by Amy Andrews
The exact behaviour every guy she’d ever been with had expected from a woman with a body like hers.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, opening her eyes, pushing against his arms, desperately trying to pull the edges of her clothing together, suddenly ashamed of her nudity.
Kent frowned as she struggled to sit up. ‘Sadie,’ he said, firming his arms around her a little.
Sadie shook her head, panic setting in. She needed to get up, to cover up. To have a shower. To curl up in her bed and stick her head under the pillow. ‘Let me up,’ she demanded, pushing against him again.
Kent heard the note of alarm in her voice and instantly rolled back. ‘Sadie, it’s fine,’ he said as she vaulted upright, scrambling to her feet, grasping at the edges of her clothes, keeping her back to him.
Sadie shook her head, her legs barely supporting her as her useless trembling fingers tried to button the dress. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, battling with the insane urge to cry as the buttons refused to cooperate. ‘I’m...they’re very...sensitive and it’s been a while.’
Sadie cringed even as she said it. What possible excuse was there to come in two seconds with someone who was practically a stranger? God knew what he thought of her.
Kent frowned. He couldn’t for the life of him work out what was so awful about the situation. ‘Why are you apologising?’
Sadie shut her eyes as the buttons defeated her. Keeping her back to him, she quickly shrugged out of his shirt, her dress and bra and then climbed back into the fleecy warmth of flannelette.
Kent, still hard, twitched at the glimpse of her bare thonged buttocks, another diamanté winking in the firelight where the back waistband was intersected by a thin vertical strip connecting the front with the back.
‘Can we please just forget this happened?’ she muttered, pulling the shirt edges together firmly across her chest, knowing buttons were still beyond her.
She really didn’t want to talk about this.
Kent watched as his shirt enveloped the backs of her thighs and the view was snatched away.
‘Look at me, Sadie.’
Sadie hugged her waist and contemplated melting into the dark outback night. Anything seemed preferable to facing him after her completely wanton behaviour.
Even the spiders and scorpions seemed a reasonable risk.
How many could there be?
But, there were times for putting on her big girl pants and this was one of them. She hugged her waist harder as she turned to face him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, looking at the ground.
Kent stood but stayed where he was. Sadie looked as if she was going to bolt off into the bush at any moment and he didn’t want to scare her. ‘You should never apologise for enjoying sex, Sadie. Never.’
He cringed as soon as he said it. He sounded just like his high-school sex-ed teacher and the last thing he needed to do now with Sadie looking utterly mortified was to come across as if he were the mature voice of reason and she were a child.
Especially considering what had happened was very, very adult!
Sadie looked at him incredulously. ‘We didn’t even get to the sex bit.’
He didn’t understand. How could he? She felt as if she needed to clarify. To put the experience in context.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised again, returning her gaze to the ground because the firelight on his chest was doing funny things to nerves still hypersensitive to stimuli. The low crackle of the campfire and the trill of insects were the only witness to her discomfort.
‘I know I probably just came across as inexperienced but it’s not that... Men don’t ever usually...not really anyway, you know...take the time with...to...you know...with...them...’ she tightened her arms across her chest and cleared her throat ‘...and you did. So, sorry I...you know...got there...a little...early.’
Kent frowned. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? ‘I don’t understand? Are you saying that the men you’ve been with haven’t appreciated your...assets?’
Sadie blushed at the incredulity on his face. She suddenly preferred it when they weren’t talking. But given what had just happened, they couldn’t pretend they were just travelling companions any more.
And she really needed him to understand her rather over-the-top reaction to a bit of heavy petting.
She tossed her hair. ‘Oh, they appreciate them well enough. Like a status symbol, you know? Check out my phone. My car. My girlfriend’s knockers. But when it gets down to...the business...they usually get pretty neglected.’
Kent frowned again. ‘Are men on the dating scene intellectually impaired these days?’ He could have spent all night fondling her breasts.
Especially when she was so goddamn appreciative!
Hell, he could get off on her getting off alone.
Sadie shook her head, ashamed at the words that were forming there. At the horrible truth of them. About what they said about her more than an indictment on the men she’d been with.
Of what she’d put up with.
‘Men form an impression of me...of what I’d be like in the sack...because of my bra size. They want pneumatic Barbie but sex is usually more about them than me.’ Certainly it had been for Leo, but love had blinded her to that until tonight. ‘I sometimes feel like I’m starring in some kind of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am porn movie where it’s all about looking the part and the end result rather than the journey.’
Kent looked at her, horrified. ‘So you just let them?’
Sadie shook her head, frustrated as she transferred her gaze to the fire, trying to think of a way to explain it. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy sex, I like...the end result. It’s not bad...it’s just not...’ She didn’t know how to explain it other than the truth, which she hadn’t realised until tonight with Kent.
She looked at him standing in nothing but his jeans, the warm yellow light shading the fascinating musculature of his abdomen in interesting shadows.
‘Like tonight. Like the journey mattered more.’ She held his gaze. ‘I’m sorry it just...happened.’
Kent shook his head. ‘Don’t be sorry. I’ve never been so turned on in my life.’
Sadie swallowed. His voice was deadly serious and her belly contracted. She saw the flare of heat in his eyes, which she didn’t think had anything to do with the fire. She was acutely aware of their state of undress. Of what they’d been doing just a few minutes ago.
‘Oh, God,’ she said, clutching the two edges of the shirt tight at her cleavage as she realised that, whilst she might be pretty damn satisfied, he’d been left in the lurch. ‘You must be...’ she blushed. ‘Do you want to...? I mean, I can help you with...’
She took a step towards him feeling like a virgin again as her gaze dropped to the area between where his hands bracketed his hips.
Was there a discernible bulge there?
Kent held up a hand. ‘It’s fine. I’m pretty sure I won’t die from going without,’ he said drily.
She took another step, appalled at leaving him hanging. And also feeling the heat starting to stir again as she wondered what he could possibly do with other parts of his anatomy if he could do what he’d done with his mouth. ‘Oh, but—’
Kent stepped back, shaking his head. ‘No, wait. I’d rather just...look at you. Can I?’
Sadie glanced at him warily. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’d like to look at you,’ he said throatily. ‘At the firelight on your skin.’
Sadie tightened her hold on the shirt. Night had well and truly fallen around them now and the glow of the campfire was the only light. The road was silent. It was just them and the stars.
Kent held out his hand, his heart pounding in his chest. Sadie had been hiding her body because a few lousy men didn’t know how to treat a woman. He wanted to show her she had nothing to be ashamed of and there was one way he knew how to do that better than any other.
Sadie swallowed. He looked so serious, but her insides had turn to mush at his husky reques
t and whilst he was looking at her as if she were the only woman in existence she’d probably do just about anything he wanted.
She took his hand and let him pull her down to the groundsheet until they were sitting cross-legged opposite each other, close but not touching.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked as he reached over for his camera bag.
Sadie felt everything deep down inside her squeeze. He wanted to photograph her?
Posing, she knew.
Posing, she could do.
But in this medium? With this man? Who’d known her for five days but had still managed to give her the most intense sexual experience of her life?
It was equal parts titillating and scary.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
Kent dipped in and pulled the camera out. He looked through the lens at her face as he made some adjustments, knowing without a doubt as he studied her features that he had his mojo back.
Her eyes were cast downwards and her hair had fallen forward. She made no attempt to push it back, as if she was deliberately trying to hide.
Suddenly she looked right at him, her knuckles white as they gripped his shirt tight across her chest at the lapels. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Whatever you want,’ he murmured as he snapped off the first shot.
He watched as she sat awkwardly beneath the eye of the all-seeing lens, snapping away. The fire glowed on one side of her face, throwing the other side into relief. He concentrated on the shadows, how they shaded her profile, her eyelashes, her cheekbones, the pout of her mouth, the jut of her chin.
Sadie tossed her head and looked right in the lens finally. A little frown knitted her brows together.
‘You’ll get wrinkles,’ he murmured.
Sadie poked her tongue out at him and said, ‘Hey,’ when he captured it in a split second.
He chuckled and she smiled. Suddenly self-conscious, she scrunched her hair, fluffed it a bit. ‘This is what I used to look like,’ she said, forming a little moue with her mouth and sucking in her cheeks as Kent clicked.
Kent shuddered at the image from Leo’s studio wall. ‘You looked terrible.’
Sadie scrunched her face. ‘Gee, thanks.’
Kent caught the scrunch with a quick press of a button. ‘I mean it, Sadie, you looked like you had a terminal illness.’
Sadie looked at him through his camera, a little frown between her brows. She’d held Leo’s images of her up in her mind for so many years as the idyll of feminine lure, had lived in its shadow, it was surprising to realise it wasn’t actually true.
‘So...the painting...’ she hesitated ‘...didn’t work for you?’
Kent dropped the camera to look at her. ‘You want to know what works for me? Let your shirt go, Sadie. I’ll show you.’
Sadie’s breath stuttered to a halt in her throat for a few seconds. Things shifted deep inside her and she was suddenly incredibly nervous. Portraits took weeks, months. Film was instant. There was something about the immediacy of a camera, the up-close intrusion of the lens, that made her want to run for the hills.
She tossed her head. ‘So you’re not really any different from Leo, then? You also want me to strip off my clothes for your art?’
Kent could hear the quiver in her voice and see the resentment on her face. He hated the comparison to that misogynistic bastard, but he shook his head calmly. ‘I want to look at you. See you. As you are. Not my interpretation of you. Just you. In all your amazing, curvy glory. I want to show you.’
Sadie could feel herself blushing beneath the intensity of his gaze, the copper flecks glowing in the firelight.
Could she just be her?
‘You’re beautiful, Sadie. Let me show you.’
Sadie swallowed. His request whispered to her on the still night air and oozed into all those places that had ever harboured doubts about her body. She could feel the chains of Leo’s conditioning loosen.
Could Kent be right?
Was this Sadie Bliss, the real one, beautiful?
She looked down as she slowly let go of the shirt, her hand falling in her lap, the edges parting slightly. The chill had started to encroach as the fire dwindled and it stroked cool fingers over the hint of exposed cleavage.
Kent exhaled slowly as he caught a glimpse of creamy flesh. His erection made an instant resurgence but he didn’t say a word, just put the camera back to his face and started snapping again. She didn’t move for a while, her hair falling forward masking her face, and he didn’t ask her to, just snapped away, being patient, waiting for her to make the first move.
Sadie glanced up at him through her hair, the constant click and whirr of the camera loud between them. She rolled her shoulders back a little, exposing more of her chest, her nipples beading despite still being covered. She looked at the lens more directly.
‘I better not see any of these on the Internet,’ she joked.
Kent smiled as he clicked. ‘That’s the beauty of the delete button.’
Sadie pushed her hair back behind her ear, the shirt lifted and opened some more.
‘Lay back a little,’ Kent murmured, his voice husky as his erection surged against the confines of his jeans.
Sadie felt his words go right to her pelvic floor. She waited a beat before complying. Placing her palms flat on the groundsheet behind her, automatically thrusting her chest outwards. She heard the snap, snap, snap and dared a little further, shaking her hair as she fell back onto her bent elbows.
‘Like this?’ she asked. The shirt gaped open covering only the tips of her breasts now.
Kent swallowed. ‘Fabulous,’ he croaked.
Sadie bent both her knees up and tipped her head back, shrugging her shoulders as she did so, rippling the shirt right off her breasts, fully exposing them. Her nipples were painfully tight from cold and the illicitness of their nature shoot.
‘This okay?’ she murmured, shutting her eyes as the warmth from the fire heated one side of her body.
Kent dropped the camera from his face momentarily. She looked as if she were moon-baking, her face raised to the heavens in silent supplication. ‘Perfect,’ he murmured, the camera forgotten as he drank in the creamy palate of skin bathed in a yellow glow.
Sadie lifted her head and looked at him, at the heat in his gaze. She felt suddenly liberated baring her all to him. Flaunting her body instead of trying to de-emphasise it.
Thankful more than he’d ever probably know that he’d rescued her from a mindset that had held her prisoner too long.
She parted her lips and gave him a Mona Lisa smile. Her heart beat a little faster as she let the leg closest to the fire flop to the side, the movement shifting deliciously through her torso. ‘What about this?’ Her underwear was laid bare to him and she watched as his gaze dropped to check it out.
Kent swallowed as she lay almost completely exposed to his view. The diamanté decorating her pink thong winked at him as his gaze fanned upwards, over the gentle rise of her belly, up to the swell of her breasts, the nipples standing hard and proud beneath his gaze.
She looked so damn perfect he wanted to eat things off her.
Twisties. He wanted to eat Twisties off her.
He ignored the direct order coming from his pants to cease and desist with the camera already and get down to business. Sadie was looking at him with power in her gaze, with pride, and he was determined to give her this moment. He picked up the camera and snapped away again, recording every delectable dip and curve.
‘You should never hide any of this, Sadie. You’re glorious. You should be proud of it. Embrace it.’
Sadie was officially turned on knowing he was watching her intently through the lens, his gravelly words soothing to an ego that had been battered and bruised for a long time. She shifted her still-bent leg until the foot was resting on his calf, then she slowly traced her big toe up to his knee and down his thigh before coming to rest on the bulge behind his zipper.
‘What about this?’ she as
ked, her voice husky as she idly traced her toe over the hard ridge.
Kent dropped the camera, shutting his eyes as he sucked in a breath at the erotic torture. He cracked open his eyes as he placed a stilling hand on her foot. ‘Ever done it on the roof of a car?’
Sadie smiled as she pushed the ball of her foot against the hard length of him. ‘I don’t think those swags are conducive to fooling around in and it’s getting pretty cold.’
Kent’s erection surged against the pressure. ‘Lucky for us they zip together.’
‘Really?’ Sadie smiled. She withdrew her foot and in one fluid movement got to her feet.
‘That’s a yes, then?’ He smiled, enjoying the view as he looked up at her. His shirt had never looked so damn good. It was completely open, exposing both breasts and the jut of her hard nipples. That fascinating pink gauzy patch at eye level.
‘Hurry,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she headed towards the vehicle.
Kent watched her go, firelight at her back, starlight at her front. He picked up his camera. ‘Sadie,’ he called.
Sadie half turned and smiled at him as he snapped the perfect silhouette. His shirt was half off her shoulders, the starry night an amazing backdrop.
‘I’m getting naked in ten seconds and it’s cold over here,’ she said as she continued on her way.
Kent didn’t need to be told twice.
NINE
Kent woke with a start in the middle of the night to a noise. The first thing he saw was Sadie’s concerned face looking down at him. He knew without having to ask that the noise must have come from him.
‘You okay?’ she asked. She’d gone to sleep with her head resting on Kent’s shoulder and his head thrashing had woken her a few seconds ago.
Kent raised his head, blinking a couple of times as he looked around, trying to clear the clinging debris of his recurrent bad dream.
He sometimes wondered if he’d ever be okay again.
‘Sorry.’ He grimaced, his head falling back down.
Sadie resumed her position, snuggling into his side, tucking her head into his shoulder. He smelled good—like wood smoke, soap and man. Her palm sat against his chest and she could feel the accelerated thump of his heart. She shivered as he traced his fingers up and down her bare arm.