“If you press it halfway,” he says, demonstrating, “it’ll focus your shot. You know what you want me to do?”
“Yes. Take the tie.”
He pulls it from my neck, and it slithers over my breasts. My hairs stand on end. “You ready?” he asks in my ear.
My goosebumps get goosebumps. I shiver, nodding.
“Your hands are shaking a little,” he says. “That’s normal, especially with a piece of equipment half your size.” When he flattens a hand on my stomach, his fingertips graze my pubic bone. “Take a deep breath and hold it.”
I inhale through my nose.
“Do that when you take the picture. It’ll help steady your hands.”
I’m comforted—and a touch more aroused. “You’re a better teacher than you think,” I say because it’s true, but I’m also hoping to tempt him into another round. I haven’t forgotten his comment about roleplaying.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” He stands in front of the camera. “Where do you want me?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, looking him over. Since his face won’t be in it, I need details. “Roll up your sleeves.”
He undoes each cuff, folding them up while his eyes stay on me. “Next?”
“Wrap each end of your tie around your hands.” I frame the picture from his shirt pocket to under his belt buckle. He fists the tie as if he’s about to blindfold me or tie me up, then pulls it taut. The strength in his forearms is evident. They’re bronze and veiny, just as I knew they’d be. I make sure to get them in the shot. When I press the button gently, the lens focuses, and I snap the picture. I take a few more for good measure, then lower the camera. “Got it.”
He half smiles, takes the camera from me, and checks my work. “Only one is blurry. Good job.”
I straighten my back with his feedback. “Thanks.”
“Your turn.” We trade places. “Show me everything and nothing, Hals.”
Standing before him, I lift my dress by the hem, positioning both hands in the middle to keep anything good hidden. I stop above the tops of my stockings.
“You take direction better than I give it,” Finn murmurs. He squats in front of me, inches from my pussy. Inches from the dull ache he promised to satisfy.
My heart beats in my stomach. It was all fun and games a minute ago, but now I’m reminded Finn has suspended me in a state of arousal. Suddenly, nothing seems more important than relief. “Finn?”
“I know, just a couple more,” he says from behind the camera. “I’m coming.”
“I’m not.”
He shows his face to smirk at me. “I’m going to upload these. Go wait for me in the bedroom.”
I pout. “Upload me first. Do them later.”
With a laugh, he turns me by my shoulders toward the door. “I’m paranoid about these things. I’d hate to lose your masterpiece.” He pats my ass. “Go, take off everything. Except the stockings. Leave those on.”
With an exaggerated huff to make my impatience known, I go to his room. As I reach back for my zipper, I catch sight of myself in his full-length mirror. I stand in front of it and let the dress fall around my feet. I turn to the side in just my bra, stockings, and cheekies. I only lost thirty pounds, maybe even a couple more since my appetite vanished a few days ago, but my body could belong to someone else. I’ve never looked better, despite faint stretch marks, a fat roll from my underwear elastic, and my shrunken boobs. I wonder if I’ll gain it back once I completely stop the antidepressants. Even though I’m not sure I want evidence of myself this exposed, I consider asking Finn to take my picture nude in case my weight fluctuates again.
Finn makes a noise from the doorway. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets caught staring at you.”
By habit, I cover my tummy. All the lights are on, and he’s looking right at me. “I was just . . . making sure everything is in the right place.”
He smiles and walks around me. We look at my reflection together. “I probably haven’t told you enough how incredibly sexy you are.” He removes my hands from my stomach and scans me head to toe. “You know you are, right?”
I blink from his face to my body. I’ve never been overly confident, not even now. I know I look good, but those insecurities don’t go away overnight. “I think so.”
“I need you to know so.”
I look up again at the intensity in his voice. “I’m not going to gain it back,” I promise him. “The photos—”
“Fuck the photos,” he says gently. “Kendra was always worried about staying thin. She got that from her mom. They talked about it way too much—the latest diet or exercise fad, whether or not they’d lost or gained a pound, like it was a competition.”
“That’s not me,” I say. “When I was heavier, it didn’t bother me enough to interfere with my life.”
“I’m not saying you are, but I don’t want it to ever be an issue between us. If Kendra gained even a few pounds, she’d get depressed and refuse to have sex because of how she looked. And when we did, she didn’t enjoy it, because she was worried about lighting and angles and stupid shit like that. You think that was fun for me?”
I hazard a small smile. I’m actually enjoying his lecture on body image. “I’m guessing no.”
“I’d rather see cellulite than worry that you’re worried about how I think you look. You look perfect because you look like you, and believe me, that’s the most I’m thinking when I’m hard and you’re naked.” For emphasis, he steps into me. He’s not talking hypothetically. “There’s not much else happening in my head. Well, the head on top, anyway.”
I face him, even though the light will show my upper-thigh dimples in the mirror. I’ve exposed myself in terrifying ways to Finn, and he’s still here. There are no words to thank him for that, but I try. “I know it’s only been a little while, but I just, I feel like you know me better than anyone in my life.”
“I might,” he agrees. “And I know there’s more. Much more. I intend to keep peeling away your layers, Halston. You won’t try to stop me, will you?”
He knew me before I even met him. My desires, my insecurities, my aches. I don’t think I could stop him now if I wanted to.
18
While the last few weeks have sped by in a blur of camera flashes and ruined lingerie and soul-searching, two nights away from Halston have felt like a fucking lifetime. I check the time on my phone again, convinced it must be wrong. I should be grateful for this job shooting promotional images at a rural Vermont bed and breakfast. They’re paying me well and putting me up in their coziest room. But since Halston had to stay home and work, being away from her has me questioning whether the money’s worth it.
It’s a troubling thought. Between sporadic work the last year, alimony, child support, and living in the most expensive city in the world, my savings account is headed into dangerous territory. I need to work, but no need feels more essential than being with Halston.
She feels the same. I heard it in her voice this morning, her cheerfulness a thin veneer for the frustration my absence is causing. Knowing her like I do, I worry what loneliness is like for her.
That’s why I’ve prepared this “love letter” for her. While the owners try to get their chickens and goats to cooperate for me, I check my post one last time before I hit share. I don’t have to tell her to check for it. We’re posting daily now. Every image brings more followers. More followers make Halston happy—and me too. It’s validation that giving up a stable, mediocre life for my art wasn’t completely insane. Even if I haven’t sold anything or scored work yet, over a thousand people have decided my photography is worth a spot on their feed.
I don’t hear from Halston the rest of the day. With the year-end around the corner, she’s been working late a lot to prepare. I hate the idea of her working after dark with a scorned ex-boyfriend, but I don’t have much say in the matter.
Tonight, I walk through my door at seven in the evening, and her things are in the foyer. I’m filled wi
th a sense of calm I’ve been missing the last couple days. I dump my bags on the ground and look for her. “Halston?”
She doesn’t respond, but I find her in my studio, looking out the window.
“I’m so damn happy to see you,” I say, stepping into the room. “I was worried you’d be working.” When she doesn’t turn around, I repeat a little louder, “Halston?”
She startles, spinning toward me. “Oh my God.” She covers her heart. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Apparently not. Are you okay?”
“There was a bird on the windowsill—a sparrow, I think. But they aren’t nocturnal. Isn’t that weird?” She glances outside once more, then turns back to me. “How was the trip?”
The dark circles under her eyes are hard to miss. I haven’t been away from her since the first night she slept in my bed. She’s a little thinner than she was when we met. “Awful. I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” There’s so much emotion in her voice, I’m overwhelmed by the urge to wrap her up in my arms.
“Then let’s try this again,” I say. “Get over here and say hello for real.”
She hurries across the studio. When her arms circle my neck, I lift her by the waist. “Don’t leave me again,” she says, nuzzling me.
I’d like to bottle up those words and keep them close. It’s something Sadie never asked of me. And when I’d spend too many hours in the office, Kendra used my time away from home as a weapon. Halston actually missed me, and the evidence is right in front of me. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“It scares me how hard it was to be away from you.”
I rub her back. It doesn’t scare as much as worry me. Halston’s mood has been relatively good since we met three weeks ago, but the day before I left was the anniversary of her mom’s death. It was important to her that she end her meds that day so she could feel everything. And something about not wanting to hit the ten-year mark. I held her as she cried and reminisced. I listened. What I didn’t do was tell her it might not be the best time to stop. She’s mentioned enough times how Rich and her dad try to control her treatment.
“Did you try writing?” I ask. “Doesn’t that help?”
“I started to. It was the first time I’ve written since we met, but then . . .”
“What?”
She hesitates. “It’s stupid.”
“Of course it’s not.” I scoop an arm under her knees and carry her to the studio’s small sofa. I sit her across my lap. “If it’s something I did, you can tell me.”
“No, it’s not that.”
I set my jaw. There’s only one other explanation. She admitted recently that Rich’s still sniffing around, trying to change her mind about their break-up. I don’t need that. One of the worst things about my affair with Sadie was being kept in the dark about her marriage. I could never be exactly sure where we stood, because I only ever heard her side. I might need to step in with Rich before things get more complicated. “Is it Rich? Did he bother you while I was gone?”
“No. I mean, yes, he did, but I don’t care about him. It’s . . .”
I bend my head to try and get her to look at me. “What?”
She plays with a button on my chest and I temporarily forget that I’ve wanted to get out of this stiff shirt since the moment I put it on. “That photo you posted yesterday . . .”
I think back to the photo. We’d shot it a few days earlier. She’d dropped a glass in the kitchen in the middle of the night while getting water. I found her on her hands and knees cleaning it up. “You’ll cut yourself,” I’d said, pulling her up by her bicep. “Leave it. I’ll get it in the morning.”
I’d turned out the light, and the glare of a nearly full moon silhouetted her, her red slip the only color in the dark. She’d started to apologize, but I’d cut her off to get my camera. I slid down the strap of her negligee, positioned her sleep-disheveled hair over her shoulders, and shot her in the dark. Since we were apart yesterday, I’d posted it without her permission, but her face was shadowed. She hadn’t told me not to as she’d watched me edit it.
“What about it?” I ask.
“Did you see the comments?”
“I don’t think so. What’d they say?”
“Someone called the caption weird.”
I’m a toy.
Come, wind me up,
Play with me.
Her voice cracks. “They said it was sick. Do people think that?”
“Person, not people, and no, they don’t think that. How many other comments were there?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “There were four more.”
“And?”
“They were good.”
“So it’s one person, and clearly, this kind of stuff isn’t for her.”
“Him,” she corrects. “I looked at his account. It’s private, but there’s a bible verse in the description.”
“It’s one comment out of many from someone who obviously came across the photo by accident.” I kiss her temple. “Don’t let it get to you.”
She flattens her hand on my chest. “It just made me think. I am weird. How come I can’t just keep these thoughts to myself like a normal person? Why did I write them down? Why would I want people to read them?”
I study her face, the way her nose slopes to a perfect little point. Bible thumper or not, I’ll knock out any motherfucker who makes her feel ashamed. Her words come from deep inside her. They can never be bad, because they’re honest. “If either of us was a normal person, I wouldn’t have met you,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to find you, and,” I pause, my heart thumping, “I wouldn’t be falling in love with you.”
She blinks up at me, a tear dripping off her eyelash. A megawatt smile spreads across her face. “What?”
“You heard me.” I can’t help mirroring her grin. “This has been the best month of my life. I’m falling in love with you, Halston. I think I’m already there, but I don’t want to scare you off, so consider this a warning—it’s happening.”
“It’s happening for me too.”
“I figured.”
She laughs and jolts me with a quick kiss on the lips. “I’m falling in love with you.”
Her eyes sparkle, partly from the tears, but I hope from what I just admitted. Fate finally took pity on me. It dropped her most intimate thoughts and feelings right at my feet and said, This is it, you poor schmuck. Here you go, now leave me alone. I knew then, I needed this in my life. Once Rich was out of the picture, there was no reason for me not to love her.
“What about my post from today?” I thumb the hollow of her cheek. “It wasn’t for them. It was for you.”
“I didn’t see it. After I spent too long trying and failing to stalk that man who commented, I deleted the app from my phone.”
I raise my eyebrows. I wouldn’t be surprised if she checked it ten times a day. “Seriously?”
“I overreacted. I’ll restore it.” She tries to get my phone from my pocket, squirming in my lap as she feels around. So help me God, I’ve got the patience of a saint. I’ve held out over forty-eight hours and now she’s tempting the beast. She finds what she’s looking for and goes to the post.
In the photo, she’s asleep. Her body is outlined by my white sheet, her legs scissored across the mattress.
In my sheets.
In my head.
“When did you take this?” she asks.
“Sunday morning, before I woke you to say goodbye.”
“I love it. You’re so talented.” She widens her eyes. “Four-hundred-likes talented. Wow.”
I smile. I haven’t read the comments. I don’t normally. Maybe I should start, though. I don’t like seeing her this upset over something a stranger said, and I won’t be able to wipe it away with I love you every time. I have to start watching for these things.
I tilt her head up and touch her bottom lip. “I only care about one like.”
She catches my thumb between
her teeth, then licks it. “You have it.”
“I might need some convincing. I haven’t been inside you in three days, and you’re not all over me like I’d hoped.”
“It was two days,” she says. “We had sex before you left.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, nodding. “I woke you up to say bye, and I was almost out the door when you jumped me.”
“I promised I’d be fast, and I was. Have you ever gotten a condom on in two seconds? Maybe I should be in charge of that from now on.”
I squeeze the side of her ass, adjusting her so she can feel what her words do to me. “I don’t remember it being that fast. I might need to see it again.” I rake a hand through her hair and hold her in place for a kiss. She was crying only a couple minutes ago, and I should restrain myself, but I’ve been suffering without this. I put my hand up her skirt and find a treat. “Are these for me?” I ask, unhooking one of her garters.
She responds with a hip-swivel so skilled, I almost lose my eyeballs to the back of my head. “Fuck, Halston. Touch me. Don’t make me wait.”
She opens the button of my jeans and squeezes her hand inside. Her cold skin jolts me, but she warms up quickly, stroking me long and hard. “Like this? Or . . .” She looks me in the eye as she thumbs my crown, spreading precum over it. “That?”
I fist her elastic band. “How important are these tights to you? I’m either going to rip or come on them.”
“You said that last time, and you did neither.”
A challenge? I stand, nearly upending her onto the ground, but I catch her at the last second. “Bend over the couch.”
When she does, her skirt rides up the backs of her thighs, exposing more garter clips. I unzip my pants all the way. I haven’t had her from behind often, mainly because I like to watch her face as she comes. No time like the present. She’s just as pretty from this angle and appetizing as fuck.
I slip my hands under her blouse to grasp her breasts. She prepared for me, the scrape of her lace bra welcome against my palms. She shivers when I caress her lower back, goosebumps pebbling her skin. Slipping a finger into the elastic crotch of her panties, I say, “Next time wear white, so I can see how wet you are.”
Yours to Bare Page 18
