"Love was a feeling completely bound up with color, like thousands of rainbows superimposed one on top of the other." – Paulo Coelho

"What do you think?" I questioned as I turned on my seat, my eyes wandering towards the man behind me. "It's beautiful, Dante. You did a splendid job," Julian replied.

In front of us stood my painting easel and on its frame was the completed painting of Julian himself, the painting that I had left unfinished after our first passionate night. Others would wonder for sure why I finished this after such a long time. Although even I didn't know why. It just came to me but I paid no further attention to it because in one way or another, it did grant me the opportunity to spend time with him again. Julian spun on his heels and I noticed him put his dress shirt on.

"You're leaving already?" I asked, somehow silently hoping that he'll stay a little while longer with me. Honestly what was happening to me?

Julian frowned at me in confusion but still smiled softly, "Well I am but if you want me to stay, then I'll stay." Upon his answer, my heart leaped in delight. The mere thought of me being with him for a longer time brought me unimaginable happiness. So, smiling at him in return, I responded, "Then please stay."

What should I do to keep him preoccupied? I concurred as I looked around the room in a chance to find something that could entertain him so he won't think of ending our time too soon. Then I remembered the painting equipment he bought for me as a surprise gift. Surely, this will be a perfect opportunity to put those things to good use.

"Do you want me to teach you how to paint?" I asked of him and his eyes widened.

"I don't know how to paint, Dante," he reasoned but instead of convincing me, it bode me promising chances to be closer to him more than I would do before. Besides, he taught me how to play the piano so I owe him conversely.

"I know that's why I'm going to teach you. Now come and sit here." I summoned him on my seat in eagerness.

He seemed hesitant for a moment but soon gave up trying to change my mind. I stood up before miming him to take the empty seat. I removed the used canvas from the easel frame before placing a clean one. I was getting excited, I knew as the beating sensation in my chest remained the same like it had been since we left the Town Square a week before. It had been erratic especially when I waited for us to meet again. I couldn't point out if missing was an appropriate meaning to describe my feelings from the days I was not with him. He was everything I thought of and it was maddening me.

More so, even now, he was all I want to think of as my heart hammered in me in a ridiculous pace.

"You're going to let me use that?" my gorgeous lover Julian asked in incredulity as he sighted me holding the wooden craft case, I chuckled in response. "Of course, what else do you think?" I teased him in a charming way while I handed him the case as he sighed in defeat. He took it from my hold however he didn't open it right away. Instead he simply sat in front of me without a word slipping from his lips.

Sooner than later, he inquired, "What do I draw?" To which I found him too adorable.

He was so endearing for his own good. There I felt my heart raced ahead of me again but I dismissed it as I searched my mind for an idea, a simplest idea for him to picture in his thoughts and of course for him to paint easily.

"How about you draw an apple?" I said him to which his face fumed at, then he replied in half-hearted annoyance, "Are you perchance trying to embarrass me, Dante?"

"Do I? It's not like you can paint me shirtless too, Julian." I reasoned. He groaned as he tried to search himself for a better idea than drawing an apple but against better judgement, he can't think of any that can be drawn easily than that. I held back myself from laughing because it will upset him no doubt. To think I'll have my kind requite on him so soon, this will be what he gets for teaching me those children rhymes.

"Fine but promised me you won't laugh, yes?" he warranted of me and I nodded with crossed fingers behind me before moving behind him with his back pressed against my broad chest. My heart leaped upon our physical contact and it brought me a content feeling.

Julian opened the craft case and he picked up an oil brush which he dipped it inside the red oil paint. I snaked my hand from his shoulder and letting it slide on his arm until it reached his own hand. I grabbed them in a gentle grasp before guiding it to the neat canvas in front of us. He let my fingers interlaced with his as we both held onto the paintbrush and letting it dance on the smooth surface of the plain-woven fabric.

The strong smell of oil paint wasn't enough to overwhelm the lavender scent of his shampoo. I found my eyelids becoming heavy against the dominating heat of his body to which I gladly surrendered The serenity of his breathing, the cadence of his heartbeats and the pleasant sound of his humming were what filled me whole. Something flew around the inside of my stomach but I paid no concern to it. My free hand soon wrapped itself onto his torso and I thought I heard a soft moan escaped from him. He titled his head to the side and I found it a chance to descend my nose from the back of his ear and into the tender skin of his neck.

He continued drawing despite the distraction I was doing to him. Something was igniting in me but it was not lust or sexual desire like always. Instead it was a strong feeling that had me dreaming to hold him like this for eternity, and a strong feeling that had me desiring to always have him in my arms. I murmured something but unable to complete it. I didn't know what I intended to say to. I was not sure if it was the usual phrase of mine telling him I like him but somehow those words were not enough to define the immense sensation inside my heart.

To put it simply, I don't know what it was and I can't put it into words.

I wanted to be scared of this foreign emotions and certainly I wanted to ignore it. However why do I felt so happy like I wanted to jump from a tall mountain cliff with a smile in my face? I was feeling this endless gravity pulling me down to a free fall. Why do I felt like I was falling into something?

"Did you say something, Dante?" Julian asked. Blinking my eyes open only to see him looking at me straight in the eyes, I could only simply do the same as those grey pools had me spellbound. It was only then I fathomed that they were so beautiful, so beautiful that it brought me breathless.

I didn't know they were so beautiful. What had I been looking at, all this time?

***

However, no rational reason came to me in regards to all the changes I felt but only the pounding of the irrational heart inside me. Silence invaded the short distance in between us although it later faded when I bequeathed a glance at his drawing and just like that I broke into fanatical laughter. I buried my face to his shoulder in attempt to hold myself steady.

"Why are you laughing?" he doubted. Really? He didn't even know how his drawing looked like?

"Do you know what an apple is?" I inquired him, clutching onto my stomach in endeavor to contain my laugher from erupting more. He was really endearing for his own good.

"Yes I know what an apple is." He assumed to me with a growing irritation in him.

"Then please tell me why it looks like a crab without legs?" I pointed it out to him and he frowned.

"It's an apple, Dante." he insisted.

"No it's a legless crab, Julian. An apple doesn't have that shape. Trust me even a child knows the difference between an apple and a crab." I explained to him while laughing on my feet and he flushed scarlet red upon comprehending the little fault he made in his drawing.

"It's because you're distracting me!" he cried. So now he blamed me?

I closed my eyes as I tried to calm the laughter in me but it was so funny that I can't help it however my laughter died when I felt a liquid sensation assaulted the side of my face. Another laughter erupted but it was mine. I turned to see my lover now laughing exactly the way I did half a minute ago. He was biting his hand in futile effort to cease himself from laughing and then I saw the paintbrush he was holding, it was dripping with blue paint color.

It was pretty obvious as I brought my fingers to the wet thing on my face and I looked on it to confirm that he really used that blue paint on me. He messed with me. I thought to myself with a grin and without further ado, I grabbed another clean paintbrush from the craft case before dipping it to a green paint to which I stained his nose this time. He was stunned and I laughed again.

Julian groaned in frustration although instead of dipping his brush in another color, he grabbed a glass jar full of yellow oil paint and without a second thought, he threw the paint all over my front shirt before running away from me like a madman caught red-handed. Nonetheless he was right to run from me for I didn't waste a second as I instantly grabbed the whole case before chasing after him around the room and throwing all the oil paints at him. He shouldn't have mess with me.

Little did I aught to know that we were still in fact inside my art room which meant that all my painting equipment were everywhere and of course he got that clear in his head since he was already holding a few used watercolor bottles in his hands which he obviously threw at my direction too. We kept on chasing and throwing colors at each other that I failed to notice my heart was also chasing the speed of our feet.

It was full of life and it was bouncing inside my chest.

I managed to catch up with him and before he see it coming, I tackled him to the solid floor and restrained him with my body weight. We were still laughing at one another that we didn't seem to notice that we were both in an awkward position. It took a couple of minutes for me to perceive our situation and I felt myself blushing. In embarrassment, I stood up faster than the clock.

He too stood up but oblivious to my reaction which it made it easier for me to appear unruffled from the discomfiture. Then it registered in my mind that both of our clothes and bodies were stained with oil paints. I easily found it in myself to refuse to let him leave my mansion looking like that.

"Do you need help cleaning the stains? I can lend you clothes too." I solicited to which he said, "Sure" as he nodded and I promptly gestured him to come with me to my bedroom. It didn't take too long for us to reach the room and I hastily paced to my bath suite to let out the blush I had been holding back from ago. Looking at my face in the mirror, I questioned myself on why in good gracious was I blushing?

It was not like it was the first time I had been on top of him.

I groaned and proceed to calm my weird inner self while preparing a ceramic basin full of lukewarm water and a dry fabric cloth. When I was done on my task, I carried the materials with me as I walked back to my bedroom and there I saw Julian already sitting on the edge of my bed. I picked a clean shirt from my closet before sitting next to him on the comfortable bed and ordering him to take his shirt off so I could begin to clean him. Damping the fabric cloth wet, I glanced back to Julian only to meet his gaze with mine. His face was stained with colorful rainbow paints but he still remained handsome and gorgeous. Indeed, he was my handsome and gorgeous lover.

He sat beside me shirtless however instead of being aroused like what would usually happened, I felt nothing but only this passionate pounding sensation inside my chest again. I held onto his arm and began to focus all my concentration in cleaning him, wiping the paint away from his cream skin with the placid silence haunting in between us where the pulse of our beating hearts being the only ones aloud in our ears.

"It's the first time I've seen you laugh that way earlier, Dante," he commented to and I mentally concurred to his statement. Even I found it different for me to laugh like that but I couldn't deny that I had fun doing that with him. It was really fun spending time with him.

"And it's the first time I've seen you laugh too." I replied before turning to clean his beautiful face with a faint smile drawing in my lips.

We began staring at each other with no words to express and simply looking at the other deep in the eyes for a long moment and amidst it distracted me from cleaning his face thoroughly. He just stared at me while I kept on cleaning him and somehow it imprisoned me in my own intense passion, a passion to care for him and treasure him like this.

"It's your turn," he claimed as he gently took the fabric cloth from my hold to which I simply chuckled. Might as well let him clean me too cause I was too tired to take another bath and with that I disrobed myself of my stained shirt.

I heard his breath stopped as his eyes beheld and roamed the stunning built of my body but, to my pleasure, he merely shook his head and began to clean me. I wanted to chuckle upon understanding that he must have thought something perverse inside his head. He was really endearing. I thought to myself as he took my arm in him.

It was now my turn to stare at him while he kept on cleaning me and I smirked when he seemed to be distracted from how he tried not to look at me in the eyes. Soon he found no escape as he started to wipe my stained cheeks clean from dried paint and I took the initiative to stare at him much more. There was this strong feeling in me again and I still can't seem to put into words.

For some unknown reasons, my former fake affection for him now felt real? It was like I really do like him.

I continued to stare at him even when the wet fabric brushed against my lips. Julian stared too after taking in the intensity of my stare at him. It was full of affection and devotion for him, that I discovered, and I found myself not repudiating them like what was my betraying mind was telling me to do.

"I love you so much, Dante," he said with an ever so loving smile in him that had my heart crossed an ocean. Of course, I opened my mouth to say something but, still and all, no words was freed. Julian just smiled at me like he knew I had something I need to say to him but unable to. But instead of insisting to know them, he just leaned forward to me before letting his soft lips meet mine. It didn't taste addicting and lustful like before rather they tasted divine and heavenly.

It was like he had the lips of an angel.

***

Before he could deepen our kiss, I did my part immediately and breached my tongue inside his mouth, exploring and tasting everything in it. He battled for dominance as I motioned closer to him with both my arms snaking to his sides and tracing on the long line of his spine. He moaned as I caressed him sensually and soon he wrapped his arms around my neck to bring me more closer to him. His lips moved in rhythm along with my own but I retreated mine first before pressing my forehead against his.

Julian stared at me in trance that he failed to notice my hands disappearing from his embrace and leaving his skin embodied in cold air. It was a minute later that he felt empty without them but I simply let out a smile full of sincerity. He eyed me in confusion as I trailed my fingers onto his collarbone and discreetly, I slipped a clean shirt to his shoulders and proceed to dressed him myself.

He fathomed the sudden annul of lust in between us and he seemed like he wanted to ask me about it but decided not to when I opened my mouth before him.

"I want us to get to know each other first, Julian." I reasoned while doing his shirt buttons one after another and he widened his eyes in surprise.

Of course who wouldn't be surprise hearing such sentence from me, me who didn't bother for things like that every time I slept with him? Truth to be told, even I find my own words an astonishment because it wasn't like me to be this gentle towards him especially because all I care about before was the fulfillment of my carnal desires.

But then again I felt no lust this time.

"You know like going to dinner and meeting your family." I added as I took the fabric cloth from his hand before placing it back in the ceramic basin.

"Are you sure, Dante?" he asked me in both disbelief and suspicion.

"Yes. I want to bring you to a dinner and do other things like what normal lovers do." I imparted and I saw a bright smile beginning to draw in his lips. He was happy to hear it from me.

In this room, it reminded me of the worst mistake I did to him and that was the time I rejected him and denied what happened between us. A part of me wanted to correct that stupid mistake of mine so here I thought that I should be a man that wouldn't take him for granted anymore. In any case, if I wanted to sleep with him again, at least I wanted to earn it and not just take it selfishly.

"So will you give me the honor to bring you to a date?" I asked him and before I see it coming, he threw himself to me for a tight embrace.

"Of course! Of course you can." Julian cried in delight and it made me smile as I returned his embrace. Just seeing him this pleased was bringing me with immense joy that I could die happy right now. It felt like my heart was soaring across the heaven and gliding faster than a meteor. This moment was about me and him. No Amelia and no Lucas. It was just the two of us.

For once, I finally acknowledged that I felt something real for him too.