“Oh.” She looked surprised. “Will I?”
“Yes. It’s why I married you.” To keep you by my side, no matter what.
“I can see your point. I suppose you’ll look like a steady, married man if your wife is always at your elbow.”
“That is not the reason I had in mind, but believe what you wish. You can put away the camera.”
Eleanor unlocked and opened the camera in its mahogany frame. “I find the handheld cameras quite nice to use when my father and I are out in the woods, but I prefer the tripod when I take a portrait, so I don’t accidentally jiggle the image. Don’t you agree?”
“El.” Hart’s hand came down on her good wrist. “I told you my terms. Only if I get photographs of you.”
“You cannot possibly take photographs of me while my arm is in a sling. I would look ridiculous. Now, the light is very good, and we must take advantage of it.”
“Eleanor.”
“What are you afraid of, Hart? You’re a beautiful man with a beautiful body, and I wish to photograph it. It is the same as when my father finds a perfect specimen of a mushroom. Nothing for it but he must record it for posterity. Or at least for his own enjoyment. Besides, he often eats the mushroom. Please, return to the bed. I have loaded the first plate, and I am ready.”
How on earth Hart let her talk him into it, he never knew. He found himself lying back on the bed, his hands behind his head, while Eleanor tested light, peered through the camera, and tested the light again. She studied him a moment, lips pursed, then she picked up his kilt from the floor and draped it across his hips.
She went back to the camera and peered through. “Excellent. Please, do not move.”
Hart held his breath, knowing that one motion would cause a blur as the shutter opened to let in light. The shutter closed again. Eleanor pulled out the plate, set it aside, and put in another one.
“Some out of the bed now, I think.”
Hart smiled. “My wife, in dishabille, taking photographs of me in her bedroom. Decadent.”
“I think I’d like a view of your back,” she said, ignoring him.
Hart threw off the kilt and walked over to the window. This one was not as wide as the windows in his bedroom, but he preferred to be here, in Eleanor’s chamber. So much cozier than the grand salon that he slept in. Maybe he’d move in here instead of having her come to him.
He put his hands on either side of the window frame, presenting his back to her. Please God, don’t let anyone be taking an early-morning stroll.
“Delightful,” Eleanor said. “Stay there.”
He heard the click of the shutter, and Eleanor’s sigh of delight. “Another, I think.” More rattling as she changed the plate.
Eleanor looked through the camera’s lens and nearly swallowed her tongue. Hart stood in a beam of sunshine, light almost glowing on his bare body. He was all that was strength. The well-defined muscles on his shoulders smoothed down his back to form a pleasing triangle to his hips. His bu**ocks were tight and slim, a prefect complement to his thighs and taut calves. Even his heels pleased her.
Hart looked over his shoulder, arms bunching with the movement, his eyes golden in the sunshine. “Hurry, blast you. I think the ghillie is coming down the walk.”
“Perfect. Do not move, I beg you.”
Eleanor held her breath as she clicked the shutter. Hart was a burnished god, a Highlander of old come to sweep her away. Old Malcolm Mackenzie must have looked much the same, a hard, handsome fighting man, who’d been twenty-five at Culloden field. He’d eloped before the battle with Lady Mary Lennox, stealing her out from under her English family’s nose. Just like a Mackenzie—deciding what he wanted and taking it, even in the middle of war. From the stories Eleanor had heard, theirs had been a wild and passionate marriage.
Eleanor pulled the exposed plate out of the camera and picked up the next. Hart left the window in a hurry.
“That is the ghillie. We’ll do these away from the windows, if you please.”
Eleanor wanted to laugh. He sounded nervous, and she remembered how he’d voiced worry that his body would no longer please her. Poor Hart.
“Very well, then. You decide where to be.”
Hart stood uncertainly, his brow drawn, his head bent a little in thought, his delectable body glistening with perspiration. Eleanor clicked the shutter.
Hart looked up swiftly. “I was not ready.”
“No matter. It will make a lovely picture.”
Hart started to laugh. Ah, there he was, the smiling, sinful man from the earlier photographs, the man who’d laid her down in the summerhouse and taught her not to fear passion.
“All right, minx. How about this?” Hart seated himself on the bench at the foot of her bed, folded his arms, and spread his legs.
“Oh, my.”
The first photos she’d taken would have an artistic touch, a nude man in the sunshine. This one would be blatantly erotic.
Hart Mackenzie was unashamedly naked, his arousal obvious, his smile challenging. He was daring her to have a maidenly fit of the vapors, to look away, to not snap the picture. Eleanor studied the full length of his phallus and clicked the shutter.
“Another like that,” she said, her body heating. “Perhaps with you leaning against the wall.”
Hart rose and sauntered across the room. He leaned on a blank space of wall near the door, folding his arms again. His c**k stood out, ramrod straight.
“Stay there.” Eleanor moved the camera closer to him, settled it in, and took the picture. “I must have more.”
Hart laughed. Eleanor caught him like that in the next shot, laughing in true mirth, his body bared for her delight.
“Excellent. Now some with the kilt, I think.”
Hart let her take three more photographs. For two he stood bare-legged in his kilt; for the third, the kilt was off, Hart holding the folds to his abdomen while Eleanor photographed him in profile.
“Now another,” Eleanor began.
Hart snarled. He dropped the kilt, came to her, hooked his arm around her waist, and pulled her from the camera. “No more.”
“But I brought seven more plates.”
“Save them.”
Hart swept her from her feet, swiftly untying the tapes that held her dressing gown closed. He laid her on the bed and peeled the dressing gown from her, careful of her hurt arm. When he found her bare beneath, he smiled, and stole her breath.
Hart climbed over Eleanor, nuzzling the line of her hair, and then inhaling all the way down her body. Eleanor expected him to part her legs, to enter her, but instead, he tasted her.