Beauty from Pain (20 page)

I’m glad I found her. And grateful she is
willing to give us a chance.

She lifts her eye from her plate and beams.
“What?”

I struggle, wondering if I should say
anything. She might think I’m being too much like a chickie babe if
she knows what I’m thinking, so I keep it simple. “Thank you for
saying yes.”

“
To what?”

“
To us.”

She smiles and reaches across the table to
touch my hand. “Thank you for choosing me. And for running into me
at the club. And for moving Ben’s wine so you could steal a dance
with me.”

“
The dance that was cut short.” By
none other than lover boy Ben. He is good at ruining things for me,
but he won’t ruin this now. I get up from the table and offer
Laurelyn my hand. “I would very much like to finish our
dance.”

I take her in my arms and pull her close as we
begin to move back and forth.

“
Do you remember the song that was
playing?”

I’m not musical like she is, but I could never
forget the song. “It was ‘Someone Like You’ by Van
Morrison.”

She smiles. “You remember.”

We sway to the silence for a while and then
Laurelyn takes her head from my chest and asks me to kiss her. So I
do. And that’s the end of our dance. For now.

–––––

We’re lying in bed. Laurelyn is so beautiful, I can’t
resist.

“
What are you doing,
Lachlan?”

She knows exactly what I’m doing because she
did the same thing to me earlier in the day. Except maybe I was
wearing more clothes. “I’m getting pictures of you so I can see
your beautiful face every time you call me.”

“
I’m not so sure you’re taking
pictures of my face. It needs to be something presentable if it’s
going to pop up when I call.”

“
Baby, you’re very presentable
right now. Besides, I’ll need some visuals to get me by while I’m
out of town next week.”

She holds her hands in front of her face. “No
way. I’m naked in your bed with sexed-up hair. That’s not
presentable by anyone’s standards.”

I grab both of her wrists in one of my hands
and hold them hostage over her head. “It is very presentable by my
standards and happens to be perfect for me to look at while I’m
away from you.” I drop down and kiss her mouth. “Relax, baby. No
one’s going to see these little beauties except me, so
smile.”

I put the phone on the bed so I have a free
hand to tug on the sheet. “We need to drop this down so I can see a
little more.”

“
Lachlan!” She smiles as she
pretends to be shocked by what I’m doing.

I’m still holding her wrists as I kiss her
neck and whisper into her ear. “Come on, Laurelyn. Please, let
me.”

“
What happened to you staying in
Wagga Wagga for three months?”

“
I’m responsible for other
vineyards and I can’t neglect them. I’ll still be here most of the
time, until the middle of March.”

I can sense her considering it, so I nuzzle my
nose down her neck and plant a kiss to convince her. “Please,
baby.”

She sighs deeply. “How long will you be
gone?”

“
I won’t have you for at least
three days. It’s going to be torture.”

She rolls her eyes. “You can take a few, but
nothing completely nude.”

I reach for my phone, but she stops me with
her hand. “I at least get to brush my hair first.”

“
You’re the boss.”

She gets up and walks naked to the bathroom.
“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that.”

I’m tempted to snap a shot of her beautiful
behind, but I know she’ll kill me if I do. I remind myself of what
she said. Nothing completely nude.

She comes out of the bathroom a few minutes
later with freshly brushed hair, now cascading down her back. She’s
wearing thigh-highs with lace toppers. Hey, hey … is this what she
means by nothing completely nude?

She climbs onto the bed and is on her knees.
“How do you want me?”

Hearing that come from her is like a fantasy
come true. I hold up my phone to take a picture and she puts her
hand over it. “I mean it. No nudies.”

“
Okay. Lie down first.”

She falls to her back, pulls the sheet under
her arms to cover her naked breasts, and waits for directions.
“Scoop your hair up and let it spill across the pillow.” She does
and it falls in all the right places. My eyes roam her smooth,
creamy skin against my black sheets and she’s so beautiful, it’s
almost painful.

I take a lot of shots of her like that … more
than she intended, I’m sure. When I’m finished with her in that
pose, she sits up. “What’s next?”

She’s sitting with her knees pulled up, ankles
crossed. I reach for the sheet and begin to pull it away. “You
can’t see anything. I promise.”

She smiles and
rolls
her eyes. “You’re such a liar,
but it doesn’t matter. I’m inspecting these pictures when you’re
done and any tits, ass, or vagina shots are getting
deleted.”

“
We’ll see.”

“
Umm, yes, we certainly
will.”

“
Lie down on your
stomach.”

“
That sounds an awfully lot like a
command,” she complains, but does it anyway. I pull the sheet low
on her hips and caress her lower back. “I love this part of your
body.”

“
You love my back?
Why?”

“
I don’t know why. I just know I
do.” I take picture after picture of her silhouette with her lying
on her stomach, her side, and sitting. When I can, I sneak the
sheet down a little at a time until she busts me and lifts it
higher again.

“
Are you done? Surely you’ve used
up all the phone’s memory.”

“
No. I have one more pose I want
you to do, but I won’t if you’re not comfortable with
it.”

She lifts her brow at me. “That sounds
suspicious.”

“
Can I position you?”

“
You can, but that doesn’t mean
I’ll agree to it.”

“
But you’ll try it?”

She
rolls
her eyes at me again. “Yes,
I’ll try it.”

“
Lie on
your back.” She
does as
I tell her and
waits for my direction, but
this one won’t be verbal commands. She’ll never do it if she hears
me say it.

I put my hands on her knees and spread them
apart. I gather the sheet between her legs and twist it so that
only a thin strip of material covers her. I bunch it up between her
breasts and then take one of her hands and lay it over both
breasts. She’s still covered, so it’s not really a nudie, but damn
… she is so hot.

Before I take the picture, I ask her. “Can
I?”

She swallows and then lifts her head to see
what’s covered. “Don’t move. You’ll mess up your hair. Just let me
take it and if you don’t like it, I’ll delete it.”

She’s torn. “I promise everything is covered.
No tits, ass, or vagina.”

“
Okay.” She rests her head back on
the pillow and I take picture after picture of her. She eventually
relaxes and drops her knees further apart and relaxes the arm
covering her breasts.

When I’m done, I ask for the hell of it. “Just
one nudie?”

“
No!”

I can see I’ve pushed my luck as far as I
should, so I put the phone on the bed and drop down to kiss her.
“Thank you.”

“
Don’t thank me yet. I may not let
you keep any of them.”

“
I’m not deleting
them.”

“
I have to approve. That’s our
deal.”

I start peeling through them at rapid speed
before she gets her hands on the phone. “None of them are nudie, so
I get to keep all of them.”

She holds out her hand. “Gimme.” I
pass her the phone like a teenage boy in trouble with his mum over
a
Playboy
. I
swear I’ll take them all again while she’s asleep if she erases the
good ones.

I sit. I watch. I wait. She hoots and laughs
as she goes through the first several and then I almost hear her
brakes skid to a stop. “No way, bro. That one shows my nipples.”
She goes through a few more and then scrunches her eyebrows and
brings the phone closer to her face. “You said you couldn’t see
anything when I was sitting like that, you liar. You can see my
vajayjay in these.”

Dammit! She’s deleting all the great
ones.

She passes the phone back to me and I go
through to see what’s left. It’s not too bad. She only erased a
handful. I’m surprised I get to keep all the near nudies with her
legs sprawled apart. In fact, it shocks the shit out of me. I
wonder if she overlooked those, but I choose to not mention it,
just in case.

She picks up the
phone I gave her
from
the bedside table and then lies next to me on the bed. She holds it
at arm’s length to take our picture together. “Say
cheese.”

I smile because she asks me to, knowing I
shouldn’t let her take these kinds of pictures of us in bed
together. I only give in because she doesn’t know how much money
she can make by selling these photographs to the media. She has no
idea I’m Jack McLachlan. Even if she knew my name, she still
wouldn’t know I’m one of Australia’s richest and most eligible
bachelors. I somehow think it wouldn’t matter to her, even if she
did know. She’s the daughter of a superstar and his fame doesn’t
seem to phase her at all.

Oh, to hell with it. What’s a few
pictures going to hurt?
I take the phone
out of her hand and hold it out to get one of me kissing the side
of her face. Then her mouth. Then her neck.

After my mouth reaches her breast, I drop her
phone to the bed because our photo shoot is forgotten.

23

Laurelyn Prescott

I wake before Lachlan for the first time, but
it’s because I don’t feel well. I try to go back to sleep for an
hour, but I’m unsuccessful. My head is pounding at the base of my
skull and I’m nauseated as waves of heat flash throughout my body.
I kick off the covers in an unsuccessful attempt to gain a little
relief from the uncomfortable sensation.

Please, don’t puke.

The urge to vomit becomes more and more
pressing. I try to suppress my body’s demand, but my stomach
betrays me and wins the battle. I dash from the bed to the bathroom
and make it to the toilet right before I spew. I try to keep the
noise to a minimum, as if subdued heaving is a
possibility.

I hear a light tap at the bathroom door. Shit.
I didn’t lock it in my haste to reach the toilet. “Don’t come in
here.”

The door opens and Lachlan enters in spite of
my warning. I reach up and flush the toilet because I’m
uncomfortable with him seeing any of my body’s previous contents.
There are some pretenses I wish to maintain. “Trust me, you don’t
want to see this.”

“
I’ve seen
people chunder before.”
Maybe so, but he’s
never seen me throw up.

He wets a washcloth with cold water and places
it on the back of my neck. He takes my hair into his large hands
and secures it with a clip. I don’t even want to know how he
learned to do that. “Thank you.”

“
No problem.”

I’m embarrassed for him to see me this way.
“I’m sorry you’re seeing me worship the porcelain god. I know how
attractive this must be, but in my defense, I told you to not come
in here.”

He’s rubbing my shoulders to comfort me. “I’ll
survive seeing you chunder. Think you’re finished for
now?”

This has been happening to me for a while and
I know the routine. Once I vomit, I’m fine. “I’m better
now.”

Lachlan helps me back to bed. “Do you think
you ate something bad?”

“
No. This happens to me out of the
clear blue sometimes. I get a headache during the night and when I
wake up, the pain is so bad, it makes me throw up. It’s weird
because once I vomit, I’m fine. The pain goes away and so does the
nausea.”

“
Have you told your doctor about
this?”

“
Yeah. I’ve had scans and
everything seems normal. My doctor diagnosed me with
migraines.”

He examines my face like he’s not so sure. “I
think you should lie down and rest.”

I walk to the sink so I can brush my teeth and
I argue with his reflection in the mirror. “I’m okay, Lachlan. It
was a migraine and now it’s over. Promise.”

He lets me finish brushing my teeth before he
objects to what I’m saying. “I have to go out and check the grafts
today. I want you to lie down while I’m out.”

There’s nothing wrong with me, but this is
what he wants, so I agree to do it. “I’ll lie down while you’re
gone, but let the record show I’m only doing it to make you happy,
not because there’s anything wrong with me.”

He watches me in the mirror as he kisses my
cheek. “Thank you.”