Paint Me Beautiful

bring our lips back together, to connect to something deeper within ourselves. There's a split second where I understand completely what Emmett meant about needing each other. I get it, albeit briefly, before the feeling disappears in a frenzied rush of hormones as his bare belly presses against mine, hard muscles sliding across my ribcage as he slips his thumbs under my bikini top and pushes it up to free my breasts.
    Even a knock at my door isn't enough to separate us.
    “ Claire?” my mom asks as the music changes to Set Fire to the Rain by Adele. Wonderful. Good music and good company. I feel happy for the first time since I graduated high school. “Are you in there, sweetie?” I don't answer her and after awhile, she goes away, and I can focus completely on Emmett again. I bite at his lip as he sits up and helps me out of my top. He looks down at me, fully nude except for my heels, and I can see that he's taking me in, but he isn't judging me. I'm not too skinny or too fat or too anything to Emmett Sinclair. Right now, I am just Claire Simone and inside this shell of a body, there is something more attractive to him, more enticing than perky breasts or flat bellies or pretty faces. We're perfect strangers, he and I, but somehow, I feel like I've known him forever.
    “ Be right back,” he whispers as he stands up and strips down to nothing, revealing a body that's healthy, strong, real. I look at him standing there, tall and proud, with food in his belly and confidence in his heart, and I feel ashamed. All of that self-hate and disgust I have with myself comes rushing back, filling my lungs and threatening to drown me. I scoot back on the bed and reach for the crocheted throw that lies crumpled nearby. I have to cover myself before he sees, before he realizes what a horrible person I am inside. What if he can see that circle of pain? What if it sucks him in and hurts him, too? “Claire,” Emmett says, crawling onto the bed and taking the edge of the blanket gently. “Don't.”
    “ I'm disgusting,” I tell him as he moves my cover-up away and slides his fingers along the lines of my ribcage. I grab at his hair, but I can't stop him from pressing his mouth to the skin of my collarbone. Without words, he respectfully disagrees with me, working his way down to my bellybutton and pausing there with his fingers trailing after him, stopping at my hips, holding me still as my back arches and my breath escapes my lips in a sigh.
    When he looks up at me, his brown eyes catch on my gray ones and hold me still while he sits up and slips the condom on. I want to look down, examine him, but I can't tear my gaze away from his face. With the light and life that burns in his eyes, I don't feel the need to stare at the rest of his body. It just doesn't seem important.
    Then he's leaning over me and my eyelids are fluttering closed. Torrid lips close on mine and a fiery heat settles between my legs as Emmett pushes into me, sliding deep until our bodies are locked together in a fervent tangle of limbs. His warm body moves against mine while his hands explore me, lingering on my breasts, my ass, gliding through my hair.
    We never stop kissing.
    Our mouths remain locked together while inside, I can feel this heart-stopping cathexis rising to a boiling point, beginning at the glimmer of white-hot heat where Emmett's body joins with mine and threading through the bones of my body until it bursts out of me in a cataclysmic orgasm that brings my ribcage up off the bed and throws my head back.
    Emmett continues to thrust inside of me, enhancing the pleasure that's boiling through my veins until I feel a second explosion building right on top of the first. I grab his hair hard with one hand and squeeze tight while I cross my ankles behind Emmett's back. I try to reign myself in a bit, taking deep, slow breaths until his moans match mine, hot and wet and heavy, escaping out of us in the brief respites between kissing. When I think he's close, I let myself go and pulse around him, drawing out a small scream from my throat as he grunts and shudders above me, warm body collapsing onto mine, melting against me.
    Our chests rise and fall together as we gasp for breath and hold one another tight.
    I fall asleep fast, drawn deep into the arms of unconsciousness by sheer exhaustion and a body that's weaker than I realize, that's begging me to find some sort of value within myself. Fortunately for me, Emmett already sees it, and he's