Maximum Exposure (17 page)

And, yes. That was the main reason she’d ignored all her doubts and come.

But she’d never envisioned herself revealing to him what had happened to her years ago. “Tell me something.”

“Anything,” he said, squeezing her hand.

“Is confession really good for the soul?”

“Guess that depends if what you’re confessing is weighing you down so much that you can’t get on with your life.”

Ouch.
“The stuff with your father—”

“My father being a traitor, you mean?”

She nodded, wondering how long it had taken him to speak of it so bluntly. “I’m not prying. It’s just an example of something pretty big that you had to deal with. Even though you weren’t at fault.”

“That’s life, Olivia.” He shrugged, let her go, and stretched out on his side. “Stuff happens, and we’re stuck with the fallout.”

True enough.
“So, did it help? To talk about it?”

“What’s helped the most is time. But, yeah. It’s nice to be reminded that what he did was his choice, not mine.”

He made it sound so cut and dried, when for her, things had always seemed so much…stickier. “What happened to me…It wasn’t my choice, either. I was told over and over that it wasn’t my fault, but I’ve always wondered perhaps if I’d behaved differently, if the outcome would have been the same.”

“That’s legitimate. I’ve thought a lot how I complained all the time about money. About me not having any,” he said, and she laughed.

“That sounds like a typical teenager.”

“Yeah, but if I hadn’t been such a selfish prick about the guitar I wanted and the shoes and the car, would my dad have done what he did? Or was he just making up for being a single parent?” He snorted. “Like money could take the place of our mom.”

Hearing him talk so freely about what he’d suffered at the hands of a loved one, and knowing what she did about how easygoing he was, made opening up so natural.

She breathed deeply and went for it. “I’m the baby of the family, and that meant I got a lot of attention. As in a
lot
of attention. Everything I did was cute and perfect, and I was praised for things so insignificant that I had no perspective. I could do no wrong, and I loved it. All of it. I wanted more, so…”

“You did what you could to get it.”

“Put simply, yes.” But it wasn’t simple at all. “I excelled in school, was involved in anything extracurricular possible, and I dressed in clothes that I knew girls would envy, and boys—”

“Would want to get into.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, with a sigh. “You’re not the only girl who ever did.”

“Maybe not, but how many kept it up after being called a cock tease, a slut, and things so humiliating I really have erased them?”

“That’s a tricky one. I’m guessing you kept it up to prove them wrong?”

“That was part of it, I suppose, but mostly, it was the only thing I knew. The more outlandishly I acted as a kid, the more hugs and pinched cheeks and pats on the head everyone gave me.”

“Olivia could do no wrong.”

“Exactly.” She wasn’t at fault. She wasn’t to blame. “She was an overachiever, and acting out had never resulted in anything but positive feedback.”

“Enter the cock tease and slut accusations.”

Okay, now this was getting hard. She got to her feet, walked to the water’s edge, let the water lap at her feet and eventually her hem.

“Who hurt you?” Finn asked, his voice pitched low and coming from just behind her.

She kicked at a cloud of bubbly foam. “A friend of my father’s. He said I invited his advances. Told me I’d asked for it with the way I flounced around half undressed.”

“You know you didn’t. No woman asks for a sexual assault.”

She tried to shrug off his words. “He didn’t really hurt me—”

“Of course, he did. If not physically, then emotionally. How old were you?”

“Fourteen. Old enough to know better.”

“Olivia—”

“He was right. About that much, anyway. I’d seen him looking at me. I knew what he was thinking.” She lifted her face, letting the breeze cool her. “But he wasn’t going to have any say in what I wore. I had the right to wear anything I wanted to, damn him, to expose as much of my body as society said was decent. I’d show him. And I did. Until he showed me.”

She didn’t move when she sensed Finn coming closer. She didn’t freeze or flinch. She wanted him there. Wanted the comfort he offered when he stood behind her and wrapped her up in his arms.

She closed hers on top of his and held him there, sinking into him, needing the support of his body, but needing even more the emotional rock he offered.

They stood like that for several minutes, rocking back and forth with the waves. The sadness she’d been feeling seeped away, leaving what she hoped would grow into a fuller contentment.

For now, she’d take the sense of calm. It seemed a good start—though it would’ve been nice to have it last a little longer.

Finn apparently didn’t see things her way. “So when you came to Dustin’s condo and kept your sarong wrapped tight, what were you showing me?”

“Obviously, I was showing you nothing,” she said, defusing him since he wasn’t going to let it go.

“Yeah, I get the covered-up part. That’s not what I meant.”

“I don’t know.” Was being in the dark such a bad thing? “I’m not even sure it was a conscious decision, but I do know you confuse me.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He was such a man. “Yeah. You would.”

“Hey, confusing you means I’m making you think.”

And he sounded so proud. “Is that what a photographer’s supposed to do? Make his client think?”

At that, he hugged her tighter, brought his mouth closer to her ear. “What I think is that we haven’t been just a client and her photographer for a very long time.”

“Is that because you’re not a photographer?”

He slid his hands lower, found the hem of her tunic top, and worked his way beneath. “I looked at the photos after you left. PI or not, I take a fierce picture.”

“You had a fierce subject,” she said, trying not to shiver when his fingers found her skin.

“I can see why Dustin’s been bugging you about this. Your eyes are phenomenal. You show everything you’re feeling.”

He might think that phenomenal. She found it unnerving, and there was absolutely no way he was getting her to turn around. “Did you see it at the time?”

He flattened his palms on her rib cage. His voice was gruff when he answered. “Are you really asking me that question?”

That was what she’d thought. “Has Dustin seen them?”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t know that I want him to,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder, waiting for him to slide his hands higher. Or lower. Just to slide them. Somewhere.

But he didn’t. “Now you’re confusing me. Isn’t that why we’re doing this?”

“It was. But those…I can’t explain. They hurt.”

“That may be what you feel seeing them, but trust me,” he said, his lips at her ear, his teeth nipping the skin just beneath. “That’s not what an audience will feel.”

She swallowed, shuddered. “How do you know?”

His laugh rumbled through her, possessing, intimate. “You’ll find out at the showing.”

“What if I don’t want to wait?”

“You don’t have to. Say the word.”

“You’ll be honest?”

“That’s who I am. I thought you’d figured that out.”

“I know. And I’m trying to think of the photos as art. Erotic art, even.”

“But the erotic part is getting to you.”

“It’s crazy, isn’t it? I let people look at my body, but having them see what’s in my eyes…”

Finally—finally!—his hands moved. Slowly. Upward. Covering her breasts, his fingers twiddled the hoops in her nipples, tugging, twisting. She felt it in the pit of her stomach, in her center, deep between her legs.

“What’s in your eyes is desire. I know you were dancing for me. You know you were dancing for me. No one else ever will. For them, the performance was all about the camera.”

“Or about their own fantasies.” God, she loved the feel of his hands, his body warm behind her, the ocean breeze cooling her as it blew.

“Those men that night at Cigar Paolo. Do you think they walked out of there and never thought about you again?”

“I don’t know….”

“You stripped for me in your window, and you had no guarantee I was going to call. If I hadn’t, do you think that picture wouldn’t have visited me when I was soaped up in the shower?”

She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. His words wound her up; his touch made it so hard to breathe, as did his erection, pressed between the cheeks of her bottom.

“It’s art,” he said. “What they make of it in their own minds…That’s not up to you.”

Was it up to her to tell him what she was feeling now? That she wanted him to make love to her until the sun went down and then finish the night the same way?

She was so out of her element. She knew how to use her body, but to involve her emotions? To make love out of what had always been sex?

“Olivia?”

She loved that he used her full name. “Finn?”

“If we don’t move, you’re going to be soaked to your knees.”

Her skirt. She felt the weight as the water wicked upward. “I was just thinking I needed to get out of it.”

“Oh?” he asked and stilled.

She nodded. “The skirt, and a few other things, too.”

“I’m not going anywhere, you know,” she told him, planting a hand on the wall tiled in aqua, white, and sea green to keep from losing her balance. “You don’t have to attach yourself to me.”

“Get used to it,” he said, pulling the knob for the shower. “As soon as we get rid of this sand, you won’t know where I start and you end.”

That sounded yummy. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d indulged in sex for hours. “Don’t forget to schedule time for the photo shoot.”

He skinned off his boxers. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Oh?” she answered, moving from one foot to the other as he skinned away her panties, too.

“Instead of the beach, what about a beach-house bedroom scene?”

“I hope you’re kidding,” she said, fighting hard not to drop her gaze from his mischievous grin to his cock, which she knew was going to cause her the most delicious trouble. She couldn’t wait.

Who said men were the visual creatures? She loved the look of a naked man, or at least this naked man, who wasn’t the least bit shy about drinking in his fill of her. She tightened everywhere, tingles and tickles sending shivers to the pit of her belly, the base of her spine.

“First things first,” he said, scooping her off her feet, swinging her up, and stepping into the tub. “I want to know about the rings.”

“What about them?” she asked as he lowered her slowly, and she didn’t know which of them enjoyed the friction of skin on skin more.

He kept his arms wrapped around her, his hands roaming her back, settling on her bottom, and pulling her close. He squeezed, then got back to roaming again. “Why?”

His fingers were doing
that,
and he wanted a coherent answer? “Why the rings?”

“Uh-huh,” he mumbled, his mouth moving over her neck.

“I like the way they feel.” She was wearing all four of them now, though she’d left the decorative chains at home.

“How do they feel?” he asked, drifting lower, far enough down her body that she had to close her eyes to the spray pulsing down and splattering off his back.

“It’s hard to explain,” she said because she couldn’t think of anything to say. She couldn’t think at all. His hands had slipped into the curve of her bottom, and his fingers had slipped even deeper.

He’d found the slit of her sex and was playing there, teasing her, pushing his fingers inside her. She wanted to cry out, but bit her tongue so he wouldn’t stop. She didn’t want him to stop.

“Try,” he said, biting down on one of her nipple rings, catching some of her flesh. “What’s that like?”

“It’s like waiting to have sex.”

He moved to her navel, slipped the tip of his tongue through the hoop piercing her skin. “And that?”

“It’s like relief is so close. Like I’ve been waiting too long.” She almost added, “For you,” but managed to bite back the words, because she wasn’t sure either one of them was ready for her to make that admission.

He nipped at the skin of her belly. She sucked in a sharp breath but didn’t complain, threading her fingers into his hair and telling him with her hands that it wasn’t close to being enough.

She loved what he was doing, soothing the spot with soft kisses, with languorous strokes of his tongue. If he bit harder, she was certain she would love it even more.

He gave her belly another kiss, then brought his hands to the front of her thighs, spreading his fingers wide and using his thumbs to capture her clit. He didn’t press or pinch or rub.

He just held her there, nuzzling her, mumbling against her, and asking her, “And this one? It feels like…?”

That one was easy. And the longer he toyed with the ring piercing her there, the easier it got. “Like I really don’t want to wait anymore.”

He sucked her into his mouth, holding her with his lips while he tongued her, flicking the tip at the underside of her clitoris, pulling on the ring until the knot of nerves there tightened unbearably.

She could come so easily, but she wanted him with her, wanted him inside her. She tugged at his hair and urged him to his feet.

He rose, blocking the water, and she opened her eyes and looked her fill. His shoulders were wide, the muscles there nicely rounded. She reached for him, laid her palms there, slid them down his arms, pressing her thumbs into his biceps, smoothing his resilient skin.

He cupped a hand to her face and smiled. “I thought you didn’t want to wait.”

“I don’t. But there is so much more here to see and do than I’d thought.” She sputtered water, grinned. “I mean, who knew wielding a camera would result in arms like this?”

“These arms are the result of swinging a baseball bat.” He flexed his muscles beneath her hands, then popped his pecs. “These, too, plus a few weights.”

“Nice.” She leaned forward, ran her tongue over one of his nipples, then the other, sucked on both until he squirmed away. “What else you got?”

He groaned as she kissed her way down his midsection. “Abs worthy of a
Men’s Health
cover.”

She played the ripples like piano keys, and this time he yelped when he squirmed. “Mmm. Somebody’s ticklish.”

“Somebody’s also got bigger muscles than you, so don’t be dishin’ out what you can’t take.”

“Oh, I can take anything,” she told him, opening her mouth and sliding her lips to the base of his cock.

He groaned, widened his stance, let loose a string of colorful words that told her quite eloquently he liked the way she dished and was done with his threats.

She enjoyed herself there, learning his texture and his taste, what made his legs shake, his muscles tighten, his cock twitch against her tongue.

But then it was his turn to urge her to her feet, having had enough of a pleasure that didn’t offer legs tangled with legs and arms holding, fingers digging in, and chests pressed tight. Like her, he wanted the slip and slide of her belly against his, and oh yes, the slip and slide of his cock into her pussy’s tight sheath.

She groaned, caught a breath, and held it as he moved inside of her, then out, repeating the slow, sliding thrust until he was buried completely. She tightened the leg she’d wrapped around his hips, pulling him as close as she could, wishing she was on her back and his weight was pressing her down.

They stood that way for several long moments, just breathing, their heartbeats synced, their blood pulsing in a shared rhythm. Water sluiced over them. Steam clouded the enclosure. The scent of wet skin washed around them.

It was all too much. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t wait. She arched against him, her arms looped around his neck, shaking as she tried to hold on.

He planted one hand on the wall, kept his other arm hooked behind her, and followed, grunting, grinding, losing himself in her as she lost herself in him.