Don’t ask, Blake thought as he walked over to the tripod to remove the camera. Trust me when I say that you don’t want to know, he thought further. “I think Tonya wants a natural effect,” he said, taking the camera firmly in his hand. “And since you’re definitely photogenic, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Justice lifted an arched brow. He thought she was photogenic? Her gaze flickered to him and she watch as he went about readying the equipment and felt her pulse rate increase as he bent over to adjust something. His jeans stretched tight, doing amazing things to his thighs and butt. There was just something about looking at a well-built man.
She cleared her throat. “Did Tonya say how she wanted me to play out this scene?”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Yes, she wants the sexy look on all the pictures. She wants photos of how a man would see you if you were in the bedroom waiting for him and dressed in one of those outfits.”
Tilting her head on the side Justice chuckled. It had been a long time since she’d been waiting for a man in her bedroom. “That may be hard to do.”
He turned to face her and wondered why but decided it would be safer not to ask. “We’re going to use that bed for the first prop. How about reclining on it, close to the edge.”
Justice walked across the room and sat on the bed, and did as Blake instructed she sat close to the edge while placing her body in a reclining position. She watched as he aimed his camera and focused on her through the viewfinder. Seconds later he lowered the camera.
“You look too stiff and your smile appears forced. Try and relax. And each time I snap a picture, slowly change positions, something smooth and easy that won’t necessarily focus on your change of movement but on the outfit you’re wearing. If it will help, think of something pleasant. Something you would like to have.”
Justice smiled, thinking that would be easy since she would definitely like to have him – short term and for the fun of it. For some reason this man made her feel very, very aroused. She blinked, wondering where that thought had come from, then accepted it had come from the innermost workings of her mind and couldn’t be denied. He was an attractive man and she was a woman, one who was strong and independent. She was also a woman who hadn’t been intimate with a man in quite some time – although she didn’t plan to do anything about it. But still, there was nothing wrong with having fantasies and she could imagine one in particular – a single shattering night of passion with the man looking at her with his camera.
Just like he had instructed, each time he triggered the flash, she moved her body, twisting this way and that, smiling seductively and giving him on film what she hoped was a perfect picture of a passionate woman. She tried to convince herself that the reason she was putting everything she had into it was for the women who would purchase the lingerie off Tonya’s Web site, but deep down she knew she was doing it for Blake Savoy.
As he moved back and forth in front of her, she watched him, fascinated by his proximity and swift movements and wondered if he would have similar movements in the bedroom. For some reason she couldn’t push away the carnal thoughts from her mind. Although in front of her he was fully dressed, she was able to drum up images of him naked, his dark skin showing smooth muscles and strong, long limbs.
And she detected the masculine scent of cologne she hadn’t encountered before. It was something woodsy and seductive, a scent that would linger long after the man was gone.
She bit her bottom lip, thinking that she was certainly losing it.
***
Perfect, Blake thought. The woman was perfect at this.
Perspiration formed on his forehead as he clicked away with his camera, capturing her at different angles, shot after shot, and getting aroused by the second. He felt the huge bulge in his pants and his breath was coming in faster and faster as ideas popped inside his head, one more hot and erotic than the next. His pulse was beating almost out of control but he was determined to capture the very essence of what he was seeing through the lens of his camera.
He wondered what Justice was thinking to have such a sensuous look on her face? He didn’t have to prompt her to move any particular way since she was doing a hell of a job on her own. In fact she seemed to enjoy posing for the camera and playing the role of a temptress in the outfit she was wearing.
He could imagine being the man who came home to find her dressed this way. She would definitely drive a man wild with desire. No man in his right mind would be able to get enough of her beautiful body. Full hips, plump and ripe breasts and voluptuous thighs that would give you a hard-on for days if you didn’t do something about it. And he had a feeling that she would be a fantastic lover in bed. A man would want to keep her on her back for hours... days, he thought, as he continued to click the shutter to the camera rapidly, in quick succession, the same way he would want to take her.
He breathed in deeply knowing he had to end this session before he ran out of film, or really did something stupid like explode in his pants. Slowly, he brought the camera down away from his face. “That’s enough for that scene. You can go change into your next outfit,” he said huskily. “You were great.”
He watched as she blinked twice as if coming back from wherever she had gone and he couldn’t help but wonder where that place had been. It must have been one hell of a sensuous trip and he would have loved to have gone there with her. He wondered if she had a steady man in her life. A lover? Would there be someone special to see her in the outfit she was wearing? What about all the others she planned to be photographed in? Would some man see her in those too?
He shrugged as he watched her sashay off to the room she was using to change in. It wasn’t his concern if she was involved with someone or not. And to be quite honest, he wasn’t really surprised with the way his body was responding to her. He’d experienced lust before, numerous times. He was a hot-blooded male and a Savoy at that.
He sighed deeply, wondering where in the hell Tonya was and what was taking her so long to return. He needed her as a buffer; someone to take the heat off things. With her around he could keep his mind focused on the photographs he was supposed to be taking and not on Justice’s luscious body.
“I’m back. Sorry it took so long,” Tonya said coming down the steps.
Blake smiled. Luckily, someone had heard his prayer. Now there was hope of getting through the evening.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Hearing Justice’s voice, he glanced around the moment she came out of the room wearing . . .
Ahh hell.
His heart thumped in his chest and he wondered where a bottle of Jack Daniels was when a brother needed it?
Four
“Hey, man, you okay?”
Blake looked up into the face of his cousin Tyler. Sweat was pouring down Tyler’s face as well as his own. He and four of his cousins had just finished playing a mean game of basketball and they were all tired, sweaty, and out of breath.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
Tyler grinned. “Because your game could have been better. So what’s going on? Woman trouble? Or were you in the Australian outback too long?”
Blake leaned back against the bench and took a huge swig of water. “Neither,” he replied moments later, lowering the water bottle from his mouth and meeting his cousin’s gaze. “The reason my game is off is because I’m still trying to get adjusted to the different time zones.”
“Hey, I can understand that,” Tyler said, wiping sweat from his face with a towel. “Are you interested in coming to my place tonight to watch a couple of movies? There are some action-packed flicks that hit Netflix this week.”
Blake shook his head as he stood. “No, I think I’ll pass. I need to get busy developing those photographs I took for Tonya today. Otherwise, she’ll be all over me tomorrow.”
Tyler nodded. “How did things go with that?”
Blake shrugged. “They went okay but we didn’t finish like I thought we would. I was hoping we c
ould finalize things tomorrow but Justice has several business appointments so we won’t be able to finish up until Friday.” A part of him wanted to ask Tyler what he knew about Justice Manning. Specifically, he wanted to know if she was involved with anyone.
After Tyler and his cousins left, Blake went inside his grandmother’s house. She had gone to visit a sick friend at the hospital and had left his dinner warming in the oven. He smiled. His grandmother enjoyed cooking for him whenever he came to visit although he’d told her when he’d first arrived that she didn’t have to. But she did so anyway.
Before sitting down to eat he took a shower and decided that if he wasn’t too tired when he finished developing the photos, he would call Tyler to let him know he’d be coming over after all since there would be nothing for him to do later.
For as long as he could remember, the small windowless room in his grandmother’s basement had always served as his darkroom for developing film, and over the years it had pretty much remained intact.
In the dark he worked briskly to bring to life the photographs he had taken that day. A photographer was always eager to see what he had captured on film, the finished product. However, in this case there was more than eagerness that gripped him. He had an urgent need to see Justice again even if it was only in print.
Under the rays of the amber lights, he took a sip of a beer after one set of negatives was developed and hung to dry. Arching his back and stretching his shoulders, he set his attention to the next set, his thoughts already on the prints he would produce.
Less than an hour later he was sliding the film proofs under the enlarger, his breath catching in his throat. Letting go of the ease he’d always found when developing pictures, tension flowed through him as he quickly and methodically went through each frame. He brought the magnifier closer. It seemed each shot of Justice was more beautiful than the one before it . . . and more magnificent.
His favorite was of her posing in a huge recliner chair wearing a red satin slipdress that was tailored to fit her body. The outfit had been both simple and sexy, and with her wearing it, it had also been a total turn on. The way she had gazed into the camera had clearly showed the passionate woman he believed her to be. No woman could have such a look and be otherwise. Then there was the tattoo of Lady Justice on the upper part of her left leg. He had angled his camera so he wouldn’t capture the Lady and her scales on film for Internet viewing, but he had managed to get a few close shots for himself. These copies were his and his alone.
Neither Tonya nor Justice had seen the burning intensity in the eyes that had looked through the lens, holding Justice in their view. And neither had known the heavy pulse of his body with every click of his camera as he captured her on film wearing lingerie guaranteed to catch a man’s eye. She had worn lingerie whose sole purpose was to stimulate and project the self-assurance that what you saw is what you got.
He swore and a tremor quivered through his body. As far as he was concerned each photo was perfect and there were none to be eliminated. Each in its own way had a story to tell. He had used his expertise to capture the woman and all her sensuous flesh, and how the sheer material could caress and accentuate everything feminine.
In the span of one day the woman had amused him with her witty conversations with Tonya, stimulated him whenever he heard the sound of her voice, and razzled and bedazzled his mind and body every time she modeled a different piece of lingerie.
Heat blazed his eyes as he continued to study the proofs. The lighting had been perfect, striking her at just the right angles, making her skin appear a golden brown. Then there were her fluid movements. With practiced ease she had shifted her body with each flash and had smiled sensuously into the camera while fire had lit through his blood. Each outfit she’d worn was designed to show the voluptuousness of her hips and thighs, rounded curves as well as the fullness and ampleness of her breasts. He had been filled with thoughts of taking those breasts into his mouth, tasting, sucking and with the moist stroke of his tongue and the gentle scrape of his teeth, driving her, as well as himself, deliriously insane.
The sound of the doorbell snapped him out of his erotic haze. Leaving the darkroom he made his way up the stairs out of the basement and to the door. He did a double take when he looked through the peephole. He immediately felt a tightening in his gut and the hot, jagged edges of his senses escalated to full awareness. Justice Manning was standing on the opposite side of the door.
He took a deep breath as his pulse kicked hard. He couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was wrong with him. No woman had ever made nerve-ending heat rush through his veins with such intoxicating speed before, and he didn’t quite know what to make of it. As far as he was concerned, no woman was worth all this fuss and lust.
So he wanted her. Big deal. He’d wanted other women before and all of them he had found incredibly sensual. But even as he accepted those thoughts with shattering intensity, a part of him was forced to admit that when it came to Justice Manning, there was more than a longing to touch, taste and devour. This had to be the most erotic person he had ever known. Then there was also a need he hadn’t counted on: an intense, potent need for a woman he’d only met that day. With a mental grimace, he shook his head thinking that had to be the craziest thing.
When she rang the doorbell again he inhaled a deep breath. “Stay in control and accept lust for what it is,” he murmured low in his throat before reaching for the doorknob. While he may enjoy the fantasy elements that visions of Justice evoked, he had to deal with reality, and the reality of it all was that the last thing he wanted was an involvement with any woman.
***
Justice checked her watch. Usually Gramma Savoy would be home and she couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps she had stepped out a while. She was about to turn to leave when she heard the sound of the door opening slowly.
And then he stood there staring, the depths of his hazel eyes making her senses leap. Blake Savoy. The man who had occupied her thoughts most of the day. It had been the first time a man had outright fascinated her and he had a definite way of reminding her she was a woman.
A woman with needs. Some tapped. Most of them not.
The awkwardness of the moment was somewhat downplayed by the chemistry openly flowing between them to the point that it would be a waste of time to pretend things were normal. But still she knew they would try like hell anyway.
“Justice, this is a pleasant surprise,” Blake finally said.
His words coaxed a smile from her. They eased the tension a bit, but definitely not enough. The sound of his voice, low and husky, sent a warm ache flowing through all parts of her body. And it didn’t help matters that he looked good enough to eat with the snug pullover shirt he was wearing and a pair of jeans. He’d worn jeans earlier that day but a different pair. The ones he had on now were well-worn and even more a perfect fit. And they seemed to radiate body heat since she could definitely feel warmth emitting from his body.
“Would you like to come in?”
It was at that moment she realized she had been staring and had not responded to his greeting. “Oh, hi, sorry but I’m surprised to see you here,” she said, giving him a truthful excuse as she entered the house when he stepped aside.
He closed the door behind her, crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the door and lifted a brow. “Why are you surprised? My grandmother lives here.”
“Yes, but I thought you’d probably be staying with Tyler or one of your other cousins while in town.”
“No, whenever I come to visit this is where I stay. I don’t think my grandmother would have it any other way.” He moved away from the door and came to stand directly in front of her. “If you’re here to see her, she stepped out and I can’t tell you when she’ll be returning. She’s at the hospital visiting a sick church member.”
Justice nodded as she tried to ignore the flutter in the pit of her belly with his nearness. This, she thought, had to be the epitome of sexual chemi
stry since it’s been boiling over all day.
“The photographs came out great.”
His statement came midway through some naughty thoughts she was about to have and her need to leave quickly. “They did? Then I’m glad. Tonya wanted to get that Web site finished and up as soon as possible.”
Blake nodded. He wasn’t sure just how he felt about those photographs being on Tonya’s Web site for everyone to see, especially men. One look at her in those outfits and any man in his right mind would immediately visualize naked skin and rustling sheets.
But then, Tonya had fully explained that had been the whole intent behind Tonya’s Temptations: to prove that full-figured women could hold their own in the sexy department. He would definitely not argue with that because the woman standing before him didn’t lack anything. In fact, he liked the very thought that she was so well stacked in what he considered to be all the right places.
His gaze slowly and thoroughly raked in all of her. She had changed from what she’d been wearing earlier and was now dressed in a blue skirt and a white blouse. The outfit was casual as well as seductive. And then there were these cute little sandals that she wore on her feet. Speaking of feet, hers looked good. He’d always gotten a good, hard throb looking at a woman’s feet and hers were smooth and her toes were neatly trimmed and polished a sultry red, the same color as her fingernails.
“Well, I’d better be going.”
He returned his gaze to her face. Evidently his close scrutiny of her had made her nervous because now she was in a hurry to leave. But a part of him wanted her to stay, if only for a little while. And he would love to show her his darkroom.
He cleared his throat. “Would you like to see the photographs?” he asked, thinking that was one way to get her downstairs. He could imagine being alone with her in the dark and at the moment would find just about any excuse to get her there.
ALL HE DESIRES (Voluptuous Woman Series) Page 12