...Clara leaned against Arturo. One of his hands slipped beneath her shirt to cup a warm breast. From the moment she’d first modeled for them she had stopped wearing bras. It was as though every discovery of three years, every moment was so indelibly imprinted upon both of them that there was no moving forward without Samir.

He pulled the shirt up and over her head without even unbuttoning it. Such stunning, perfect, creamy skin. He tracked along her shoulder with his mouth, sucking at the nape of her neck.

She dropped her head onto his shoulder, arching her back, pushing her breast into the curve of his hand.

“Arturo,” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”

He unhooked her skirt, pulling down the zipper. The material pooled at her feet. He slipped a hand inside her panties, then shoved them and the pantyhose down over her hips. She stepped out of them. His hand cupped her smooth mound. He remembered the first time he and Samir had spread her, shaved her, then fucked her. Almost everything about their relationship had been rooted in sensual ritual. It had been so very good. So right.

Clara’s whole body was smooth as silk, the perfect tapestry, the perfect woman.

He pushed her onto the wrinkled drop cloth. Then he spread her, gazing at the perfectly parted petals of her labia, the glistening core pink, a shade he’d spent hours trying to match perfectly with a blend of oils. He leaned forward to trace his tongue over her inner moist lips.

He sucked her hardened clitoris into his mouth, circling his tongue over the pretty bud. He remembered the challenge of translating that perfect nub of passion onto canvas. How he and Samir had argued over the colors, the image, the need to draw the essence of Clara’s impeccable flesh onto the canvas, making it live and shimmer brighter than life, beyond human, beyond worldly.

Arturo tasted her, flicked his tongue over the bud, feeling her shudder, hearing her moan. He remembered the splashes of paint decorating her flesh as he and Samir brought her to climax after climax with just the touch of their sable brushes.

Clara screamed as a climax shattered her. She gripped his shoulders, her nails digging into his flesh. Arturo welcomed the bite of pain. Needed it to remember he was alive. There had been so many moments when he’d felt numb to the world around him.

But never to Clara. Never to Samir.

“Arturo, what are we going to do?”

She sat up and looked at him, her pansy eyes still dark from the aftermath of her orgasm. Arturo reached up to the desk and pulled down the envelope. He handed it to her, then dragged her into his lap and leaned back against the edge of the sofa. He slipped a hand to her mound, his middle finger burrowing deep inside her moist, hot channel. When he curled his finger, she purred, her eyes going even darker, to almost black.

The note in her hand shook as she opened it. His finger slid through her juices, and another finger joined the first inside her opening. Her tight sheath wrapped around him. For one moment her eyelids lowered, her lips parted and a tremor passed through her. Slowly, her lids lifted and she stared at the white card in her hands.

Arturo watched her, noting the changes in her expression, like the sun flirting with the clouds on an autumn day. Bright and dark, cold and hot, gold turning to copper, then back again. Emotions flitted across her beautiful face.

He added a third finger and heard her catch her breath. He bit the soft flesh of her shoulder and felt her shudder.

“Are we going there?” she asked, her voice taut and deep.

He licked the reddened curve of her shoulder where his teeth had marked her. He spread her legs wider and carefully inserted four fingers inside her. She groaned, her lids lowering as she dropped back against him, thrusting her pelvis to force his fingers deeper still.