I might have flaws but I had courage, and I hid every tingling, tangling, clenching reaction from his methodical painting.

I was the perfect human canvas.

Silent.

Abiding

Aloof.

I bit my lip as he ducked close. His messy hair that followed no law flopped over his forehead in strands of glossy dark. He stayed crouched by my lower belly, his breath heating my flesh, his brushstrokes cursing me.

With a low, displeased grunt, he straightened and tossed the fine bristled brush on his worktable. He swiped at the roguish strands of hair on his forehead, leaving a streak of mottled colour behind.

“What is it?” I asked quietly, knowing to keep my tone soft around a creative person so deep in their craft. I’d been the same way when I’d practiced new chorography. Noise sounded different when you were in the tight embrace of your calling. A voice was a shotgun. A demand a cannon.

Gil raked both hands through his hair, uncaring about the smears he left behind. He ignored me, hastily mixing new pigments with a feverish intensity that erupted goosebumps beneath the paint on my skin, disrupting the smoothness of his lines.

The longer I stood in his empty warehouse, the more I remembered our childhood. How his smile imprinted itself on my heart for always. How his laugh had been so hard earned—his true laugh and not the cynical, detached one he gave in class. I also remembered what it was like to tend to his injuries that he did his best to keep secret.

He’d been beaten up last night. By who, I didn’t know. But seeing him with a split lip and blackened eye wasn’t new.

He’d come to school with a few colourful shiners. I’d wiped away blood from his chin. I’d slipped him painkillers for his ribs.

I’d seen enough of the results of his home life to understand without him telling me: abuse rained under the roof where he slept.

But...he did tell me.

One day, when he’d gotten to school late with a bowed head of contrition and a hiss of agony as he slid into his seat, I’d known something was wrong. Something worse than normal.

After the bell rang and we’d walked far enough from school not to be seen holding hands, I’d gripped his comforting palm with both of mine and tugged him up my street.

For the first time in my life, I was glad my parents weren’t home. Because that night, I led Gil into my house and refused to let him leave. I ran the bath for his aching muscles. I waited with a fresh towel for when he finished. I stared at his naked chest rivering with warm bubbles and gasped at the horror of what he’d lived.

Bruises upon bruises.

Smudges and splodges, scars and slices. His body was a portrait of violence, and when tears came to my eyes and I’d walked into his shaking embrace, all I’d wanted to do was tell him I loved him. To take him to bed. To lie with him. Hug him. Kiss him. Give him what he’d given me: a friend. A person who cared. A person who could become our new family because the current ones we had had failed us.

Stop it!

I couldn’t relive such things.

Couldn’t welcome such sadness.

The memory of the boy who’d stolen my heart made me soften toward the man who was winter itself. I returned to the present with its slightly chilly warehouse, mostly pretty paintwork, and eternally arctic overseer. “What design are you working on?” I looked down at my naked breasts, unable to see past my arm wedged between them to the picture slowly coming to life on my stomach and hips.

“Nothing.” Gil finished mixing whatever shade he required and climbed onto the podium beside me. “Stay still.” His lips thinned with demand, but I smiled gently.

“Okay, Gil.”

He stiffened at his name, reminding me all over again that there were so many unresolved things between us.

He’d made my school life a sanctuary, then jammed it full of misery. He’d twisted me up in ways I still hadn’t unravelled.

Sighing, I slipped back into the strained silence as Gil forgot about me and returned to his art. For the next hour, he focused on my legs. I hissed a couple of times as his air gun tickled between my toes and hid my sudden gasp when his brush traced between my legs like a lover’s caress.

I stared at him, my pulse gushing so fast it deafened me. I waited for another stroke, another whip of colour, but he carefully worked on the outside of my hip instead; his jaw locked and motions jerky.

Twisting a little, I did my best to rid the complicated desire he’d left me with. His fingertips instantly latched around my semi-painted hip. “Did I say you could move?”

He didn’t look up, and I was glad. Glad because I couldn’t stop the truth burning that his fingers were corrosive, sinking through my flesh, slicing through nerves, until he’d reached into my very body and held bone. My heart struck a match, burning itself, sending blood-red smoke to lick around my ribs.

What is going on with me?

Gil made me weak and violent. He made me want to cup his cheeks and demand answers all while slapping his currently cool face and screaming at him for leaving me.

Gritting my teeth hard enough to ache, I jerked my head up and focused away.

I didn’t follow his tangled hair as he continued to brush, shadow and light. I didn’t care that he studied my body in a way that was illegal for most bosses yet perfectly acceptable in this studio.

He hadn’t mentioned my tattoo or scars again since manhandling me into a pose against his black painted wall. He’d removed the offending ink by keeping my back hidden and directed one arm to twist around my waist while the other was placed between my breasts, framing my assets while my fingers locked tight around my nape for purchase.

There’d been no battling lust or buckling beneath desire when he’d touched me.

He’d successfully locked that part of himself away, leaving me at his mercy.

I moved to scratch my nose. The grumbling growl emitting from Gil as he mixed paint at my feet was enough for me to hastily resume the position.

Three hours was an eternity with no conversation when bodies constantly brushed against each other. My muscles turned stiff and achy. My patience quickly overshadowed by hunger.

When a muscle twitched involuntarily, I didn’t make a peep. When I trembled, Gil merely steadied me and kept on painting.

Our dealings with each other were as sharp and silent as knives.

Gil’s fingers brushed over my lower torso, teasing with the only piece of clothing covering me. He delicately drew a line of vibrant turquoise right along the ridge of my underwear. The brush tickled and made me suck in a breath, but worse, it made my belly clench and nerve endings spring into starving life.

His fingers feathered over my upper thigh as he sketched an outline. His minty breath skated over the tops of my breasts as he leaned closer to add detail. The outside of his hand brushed my nipple as he angled himself to airbrush my cleavage with a vibrant slash of magenta.

Holy...

I bit down on my bottom lip, doing my best to remain stiff and silent.

Time once again intruded on us. I steadily turned from a person into whatever he wanted me to be.

I’d been kidding myself that I could survive him. Years might’ve flowed between us but whatever it was that drew, linked, and bound us in school was still there. Only this time...it was stronger than a hum, deeper than a puddle, darker than any nightmare.

The warehouse shivered in silence, both of us too afraid to break the oppressive stillness as Gilbert traded his air gun for small bottles and brushes. Enlisting sponge-tipped tools, he added further flourishes.

I locked my knees as he migrated his way up my body. The sensation of paint covering my lower part kept the chill at bay, but it didn’t stop my nipples from pebbling as Gil stopped at my chest and made a strange noise.