Exposed: Laid Bare (Laid Bare #1)(5)

I moved forward, carefully, so as not to touch him. Not that I didn’t trust Lucien. I didn’t trust myself. I was thinking and feeling far too many strange things, like how I suddenly wanted him in a way I’d never known a man.

Once in the house, Lucien beckoned me to follow him. He led me through an entry corridor with frosted side windows, and then in to a grand, high-ceilinged hall.

I set my camera bags down on the marble floor, and, in awe, spun around once. “Wow,” I gushed. “Your home is beautiful.”

Opulence, opulence, everywhere I turned. Apart from the marble floor, there was a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling and expensive-looking artwork on the walls.

Post-appraisal, I murmured, “Quite impressive, Mr. Chambers.”

“Thank you,” Lucien replied. He looked down in an almost humble sort of way. His reaction made him oddly endearing, like he was exposing a vulnerability to me.

Clearing my throat (and my head), I murmured, “Mr. Chambers, we really should get started.”

“Please, just call me Lucien,” Lucien said. “Mr. Chambers sounds so stuffy.”

“Okay.” I smiled at him. “But only if you agree to call me by my first name, as well.”

“Certainly,” he replied charmingly, “I think we have ourselves a deal, Dahlia.”

I liked the way my first name rolled off his tongue. It was as if he were tasting every letter, as well as tasting me.

“Uh…” I glanced around.

Suddenly, I was feeling incredibly warm.

“May I take your coat?” Lucien asked presciently.

“Yes, yes.” I shrugged out of the sleeves, but then stopped, coat partway off, front gaping open. “Hey, don’t you have servants to do this sort of thing,” I wondered out loud.

He chuckled, despite my forwardness…or maybe because of it.

“I’ve given everyone the evening off tonight,” he explained. “So we could have some privacy.”

“Oh.”

His dark eyes slid to my chest, and I realized my nipples had hardened, the pointed peaks pressing through the thin material of my dress. I hurriedly removed my coat the rest of the way and folded it over so I could place it in front of my traitorous chest.

Damn this dress. Why had I chosen it? My breasts weren’t huge, but they were too big to be prancing around braless in something so flimsy.

What had I been thinking?

If I were to be honest, I knew the answer. I wanted Lucien’s attention. I wanted him to feel attracted to me, just as I felt attracted to him.

Well, if my intent had been to capture Lucien’s male attention, it was working. He was trying to be coy, but I could see he was checking out what he could see of my somewhat, but not fully, covered cleavage.

“Here.” He reached for my coat. “I’ll hang that up for you.”

I handed him my coat, which provided him an opportunity to see everything I’d been hiding. And look he did. Damn, did he ever. His dark eyes soaked me in hungrily, moving shamelessly from my chest to the ample swell of my hips.

“You’re a very beautiful woman,” Lucien said in a rough voice. “But you know that, Dahlia, don’t you?”

I shook my head. “Actually, I don’t think that way about myself at all. But thank you for saying so, Lucien.”

He nodded, and then, leaning down, he snatched up my camera bags from the floor. His eyes subtly assessed me as he rose, and I felt another surge of warmth. And want.

“Come.” Again, Lucien beckoned for me to follow. “I think you’ll find the lighting in the study will work best for this shoot.”

Normally, I would insist on choosing the setting for the shoot. I always decided where the lighting was best, and that was determined only after a careful inspection of multiple potential shooting sites.

But, today, I had no argument in me. I only wanted one thing, to follow Lucien. So follow him, I did. Like a puppy, I trailed behind him, struggling to keep up with his long, sure strides.

We traveled down corridor after corridor. The house was enormous and like a huge, never-ending maze. I concluded rather quickly that I’d never find my way back to the front door, not without Lucien’s help. Perhaps that was his goal? But instead of feeling uncomfortable and unsafe about that possibility, I felt nothing but calm and subdued.

In fact, I was kind of enjoying the feeling of being at Lucien’s mercy.

With that thought passing through my head, we reached the study. The room did have fabulous lighting, I conceded as we walked in.

“Okay,” I began, turning to face Lucien. “I should get set up so we can get started.”

“Certainly,” he replied.

I got set up, and ten minutes later, I was shooting what I knew would be some of the best photographs I’d ever taken. Lucien had been spot-on correct, the lighting was perfect. The blinds were drawn tightly on the outside world, but the many lamps scattered throughout the room cast my subject in just the right level of shades and shadows.

I took pictures of Lucien sitting pensively at his desk, pics of him standing at the windows with the blinds drawn, and a few final shots of him lounging on a red leather sofa against the far wall.

Lucien’s casual attire and mussed hair provided the ideal contrast to what the piece was to be about—his power and wealth.