Peter tossed the cloth into a nearby basket and gathered the rest of his tools. He lifted his head when he heard it. The voice echoed through him and he turned his head. Behind him, taking with the desk clerk, stood stunning, red-haired beauty. He couldn’t see much of her face, but from the little he saw, he knew she was gorgeous.
“So it’s only $60 for three with the discount?” she asked, and the clerk nodded. “OK, I’ll book three for tomorrow night.” She pulled out a credit card from her shoulder bag and handed it to the clerk.
Peter slung his own work bag over his shoulder. He needed to speak with the clerk too, so he walked up behind her, hoping for a chance to break in and talk to her. She bent over slightly while she signed her credit slip and a surge of energy passed through him. He couldn’t believe his reaction to her and they hadn’t even met.
“The nighttime bayou tour is one of the most popular in New Orleans. You’ll have a wonderful time,” said the clerk. “You can pick the tickets up today at the dock, or if you prefer, we’ll have them for you here at the desk in the morning.”
He saw his chance. “I’ve gotten some of my best photos from the deck of that boat,” he said. The woman spun around and Peter’s stomach twisted. This woman was more than simply beautiful. He hadn’t felt this way looking at some the first time since…
She stumbled back into the counter. “Ouch,” she said, her hand going to her back.
Peter’s thoughts raced, but he quickly picked out what he hoped was the most appropriate response.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. But that tour really is amazing.” He pointed to picture he just hung in the lobby. “I actually got that photo over there from the deck of that boat.” He watched her gulp, and then steady herself before tilting her head slightly to look past him to the picture.
“Are you a professional photographer?” she asked.
“My name’s Peter. I have a studio in the city,” he said, and he gestured again to the picture. “Would you like to get a better look?”
She glanced around quickly and then settled her eyes on him. Her smile exposed twin dimples on her freckled cheeks. “I’d love too,” she said, walking beside him to the wall. “Do you sell many portraits to the hotel?”
Peter pulled on his shirt and tried to figure out what exactly he hoped to get from talking with her? She was obviously a tourist, and therefore would be gone in a couple days. It wasn’t like he could start dating her, even though, at least on his end, the chemistry existed. Physically, she had a body that put other woman to shame. If she sat for a photo session, she could charm any camera that he used. But he couldn’t just ask a hotel guest, no matter how friendly or beautiful, to sit for one of his more sensuous photo sessions. If the manager found out he solicited one of his guests, then he might cut Peter off from a crucial sales and referral source. He wouldn’t risk offending anyone by making that kind of offer, but if she asked, then that would be a different situation.
He focused back on her question. “A few, but I might be displaying more in the future. We haven’t worked out the details.
“Well, it’s a beautiful photo. I love how the moon hangs overhead.”
It unnerved and excited him how her eyes never wavered from his when she looked away from the portrait. Most woman that attracted him broke eye contact every now and then. But Alicia didn’t. Her awkward, startled, initial reaction seemed more appropriate for a women with less assurance. But the inconsistency she presented now attracted him further.
He leaned in. “I like photographing beautiful things,” he said.
She turned her head, one corner of her mouth ticking up. “What else to you shoot?” she asked, and then she lifted her sunglasses onto her head.
His breath left him as he stared into the most beautiful set of green eyes. She waited for his answer and he struggled to get control of his thoughts again. He needed to be careful around her. If he didn’t, then he’d end up saying or doing something that he shouldn’t. “I do,” he said, and then he quickly added. “My studio’s not far, if you’d like to go look?”
She bit her lip the second he asked and he regretted mentioning it.
“You’ve got your own plans. I shouldn’t have asked,” he said hoping to salvage the conversation from his own ineptitude.
She placed a hand on his arm and heat flowed into him. “It’s not that,” she said, closing her eyes for a second before she pulled her hand back to her side. “It’s just that I’m with my sisters this weekend. We live so far apart, it’s one of the few times we have together during the year.”
Peter shook his head. “I understand. Have fun with your family. I’m glad you liked the picture,” he said, his stomach twisting in disappointment for missing out on what he didn’t know. He turned to leave before he did anything foolish.
“Wait,” she said, and he stopped. “Where’s your studio. Maybe I can stop by with my sisters. I’m sure they’d like to have a look.”
He didn’t understand what Alicia had done to him in just a few minutes time, but he knew that seeing her again, only to watch her leave, would be even more disappointment that he didn’t want. But he had to tell her where she could find him, if she wanted. He fished in his pocket for one of his cards, and then handed it to her. “It’s not far,” he said. “I hope you can stop by with your sisters.” Then he left, doing his best not to turn back and look at her. At the lobby exit, he gave in and turned. Alicia stood where he left her by the picture, her eyes watching his every step. He exited the hotel. Interrupting her vacation to drop by his studio wouldn’t happen, but before he drove away, he sent up a quick wish that he’d see her again.
***
She knocked on Sara’s door a third time. Sara hadn’t answered the first two times, so she didn’t know what she expected by knocking a third. She obviously wasn’t in her room. Maybe Sara had gone down to the pool and they had just missed each other while she booked the river cruise for tomorrow night. Booking a tour and talking to the most gorgeous man she had ever laid eyes on, she corrected.
She headed back to her room and pulled Peter’s business card out. Her breathless reaction to him unnerved her. Few things in life ever left her speechless, least of all a man. Yet, when he had startled her in the lobby and she had turned to face him, she broke out in a slight sweat. His eyes burned into her with a heat more intense than any man had given her, even if they had seen her naked. Her iron control around men had wavered and an excitement she hadn’t known for years passed through her body.
With a bag of tools slung over his shoulder, she had taken Peter for some sort of handyman, but only for an instant. He certainly had the physique of someone who worked hard for a living. Under his shirt she could tell his body was built. But his clothes were all wrong for someone who did physical labor for a living. Handymen didn’t typically wear nice slacks and a shirt to work. Then she had remembered why he had startled her. She quickly realized that he must be a professional photographer and had just hung a sale he made for his hotel client.
Now she needed to decide whether to take him up on his offer to visit his studio. An attraction definitely existed between them, and she was tired of all the boring sex. No matter how inventive or wild in bed her lovemaking, it ended with her being bored and unsatisfied. She had tried everything to get past her slump with a few men, but nothing seemed to work. Now Peter had lit some type of fuse inside her and she wanted to take him to bed and let it explode.
Seducing him shouldn’t be a problem. With his obvious interest in her, it should be as easy as always. But she had sworn to avoid men during her sister’s trip. Her family matter more than anything to her. They had always been there during her most difficult times, and they didn’t see enough of each other. She sighed.
But their weekend time together had already been interrupted when Erica announced she needed to work and she didn’t know where Sara had wandered off to. A quick phone call could end the mystery of Sara’s location, b
ut then she would be out her excuse to take some time to visit Peter, and there really wasn’t much time. Erica, at worst, would take the whole afternoon, and then be back for dinner and the rest of tomorrow. If she took a few hours for herself to seduce Peter, then it really wouldn’t be taking away from the family time she wanted to spend.
She reached into her bag, pulled out her tablet, and started her web browser. A web address later her browser lit up with the homepage of Peter’s studio. No matter who she slept with, she liked to learn a bit about them before she moved from the possibility of sex into the certainty of sex. Usually she pried the information directly from the men in some public place, and then, when they weren’t looking she googled their names or checked their social media profiles. She had no qualms about the one night stands, but she insisted that she know who she slept with even if she gave them a fake name.
Landscape photos from New Orleans, the Rockies, Europe, the Amazon, and other places she could barely place on a map lined up on Peter’s homepage. He certainly traveled. A sidebar link ‘human photography’ caught her attention and she tapped on it. Two seconds later she broke into wide smile as a beautiful woman, laying on her side, breasts exposed, lit up her tablet screen. She scrolled down. Additional images of women, all without clothes filled up in Peter’s online gallery.
Seducing him will be easier than I expected.
All the women were pretty, although she noted a distinct lack of redheads. Maybe all he was into me for was to get me naked for a photo shoot. A surge of disappointment welled in her and she pushed it aside, but it refused to leave.
Why should she care if all Peter wanted was to get her undressed. Wasn’t that all she wanted with him? To get him naked and inside her? It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. If she went to his studio, it was all about sex. She scrolled through the photos of his female models again.
None of them had their faces showing. They were all anonymous. She also realized that none of the poses exposed any of the women’s pussies. The camera focused on the curves and waves of each woman’s body, including their breasts, but only showed some pubic hair surrounding closed legs below the waist.
She imagined Peter posing her body in his studio. Each picture exciting him more, until he couldn’t resist and he tore his own clothes off to surge into her. She picked up her cell and switched the power off. There couldn’t be any distractions. She could take a few hours out of her family weekend to spend with this man. The thought of seeing him, sleeping with him, sent sparks of electricity down between her legs. An anonymous photo shoot, and then sex with an amazingly attractive man was the most exciting thing she’d had happen to her in a long time. She wasn’t going to miss it.
Chapter 24
Peter slumped down in his office chair. He had photos to process and organize, but all his thoughts remained at the hotel and with Alicia. She had dominated every minute of his thoughts since he left. It didn’t make any sense. Beautiful tourists were always in New Orleans and he had met many over the years. On his many travels throughout the world, he’d met even more women. Until he shed his player ways, he’d slept with a good portion of them too.
He believed in love, but what he felt for Alicia wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. Even when he met Jackie, the woman he eventually thought would be his ‘one’, it had been a rocky start. The feelings he had at the hotel were different. His lack of attention to his physical needs had put his body into rebellion. For the last two years he had acted the part of the ‘good guy’, and despite all the dating, he hadn’t taken a single woman into his bed. He wanted Alicia, or at least his body did, and that was all there was to his feelings.
Once he left the hotel, he had been glad that Alicia hadn’t come to the studio with him. The attraction he held for her burned hot. He didn’t think that he’d be able to resist attempting to move things along faster than he knew was best. Try to seduce her or ask her to model? He didn’t know which would be worse for his willpower, but if the manager found out, it’d be a hit to his income. The hotel sales weren’t that important in the big scheme of things, but he grew up here and wanted to keep a solid, even if adventuresome, reputation.
Other women had created moments of doubt as to his promise not to play around, but his reaction to Alicia had been the strongest. Before he broke his promise in a weak moment with the wrong woman, he might have to rethink how strict he should observe his vow. He intended to wait until he fell in love again, and perhaps even marry before having sex again. But after today’s experience, maybe just dating a few months before escalating into sex, would be more realistic. He didn’t know, and he wasn’t ready to make any changes now, but he’d have to think on it.
He got up and headed into his storage room. Next week he needed to travel again for another project. He might as well start preparing. Getting back to work wouldn’t keep his mind off Alicia, but if he kept himself busy, then at least he wouldn’t be giving 100% of his thoughts to her.
The hairs on his skin tingled, and then a loud knock on glass. He froze in place, excitement and uncertainty building, until a second, more urgent knock got him moving. Forgetting all about his assignment, he headed back to the front.
Alicia stood outside, her body centered in the glass door with the sun falling down on her red hair. The sunlight reflected onto the glass and her head seemed enveloped in a slight fiery aura. He wondered if the angel in his thoughts might be more of a devil than he expected. It didn’t matter.
He unlocked the door, let her inside, and then locked it behind her. “No sisters?” he asked, hiding his delight.
“They’re off doing their own things for a few hours,” she said, her eyes seared into him before she shifted her gaze to his gallery. She walked from picture to picture along the wall. “A cozy little showroom you have here.”
“It works well enough,” he said. “Most of my sales are to magazines, rather than retail, so I don’t need much showing space.” He needed to keep focused on work and business, if he couldn’t keep his mind away from how beautiful she was, he will would ultimately break. It helped that Alicia had such a calm demeanor. He knew her lack of interest in him meant that she wasn’t here for anything except taking a look at his work. He needed to work harder to keep his mind away from her body.
It didn’t go so well. The view of her whole body through the glass excited him. The reflection from the window didn’t give him a good view of anything but her face when she stood outside. But in his determination to stay professional, he forced him to focus on her face immediately after opening the door. Now his eyes drifted away from her face to take in the rest of her. Her clothes were extreme casual. Shorts that rode high along her thighs and a plain white top that stopped just short of her belly button. His knees wobbled slightly when he looked over her breasts and realized that she hadn’t worn any bra. Her nipples pressed out against the fabric.
He moved over to the water cooler. “Can I offer you some water?” he asked. “It’s a hot day out.”
Alicia smiled. “I’d love something to drink,” she said peering at the doors behind him. “So do one of those doors lead to your studio where you make the magic happen with the camera?”
He took a cup from the dispenser and pushed the lever to fill it with water.
Keep focused on business.
“The magazines I sell to are interested in natural, outdoors, and wildlife photos,” he said. “I display a lot of New Orleans and other local sites here, but it’s mostly distant locations I shoot.” The cup filled and he stood to hand it to her.
“So you don’t shoot any of those women here?” she asked. “I saw your website. Your models are quite beautiful.”
His head swirled. He needed her to talk about nature photography not anything else.
Alicia stepped closer. “Would you like to do a shoot involving me?” she asked. “I’m available now.” Then she took the water from his hand before he had a chance to take it back to drink it himself.
***
>
Poor boy.
She almost felt sorry for him as she watched his eyes grow two sizes. He had no idea what was about to hit him now that she’d decided that he would be her next conquest. A shred of doubt tugged in the back of her mind that she shouldn’t be so aggressive with him.
Doubts weren’t something that she had often and it bothered her that she had even the slightest with Peter. It made no sense so she pushed it aside. He obviously had his fill of beautiful women. When she left, he would count her as another encounter that came and went. He might be shocked at her full court press, but he’d get over it once he slid in-between her legs.
Now that she’d made her intentions known, that she wanted to get naked for him, she needed to pull back a little and let him feel like he was seducing her. Hopefully he did take his female photos here. She didn’t want to go anywhere else to get things started. He’d show her around, try to make her feel comfortable before disrobing. His pulse would race when he finally saw her body in full. Maybe he would want her to put some oil on for the camera, but she would feign ignorance and ask him to apply it so that it was done right. That was when he’d finally touch her. As his hands roved around her body, massaging the oil in, she make some small sounds of delight until he finally gave in and pulled her in for the inevitable kiss. Eventually his hand would go to her pussy and he would abandon any pretense of not taking her then and there in his studio.
Peter seemed nice enough, but once the clothes were off, he’d react like every other man and follow his instinct to fuck. Men were all the same that way. He couldn’t resist. His eyes couldn’t hide his desire. The years had taught to sense how deeply into her a man was, and Peter wanted her. Her own excitement grew at the thought of how much he obviously wanted her. She wondered if he was the kind of man to simply take her offer and run with it, straight into a bed, or if he would put on a show of professionalism before laying her back.
Cajun Vacation Page 14
