Beauty from Pain (Beauty, #1)(47)

She smiles and rolls her eyes. “You’re such a liar, but it doesn’t matter. I’m inspecting these pictures when you’re done and any tits, ass, or vagina shots are getting deleted.”

“We’ll see.”

“Umm, yes, we certainly will.”

“Lie down on your stomach.”

“That sounds an awfully lot like a command,” she complains, but does it anyway. I pull the sheet low on her hips and caress her lower back. “I love this part of your body.”

“You love my back? Why?”

“I don’t know why. I just know I do.” I take picture after picture of her silhouette with her lying on her stomach, her side, and sitting. When I can, I sneak the sheet down a little at a time until she busts me and lifts it higher again.

“Are you done? Surely you’ve used up all the phone’s memory.”

“No. I have one more pose I want you to do, but I won’t if you’re not comfortable with it.”

She lifts her brow at me. “That sounds suspicious.”

“Can I position you?”

“You can, but that doesn’t mean I’ll agree to it.”

“But you’ll try it?”

She rolls her eyes at me again. “Yes, I’ll try it.”

“Lie on your back.” She does as I tell her and waits for my direction, but this one won’t be verbal commands. She’ll never do it if she hears me say it.

I put my hands on her knees and spread them apart. I gather the sheet between her legs and twist it so that only a thin strip of material covers her. I bunch it up between her breasts and then take one of her hands and lay it over both breasts. She’s still covered, so it’s not really a nudie, but damn … she is so hot.

Before I take the picture, I ask her. “Can I?”

She swallows and then lifts her head to see what’s covered. “Don’t move. You’ll mess up your hair. Just let me take it and if you don’t like it, I’ll delete it.”

She’s torn. “I promise everything is covered. No tits, ass, or vagina.”

“Okay.” She rests her head back on the pillow and I take picture after picture of her. She eventually relaxes and drops her knees further apart and relaxes the arm covering her breasts.

When I’m done, I ask for the hell of it. “Just one nudie?”

“No!”

I can see I’ve pushed my luck as far as I should, so I put the phone on the bed and drop down to kiss her. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I may not let you keep any of them.”

“I’m not deleting them.”

“I have to approve. That’s our deal.”

I start peeling through them at rapid speed before she gets her hands on the phone. “None of them are nudie, so I get to keep all of them.”

She holds out her hand. “Gimme.” I pass her the phone like a teenage boy in trouble with his mum over a Playboy. I swear I’ll take them all again while she’s asleep if she erases the good ones.

I sit. I watch. I wait. She hoots and laughs as she goes through the first several and then I almost hear her brakes skid to a stop. “No way, bro. That one shows my nipples.” She goes through a few more and then scrunches her eyebrows and brings the phone closer to her face. “You said you couldn’t see anything when I was sitting like that, you liar. You can see my vajayjay in these.”

Dammit! She’s deleting all the great ones.

She passes the phone back to me and I go through to see what’s left. It’s not too bad. She only erased a handful. I’m surprised I get to keep all the near nudies with her legs sprawled apart. In fact, it shocks the shit out of me. I wonder if she overlooked those, but I choose to not mention it, just in case.

She picks up the phone I gave her from the bedside table and then lies next to me on the bed. She holds it at arm’s length to take our picture together. “Say cheese.”

I smile because she asks me to, knowing I shouldn’t let her take these kinds of pictures of us in bed together. I only give in because she doesn’t know how much money she can make by selling these photographs to the media. She has no idea I’m Jack McLachlan. Even if she knew my name, she still wouldn’t know I’m one of Australia’s richest and most eligible bachelors. I somehow think it wouldn’t matter to her, even if she did know. She’s the daughter of a superstar and his fame doesn’t seem to phase her at all.

Oh, to hell with it. What’s a few pictures going to hurt? I take the phone out of her hand and hold it out to get one of me kissing the side of her face. Then her mouth. Then her neck.

After my mouth reaches her breast, I drop her phone to the bed because our photo shoot is forgotten.





23

Laurelyn Prescott

I wake before Lachlan for the first time, but it’s because I don’t feel well. I try to go back to sleep for an hour, but I’m unsuccessful. My head is pounding at the base of my skull and I’m nauseated as waves of heat flash throughout my body. I kick off the covers in an unsuccessful attempt to gain a little relief from the uncomfortable sensation.

Please, don’t puke.

The urge to vomit becomes more and more pressing. I try to suppress my body’s demand, but my stomach betrays me and wins the battle. I dash from the bed to the bathroom and make it to the toilet right before I spew. I try to keep the noise to a minimum, as if subdued heaving is a possibility.