by Simply BWWM
Natalie gave her a half-hearted smile. “I know you’re right. Thank you. You gave me a different perspective to consider, and I really appreciate that.”
“Of course! What are best friends for?” Ophelia grinned and took a long sip of her cool drink. “Now, I want to hear all about Asia. What was Vietnam like?”
“It was sobering. It’s beautiful in places, miserable in other places, and it is filled with so many wonderful people. It’s such a poor country though. It was such an eye-opening experience to be there. You know, you hear about these countries where no one has what they need, nothing basic like flushing toilets or clean water to drink, and it sounds like a sad situation, but then you get there, and you see it, walk through it, and it changes you. Or at least, it changed me. I’ll never be the same again. I’ve been to other poor countries, other third world countries, but that was definitely the poorest and the most heart wrenching. Some people are doing all right there, some are doing well there, but most are truly poor, and yet truly content and leading happy lives. Their focus isn’t so much on material things as it is on religion, life, and supporting everyone else around them, and they’re all like that. It’s incredible to see. I’ll show you some photos in a while.” Natalie’s mind drifted to the places she had visited in Asia, and especially in Vietnam and Cambodia. It was a very different world there than the one she was sitting in there at the beach in San Francisco.
“I’d love to see the photos, and I’m so glad that you got to have an experience like that. I know there was probably nothing like it, nothing to compare it with. How precious that is.” Ophelia gave her a tender smile, and Natalie returned it.
“That’s true,” Natalie agreed. “I felt humbled to be there. It was an honor to be among those people and to document their lives. I was lucky to have the chance. When I go on to do more work in other places, every place that I’ve been to, every person who I became emotionally attached to, will go with me, building up in my heart and memories.”
They talked a while longer, and then Ophelia told Natalie that she had to go. Natalie walked with her to her car and was saying her goodbye when Ophelia turned to her just before she got into her car and gave her a thoughtful look.
“Listen, I’ve been mulling this situation with Cameron over in my mind. Maybe he’s confused, and he’s waiting for you to set the tone. Think about that. Show him how you expect your relationship with him to be. Try that.”
Natalie gave it some serious thought. “You know what, you might be right about that. I’ll think on it and see if I can set the groundwork for us. Thank you so much. I love you!”
“I love you too!” Ophelia kissed her cheek, climbed into her car, and drove away.
Natalie watched her go and felt enormous gratitude washing through her, bringing her relief. She had worried too much, and her best friend had a way of bringing the simpler things to light and reminding her not to get too caught up in the minutia that might bring her down.
She walked back into the house feeling refreshed, and with a sigh of peace, she began to walk toward her room but stopped after only a few steps, turning her head to look to her left. The sound of music was wafting from the other side of the house, and it was good music. She didn’t recognize it, but she liked the sound of it. A wooden flute played and a piano, and here and there a violin would chime in. She felt drawn to it, and she began to walk, following the sounds to see the source of it.
She wondered if one of the staff was playing it, as she didn’t think that anyone else was home. The music drew her to a part of the house that she had only seen once, the first day that she had explored, but there had been a door that was closed and locked, and she had passed right by it. The door that had been locked before was open, and it led down a wide and spacious hallway that was replete with light, showing natural wood on the floor and bright walls. There were doorways up and down the hall, some open and some closed, and she marveled that there had been so much more of the house that she hadn’t yet seen.
Natalie walked softly so as not to disturb anyone, wondering if it was the servant’s quarters that she was in, though by the fantastically designed look of all of the space around her, she doubted that it could be.
Stopping at the first entryway at a pair of double doors which were open, she paused, hearing the source of the music inside the room, and taking a big breath, she walked in. The room was lined with windows all along one wall, facing the sea just the way that the windows in her room did, and flooding the room with natural, beautiful light. The light caught her attention first, but second only to that, she was amazed to discover that she was in an artist’s studio.
There were canvases all around her on the walls, a few on the floor, and four on easels around the room. There was a huge sheet of material spread out over the floor to protect it from paint and whatever other mediums might be used by the artist.
It was then that she noticed the artist. It was Cameron, standing with his back to her, his attention solely focused on the canvas before him as he held a brush in one hand and a palette of myriad colors in the other.
Facing him was an image that he was creating which stopped Natalie in her step. She stared at it, and her heart began to pound hard in her chest. There on a frame of about three feet by four feet was a scene that looked as if it was directly out of the grounds behind the mansion. It was a swimming pool, with an ocean and beach in the distance, and the faintest traces of a European garden in the distance.
Standing just at the edge of the swimming pool was a black woman with long black hair hanging down the middle of her back. Her face, with eyes closed and lips parted, was turned up toward the sun and the sky, and her gorgeous body was glistening wet with water in the sunlight. Her nude body.
It was an utter shock to Natalie to see the image, and in an instant, she felt like she was looking back on the moment that Cameron had met her when she had come out of the swimming pool in her swimsuit. The woman in the painting bore a strong resemblance to her, and it made her heart race faster than it ever had to see what looked like her memory, altered some, right before her on his canvas.
She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t her, that it was just a coincidence, but there was not much use in denying what she could plainly see before her. It was stunning, beautiful, and incredibly erotic. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she drew in a sharp breath.
Cameron lifted his brush and delicately added a few strokes to her open mouth, the woman in the painting, emphasizing her full and sensuous lips. Natalie felt frozen to the spot, wondering if it really was her own likeness that she was looking at or if it was just truly an uncanny resemblance. She told herself that it had to be just a coincidence and nothing more. She had to believe that, because if she didn’t, the alternative left far too many questions in her mind.
Realizing that he was still completely unaware of her presence, she knocked loudly on the door behind her. He jumped a little, startled that there was anyone else in the room, and he turned to look at her, a paintbrush clenched in his teeth and the one he had been using with a different sized brush in his other hand. His eyes were wide for only a moment, and then it was as if a mask fell over his face, and the brief glimpse of emotion that had been there was gone. He had a stoic expression and nothing more.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, gazing at her as if she was anyone at all.
Natalie didn’t want him to think that she had just been snooping around and walked in on him. She remembered what Ophelia had said about setting the tone between them and she opted to try it. She decided to make it sound more like an intended and official visit. “Oh, I heard your music and thought since you were home that I’d come ask what I should be wearing to your party on the yacht. I’ve never done anything like that, and I thought I’d check to make sure before your main event. Do you have any suggestions?”
There it was, she thought. A good reason for her to have sought him out, though she hadn’t intended to find him at all. She was bein
g honest, she had never been to a yacht party, but she had a fairly good idea of what to wear. The question was nothing more than a viable reason for her to be in the room there with him.
He eyed her with mixed curiosity and intrigue and something else much deeper that Natalie couldn’t put her finger on. Putting his brushes and paint palette down, he walked toward her and without so much as a warning, he took her hand firmly in his and pulled her along behind him, heading out of his studio and down the hallway.
“Let’s go find out,” he stated evenly as they walked.
She was astounded at his action, and more than that, she was much too surprised to stop him or change his direction. He walked her to her bedroom, opening the door and continuing in until he reached her closet, and only then did he let go of her hand.
Before she could say a word, he walked into her closet and began flipping through the hangers where her clothes were hung. “No. No. No. Maybe.” He voted out each piece of clothing until he found one he liked, and then he took the hanger off of the closet rod and held it in his other hand, continuing to search through her clothes. “No. Definitely not. No. No. Yes. Yes. No. Maybe.”
Then, he turned toward her and walked out of the closet and back into her room while she stared at him in utter shock. No man had ever gone through her closet before, and no straight man had ever taken any remote interest in dressing her before.
He carefully laid the outfits on her bed and then selected one and walked back over to her, turning her so that she was facing the floor-to-ceiling mirror that was near her bathroom. He stood directly behind her, so close that her body was pressed against his, and their eyes met in the mirror before them. Her breath caught in her chest at the nearness of him, and her heart fluttered, but she refused to show any indication on her face that he was affecting her by being so close to her.
Reaching his arm around her, he held the first outfit up against the front of her body, and both of them gazed at her reflection. He studied it carefully and then spoke softly into her ear. “Stay here,” he instructed. She stayed, though she turned her head to watch as he went back to the bed and laid the outfit back on it and selected another one, a white cotton dress that buttoned all the way down the front and had a full skirt from the waist down.
Cameron stood behind her again, his body solid against hers, and once more he reached his hand around her to hold the dress up in front of her. Her heart was pounding so loudly against the wall of her chest that she was sure he could hear it. Her cheeks were warming, and her breath grew short as she watched him looking at her in the mirror.
His mouth was almost against her ear, and he spoke in that soft, low voice that he had used before when he had talked to her in the library. “This one has potential,” he murmured, and then with his other hand he reached around her to the front of the dress and with slow movements, he took the top button of the dress in his fingers and unbuttoned it.
Natalie swallowed hard and stared, her eyes widening some as she grew breathless. He slowly moved his finger down to the next button and unbuttoned it, and while she was not wearing it, and there was no skin to show, there was no way to watch him doing what he was doing and not imagine him doing it as she wore the dress.
He moved his hand down even lower, just once more, his palm grazing the top of her breast as his fingers nimbly unfastened the button. He slid his fingertips into the opening he had created and moved them gently up and down, parting the material more as he spoke in her ear, and every ounce of blood raced through her at lightning speed.
“It would look incredible on you, just like this.” He brushed his lips with a feather lightness over her cheek and ear. “I want you to wear this dress, just as I’ve made it now.” He paused, and she could feel his breath on her skin; it sent electric waves through her that nearly dropped her to her knees. Her belly was tightening and growing warmer as she began to feel lightheaded, her lungs frozen stiff.
“Don’t forget to bring that bikini of yours too. I want you to wear that, too, for a little while.” He breezed his lips just over her ear and at the sensitive skin where her ear met her neck, but just for a second, a second in which she had to muster the control to stop from sighing out loud as everything in her went into a full tilt riot.
He took her hand in his and slid his fingers through hers as he brought her hand to her chest and pinned it against the dress. She couldn’t move or breathe. He let go of her hand and stepped away from her, turning in place and then walking to the door. Without another word, he left her room and closed the door behind him, leaving her speechless and more turned on than she had ever been by any man.
Gasping for air, she sucked in a lungful of it, and then slowly managed to turn in place and take a few steps to the bed where she laid the dress. The fires of desire that had been ignited and burning in her up to that moment were transformed into anger and bitterness.
He had done it again. He had gotten too close to her, had turned her on, had made her lose her self-control, and then had left her cold and alone. She couldn’t begin to understand why he was so hot and cold with her, but she was getting fed up with it fast. She promised herself that if he didn’t level out with her immediately, she was going to tell him off, upcoming wedding or not, and he would have to just work it all out for himself. She was done. She wasn’t the woman to be played with like an instrument, toyed with and teased the way that he was doing to her. She promised herself that that was the last time it would happen.
Chapter4
Deciding that distance was best, she stayed away from him as much as she could the rest of the week, working in her room or in the sunroom next to her room, and working in the library only when she knew he wasn’t home. The rest of the time she spent with her mother, talking and visiting or going shopping, or running errands for the wedding preparations.
She was enormously angry with herself for falling for his flirtatiousness again, for not standing up to him when it happened the second time and instead losing herself to it and finding so much pleasure in him being so close. She hated that he had such a powerful effect on her and that she had almost no control over it. She should have control over herself, she reasoned, especially around someone like him.
Natalie had never tried so hard to focus on her work more than she did that week. She saw him at meals with the family, and he didn’t make conversation with her there, unless it was unavoidable. Mostly, he spoke with his father or his brother, and as soon as he could leave, he did. She didn’t mind as much that he didn’t speak to her then, as she was doing her best to keep away from him and sort out her problems with her strange feelings for him. She was grateful that the only meal the family was required to attend was dinner. She could be free to get breakfast and lunch on her own and manage to miss seeing him in the kitchen.
On Friday just after lunch, she was standing in her room, wearing the dress that he had asked her to wear, only because she wasn’t sure what the dress code would be, and she wanted to blend in with the other guests. She didn’t want to be over or underdressed, and as he had given her no clear indication of what the party would be like, she relented and wore the outfit that he had suggested she wear, though she was enormously unhappy about it.
He knocked on her door a short while later, and she opened it with the same stoic expression that he had used around her so often. His light eyes met her dark ones for a moment, and then his gaze traveled down the length of her body, taking in the view of her in the white dress. His eyes stopped at her breasts for a long moment, and then he looked back at her again.
“It looks even better on you than I imagined it would, except you should unbutton a few of those buttons, as I told you to.” He gave her a little smile, and she saw a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Would you like to ride with me to the yacht?”
She shook her head. She had to have some kind of control, and she had very little, standing there melting under the gaze he had given her whole body. “No thank you, I’ll take my car and follow yo
u.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and walked away. “Time to go.”
She grabbed her purse, keys, and day bag, and followed him out to the foyer. Standing in the middle of the foyer was a gorgeous blonde in a thin, silky dress that fell to the middle of her thighs. She had designer sandals on that strapped partway up her calves, and a silver necklace around her slender neck. She grinned at Cameron and reached for his arm.
Without even so much as an introduction, Cameron walked out of the front door with the blonde woman’s arm tucked in his, and he took her to his glossy red sports car and tucked her into the passenger’s side. With a look over his shoulder to Natalie, he waved at her to follow him, and then he got into his car and drove off, and Natalie did her best to keep up with him all the way from the house to the dock.
It felt like he was playing cat and mouse with her in traffic, as if he was seeing how well she could do to keep up with him and not be lost in the sea of other cars. It wasn’t easy for her, but she had gotten very good at driving in Asia, and in many places in Asia, the key focus was not to die in oncoming traffic, so following another car on paved roads where there were traffic lights and traffic laws created to promote safety awareness was not a difficult task for her.
