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“More,” he said, his eyes still glued to the photo. More, he’d said when he kissed her that first, pulsating time. Until now, she’d forgotten that brief exchange, that moment when they made the leap from testing to knowing. He hadn’t waited for her answer then. He had taken because he wanted.
She loved that about him.
Pulse quickening, she mined more prints from her catalog. On the table, she positioned them in a grid and stood back, waiting.
He switched a couple of them around. She sighed and earned herself a quelling look.
Quiet. Genius at work. A couple of tight minutes passed, the hum of street traffic below providing inadequate cover for her thundering heart.
His brow crimped. “Why aren’t you selling these?”
The manic giggle she loosed did nothing for her nerves. “Do you know anything about art?”
“No, I don’t. I usually have to have it explained to me very slowly.” Touché. “But I know what I like.”
“Photos of half-naked women?” Damn, she had a serious case of foot-in-mouth disease today.
“Your photos of half-naked women, though really the way you’ve composed them makes them more Vanity Fair than Playboy. These are beautiful. You should be selling them or showing them, not hiding them away in a drawer.” He shook his head, bemused. “What are you planning to do when you go to grad school? Lock yourself in a garret and never exhibit your work?”
“Of course not. But I’m not at that stage, yet. I’ve so much to learn.”
He frowned. “You need to put yourself out there and be ready to take your lumps. It’s all part of the creative process. How about explaining to this Philistine what he’s too ignorant to see?”
“It’s supposed to speak for itself,” she said, flustered by his challenge. “Like your food.” That was so dumb. As if her work could exist at the same stratum as Jack’s culinary artistry.
“I describe my food on my shows and in my cookbooks all the time. And MFA students have to defend a thesis, don’t they? Orally.” He rolled the word ‘orally’ around his mouth like he was tasting it, and her breasts tingled in memory of his hungry mouth devouring her last night.
Doubly flustered, she averted her gaze and studied the floor. The pause stretched like a rubber band.
“So, Rock Chick Red.” He pointed at Sadie Number Three, the first photo she had shown him. “What should I be seeing here?”
Lili wasn’t sure why she loved this photo so much. Sadie, the cashier at Classic Trax Records two blocks over was an indomitable red head with more curves than the Indy 500 racetrack, so there was that. There was also the elaborate cluster of blue roses that inked up most of her right side, its curly vines snaking down her shapely leg. With her arms strategically placed, the side angle was still more suggestive of her beautiful curves than any full-frontal nude photo.
Exquisite. Breathtaking. A feast made for Lili’s camera. These were all good reasons but not why she loved it.
“Power.” She coughed, peeked sideways, looked down, and stumbled on. “In her eyes, she’s got this look of power. This ‘I’m fucking beautiful, so bow down before me’ look that’s impossible to fake.” Even now, that power radiated through Lili’s body and made her proud to have witnessed it in person. To have captured its spark through her lens.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod. Unable to meet his direct gaze, she told him what else she saw. Jenny, shot from neck up, with eyes so fierce they could fell the college quarterback. Kayla, her skin glowing with freckles like a connect-the-dots puzzle, her gaze self-aware and sure. Details of Lili’s favorite spots on a woman’s body: the seductive hollow at the base of the throat, that vulnerable spot behind a knee, the swell of a generous hip. Close-ups of shoulders that bore the weight of families, lovers, and lives well-lived.
Each woman was a prime example of female magnificence and strength. Every one was proud of her body, whether it was petite or large, skinny or ample. What she didn’t say was that all of them were braver than Lili, faking bravado in her superhero costume.
She’d always had little confidence where her work was concerned, though she could occasionally get enough distance to realize it might be good. After all, she had saved for graduate school, hadn’t she? But she never took the next step to apply. Her mother fell ill, her father fell silent, she was needed at the restaurant…excuses, excuses, excuses.
Because it’s never enough and I’m greedy. That’s what Jack had said when she asked why he continued in TV. Why he wasn’t satisfied with what he had. If only she could inhabit for a moment that aura of certainty he projected, feel a sliver of the confidence he exuded, one iota of his raw passion. She lay her head against his strong shoulder and made a wish.
He slid an arm around her waist and grazed his lips against her temple.
“Stop hiding, sweetheart. Your work is amazing and so are you.”
Jack Kilroy, woman whisperer.
She wanted to take a chance. She wanted to look at a photo of herself and see the power and pride. Be more like Sadie Number Three instead of Little Miss Do Nothing. Panic at losing this opportunity overrode her cowardice. Faint heart never won fair beefcake.
A murmur, so indistinct she was unsure words had formed, passed her lips.
“Didn't catch that.”
“I think we should go out on a date,” she said quickly before the true scale of it all could kick in.
