Chapter 3 #2
“So I’ve read. And this one still works, but I don’t know how to use it.
I even have some vintage film from a friend stored in my refrigerator.
I mean… the film, not my friend. He’s not in my refrigerator.
” Fuck, Jace. You’re a smitten dumbass. “Anyway. I know the film is sacred, and I don’t want to waste it.
I really want to shoot with it and the camera, but I don’t know how. ”
Joy floods her baby-blue eyes, beckoning me…
Goddamn, woman, I want to plunge so deep inside you until I can lick up our little ocean and do it again.
“I’d be happy to teach you.”
“Really?” I shake off my horny haze. “I’ll pay you back with film or money or—”
“Jace.” She smiles at my name, “I don’t want anything in return but to see you happy.” Oh, I am. Staring at you. “Let me shoot your smile while you learn to shoot, and we’re even.” She pauses sweetly. So fucking sweetly. “What’s something you’re interested in?”
You.
And watching your tongue lick your favorite Earl Grey crème br?lée ice cream from a waffle cone, wishing the cone was my hard, creaming dick.
I’m also interested in drizzling that melting ice cream over your pussy before I lick your clit and sink my tongue into your milky cunt, slurping up your cum as my dessert.
Fuck. I’m a lovesick perv for you.
Anywho…
I shuffle again, covertly shaking my leg, willing my stiffie down. “The beach, I guess.”
She nods. “What about the beach interests you? The landscape? The wildlife?”
“The kids.” Naturally, it’s my next thought with her.
Okay, fine, it’s my beastly urge. How lucky I’d be to make a bunch of babies with Vivian.
“Or, I mean, you know, kids laughing at the beach. Not posing. But making sandcastles or chasing waves. My favorite is watching a baby eat a fistful of sand. It’s so fucking cute how we all gotta learn the lesson once. ”
Her eyebrows tick up. Guess I’ve sounded the alarm on her biological clock: secret crush goals.
“So lifestyle photography,” she explains. “Or street photography, but on the beach. But we gotta be careful. Nothing will ruin your F3 faster than sand.” She frets for me, biting her lip.
Fuck, it’s sexy how she cares.
So don’t back out on me.
“It’s a risk I’ll happily take.” I rush. “Guess since it’s my job to watch people, I’ve often wished I had a camera. A legit one to capture an expression or a moment. I notice them all the time.”
“But why kids?” she asks, not realizing men have biological clocks, too, and mine’s ticking like Big Ben for her.
She grins. “I mean, I’d think a big guy like you would be into football or sports photography or—”
“Been there, done that.” I lean on the doorjamb. “I played football for Clemson and have seen enough men’s asses in my face to last a lifetime.”
It works. I make her laugh. “That’s an image for sure.”
No, that’s my dirty dream. Vivian’s ass in my face, licking it, teasing it, fucking it, and her sweet cunt. Every inch on her body, I want to please until the only tears she cries are orgasmic ones of ecstasy.
Not the miserable ones she hides.
Fuck this bullshit with her piece-of-shit husband. She’s almost divorced. She’s so giving to everyone else; she deserves a man who’d kill to make her happy.
“This Sunday?” I just need a chance. “It’s supposed to be overcast, but that’s better for shooting, right?”
She beams, proud of me. “That’s right. Have you been studying?”
Everything about you.
And I know you watch me too.
I catch Vivian out of the corner of my eye, smiling at me as I read. Makes my fucking heart flutter.
“I bought a few old photography books along with the camera. But with these bear paws”—I raise my hands—“I’m afraid I’ll mess up the little dials.”
No shit, I’m a big man. I’ve been used for my size my whole life, and I don’t mind. I play my role, loyally protecting my family. I do my job, guarding others.
But I finally want to use a part of me no one’s really had: my heart. Something about Vivian makes it pound, reminding me I have one. A lonely one.
Reminding me… she’s still married.
And she hasn’t agreed to our not-a-date date.
“I mean, uh…” I hedge. “As friends, of course. I know we work together and you’re married and I—”
“Separated.” She sighs heavily. “But he still lives in my house, and it’s complicated, but…”
Something stunning breaks across her delicate face. Like her true nature is a warm smile. Like even though it’s been stolen from her, she steals it back for a moment…
And gives it to me.
I’ve never been in love, though now I understand the yearning for it… and the fear. Why some are so afraid of this vulnerable feeling that’s choking my throat. While all I fear is…
Never being with Vivian, even if only as her friend.
“But sure.” She smiles softly. “I’d love to teach you. Honestly, I’d be thankful to have another friend.”
It’s the slice of hope I need.
“So this Sunday?” I lift off the doorjamb, standing tall. “I’ll meet you here at noon and drive us to Folly Beach?”
It’s not a date.
But tell that to my palms sweating like it is. Like it’s my high school prom when I took my friend Wilder’s little sister because no one else would ask her, and I felt bad for her. She was too feisty for most. Hence, my sweaty palms. That wasn’t a date either, but it was my honor.
What can I say? I have a soft spot for women who are too strong for weak men.
In three steps, I’m offering my bear paw to Vivian. “Photography friends?”
Her small hand slides into my grasp, fitting like my missing piece, and firmly shaking my soul.
“Photography friends,” she vows.
Little did I know—but not fear—the men I’d destroy to be far more than Vivian’s friend.