“Depressing?” I offer, chuckling softly.
It feels so good to laugh, to let out some of this tension go, even if I know I should be holding it back with everything I have.
“Well, yeah.” She smiles shakily, looking so cute and unsure. All I want to do is hold her and tell her she never has to doubt herself with me. “Have you started work on it yet?”
“Not really,” I tell her. “I had the idea on the flight home. I don’t want it to be sleazy. It won’t be about the models, but the city. I want to use them to highlight certain aspects of the city. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
And the thought of photographing another woman makes me sick.
“Oh,” she says, nodding. “Have you found any models yet?”
“No,” I say, my voice gruff.
And I’m not going to.
“Somebody as successful as you will have lots of choices.”
I try to detect any jealousy in her tone.
There’s no reason for there to be any.
From her point of view, I’m nothing but a successful photographer, her boss, and most importantly, her friend’s dad.
She’d probably freak out if she knew the future I imagine for us.
And all the steamy hot-as-fuck things we’ll do to make that future real.
“Why the change?” she asks when I don’t respond.
I shrug. “The truth is I never know where my ideas come from. I learned a long time ago not to question it. I’m sort of scared, honestly.”
“Scared?” she says, her eyes going wide as if that’s unthinkable to her.
I wish I could snatch the words back, but it’s too late.
“Yeah,” I say, sighing. “If I think about where my ideas come from, maybe they’ll stop coming. So I don’t question it. When I get an idea, I do my best to pursue it. That’s what happened with the Europe project and every project for the last decade.”
“So you just got a hankering for some underwear models,” she says, laughing.
Is there an edge to that laughter?
I sit up, fists clenched, feeling my forearms press against my shirt the same way my manhood is bulging against my pants.
It’s the shape of her body and the sassiness in her expression. It makes me think of how she’d moan and whimper as I slipped into her drenched young slit.
Stop.
It’s too easy to get carried away every moment I’m with her or near her.
Or thinking about her.
“It’s not about the models,” I say gruffly. “I’m not some perverted fuck who wants to hire models just to leer at them. Others do that, Faye, but not me. This project would be about the city.”
“I know, Felix. I didn’t mean it like that.”
I’m on my feet, staring hard at her, my pulse hammering. My whole body is thumping.
It’s like the primal part of me is trying to break free.