Time slowed.
Eliza lay atop him, her palms braced against his chest, her breath caught somewhere between her lungs and her throat. His heartbeat thudded beneath her hands, steady, unyielding and yet his body beneath her felt like fire barely contained. His shirt was stained faintly with white paint, and his hands were still speckled with it. The brush must have fallen with her, she saw it rolling in a lazy arc across the floor, trailing a curved stroke like a forgotten signature.
He had caught her. Not just broken her fall, but caught her. Protected her. His arms still held her close, and she realized with a slow flush that she hadn't even tried to pull away.
She swallowed. Her eyes flicked to his lips.
Full. Slightly parted. Breathing her in.
He was younger than she had expected. Not a grizzled old painter, as she'd imagined, but a man, tall, huge, with the build of someone who used his body often and without apology. His dark hair curled slightly at the ends, disheveled from the tumble, and there was a streak of white paint across one cheekbone. A slash of rebellion. She wondered, without meaning to, what he looked like without his shirt.
Her breath came faster.
His eyes traveled down, hesitantly, hungrily, until they landed on her lips. For a moment, she thought he would kiss her. The air between them shimmered with tension, with possibility.
Then it happened.
Her ribbon slipped loose. Her red hair spilled over her shoulders, a molten wave of auburn flame that brushed against his cheek. She saw his breath hitch. One strand fell across her face, across her eyes, and she moved to brush it away, but her movement shifted her body.
His hands, still at her back, slid slightly.
The press of her chest against his became too much.
Her bodice strained.
And then
Her breasts slipped free.
Time didn't just slow, it stopped.
Pink, flushed nipples kissed the open air. They brushed against the rough linen of his shirt. Her soft skin met his chest in a maddening touch, and the sensation, the friction, the raw vulnerability, sent a bolt of heat through her. Her nipples, already sensitive, hardened instantly, painfully, as if seeking him.
He froze.
His eyes dropped to her exposed chest, and she saw the flicker of shock, followed by something darker, desire. Hunger. Awe.
Eliza gasped.
She tried to move, to lift herself, but in doing so, she rubbed against him again, accidentally, maddeningly, and this time she felt it.
Hard.
A thick, undeniable pressure against her thigh. She froze, mouth parted in horror and fascination.
It was him.
That part of him. Alive. Rigid. Pushing against her through the fabric of his trousers.
Her mind blanked.
She didn't know what to think, what to feel, but her body did. A throb deep within her belly pulsed. Her thighs clenched. Her breath grew shallow.
She dared to look into his eyes again.
He was already looking at her, not with shame, but with heat. With longing so pure and primal that it made her ache.
And then, as if suddenly realizing what had happened, he released her.
The contact broke. Her breasts fell back into place awkwardly, and she scrambled to her knees, trying to push them beneath her bodice with trembling hands. Her cheeks flamed. Her hands were clumsy. Her entire body felt foreign.
He turned away sharply, jaw tight, hiding the evidence of his arousal beneath his long tunic. One hand gripped his thigh as if restraining himself.
Neither spoke.
Finally, she whispered, "Thank you," though she didn't know what she was thanking him for, catching her? Letting her go?
She didn't wait for a reply.
She gathered her skirt, half-running, fleeing down the corridor. Her hair loose, her cheeks flaming, her chest rising and falling too fast. Her breasts still tingled from the touch. Her thighs still remembered the feel of him.