"You have to feel it respond," he murmured, his breath warm against my ear as he stood behind me. "It's not like commercial pigment. It has memory. Character." His chest pressed against my back, and through the layers of our clothes, I could feel the unmistakable hardness of his arousal against my lower back. My breath caught, but I didn't pull away. "Do you feel the difference?"
The bone ash pulsed beneath my fingers in time with my suddenly racing heartbeat. His proximity overwhelmed every sense—the heat of his body, his scent of sandalwood and something darker, the weight of his attention focused entirely on me.
"Yes," I whispered, barely managing the word.
I turned my head slightly. Our faces were so close I could see the individual flecks of silver in his gray eyes, could feel his breath ghost across my lips. For a suspended moment, we hovered there, the inevitability of a kiss hanging between us like a held breath.
"Eyes on your work," Ezra said softly, but his voice had roughened, gone deeper. His hand settled on my hip, steadying me as I turned back to face the canvas. "Keep painting. Show me you understand the medium."
My hand trembled as I lifted the brush again. The bone ash seemed heavier now, weighted with significance and the acute awareness of Ezra's body pressed against mine. His hand began to move, sliding from my hip around to my belly, fingers spreading wide against the fabric of my shirt.
"Steady strokes," he instructed, though his own breathing had become less controlled. "Let the material guide you."
His hand moved higher, tracing the muscles of my stomach. When his fingers ghosted over my chest and found my nipple through the thin fabric, I gasped, the brush jerking across the canvas in an uncontrolled arc.
"Focus," he said, but his voice cracked slightly on the word. "Back to the painting, Micah."
I tried to obey, tried to concentrate on the bone ash and oil spreading across the canvas, but every nerve ending had become hyperaware of his touch. His lips pressed against the nape of my neck, so gently it might have been accidental if not for the way his breath shuddered against my skin.
"Yes," he breathed as I managed another stroke with the brush. "You're understanding it now. The way the ash accepts your intention, responds to your touch."
His hand drifted lower, fingertips tracing the waistband of my jeans before settling over my cock. The first gentle pressure of his palm made my knees buckle.
"Ezra," I breathed, my voice wrecked.
"I've got you," he said against my neck. "Keep painting. Be good and keep working while I take care of you."
His hand moved in slow, deliberate strokes, the friction of denim almost too much and not nearly enough. I tried to focus on the canvas, on the bone ash that connected us to something larger than ourselves, but my vision kept blurring.
"Does this feel good?" he asked against my ear, his hand stilling momentarily. "Tell me what you need."
"Yes," I gasped, pushing back against him. "It's—God, it's so good."
"Do you want more?" His fingers traced the outline of my cock through the denim, teasing. "Tell me how you want to be touched, Micah. Harder? Softer?"
"Harder," I breathed, my hips canting forward desperately. "Please, I need—"
"Faster?" he suggested, his hand moving in a maddeningly slow rhythm. "Or should I take my time? Make you wait for it?"
"Please," I whimpered, past pride now. "Faster. I can't—please, Ezra, I need more."
"Such beautiful manners," he murmured, rewarding me with firmer pressure that made my knees weak. "When was the last time someone touched you like this? When was the last time someone took care of you?"
"Never," I admitted, the word torn from somewhere deep. "No one's ever—"
"And when did you last take care of yourself?" His thumb circled the head of my cock through my jeans, and I suddenly couldn’t think. "When did you last allow yourself this?"
Heat flooded my face. "Weeks. Maybe... maybe longer. The medication they put me on made it hard to... and I thought if I didn't, maybe the thoughts would stop. I didn’t realize…I didn’t know what I was missing."
"My sweet boy," he murmured, and there was genuine tenderness beneath the desire. "No wonder your work remains incomplete. How can you understand the ecstasy of creation when you deny yourself the most fundamental pleasures? How can you capture transcendence in your art if you've never allowed yourself to experience it in your body?"
His hand continued its slow exploration as he made his argument, a professor even now. "Art is about truth, about capturing the full spectrum of human experience. But you're cutting yourself off from essential knowledge. Would you like me to teach you? To show you how pleasure and creation are inextricably linked?"
"Yes," I gasped, past shame now, past everything but need. "Yes, please, Daddy—"
The word slipped out before I could catch it, and my whole body went rigid with horror.
But Ezra's hand stilled, his breathing harsh against my neck. Then his grip tightened around my cock through the denim, not painful but firm, possessive, approving. "Say it again."
