It's me. I mean, portraits of me are spread across the wall, painted in the same style as others, with half of the picture slightly hidden.
When I come closer, I see five of them hanging on the wall, and one more is sitting on the easel.
"I haven't finished this one yet," Zac says, breaking the silence and coming closer to where I’m standing. "I wanted to, but I didn't have all the details."
The last painting, the one he is talking about, is me lying on the bed naked, covered with a sheet and smiling. He painted my face and my hair, but everything lower is blurred.
I guess he means that he hasn't finished it because he hadn't seen me naked then.
But now, he has.
Other paintings of me seem like they’re copied from photos. On one of them, I'm reading a book in the park with my back pressed to a tree. Did Zac take this picture of me while I was reading? But I have never seen him in the park.
The second painting is of me at our parents' wedding. I'm smiling, but my eyes are filled with tears.
I haven't seen a photo like that. Did he do it from memory?
"Six portraits of me," I whisper, with no idea why I said it. He knows how many portraits are in here. "We met six months ago. Does that mean..."
I stop and turn my face to look at him.
"It takes one whole month for me to do a painting." He nods and takes a step closer. "Since I met you, nothing else inspires me anymore."
I part my lips to respond, but there are no words left in this world to express what I feel.
That's when he takes one more step and presses his lips to mine.
Chapter Twelve
Zac
Her kiss feels like heaven, like something I was craving for so long, and now I finally have it.
But it also feels so much different today.
Yesterday, it was a more unpredictable kiss. I tried to give Sky all the passion accumulated in me for all this time. Today, it is a more considered, more honest kiss because she finally knows how I really feel about her.
I was afraid of telling her about my feelings; I was scared she might push me away. But the more I delayed this conversation, the more anxious I became. It's like when you prepare yourself for a parachute jump: the waiting is much scarier than the actual fall.
We stay in the basement for I don't know how long, just kissing and stroking each other with no rush and no feeling that it is wrong or that it will necessarily end soon.
We just live in the moment, and the whole world seems like it’s been paused so we can enjoy each other.
I pick her up without breaking our kiss, and she wraps her legs around my waist, digging her fingers in and playing with my hair as I walk upstairs.
"Where are you taking me?" she asks, surprised when I pass by her room.
"I've dreamt about coming into your room at night to help you get a release," I say, smiling slyly at her, "but even more, I've dreamt about you coming to my room and offering to take you right then and there."
Sky bites her lower lip; her cheeks are burning out of shame. She's still not used to my dirty talking, and I like how cute her face is as it changes with my every word.
She's ashamed because she still thinks we're doing something forbidden. At the same time, her eyes sparkle with lust and anticipation.
When I open the door to my room, she gasps slightly out of surprise, though there's nothing extraordinary here.
"I've never been in here before," she says, breaking the kiss and trying to wriggle out of my arms, but I don't let her.
"We'll fix that," I whisper into her mouth. "From now on, you'll visit me often."