I’d told the intern guarding the pool area that I was here to see Annalise. She checked the list, found my name, and waved me in. I picked a potted palm tree to stand by on the terrace, out of the way of the models and the photographic entourage.
There was plenty to stare at, but my eyes were fixed on the redhead behind the camera, as I watched her work. Such a familiar image—Annalise viewing the world through her lens, snap, snap, snapping. Strong arms raising her camera, hands working the shutter, her eye capturing the women in repose. She wore jeans and a black tank top, her red hair swept high on her head.
After several minutes she stopped shooting, and they took a break. Annalise scanned the pool area, and when her eyes landed on me, they lit up. My heart slammed against my chest at her reaction. She weaved through the lounge chairs, around the edge of the pool, and came to stand face-to-face with me. Then, her lips pressed to my ear, she whispered, “You’re here.”
She sounded amazed that I’d made it.
“Did you think I wouldn’t show?” I asked, regarding her curiously.
She shrugged as a small smile of admission crept across her lips. “Maybe.”
“Hey,” I said softly. “Why would you think I wouldn’t show?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s just . . .” Her voice trailed off as she raised her chin, meeting my eyes. Her gaze went soft, almost vulnerable. “It’s just that . . . you never know.”
I nodded my understanding. Yeah, I got that. You never knew if someone would show up or if something would derail them, or if a fate would change in the blink of an eye.
She grabbed her camera bag from a nearby table under a big yellow umbrella. I followed her. “Thanks for inviting me,” I said, looking at her over the tops of my shades. “Was it a good shoot?”
She raised her face, and wispy little tendrils of red waves moved with her. “It was. These women are terrific. They love the camera, and the camera loves them. It makes my job easy, having such talent to work with.”
I smiled at her comment. It would be easy for her to say something catty, to toss a quippy one-liner about a difficult model. Instead, she’d done the opposite—praised them, not for their beauty, but for their ability.
“I doubt your job is easy,” I said. “You’ve always been good at what you do. Yours is a natural talent as well. You have the eye.”
“All I do is point, shoot, click,” she said with a wink, then lifted her camera and snapped a candid of me without even looking in the lens.
“Hey now,” I teased, covering my face with crossed arms, pretending I was a star avoiding the shutter.
“Too late. I’ve got you here. For all of posterity,” she said, tapping the camera. Her gaze drifted to the back of the Nikon. “You look good.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I mean it. Come see,” she said, gesturing for me to come closer.
I waved her off. “I don’t need to see myself.”
“Oh, stop being so modest. You are beautiful, Michael Sloan. You were always one of my favorite subjects,” she said in her straightforward way, so open and direct. My heart pounded faster, my skin heating up from her compliments. It was hard to keep my feelings for her in a neat, organized box when she said things like that.
“Thank you,” I said softly, as I moved in closer to her, my arm bumping her shoulder. Her breath hitched slightly as we looked at the image together. I resisted touching her, even though all my instincts told me to. Instead, I studied myself on the screen of the camera, and I looked like the guy I’d always been. And yet, as I saw myself through her eyes, through her lens, I seemed . . . happier.
Maybe I looked more complete because I’d been caught staring at her.
“See,” she said, nudging me with her elbow. “Your eyes are so expressive. Your cheekbones are perfection. And your lips are . . .”
I picked up where she’d stopped. “My lips are what?”
She met my eyes. “Red,” she whispered, saying it in the same tone I’d uttered the word last night. Her cheeks flushed pink.
Ah, hell. I was going to have the hardest time not losing myself in her. I needed to put an end to all these sweet nothings, or I’d be completely ruined. But no way could I tell her to stop. I liked her compliments too much.
“By the way, I enjoyed watching you work,” I said, sidestepping to a safer topic.
“You did?” she asked as she returned to her camera bag and zipped up a compartment.
“You sort of radiate energy, but it’s focused. It’s almost like an athletic event when you take pictures.”
Her lips curved up. “Sometimes it feels that way.”
“You perform like that. At the top of your game. You with your camera, seeing the world in ways other people don’t.”
She stilled her movements and cocked her head, looking curious. “Is that how it seems?”
“It does. Both watching you work and seeing what you saw. I always enjoyed looking at your photos after the concerts we went to. Seeing the pictures afterward was like opening up a whole new view of something I’d already experienced,” I said, taking off my shades and tucking them on the collar of my shirt. “What’s your favorite thing to photograph?”
“Surprises,” she answered quickly, as she zipped another compartment.
“What do you mean?”
“Something that’s out of place. Something you don’t expect to see. A pink sock fluttering on a bush and making you wonder why a pink sock is there. A dog with a goofy expression that makes him appear almost human. The moment before a kiss when the woman is surprised.”
“Do you photograph kisses often?”
She shook her head. “Not often enough. I’d like to though. I’d like to do a photographic book of kisses.”
“Would you put yourself in it?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Depends if I looked like I wanted the kiss desperately.”
Oh, that was too easy. I stepped closer, swiped my thumb across her chin, and held her face. A tiny gasp came from her throat, and her lips parted.
“Yeah, like that,” I said, my voice rumbling as I held her gaze. The look in her green eyes was hazy, full of want. “That’s the image you want to capture.”
“Maybe I don’t just want the before,” she whispered, with a touch of her accent reappearing. She was more French when she was aroused, I was learning. I brushed the barest of kisses on her lips, a small, gentle kiss that made my skin sizzle. “I want the after too.”
Before. After. In between. I wanted it all with her. One simple kiss and I was on a slingshot into wild longing.
“I want it too,” I said, my voice low and hungry.
She pulled back and blinked, as if refocusing. “You keep distracting me from packing up,” she said, her voice soft and playful. “And I need to, so I can steal you away from here for a few moments.”
I swept my arm out grandly toward her camera bag. “By all means, pack up, then.”
She tucked the remaining items in pouches and pockets, keeping her eyes on me. “Thank you for what you said about my pictures. About how you see something in a new way from them. That means a lot to me. Sometimes I go back through old photographs and see new details. Some slant of light, or a new angle. Something that wasn’t there before.”