Intimate (10 page)

He followed her lead when she went into the vineyard and gathered trailing vines against her bare breasts, with only the jewels peeking out. The fact that he left so much of it up to Kaz had her pushing her personal boundaries beyond anything she'd ever done. The more pictures he took, the more comfortable she grew. His fingers lovingly worked the camera, and she thought about what those fingers had done to her last night, how they'd made her cry out in absolute uninhibited pleasure.

Kaz was almost certain she would do anything he asked.

She was vaguely aware of the increasing sounds of traffic on the main road across the valley, the voices of men working in the fields on the far side of the creek, but here all was quiet, all was private, and the isolation felt complete.

No one but Kaz and her photographer.

Kaz Kazanov and Jacob Lowell, separated by the lens of the camera, drawn together by the changes of jewelry, the familiarity of this man she'd only met the day before, a man who'd had his mouth between her thighs just last night, his tongue teasing the ring in her clit, his fingers plunging deep inside her. He'd taken her to unimaginable heights of pleasure, and now he was helping her switch out the jewels in her nipples, the rings in her navel, the studs in her ears.

She almost laughed as she imagined trying to explain the day to Lola and Mandy.

At one point she was bedecked in chains—fine gold mesh running between her nipples and creating a triangle pattern of finely wrought gold from breast to breast, from nipples to navel. A crown of jewels circling her head like a multihued headband, a gold chain draped from a ring in her nostril, across her cheek to her ear. She thought of adding another to the ring in her clit, but she wasn't ready.

They didn't speak very much. Occasionally Jake gave her a direction, but mostly she merely did what felt right. She stretched and turned and bent, pulled the scarf across her lips, over her breasts, along her rib cage, always keeping the jewelry in mind, the drape of the chains, the shimmer of stones.

Her growing arousal was a subtle thing, affecting the shots, the poses she took. Each move felt like a choreographed step in a dance, a move to the right, then one to the left, following directions only she heard, not even sure if they came from Jake or if they were all a part of her own internal rhythm, patterns of her own design.

Her mind wandered as she worked, her body moving instinctively, her thoughts straying to the night before, to the beautiful man making love to her with those same hands that held the camera, that mobile mouth, lips pursed in concentration now as he focused on the scene he'd helped her set, lips that had taken her to heights she'd only imagined.

Her arousal spiked and she moved in a more sinuous pattern, arching her hips, thrusting her breasts forward. The steady sound of the camera as Jake recorded every twist and turn made her impossibly wet.

It hadn't been her intention when they'd begun the shoot, but Kaz realized she'd been subtly seducing him throughout the morning. Did he realize what she'd only now discovered?

She thought of what he saw, physically separated from her by the lens, and she arched her back, setting the scene for him as her mind filled with that first image of Jake when she'd awakened this morning—him standing so tall and strong beside the bed. He'd already been dressed, and all she'd wanted was for him to take off his clothes and crawl back in with her.

She'd noticed before they left that only one bed had been slept in, and it was hers. She hadn't even sensed him beside her during the night, but he'd been there.

“What are you thinking right now? I love the look you've got.” He laughed and she heard the whir of the camera.

She fluttered her eyelashes. “I'm not going to tell.” But tonight she'd make sure she knew exactly where he slept.

“I see.”

The rapid click of the camera continued. He was shooting high speed on his digital, and she knew that every flicker of her eyes, every subtle twitch of expression was recording. She licked her lips. Pouted.

Click. Clickclickclick.

Right now, she was almost certain she wanted him in her bed, but would she feel the same later, after the shoot was over for the day? After the jewels were put away, the cameras stowed, when they'd be dealing with each other once again in what she thought of as the “real world”?

She ran her fingers across her chest, tangled them in the chains linking from a diamond-studded slave collar to her breasts. The real world could wait.

Posing was, in so many ways, a fantasy. She projected the fantasy that the marketing people wanted for their product. Jake wasn't seeing the real Kaz. He was seeing the product through the lenses of his cameras, seeing Kaz as the display for those products. He needed her to be alluring, to project a look that would make someone seeing the ad want to buy the jewelry.

Her nipples ached, her breasts felt heavy and tender, and the tender skin of her inner thighs felt irritated and sore. Were the rough boards of the fence where she'd posed to blame?

No, it wasn't the fence at all. She brought her memories into focus and realized Jake hadn't shaved last night. She'd ended up with razor burn!

She'd never had razor burn between her thighs before.

Her inner muscles clenched in a quick spasm of need.

“I like that. More.”

She certainly hoped he meant her seductive expression and not her rippling vaginal muscles. Fighting a laugh, she forced her thoughts away from Jake, away from graphic memories of last night, but it didn't help. Her body was suffused with heat, with too much sensation. She bit back a moan as Jake leaned close and adjusted the chain dangling between her nipples. His knuckles brushed the underside of her breast, his breath warmed her throat. The pads of his fingers were rough, and though she didn't think he was stroking her sensitive skin on purpose, every touch as he adjusted the jewelry sent a shock of sensation straight to her clit.

When he tugged the chains connecting her nipples, she might as well have had one of the chains attached to the tiny silver ring between her legs.

He backed away with a soft caress that trailed over the silky skin at the underside of her breast and she caught herself leaning into his touch.

His head jerked up, his gaze trapped hers, as if he'd caught himself doing something unexpected. As if he wondered what her reaction would be.

Her breath caught in her throat, her gaze locked with Jake's. Time stopped—a heartbeat, a year—and Kaz slowly turned her head away, slipped into another pose.

One where she wasn't looking into those darkly curious eyes.

 

CHAPTER 6

A moment later it happened again. This time, his startled reaction when the back of his hand brushed her aroused nipple barely concealed beneath the silk scarf, Kaz had a feeling he'd just made the same connection she had—that she was practically naked and he'd been touching her intimately all morning long.

They'd sure named this jewelry right. Intimate. She and Jake had been intimate for hours, and they still had hours to go. She took a deep breath and scrambled her thoughts. She had to think about something, anything but the man behind the lens.

The man whose gentle fingers were carefully adjusting the drape of gold chains beneath her breasts.

She snapped up the first nonsexual thought that came to mind.

Jilly.

She hadn't started modeling until after her baby sister died. What would Jilly think of her big sister now? Jilly would love Jake and his wonderful sense of humor. She'd probably make typical little kid gagging noises over the nitty-gritty aspects of modeling, though she would jump all over the chance to wear fancy jewelry or fashionable clothes.

Jilly had epitomized “girly-girl,” and she would have had a true appreciation for a smart, handsome, funny guy like Jake.

Except Jilly would never know him.

She glanced at Jake, focusing on the good times with Jilly, smiling into the lens and probably ruining the shot.

“I like that smile,” he said.

She breathed a soft sigh as he kept snapping pictures. Relaxing further, she continued the slow but steady movements that would give him more choices, more angles with the jewelry.

Then Jake's voice gently interrupted her thoughts. He'd been leaving the poses up to Kaz, but his words weren't at all jarring or intrusive. Instead, they heightened the connection, the sense that she was seducing the man behind the camera. Seducing him, and he didn't even know it.

“Brush your fingers over your right breast. Just the fingertips. Yeah. That's it.” His whispered instructions reminded her of her yoga instructor's words as he led them into meditation, soft enough to let her stay within her own little world yet directing her thoughts all the same. She did as Jake requested, brushing her fingers across her breast, trailing them down the chain, circling her navel.

“The gold is warm from the heat of your body. From the sun. What does it make you think? What would you like your lover to do with those chains?”

His soft words had her concentrating on the sensual feel of the metal, imagining the source of the slight tension when she tugged on the chains and stimulated her nipples was Jake. He was pulling the chains, rolling her nipples between his fingers. She'd been holding the sound of the creek in her mind, but now she imagined the sensual rhythm of the music they'd listened to last night. It helped her find the rhythm she needed to create the dark and edgy, yet sensual look Jake wanted.

Unfortunately, it was much too easy to think of this job in sensual terms, and once again she was back there, remembering last night. Remembering the way it felt when Jake teased the ring on her clit with his tongue, when he'd filled her with those beautiful, long fingers of his.

She wanted more of him. She wanted to feel his body covering hers, wanted the stretch and sting of his cock thrusting deep, filling her. It had been so long since she'd been with a man, and never had there been a partner as attractive, as much fun, as Jake. Or as sexy.

She really should tell Wilhelm that he was right. That yes, the tiny ring in her clit definitely increased sexual pleasure, but the thought of going back to the big, burly tattoo artist and piercing specialist, admitting to him just how right he'd been, made her blush.

*   *   *

Damn. She was so fucking perfect. The whispered suggestions he'd given her had upped the sensual feel of the pictures, as if she'd taken his instructions and internalized them. Jake focused once again, catching the line of her jaw, the curve of her breast and the taut nipple pierced with a ring of yellow gold set with blue tanzanite.

A dark rose spread over her honey-colored skin. Jake snapped a few quick shots, pointed the lens down, and laughed out loud. “Okay,” he said. “What are you thinking?”

Blinking, she stared at him as if he'd hauled her out of a daydream. “Thinking? Why?”

“Because you just blushed the most delicious shade of rose. It's going to give the pictures an entirely new feel. I love it. So spill. What was going through that devious brain of yours? I want to know so I can get it back.”

She blushed even darker, the deep rose creeping over her skin and across her breasts. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was sexually aroused, but she seemed much too professional to let her mind go that far away from the job at hand. Even so, he remembered that color from last night.

“That's even better,” he said, and he took more shots.

Kaz dipped her head. She pulled her knees close to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, until everything he wanted pictures of was completely hidden.

Then she totally shocked him. “Actually, I was thinking of last night.” She raised her head, and the intensity of her gaze had him hard in an instant.

He'd been thinking of last night since … well, since last night. He lowered the camera. “You were?”

She nodded, and sat up a little straighter.

“What were you thinking?”

Kaz shrugged, and he clutched the camera to keep his hands to himself. The scarf had fallen away from her breasts; her nipples were flushed from the changes in jewelry and from the warmth of the sunlight spilling over the meadow.

And maybe from memories? If she felt anything like he did, her mind didn't need to be engaged for her body to recall sensation. To recall and react.

He was certainly reacting. “You can't stop there,” he said, fully aware his voice had gone deeper, huskier. “It's not fair to leave me hanging.”

She tilted her head and smiled at him, but her cheeks were still rosy. “I was thinking that Wilhelm was right. The little ring on my clit really does enhance sexual pleasure.”

“Really?” He set the camera down. It had connected them all morning, but it had shielded them as well. Now that shield was gone. Without the lens between them, it was Kaz and Jake, and the connection between them felt as intimate now as it had in that hotel room last night.

He focused on her lips. Was she remembering when he'd slipped the tip of his tongue into the ring in her clit? That was something he hadn't been able to get out of his mind. He'd never been so turned on in his life as when he'd tugged at that tiny silver ring oh so gently with his tongue.

He was never again going to find anything as sexy as that ring. He'd nibbled and nipped, but the ring gave him a focus, something quite literally to hang on to. Her reactions had been so sensual, so deeply erotic that he couldn't even think of her now without getting hard.

Hell, had there been a time since he'd met her that he hadn't been aroused? “What did it feel like?” He went down on one knee in front of her, putting himself at eye level. “I've never been with a woman before who was pierced the way you are. I was so afraid of hurting you.”

“Oh, God.” Laughing, Kaz covered her eyes with her hand and looked down. “It was amazing. Sparks of sensation. I can't even explain it, but somehow, when you tugged on the ring, I felt pulses deep inside.”