Chapter Text
Rafaela is growing restless. She’s been restless.
Tamara knows the signs by now. The slow cadence of her breathing increasingly interrupted by huffing sighs. The way she wiggles her toes, twitches her nose. Little movements she can get away with, small enough that Tamara doesn’t feel the need to chide.
She’d asked for a break forty minutes ago and Tamara had denied her—had promised to make it worth her while if she stayed still for just a little while longer. There’d been a swath of sunlight spilling over the curve of her belly, her hip, that she’d wanted to capture before it was gone completely. But they’re pushing the bounds of Rafaela’s patience now, and she knows it.
Rafaela flexes her fingers, spreads them wide and then lets them relax. They settle back exactly as they had been, exactly where Tamara had placed them ages ago when she’d started her work, and it sends a little flutter of pleased satisfaction through her belly. For all her complaining about having to sit still for hours, Rafaela is so terribly good at it. Tamara has had plenty of people sit for portraits now, but none of them compare to her lover. None are so trusting of her vision, none require so few readjustments, none make the time spin and stretch and slow quite the way Rafaela does.
She could spend hours—has spent hours—simply tracing the shapes of her. The curve of her breast, the line of her neck, the twisting spiral of a lock of hair, the effortless elegance of her fingers, the perfect angle of her bent knee. There’s nothing Tamara loves more than this. This will be the fourth time she’s committed Rafaela to canvas and every time she finds some new part of her to love. To linger over.
“If I’m not moving, you’d better be,” Rafaela warns, her voice a little rough from lack of use. Or maybe lack of sleep—they’d been awake half the night, wrapped up in each other, and then almost as soon as they’d woken, Tamara had caught sight of her at just the right angle, in just the right light, and insisted she let her capture the moment.
Tamara’s brow furrows at Rafaela’s griping. “Excuse me?”
“Your hand hasn’t moved in at least a minute. And my back is starting to ache.”
She’s right, Tamara realizes. For the last few minutes, she’s just been… admiring. Studying. Basking in the view.
And that swath of light has faded, shifting with the movement of the sun outside her window. She’s captured as much of it as she can, so she waves a hand at Rafaela, tells her, “Take a break,” as she sets her tools down.
“Thank God,” Rafaela mutters, her legs swinging over the edge of the bed almost immediately. Her arms rise above her head, stretching to one side, then the other, her spine popping softly. Tamara is struck dumb for a moment at the sight of her. The arcing curve of finger, to elbow, to rib, to hip. God, if she didn’t think Rafaela would flat out refuse, she’d ask her to stay just like that while she sketches it out on paper.
Their eyes meet and Rafaela scowls, eyes narrowing as she declares, “Absolutely not.”
Tamara laughs softly, crossing the distance between them. “‘Absolutely not’ what, dear?”
“I know that look,” Rafaela tells her, hands setting on Tamara’s hips. “It’s the same one you gave me this morning before you trapped me in this bed for hours.”
“Trapped you,” Tamara scoffs, teasing, “I’m sure it was absolute torture lounging about.”
“Lounging,” Rafaela repeats, the word dripping with derision. “I wouldn’t call staying perfectly still for two hours lounging.”
“Mm, and what would you call it?” Tamara smooths her palms over Rafaela’s bare shoulders, revels in the shift of muscle under warm skin as her lover grasps at the edges of Tamara’s open robe, tugging until it sinks down to her elbows. They’d woken nude and Tamara hadn’t really bothered to dress before she began her work. She’d swiped last night’s slip from the floor and shrugged into her robe, and that had been that.
“Torture,” Rafaela tells her, but she can see the light in her eyes, the curve at the corner of her mouth. She’s exaggerating and they both know it. Still, she continues, “Feeling myself grow older by the second. Watching my life tick by minute by minute.”
Tamara snorts a laugh, sighs, “So dramatic,” as she lets her hands fall away from Rafaela’s shoulders, her robe slipping to puddle around their feet.
“You wouldn’t last thirty minutes.”
Tamara rolls her eyes, insists, “I would.”
“Mm.” Rafaela’s hands are at her hips again, bunching the silk of her slip, pushing it up, up, up. Once it’s joined the robe and all of last night’s clothing on the floor, Rafaela skims her palms down Tamara’s ribs, over her belly, and urges, “Prove it.”
Tamara’s brows lift, lips curving into a smirk. “Prove it?”
Rafaela tugs at one of Tamara’s thighs and then the other, until she’s straddling her on the edge of the bed. All the while, telling her to, “Prove it. Stay exactly where I put you for thirty minutes, while I work, and then you tell me if it’s torture to stay still when your body is itching to move.”
Tamara’s pulse picks up, her breath hitching when Rafaela grasps her ass and gives it a squeeze. She nods, and swallows, presses her luck by telling her lover, “Challenge accepted—not that it’s much of one.”
“Oh, I’ll make sure it is,” Rafaela promises, much to Tamara’s dread and delight—and then the room is spinning as Rafaela uses her grip to swing Tamara back to the mattress. She lands with a little bounce and laugh, grinning up at Rafaela as her lover kneels on the mattress and reaches for Tamara’s hands, drawing them up over her head and wrapping her fingers around the bars of the headboard.
“Keep those there,” she tells her, squeezing once before letting go. Tamara obeys, shimmying her hips a little to get more comfortable—until she catches Rafaela’s warning gaze.
“Stop wriggling.” The order is given with ease and not much heat, so Tamara just smiles and rolls her shoulders against the pillow. Rafaela’s eyes narrow, her hands reaching to shift Tamara’s hips, rearranging her legs, lifting her head to adjust the pillow beneath it. “There,” she declares when she’s finished.
There’s not much artistry to the way she’s been posed—no elegant lines or pleasant curves. She’s flat on her back, knees bent, feet planted on the mattress far enough apart that she’s very… exposed.
“If you’re planning on drawing me, the pose is rather obscene,” she tells Rafaela, unable to keep the amusem*nt from her voice.
“I never said anything about drawing you,” Rafaela reminds her, leaning in close for a kiss full of heat and promise. “Now stay just like that—that was the deal, remember?”
Tamara hums her agreement, adjusting her grip subtly on the headboard. But when her lover rises from the bed and starts to walk away, she can’t help but turn her head to follow the movement, asking, “Where are you going?”
Rafaela turns back. “I am going to get a drink, because I have been lying on that bed for two hours. You haven’t even made it two minutes.”
She reaches over, plants her index finger in the middle of Tamara’s forehead and uses it to nudge her head back toward where it was—looking straight up at the ceiling. “Stay.”
And then she’s gone again.
Tamara lets her eyes fall shut, focusing on the sounds of Rafaela moving around her studio. Her soft footfalls, the trickle of her filling a glass of water, the soft clink as the cup settles on the countertop.
The warm daylight makes everything glow a bit orange behind her closed eyelids, and she can hear the soft sounds of her own breathing. Time starts to stretch and slow. It can’t have been more than a minute or two, but she feels relaxed. Settled.
Rafaela’s chosen pose may be revealing, but at least it’s comfortable; she could have done a lot worse in terms of revenge. Tamara imagines her thighs might strain after a while with her knees bent and spread the way they are, but she’s determined to tough it out. To prove her point. Staying still isn’t torture. Stillness can be a blessing. A reprieve.
“You better not fall asleep on me.” Rafaela’s voice comes from the bedside; Tamara hadn’t heard her return, but she does hear the soft sound of ceramic settling on wood. A cup on the bedside table, she thinks.“I’m not sleeping,” she answers, her head turning instinctively toward the sound of Rafaela’s voice, eyes blinking open.
She finds Rafaela looking at her, head co*cked, with a look that screams Really? “Thirty minutes. Starting over,” she tells her, half-amused, half-exasperated, nudging her chin back to where she wants it.
“Oh, honestly,” Tamara huffs, pressing her thumbs against the warming metal of the slats, careful not to move in a way Rafaela might notice. “I let you turn your head.”
“Do you?” Rafaela questions, in a tone that makes it perfectly clear they both know she doesn’t.
“If I’m done with it,” Tamara mutters, closing her eyes again and making Rafaela chuckle softly before she joins Tamara on the bed, the mattress shifting beneath her weight.
“Well…” Tamara feels a hand on her knee and then the warm brush of Rafaela’s skin against her inner thighs, the dip of the pillow next to her ear as Rafaela’s fist settles there. “I’m not done with yours yet.” And then the scent of her—skin and sweat, faded perfume and lingering smoke—settling over her like a cloud just before their bellies press together. She inhales at the sensation, her lips parting just in time for Rafaela to cover them with her own, her tongue dipping in to tease against Tamara’s.
Tamara lets out a pleased little hum, pressing up into the kiss, but it ends almost as quickly as it had started, Rafaela pulling away and leaving her wanting more.
“Look at me,” she urges.
Tamara’s lashes flutter open, and all she can see is Rafaela. Her dark eyes and her tempting mouth are hovering so close, it takes a considerable amount of willpower to leave her hands on the headboard and not pull her into another kiss.
There’s a look in Rafaela’s eyes—determination and desire—that makes Tamara’s heart pick up pace. The hand not buried in the pillow rises to caress Tamara’s cheek, her neck, her collarbone, Rafaela’s voice velvety and rich as she instructs, “Don’t move unless I move you. Don’t twitch. Don’t arch your back. Don’t lift those hips, or move those legs.” She presses another kiss to her mouth. “Stay.” Her jaw. “Perfectly.” Her pulse. “Still.”
Then Rafaela bites, not hard enough to hurt, just enough that the nip of her teeth against the sensitive skin of Tamara’s neck has her gasping and arching her back, goosebumps breaking across her skin. Rafaela snorts a laugh into Tamara’s neck, collapsing fully on top of her and chuckling, “You are even worse at this than I thought you’d be.”
“You’re not playing fair,” Tamara accuses, snickering. “I have you lie still so I can paint. I do not have you lie still while I do things I know will rile you up.”
Rafaela levers up onto an elbow, trailing her fingers down Tamara’s chest, weaving a figure eight around her beauty marks, circling her nipple lightly and watching it pucker. “No, you have me lie still and spend half the time looking at me like you want to do exactly this. While I have nothing to do but think about it.”
She punctuates the accusation by cupping Tamara’s breast and leaning in to suck lightly at her nipple. Tamara squeezes the rungs of the headboard and tries very hard not to arch up into the sweet sensation.
She can hear the unsteadiness in her own voice as she attempts to tease, “Oh, is that what you think about while I paint you?”
Rafaela releases her nipple with a soft pop, flicks her tongue against it, and says, “I think about a lot of things. But yes.” And then her mouth is on Tamara again, her attentions maddeningly light—enough to make Tamara’s breath thicken and her toes curl, but not enough to chase bliss beneath her skin the way she knows Rafaela is capable of.
“Well, won’t that be a distracting thought the next time you sit for me…” she muses, fighting the urge to drop a hand to Rafaela’s head and weave her fingers through her hair. To hold her just where she wants her and press up into her mouth. She can imagine how it would go any other night—the way Rafaela would moan and suck harder, or maybe chuckle and tease, make her wait a minute before giving in. Tonight, though, it would only serve to prove she really can’t stay still for more than five minutes, and Tamara won’t have that.
She squeezes the headboard again, harder this time.
“Good,” Rafaela tells her. “Then we can both be distracted.” She scoots up just a little, enough for them to trade another kiss—this one lush and needy, lingering long enough for Tamara to paint it with all of her frustrated desire. When it finally breaks, they’re both a little bit breathless, Rafaela’s eyes darker and more heated than before. “Now hush—you tell me it’s distracting when I talk too much.”
Tamara scoffs at that, but doesn’t argue. (It’s true.) Instead, she watches as Rafaela drops lazy kisses over the same path her fingers had trailed, making her way back toward her chest. She’s not usually this gentle, and Tamara is torn between being grateful (it’s not so very difficult to lie still when Rafaela is pressing a line of soft closed-mouth kisses from one nipple to the other) or frustrated (she’s aroused now, acutely aware of the heat and ache between her thighs, and she wants more).
Tamara isn’t sure how she’d expected Rafaela to be spending this interminable half hour—she’d made it very clear she intended to do something that would make it difficult to stay still—but Tamara hadn’t expected that something to be slowly undoing her, kiss by kiss. Hadn’t expected that she’d spend long, drawn-out minutes treating each nipple to slow sucks, and teasing licks, and pillowy-soft kisses, until Tamara grows so sensitive that even the gentle touches have her breath shaky and her thighs clenching.
She presses the soles of her feet into the mattress, tries not to rock her hips up against Rafaela despite the relief she knows she’d find in the friction. Normally she loves this—the closeness, the feel of skin against skin, the languorous lovemaking that goes on for ages—but right now it feels like being taunted. So close to the relief she craves and yet unable to reach for it, unable to shift, to grasp, to seek out her own pleasure.
She’s rarely this passive with Rafaela, and for a moment it makes her feel terribly restless. Itchy underneath her skin, her muscles tensing, her brow furrowing. She slides one hand up the bar it’s clinging to just to move something—and Rafaela immediately lifts her head.
“Put that back,” she orders mildly.
“It’s still on the bed frame,” Tamara reasons, managing at the last second to keep herself from arching her back in an attempt to urge Rafaela back to her breasts. Back to anything that might lead to some relief.
“The angle is all wrong now, dear,” Rafaela tells her, in a tone that feels very pointed. Very much like an imitation of Tamara herself. “You’re ruining the lines.”
Tamara scowls and slides her hand back down, not overly thrilled with the taste of her own medicine.
But then Rafaela dips her head back down—sucking harder this time, her mouth on Tamara’s left nipple while her fingers find the right, giving it soft pinches and slow squeezes and oh God, it feels divine. Her fingers clench, the muscles in her back tighten, and she almost breaks again. Almost arches, almost lifts her heel from the mattress to press her knee against Rafaela’s ribs; almost clutches at her shoulders and urges Yes, just like that.
Almost, but not quite. She manages to stay still, but only just, and the effort it takes leaves her with only enough sense to breathe a ragged, “Rafaela…”
And then Rafaela does the thing Tamara’s been craving for several long minutes—rocks her body down into the cradle of Tamara’s thighs, the friction of their bodies just as sweet as she’d imagined. Tamara cries out, her thighs tensing, her fingers squeezing. “Oh, God! Rafa-elaaa…”
Rafaela has the audacity to laugh at her torment, a low chuckle that hums against Tamara’s skin and leaves a streak of goosebumps in its wake before she eases off and begins to trail her kisses south.
“You want me to break,” Tamara gasps, her cheeks flushing hot at Rafaela’s obvious intent. How can she possibly be expected to lie still with Rafaela’s tongue between her thighs?
“Not break,” her lover reasons (Tamara has her eyes shut tightly again but she can hear the smile in Rafaela’s voice). “Just realize I’m right.”
Right. Right. They’re proving a point, and Tamara is determined to win the argument. Determined to prove that she can stay still, despite Rafaela’s dirty tactics. That it isn’t mind-numbing torture to remain unmoving for a just a little while. It’s only thirty minutes—less than, now. She can stay still through another however many minutes of pleasant torture. She’s endured worse.
Still, she accuses, “Sabotage,” unsurprised that Rafaela’s only response is to laugh against the skin of her belly. She’d point out that the lack of response is tantamount to an admission of guilt if Rafaela didn’t chose that exact moment to reposition her legs, nudging one foot a little further to the side, and lifting the other off the mattress entirely, shifting her thigh so it rests on Rafaela’s shoulder.
Tamara becomes suddenly and acutely aware of just how much she’d been using the mattress as an anchor. She has no idea how she’s going to keep that leg still once Rafaela starts to use her mouth.
But, God, she can’t wait to find out.
