by BETH KERY
“Shouldn’t we lock up out front?” Chance asked as he maneuvered into the only other chair in the office. His knees pressed against the wood panel on the front of her desk when he sat. This room was much too small for him.
Or he was much too big for it. Chance Hathoway seemed much too large for her small, known world in general.
“No one will be in for probably an hour or two, but if someone does come, I’ll hear the door chimes,” she said, hoping she sounded calm and matter-of-fact. In truth, her heart was beating uncomfortably fast.
He placed his computer on her desk and started hitting a few buttons, his manner focused. The irises of his eyes were hazel flecked with gold, the warm tones perfectly suited to his sandy blond hair. While his skin, eyes and the hair on his head possessed tawny hues, his thick eyelashes, the hair on his muscular forearms and the light scruff on his jaw were a darker brown.
He turned the computer sideways so that they could both see the monitor. His expression had gone every bit as impassive as hers. Sherona felt like he’d just dealt her a hand in a high-stakes poker match.
She stared at the screen. Her mouth went dry.
The photograph had caught her in midstride as she walked toward the shore. The evening sun and the glistening moisture on her naked body made her skin glow . . . luminesce. It was the expression on her face that made her stare in wonder, however. She looked serene, but a small smile shaped her mouth.
It was as if Chance knew perfectly well he’d caught a part of her that she wasn’t entirely sure existed until he’d captured it with his camera.
She knew now.
She felt odd . . . dizzy.
“The delete button is right there.”
Her gaze flashed to his face at the sound of his gruff voice. He seemed somber . . . watchful. She remained unmoving.
“Would you like to see the rest of them?” he asked after a stretched, straining silence.
She nodded. It was all she could manage by way of a response.
His long fingers moved on the keyboard, reminding her of the lover-like way he touched his camera the other day—precise, knowing, masterful. She stared at the screen, overwhelmed by an emotion she couldn’t quite identify. Here was an image of her squeezing the excess water out of her hair, crystalline droplets clinging to her right breast, a thin rivulet streaming down her ribs.
In this one, she stood at the water’s edge. Chance had caught the expression of a woman who was entirely at peace with herself—who liked her own company. Tears burned behind her eyelids.
He clicked a key on the computer. Her breath struck in her lungs at what she saw. She looked across the desk at Chance, her eyes going wide. He stared back at her unblinkingly, just like he had the moment after he’d taken this photograph, when he’d caught her startled wonder as she recognized his presence. Sherona had precisely the same feeling she’d had when he’d photographed her. A heavy, hot sensation of arousal pooled in her sex.
He tapped his finger. In the next photo, her gaze remained fixed on him, her hands by her sides, her shoulders back, her breasts thrust forward, a hint of defiance on her face.
“No, don’t,” she said sharply when he lifted his finger.
“Why not? These are the most beautiful shots of all . . . certainly the most honest,” he said, his eyes looking very warm.
He hit a key. Her heart felt like it had lodged itself in her throat. She couldn’t help but look. Stare. In the image, she faced the camera full-on, unafraid. Sherona wasn’t sure if it was the setting sun causing the effect, but her skin looked flushed with a golden pink hue. A few droplets of water clung to her pubic hair and the two fingers she’d placed on her labia to staunch the sharp stab of arousal she’d felt.
Heat washed over her cheeks and chest. She reluctantly met Chance’s gaze and felt that jab of lust all over again. Why did she find his observance of her so potently erotic?
“You can’t possibly mean to delete them now that you’ve seen them,” he said, his low, gravelly voice an audible caress in the tiny, still room. His accent perfectly suited him—lyrical and rough at once. His voice had nearly as palpable an effect on her as his eyes. “They’re some of the best photographs I’ve ever taken.”
She blinked in dazed surprise.
“I mean it,” he said with quiet conviction. “I want to photograph you again.”
“You mean . . . nude?”
He nodded. Their voices had gone hushed and intimate. Another wave of dizziness struck her, but the expanding ache at her sex seemed to ground her, keep her in the moment there with Chance. She couldn’t escape him; she didn’t want to.
“But not just nude,” he said.
Confusion flickered through her, but so did another prickle of sexual awareness. It was as if his voice itself were touching her . . . seducing her. “What do you mean, not just nude?”
He nodded once toward the photograph on the screen. The captured Sherona stared back at both of them, her awakened sexuality a palpable thing.
“I want to see more of that,” he said. “I want to liberate the hint of what I’m seeing there. I want to see it all, Sherona.”
Her heartbeat drummed in her ears in the silent seconds that followed.
“What . . . what would you do with them? The photos?”
“Treasure them, I expect.”
Her heart paused in her chest at his simple response.
“I’ll never let another soul see them, save you. Please. I want the opportunity to show you what I see when I look at you. I want the chance to celebrate you. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
That pierced through the fog of mesmerized arousal he’d formed around her, striking her as patently ridiculous.
“Give me a break,” she said, standing from her desk, feeling vulnerable. She lowered the screen on his computer, hiding the offending—compelling—image. “You probably say something similar to women in every city, village and hamlet you visit across the globe in order to get a woman to take off her clothes for you.”
“No. I don’t.”
His quiet forcefulness caused her to pause. The door chimes tinkled in the distance.
“I don’t photograph people. I’m a landscape photographer.”
She swallowed thickly. She believed him for some reason. Maybe because he was so patently sexy, there’d be no reason for him to have to think of stupid scenarios to get a woman naked and into bed with him. Besides, she’d seen his magnificent nature photos. Something told her he’d never sully his camera by using it regularly for taking photos of naked women for lewd purposes.
But those photos of her naked were the exact opposite of lewd. They were sexual, yes, but powerful to the extreme. They didn’t debase her sexuality; they celebrated it.
“I . . . I have to go. There’s a customer,” she said, coming around the desk.
He stood and took a step toward her, halting her exit.
“Sherona?”
“Yes,” she muttered, staring at the buttons on his shirt, keeping her head lowered so that he couldn’t see the throb of her pulse at her throat.
“Will you think about it?”
“I . . . I’m not sure.”
Her eyes went wide when he touched her cheek. She looked up, startled. His face was suddenly very close, his features striking her as bold and chiseled, rugged and masculine, yet perfectly harmonious. She could smell his aftershave and something that reminded her of fresh air and the woods.
“You have every right not to believe me, but I’m completely captivated by you,” he said gently, his warm, fragrant breath striking her lips. He brushed his mouth across hers in a questing kiss. Without thinking, she submitted to his heat . . . his touch. She moved her lips against his, sliding and shaping. She blinked when he made a low, gruff sound of arousal. He placed his hand along her neck in a possessive gesture and bent over her, sliding his tongue between her lips.
Liquid heat surged between her legs at the feeling of his tongue p
lunging into her mouth. His taste flooded her, blinding her to all else—peppermint and some subtle flavor she couldn’t put a name to, but recognized with every cell of her female body. Her world narrowed to the sensation of his tongue dueling with her own, exploring her possessively, sucking on her sweetly until she moaned as if in answer to his call.
He shifted his hands to her waist and pulled her tight against him, his thumbs caressing the sides of her body in a lazy circular motion that caused pleasure to curl tight in her lower belly. She instinctively pressed closer to his body, seeking out the evidence of his arousal and gloriously finding it. He was warm and male and so hard, it sent a thrill of sexual anticipation through her unlike she’d ever experienced in her life.
He moaned roughly into her mouth. She whimpered in displeasure, shocking herself, when he broke their kiss. He nibbled at her upturned lips with a barely restrained hunger.
“I’ll take such good care of you, Sherona,” he murmured. “Let me capture you with my camera. I want to see pleasure blazing from your face. I want to see you wet like you were the other day when you came out of the lake, but this time with desire. I want to show you how you can look, how you can feel.”
Sherona stared, overwhelmed, confused and blatantly aroused by his tensely uttered words. It was hard to think with his body pressed against hers, the taste of him still on her tongue, his large hands holding her so possessively, a hot promise in his eyes. She stepped back, breaking their embrace, her hand covering her lips as if she foolishly thought she could wipe away the memory of that kiss.
As if. She’d probably be able to perfectly describe that kiss on her dying day.
She gave him a wild, desperate glance and headed toward the diner. She was making some coffee for her customers a minute later when he came out of the back room.
“Is there a good time to come back tomorrow so that you can show me the cooperative farm and anything else you think should be featured in the brochure?” he asked her.
She glanced at him sideways. His voice had been decidedly neutral. She appreciated his backing off sufficiently so that she could think. Viewing those photographs with him, hearing him say those outlandishly sexy things, kissing him, had been a highly unsettling and intimate experience.
“The diner closes on Sundays at noon,” she said.
“I’ll pick you up at your house then. Where do you live?”
“No,” she said, blushing when she realized how abrupt she sounded. Derek was gone for several days. She didn’t entirely trust herself to meet with Chance in the confines of her empty house. Not after that kiss.
She glanced back cautiously at her three customers and lowered her voice. “Just meet me here. I have some work to do after the diner closes. Say around four o’clock? It ought to be cooling off a little by the time we get to the farm. I’ll be able to show you the places we want featured in the photos for the brochure.”
He nodded, his eyelids narrowing on her. “And you’ll think about things between now and then?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” Sherona replied with a matter-of-fact manner she was far from feeling. She turned away from him and started to prepare her orders.
She doubted she’d do much else but think about his offer for the next twenty-four hours.
Chapter Three
Sherona stood back and watched as Chance Hathoway absorbed the interior of the Food for Body and Soul co-op store, where they sold a small portion of the food they grew and processed. He’d done the same thing when she’d escorted him around the farm. She couldn’t think of another word besides absorb to describe his absolute focus as he took in his surroundings. She had the strangest feeling he saw things that were right in front of both of them to which Sherona was completely blind.
Thankfully, since picking her up earlier this evening, he hadn’t mentioned the racy proposal he’d made at the diner. At least, she thought she was grateful for that. As she spent more time with him, however, growing to respect his solemn focus on his task, his pleasant conversation and effortless male sexuality, she was staring to wonder. His apparent ease at ignoring the fact that he’d photographed her nude and touching herself, not to mention his outrageous offer to photograph her doing even more sexy things, had started to grate on her in the past hour and a half. She’d never better comprehended the cliché about ignoring the white elephant in the room.
As he walked toward her with a sexy predator’s stalk, his sandy blond hair falling onto his forehead and a small, intimate smile shaping his mouth, she wished he’d just pounce the topic on her once and for all and end her anxious anticipation about what the hell she was going to say.
It shocked her to the core that she was considering granting his request. She had girlfriends who would be scandalized by Chance’s offer—not to mention her desire to take it—but they hadn’t seen those photographs. Naysayers wouldn’t have understood the incredible knowledge and power that had gone through her, catching a glimpse of her secret, sexual, true self portrayed in Chance’s photos.
“I thought it’d also be nice to include a photograph of the river,” she said, waving in the direction of the woods lining the Ohio River. “The view down by the water is really pretty, and it would give the feel of Body and Soul’s natural habitat and roots. But you’re the photographer,” she added hastily when he didn’t immediately respond. “I’ll leave it up to you whether or not that would be a good addition to the brochure.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. He reached into the pocket of the simple crew neck T-shirt he wore and grabbed his sunglasses. “Besides, you don’t have to convince me about including some natural photography. Why don’t you show me the river?”
She nodded at Louis Vanhard, a long-haired, longtime Vulture’s Canyon resident who was manning the cash register, and walked out of the store. They followed a forest path that led from the parking lot of the co-op to the river. The minute they entered the dark, still woods, Sherona felt an amplified awareness of Chance following her on the path. She turned to face him when they reached the clearing at the edge of the wide, flowing river.
“You’re right,” he said, glancing around. He removed his sunglasses and squinted at the opposite shore, then looked all around the area, as if gauging the light. “This will make a nice addition to the brochure. I should photograph in early morning, I think.” He put his glasses back on and turned to her.
“May I ask . . . Why are you doing this?” she said.
“Why am I doing what?”
“Why are you taking time out of your schedule to come to a tiny, no-account town like Vulture’s Canyon and take photos for free?”
“It’s a good cause, isn’t it? Healthy, nutritious food for needy families?”
Sherona just nodded, her gaze narrowed as she studied him. “You’re a philanthropist, then?”
“I’m not a do-gooder, if that’s what you mean. There are a few causes I feel strongly about, though. I’m a bit of a greenie, truth be told.”
“A greenie?”
“You know . . . an environmentalist. I’ve photographed the most beautiful landscapes in the world. It’s hard not to witness nature in all her glory and not want to preserve it in any feeble way I can,” he said, putting his sunglasses back on. A prickle of awareness went through her. She couldn’t see through his mirrored lenses, but she had the distinct impression his gaze had just slid down over her in appreciation.
“But you’re the heir to a huge fortune. Don’t your personal convictions conflict with the fact that you’ll one day be the owner of a retail chain that epitomizes commercialization and the mighty dollar? What are you going to do when they come to you and tell you a portion of an Australian forest has to be mowed down to put up one of your stores?”
“I didn’t ask to be born into the situation I was,” he said levelly.
“So you plan to refuse your father’s legacy?”
“I didn’t say that. I just meant that my convictions are my own. I didn’t just c
ome up with them in an adolescent rebellion against my dad’s lifestyle—or even if I did initially, my values have changed after my experiences traveling over the past fifteen years. I’ve seen things that have changed me on a permanent basis.”
Sherona was impressed by his quiet conviction. There hadn’t been an ounce of defensiveness to his tone.
“I admire you,” she said honestly after a moment. “I’m envious of all the places you’ve seen . . . all the things you’ve done. I always wanted to see the world. Travel.” She sighed and looked out at the glistening river. “Vulture’s Canyon has been the limit of my world.”
“That’s not such a terrible thing,” he said, joining her in admiring the sun-soaked, sylvan scene. “It’s beautiful country, and the folks around here seem like they’re good people.”
She gave him a cautious glance of respect. “That’s true. So . . . what will you do? About your father’s fortune?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking.
He shrugged. “My dad’s got more bounce than a mob of kangaroos. He’ll be around for a long time. When I do eventually gain control of his company and money, I’ll make decisions about it based on who I am, not who he is.”
Sherona couldn’t help but smile incredulously. “And he knows this? Your dad?”
“Brandon C. Hathoway is no fool; he knows his own son. If he truly does leave me his fortune someday, he knows perfectly well his hard-earned money will end up in the hands of a tree-hugging no-hoper.”
She smiled at his accented version of no-hoper.
“He must really love you if that’s true.”
Chance shrugged. “I’m his only son. I care about the old man enough to leave him to his corporate piracy, and he cares about me enough to confine his lectures about my wastrel life to once a year at Christmas.”
“That sounds like a very mature relationship for two such different men.”
“What about you? Where are your parents?”
“Gone. They died in a car accident when I was eighteen and Derek was eight.”
His grin vanished. “I’m sorry.”