Hmm, interesting. “You mean, you want to stop and do the photo session right now? Isn’t that going to be a little hard on you?” she asked as she brushed her hand against his erection.
“I can suffer for the sake of my art,” he said in a self-deprecating tone she loved. “And if my suffering becomes too great, I could join in the photo session.”
“Take photos of us together?” The possibilities were getting more interesting by the minute.
“Mmm, hmm. If you don’t mind sharing the spotlight.”
“But, how?”
“I’ve got a remote control for the camera.”
Aroused didn’t even begin to describe the rush of tingly anticipation that hit Talia. “I wouldn’t mind sharing the spotlight at all.”
He led her by the hand into his extra bedroom, where a black backdrop hung from a stand, and several complicated sets of lights with umbrellas attached dominated much of the space, along with a camera on a tripod.
Centered in front of the backdrop was a chrome chair. “Just sit on that chair, straddling it.”
She sat down, her profile facing the camera, and did her best pose, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. “How’s this?”
“Beautiful,” Ken said as he composed the shot through the camera’s viewfinder. “Tilt your chin down a little. Give me that do-me look again.” He began snapping shots, and Talia started to relax some more.
After twenty shots or so, he took the chair away and had her sit on the floor on top of the backdrop. Talia’s arousal grew with each shot, and by the time he had her posing with her legs spread wide and her girl parts in full view of the camera, she couldn’t wait another second for him to join her.
“Come over here,” she said after he snapped a shot of her doing her best centerfold impression.
“I was wondering when you were going to invite me.”
He stepped out from behind the camera and undressed in a hurry, donned a condom, and knelt beside her. In his palm, he held a tiny remote control, and once he’d pulled her against him, pressed his erection into her from behind, and wrapped his arms around her body, he snapped a shot, then another.
As they began the moves that came so naturally to them, the only thing out of place was the flash of the studio lights, and soon, even that became part of their lovemaking. It even heightened the excitement to have the camera’s eye watching, recording their actions to be viewed again later.
Ken pumped into her, his cock stretching her and probing her most secret depths. Then Talia forgot the camera, forgot everything but their bodies, forgot even to worry that she might be exposing too much of herself, too fast.
Soon they were near the edge, then over it, their bodies bucking against the pleasure of their orgasms that overcame them in quick succession. She wasn’t even sure whose came first or whose ended last. She knew only that being here, right now, locked together with Ken, their lovemaking recorded for posterity, was the most right place she’d ever been in her life.
SHOPPING FOR SWIMSUITS was definitely not the right way to cheer oneself after a breakup—if Naomi’s departure from Zane could even be called that—but she had mistakenly thought shopping of any kind at Neiman Marcus might be good therapy.
She hadn’t expected to feel so damn depressed, and now that she did, she had no doubt Zane would be her last fling.
“Do we have to have swimsuit season?” Naomi asked as she held up a little pair of bikini bottoms that would cover approximately one eighth of her ass.
“If there were no swimsuit season, we wouldn’t get to see hot, glistening guys emerging from pools in swim trunks,” Talia said as she sorted through a rack of red bikinis looking for her size.
“And what’s with that, anyway? Why do guys get to wear baggy, almost-knee-length shorts, while we have to go outdoors with our girl parts covered in glorified rubber bands?”
“It’s a man’s world,” Talia mumbled. “And I, for one, am going to just relax and enjoy the rubber-band season.”
“What’s going on with you? You seem almost…dreamy.”
And Talia was definitely not a dreamy kind of girl.
“I had the most amazing afternoon yesterday.”
“This must be related to Ken.” Naomi found another not-too-horrifying swimsuit possibility to drape over her arm.
Why on God’s earth had hot pants come back in style? No one over a size zero could look good in them. She thought evil thoughts about a certain teen pop star who’d made the style popular again as she moved on to a rack of one-piece suits.
Talia had remained silent for a bit too long, so Naomi glanced up to see that she was wearing a self-satisfied smirk.
“What?” she demanded.
“He’s an amateur photographer, I discovered. We had a little photo session together, and it was…” Talia shook her head as if at a loss for words to describe it.
“Hot?” Naomi offered.
“Incendiary. I’m surprised the camera didn’t burst into flames.”
“Wow. Aren’t you afraid he might do something sleazy like post the photos on the Internet?”
Talia shrugged. “I guess he could, but even if he did, it would still be worth it. Having the camera there—it just made the whole thing so much more intense, you know?”
“No, I don’t know, but I can use my imagination.”
“You should try it!”
“I’ll leave the amateur pornography to you.”
She shook her head. “It’s not porn. He showed me the photos last night on his computer. He’s a really talented artist.”
“You’re behaving in an awfully trusting manner. For you, I mean.”
Talia held up a white Brazilian-cut bikini. “You should try this on,” she said.
“Sure, maybe if I start jogging everywhere I go. I might be able to pull that off by, like, December.”
“Oh, stop it. You have a gorgeous figure. It’s just your puritanical streak that makes you think flaunting what you have is shameful.”
“No, I’m just all too aware that I’m not eighteen anymore.”
“Try it on, and I’ll shut up.”
Naomi took the swimsuit to appease her, though she was strongly morally opposed to white swimsuits. “Now stop trying to change the subject,” she said as they headed for the dressing rooms. “What’s really going on with you and Ken?”
“Don’t you want to see my photos?” Talia asked. “Ken printed some for me last night on his printer.”
“Um, let me see. Do I want to see photos of my best friend naked and doing God knows what? No!”
“I wouldn’t show you the really risqué ones, just the modest shots.”
“I’ll take your word on Ken’s artistic skill.”
Naomi shut the dressing-room door before Talia could whip out her nudie portfolio. Outside, she could hear Talia entering the dressing room next to hers, then she could see her pink-sandal-clad feet as she closed her dressing room door. Then there was the sound of shuffling, as Naomi undressed and shimmied into her first suit.
It was a black knit string bikini, slightly more bare than she usually went, but not so bare that she’d need a full body wax to wear it. She peered into the three-way mirror and frowned. Was Talia right? Did she subconsciously think there was something inherently wicked about revealing her body?
It sounded crazy, but she had always associated revealing clothes with being a bad girl, and she’d pretty much tried to be a good girl her whole life.
Whatever. Maybe it was just one more of a hundred ways she was warped, but worrying about it was not going to make her buy this Charlie’s Angels bikini. She took it off and was about to pry herself into the next one when Talia slipped something under the dressing-room wall.
Naomi was almost afraid to look, but she did. On the floor lay a black-and-white photo of Talia from behind. She was sitting on her knees, her hair cascading down her back, her head turned to the side as she looked down. Her rose tattoo, which Naomi rarely glimpsed,
was visible just below where her hair fell, and just above her crack.
“Did you know you have a tattoo on your back?” Naomi joked.
“Shut up. Isn’t it a great shot?”
“It is. It’s gorgeous.” It really was. “And now if you’re ever in a horrible accident and all that’s left to identify you is your ass, the authorities will have a photo to go by.”
Naomi pried herself into the white bikini bottoms Talia had picked out, then wrestled with the top.
“You think you’re such a comedian.” Below the wall, Naomi could see Talia stepping into a pair of blue bikini bottoms.
“I guess humor’s my knee-jerk reaction to seeing my friends naked.”
“Spare me the stand-up act and take a look at these.”
Two more photos appeared under the wall. One was of Talia—just a head shot, thank God—wearing the most blatant screw-me look Naomi had ever seen. Her face was half cast in shadow and half beautifully sculpted by light.
The other was of Talia and Ken. Again, mercifully just a shoulders-up shot. He was behind her, on the verge of kissing her neck. Both had their eyes closed, and the picture was erotic in an almost tender way. Like she was catching a glimpse of an emotion not normally caught on film.
Love.
A little lump formed in her throat. Was her best friend actually in love?
It was right there in the photo, Talia’s face softer and more vulnerable than Naomi had ever seen it before, Talia’s neck exposed so intimately, laid so bare for Ken’s mouth. Something about the two of them together, some invisible chemistry that only film could see, created a profound, intimate portrait.
“Why the silence?” Talia asked as she kicked the blue bikini bottoms aside.
“Nice photos,” Naomi said. An understatement, but she couldn’t exactly point out to Talia that she was in love before Talia herself was ready to admit it—or even realized it.
“I love that one of me and Ken,” she said.
“So, you two are getting serious?”
“I don’t know what we’re doing, but it feels right, so I’m going to keep on doing it.”
“Good for you,” Naomi said as she looked at herself in the mirror finally, the white bikini revealing more of her than had ever seen sunlight before. And actually, she didn’t look bad in it. For a twenty-nine-year-old, she was doing pretty damn good. If she dared to wear this thing in public though, she’d risk getting arrested for indecency. But in private…
An image formed of herself and Zane frolicking on some remote, deserted tropical beach, making love in the surf, walking and talking and playing in the sand. That was the kind of scenario this bikini would be perfect for. It was the one fantasy in which even she could imagine wearing a white swimsuit.
But her relationship with Zane had come to an end, which eliminated the possibility of frolicking with him on remote tropical beaches.
Maybe with some other guy…
She wanted to see her own face transformed by that emotion so clear on Talia’s face in the picture. She wanted to be in love.
She wanted to be in love with Zane.
Not in lust, and not just in bed. She wanted the real thing. He was everything she wanted, and she’d be a fool if she didn’t at least let him know how she felt. If she didn’t give them a real chance.
Or not. Maybe she was letting the stress of impending swimsuit season go to her head.
Naomi rolled her eyes at herself as she took off the bikini and put it back on the hanger. She had one more to try on, a slightly more conservative model with a retro flower print. After she’d put it on and examined herself in the mirror, she decided it was good enough. Sexy without showing too much.
“I take it by the silence, things aren’t going well over there in the bikini department.”
“I’ve found one. It doesn’t make me look like a swimsuit model, but without a miracle, it’ll have to do. How about you?”
She slid Talia’s pictures back under the wall to her and then dressed.
“This little number with the rhinestones works for me. I’ll be going glam this summer, I guess.”
“You’re the only woman I know who can pull off rhinestone sunglasses, so go for it.”
A few minutes later, they were both dressed and standing in line to make their purchases, and Naomi was surprised to find that she didn’t want to put back the white bikini.
When Talia spotted it hiding under the flower-print one on Naomi’s arm, she smiled. “Ooh, you’re getting the Brazilian! You should have shown it to me.”
Naomi shrugged. “I was almost too embarrassed to show it to myself. I don’t know where I’ll ever wear the thing.”
“I’m sure you can come up with something. I’m a little shocked you’re actually going to buy it though. I suggested it as a joke.”
“I figured if I don’t wear it now, then when? I’m not going to start looking any better in teeny bikinis when I’m forty than I do now.”
Talia waved away her concern. “I fully intend to look better at forty. It’s one of my life goals.”
Naomi didn’t even want to touch the subject of life goals for age forty. She’d already screwed up the ones she’d set for this decade.
As they stood in line, her mind kept wandering back to the subject. She was turning thirty, and she’d just let the hottest guy she’d ever met walk out of her life. Somewhere in that whole experience, there was a lesson to be learned.
But what?
14
NAOMI KICKED OFF HER HEELS and collapsed on the sofa, her entire body aching, her brain whirling with clients and meetings and style advice. For the past two days, she’d worked nonstop, her business booming after word had spread that she’d restyled Zane Underwood into a more civilized wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And she’d welcomed the distraction. It kept her from thinking too much about the absence of Zane in her life and in her bed.
She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, realizing she hadn’t watched it all week. Tonight, she wanted to kick back, vegetate and watch cheesy sitcoms or bad nighttime dramas. Anything to avoid thinking.
But her TV was already on the news channel, and before she could switch it, she caught a glimpse of Zane.
Zane, looking for all the world like a Greek god come to life, was on her screen talking about the latest issue in the upcoming elections. She wanted to change the channel, but she couldn’t stop watching him. He took her breath away—along with her ability to operate a remote control.
He really had followed her advice. His hair tamed, his outfit tasteful and understated, his five o’clock shadow nowhere in sight and his devil-may-care smirk eliminated, he was a new man.
She missed the old one.
She missed Zane.
She missed him like hell.
She wanted him back. Wanted him as more than a lover. Wanted to know if he could give them a chance.
She sat up and leaned her elbows on her knees, watching him with rapt attention without registering a word he said. She watched his mouth—that had given her immeasurable pleasure—watched his subtle expressions, his movements, his eyes.
He was one of the most important elements missing from her life, and if she didn’t let him know how she felt, she’d be the world’s biggest fool.
She had to talk to him now. Tonight.
She sprang up from the couch, raced into the bedroom to change into jeans and a tank top, then slid into a pair of thong sandals and grabbed her bag to head out the door.
Fifteen minutes and several traffic violations later, she parked in front of Zane’s building. Unfortunately, there were no lights in his windows. She got out and went up the steps, buzzed his apartment, but there was no answer.
Damn it.
Of course she should have called first. He was probably working, or out with another woman, or…Her stomach churned at the possibilities.
On impulse, she buzzed the apartment below his.
“Hello?” a man’s v
oice answered.
“Hi, I’m trying to get into the apartment above yours, but my boyfriend isn’t home to buzz me in.”
“Try the fire escape around back. He leaves his window open,” the man said.
Naomi wasn’t sure exactly what her plan was, but she headed across the lawn and around to the back, curious to see if Zane really did leave a window standing open. Sure enough…
She hopped onto the fire-escape ladder and pulled herself up to Zane’s landing. She knocked on his back door—no answer—then pushed against the screen to see if it was loose. When it popped right out, she blinked at her luck. And a minute later, she was standing inside his kitchen, looking around, wondering if she’d lost her mind.
Naomi felt like a criminal, and her entire body was tense from the idea that she was doing something wrong, entering a place she should not have been. But it wasn’t as if she had any nefarious purpose. She simply wanted to say she was sorry.
Since he wasn’t here, she’d have to leave a message in the one place she was sure he’d look.
Taking a deep breath, she crossed the room and entered the living room, then pulled out his desk chair to sit in. His computer was already on, she could tell by the hum of the CPU, the monitor in low-power mode. Naomi moved the mouse, and the monitor came to life again, the screen glowing white.
There was a document already open, something Zane must have been working on earlier. Not wanting to invade his privacy any more than she already had, she tried not to focus her eyes on the words, but rather just moved the mouse arrow to the New Document symbol. Just as she was about to click on it, she glanced down and spotted the words Atchison Tyler.
Zane was working on a story about her father?
Too curious not to read more, she allowed her eyes to focus on the rest of the words. The document looked to be a list of notes, probably story research. And when she read the first sentence, “Atchison Tyler likely accepted bribe for 1985 gun bill vote,” her stomach did a cartwheel.
What on earth…?
She continued to read. There was one note after another about her father accepting bribes, and then…Her father being spotted entering hotels with various women.
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