He drove slowly along the route to Anya’s college, knowing she was staying in one of the dorms on campus. He kept his head twisted to watch the sidewalk, his eyes locking onto any small, blonde women walking down the street. None of them were Anya.
Perhaps she had caught a cab? He hoped so. He didn’t like to worry about her, and right now all he could do was think about her, the argument they’d had sitting like lead in his heart.
He reached the campus and pulled up outside. There were no parking spots, so he double parked, figuring he wouldn’t be too long. He couldn’t go walking into her dorm, but he could slip one of the other female students some money in order for them to go and find out if Anya had made it home safely. Of course, she might lie to get him off her back, but at least he’d feel like he’d done his best.
He climbed out of the car and froze, his heart hammering.
Anya was standing with someone, a guy, on the path in front of the main college building. Who the hell is that? He couldn’t tell for sure at this distance, but they appeared to be arguing. Anya held her shirt together between her breasts with one hand, while she gestured with the other. The young man stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head.
A pang of guilt for upsetting her so much she’d felt the necessity to run home half-dressed wracked through him.
Damn it. That was his fault. She deserved to be treated like a princess, not a whore.
Still, the sight of her standing, half-dressed, with another man, made his blood boil. Without thinking about what he planned to do when he got there, Eric marched across the grass toward Anya. The person she argued with was a stocky man in his early twenties. He had the punch-drunk look of someone who liked to play sports and get in fights, completely the opposite of the type of person Eric had been at college. As he got closer he could tell the man was saying something to Anya, his mouth curled in a sneer of disgust. Anya’s nose was wrinkled in her own display of loathing, and she glanced away and shook her head, obviously disagreeing with whatever was being said. The man reached out and tried to tug at the hand Anya was holding her shirt together with. She slapped his hand away with her other hand, but he didn’t take any notice. Instead, he laughed and moved closer. Anya stepped back and stumbled, falling over her own feet, to land on her backside on the ground. Automatically, she put down both hands to break her fall, and her shirt fell open, exposing her bra.
The young man laughed.
Fury burst inside of Eric, a red haze descending over his vision. Before he could control himself, he’d broken into a run, pushing past other students, some of whom had noticed what was going on and stood, staring, talking behind their hands and giggling. Eric didn’t have a moment to take in the yells of annoyance as he shoved past them to get to Anya.
He stormed in front of the man and swung his fist, catching him on the jaw.
His punch knocked the guy’s head back.
The stocky man clutched his jaw in surprise, staring at Eric. “What the hell?”
“Don’t you ever lay a finger on her again, do you hear me?”
“Fuck you, man! Who the fuck are you?”
“I mean it, don’t you ever even look in her direction again.”
He turned to help Anya from the ground. She was staring at him as though seeing a figment of her imagination. He held his hand out to her, but before she had the chance to take it, something collided with his back. Anya only just managed to roll out of the way before Eric hit the ground, his chest slamming against the concrete, the breath exploding from his lungs. He forced himself to move, twisting around moments before the young man straddled his chest, taking swings at him.
A fist smacked Eric in the mouth. Pain exploded in his lip, and he tasted the iron tang of blood. Before he could retaliate, the guy swung again and this time connected with Eric’s nose. Fresh pain bloomed behind his eyes, spreading out to encompass his whole face. Eric roared in anger and placed two hands against the other man’s barrel chest, shoving with every ounce of strength he had, pushing him off. Anya’s attacker fell to one side, and in an instant, Eric was on top of him, repaying the blows. His fist connected with his cheekbone, pain bursting up through his knuckles, but he was too furious to care. The other man might have been ten years younger than Eric, but Eric was taller by six inches, and had the advantage of years of regular gym trips.
Hands were pulling on his shoulders, then her voice broke through his anger.
“Eric, stop it! Get off him!”
He felt as though a fog were clearing, and he looked down to see the boy’s eyes rolling in his head. Blood dribbled from his nose and the corner of his mouth. Small hands tugged on his shoulders again.
“Eric, please.” Anya’s voice, full of pleading and desperation.
Eric lifted a hand and wiped his face. More blood—his own this time—smeared across his palm. Slowly, in a daze and shaking from the adrenaline, he climbed off Anya’s attacker.
A small group of students had surrounded the fight, all watching with a mixture of dismay and morbid delight. Someone stepped from the crowd, another male student.
He lifted a hand and pointed at Eric. “Hey, man. Don’t I know you?”
Eric suddenly remembered himself. He’d lectured here. People would recognize him. Quickly, he turned to Anya, ducking his head. She seemed to understand his reaction, and she grabbed his elbow, ushering him away from the group, and from where the young man was groaning and starting to push himself to sitting.
“He’ll be fine,” Anya said, hustling him back across the grass toward the parking lot. “You need to get out of here.”
“I have a car.” He pointed to where he was parked. “The black Lexus over there. Who was that guy?”
“Gavin Hollis. He thinks he’s some big deal around here.”
“Does he make a habit of hassling you?”
Anya shrugged. “Now and then. He doesn’t like that I don’t date any college guys. He takes it as a personal insult and ... I don’t know ... some sort of challenge.”
“Asshole.”
“You got that right.”
He realized she’d managed to maneuver him back to his car. The collective eyes of the students were following their every movement. Gavin Hollis was on his feet now, his friends gathered around him, one nodding seriously at something he’d said, another pointing in Eric’s direction.
Anya gave him a little push on the shoulder. “Go on. Get out of here before someone calls the cops on you.”
Eric frowned. “But he was practically assaulting you!”
“No, he wasn’t. He was just being a jackass—something I’m perfectly capable of handling by myself.” It was her turn to frown. “What the hell are you playing at anyway, Eric? You are a grown man. You can’t go around beating up college kids.”
“I saw how he was grabbing at you,” Eric growled.
“But what are you even doing here?” Something dawned on her, a realization in her face. “Are you following me?”
“No! Not following you. I just needed to know you would be okay. You’re too precious to me to ...”
“To what? To have a life outside of you and your studio?”
He hung his head in shame. “I was going to say, to have you getting hurt.”
“He wasn’t the one who hurt me,” she said, and he tried not to recoil at her words. Anya gave a sigh. “Plus, I deal with assholes like Gavin every day. I don’t need you defending me. Now get in the car and drive away before the cops arrive and you find yourself being prosecuted.”
She started to open the driver’s door for him, but he slammed it shut. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“Don’t be an idiot. I need to go back to my dorm and change before someone accuses me of soliciting.”
“Get in the car with me, and we’ll go straight to the store, and I will buy you more clothes.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need you buying more clothes for me, Eric. I have plenty of decent ones a few hundred
yards away in my room.”
“I have the money,” he growled. “I can afford it.”
“I don’t care.” She sighed. “Look, drive around the block, get out of here. I’ll go and get changed and then meet you one block south of here, okay? Then we’ll talk.”
He didn’t want to leave her alone again, especially not with all of Gavin Hollis’s friends hanging about and her with her shirt still torn, but it wasn’t as if he could bundle her into his car and drive off with her. That would make him no better than idiots like Gavin.
“Okay,” he relented. “But we do need to talk.”
She gave him a grim nod before turning and walking at a brisk pace back across campus. He sat and watched her go, noting how people glanced her way as she walked, but no one stopped her to ask if she was all right. He waited until he’d seen her disappear into a building, before he started the car and pulled away from the curb.
As Anya had instructed, he found a parking space a block south and pulled up, waiting for her. His face throbbed, as did the knuckles of his right hand, which were already swollen and flowering in purple and green bruises. He reached out and twisted the rear view mirror to get a better look at his face. Another bruise was blooming across his jaw, and the bridge of his nose was swollen, dark marks of a couple of shiners below both eyes. Blood had crusted and darkened beneath his nostril and in the corner of his mouth.
He hoped no one who had witnessed the fight placed him as the art lecturer who sometimes came in to teach. That would be the end of that job—not that he needed the money, but he enjoyed teaching. He hated the idea his name would be blighted with the news he had beaten up a student. What if the media got hold of it? He cringed at himself. What had come over him?
The passenger door opening startled him from his thoughts. Anya slipped into the seat, wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a sweater, her blonde hair tied up and away from her face.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted her. “I don’t want to talk about the fight, Anya. I shouldn’t have hit a student, but I won’t apologize for defending you. If the same thing happened again, I would still step in. And it wasn’t as if I followed you in a stalker way, either. I was worried that you hadn’t gotten home safely, and as far as I’m concerned, witnessing what I did meant my instincts were right.”
She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I guess that’s another thing we’ll have to agree to disagree about.”
“We still need to figure out what we’re going to do about the exhibition.”
She lifted her eyes to his, liquid blue he could fall into and drown. “I’ve said everything I mean to about that matter.”
“Wait one minute. Will you come and meet Logan Blanc? I want you to hear from someone else about how perfect your pictures are, how they’re nothing to be ashamed of, and how the ones with your face in them are so much more intense than the others.”
“You’re trying to change my mind?”
He shrugged. “You can’t blame me, Anya. This is important to me.”
“I don’t want my mind changing.”
“You said you would do anything for art.”
“Don’t try to manipulate me.”
“I’m not. I’m just repeating what you said.”
She sighed, deep and filled with pain. “I guess I should have thought this through.”
“Okay, so you admit that much. If you care about my art, if you care about me, please give me this one thing and come with me to meet Logan.”
“What if Logan can’t change my mind?”
“Then I guess I will have to do the exhibition with none of the photographs of your face. But you realize doing so may ruin my career. People—critics—may not understand what I am trying to achieve in our photographs, because they won’t be shown the full collection.”
Anya bit her lower lip, and he realized she was trying not to cry. She gave a sniff. “I’m sorry, Eric. I never meant to put you in this position.”
He leaned into her, reached out to slip his hand around the back of her neck, his fingers lacing in her hair at the nape. He tightened his grip slightly, forcing her to lift her face up to him. “Just come with me to meet Logan.”
“Okay,” she relented. “Okay.”
His whole body sagged with relief. He’d not won the war yet, but felt he’d at least won the battle. But his relief came with a deep sense of remorse. He couldn’t stand to see her so sad, especially knowing he was at the root of the cause. He released her hair, his hand dropping into his lap.
“I don’t want to lose you, Anya. We work too well together to let this come between us. We need to figure this out.”
She looked at him, her eyes glistening. “That’s what worries me, Eric. That you only want me because of my photographs.”
Unable to stop himself from touching her, he reached out and brushed her cheek, her skin soft and smooth against his knuckles. “We are art, Anya. We can’t escape that. And we shouldn’t try to stop it either.”
She looked at him, almost pleading. “I want to be more than just your model.”
“You are. You’re everything to me.”
He just hoped Logan could convince her.
Chapter Fourteen
Anya
Nerves roiled in her stomach as she smoothed down the skirt of her dress. Anya straightened in front of the full length mirror and quickly checked how her figure looked in the silky, red material. She turned around and twisted her neck, making sure the clingy fabric didn’t make her backside appear to be the size of a bus. No, she’d get away with it. Her round behind would never be mistaken for being on the small size, but the dress cut in nicely at her waist, making her a perfect hourglass.
She turned to face the mirror again and took a deep breath, letting the air back out slowly through her nose. She was due to meet Eric and his friend, Logan Blanc, at a bar downtown in less than half an hour. She was nervous, not only because of the tension that still existed between her and Eric, but also because she was meeting Logan for the first time.
Logan Blanc was infamous in the city. With his surfer-dude, blond good looks, and coming from old money, as well as running a successful gallery himself, he was regularly photographed with some tall, skinny model on his arm, featured as one of New York’s eligible bachelors. Anya knew she wasn’t his type—not that it mattered, of course. While she and Eric might not officially be a couple and had some problems of their own, she only had eyes for him. The problem was that Logan had seen her photographs—explicit pictures of her breasts, pussy, and asshole, sometimes penetrated by plugs, her own fingers, or bound by rope or cuffs. She’d never exposed herself to a man in that way before, and certainly never allowed someone to take photographs. The idea that a man she’d never met had also seen them, and she was about to meet him for a drink and have him try to convince her to use them publically, made her lightheaded and nauseated.
Despite this, she tried to control her nerves. She was doing this for Eric.
The door of her dorm room swung open, and the dark-haired head of her roommate popped through.
Anya paused in checking herself out. “What are you doing?” she said to what appeared to be a floating head.
Nadine grinned. “Just checking you weren’t hiding any mysterious strangers in here.”
“Well, if I am, I’m doing a damn good job of hiding them.”
Nadine stepped fully into the room and looked around. “Looks like all’s clear.” Then she caught sight of Anya’s dress and let out a low wolf-whistle. “There might not be any guys in here, but I’m going to assume someone is getting lucky tonight. Hot date?”
“Kinda. More like a business meeting, actually.”
“Anya, sweetie. You’re not turning tricks, are you?”
“Nadine! I can’t believe you’d even say that!” Her stomach dropped at the thought that Gavin might have started to spread that rumor, despite Eric’s threat.
She burst out laughing. “I’m kidding! But ser
iously, what’s going on with you? Is it the same guy, the one who punched Jackass Gavin?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, him and a friend. But it’s to do with my career, I promise.” It was only a partial lie.
“Two hot guys? Can I come?”
Anya laughed and threw a tube of mascara at her friend. Nadine dodged easily out of the way. “I told you, this is work.”
“Well, you look stunning, Anya. You’ll blow them away.”
Anya smiled. “Thanks, doll.”
She gave her blonde hair a final fluff to create body, and leaned forward to check her makeup one last time. Satisfied she was looking her best, she picked up her purse from the dresser. “Okay, I’m off.” She headed toward the door.
“Have fun!” her roommate called after her. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
Knowing Nadine, she did pretty much anything, so that would be a hard challenge to match.
Has she ever had a guy photograph her wearing a butt-plug and then want to put it on public display? She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She didn’t think even Nadine could top that one.
She headed off campus, thankful for the lightweight trench coat she had belted at the waist. She didn’t want to attract any more attention to herself from the wrong people. It was strange how she was trying to hide away on campus, while she might be so exposed to the rest of the city in a little over a week.
If I agree to the exhibition, of course.
She could still refuse to have her face in the portraits, at least.
But then Eric’s career may suffer. Could you really be that selfish?
And it could ruin your relationship with your family, she told herself, feeling like an angel and a devil were sitting on each shoulder, speaking in her ear. Is Eric selfish enough to allow you to do that?
His work meant everything to him, he’d said so a number of times. Would he sacrifice her relationship with her parents for it? She guessed so. But the real question was, would he sacrifice their relationship for his work? If he went ahead and exposed the portraits of her face without her permission, surely their relationship would be over?
Dirty Shots Page 10
