The Virgin Gift(2)

“Gorgeous,” I said, murmuring my approval. “Now, Evangeline, I want you to look at Marco like you’re going to rip off all his clothes.”

She laughed, shooting me a playful glance. “But I’ve already stripped him down to his boxers.”

I smiled knowingly from behind the camera. “Then you’re not done. Look at him like you’re going to tug those boxers off and have a field day with him.”

“Field day,” he whispered to her in a voice tinged with lust. “That’s what we’ll have when we’re done.”

Just as I predicted.

Then the pair of them laughed, and I caught that too, because that’s what they’d asked for when they ordered this photoshoot—to record their love, their passion, and their trust in each other. They wanted it all for posterity—when they longed for each other and when they laughed with each other too. They seemed to share their vulnerability and tenderness so easily in a stranger’s bedroom. How did they do that? How did they let go?

“Just behave while you’re in here,” I teased. “But, Marco, I need one thing from you.”

“Name it,” the man said.

“Run your hands through her hair,” I told him.

A groan rumbled up his chest so loud I could hear it. His fingers roped through her honey-brown strands, and I snapped that shot, capturing provocative moment after provocative moment, even as my mind ran away again.

I wanted that. Wanted it for me, and wanted it for my damn job. If only so I could get these images out of my head while I worked.

Surely my overactive, overheated imagination helped my job of capturing sensuality. But I didn’t need dirty images bearing down in the studio. And the images showed no signs of abating as I pictured his hands tightening around her glossy locks later, tugging, pulling, yanking.

Did he make her scream?

Moan?

Or simply melt?

All of the above, I decided as they cast hot stares at each other. The longing in her eyes was visceral, a palpable force in the room. In his irises, I saw intense devotion and filthy desire. This was when I stopped directing them, letting their natural instincts take over. She pressed her body closer to her man, sealing herself to him like she was riding him.

“I want something that captures us in the throes of passion,” she said, her voice smoky, like she could barely hold back as she looked at me. “Nina, do I look like a woman about to be devoured?”

I answered her with complete honesty. “Yes.”

A small smile seemed to tease at her lips. “Best feeling ever, isn’t it?” She winked, like we were soul sisters on this front.

I answered her with a total lie. “Of course.”

Inside, I replied truthfully, privately, saying, I wouldn’t know.

I’ve never had what she’s having.





Evangeline pulled on a robe as Marco excused himself to the restroom to dress.

It was funny to see his modesty after I’d already witnessed him so exposed—though not physically. I never captured full nudes of men. Only women, and only if they requested.

But I was grateful he was gone for a few minutes, because I found it easier to show women the images on the back of the camera without their lovers by their side. She could look at them through her own eyes, not his.

And women saw their bodies differently than men did.

Mostly women saw the emotions in the photos, not simply the beautiful bodies. That was what I always tried to convey in both the solo shoots of women and the couple shoots—the emotions.

Evangeline couldn’t contain a wildly pleased grin as she stared at the window on my camera.

“You’re very good,” she said, cooing at the shots, almost tracing her finger against the screen. “I’ve never seen us look this way before. Our faces caught in these moments . . . moments of passion.”

I smiled. That’s what I loved most about my job—when my clients were comfortable enough to relax and let go, to reveal to the camera what was so rarely seen in front of others.

But I wasn’t going to take credit for their desire.

“The two of you make it easy,” I said, deflecting the attention to the client, where it belonged. “You’re obviously so deeply in love.”

I expected her to murmur a quiet thank you or to simply agree, giving me a yes, we are.

But her answer took me by surprise as she looked away from the camera and met my gaze. “It’s not easy. It took me a long time to get to this place.”

I tilted my head, curious. “What do you mean?”

Her brown eyes were rich with secret knowledge, insight into the ways of sensuality. “To ask for what I wanted.”

“You weren’t able to before?” I was eager to understand what she meant. I wanted to know how to ask for that. I wanted to have that.

“No. I was terrible with communication in my early twenties. I was unsure of my own desires. I didn’t know what I needed in bed, and in love, and in life. And then I learned how to speak about my desires.”

“How?” The word hung in the air, a desperate plea. “What did it for you?”

She moved in closer, like she was about to impart the kind of secret passed down through generations, protected by a secret society. “Aphrodite. She changed my life.”

“The ancient Greek goddess? Have you been visiting Mount Olympus?” I asked with a light laugh.