77. Chapter 77
Chapter 77
It was the first Valentine’s Day in over five years that Paige hadn’t dreaded, and she was actually thinking it wasn’t the worst holiday in the world when she let herself into David’s studio shortly after 6 p.m.
“I’m in here,” he called to her, from off to her left. Following his voice, she found him in a room set up to look like a sexy bedroom, with romantic lighting, a velvet chaise lounge, and a large bed with an ornate iron headboard—which he was currently stripping the bedding from.
“What is this?” she asked, somewhat taken aback.
He finished pulling the fitted sheet off and dropped it on the floor, with the rest of the linens. “It’s my boudoir set,” he explained. “In the past few years, boudoir photography has been trending hard, so I put this room together and now about a third of my new clients are coming in for this.” He waved a hand around the room.
“Really?” Paige took a moment to digest the fact that he apparently took sexy pictures. “Mostly women, I assume?”
David nodded. “But I do get couples that come in after getting engaged or to celebrate an anniversary … things like that. And of course, Valentine’s Day is pretty popular.”
“What do they wear? The women, I mean.”
“Usually lingerie.” He paused for a moment. “Sometimes … less.”
That fact was significantly harder to digest, and she found herself not knowing how to respond.
“Are you okay?” he asked, moving toward her.
She stepped away from him. “I just found out you take erotic pictures of naked women. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“You tell me.”
“You’re a smart man, David,” she said with an eye roll. “Hurry up and figure it out.”
“You’re jealous,” he surmised.
“Well, at the very least, let’s just say I’m not thrilled. How’s that?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, maybe because when you see a lot of boobs, chances are that some will look better than mine, and I don’t like that. Picturing you getting up close and personal with Ashley’s was bad enough, but now I have to picture you here, at work—”
“I don’t get up close and personal with anyone’s boobs at work.”
She made a face at him for interrupting her. “What I was going to say was that I have to picture you here, at work, seeing boobs on the regular.”
David moved toward her again. “It’s not ‘on the regular’. It’s more like … three times a month.”
“That’s pretty regular.” She side-stepped him. “I mean, what if I was seeing random men’s dicks three times a month? Would that be a problem for you?”
“If it was a part of your job … and you weren’t getting turned on by seeing random men’s dicks? I could deal with it. And I would just make a point of showing you mine more often.”
She was pretty sure he was full of crap and just egging her on—at least about the part where he could deal with it. “But what if some of them looked better than yours?”
“Impossible.”
Paige released an aggravated breath. “Oh, my God, you’re so—”
His arms around her abruptly cut her off. “Just like it’s impossible that anyone’s boobs look better than yours.”
“Actually, that’s not impossible.”
“Yes, it is, because your boobs are my favorite of all time.”
“Of all time? Does that include the girl you danced with in the ninth grade?”
“It was the eighth grade, and yes, it includes her, whatever her name was.”
“Fine,” she said with bland exaggeration. “I believe you.”
He turned her around and took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “Believe this: I’m not attracted to any of the women I photograph. At all. I can look at them and figure out how to take the best pictures of them, but I don’t want them as anything but clients. You, on the other hand? I want in every conceivable way,” he told her, before kissing her hard. When he pulled back, he added, “I only want you. Every minute of every day. And I know we have dinner reservations in a half hour, but you look hot as fuck in that dress and those heels—” he broke off to look her up and down, before continuing with, “—and I’d really like to drag you upstairs right now and show you how much I want you, instead.”
Paige thought about the hour she’d spent doing her hair and make-up and picking out the perfect outfit for her first Valentine’s Day date in over five years. “Let’s do it.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
Without further ado he quickly led her upstairs and into his bedroom. Clothing came off and was tossed aside, and then he was seated with his back against the headboard, giving her the universal Come here gesture with both hands. “Hop on,” he told her, heavy on the smolder.
After taking a few seconds to admire every inch of his body, Paige did as instructed, straddling him with what she hoped was a graceful sensuality. He watched her settle on his groin, thighs gripping his hips, then rub up and down the length of his hard cock in a leisurely rhythm.
His expression took on a needy, heated flush, as his hands slid up and grasped her breasts. He kneaded gently for several moments before leaning forward and burying his face in between them and sighing with pleasure.
“I don’t know why you’re worried about other women’s tits when these are fantastic. Actually, that’s not a strong enough word.” The words came out rather muffled, as his mouth was latched onto one of her nipples, making her groan at the dual assault of his velvet lips and tongue. “They’re incomparable.”
“The more you do that, the less I worry,” she mumbled back, then none-too-gently shifted his mouth to the other one. “Don’t forget this one over here.”
He pulled away to narrow his eyes at her. “You’re rushing me. Stop it,” he reprimanded her, before going back to the breast he’d been previously feasting on.
They stayed that way, locked together, for what felt like an hour, with Paige rubbing her clit against him while he continued to be unilaterally focused on paying homage to her breasts. When she decided she needed more, Paige lifted up so she could guide his cock to her entrance, then sank down on him. Groaning, David looked up at her with hazy, arousal-filled eyes, and after leaning down to kiss him, she pushed him back against the headboard and followed, using the wooden ledge to brace herself as she started to move.
It didn’t take long for her to become totally lost in pleasure and feel like she was suspended in a sort of subspace, where everything felt really, really good, although it was more of a sensual experience than a raw, sexual one. This had happened to her a few other times, and each of those times the end reward had been the attainment of a profound emotional connection with David, rather than a physical release. Oddly enough, though, on each of those occasions she was left feeling as sated as she would’ve been if she’d had an intense orgasm.
After David came, she enjoyed the feel of his slight tremors afterwards. “I love it when you come hard,” she murmured, pressing slow, soft kisses on his face.
“And I hate it when you don’t,” he replied back, his disappointed words at odds with his utterly spent tone.
With effort, Paige mentally gathered herself, her euphoria slipping away a little bit. “David, even when I don’t come, I enjoy it. The feel of you moving in me, on me, and over me. Your skin sliding against mine. The way you smell.” With gentle fingers, she smoothed his hair back, tucking it behind his ears. “I’ve waited a lifetime to enjoy all that during sex, so pointing out when I don’t come, makes it seem like it was a fail, or that it wasn’t good for me, or you, okay? I always enjoy the intimacy, and that’s as important as anything. And sometimes … that’s what I need.”
“I’m begging you not to take this the wrong way, but—”
“Well, that almost guarantees I will.”
“Please don’t,” he insisted. “I just appreciate your new, healthy sexuality so much, that it’s possible for you to take pleasure in me and I can make you come until your legs shake. It’s all I’ve ever wanted … so when you don’t come, it does bother me. Because I want it all. Every time.”
“I can appreciate that, but you’re not going to get it every time, so you have to be okay with that and not think of it as a loss. Because it’s not a loss.” Then, deliberately shifting to a lighthearted gear, she pressed her forehead to his. “Now quit arguing with me. I don’t want you ruining the best Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had.”
“What about the one where we ate crappy pizza and watched My Bloody Valentine?”
That had actually been their very first one together, right after they met, so it was permanently ensconced on a pedestal. “Okay, I don’t want you ruining the second best Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had.”
They shared a sweet look before she eased off of him as gracefully as she could, grimacing a little at the accompanying rush of fluid that seemed to go everywhere. Without a second thought, Paige leaned over and grabbed his shirt so she could clean herself up before wiping him down, as well, because she was nice like that.
“You need to quit using my shirts for that,” he complained.
Afterward, David was kind enough to make them fettuccine Alfredo, then share bites with her as she straddled him on a kitchen chair an hour later.
“So …” Paige began slowly. “What if I asked you to take boudoir photographs of me?”
He blinked at the unexpected question for a moment as he swallowed a bite of fettuccine. “Is that something you want?” he countered, knowing she suspected Carter might have taken pornographic pictures of her.
“Maybe. It might be good for me. You know, in a safe, controlled environment.”
“Why don’t you give it some more thought? Then if it’s something you really still want to do, I’d be willing to do a session with you. But you should know, my assistant, Kim, will be there.”
“She will?”
“Yes. She always is.”
Paige gave him a dirty look. “Well, why didn’t you tell me that earlier, when I was so upset about you taking pictures of naked women?”
“I didn’t realize it would make a difference.”
“Are you crazy? Of course it makes a difference.”
“So, it no longer bothers you that I take pictures of ‘naked women’—” he used air quotes just for her, “—because Kim’s there?”
“Well, it bothers me less.”
“Why?”
“Because having Kim there makes it different, that’s why. I can’t believe I have to explain this to you.”
“Well, you do, so please explain it to me.”
“David, none of those women with amazing boobs are going to be hitting on you with your assistant in the room. Which makes the session less … worrisome.”
In that moment, he found her so freaking adorable it made him want to ask her to marry him right then. But, doing it on Valentine’s Day would be the epitome of lame (especially since he was only wearing a pair of briefs and didn’t even have the ring on him), so he backed off again, although it was extremely difficult.
“Wait. Have some women hit on you with Kim right there?” Paige asked with a frown.
“Of course not,” he answered immediately.
“Then why were you looking at me like they have?”
“I wasn’t. I was just looking at you.”
She appeared to be on the verge of arguing with him about that, when an incredibly loud howling noise came from somewhere in the loft.
Paige’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God. What was that? Was that … Trick-or-Treat?”
He shook his head. “That’s Marshmallow.”
“No way.”
“Yes way.” David pointed to the windowsill, where Trick-or-Treat sat perched, silently looking at the world outside. “There’s Trick-or-Treat.”
“I don’t understand. Marshmallow’s supposed to be mute.”
“Well, she’s not. So, either the people at the shelter lied on her information sheet, or they just never heard her let loose.”
“She’s so loud,” Paige said, laughing as Marshmallow howled again. “Does she do that a lot?”
“She just started doing it, actually, and it’s usually been at night. Like, in the middle of the night.”
“Does it wake Jacob up?”
“No, he sleeps right through it, even when she’s in his room.”
Paige laughed even harder.
“Yeah, it’s pretty funny,” David said blandly.
“It is. Admit it.”
“We’ll see how funny you think it is when she does it at 3 a.m. and scares the shit out of you.”