They had retreated to his bed, and Flynn had fallen asleep at some point, because the suggestion of dawn was starting to creep through the rafters when he woke. He should get up. Add some more coal to the hearth. Boil a kettle of water. But he did none of those things because Charlotte was curled around him, her head nestled against his shoulder, the heat and solidity of her body warming something deep within him as surely as it warmed his own skin.
He turned his head and gazed down at her. Her lashes lay across faintly flushed cheeks, her kiss-swollen lips were parted slightly, and her short hair was sticking up in all directions. He had never experienced a sense of rightness—of perfect peace—as the one that had settled over him at this moment. In this makeshift studio, in a town far away from where he had been born, covered in borrowed blankets on a borrowed bed, he had finally found home.
She was home.
He brushed a kiss across her forehead and she stirred.
“Good morning,” he whispered.
“Mmm.” Her hand slipped across his chest.
He stroked his own hand down the length of her arm, careful of the stitches at her shoulder. The blanket fell away from her long limbs, leaving glorious expanses of skin glowing like alabaster in the silver light of dawn. Her hand left his chest and tried to pull the covers back up.
“Don’t,” he said, brushing her fingers away. “I want to look at you.” He shifted, propping himself up on an elbow so that he could gaze down at her. He pushed the blanket farther over her hip, his fingers lingering, his body already straining for a woman he was never going to be able to get enough of.
“Flynn—”
“I’m trying to decide how I will paint you,” he said, flattening his palm against the tautness of her abdomen. He slid it up unhurriedly, circling one nipple first and then the other. She whimpered and arched into his touch, and he bit back a groan as his cock jerked. He was as hard as marble, and every tiny sound she made tested his restraint.
“I don’t want to be painted,” she said a little breathlessly.
He lowered his head and pressed a kiss at the hollow of her throat. “I will paint you the way I will always see you. Bold. Beautiful,” he mused, ignoring her protestations.
“Don’t be absurd,” she said. “I’m not beautiful. I’m not even pretty.”
Flynn lifted his head and stared down at her, a curl of what felt like anger rising through him like black smoke.
She gazed back at him unapologetically. “It’s why Charlie Beaumont was possible,” she said. “And I would have it no other way.”
“Define pretty,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Tell me what pretty looks like.”
Charlotte shrugged. “From your drawings, I’d say Lady Cecelia was very pretty.”
“Perhaps,” Flynn mused. “Midnight-sky hair, pink-rose lips, chalk-white skin, sea-blue eyes.”
“You just made her sound like a travel advert for the shores of Kent County.”
Flynn chuckled. “I did, didn’t I? And yet not one of those things makes a woman beautiful. Pretty, perhaps, but pretty is a superficial thing. A puddle of piss looks pretty if it is reflecting a sunset.”
Charlotte snorted. “My, but you have a way with words,” she laughed. “Perhaps if art and medicine fail, you could try poetry.”
“Listen to me and listen carefully. You, Charlotte Beaumont, are beautiful.”
He felt her go still under his touch.
“Your beauty, the sort that comes from within, has made me a better version of myself,” he said, searching her caramel eyes. “Because your beauty defies mere description. It is something far more intangible and something far more precious.”
She gazed up at him, her features set into deep shadows, but he didn’t miss the way she suddenly blinked at the dampness that had gathered in her eyes. “It’s funny, in a way,” she said slowly, “because I came here to seek a better version of myself.”
“And did you find it?” he asked, catching her hand in his and squeezing.
“Yes,” she replied. “In pieces.”
“Pieces?”
“I found one part in a church when I refused to listen to a man who had his doubts about me.”
His fingers tightened on hers. “Charlotte, I should never have—”
“Shhh,” she said, cutting him off.
He fell silent.
“And then I found another part in a studio when that same man took a good look at my work and made me critique it as his equal. Arresting and hopeless in corresponding measure,” she said with a small smile.
“I stand by my assessment of your poker-wielding angel,” he murmured.
She sniffed, and her smile widened before it faded again. “And then later, I found a little more when he made me believe in myself. When a man who I admired very much told me I was meant to do this.” She took an unsteady breath. “And then he compared me to his own Jeanne d’Arc, and I knew I had found the rest.”
He brought his hand up and traced the side of her face.
“So thank you,” she whispered, “for helping me become that better version of myself.”
He leaned forward and caught her lips with his, kissing her tenderly, his heart hammering in his chest, emotion pushing thick and sharp into his throat. She let go of his hand and wrapped her good arm around his neck, pulling him closer, demanding more. He moved over her, his body fitting perfectly against hers.
He deepened his kiss, and she opened beneath him, taking and giving. Her hips tilted against his, and he slid inside, burying himself deep. He heard her moan softly and broke their kiss, lifting his head to watch her face. Her hand slipped from his neck to touch his face the way she had done the very first time.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Don’t ever stop.”
“I won’t,” he promised.