“Her back hurts and she’s restless at night,” Beck said to his friends as they got out of the car and went into his place. “She sings to the boys all the time. Like, all the time. That seems to make her feel better.”
Now that they’d made it to six months, they were used to the idea of the twins coming and they’d had several more scans to confirm they were expecting identical boys… or he was. Jaycee was still avoiding all talk of the future.
“Is she emotional?” Pine asked. “Last time I was over here she kept bursting into tears.”
Yeah, Jaycee led with her feelings before she was pregnant, now she was an ever-changing rotation of emotion. “Sometimes, she…” Beck trailed off when he noticed that the living room was full of furniture. How the hell… “Jaycee?”
“I’m in the bedroom,” she called back. He started toward the stairs. “Downstairs… the blue room.”
Downstairs? Why would she be in a bedroom downstairs when they slept together full-time in the studio these days? But now that he looked around, he recognized that the furniture cluttering the living room was from that bedroom. There was a mattress against the stairs. The nightstands were between the coffee table and the TV. The lamps and other accessories were on the dining table, the bedding on the couch.
When he got to the bedroom door, he swore at the sight of her on the floor, unscrewing the bedframe. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“This room is the most secure,” she said, “it’s the biggest room at the back of the house, and it only has that one window, so it will—”
“With the furniture, Muse,” he said, storming over to snatch the screwdriver from her hand.
She seemed so sure and innocent at the same time. “It’s furniture, Maestro, you don’t care about furniture.”
No, he didn’t, but he hunkered down to cup her face. “No, I don’t,” he said. “But I care about you hauling it. What the hell were you thinking? If you need something moved, you call me. What if you’d hurt yourself and I wasn’t here? What if you needed me?”
Tears warmed her eyes and he had to swallow the urge to put his fist through whatever was hurting her. “I was talking to the boys and we realized that they don’t have a bedroom. They don’t even have a bedroom, Beck.” She took his hand and moved it onto her swelling belly. “And I was upstairs looking at your supplies and I… We’ve been so bad.”
“We have?” he asked, her wide wet eyes were making it difficult for him to concentrate.
“It came out of my mouth before I thought about it, and I… I told the boys that Daddy would paint a mural for their room and then I wanted to slap myself.” Grabbing his shoulder, she hauled herself onto her feet and opened her hands at the wall. “It started with this idea of a mural and then I thought, no, we can’t have a simple mural, not for your children.”
“What are you…”
“You see the window?” she asked, rushing over to the side wall to touch the frame and he nodded. “The window to the outside, to the big bad world… I was thinking…” Rushing to the opposite wall she stroked two open hands on the smooth surface. “We should put a window in this wall too.”
“That’s an internal wall, Muse.”
“Yes,” she said and spun around to press herself against it. “We tear down the plaster, strip it to the brick and put in a window that shows nothing beyond… just the brick… we can paint them… you can paint them. And we dress it, curtains, blinds, exactly the same as the one opposite.”
“They’ll see the inside and the outside,” he said. She nodded then dropped onto her hands and knees. “Reality versus perception.”
Jaycee stroked the flooring. “And we pull this up, this carpet, they don’t want blue.”
“What do they want?” he asked, she had a clear image in her mind and it was invigorating to see how enthused she was.
“Thick, thick pile…”
“And the color we—”
“Monochrome,” she said. “White carpet, black rugs… or checkered.”
Oh damn, his muse had it. She had it! “For babies?”
It was only the sound of Pine’s voice in the doorway that reminded him anyone else was here. Jaycee didn’t even bother to acknowledge the lawyer’s incredulity. “The fight between the dark and the light,” she whispered.
The hope and apprehension in her voice got his mind working.
Yes, he could see it. She was incorporating the ideas of their work into the room their children would sleep in. It would be an installation. More than a simple mural. Damn right.
Switching his focus to the back wall, he began to move toward it. “Symmetry,” he said. “Twins. Identical in structure but different in aesthetics.”
“Yes,” she whispered, the slow exhale of her enlivened delight prompted him on.
His heart rate began to kick up. How did she take him from zero to inspired in the blink of an eye like this? He didn’t know, but she was damn good at it. “We have to put a door on this wall,” he said, pointing to the far wall as he stretched his arm to the door his friends were loitering in.
“A door to what?” Pete asked.
“Everything,” she whispered, her buzzing attention alive on him as she curled her fingers into the carpet. “And nothing.”
He turned the side of his hand against the wall. “We divide it, straight down the middle. Mirror the colors, black, white, black, white.”
His muse rose to her knees. “No grey,” she said. He looked upward while pointing at her. “But hope… slithering into the darkest corners.”
“Joy and melancholy,” he said and tapped a finger in the middle of the wall he planned to put a door on. “It starts here, and we’ll have a starburst, the color from right here in the center.”
“It’ll creep in.”
“They can’t avoid it,” he said. “They’ll learn to interrupt it.”
“Put their cribs under each of the windows and a chair flanking that door with the dressers on the opposite wall,” she said. “And nothing else.”
He was nodding as the picture grew in his mind. “And we’ll put in a chandelier.”
“Yes!” she screamed kind of like she did when he took her to climax. When she smacked both hands to the floor he caught sight of her grin. “Oh, Beck… it’ll be perfect.”
“What kind of babies have a chandelier?” Pete asked.
“What kind of babies have an art installation as a nursery?” Pine asked. “You sure you want to do this?”
But Jaycee was already tying her hair in a knot on her head. “You guys get the bed out of here and rip up the carpet. We have to white out the walls first.”
“Wait,” Pine said. “Why the hell do we have to do anything?”
Jaycee gestured him over, Beck took her hands to pull her onto her feet. “Because I have to stop every ten minutes to pee. You won’t do anything important, but you can help with the demolition and the prep… We leave the real work to the maestro.”
Dipping, Beck whispered in her ear. “And his muse.”
It still did something to him when she turned that half-smile on him, especially when she did it over her shoulder in that coy little way. She was right, they had neglected this duty, he hadn’t been thinking about the nursery.
It had briefly occurred to him that he’d need to do more to prepare for the boys, but he’d been worried about how Jaycee might react to him doing anything that hinted at the future. Trust Jaycee to take the lead, she was just… amazing.
It was late, but Jaycee had never felt so awake in her life.
Pine might have griped in the beginning, but he ended up being the most enthusiastic with the painting. Ok, so it was just white emulsion, but he was quite a dab hand with a brush. She and Beck had spent most of the day making plans and his sketches were incredible.
Pete and Snick had gone out for supplies and Pine talked about how therapeutic painting was and how he’d never realized the emotions it evoked. Jaycee couldn’t ask him to imagine how she felt when she saw Beck work. Just the memory was enough to turn her on.
It was odd, but as arousing as ever, to duck in front of Beck to cover his hands with hers while he was painting, even if they were just whiting out the walls. The others didn’t understand the inside joke, or why the two of them needed to use the same brush, but she just enjoyed being close to her maestro.
After the guys had gone home, Jaycee had slipped into the shower and changed into her nightshirt while Beck went for his. The studio was a riot and Jaycee didn’t handle mess well these days, so while her maestro washed, she packed away the hordes of art supplies she’d pulled out earlier.
One of the tins was deeper than she’d expected it to be. When she moved the tub from on top of it, she was intrigued by the label, ‘edible body paint’ hmm. She’d known Beck had all kinds of odd supplies, but she hadn’t considered body painting a real artistic medium. Maybe it was, her maestro did like to dabble or maybe it had been some kind of joke present from one of the guys.
If she was honest, it was the edible part that intrigued her most. Opening the lid, Jaycee saw that there were half a dozen colored liquids inside. Red, blue… hmm, she wondered if they tasted different. Dunking her fingertip into the red, she licked the paint from it and wondered if it was just her mind telling her it tasted like strawberry or if it really did.
With another finger, she sampled the blue and couldn’t tell what it was supposed to taste like. The yellow was as non-descript, though they were sweet and not unpleasant, so she tried the green.
“Whoa!” Beck grabbed her wrist from behind and yanked it out of her mouth while he spun her around. “You can’t eat paint, Jayc! You’ll kill all three of you!”
He looked so worried and so pissed, but she smiled and crossed her arm across her body to close the lid so she could show him the label. “They’re edible.”
Even after he’d read the words a couple of times, it took him a minute to relax and her hand slipped out of his grip. “Thought you were trying to give me a heart attack with another of your insane cravings.”
She laughed and settled a hand on her stomach. “They taste good,” she said and opened the tin again to wet her finger with the blue. Taking her digit to his mouth, Jaycee waited for him to open. When he didn’t, she smudged the paint on his chin. Hiding her laugh with her fingers, she ducked. “You’ve got a little smurf beard now… it’s sexy.”
“That’s funny, is it?” he asked. She had to nod, even though he didn’t appear to be amused. “Guess it’s time for me to try a new medium.”
Using a finger, he painted a line of yellow on her nose. This was fun and it was her job as his muse to inspire him. Unbuttoning her shirt, Jaycee let it fall onto the floor and opened her arms. “Your canvas, Maestro.”
It was body paint after all.
His eyes widened as they trailed down her naked form. They’d been sharing a bed and pleasuring each other for months, but he still sketched her with a fury that suggested he’d never seen, or at least would never tire of, her figure. But painting on her skin? He’d never done that before.
When she saw the working of his mind in the intention of his gaze, her breathing sped up. Oh no. She’d started this, but what had been fun was becoming something much more intense. Beck turned her with his body without actually touching her. With her back to the table where the supplies had been laid out, Jaycee had no escape route.
Leaning over her, he dabbed different colors onto his fingers and drew a series of small lines on her face, she couldn’t see what he was doing. But the texture of the paint sliding over her skin being directed by his rough fingers sent a skitter of warring sensations through her. Catching the heels of her hand on the table, she exhaled, and her head fell back.
Like the delicate kiss that became a furious frenzy after surrender, Beck took things up a notch and dipped four fingers into two different colors. Streaking the paint on her neck, he dragged it in a crisscross over her collarbone and gathered more paint to sweep it up her arms, over her shoulders, down over her breasts, up through her cleavage.
With each new dip, the slick movement of his fingers sped over her body until the scrape of it drying up stimulated her sensitized, trembling form.
“Beck,” she whispered when he crouched to draw a bunch of tiny, fast lines with different fingertips across her hips, her thighs, to her knees, and he pulled the paint closer and spun her around to put her hands on the table.
More swiping movements on her back, over her ass and then the unmistakable feel of his mouth on the back of her neck made her whimper. “Muse,” he groaned, and his teeth grazed her shoulder.
“Maestro,” she whispered and turned to find him up close. The depth of emotion, of possession in those eyes, she couldn’t deny her love and couldn’t ignore his, not anymore. “Am I a real Beckett Trent now?” There was no power in her voice, only desperation. “Am I… Beckett Trent’s?”
“You’re his only one,” he murmured and scooped her cheeks to draw their mouths together.
There was paint everywhere and it flavored both of their tongues, but it didn’t matter, not anymore. She shoved his underwear down, and he stepped out of them while bending to pick her up.
Beck backed up, and she coiled herself around him. Driving her fingers into his hair, she sucked his tongue and he lifted her higher, so high that he had to tip his head back to receive her kiss as he reversed to sit on the bed.
“Oh, Beck. Please, Beck,” she said when she felt the tip of his erection trying to find its way inside her.
“Ride it,” he said. A quake of anxious pleasure vibrated through her.
Wracked with the adrenaline of need, Jaycee opened her mouth on his, but kept her eyes fixed to him as she moved to her knees and with him holding himself in place for her, she sank down onto his dick. The spear of intense sensation that zinged through her intimate passage made her squeak and her whole body screamed with joy as the constant sting continued as their connection deepened.
The relief was so extreme that tears filled her eyes. She rocked her pussy on the cock she’d craved for months. Because she was still scared that this was a dream or that he’d take it away from her, she began to rise and fall, trying her best to keep her rhythm even as her need made her want to tumble into a frenzy she’d never be able to maintain.
It was impossible to describe how the force of her orgasm impacted every inch of her being. But she kept on going, trying to experience every zap of tingling bliss that fired through her from her intimate center to her hips, her belly, her breasts. All of her wanted this man and the anticipation of her need increased the power of this union.
Picking up her speed, she ignored the burn in her thighs and leaned back on his supporting arm to better the angle of their joining. Yes, she could feel him everywhere inside her. She needed him deep inside her, right there where he was, and the whizz of her next orgasm crept up on her, but hit her so hard that she screamed out and bucked against him.
“Beck,” she cried when the orgasm kept on going.
Damn!
Surfing the wave of this climax was too much for her and she lost her rhythm.
No way was she going to let them get this far and then not bring him to his own release.
Grabbing his shoulders, she sidelined her own pleasure, dug her nails into his shoulders deep and locked her eyes on his. Beck was her anchor. He was her rock. He gave her everything she needed. Everything she wanted.
Thinking about how much she wanted to please him and how much she didn’t want to disappoint him, Jaycee rode him faster, falling onto him hard, driving him as far inside her as she could and squeezing him tight.
That was it. Right on the peak of her next orgasm, Beck grabbed her waist and tugged her body to his. Devouring her mouth in a kiss so powerful that he annihilated all thoughts of sanity or reality, his hips rose from the bed and he pushed up into her, pumping his seed into her in an instinctive final thrust.
But when they were done and panting, she sagged into his lap and he dropped his forehead to hers. “Oops,” she whispered and although it took a few seconds, his body did vibrate with a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said, catching her hair on his arm. She hadn’t realized her locks were loose, either they’d come out in the passion of their joining, or he’d freed them, Jaycee didn’t even know. “We probably shouldn’t tell Pine about that.”
“That?” she asked, smudging the paint that was streaked on his shoulder. “Like that’s the one and only time that will happen?”
He caught her hair in his fist and eased her head back. “Yeah,” he said. “That one time.” Oh well, one time was better than no times. But, she couldn’t keep her petulant lip in and as soon as she showed her disappointment, he smiled. “I guess…”
“Since we’ve broken the seal…” she said, scratching her nails on his shoulders as she bounced with excitement.
“We do need to shower,” he said, and her nod was frantic. “So maybe… one night?”
Oh, she loved this man and just to prove it, she smacked her mouth onto his. But what was supposed to be a grateful kiss deepened into something else when he wrapped his arms around her, tangled a fist in her hair and lay back on the bed, pulling her down on top of him.
“Or one week?” she breathed on him, licking the blue paint from his chin. “Maybe one month… And if we go that far…”
“Jayc,” he said, using a fingertip to draw the hair away from her temple. The gentleness of his tone made her forget about his mouth for a second and seek his eyes. “This is messy.”
And that was the closest they’d come to acknowledging the truth of what was going on between them. She thought about shrugging off his sincerity with a joke about the paint all over them and the bed, but if he was opening himself, even just a sliver, then she had to reciprocate.
“It’s been messy for a while, Beck… At least it has been for me.”
Did he get what she was saying? Messy was synonymous code for her feelings. For her love. “It’s been messy for me since I opened my bathroom door and saw you puking in my toilet.”
“Really?” she asked and had to laugh. If a guy could love her when she had her head in the toilet, he could love her any time. “It was a bit later for me… not much… but you were competing against The Abyss.”
“I’m not sure I won that battle,” he said, still brushing his fingertips through her hair. She’d bet her hair was streaked with color, but didn’t care… as long as it washed out without getting sticky.
“Jury’s still out,” she said.
He kept admiring her hair as his fingers moved through it, but he stayed solemn. “What are we gonna do, Jayc?”
“We stick to the plan,” she said though it broke her heart to say it. “I’m yours until delivery.”
“And then?”
When his eyes met hers, she wished she had answers, wished she could make it better for both of them. It was so sad that they could love each other like this and it not be enough. But he didn’t want a wife and she couldn’t be a mother.
His surprised eyes dropped, and she smiled. “Did you feel that?” she asked.
Beck grabbed her, shock had made him tense. “Was that…”
“The kids always rave at this time of night,” she said. Beck had felt the twins move with his hand, but this would be the first time he’d felt them against his body. Another jolt made her laugh. “I think he has the hiccups.”
“Wow,” he said. “They get hiccups?”
She nodded. “That’s what it feels like anyway.”
Jaycee started to roll away, but he closed his arms around her. “Stay there,” he said, “let me feel it.”
If that was what he wanted, she wasn’t going anywhere. Turning her face against his chest, she closed her eyes and enjoyed his reaction to the babies’ movement as his fingers continued to stroke through her hair.
He didn’t have answers and neither did she. But the alternative to this was shutting each other out and she just couldn’t do it, especially not while they were in the same house.
Enjoying him while she had him was all she could do, because when she thought about the expiration date, her heart broke.
In time, she’d have to say goodbye to all of them, and when that time came she’d have enough heartache to last herself a lifetime. Jaycee wasn’t going to invite that torture on herself before she had to.