupted, I broke apart, screaming his name. And he filled me, spurting cum into my sex as we both rode the wave of heart-pounding pleasure.
We collapsed onto the canvas, out of breath and exhausted. I was sure the whole house had heard. Brett was probably congratulating himself for all that he’d done.
Minutes passed. Maybe even hours. I had no idea. Time lost all meaning. We lay there in a soothing calm.
The paint dried on our skin, the canvas. I couldn’t wait to see what it would look like. Surely, the movement of intertwined bodies brought beauty to the canvas. Surely, it would be one-of-a-kind. Surely, I would never forget this moment, this tangible reminder of the most amazing romantic experience of my life.
Wet and covered head-to-toe in any color of paint one could imagine, I fell asleep in his arms with one thought running through my mind over and over.
Even our silence is beautiful.
Later, we woke, showered, and cleaned up.
He left the canvas on the floor to dry and I was totally blown away as I studied it. All over the canvas was an explosion of light color and dark dancing around each other. And right in the center of the painting—where we’d made love—there was almost a huge heart shape of our bodies together.
Hawk gazed at our work. “This is the best painting in here. We have to do this again.”
“Definetly. I’m just wondering where I’m going to put it.”
He laughed. “You’re not taking this. It’s mine.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is.”
“We’ll see about that. Lucky for you, I don’t have a place at the moment. When I get my new place, this will definetly be delivered to my spot.”
A weird expression crossed his face before he fixed it. “What? Are you planning on leaving?”
“No, not now, but eventually I’ll be going somewhere.”
“Of course.”
An uncomfortable quiet fell upon us.
“So, I read this new book,” I said, changing the subject. “It’s called Taking Control of Your Destiny.”
“Oh God.” He walked to the other side of the studio.
Chuckling, I rushed after him. “The book talks about how pain, heartbreak, and trauma can block us from getting our happiness.”
He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it.
“It says that a good way to deal with trauma is to recreate it through art.” I looked up at him. “So basically, you should paint what happened to you.”
He paused, faced me, and didn’t say anything.
I went on a little more. “You wouldn’t have to show anybody. It could just be paintings that you create and then destroy.”
Again, he remained quiet.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think that no matter what you read to me, I’m going to feel good. I’ll feel free.”
I smiled. “But what do you think about painting your pain away?”
He leaned his head to the side. “What do you want from this book? What do you want from me?”
“I want it to help you.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
I shrugged. “Then, it doesn’t.”
He turned his back to me and placed a few paintbrushes to the side. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Yaz, but I always know how this goes. We’re already going down that path now.”
“What path?”
“The path where you think you can fix me. The path where you realize you can’t. The path where you race away from it, crying and wishing you’d never tried.”
“I don’t know what type of punk ass females you surround yourself with.” I walked around and faced him. “But I’m not one of them. This is Cherry Bomb. You know who I am. You know who you are. We always win together.”
“Yaz—”
“According to this book, our mistake is that when we’re in darkness, we search for some light to help us escape. But what we don’t realize is that the light is inside of us. We have to learn how to switch on the light.”
We stood there in silence for a few minutes.
And then, he laughed.
I frowned. “That’s not funny. That was deep as fuck.”
“It’s funny.”
I gently hit his chest. “It was written by a neuroscientist that turned into a spiritual guru.”
“Of course it was.” He laughed some more, grabbed my arms, and pulled me into a huge embrace. He kissed me and when he let go, he whispered, “I like the book.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.” He nipped at my bottom lip. “Maybe tonight, you can take off your clothes and read it to me for bedtime.”
“You won’t be paying attention.”
“Trust me. You’ll have all my attention. And when you finish a chapter, you can quiz me.”
“Really?”
“And...” He kissed me again. “If I get the answers right, you have to do anything I want.”
Lust blazed all over me. How did that happen with him? I’d thought he’d drained me of everything during our painting session and now I was ready to go another round. “Anything? Like what?”
“Like letting me shove my cock down that pretty throat and coming over those pretty lips.”
I grinned. “That’s a lot of right answers. Are you sure you’re up for the task?”
“Try me.”
“That sounds good, but I have another idea.”
He gave me a skeptical look. “What?”
“We should also check out Soul Tribe tommorow.”
He groaned.
“It’ll be fun. When I went to the Blood Rain concert with Cindy, the owner came along. Her name’s Phoenix. She’s a cool independent sista that’s from here.”
“Hmmm. Phoenix?” He raised his eyebrows. “What’s her last name?”
“I can’t remember. Why? Ex-girlfriend? I don’t remember you having snowbird flings when any of the locals.”
“No, that’s my brothers. Anyway, it’s probably just a coincidence. River kind of had a thing with a girl named Phoenix.”
“River had a thing? I don’t remember him loving anything more than that guitar he always walked around with. He always had that damn thing in the ocean, swimming with it. I couldn’t believe the water never destroyed it. Didn’t he used to sleep with his guitar too?”
“Yeah, but Mom made him lay it in the hallway anytime he went to the bathroom or sat at the dinner table. Even she had her limits with his obsession. But, he did have this one situation with a girl named Phoenix.”
“Spill it.”
“She was a high school beauty queen. Brett...uh...was being Brett and paid this Phoenix to take River’s virginity. And then River pretty much followed her around the Keys like a love sick puppy for the rest of the year, singing songs and freaking her out.”
“Excuse me? Brett did what?”
He shrugged. “It’s Brett.”
“A beauty queen named Phoenix.” I laughed. “It could’ve been her. She’s definetly gorgeous. Cuban and Bahamian. Long, wavy hair and hazel eyes.”
“Yeah.” He widened his eyes. “That definetly sounds like her. What are the odds?”
“This might be a sign.”
“A sign for what?”
“She owns Soul Tribe, and she told me that she had a Reiki healer that can restore the most damaged souls. This might be a sign that it’ll work.”
He groaned again.
“It’ll be fun, baby.”
“It better be.” Hawk chuckled to himself. “Anyway, Brett wanted me to do some research on the place anyway.”
“Do I want to know about this research?”
“Nope.”