The Painter and the Prince Who Cannot Be Painted novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Hold Still

The prince cannot sit still for a portrait until the painter snaps an order; the first kiss, and a hand between them, follows.

By the second night Do-yun had a neck, a shoulder, and a robe collar, and still no face.

Every time he found the line of the nose, Gyeol turned his head.

Every time he sketched an eye, Gyeol blinked, laughed, or scratched the scar on his eyebrow.

"I'm sorry," Gyeol said, not sounding sorry at all. "My face doesn't know what to do when it's looked at."

"It only has to sit."

"It's been in a locked yard for three years. It's forgotten."

Do-yun wiped the charcoal off his fingers onto a rag and pulled a fresh sheet of paper over the board.

This was his fourteenth start.

He was a good painter, the best face-painter of his year, and he had never failed to catch a sitter in one evening.

He glanced up, and Gyeol was grinning at him, with his hair spilling over one shoulder and his robe hanging open to the belt.

Do-yun's chest went tight.

He was very aware of how big the man was, and how warm the room was, and how alone they were behind that wall.

"Prince Gyeol, I need you to hold still."

"I'm trying."

"No, you're not. You're enjoying yourself."

"A little," Gyeol admitted, and shifted again.

Something in Do-yun snapped.

"Hold still," he said, in a voice he did not know he had.

Gyeol froze.

It was not a stiff freeze.

His whole body went quiet at once, his breath deepened, and his dark eyes locked on Do-yun's and lit.

The grin was gone.

His lips were parted a little, and a flush climbed from his open collar up his throat.

Do-yun stared at him, with the charcoal in his hand, and understood two things at the same time.

The first was that Gyeol could hold still perfectly well.

The second was that Gyeol had liked being told.

"Again," Gyeol said, very low. "Say it again, Painter."

Do-yun put down the charcoal.

His heart was hammering so hard he could hear it in his ears.

He walked across the room, and Gyeol's eyes followed him without his head moving an inch.

He stopped in front of him and looked down at the huge, still, waiting man.

"Hold still," Do-yun said.

A shiver ran through Gyeol from his shoulders to his knees.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, Master Painter."

Do-yun bent and kissed him.

It was clumsy for one breath, and then it was not.

Gyeol's mouth was hot and soft and tasted of barley tea.

He kissed back slowly, and a small rough sound came out of his chest.

His hands came up toward Do-yun's waist.

Do-yun pulled back an inch.

"Did I say you could move?"

Gyeol's hands stopped in the air.

His whole face had gone open, hungry and amazed.

"Put them behind your head," Do-yun said. "Both hands. Keep them there."

Gyeol did it.

He laced his fingers behind his skull, and that spread his chest wide under the open robe.

Do-yun could see every line of him in the lamplight.

The thick shoulders, the scarred ribs, and the dark hair on his belly that ran down under the sash.

He had painted nudes in the Bureau, and none of them had ever made his mouth go dry.

He knelt between Gyeol's knees and undid the sash.

The robe fell open all the way.

Gyeol was hard already, thick and flushed and curving up against his stomach.

"Three years," Gyeol said, hoarse. "Forgive me, I won't last."

"You don't have to last."

Do-yun wrapped his ink-stained fingers around him.

Gyeol made a sound, and his hips jerked.

"Hold still."

"I'm... yes. Yes."

His hips settled, trembling.

Do-yun stroked him slowly, root to tip, thumb dragging over the wet slit, and watched his face.

It was the face he could not paint.

It was open and wrecked and young, and it changed with every pull of his hand.

Gyeol's eyes were half closed.

His lips were parted, and the scar on his eyebrow jumped when Do-yun twisted his wrist.

"Look at me," Do-yun said.

Gyeol opened his eyes.

"Don't look away. I want to see you."

"Do-yun..."

It was the first time he had said the name.

It went through Do-yun, and he sped up his hand.

Gyeol's thighs flexed and shook.

His fingers locked behind his head until the knuckles went white, and he did not move his arms once.

"I can't," he said. "I can't last, I'm going to..."

"Then do it. Come for me."

Gyeol came with a low, broken groan.

It spilled hot over Do-yun's knuckles and onto his own belly, in long pulses, while his eyes stayed open and fixed on Do-yun's face.

Do-yun milked him through it, gently, until Gyeol hissed and caught his wrist.

Neither of them said anything for a while.

Gyeol's chest rose and fell, and the lamp flame leaned in a draft.

"Three years," Gyeol said at last, and his voice cracked in the middle.

"I know."

"No, I mean it. I had forgotten that a hand could be warm."

Do-yun's throat hurt.

He wiped his fingers on the rag.

Then, because Gyeol was watching him with wide helpless eyes, he leaned up and kissed the corner of his mouth.

"You can put your arms down."

"Can I?"

"You can."

Gyeol let them fall, and they closed around Do-yun at once.

He pulled him in against his chest, still half undressed and shaking, and pressed his face into Do-yun's neck.

Do-yun held the back of his head and felt the wild beat of his heart under his own ribs.

He was the one holding a prince, and he did not feel like a junior painter at all.

"Your turn," Gyeol murmured into his skin. "Tell me what you want."

"Tomorrow," Do-yun said. "I want to do this again tomorrow."

"Tomorrow." Gyeol laughed softly against him. "Then I'll hold very still."

Outside, the first grey light touched the paper window.

A key scraped in the lock of the front gate.

Do-yun looked at his easel, where a neck and a shoulder and a collar sat on the silk with no face.

Then he scrambled up, wiped his hands, and went out into the yard to meet Captain Jang and an ink-stained, innocent face.

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