1
Nina
From my vantage point, I saw it all.
I watched the prelude to every fantasy unfold. I witnessed women luxuriating in their bodies and men wrapping their arms around them—lovers poised with coiled tension, a powder keg of desire primed to explode.
I gazed at women and women, men and women, men and men. And women alone, desire written in their eyes.
Today, from behind the lens, I studied a party of two, drenched in sexual anticipation.
In my studio, the curvy brunette stretched like a cat across the sapphire-blue cover on the opulent bed. The dark-haired man gripped her hip with one hand, his other in her hair. He lay behind her, his body sealed to hers, his eyes hooded.
A queen flanked by her loyal soldier, who served and protected her. Or maybe she served him. As I snapped shot after shot, I wrote the script to their after-dark affairs, imagining filthy moment after filthy moment.
Truth be told, I didn’t have to imagine much. Their passion for each other was evident in their expressions, unmistakable in the tangling of their limbs. Yes, I’d posed them in my studio boudoir, but the poses came so naturally to these two.
I moved around the bed, giving direction from my Nikon. “Marco, can you move your hand down her thigh a little bit? I want to see more of the curve of Evangeline’s sexy hip.”
“It is the sexiest hip God ever created,” he growled, making the adjustment.
“And, Evangeline, look to the left so the camera can see more of those glossy pink lips.”
She shifted, briefly shooting him a look, a private gaze.
So much was unsaid in the way they stole glances at each other.
Longing. Craving. Heat.
My mind raced ahead.
Would he take her after their photo session? Would his hands travel all over her lush body?
I wrote Marco and Evangeline’s afternoon delight in my head.
Perhaps my neighbors would tell stories later of how the lift was stuck for thirty minutes that afternoon, and it was sooo annoying to have a mechanical malfunction.
Only I’d know what had really happened.
I’d know why everyone in this high-rise had to take the stairs.
The second they left my home studio and entered the elevator down the hall, Marco would become insatiable, his palm slamming against the stop button. He’d yank up her skirt and thrust inside her, her wrists pinned above her head. She’d need no coaxing. She’d be ready for him, head thrown back, lips parted, taking it hard and loving it.
Or perhaps the legend of their passion would be written in the parking garage. Maybe he’d pounce on her in the front seat before they turned on the engine, and those coming home early from work would do a double take.
Did you see them? That couple heating up the windows in the black Audi? She rode him like he was her stallion.
Or maybe they’d play denial games on the drive back to their home.
Evangeline would want to touch herself, and Marco would issue orders in a deep, rumbling voice, one hand on the steering wheel, one on her bare thigh.
Don’t touch yourself till I say so.
Show me your panties.
Now show me yourself.
I bet she’d loved being told what to do.
Bet she craved it like air.
He’d make her squirm till they returned home and he’d order her to get down on all fours and then he’d take her to the edge of pleasure.
I clenched my thighs at the wild thoughts racing through my head as my camera captured their suggestive poses, their heated expressions, the sensual record of the moments before the camera stopped clicking.
Before.
That was what my lens recorded. The build, the slow burn, the seconds that ticked till these lovers lunged at each other.
Sensual boudoir photography was my jam.
It was the best job ever.
And also the worst.
Because of days like this. When my mind zigged and zagged with images.
But I was a professional, and I had to keep my own wild meanderings at bay and finish the job.
I zoomed in on their faces, then I stepped back, grabbing a series of full-body shots as the couple shifted, sitting up, her legs wrapped around his ass, their arms curled around each other. Two people who couldn’t get enough of each other.
“Gorgeous,” I said, murmuring my approval. “Now, Evangeline, I want you to look at Marco like you’re going to rip off all his clothes.”
She laughed, shooting me a playful glance. “But I’ve already stripped him down to his boxers.”
I smiled knowingly from behind the camera. “Then you’re not done. Look at him like you’re going to tug those boxers off and have a field day with him.”
“Field day,” he whispered to her in a voice tinged with lust. “That’s what we’ll have when we’re done.”
Just as I predicted.
Then the pair of them laughed, and I caught that too, because that’s what they’d asked for when they ordered this photoshoot—to record their love, their passion, and their trust in each other. They wanted it all for posterity—when they longed for each other and when they laughed with each other too. They seemed to share their vulnerability and tenderness so easily in a stranger’s bedroom. How did they do that? How did they let go?
“Just behave while you’re in here,” I teased. “But, Marco, I need one thing from you.”
“Name it,” the man said.
“Run your hands through her hair,” I told him.
A groan rumbled up his chest so loud I could hear it. His fingers roped through her honey-brown strands, and I snapped that shot, capturing provocative moment after provocative moment, even as my mind ran away again.
I wanted that. Wanted it for me, and wanted it for my damn job. If only so I could get these images out of my head while I worked.
Surely my overactive, overheated imagination helped my job of capturing sensuality. But I didn’t need dirty images bearing down in the studio. And the images showed no signs of abating as I pictured his hands tightening around her glossy locks later, tugging, pulling, yanking.
Did he make her scream?
Moan?
Or simply melt?
All of the above, I decided as they cast hot stares at each other. The longing in her eyes was visceral, a palpable force in the room. In his irises, I saw intense devotion and filthy desire. This was when I stopped directing them, letting their natural instincts take over. She pressed her body closer to her man, sealing herself to him like she was riding him.
“I want something that captures us in the throes of passion,” she said, her voice smoky, like she could barely hold back as she looked at me. “Nina, do I look like a woman about to be devoured?”
I answered her with complete honesty. “Yes.”
A small smile seemed to tease at her lips. “Best feeling ever, isn’t it?” She winked, like we were soul sisters on this front.
I answered her with a total lie. “Of course.”
Inside, I replied truthfully, privately, saying, I wouldn’t know.
I’ve never had what she’s having.
Evangeline pulled on a robe as Marco excused himself to the restroom to dress.
It was funny to see his modesty after I’d already witnessed him so exposed—though not physically. I never captured full nudes of men. Only women, and only if they requested.