The edge of his lip curves up, and he swoops his hand, then bends his head in concentration.
“So what brought on this scene from Titanic?” Dare asks me tritely, eyeing me above the top of his paper. I feel a blush spread from my forehead to my chest and I look away.
“I’m not…it’s not,” I practically stammer. The cool air drifts over my body, forming goose-bumps everywhere.
Dare pauses. “No?”
I shake my head. “No. I just wanted… to feel something else.”
“Something other than?” Dare waits.
“What I’ve been feeling,” I clarify. “Craziness. Sadness. I just want to be someone else just for a minute.”
Dare examines his picture, then sits back in his seat a minute.
“Why would you want to be anyone else?” he asks softly. “Calla Price is amazing.”
He stands up and comes to me, staring down. His expression is guarded and intense and he lingers above me. His dark eyes trace the outline of my naked hip, the curve of my thigh, and then suddenly, he follows his gaze with his finger. He runs it lightly from my knee to my hip, his fingertip scaldingly hot.
“You want me, don’t you?” I whisper, the words hesitant and afraid, hopeful and anxious.
His eyes are ablaze as he answers. “I’ve always wanted you.”
Any answer I can possibly give him his frozen in my throat, jammed against my tongue and so all I can do is move. I turn to give him better access, so that he can touch me, so that he can move his fingers and grip me tight and shove his tongue down my throat and…then he takes his finger away and offers me his hand.
I stare at his extended hand in confusion, but then let him pull me to my feet.
I stand toe to toe with him, my bare breasts almost pressed against his body. If I just rocked forward a little bit, his hips would be pressed to mine and….
He raises an eyebrow. “Do you want to see it?”
It. The picture. I forgot.
I nod, swallowing hard.
He hands me the picture and it’s beautiful.
I look like a model, draped casually over a settee. Dare made the curtains flutter in the wind behind me, and he created an ocean view through the windows. The light shines in on me and I seem like an ethereal creature, something otherworldly.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe.
“You are,” he agrees. He hands me my shirt and I hesitate.
I don’t want to put it on. I want.. I want… I want… Dare.
But his expression is no-nonsense and professional and he’s not touching me anymore.
Now isn’t the time.
I put my clothes on and hug the picture to my chest.
“Can I keep it?”
“Of course.”
He turns to move the chaise back to where it belongs and I pause.
“I was just thinking…” I begin. “That I’d like to go to Warrenton Beach today. Would you like to go, too?”