“You can cover yourself with a sheet.”
“No.”
From the way Joe looked at me, I could tell he was calculating how to get what he wanted.
“What is the point?” I asked anxiously.
“My two favorite things in the world are you, and photography. I want to enjoy both at the same time.”
“And then what will happen to these pictures?”
“They’re just for me. I won’t show them to anyone. Later I’ll delete every single one if that’s what you want.”
“Have you done this before?” I asked, suspicious. “Is it some ritual you have with your girlfriends?”
Joe shook his head. “You’re the first.” He paused. “No, you’re the second. Once I was hired to shoot a car ad with a model wearing only silver paint. I went out with her a couple of times after that. She was never actually a girlfriend.”
“Why did you break up?”
“After the silver paint came off, she wasn’t all that interesting.”
I couldn’t hold back a reluctant laugh.
“Let me take your picture,” Joe coaxed. “Trust me.”
I gave him a furiously pleading glance. “Why am I even considering this?”
His eyes flashed with satisfaction. “That means yes.” He left the bed.
“It means I’m going to kill you if you betray me,” I called after him. Hearing myself, I rolled my eyes. “I’m talking like a telenovela character.” I undressed quickly and climbed into bed, shivering at the coolness of the sheets.
In a minute, Joe returned to the room with his Nikon and a small stand-alone flash. He opened the shades, leaving the windows covered with sheers that softened the brilliant afternoon light. As he pulled away the top cover on the bed, I jerked the sheet up high under my chin.
Joe looked at me in a different way from ever before, assessing highlights, shadows, visual geometry.
“I’m not comfortable being naked,” I told him.
“The problem is that you’re not naked often enough. You need to go without clothes about ninety-five percent of the time, and then you’ll get used to it.”
“You’d like that,” I muttered.
Joe grinned and leaned over to kiss the exposed skin of my shoulder. “You’re so pretty without your clothes,” he murmured, working his way toward my neck. “Every time I see you in one of those big loose shirts, I think about all those sexy curves underneath, and it makes me as hot as hell.”
I slid him a perturbed glance. “You don’t like the way I dress?”
He paused in his kissing just long enough to say, “You’re beautiful no matter what you wear.”
The puzzling thing was, I knew he actually meant it. I could tell it was the truth, had been the truth for him since the beginning. My figure flaws weren’t flaws to Joe – he had always regarded my body with a mixture of appreciation and lust that was pretty damned flattering.
I thought it was possible that I’d been testing him without being aware of it, trying to find out if the sack dresses and big tops and baggy pants would make any difference to him. Clearly they hadn’t. Joe thought I was beautiful. Why should I think less of myself than he did? What point was there in letting those beautiful clothes hang in my closet unworn?
“I have some really stylish new outfits that Steven helped me pick out,” I said. “I just haven’t found the right time to start wearing them.”
“You don’t have to change anything for me.”
Perversely, that made me wish I’d worn something new and pretty today, something that measured up to the way he saw me.
At Joe’s direction, I lay on my side, awkwardly propping my head on my hand.
Lowering to his haunches, Joe positioned the camera. The shutter clicked and the nightstand unit flashed, covering me with fill light to balance the brilliance from the window behind me. “You’ve got no reason to be shy,” he said. “Every inch of you is luscious.” He paused to adjust the stand-alone flash, tested it again, and focused on me. His voice was soft and encouraging. “Can you show me your leg?”
I hesitated.
“One leg,” he coaxed.
Cautiously, I slid out my top leg and hooked it over the top of the sheet.
Joe’s gaze traveled along my exposed limb, and he shook his head as if presented with more temptation than a man could stand. Setting aside the camera, he bent to kiss my knee.
I reached out to stroke his dark hair. “You’re about to drop your camera.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will if it smashes on the floor.”
His hand began to insinuate itself beneath the sheet. “Maybe before I start taking pictures, we should —”
“No,” I said. “Stay on task.”
He withdrew his hand. “After?” he asked hopefully.
I couldn’t restrain a grin. “We’ll see.”
My smile was captured with an immediate click of the shutter. Joe proceeded to shoot pictures from different angles, adjusting the focus ring with expert precision.
“Why do you have it on manual?” I asked, tucking the sheet more securely beneath my arms.
“In this lighting, I can find the right focusing point faster than auto mode can.”
It was sexy, watching his hands on the camera, the skillful way he held and manipulated it. There was a particular pleasure in watching a man do something he was that good at. His expression was absorbed and intent as he took a series of shots with me lying on my stomach, my hips covered with the sheet, the length of my back exposed. I rested my head in the crook of my folded arms and gave him a sideways glance. The shutter clicked several times.