“It’s a lot.” She swallowed. “A lot of me.”
“You’re the one who likes to joke that I need more art and culture in my life.” I kissed the side of her neck.
“And those?” She turned slightly, to a series of framed eight-by-tens framed over the headboard. They were all slightly blurry and out of focus, because I hadn’t paid attention where I’d pointed the camera when I’d been snapping them during round two of our first time. The first shot was my hand gripping the side of her bare thigh.
“Those get me hard the second I even think about them.”
Her breath hitched. “The focus is all off, you know,” she lectured, but a corner of her mouth rose into a playful smirk.
“Damn, and I thought you saved the peer review for class.” I nipped at the shell of her ear and she shivered, leaning back against me.
“The emotion of that one is…” She swallowed, pointing to the center picture, where my mouth caressed the arch of her neck, the tip of her chin visible as she’d thrown her head back.
“Hot,” I suggested.
“Hot as hell,” she agreed. “And these…” There was a shot of her hands in my hair, and another of my hips pinning hers to the bed, nothing visible but everything implied. “These are…” Her breath hitched and her pulse jumped beneath my lips as I trailed them over her neck.
“Fucking gorgeous. Just like you.”
She turned in my arms and kissed me, her tongue plunging, taking everything I’d already told her was hers.
We were a flurry of hands and mouths, clothes coming off between kisses and moans, until I had her completely naked, her incredible breasts against my chest, the feel of her hard nipples on my skin making me groan.
“I want this out in the open,” I murmured against her mouth, my hands gripping her ass and lifting her against me.
“These pictures? Because I think that borders on indecent.” Her nails raked my scalp and she smiled against my mouth.
“Us. I want us out in the open. I want you to go to the gala with me.” I walked forward until we reached the bed.
“Maxim…” It was a whisper of a plea.
I set her down so she sat on the edge of the bed, and kept my eyes on hers. “I know I’m asking you to give up your privacy. I know I’m asking you to have cameras in your face and a reporter or two in your business.” Taking her chin between my forefinger and thumb, I lifted her face so she couldn’t look away. “I know that we’ve both been pretty damn careful about not labeling whatever this is.”
She closed her eyes.
“Evie,” I whispered, dropping to my knees in front of her. “Look at me, babe.”
Her forehead puckered. “You’re asking me for things I can’t give.”
“Evangeline.”
Those green eyes opened, meeting mine.
“I don’t know what this is. But I know that I don’t want someone else on my arm for every event that comes our way. And it’s not that I can’t handle going stag. But I want you with me. Are you embarrassed to be with me?” I clenched my jaw, cursing my wording and tried again. “Are you embarrassed to be doing whatever this is with me?”
“Oh God, no.” She leaned forward and smoothed my forehead with her thumb. “It’s not that. Everyone on your team knows, right?”
“Pretty much.” I lowered my head and kissed her thigh.
“Mmm.” Her hips rolled. “And my friends know.”
“Right.” I kissed the opposite thigh, sucking a little mark into the delicate skin and fighting the instinct to forget the gala, forget the publicity, and just spend the rest of my life in this bed with her.
“Then everyone I care about knowing, knows. Just like normal couples.” She gasped as I ran my tongue along the crease between her hip and thigh. “I can’t think when you do that.”
“Good, then stop thinking and just say yes.” I leaned back and flipped her over, pinning her hips to the bed as her legs dangled over.
“Maxim!”
I put my mouth to the back of one knee.
“Can’t we just be a normal…couple? Whatever?” She whimpered as I kissed my way up the back of her thigh. “Normal people don’t do press releases or walk red carpets.”
“Couple is a good word,” I said against the back of her other knee, trailing my tongue over the sensitive skin. Fuck, that little noise she made in the back of her throat was sexy as hell. “And nothing about my life is normal, Evie.”
“I know.” She squirmed against my mouth as placed kisses up the back of that thigh.
I pushed her thighs apart and tugged her to the very edge of the bed, exposing the glistening folds of her pussy. My mouth watered and my cock started to throb for her. She was already slick and shiny, and my body ached, knowing exactly how damn good it would feel to slide inside her. “Then why do you want something that doesn’t exist?” I blew gently on her exposed flesh.