As I recline on the sun lounger next to the pool at Maddigan’s, I’m conscious of Wyatt in the background. He’s doing his best to ignore me, but he’s failing miserably.
“Darling, darling, look at me, look at ME!” Claude, the photographer, who I’ve worked with before, is fast losing patience. I need to concentrate if I’m to photograph at my best. But it’s hard with such a distraction nearby.
“Imagine I am your lover!”
This instruction from Claude has me giggling, even if I know what he’s trying for. Soon enough, he joins in. “Darling Phoebe, you know what I mean.”
He takes a couple more photos before he straightens and turns away to see what I’m looking at. Soon enough, he’s back facing me, where he mouths,O-M-G, HE—IS—HOT!
If I was in any doubt what he means, he follows this up by fanning his face with his free hand. Camera dangling at his side, he turns once more to face Wyatt.
“You there. Yes, you. Over here.” His wild beckoning eventually has a reluctant Wyatt at his side.
This has me straightening in the sun lounger, at a loss to know what the crazy photographer is up to. It’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll hit on Wyatt, or ask him to join me on the lounger.
It wouldn’t be the first time Claude had a member of the public join a shoot, especially if he thought they were cute. I’m wrong on both counts, with him simply asking Wyatt to stand behind him and slightly to one side.
After huffing out, “At least this way you’ll be looking at the camera,” Claude gets back to work.
Another half hour and I’m damp with need. Now rather than calling out, “Imagine I am your lover!” Claude’s calling out, “Imagine HE is your lover!”
It works. It works too well. So well that if Wyatt were to join me on the sun lounger, it’d be all on, and to hell with the camera.
My skin kissed by the sun, my hair and make-up immaculate, and Wyatt looking at me as if he could eat me. It’s a powerful combination.
“Now darling, I want you to lie flat. That’s right. Now arch your back and twist your hips, just a little to the left. That’s it. Lovely.”
As awkward as the position is, I know it’ll show my body off to advantage, with the tic in Wyatt’s jaw speaking volumes. He’s hanging on by a thread, would be my guess.
“Sharon, Julie. Water!”
Excellent, I am parched. However, rather than offering me a drink, the stylists unceremoniously upend small pails of water over me. I’ve not been expecting it, and the shock of the iced water has me arching up off the sun lounger.
“What on earth!?”
“Trust me darling, it will be magnificent! You are magnificent.”
Only when I see him putting his camera away do I realize the shoot is over. It’s probably just as well, with the bikini now soaking wet. A quick check of the top and I see what’s behind Wyatt’s mouth hanging open.
In a flash, he has me back in the toweling robe, tightly cinching it at the waist. Such is his haste to get me back to the villa that I worry Ralph must be around.
“Is he around? Have you seen him?”
Wyatt doesn’t answer until we’re locked together in the tunnel. And then it’s not the answer to my question, but the answer to my dreams. His lips claim mine, the kiss taking my breath away.
And despite him having just tied my robe tightly shut, he’s now undoing the belt. His hands are everywhere, and it’s wonderful with me arching my hips and back in response. I’m exactly as I was in that last pose for Claude.
That crafty devil.
Perhaps it’s that my hair and make-up are still fresh from the stylists, or a couple of hours of being told by Claude that I’m gorgeous. Either way, my confidence is such that rather than shying away, I’m fully into this.
“Not here. I want to open myself to you. I want you to see all of me.”
On lifting his head from where he’s been gently biting my nipples through the sheer bikini top, Wyatt’s vision is glazed. I’m having trouble focusing, too.
“Oh hell, you’re right. I’m so sorry.”
I hold my hand up. “Please stop apologizing. You’ve nothing to be sorry about. I want this.” I make sure I’ve got his full attention, before adding, “I want you.”
