“By turning yourself into an object in front of cameras?”
“Maybe. At least it would be my choice.”
He looked at her hands folded across his middle, his ring bright on her finger. He could give her his heart or her freedom.
He swallowed, picked up her hands and brought them to his mouth, kissing the inside of each wrist.
“Do what you need to do, then,” he said, even though the words burned like acid through his torso. “I’ll find someone else.”
“Thank you. Oh, shoot.” She drew back and brushed her fingers in the middle of his spine. “I got lipstick on your shirt. You’ll have to change it. Sorry.”
He turned and looped his arms around her lower back, pulling her in again to ease the line of pain still burning down his center. “You know what people are going to think if I change my shirt after a private meeting with my wife in my office.”
“That I threw my coffee at you?” Her lips tilted into the seductive smile that tightened his skin all over his body.
She twined her arms around his neck, crushing her breasts to his chest, growing more self-assured in her feminine power by the day. He thrilled at this brazen side of her. It allowed him to unleash his appetites to the fullest, confident she would slow him down if he became too aggressive.
He slid his hands under her ass and lifted, swelling with invincible strength. Her skirt rode up and she wrapped her thighs in a squeeze around his waist.
He could have taken her to his sofa, but he took her to his desk. It wasn’t as comfortable, but as he pressed her onto her back against his blotter, and her earrings winked at him, he knew he would think of her every single time he sat here.
It was foolish and sentimental and self-destructive to want her memory to infuse his private space, but he did. He wanted her everywhere. Her scent on his body, her long hairs on his sleeve, her teeth marks in his shoulder and her hot breath against his ear.
He needed all these things because one day it would be all he had.
That realization slowed him down.
Much as he wanted to strip her naked and drive into her and make her his, he was suddenly gripped by a deeper need. One that demanded he take his time, immerse himself in every caress, wring the furthest reaches of pleasure from her with each kiss and tantalizing touch.
He smoothed his lips across her nipples through her shirt, making her writhe, and made her turn her head so he could unpin her hair, then ran his fingers through the mass that made him crazy, every single time he came near her.
He kissed her tenderly and smiled with satisfaction when she tried to urge him along, driving her tongue into his mouth and reaching for his belt.
He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, how much pleasure he wanted to give her. Words tangled into a fiery knot in his throat while flames continued to lick inside his chest, branding her deep behind his breastbone where she would stay imprinted forever.
He hurt. Deep inside, he ached with emptiness. The only way to assuage that ache was this. Touch her, bare her, hold her. Cover her and press into her and stay there, unmoving while he kissed her long and slow, drugging both of them with this potent magic they created.
And when she quivered on the knife’s edge with him, when the borders of reality smudged and time ceased to exist, he gathered her up so they were eye to eye as the fire consumed them in a golden shimmer that, he knew, would bind him to her forever.
* * *
Three weeks later, with great excitement, Luli sat for a test shoot. Not wanting to spend Gabriel’s money, she gave students from the professor’s school an opportunity to build their own portfolio while starting hers. A handful of designers, stylists and photographers had given her a taste of the grueling work that was the inside view of modeling.
The end result was a selection of photos from classic perfume ad fare to an avant-garde shot of her in smeared makeup with a roller still stuck in her hair and a tinfoil robe hanging off one shoulder.
Gabriel didn’t say much beyond, “The clamor to represent you won’t have anything to do with me. You’re very photogenic.”
She hadn’t expected him to gush, but she had hoped for more. A deep chasm had begun opening since the day they had made love in his office. He swore he wasn’t angry that she hadn’t taken the job he’d offered. He agreed that he would prefer to keep his business separate from her, now that Mae’s holdings had been absorbed into his own.