Obsessive Compulsion (5 page)

I hate it and I love it. I want to pull away
from it and I want more of it. And when she kisses me for each
correct answer? My whole body erupts.

With each round, she’s drawing increasingly
complicated designs, like my chest is a blank canvas. Her reward
kisses are lingering just as long as her fingers are against my
skin. As she dots the ‘’i” on her latest sketch, I smile and
whisper the word reverently. “
Charlie
.”

Her reward kiss starts like all the others.
A soft brush of her lips, a gentle pressure and a patient wait for
me to respond. This time, however, the wet slide of her tongue over
my bottom lip finally releases the moan I’d been fighting.

I feel her hands grasp my knees then slowly
move up along my spread thighs. Another pass of her tongue against
my lip unhinges my twitching jaw as the continued advancement of
her fingertips unhinge my mind.

Breathe in. I can do this.

A slight brushing pass over my groin. A
teasing press between my thighs. It has my whole body, every single
muscle, twitching in a cascading pass as my dick hardens. Oh, fuck,
it’s been
so
long
since that’s happened.

I can do this.

Rider,
you’ve stopped
breathing.

I can do this.

Her fingers are unbuttoning my pants as her
tongue makes another sweep.

I can do this.

Breathe, dammit! Please. Please, just let me
have this! Please…

She kisses my lips again, then my chin, my
chest and then leaves me shaking. It’s too much.

I can. I can’t.

Fuck.
Fuck
! Fuck my nature! Fuck
everything!

“Fresco!”

Her sharp intake of breath precedes her
departure and I want to cry. I’ve ruined everything. Again. Why
can’t I just be normal?

One ankle is untied and then the other. A
brief pause lets me take in a breath as I lean forward. The rope
around my wrists lets go. I hear her heels walk away then stop.

With shaking fingers, I pull off the
blindfold and regain my bearings. That God dammed, crooked-ass,
mislabeled box is the first thing my eyes focus on. I hate myself.
I hate myself so God damned much.

She’s waiting for me, facing the door with
her back straight as a rod. Her head, though, is slightly lowered,
and that alone makes me want to vomit. I’ve ruined this for
her
. Her debut. Her first time. I’ve taken something so
precious and irreplaceable away from her. “Charlie… I’m so
sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she whispers, her
voice broken. “I pushed. Victoria warned me. There are rules and I
didn’t listen. I thought I could… I thought it would okay. I’m
sorry, Ian.”

My voice is gone as her apology runs a lance
through my heart and pins me against the bench. Her hand reaches
for the door knob. My hand twitches to reach for her. She turns it,
walks out of the room and leaves me alone with my vices.

More blue…

No, more green, maybe? No, definitely more
blue, but that’s not the right blue.

I sigh and lean away from the canvas,
watercolor brush in hand. I’ve been arguing with myself for ten
minutes, the water on the canvas slowly evaporating and taking away
my opportunity to make well-blended mixes of color. Maybe I
should’ve gone with the oil pastels.

It’s Ian. I know it’s Ian. Well, his eye, at
least. It’s taking up most of the white paper, skewed at an angle
and only half filled in with color.

An earthy brown line cradles the
right-bottom side of the iris, bleeding upwards into the jade green
before meeting touches of denim blue. My mind is fighting with my
memory, wanting to darken that blue as I move to the other side of
the black, round pupil done in India ink. With a deep inhale, I let
go of my attempt to control and pass my brush into the indigo then
onto the paper.

I start from the left top this time,
bleeding down. It’s too dark for Ian’s eye. I know it is. I’m just
too tired to fight what my brain is telling me to paint.

I’m exhausted. Physically. Mentally.
Emotionally
.

Mercy, I messed up good last night. All I
had to do was meet the members and follow a few rules. Observe,
learn and give Emma and Brandon’s lifestyle choice a chance.
Instead, I turned into
Tornado Charlie
, like my mamma always
said, and blew a shit-storm into Brandon’s club.

Poor Ian. Why did I ever think it was a good
idea to try and play with him like that?

You know why, Charlotte.

My brush slips and a streak of the darker
blue bleeds into the denim blue. Rushing with a curse, I dab the
area with wet cloth, watching as it melds and fades into a unified
gradient. I let out a relieved sigh then sit back and look at it
again.

At least you can fix your mistake this time,
Charlotte. Let Ian go before you make another one you can’t take
back.

Fuck off. Ian isn’t Neil. I don’t want to
fix
him.

Do I?

No. Ian doesn’t need fixing. I just want to
see him loosen up a bit, to smile more, and I want to be the cause
of it. I want to hear that snort of his. I want…

Red
.

My hand reaches for the tray of orange and
red pallets. Picking up a fresh, larger camel-hair brush, I dip it
into a clean glass of water then into the red. I hesitate then grab
some orange. With a stroke, I paint a wide flame into the upper
left corner of the canvas, rounding its way to the lower right. I
repeat the motion, over and over. Layer upon layer.

I grab a new, coarser horse-tail brush.
Dry-bristled strokes of color that look like strands of hair
gradually fill in where the white of the eye would be. Darker and
darker the further down the right side of the canvas I go. Then I
meld in brown and yellow. Sand and wheat.

Wet and then dry again. Sand into fire.
Broad strokes up, back into the flame along the left side.

The movements of my hand are controlled by a
long forgotten place in my brain that’s still connected to my
heart. Over the years, with the mess I made of Emma’s life, over
and over, I had let that connection dwindle. Then, after Neil…
After he…

I thought that connection died completely.
When Emma came back into my life, it reignited, but I’d become too
technical. What I painted was good, but it was lifeless.

Now, that connection is alive. Electrified.
Consuming. For the first time in years, I feel like myself
again.

My hand shakes as I drop the brush to the
floor with a clacking vibration I can feel from my toes all the way
up to my scalp. Taking the blue again, I fill in the eye. Darker,
lighter, mixing and melding.

Standing from my stool, I take two cautious
steps back and stare at the watercolor-covered paper. The sunlight
filters into my studio, shimmers over the paper, causing my soul to
weep.

It’s us. Not his eye. Not mine.
Ours
.

A crack in my heart appears, echoing a
feeling I don’t want, and I reach for the glass of water. Clenching
my eyes shut so I don’t have to see what my brittle heart wants me
to do, I fling the water at the canvas to destroy what I’ve
created.

A loud gasp. Water splatters against the
tile. A throat clears.

My eyes snap open. “
Ian
?”

“Good afternoon,” he clenches out from a
twitching jaw, his chest heaving in tight breaths. My shocked eyes
dart over him, trying to make my brain agree that Ian Rider is
actually standing in my studio. He’s here, holding a… café mocha?
He’s here and he’s… wet?

Oh, shit. My shaking hand sets down the
glass as he sets the café mocha down next to my brushes. I look at
his white dress shirt, soaked and streaked with orange-stained
water. With a race to grab paper towels, the wet tiles send me
flailing for traction. He catches me and eases me back on my feet.
Closing my eyes again, I slow my breathing and focus.

“Sorry,” I offer pathetically as I hand him
a roll of paper towels. At least I splurged on the expensive,
absorbent kind.

“Thank you,” his lips tick into a smile as
he presses several sheets against his chest.

“It’s going to stain,” I state the obvious.
At least he’s wearing black slacks, though they’re visibly soaked
across the groin. Catching myself staring at that, I refocus on his
face. “What are you doing here?”

He glances up at me, a wad of orange-stained
paper towels in his hand, then he glances over his shoulder and
lets out of slow breath. He snorts. “Preserving art,
apparently.”

My eyes widen as I lean left to look at the
painting. It’s been untouched by my tantrum, saved from Tornado
Charlie by Ian’s casual Dockers. Casting my eyes to the side, I
shuffle to avoid slipping again and grab my purse. “I’ll pay for
your clothes.”

“Not necessary. I’m the one intruding into
your studio.”

Putting my purse down, I turn to find him on
his knees, cleaning the water from the floor. I rush back over.
“You don’t have to do that. Here, let me.”

“It’s alright,” he whispers, stopping as my
hand brushes his. We both freeze for a moment. Uncertain air hangs
between us. “Why were you going to ruin it?”

I stand abruptly, my spine locked straight.
“It’s my art. I can do what I want with it.”

It’s a dumb, defensive answer that causes
Ian to stand. “I’ll buy it from you.”

His suggestion dumbfounds me, then I realize
that he must see it – the truth of what I’ve painted. Our souls in
watercolor. I feel exposed, and my defensive stance increases.
“Why’re you here? How’d you even know where I’d be?”

He lets out a sigh, tossing the wet paper
towels into the garbage. “Emma told me where to look, and I’m here
to apologize for last night.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I cross my arms and
look away, flustered that my best friend and Ian had obviously been
talking about what happened. “Thought I made that clear last night.
I already squared up with Brandon about it, and I’m cancelling my
club membership.”

“I know,” he pauses, maybe hoping I’ll look
back at him. Might as well just keep on disappointing people. At
least I’m competent at it. I stare at the floor and he continues.
“I explained what happened. What
really
happened.”

I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear,
thinking the silent treatment might work on him, but he just keeps
talking.
Stubborn.

“Brandon wants you back next Friday for
proper
introduction and training, if you’re willing. What
happened last night was
not
your fault. Not at all. I was
the senior member. I know the rules. Hell, I helped write
them!”

His uncharacteristic loss of temper finally
brings my eyes back up to his. He looks like he’s in pain and I
don’t want to be the cause of more. “I crossed a line that I knew
was there. I pushed that line because it’s what I always do,
Ian.”

The green hue of his irises darkens and he
takes a step towards me. “And I need that line to be pushed. I
wanted you to cross that line, to push me. You just weren’t ready.
It was wrong of me to keep it going, to encourage you, but I did. I
thought I… Dammit. I thought I could just hold on for once, for
you.”

Sunlight dances across the sandy brown
strands of his hair as he lowers his eyes. “I’m not right in the
head, Charlie.”

This man is so genuinely beautiful. His
honesty makes me smile inside as Saul’s words come back to me
again. “None of us are exactly screwed on straight.”

His gaze snaps back up and examines me for a
long time. “I want another chance with you, with this.”

“What exactly
is
this, Ian?” I’m
grasping for understanding, wanting more. Wanting dangerous things,
like what I’ve just put on canvas. “I’ve had flings, one night
stands and even friends with benefits, but
this
? Do we just
act casual on Monday while I’m painting signs at Shoe Village, and
then we try again with rope and leather on Friday? Are we like,
BDSM buddies or something?”

He snorts again, making me shiver. “BDSM
buddies. I like that, but no.”

Recovering from my body’s annoyingly wanton
reaction, I hold up both hands, lost. “Then what?”

“Does this need a label?” he asks, and it’s
a damn good question.

I close my eyes and breathe in. My studio
smells like paint and caffeinated chocolate, with subtle hints of
lemon solvent and the slab of clay I have sweating on a nearby
shelf. This is my sanctuary, and I admit I’m a little angry at Emma
for telling Ian about it.

I wasn’t ready to face him yet and relive
what happened last night, even though it was all I dreamed about
during a hard-won sleep early this morning. Though, in my dream, he
didn’t stop me. He let me draw lines on his lean muscles and taste
any part of his body I wanted. I made him twitch and moan with the
slightest touch before I rode him into shared ecstasy on that
bench, all while he remained bound by black rope and
blindfolded.

“Please don’t move,” he whispers.

I freeze, his strange request snatching my
fantasies away. I start to open my eyes, curious and expecting a
spider on my shoulder, or something equally wicked.

“Keep your eyes closed, please,” he
requests, now closer.

Closing my eyes again, I can feel his body
heat as he leans in, aware that his presence is causing subtle
shifts in the lighting behind my eyelids. My lips part to ask
what’s wrong, but my voice never leaves my throat. A soft warmth
presses against my mouth and I smile into his kiss. It lasts only a
second, but I can’t deny what it does to me. It makes me happy and
leaves me wanting more of him.

“I’m complicated,” he continues to whisper,
close enough that I can feel his breath on my moist lips.

Now I can smell peppermint mixed in with the
coffee and clay. It makes my nose twitch because those scents work
well together and I immediately associate all of them with Ian. He
snorts that little, singular laugh of his and I smile wider.