I bend a little to kiss her but stop. If we start down that path, I won’t be able to pull myself back. “I’m trying.”
“I know you are.” She rises onto the tips of her toes, angling her mouth toward mine, but I draw back. “What’s wrong?” she asks.
“We have to keep this business until we’re done, or I’ll go and fuck everything up. Your hair, makeup, this . . .” I trail my finger along the waistband of her thong. “Put it aside for when the camera’s off.”
She arches an eyebrow at me. “So you do like it?”
“Can’t you see that I’m hard right now?”
“Oh, yes. I can see that you’re very cocky.” Her eyes sparkle. “It’s going to be hours before I can do anything about it, though.”
“That’ll only make it sweeter when we get there.”
Halston changes into a red, Kimono-style silk robe. Still sexy but not as revealing. I’ve photographed her fully dressed and made her impossible to resist, so I’m not worried it’s too modest. She nails the fantasy. Butter Boutique recognizes that.
Halston wears rooster-red lipstick to match the robe. Paired with her blonde hair, she’s a verified seductress. My instincts war inside me, even with poultry on the brain. My heart races seeing her this way. One of the reasons I love her is her ability to strip herself bare for me. To open up and show me—and the camera—her wants and needs, her insecurities and vulnerabilities. I want to claim her, remind her she’s mine. At the same time, the purpose of this photo shoot is to share her with others. To post the pictures, advertise Butter Boutique, and get publicity for our account and the cause. Halston has been so focused on building our following lately. The more followers we get, the more she wants. It makes her happy.
She pulls the sleek collar of the robe up around her neck, and I take the photo, making sure to get only her red lips and blonde hair in the frame. Next, she turns around and looks back over her shoulder at me. I brush strands of hair from her face, but they fall back against the corner of her mouth. This close, you can see the faint, butterfly-and-blossom print of the robe. It’s perfect. Butter will love the shot. Everyone else will love Halston.
We work all afternoon. She models ruffled bra and panty sets, a dusty rose-colored babydoll dress, a nude negligee that ghosts over her nipples. If I squint, she looks naked in that one, so I try not to squint. In editing, I’ll make sure she’s covered.
Over a hundred photos later, the winter sun hides behind the New York City skyline. “That was nine outfits, right?” I ask, eager to finish. My hard-on’s getting painful. “There’s one more?”
“I saved it for last,” she says. “It might take me a few minutes to change.”
“Need some help getting into it?”
One corner of her mouth lifts. “Better if you stay here. Otherwise, we’ll never get around to finishing the shoot.”
Considering she’s just paraded around like a waking wet dream, I can’t imagine this getting better. Truthfully, I’m not sure I can handle anything more. If I hadn’t committed to photographing ten different outfits, I’d call it a day. I need to be inside her. “Just make it quick.”
I go into the kitchen to make us each a drink because I’m happy this is almost over, and five thousand dollars is definitely worth a toast. Halston gets looser when she’s buzzed, but I don’t want her drunk. We’ve both been frustrated for hours, and I anticipate a long night of de-frustrating ahead.
I get two tumblers and a bottle of bourbon from a cabinet and set them on the counter next to Halston’s journals. Journals—plural. I still can’t believe there’s more of the sexy poetry I found months ago in a coffee shop. Page by page, I’d gorged on her before I’d even met her. I’d drunk her in, made myself sick on her. And then she’d revealed there were other journals.
Can I handle more? After fate had given me just a taste of Halston, I’d done everything in my power to find her. I love that journal—it led me to right to her. I want more of it. I also recognize the sometimes dangerous power her words have over me.
I don’t want to torture myself any more tonight, but temptation gets the better of me, and I pick up the journal Hals called “dark.” With her approval, I’ve read parts of it, but only when she isn’t around because she’s self-conscious about it. I was interrupted mid-passage last night when she came home from work, so now, I open to that same page. She describes the cinch of a silk tie around her wrists. Being fastened to a bed, made helpless. How the cold hardens her nipples, but she has no way of covering herself. All that turns me on. Hals and I have experimented with tying her up, but we never get very far before we give in and fuck. But it’s the next part of her entry that nearly has me coming in my pants.
Spread out
I lie still as death
While you move just the ends of me,
Post to post.
Helplessly bared
My ankles in your possession,
You unfold me—
“Finn?” Halston calls from the other room.
I put the journal down—interrupted again and hard as fuck. The image of her ankles spread on the bed is fresh in my mind as I pick up our drinks. Mine. Completely mine to do with what I want.
I walk through the doorway, and Halston’s standing tall in high heels by the couch. A pink satin corset with little black bows flattens out her tummy and boosts her tits nearly up to her chin. The ends of her blonde, curled hair quiver with each breath, brushing the neckline. As if that weren’t sexy enough, the outfit comes with matching garters and thigh-highs.
She glances at the drinks and starts across the room. “Is that for me?”
“Stop.”
“What?” She freezes, then smiles shyly when she notices my hungry expression. “You like it?”
This is no time to play coy. I can practically feel my erection tearing through the fabric of my jeans. “Let’s do this one in the bedroom.”
“I thought our bed was off limits?”
It’d been another one of my stipulations for agreeing to this. Our bed was too personal to shoot images for money. Now, though, I can’t think of a better place for this one. “Bedroom,” I order. “Now.”
She turns and struts down the hallway, her half-covered ass cheeks bobbing with each step. I follow with the drinks and my camera. Sadly, my bedframe lacks posts, so there’s nothing to which I can tie her. I obviously wasn’t thinking ahead when I bought it.
I hand Halston her drink. She sniffs it as I step into her, sipping my own bourbon. I tuck some of her hair behind her ear and kiss her forehead, her cheek. “How do you want it?” I asked. “Soft? Hard? Want to be made love to tonight, or something else?”
“I want whatever you want,” she breathes.
“That wasn’t what I asked. Tell me now, because I’ll be completely lost in you soon. Too lost to make coherent decisions. I want to make you happy.”
She flattens her hand on my chest and tilts her head back to look up at me. “I don’t have to tell you how I like it best. You always seem to know.”
I drop a gentle, light kiss on her lips. “Sit. Take your drink with you.”
She backs up and perches on the edge of the bed. Without instruction, she holds the glass of amber liquid between her legs. I take a picture. She dips her finger in the alcohol and draws a wet heart on the curve of her breast. Snap. She lies down, arching her breasts toward the ceiling, and I capture the curved space between her lower back and the white comforter.
“I want to see you,” I say from the foot of the bed.