.
“With men?”
“Yep.” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger.
“So where does the next lover come in?” he asked, sounding faintly amused. Apparently he’d drawn the incorrect conclusion that she wasn’t serious. Evidently he thought she was simply the typical thwarted female making the typical empty threat to swear off men. Wrong. She was an adult woman who’d made a valid, life-altering decision.
She should probably enlighten him.
Delaney curled back onto her side and smiled wickedly. For the first time since they’d started this shoot, she actually felt sexy. She arched an innocent brow. “Who said that lover would be a man?”
The camera clattered to the floor and the blank slack-jawed look he gave her was utterly priceless.
Delaney sat up and made a moue of disappointment. “Damn, that would have been a good shot. You missed it, didn’t you?”
3
HE’D DROPPED HIS damned camera.
Never in the history of his career had Sam ever dropped his camera. When he went into the zone, the equipment simply became an extension of himself. His camera was his baby and he treated it as such—with extreme care.
No doubt about it, over the course of the past few years he’d been routinely shocked. He’d taken boudoir photos of a hermaphrodite, for pity’s sake. Pictures of women that were pierced in areas that went well beyond his scope of comprehension. He inwardly shuddered. In this business, he’d pretty much seen it all and he’d never—never—once dropped his camera.
And yet, all this woman had to do was utter a few choice words about possibly changing her sexual preference…and he’d fumbled a thirty-five-hundred-dollar camera like a freshman rookie a yard from the end zone.
He couldn’t believe it. He simply couldn’t believe it. A litany of inventive curses streamed through his overwrought mind as he bent over and snagged his camera from the floor.
From the very first moment he’d laid eyes on Delaney Walker he’d known she’d be trouble with a capital T. For reasons which escaped him now, he’d thought he’d be safe once he’d gotten her behind the lens—thought he’d be able to treat her just like any other beautiful woman who came into his studio. And there’d been plenty.
In this line of business, any photographer worth his salt, in a sense, had to become desensitized to the female form. Battling a hard-on throughout a session was inconvenient and not conducive to a good shoot. One simply learned how to detach and focus on what lay inside the lens. Sam had mastered the trick years ago, and yet from the very second Delaney stepped out of that dressing room, his loins had been locked in a fiery state of perpetual hell. His blood had been humming with an intense awareness akin to radio static, and his scalp had tingled until he wondered if he might be having some sort of allergic reaction to his shampoo.
He was a wreck.
He didn’t just want her—the driving need gnashing around inside him couldn’t be reduced to any such simple term—he had to have her. Felt like he’d explode, or worse, if he didn’t.
One look at her in that virginal peasant gown—hell, she might as well be in a nun’s habit for all the skin revealed—and something deep, dark and primal had taken over. The hint of curves beneath all those yards of fabric, combined with that sexy mouth and long moonbeam hair and… Sam pulled in a tight breath. She was gorgeous, utterly gorgeous, and the fact that she didn’t realize it made her all the more appealing.
He’d wanted to tell her many times during the first few frames just how incredible she looked, how phenomenally hot, but given her almost phobic modesty, he didn’t think it wise. For his peace of mind, or hers. He’d tried to loosen her up with conversation and the ploy had worked right up until she’d dropped her little I-might-take-a-lesbian-lover bomb.
She had to be one of the most sexually innate creatures he’d ever encountered. She’d let that bright green gaze leisurely roam from one end of this body to the other, had all but measured him for a wet suit, yet she’d suddenly decided to bat for the other team? he thought skeptically. Not likely. He smothered a snort. If she was a lesbian, then he was the damned Easter Bunny.
Delaney’s soft chuckle drew him from his chaotic musings. “I’ve shocked you.”
“Not shocked,” Sam said simply for the sake of argument. “Just surprised. I had no idea that you were a lesbian.” He smiled up at her and tried to project a calmness he didn’t feel. “I’d understood that your fiancé was a man.”
He checked his camera over once more, deemed it unharmed, and once again tried to put things back on an even keel. Maybe if he concentrated really hard, he’d be able to think about something besides the way her gown had slipped down on her arm, baring one delectable shoulder. Besides tunneling underneath acres of white cotton and exploring every inch of her gorgeous body.
With his mouth.
“My fiancé was a man,” Delaney told him, “as was the last one. Men suck. Why not give a woman a shot?” she asked matter-of-factly. “I can be open-minded.”
Sam tsked, lined up another frame. “I don’t think being open-minded has anything to do with it.”
Delaney rolled over onto her stomach, let her hair fall over the end of the chaise. “Why not?”
He fired off another few shots, then paused. “Let me ask you something. Are you, or have you ever been attracted to a woman?”
She pulled a thoughtful face and winced. “No,” she said slowly. “But I’m hoping I can work past that.”
A laugh stuttered out of his chest. “That’s certainly an interesting goal.”
She pulled an offhanded shrug, baring a little more creamy skin. “Hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
Sam finished off the roll of film. “Okay, that’s got this set completed. Wanna go change and meet me back in here?”
He’d said it casually, hoping not to lose what little ground they seemed to have gained during this stage of the shoot, but the instant his suggestion registered, her anxiety returned full force. Previously relaxed muscles went tight with tension and a frown wrinkled the smooth line of her brow.
Sam pretended to tweak his camera and eventually she nodded. “Sure. I’ll, uh, be right back.”
Theoretically speaking, if he were an outlet and she a plug, then one could reasonably assume that when she walked out of the room—pulled the plug, so to speak—he would return to normal. The clawing need would subside, his mega hard-on would wilt, and his skin would quit prickling.
To Sam’s disquiet, it didn’t and he grimly suspected that until he had her, it never would.
And having her was absolutely out of the question.
Number one, he didn’t sleep with clients. He’d worked hard to build a reputable business, depended heavily on word-of-mouth advertising. Everybody knew hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. One pissed-off chick with a vicious tongue could literally cost him thousands of dollars. Sam had seen it happen before.
Secondly, even if he were to forget the no-fornicating-with-a-client rule, it certainly wouldn’t be with a woman as emotionally wrecked as Delaney Walker. Sheesh. She’d just been jilted, was so messed up that she was considering becoming a lesbian. He’d have to be the biggest fool on earth to even consider letting something become of this hellish attraction that had blazed between them.
Finally, were those reasons not enough—which they certainly were—he desperately wanted a job at the Chifferobe. Wanted a shot at it so badly that he could taste it. This was his chance, dammit. He couldn’t afford to screw it up by acting on an almost overwhelming attraction. He could handle it. Would have to.
With