Sam said matter-of-factly. “The gown is perfect.”
Delaney felt her eyes narrow as another wave of annoyance surged through her. The gown again. Not her. She was proud of the damned gown—she’d designed it, after all—but honestly. Wasn’t it his job to make her feel sexy?
She expelled a frustrated breath. “Where do you want me?”
Two beats passed as he tweaked his camera again and when he answered his voice sounded a little strained. “Why don’t you lie on the chaise? Pick a comfortable position. A pose that’s natural to you.”
Delay arranged herself on the couch, propped her head up with her hand and curled her legs up close to her bottom. It was comfortable, but she didn’t feel remotely sexy. In fact, she felt ridiculous.
Sam looked at her through his lens, then pulled the camera away from his face. A line knitted his brow. “Is there something wrong?”
“I, uh, don’t feel sexy,” Delaney confessed. “I feel stupid.”
His lips curled into a lopsided grin. “You don’t look stupid.”
“I don’t look sexy either.”
Sam rubbed the back of his neck and winced. “Wrong, you look sexy, but you don’t feel sexy and the two are hopelessly intertwined. I could try to remedy how you feel, but you’re the most miserably modest woman I’ve ever seen and I’m not sure that what I could do for you would help. Any compliments I might give you would be genuine, but they’re going to make you self-conscious. If you start worrying about what you’re wearing—or not wearing—and how you look, then that’s pretty much going to defeat the purpose. You don’t have to look like a sex kitten, Delaney,” he said patiently. “All you have to do is smile. Okay?”
He was right. She was being ridiculous. “Okay.”
“Great.” Sam’s face disappeared behind the camera once more and Delaney conjured the smile he’d asked for. “So, who are these pictures for, anyway?”
Delaney smothered a grunt and rolled her eyes. “My next lover.”
“Next?”
Delaney continued to smile, though she couldn’t contain the edge to her voice. “Right. I’m sure you read the papers. My ex-fiancé and his new wife are currently on their way to Greece on a honeymoon that I paid for.”
Seemingly astonished, Sam lowered the camera. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
She snorted. “I wish.”
“Damn, that’s cold. What a bastard.” Sam refocused, took a couple more shots.
“My sentiments exactly.”
He moved to the left a couple of feet, went down on one knee and fired off a few more shots. “It’s guys like him that give men a bad rap.”
“I know. That’s why I’m finished with them.” Delaney rolled over onto her back and crossed her legs. Strangely, talking to him made her feel less ridiculous and she began to marginally relax.
“With men?”
“Yep.” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger.
“So where does the next lover come in?” he asked, sounding faintly amused. Apparently he’d drawn the incorrect conclusion that she wasn’t serious. Evidently he thought she was simply the typical thwarted female making the typical empty threat to swear off men. Wrong. She was an adult woman who’d made a valid, life-altering decision.
She should probably enlighten him.
Delaney curled back onto her side and smiled wickedly. For the first time since they’d started this shoot, she actually felt sexy. She arched an innocent brow. “Who said that lover would be a man?”
The camera clattered to the floor and the blank slack-jawed look he gave her was utterly priceless.
Delaney sat up and made a moue of disappointment. “Damn, that would have been a good shot. You missed it, didn’t you?”
3
HE’D DROPPED HIS damned camera.
Never in the history of his career had Sam ever dropped his camera. When he went into the zone, the equipment simply became an extension of himself. His camera was his baby and he treated it as such—with extreme care.
No doubt about it, over the course of the past few years he’d been routinely shocked. He’d taken boudoir photos of a hermaphrodite, for pity’s sake. Pictures of women that were pierced in areas that went well beyond his scope of comprehension. He inwardly shuddered. In this business, he’d pretty much seen it all and he’d never—never—once dropped his camera.
And yet, all this woman had to do was utter a few choice words about possibly changing her sexual preference…and he’d fumbled a thirty-five-hundred-dollar camera like a freshman rookie a yard from the end zone.
He couldn’t believe it. He simply couldn’t believe it. A litany of inventive curses streamed through his overwrought mind as he bent over and snagged his camera from the floor.
From the very first moment he’d laid eyes on Delaney Walker he’d known she’d be trouble with a capital T. For reasons which escaped him now, he’d thought he’d be safe once he’d gotten her behind the lens—thought he’d be able to treat her just like any other beautiful woman who came into his studio. And there’d been plenty.
In this line of business, any photographer worth his salt, in a sense, had to become desensitized to the female form. Battling a hard-on throughout a session was inconvenient and not conducive to a good shoot. One simply learned how to detach and focus on what lay inside the lens. Sam had mastered the trick years ago, and yet from the very second Delaney stepped out of that dressing room, his loins had been locked in a fiery state of perpetual hell. His blood had been humming with an intense awareness akin to radio static, and his scalp had tingled until he wondered if he might be having some sort of allergic reaction to his shampoo.
He was a wreck.
He didn’t just want her—the driving need gnashing around inside him couldn’t be reduced to any such simple term—he had to have her. Felt like he’d explode, or worse, if he didn’t.
One look at her in that virginal peasant gown—hell, she might as well be in a nun’s habit for all the skin revealed—and something deep, dark and primal had taken over. The hint of curves beneath all those yards of fabric, combined with that sexy mouth and long moonbeam hair and… Sam pulled in a tight breath. She was gorgeous, utterly gorgeous, and the fact that she didn’t realize it made her all the more appealing.
He’d wanted to tell her many times during the first few frames just how incredible she looked, how phenomenally hot, but given her almost phobic modesty, he didn’t think it wise. For his peace of mind, or hers. He’d tried to loosen her up with conversation and the ploy had worked right up until she’d dropped her little I-might-take-a-lesbian-lover bomb.
She had to be one of the most sexually innate creatures he’d ever encountered. She’d let that bright green gaze leisurely roam from one end of this body to
