Later that evening, the painter's stood before an empty canvas, the evening wind blowing softly. Brushes lay scattered across the palette, each one whispering tales of unfinished stories and untold emotions.
His fingers, calloused from years of brush and blade, curled unconsciously into a cup, as though they could cradle her in memory. He could feel the imagined weight of her breast in his palm, soft, supple, too full to be contained in a single hand. The thought made his stomach tighten.
He would be gentle, he told himself. Reverent. Worshipful. Not rough, not greedy, not with her. She was not a tavern girl or some fleeting fantasy. No, Eliza was fire wrapped in silk, royal and radiant, and yet in those fevered seconds, she had seemed as helpless as he, her breath catching, her eyes wide, her lips parting not in protest, but in something dangerously close to wonder.
He wondered if she knew how beautiful she was.
Not just the symmetry of her face or the soft pout of her mouth, but the way her body had responded to his without hesitation. The way her nipples had hardened at the touch. The way her thighs had instinctively clenched, trapping his leg between hers, like her body was already choosing him before her mind could catch up.
He remembered how flushed she'd looked, pink blooming from her collarbone to her cheeks. He remembered the wildness in her breath. She had said nothing, but the silence between them had been louder than any scream.
He clenched his jaw.
The desire to go after her, to fall to his knees and kiss the very path she'd taken burned through him. But what would he say? That he was drowning in the feel of her? That his hands itched to paint every inch of her skin, not with pigment, but with the wet heat of his mouth?
He was a fool.
A damned fool.
But his thoughts would not be silenced.
Her breast would fit in his hand like it belonged there. He could picture it now, her gown gone, her chest bare, nipples tight beneath his thumb as he circled them slowly, watching her head tip back, her lips parting with a moan. He would lean in, tongue flicking softly across one bud, teasing, testing, and then he would draw it into his mouth. Warm. Sweet. Salted with her skin and whatever perfume royalty wore beneath linen.
She would taste like peaches. And honey. And summer.
His cock pulsed painfully against his trousers. He cursed under his breath and turned sharply toward the window, sucking in the cool air. But the garden beyond mocked him, it was where she had fled, her red hair catching the breeze like a flame, her steps quick, embarrassed, flustered as she walked back in. Did she feel it too? This unbearable heat between them? Did she ache the way he did?
He let out a bitter, quiet laugh. He was a painter. A ghost in the palace. Hired, not loved. Watched, not wanted.
And yet…
Her body had told a different story. It had melted against his. Clung.
But it was enough to unravel him.
With shaking hands, he moved to the easel. The parchment stared back, empty. Pure. Waiting. Just like her eyes had when she'd looked up at him with surprise and something far more dangerous want.
He dipped the brush into ochre, the color of sunlight on flushed skin, and began to paint, not her face, not at first. No. He began with her chest. The curve of her left breast, full and high, the gentle weight of it drawn in graceful lines. He imagined how it would swelled into his hand.
Next, her nipple, pink, tight, a perfect bud begging for attention. He added it delicately, reverently, layering soft hues of blush and shadow. Then the other breast, slightly more obscured by the imagined fabric of her gown half-pulled down, the illusion of something undone, something bared only to him.
He stepped back and stared.
It was her. Or close enough. The tilt of her torso, the suggestion of tension in her spine, the slight parting of her lips in the ghost of a breath—he had captured not just her form, but the moment. That moment.
The one where their bodies had fit together like puzzle pieces meant to meet in secret.
He was hard again. Painfully. And no matter how he tried to focus on the art, his mind returned to what might have followed. Her mouth parted in a moan as he licked across her nipple. Her hands gripping his hair as he suckled her, tugging gently with his lips while his other hand squeezed the lushness of her other breast, savoring the contrast of soft flesh and taut peaks.
Would she cry out? Would she shudder beneath him? Would she beg him to go lower?
He imagined it all. Her dress slipping down her hips, revealing skin he'd only dreamed of. The taste of her still lingering on his tongue honey, cream, the faintest hint of her perfume. He imagined her thighs parting, her hips tilting up, the wet heat between her legs beckoning him forward.
He groaned and braced a hand against the easel.
This was madness.
But what else was he supposed to do with this hunger? It was no longer just desire. It was a need, buried in the marrow of his bones. Her body had awakened something primal in him, something that would not be silenced by distance or duty or decency.
He glanced back at the painting. The way he had shaped her breasts made his own mouth water. His tongue longed to glide across her skin, to circle and tease, to suckle until she writhed beneath him. He wanted to hear her beg. Hear her say his name, even if she didn't know it yet.
He didn't know what terrified him more: the fact that he wanted her so much, or the knowledge that her memory had already claimed him.
No matter where she went, no matter how many corridors or titles separated them, her breasts, her scent, her gasp, the fierce heat of her nipples pressed to his chest, would remain a brand on his soul.
And now, her image lived here too, immortalized in pigment and longing.
His final brush-stroke trembled. He backed away.
He stared at the finished piece, his breath caught somewhere between awe and regret.
She looked almost alive.
Eliza, rendered in light and shadow, with skin like porcelain and the hint of sorrow in her eyes. Not the bright, charming princess he saw in passing, but the version he imagined in silence, in dreams he never invited. Vulnerable. Bared.
His fingertips twitched.
He had painted her once before, instinctively, in fragments. But this was the first time he'd given in to the compulsion fully. The first time he had let the obsession spill onto canvas with such raw honesty it startled even him.
And now… he loathed it.
"This is madness," he muttered, stepping back from the easel as if the painting might burn him.
He paced.
He shouldn't have made it. Shouldn't have wanted to. She wasn't his to desire. She was the king's daughter, the daughter of the man he had sworn to kill. The very man whose blood must spill for his vow to be fulfilled.
And yet here he was, painting her as if she were the light in his world rather than the obstacle in his path.
He turned, fists clenched, and stared at the painting again.
"You are not real," he said to her image. "You're not mine."
He should have burned it. Slashed it with his blade, reduced the canvas to ash and pigment. But instead, with a shuddering breath, he threw a cloth over it and turned away.
He couldn't have her.
Even if she returned his hunger with her own, and he suspected, somehow, that she did, he still could not reach for her. Eliza belonged to this world, to the court, to a lineage soaked in blood. He belonged to the shadows. To the rebels. To revenge.
He rubbed his face, pushing back the storm behind his eyes.
It was time to focus. He had a plan to finalize, guards' movements to memorize, a crown to topple.
He couldn't afford this longing. Not now. Not ever.
And yet, the memory of her haunted him like a ghost in the corners of every hallway, in every flicker of torchlight, in every breath of autumn air that carried the faint scent of roses.
He left without looking back.
From now on, she would be a memory he
buried alive. The King would fall. The rebels would rise. And he would return to the darkness where he belonged.