How to Love (12 page)

“Okay,” she finally said. “I guess that’s enough.”

“Thank fuck. I’m exhausted. Who knew lying around could be so tiring?”

She laughed and moved toward him to kiss his mouth. “I’m sorry. I know it is. And thank you so much.” He kissed her back, holding his greasy body away from hers, just their mouths touching.

“I need a shower.”

“I don’t have one here, I’m sorry. But we can towel you off as much as possible.”

“My skin will be baby soft. You’ll have to check it out later.”

She laughed. “Okay.” She reached for the towel. “I’d love to do more some time. Maybe on location somewhere.”

“Jesus. You mean I’d have to get naked in public?”

“It would be private. I’m not saying we should do it down on the beach. Oh! I know. That little beach you took me to, kayaking, where Mosaic Cave is. If we went alone—oh my God, Mike, you and some of those rock formations…” She turned pleading eyes toward him.

“Uh…that
is
a public place.”

“But the only way to get there is by boat. There was nobody else there but us that day.”

He slowly shook his head, but a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I guess we could try it.”

“Oh wow. Thank you. That would be incredible.”

As she approached him to hand him the towel, he grabbed her. “I have an idea. I think your skin could use some baby oil.”

Heat flared in her again, and before she knew it, he’d stripped her tank top over her head and was flicking at the fastener of her bra. “Mike!”

“What?”

He pulled her against him, her own body naked from the waist up, and her skin slid across his in a sensual glide. “Oh. Oh God.”

His hands rubbed down her back, transferring some of the oil to her. “You know what?” he murmured. “This oil is really sexy.” He rubbed his chest across her breasts and her hard nipples. “We should try this at home.”

“It would really make a mess of the sheets.”

“So practical.” He sighed. “Come on, what’s a little laundry?” He slid his hands inside her shorts. “Take these off too. I’m dying to fuck you. Right here.”

It was crazy. There were people downstairs in the gallery, her two employees and possibly customers. They weren’t likely to come up here, but still…they could…but how could she say no? She couldn’t resist him, not at all, not when she was wet and so damn hot for him. She flicked the button of the shorts open, tugged down the zipper and shimmied out of them.

He pulled her over to the mattress covered with black fabric he’d been lying on for the photo shoot and tossed her down, coming down beside her. She didn’t care that his hand was greasy when he shoved it into her hair to hold her head for his kiss. She didn’t care that her panties were probably getting all oily. She didn’t care about the people downstairs or the lights shining on them. She just cared about him, having him inside her.

Their bodies slid together, his hard and hair-roughened against hers. Their legs twined together as they kissed, rolled, kissed again, hard bruising kisses, desperate, seeking kisses. “Christ!” he gasped against her mouth. “Need you, Jules. Now.”

“I know. Me too.” She nipped at his bottom lip and he grunted. His hard cock surged against her and she reached for it, throbbing and thick and slick in her hand. “I want to suck you.”

“Oh Jesus.”

“But not now,” she added breathlessly. “Someone might come…need to be quick.”

“No worries about that, babe, I’m about to blow.” He yanked aside her thong panties.

“Condom. Oh no.” She squeezed her eyes shut in frustration.

“Shit.” He paused, panting. “Got one in my wallet. Hold tight, sweetheart.”

He rolled off her and jogged to where he’d left his jeans behind the screen. She wriggled out of her panties as he rolled on the condom, and then he came back down over her. “Sorry. Got it now.”

“You came prepared.” She smiled and rubbed her face against his.

“You bet.” He plunged his fingers into her. “Oh fuck, yeah. Feel how wet you are.”

“I know,” she nearly whimpered. “I know.”

He kneed apart her thighs and pushed inside her. Unlike their first time where he’d nearly driven her insane with patient foreplay, today he was impatient, urgent, nearly out of control. She loved it. She wrapped her arms around him and lifted up into him, meeting every hard thrust. He groaned and buried his face in her hair, his flesh slapping hers. Then he slipped his hand between them, making his strokes a little shallower, and found her clit.

“God,
yes
,” she cried. He rubbed over it and the buzz intensified, tingles radiating from there out to her fingers and toes, heat flashing over her skin all the way to her hairline. “Yes!” She came, hard, in a blinding, wrenching spasm, holding on to him as he resumed his hard drives, so deep, almost painfully deep, prolonging her orgasm in wave after wave of pleasure.

His body went taut and still, pulsing inside her as he came too, and she dug her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders. “Oh man. Jules.”

They lay there beneath the hot lights, panting, sweaty, the scent of baby oil surrounding them. “Well,” she finally managed to say. “That wasn’t exactly how I planned to end the photo shoot. That was very…unprofessional of me.”

He laughed softly, his face still hidden in her hair. “I’m so shocked and disappointed in you.”

She stroked a hand down his back. “Oh, Mike.”

He lifted his head and looked down at her, those hazel eyes gleaming, his mouth sexy, his hair all messed. “It’s okay, Jules,” he said softly.

And she knew he wasn’t talking about her lack of professionalism, which truthfully had been a bit of a joke. Emotions tangled inside her, tenderness and affection, hope and fear. Did he know how confused she was? The fact that he so often seemed to read her, to see inside her, was the scariest thing of all.

Mike studied Jules’s face, flushed and shiny, her lips a little swollen, her hair tangled around her head. So damn beautiful. So damn sexy. And so damn enigmatic. He was falling, falling hard, head over ass. He wanted more, more of her. She was so sexual, so confident and fearless in bed, and yet held so much of herself back. Why?

He wanted to be closer to her, to know more of her. Last weekend when she’d finally confessed her fears about her work and her lack of motivation or inspiration or whatever it was that made her feel like she would never be able to take good pictures again, he’d felt like maybe that was the start of her opening up to him. She’d talked a little more about it that night after they’d had sex, when he’d tried to understand her feelings.

He wasn’t the most creative guy, certainly not an artist. He was good with numbers, liked spreadsheets and planning, liked analyzing things. So he had to admit understanding an artist’s fears wasn’t easy. He didn’t want to dismiss her feelings, though, when she’d finally admitted them to him. He didn’t want to make her regret doing it. But he did find himself with a powerful need to make it all better for her, any way he could, to look after her and help her.

So he’d agreed to the damn photo shoot. He cringed every time he thought about looking at naked pictures of himself, but hey, how bad could it be. He trusted her not to humiliate him.

Now, looking down into her face, vulnerable after sex, he could see the fear in her eyes. What was she so afraid of? And once more he had that protective urge, and he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “It’s okay, Jules.”

Which probably didn’t help.

He probably needed to back off a bit, give her space, cool down the inferno that had just roared up between them. So he kissed her mouth, softly, before rolling off her, pulling out of her warm, clinging body. “I need to get rid of this,” he said, rising to his feet, his hand at his groin.

“Over there.” She gestured to a waste basket beside the counter that ran along one long wall of the studio. She sat up and shoved her hands into her hair. “I’d better get dressed in case someone comes up.”

“Just you, huh?” He tied and tossed the condom. “Doesn’t matter if I get caught naked?”

“You’re
supposed
to be naked.”

“True. But I’ll get dressed too.” He scooped up the towel he’d used earlier, and rubbed it over his body, although much of the oil had transferred to Jules and the black fabric they’d been rolling around on. When he emerged from behind the screen dressed, she was too, her bare arms and legs still gleaming from the baby oil. She was taking down some light and the reflector.

He moved toward her, laid his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Still want to come over for dinner tonight?”

“Um. Yeah. Is Carlos going to be there too?”

“No.” Mike paused as guilt poked him. “He’s going out.”

“Ah. Hot date?” She lifted one eyebrow.

He forced a grin. “Maybe.” Truthfully, Carlos was going over to his parents’ for dinner after they’d mutually agreed he should be mostly out of the picture for a while.

“I feel bad. We’ve been going out and leaving him home alone all the time, and you guys just moved here.”

He tipped his head to one side and regarded her thoughtfully, not sure what to say to that. He fucking felt bad too. He
wanted
Carlos there and it especially sucked for Carlos. He struggled between honesty and caution in his response. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to be a third wheel,” he finally said. “But the three of us can go out sometime. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. I like Carlos. Hey, next weekend my friend Neve is celebrating her birthday at Aura.” At his questioning look, she said, “It’s a dance club. You should both come.”

“Neve won’t mind you bringing two dates?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

He frowned and she laughed. “Kidding! No, she won’t mind if you come, it’s just a bunch of friends getting together at a club for drinks and dancing or whatever.”

“Okay. I’ll mention it to Carlos. So I’ll see you later then. Come over whenever you want.”

“Okay. I’ll get things put away here and start converting the images.”

“Converting them?”

“Yeah. I shoot raw images, run them through a batch process in Photoshop to convert the images to black and white and tweak them, maybe sharpen some things a little, lighten some shadows. Stuff like that. Then I’ll review them individually and fine tune them and delete the ones that are crap.”

“Ah.” Her technical knowledge impressed him. “Okay. Later.” He kissed her mouth, then left the studio, running lightly down the stairs to the main floor. She’d shown him the back entrance and he let himself out there without having to walk through the studio all greased up and rumpled.

Her comment about Carlos puzzled him. On the one hand it was nice that she cared, nice that she liked Carlos. On the other, most girls didn’t really want their guy’s best friend on their dates with them. But were they dating? Or were they just having sex? Or…did she want someone else along to run interference between them, so things didn’t go too far? For the first time, he shared Carlos’s impatience, wanted to tell her the truth about them. He hated lying of any kind, including emotional dishonesty. He was uncomfortably aware of the fact that he kept asking her to be honest with him and he wasn’t being completely open with her. But his usual caution along with some pretty good instincts convinced him he should continue with his plan. Yeah. Plans were good.

Chapter Eight

“She wants me to come with you on a date?” Carlos looked up from his newspaper Sunday morning, sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee.

“Yup.” Wearing nothing but a pair of washed out plaid boxers riding low on his hips, Mike poured a cup of coffee.

Carlos studied the curves of the muscles down each side of Mike’s spine, ending in those sweet hollows above his tight ass before Mike turned to face him with a frown on his face. He got why Jules wanted to photograph Mike. He carried himself with a lazy grace, lean but well-muscled, perfectly proportioned.

“It’s not really a date, date,” Mike said, turning with a frown on his face. “A bunch of people are going to a club to celebrate her friend Neve’s birthday.”

“Oh yeah, we met her that night at the Surf Sisters’.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t look so thrilled about it.”

Mike shrugged and shoved a hand through his messy hair as he slumped into one of the chairs with his coffee. “It doesn’t bother me. I just need more coffee.”

“Why are you up so early?” Mike wasn’t one to drag his ass out of bed any earlier than he had to.

“I dunno. I just woke up early.”

“I gather Jules didn’t stay over?”

Mile blew out a breath. “Nope.”

“Why does she want me to come with you two?”

“She feels sorry for you.”

“Nice.” Carlos grimaced.

“Sucks to be you.” Mike lifted his coffee mug to his mouth to hide his smile, and Carlos couldn’t help the grin tugging at his own lips. “Kidding. Sort of. I think she actually feels a little guilty that we’ve been going out and leaving you home all alone when you don’t know a soul in town.”

Carlos lifted an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?” So Jules felt sorry for him. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. He didn’t want to look like a big loser. And truth be told, he had been feeling a little left out.