First Scene of the First Chapter.

The brush, barely grazing the canvas, froze at a brief “hm.”

“But it’s already perfect!” Liam protested, his gaze also fixed on the painting.

“This shadow… It’s genius. It’s blurred, you can’t see who it is, but you know instantly: He’s about to grab her and do something unspeakable…”

Liam approached silently and wrapped his arms around her waist, but she didn’t seem to notice, still staring intently at the canvas.

“I can just feel this shadow…” Closing his eyes, Liam took a deep breath, discerning the notes of her hair. “It’s definitely a man… and he has very firm intentions toward this girl.”

A slow, sweet smile spread across Eva’s face. She closed her eyes, letting her head rest back on his shoulder.

“Mmm… The painting must truly be genius if I can already feel those intentions,” she whispered, setting her palette and brush aside.

Eva whispered and, without opening her eyes, set her palette and brush on the table beside the easel.

Liam’s hands slipped beneath Eva’s white t-shirt, smeared with oil paints.

She yielded to his touch and, smoothly raising her hands behind her head, mirrored the pose of the heroine on her canvas.

“Liam,” Eva whispered, gripping his hair firmly.

“Eva,” he whispered back, his breath catching, as he slowly slid his right hand into her shorts.

“Mmm…”

Her body responded with goosebumps as his hands moved slowly over her.

One moment he barely touched her, the next he squeezed greedily, kissing her neck. Eva rose up on her toes, only to sink back down.

“Your painting is as beautiful as you are,” he murmured, so quietly it was almost indiscernible.

His words spread over the canvas of her body like turpentine, dissolving the paints that concealed her passion. She turned her head, their lips almost touching. Her ragged breathing consumed the space and time around them, leaving only the two of them alone with their desires.Neither the sounds of passing cars nor the scent of summer rain could penetrate their consciousness.

Liam pressed gently but insistently on her back, making her bend over and brace herself against the table.He entered her, slowly, as one enters a space where images are born.

Time on the clock seemed to slow, the second hand striving to synchronize with their breathing.

“Paint, Eva…” Liam said softly, pressing into her. “Take the brush and paint.”

“Oh, Liam…” she drew out the word, prying her eyes open and, in time with his movements, fumbled for the brush.

The brush moved toward the canvas and away again, like a pendulum. Eva couldn’t gather her thoughts to choose a place on the painting, and the longer she looked, the harder it became.

A loud moan, and a simultaneous brushstroke on that very shadow, in the bottom corner of the canvas, where the blurred outline suddenly became a little clearer.

Their moans escaped through the open window, mixing with the raindrops and disappearing somewhere in the leaves.

The girl on Eva’s canvas watched, once again, as they wrote their love story before her. Every canvas in the room absorbed a particle of passion’s aroma and the vibrations of their ardent intimacy.