by Abby Knox
He looks over my shoulder, his eyes scanning the street. “Did you walk here?”
I nod my head, my body shivering against the cold, though I had willed it not to happen. Why? Why am I so determined to be immune to the cold around this man? He closes the door behind me and I inhale a deep breath.
“What’s going on? Is everything OK? You look…I don’t know, rattled.”
I nod my head, probably looking like a frightened chicken about to be beheaded for dinner.
“I am rattled. But…not by you. I’ve come to a decision. I’ll let you take my picture.”
“You came over here on foot in the middle of a snowstorm to tell me you’re OK with me taking your photograph for the Christmas spread? You could have called me or texted me. I did give you my business card.”
I shake my head and say, “Not those kinds of photos. I want you to shoot me…nude.”
Chapter 7
Aidan
* * *
“Are you sure?”
She blinks up at me, searching, her innocent face suddenly seeming twice as innocent as earlier today. How can she be asking me to do this? Or has my impression of her been completely off?
When Mayor Johnson told me I’d better make sure to get photos of Ruby, I know that tasteful nudes are not what he meant.
But Ruby seems determined and completely sure.
“Yes.”
She bites her lip. No. She’s not sure. I can feel it, not just in her face but in the energy between us. Something else is going on.
“Ruby. What’s happening? Why?”
She takes a deep breath. “Because when I was 17, someone took pictures of me in my swimsuit and passed them around to the school as a joke.”
My stomach twists in a knot. “What the fuck.”
She shakes her head. “It wasn’t just a joke, it was put into a file with all the other girls in school, and passed around for all the boys to rate the girls on a scale from one to 10.”
If she thinks I’m going to take nude photos of her after she’s baring the painful details of her past to me, she’s got another think coming. On top of that, she’s looking pale, tired, and dehydrated. Cupping her shoulder, I steer her into the kitchen.
“Come on. Let’s get you something to eat and you can tell me the rest if you want to.”
I’m either the most decent guy on the planet or a complete fool, I think to myself as I heat some chicken soup for the two of us.
She tells me the rest of the story as we eat.
“It was 2012, before private Facebook groups had taken off as they have now. So the guys would drop the photos into a shared folder and send them to each other via email. One day, one of them either got a conscience or accidentally sent the group email to a school official who was also a parent of one of the boys in the group. Then everything blew up. There was an investigation. Kids got suspended, the instigators got expelled, relationships ended, sports teams got annihilated for the rest of the school year without their best players. It was huge. While I appreciate the fact that the school took it all seriously, it was the only thing everyone talked about for a month, and I’d already felt so exposed and taken advantage of.”
It’s all I can do to keep from blurting out curses, but I keep it under wraps and just listen. She tells me how she’s sworn off men ever since then and hasn’t been able to trust anyone after the incident and the aftermath.
“But I’m OK, at least I’m OK with who I am. I’m not uncomfortable with my body.”
I nod and concentrate on chewing some bread thoroughly so I don’t say something truly awful like, “You shouldn’t be uncomfortable because you’re perfect.” I want to say it. I feel it. But now doesn’t feel like the time for compliments.
“You might be surprised but I’ve even enjoyed myself at a nude beach now and then while I’m on vacation. It’s pretty liberating. But no vacation hookups. I just can’t.”
Part of me thinks maybe she’s forgotten all about her request to have me shoot her in the nude, but no such luck.
“So that’s why I want you to shoot me in the nude,” she says on a heavy exhale.
Choosing my words carefully, I tell her that I don’t think she should use me for therapy. “I respect what you’re trying to do. But you should be sure you’re doing this for the right reasons. I’m not going to be able to undo what those idiot boys did to you.”
Ruby dabs her napkin to her lip, smiles shyly, and places her napkin on the table. Her breath is coming faster and her cheeks are pink.
“It’s not that,” she says. “I didn’t come here to work out my issues. I came here because I already have. I just want a symbolic bookend to the bad experience. Like foreplay. Because…well…I’m gonna need a lot of foreplay. I came here so you can take my photo and then fuck my virgin brains out.”
Chapter 8
Ruby
* * *
“Let’s go.”
Aidan says this while getting up from the table, not even bothering to clear the dishes. The table wobbles against the brush of his body, he stands up so fast to rush me out of the kitchen. My heart leaps into my throat.
This is happening.
I’m already so completely wet, I could forgo the photoshoot. But I know my body. It’s better this way.
Moments later I’m wearing a robe and being shown into a makeshift studio in the back bedroom of the house.
I’m amazed at how quickly he pulls together some sumptuous bedding, sets up ring lights, tree lights backdrops, and a tripod.
While I watch those big fingers of his screw in the pieces to hold his camera, Sally, in place on top of the tripod, I give myself one last chance to back out.
But no. This feels good. This is what I want. Just like I said, a symbolic bookend to the ridiculous fallout that was the beginning of my avowed singlehood.
It’s no exaggeration that this is foreplay. I have a feeling he’s big. Bigger than my not-small vibrator.
He looks up at me while he works on the tripod, and the question on his face touches my heart. His face is a big question mark, his eyebrows raised. He’s checking in with me, making sure I’m going to go through with it. I don’t know if it’s professionalism or just him, but I know from looking at him that I could back out at any moment.
I have no reason to trust him. And yet, I do.
Silently I signal with the lapel of the robe to ask him whether he wants me to take it off.
“Leave it on, for now.”
His voice is a little dry.
I nod. “OK.”
“Now, I’m going to have to put my hands on you to adjust your face…your body. Is that going to be a problem? You can back out at any time if anything makes you uncomfortable.”
“I want you to do whatever it is that you normally do,” I say.
Aidan instructs me to lie down on the bed on my side. He runs his hand up the outside of my thigh that’s on top, moving it just how he wants it. The press of his hand is professional but still gives me a slight jolt of electricity. “That’s it,” he says. “Like this.”
He deftly bends my top knee over the bottom leg so it’s touching the duvet. Then, he comes around to my head, opens the neck of the bathrobe just slightly, and without touching my skin.
He could touch my collarbone right now and I wouldn’t flinch. It almost hurts that he’s not touching it.
Instead, he tips my chin down to my collarbone, still not touching any skin below my neck or above my knee. The forbidden strike zone of photography, perhaps, like in baseball?
When he touches my hair to move it out of the way over here, and make it fall in my face over there, any remaining anxiety gets blasted away with a fresh flood of wetness between the folds of my sex.
The thrill of strong fingers adjusting my hair triggers a delicious shiver all through me. I hope he doesn’t see, and yet I hope he does see, the goosebumps across my flesh.
“Perfect. Just like that.”
I don’t have time t
o ask any questions, or even move before I hear the shutter snapping away. Several loud snaps in a row fill the silence between us.
Focus on the crack in the wall. The crack in the wall is your friend, he’s told me.
After several minutes of this, he asks permission for a second time to touch me.
“The first time I gave you permission was blanket permission. You don’t have to keep asking,” I say, unable to control the heat in my face and my mischievous smile.
In truth, I want him to surprise me with his hands. Move around me and over me. Fucking toss me around on the bed. Thrill me, shock me.
“I know, but I need to check in with you. You’re new at this, so if there is any sign of hesitancy then we should stop.”
Without a pause, almost interrupting, I answer, “Aidan, please do whatever it is that you need to do.”
He nods, his face resolute with professionalism. He touches the lapel of the robe again and tugs it gently until it’s down at my side, the sleeve bunched around my arm that rests on my hips, revealing both breasts.
Gravity cannot be behaving kindly right now. I want to look down, to adjust them, but there is nothing to adjust if I’m not wearing a bra. Gravity will do what it does.
I keep my eyes trained on the spot on the wall so I don’t know what Aidan’s face is doing.
“Hang on. It’s hot in here,” he says, pulling off a threadbare tee-shirt over his head. His broad shoulders once again seem to take up the whole room. There’s a tattoo wrapping around the upper arm, his only ink. The ink contrasts with the rest of his torso and other arm, where the deep ridges seem to stand out even more.
As he sweeps around and fusses, I hear something under his breath when he turns back to focus the camera on me. “Perfect.”
The word is not out loud but hangs in the air and I’ve caught it.
Perfect as in perfect shot? Perfectly still? Good girl? Or a perfect body?
The shutter snaps a few more times, and then he says, “And now don’t move, but look at the camera.”
“But you said…”
“I know what I said. And now I need you to look at the camera.”
Aidan’s voice dropped an octave when he said that. The gently demanding tone in a lower octave did sinful things to my body. Tiny muscles between my legs quiver.
I make eye contact with Aidan instead of the camera. He lowers the camera and a beat or two passes.
He clears his throat. “Sally. Look at Sally, now.”
His tone is less commanding, but he needs me to break eye contact.
I decide to be a good girl and look at the camera instead.
The shutter clicks several times and then he comes back to approach the bed.
“Raise your right arm and touch the back of your head, OK?”
I follow his instructions, aware that the movement lifts my right breast slightly.
“Now…arch your back a little,” he says.
The angle pushes my breasts out. The sound of an intake of breath can be heard as my nipples tighten. He watched it happen. Sat there with his eyes trained on me and watched my body’s arousal blooming across my skin.
Almost all of me wants him to know. I want him to see the flush of heat between my legs, the rush of moisture to my secret, untouched places, the ache to be touched. Grabbed. Fondled. Savored.
Fucked.
The word “fucked” repeats itself in my brain over and over again.
“If you could…uh…stay in that pose but just twist your torso up toward the ceiling.”
I’ve finally had enough of this. It’s too much. I open my mouth to call the whole thing off, when something else falls from my lips before I can stop it.
Chapter 9
Aidan
* * *
“You’re going to have to move me around how you want me, Aidan. With your hands, Aidan. Just do what you need to do.”
Baby Jesus in a manger, what the fuck is she doing to me?
Her eyes are all innocence, and not even feigned innocence.
I don’t know which would make me more frustrated. This is it, I’m going to have to manipulate her body for real.
I rest my hand on her right hip and tell her to keep her right knee on the mattress. I walk behind the bed, and the sweep of her spine makes me need to swallow the thick ball of emotions in my throat.
I flatten my palm on her spine. Why does her bare skin have to be so soft and smooth? Why does she have to smell so good up close like this?
I gently press my opposite hand on her shoulder, adjusting her body so her torso gently twists toward the ceiling.
“This…this is going to catch the light so differently. I think you’ll like this angle.”
“Where do I look?”
I tip her chin up to the light tree. “Look right above the light, just like that. Perfect.”
My body curses me for stepping away to pick up my camera. It wants to be closer to her.
Inside the frame, it’s even better than I imagined.
I never experienced my creative zone merging with my erotic zone so hard.
And it’s really hard right now.
Chapter 10
Ruby
* * *
“Are you ready for what comes next, Ruby?”
I’m barely controlling the tremor in my voice. “God, yes. Yes, I told you. Just do it.”
My eyes catch the look on his face. His eyes hooded, jaw clenching. As if I’m torturing him. Me!
When he’s close, manipulating my body to a sitting position, the bare skin of my arm touches his torso. The hard curves and heat send pulses down my body. He brings me into a sitting position and reaches under my thigh to raise my leg so my knee is bent. “Good. Sit up and bend your leg, rest one arm on your knee, and sort of prop yourself up from behind on your elbow. And take off your robe completely.”
I adjust my body on the mattress and do as he says. I hand him the robe and he tosses it to the floor.
Apart from the disinterested polite men at the nude beach on vacation, this is the first man to ever see all of my skin. My breasts, my tummy, the inside of my thighs, and…my sex. If he’s even looking down there.
“Like this?”
His rough, large hands on my leg spark a fire between my thighs as he adjusts my leg up into a sharper angle.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he says.
Of course, I don’t want him to stop.
His thick fingers are gentle as they manhandle me.
I just want to grab him by his hair and shove his face between my legs. But I don’t do that.
I wait until I hear the shutter a few more times.
The pace of my breathing increases when I look up at him.
“I’d like to be done now,” I say, my voice shaking.
And just like that, Aidan backs away and hands me my robe and has me wrapped in it.
“I’ll go make us some hot chocolate.”
“No,” I say. “After.”
He pauses, studying me. “After? Are you sure you’re ready?”
My breath is labored, Fear, frustration, and vulnerability fight inside me. This is exactly why I came here.
Yes, I am a grown-up and I can handle grown-up circumstances.
And I need to be kissed after that photoshoot.
I can’t bear the suspense of not being kissed by him.
I thought it was difficult asking him to fuck my virgin brains out. But asking him to kiss me is somehow ten times more difficult.
Because I honestly thought he would have done it by now.
Chapter 11
Aidan
* * *
Maybe I’m misreading her, but she seems hesitant, especially after abruptly ending the photoshoot. And the last thing I want is for her to regret sex, especially the first time.
“I just need to make sure you’re ready,” I say.
She interrupts, wide-eyed, and breathing rapidly, almost shouting at me in a wave of emotions. “I
just want you to kiss me already and I don’t like to make the first move, OK?!”
I’m not going to quibble about what counts as a first move: Kissing, or showing up at my door asking for a nude photo sesh and a fuck.
What I am going to do now, finally, is kiss her.
Slowly and sensuously, our lips join in a way that makes perfect sense. When we pull apart briefly, she leans back in for more, and I give her more. I’m still leaning over her as she sits posed on the bed, and I lean into the kiss, caging her with my arms, my hands planted on the mattress.
She takes the kiss deeper, welcoming my tongue to wrestle with hers. Her warmth and my need fit together like harmony. I feel her warm hand on my forearm, deepening my need to get closer to her. I need to feel her against me while we’re kissing.
The outside of her leg brushes against my ache.
It takes work for me to not spread her legs right now. She’s not ready for that yet. She needs to be thoroughly kissed and I need her to kiss me back.
Ruby cups my face in her soft hands. I angle my face the other way; I need to kiss and explore every curve of her lips, every corner of her mouth, desperate to kiss her in as many ways as possible. She responds by sliding the tip of her tongue across my bottom lip, the sensation sparking unreal amounts of pleasure across my skin.
Want has escalated into need. She lets out a small squeak of surprise when my torso closes in and lowers her onto her back, a little quicker than I had intended.
I need more. My kisses grow more desperate, needing to taste and explore more of her, and I angle my way down her neck, my lips and tongue tasting her soft, delicately scented skin.
Ruby lets out the smallest of moans, almost a whimper, when I softy lick and kiss behind her ear.
I pull back and kiss up and down behind her ear even more softly, and her entire body shivers against mine. I pull away with the need to see what she’s feeling. She looks turned on, but I want to be sure.
