Inevitable

At his resolute tone, you finally turn to properly get a look at the stranger you'd been entertaining for the past few minutes. Dressed in a distinct three-piece tuxedo that screamed class and wealth, you felt your heart palpitate out of control when you laid eyes on his handsome features. And when you notice the smile lined with something mischievous and secretive, your stomach drops.

"Oh my God" Covering your face with your hands, you want to cry. There is no way to recover from this level of embarrassment "I'm so sorry. I really didn't mean it"

Rafayel laughs at that, trying to ease the mortification you were clearly experiencing "The prices are obnoxious. Half a mil for a silly painting is not the investment people think it is"

"It's not a silly painting" You defend, peaking at him from between your fingers "It's rather beautiful and yes, I'd love to buy it"

Shaking his head, Rafayel steps closer and stops you from bidding on it "Don't feel obliged to because of what happened. I'm thrilled just to hear someone liked it. My curator was convinced it was a waste to display it"

"It'd be a waste to hide it" Your hands fall away as your eyes find the painting again "It's breathtaking" You stand in silence for a long moment, as if lost to the painting once again. Your gaze roving over it almost lovingly, snagging at every tiny detail before you're distracted by something else.

"Are you here by yourself?" Rafayel joins you, standing next to you and looking at the painting as well, wondering what you were seeing when you looked at it.

"Not by choice" You sigh, head tilting slightly as you peer closer at the desk painted under the window, the scattered pens rolling off the surface, precariously close to the edge. Like breathing too loudly might tip them over "My husband doesn't want to take his tongue out of his secretary's mouth long enough to join me"

Rafayel thinks he's a bad man. Truly wicked of him for enjoying hearing this piece of news.

"Well, I only hope I will measure up in good company in his stead then" Rafayel holds his arm out to you "Would you care to look around some more? If there's any others you like, I'll let them go at your naming price. Without any strings attached"

You stare at his outstretched arm and then back at him. With his ruffled hair and billion-watt smile, it was a moth trying to resist the call of the flame through sheer willpower. Taking his arm, you smile up at him "I'd be delighted to"

By the time the people in the gallery filter out, you've only looked around half of the paintings being displayed. Rafayel is open to all the questions you pose, describing in great length what inspired each piece, how long it took him to make it, the meaning behind it. When you finally finish your rounds, he's set aside four of them for you, some of the most expensive ones. He doesn't tell you that though, he would give them to you if you simply asked. But you're too busy to be doing any asking.

"Oh my God" He's got you braced against the desk in his office, one floor above the gallery. Dress bunched around his fist above your waist as he works in two fingers into your sopping cunt.

You can feel his erection through his pants, pressing incessantly against your ass. Thumb pressing down on your clit, he's got you whimpering as your head falls against his shoulder, writhing in his grip. Your mouth opens on a gasp when he curves them inside you, trying to get a good look at your face, too focused on your pleasure. He's not giving it to you sufficiently and he can tell.

"More?" He asks, adding a third finger as you vigorously nod, crying out when you feel how good he's stretching you out "Use your words, pretty girl"

"God-yes, more more more" Your palm wraps around his nape, bringing his face down to yours so you can kiss his swollen lips again. Hiking you higher against the desk, he's almost got you bent over it with the dizzying pace at which he scissors his fingers inside you.

When his palm rubs against your clit, your orgasm crashes over you. Leaves you heaving against the heavy oak desk as Rafayel kisses his way down your back, his long fingers exploring the expanse of your body before he turns you to face him, deftly unzipping your dress behind you.

"You're exquisite" He breathes as the bodice falls away before he's tearing the remaining material off you. His jacket and vest are tossed aside somewhere, your fingers are untucking his shirt when his lips find yours again, those luminescent orbs searching yours when he pulls away, his request a whisper against your lips "Will you let me paint you sometime?"

You're quiet then, focused on unbuttoning his shirt and letting it fall open. Tracing your fingers over his skin and watching loving the way he twitched under your ministrations. He was truly the most beautiful man you'd ever laid eyes on. So much so that you found him unreal.

It is only when you pull him in closer by tugging on his belt that you finally look back at him "Why wait till later?" Hopping off the desk, you move towards the adjacent workshop Rafayel had shown you during the tour "Come get me, Jack Dawson"

That is how you find yourself on your back over a plain canvas on the floor, two large aubergine colored handprints on your breasts, matching ones on your inner thighs and streaks of it in your hair and face. Rafayel is on top of you, his heavy cock nudging between your folds as his tongue plunges into your mouth, yellow paint marred against his hairline, but his cheeks had patches of brown from where the paint on your face had mixed with his. You'd drawn two identical circles around his nipples and then a crescent moon to finish the smiley face. Rafayel took it all in stride, after all his handprints were everywhere.

"Turn around" He's murmuring, entranced by the way the spilled paint moved under you as you went on your knees, arching your back for him "Need to leave my mark on you" When you felt him swirling paint on your skin, you looked over your shoulder to see him autographing your ass, making you huff out a laugh.

You sobered up fast enough when his free hand found its way into your hair, lifting you up so your back was pressed to his chest "Now" He was whispering against your ear, his cock grinding against your ass "The real mark"

When he bottoms out and your breath catches, momentarily going limp in his arms, he asks "You've adjusted?" You're both slipping in the paint, but Rafayel doesn't seem to mind or care. Raking your fingers through his hair, you hold on for dear life as you nod, crying out when he pulls out to the tip before thrusting all the way inside.

His hips are pounding against yours so hard, that the canvas is shifting beneath you two, tipping over a tiny can of burgundy paint. You're dizzy, barely able to keep your eyes open and oddly fixated on the spilled paint flowing closer towards you.

You've got your cheek smushed into it shortly after as Rafayel's grip on your ass tightens, holding each cheek in a palm as he drives into you at an animalistic pace. He's got you sliding in the paint with every thrust, before his fingers find yours, gripping them over the back of your hand.

Draping his entire body over yours, his breathing is shallow and he's pushing your hair away to kiss your nape "Trying to kill me early, Rose?"

You clench around him even tighter, turning your head so his lips can find yours, some of the paint catching the side of his mouth "Not yet. Need to acquire my diamond first"

That momentarily diverts Rafayel's attention to the stone you're still wearing on your ring finger and even in the throes of pleasure, he can tell he's being unreasonable. Feels the malice taking charge as he tightens his fingers around yours, the rock digging into your skin "Raf-!"

"You don't need a deadbeat husband" He's telling you, hips snapping against yours in vengeance "I can give you everything and more"

Since the first second he'd laid eyes on you, Rafayel had never pegged you down as someone who'd be able to pin a look as cold and chilling as you did now "You don't know what I need"

Flipping you onto your back and throwing your legs over his shoulder, he thrusts into you again, making you gasp and arch into his touch "Try me. I can give you whatever you want"

"Except an orgasm?"

Seething, he presses down on the bulge in your belly, making your hips buck into his "At least give me a challenge, baby" When his thumb finds your clit and rubs it, he knows he's won one over you when you writhe underneath him.

And when his length brushes against that spot inside you, you're a goner, clamping down against his cock and making it torturous for him to move as you milked him for what he was worth. For all his big talk, he's right behind you as he spills into your throbbing cunt till you're leaking.

Elbows streaked with paint are covering your face as you refuse to look at him. Rafayel feels like an asshole as he pulls them away, holding them in his grasp and chases your gaze till you're stubbornly setting it on him again "I'm sorry. It wasn't my place" He admits, even if he hates every word coming out of his mouth. Irrational that he should feel so strongly for a woman he'd met only several hours ago.

You can tell. Eyes dropping to the ring you were still wearing you feel no emotion as you pull it off your finger "I'm sorry too" Holding it out to him, you mumble "Happy?"

Rafayel looks at your paint-streaked face and mussed up hair and his breath catches. In an evening gown, perfectly dolled up, you were stunning. With every color of the rainbow marring your naked skin, existing in his bubble of insanity, you were breathtaking. Pulling you up and into his arms, he nods. Tossing the ring over his back, uncaring of where it landed, he's running his fingers through your tangled hair "Let's get you cleaned up"

"Don't touch the autograph on my ass or I'll kill you"

"You can't drown me, Rose. I know how to swim"

Soft breeze is making the curtains rustle as the early morning light seeps from between them. Rafayel shifts, tugging the makeshift blanket higher to ward off the chill in the air. It smells like wet soil and pavement and even before his eyes completely open, he's attuned to the storm brewing outside.

Sharp and incessant knocks on the door finally rouse him from sleep and as he rubs the drowsiness out of his eyes, he notices his companion is missing. Like she hadn't been here in his atelier, his sacred space at all.

Wrapping the sheet, that he usually used to cover his paintings but had utilized as a makeshift blanket at night, around his waist he goes to open the door.

"We have a problem" Thomas barrages in, surprisingly overlooking Rafayel's clear misconduct and state of undress as he steps into the room "Five paintings are missing from the gallery"

Rafayel closes the door behind him, adjusting the knot of the sheet around his waist before stretching his limbs above his head "Not missing. I set them aside"

"Where?" Thomas whirls at him, gaze dropping to the provisional skirt his boss was wearing. Shrugging, he moved on as he looked around. This wasn't the worst piece of clothing he'd seen Rafayel donning.

Gaze snagging on the painting Rafayel had set by the windows to dry, Rafayel laughs at Thomas' obvious disgust when he immediately clocks how the painting was made. He looks around wearily as if worried he's going to find a naked woman in a similar state somewhere.

"In my office" Rafayel finally says, walking over to inspect if the paint had dried or not. He's wearing a deviant smirk when he remembers how the painting came to be. He'd told you to sign it underneath and keeping up with the joke, you'd signed it Rose.

Rafayel traced the freehand rose he'd fingerpainted around it, suddenly coming to the realization that he didn't know your real name. How had he overlooked something so simple? How could he have not asked you your name a single time throughout the night?

"That's not possible" Thomas huffs, joining Rafayel by the window "I already checked your office"

"Inside the locker?" A nagging feeling pulls at the back of his mind as he traces the curves of the name you'd signed.

"Yes. It was the first place I checked"

Rafayel's brows furrow at that "How many paintings did you say?" He clearly remembered setting them inside canvas bags and locking them up before he'd gotten...handsy with you. When Thomas holds up his entire palm, he finally asks "Which ones?"

Thomas hands over a list of all the pieces that had been displayed, five of which he's highlighted in red. Rafayel feels a headache building behind his eyes when he notices you also took the one he'd first encountered you in front of.

"I don't really understand why that one..." Thomas begins, noticing the one Rafayel had paused on. He's soon distracted by something sticking out from beneath the painting and he pulls the torn sheet of paper out, about to read what's written when Rafayel snatches it out of his hand "Who was here with you last night?"

Rafayel grits his teeth, saying nothing because he can't. He'd been so entranced that he never got around to asking your name. Or who you were. Where you were coming from.

The nagging feeling takes form in the thought that you'd cried out his name when you'd had sex with him. Rafayel had never found out your name because he never gave you his.

The headache blossoms into a full-blown migraine when the clear conclusion presents itself. Not only had he played directly into your hand, he'd basically offered up his paintings on a silver platter for you to steal. Feeling his thoughts swirling, Rafayel chooses to instead focus back on the piece of paper he took from Thomas.

Dear Jack, Thank you for last night. But thank you even more for the paintings. I took a couple of the most expensive ones and a few for my personal collection :) Alas, 8 million is the investment we think it is. And thank you for the personal autograph. Love, Rose For the record, I do believe you could've made good on your promise to give me everything.

Rafayel crumples the paper in his palm, about to toss it when he notices something glinting beneath the table. Retrieving it, his palm unfurls around the ring you'd given him, the stone broken.

It was a fake wedding ring. He'd thrown a tantrum over a fake ring last night. Felt himself ascending above the clouds when you took it off your finger, now belatedly realizing that you hadn't been second guessing your motives, you didn't value it enough to care when you handed it over.

"It's fine" Thomas, bless his soul, is good on picking up cues and refuses to ask any further questions "We've got trackers inside all your canvas bags for times like this"

Rafayel's waiting for the anger to wash over him at your deceit but only relief follows. He's incredulous that the first emotion he experienced was solace at your marital status being a sham. Not fury or rage at your deception, instead feeling relieved that he wouldn't have to wrestle you out of a marriage.

"Find her" Rafayel finally bites out, the broken stone digging into his palm as he clamped it around his palm. Thomas nods, moving to the door to contact the authorities, wondering if Rafayel's in his correct state of mind when he thinks he hears him mumble,

"I owe her a diamond"