Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)

“I doubt your job is easy,” he said. “You’ve always been good at what you do. Yours is a natural talent as well. You have an eye.”

“All I do is point, shoot, click,” she said with a wink, then lifted her camera and snapped a candid of him without even looking in the lens.

“Hey now,” he teased, covering his face with crossed arms, pretending he was a star avoiding the shutter.

“Too late. I’ve got you here. For all posterity,” she said, tapping the camera. Her gaze drifted to the back of the Nikon. “You look good.”

He rolled his eyes.

“I mean it. Come see,” she said, gesturing for him to come closer.

He waved her off. “I don’t need to see myself.”

“Oh, stop being so modest. You are beautiful, Michael Sloan. You were always one of my favorite subjects,” she said in her straightforward way, so open and direct. His heart pounded faster, his skin heating up from her compliments. It grew tougher to keep her in a neat, organized corner when she said things like that.

“Thank you,” he said softly, as he moved in near to her, his arm bumping her shoulder. A slight hitch of breath escaped her lips as they looked at the image. He resisted touching her, even though all his instincts told him to. Instead, he studied himself on the screen of the camera, and he looked like the guy he’d always been. And yet, as he saw himself through her eyes, through her lens, he seemed…happier.

Maybe he looked more complete because he’d been caught staring at her.

“See,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. “Your eyes are so expressive. Your cheekbones are perfection. And your lips are…”

He picked up where she’d stopped. “My lips are what?”

She met his eyes. “Red,” she whispered, saying it in the same tone he’d uttered the word last night. Her cheeks flushed pink.

Ah, hell. He was going to have the hardest time not losing himself in her. She was going to have to stop this right now. It was past time for him to put an end to all these sweet nothings, or he’d be utterly ruined. But no fucking way could he tell her to stop. He liked her compliments too much.

“By the way, I liked watching you work,” he said, sidestepping to a safer topic.

“You did?” she asked as she returned to her camera bag and zipped up a compartment.

“You sort of radiate energy, but it’s focused. It’s almost like an athletic event when you take pictures.”

Her lips curved up. “Sometimes it feels that way.”

“You perform like that. Top of your game. You with your camera, seeing the world in ways other people don’t.”

She stilled her movements and cocked her head, looking curious. “Is that how it seems?”

“Yeah. It does. Both watching you work and seeing what you saw. I always got a kick out of looking at your photos. Like when you took pictures at the Pearl Jam concert we went to. Eddie Vedder didn’t look the same way to my eye as he did to yours. Seeing the pictures afterward was like opening a whole new view of something I’d already experienced,” he said, taking off his shades and tucking them on the neck of his shirt. “What’s your favorite thing to photograph?”

“Surprises,” she answered quickly, as she zipped another compartment.

“What do you mean?”

“Something that’s out of place. Something you don’t expect to see. A pink sock fluttering on a bush makes you wonder why a pink sock is there. A dog with a goofy expression that makes him appear almost human. The moment before a kiss when the woman is surprised.”

“Do you photograph kisses often?”

She shook her head. “Not often enough. I’d like to, though. I’d like to do a photographic book of kisses.”

“Would you put yourself in it?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Depends if I looked like I wanted the kiss desperately.”

Oh, that was too easy. He stepped closer, swiped his thumb across her chin, and held her face. A tiny gasp came from her throat, and her lips parted.

“Yeah, like that,” he said, his voice rumbling as he held her gaze. The look in her green eyes was hazy, full of want. “That’s the image you want to capture.”

“Maybe I don’t just want the before,” she whispered, her accent thicker, the way it sounded when she was more turned on. She was more French when she was aroused. He brushed the barest of kisses on her lips, a small, gentle kiss that made his skin sizzle. “I want the after, too.”

Before. After. In between. He wanted it all with her. One simple kiss and he was on a slingshot into wild longing.

“I want it, too,” he said, his voice low and hungry.

She pulled back and blinked as if refocusing. “You keep distracting me from packing up,” she said, her voice soft and playful. “And I need to, so I can steal you away from here for a few moments.”

He swept his arm out grandly toward her camera bag. “By all means, pack up then.”