Cajun Vacation (20 page)

Her cloths rested on a chair and she gathered them all up. The bulge of the cell phone reminded her of her sisters. This was their weekend and she should call them, but if she did, then they’d have their own plans they wanted to do with her. She wasn’t a selfish person, but now she wanted this time for herself. To spend with Peter, she just needed an excuse for them to stay together longer. Now that she had successfully completed the shoot, maybe Peter would be more open to the sex she craved. She considered pulling him in for a kiss. He stood close enough that she could have him on her lips before he knew what had happened.

He acted first. “Do you want a tour?” he asked.

“You’ve already showed me your studio,” she said, filling with excitement that he wanted to spend more time with her as well.

“I meant the city,” he said. “I know you’re here with family, but I’d really like to show you around.”

“Yes,” she said, without giving a single thought to her sisters or how out of place her own excitement seemed. Inside she was the happiest she had been in years, and the most confused. She didn’t give control of her happiness to men. It stayed within her own control, and men only passed through at her discretion. Warning bells sounded at the sudden change in her mood.

If they had had sex, then Peter would be just another man she’d made love to, but they hadn’t. He was the one who turned her down and she didn’t walk out on in protest. She realized that her decision gave him power in the dynamic between them and that had always been unacceptable. Until now.

Peter seemed to radiate at her answer and any budding change of her decision wilted. “I’ll make it a night you’ll never forget,” he said. His voice rumbled through her. But as thick with desire he sounded, in her heart, she knew that his amazing plans for the night wouldn’t include sex.

“Your lady for the night wants to get dressed now,” she said, and shooed him away with her hand.

“Of course,” he said, his grin widening. Then he made a half-bow at the waist and turned to leave the room, closing the door behind him.

After a three hour, naked photo shoot, her insistence on dressing without an audience seemed pointless. Her hand gesture, silly. But she didn’t want him to see her body now. She didn’t understand why it felt so off to have him look at her naked when that’s all he had done the whole afternoon.

But her attempt at seduction and then the photo shoot had been different than what he planned for tonight. Earlier her nakedness had been professional. Even her attempt at seducing him had been routine, like a job. But now he had asked her out. Did he consider it a real date?

She needed to get a grip and stop reading things into this that didn’t exist. Peter was a man, and like every other man, all he really wanted was sex. He might have a strong sense of professionalism that kept him from taking her during a photo shoot, but now he’d asked her out. Her idea that he would refrain from sex again was absurd. Of course he’d take her home with him. Then they’d have sex and he’d prove himself to be just like every other man on the planet.

Her certainty was less than 100%, but her sense of control grew to its usual levels. Her future, past this one night, didn’t include Peter. She did her job of baiting him, and tonight, he’d take her as a reward for his patience. Once she finished with Peter, if she could tear away from his arms, she would hurry back to the hotel and make amends with her sisters in the morning.

That made sense. No man would refrain from sleeping with her twice in one day. It simply wouldn’t happen. The image of him thrusting into her reawakened the desire she’d put on hold for the last couple hours. She wanted him for his body. As long as she kept reminding herself of that fact, then nothing about his warm smile, the jokes he told, or how utterly charmed she felt in his company, would distract her with ridiculous thoughts that he actually cared about her.

***

Peter hung up the phone and folded the paper containing the dinner reservation information. He didn’t have an exact idea of where her intended to take her for their tour of the city. But he knew exactly where he wanted to have dinner. Sometimes he wandered the streets for hours, watching, photographing, and taking in all the smells, sounds, and sights the city offered in the evening. He’d take one of those walks with Alicia, but he wanted to end the night with food, drink, and dancing; so he made dinner reservations.

The door next to him opened and Alicia walked into the gallery. The sight of her dressed took his breath away as much as it had when she had no clothes on. Now she had pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and put on some additional makeup. She didn’t need anything to improve her looks. After seeing her for hours, he knew that she had that special something. If she had decided to go into acting or modeling, she’d be a star. Certainly she had the temperament to be in the public eye, if her assertiveness indicated anything. Shy wasn’t a word that he would ever use to describe Alicia.

He got up from his chair and moved next to her. “You look amazing,” he said, taking her hand and giving it a kiss. Her skin sent waves of desire shooting through him and he almost regretting touching her, lest it shake his determination to not pull her even closer. But then he saw her cheeks flush and pushed the regret aside.

She took her hand from his. “So have you decided where we’re going?” she asked.

“Dinner and dancing in a few hours,” he said. “But until then I hope you wore your walking shoes.” He put his hand on the small of her back and headed for the door. She stiffened momentarily before relaxing into his hand. He locked up the studio as they left.

The sun hadn’t set yet, but it hung low in the sky, part of it dropping below the horizon. In another half-hour it would be dark and the more nocturnal citizens of New Orleans would spring to life.

“There are so many things to see in the city. Sometimes I can wander the streets for hours without any idea where I’ll end up. I just like to see what people do,” he said.

“Do you usually have your camera with you?” she asked.

“Sometimes. But if I photograph people on the street I usually just keep the picture for myself. I don’t typically need a signed release if I take a picture of things going on in public, but I prefer to have one. That’s one of the reasons I focus on selling the wildlife and landscape photos. Mountains don’t sue for copyright infringement.”

Alicia laughed, differently now than she did earlier. They coy undertones of the earlier laugh were gone. Did that signal a deeper sincerity or was it a calculated change in another attempt to get him to have sex with her? He liked her. Not because of her body, but just because.

Besides reminding him of his past self, she had an attraction the he couldn’t explain. He hoped that she had given up on seducing him. At least for now. He still wanted her, but he wanted to show her that he had come to care about her. That if they eventually did have sex, that it meant something more than just another physical coupling.

He took her hand back into his as they walked down the street and her fingers slipped naturally around his. Her fingers felt soft, delicate. He picked up the pace, their hands swinging between them.

“More street performers will start coming out when the sun sets,” he said as they headed down the street. “I hope you like live music.”

Her hand tightened its grip around his, and his heart skipped a beat. If she let him, without any pretense of anything more physical, he’d make this the best night she had in a long time.

Chapter 27

Alicia moaned softly with the first sip. Then the gumbo’s burn kicked in and she scrambled to grab her water.

“It’s one of the best gumbos in the city,” he said. “But you need to keep a lot of water around to deal with the heat.” His voiced dropped slightly on the last word and Alicia’s insides heated up at the potential it held. Peter had been true to his promise. The last few hours had been the most pleasant she’d had in years.

Peter would strip her clothes off before the night finished, but he also knew how to make a girl comfortable. That had to be his game plan. On one level Peter seemed uninterested in her, then the next moment his voice, eyes, or touch of his hands would be filled with desire so obvious that in her more innocent years, she would have winced.

Her foot bumped into her shoes that she had taken off and placed under the table. She kicked them farther aside and reached down to rub one foot. Technically her shoes were marketed for walking long distances, but she didn’t believe it. Her feet got worked out often enough with her jogging, but she wore proper shoes. Not the more decorative footwear she brought with her to visit Peter.

Her discomfort didn’t go unnoticed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have been more thoughtful about your shoes not being the best for walking.”

She waved his concern away. “Don’t. If I had been worried about my shoes I would have said something. My excitement to get our date going got the better of me.”

Date. The word hung in the air between them. Neither of them had uttered the word previously. He wanted to take her out, so she assumed it was a date, and to her a date simply meant a prelude to sex. What did it mean to him?

She shook her head and took another sip of gumbo. Her thoughts around him sometimes became so chaotic that she didn’t even recognize herself. Of course a date also meant sex to him. After she had whetted his appetite for her body earlier at the studio, what else could it possibly mean? He’d make his move after dinner. Before saying goodbye, he’d ask her to come home with him. Disappointment welled up in her chest, but she shoved it aside instantly. Disappointment had no place inside her tonight. She wanted to have sex with him. Any disappointment would come from being wrong and having him reject her sexually again.

Now that dinner had started and the run-up to tonight’s inevitable bedroom encounter begun, it was time for her to slowly turn up the heat.

She stirred her spoon and casually looked around the restaurant. A live jazz band played on a stage. A small dance floor stood empty, but the volume of alcohol on individual tables had barely begun to flow. As soon as the inhibitions fell enough, dancers would make their way to the floor. Peter continued eating his gumbo, sneaking glances at her in-between bites.

“So what made you start photographing women? Did that come before or after the wildlife photography?” she asked.

Peter looked away, and then wiped his face with his napkin.

Ahhh
.

Something about how he started, embarrassed him. Her curiosity grew. She needed to lure it out of him without making him evasive. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t like,” she said while looked off to some of the other guests, pretending not to care.

Peter took another drink and cleared his throat. “No, it’s nothing private. Some of it’s on my website bio page,” he said. “I just don’t get asked about it often.”

He pushed his drink around on the table before speaking again. Alicia wondered what nerve she had hit to make him react this way about his photography business.

“The outdoor photography started when I was a teen. But five years ago, during a trip to Europe, I met a woman named Jackie. I started photographing women because of her…,” he said, only meeting Alicia’s eyes at the very end. “She had a soaring spirit, and just took me along for the ride.”

He held something back. Something else that he didn’t want to discuss. She had assumed that he didn’t sleep with her at the studio because of his professionalism. But he wouldn’t be the first man to hesitate on the brink of cheating for the first time. She let herself take a few deep breaths to get rid of her anxiousness before she asked her next question, “Is she your girlfriend?” she asked, and then went straight to the point. “Or wife?”

Peter’s eyes snapped to her the instant the question left her mouth. Her stomach twisted and she scrunched her napkin into a ball on her lap while she waited for the answer. Now that she asked, it couldn’t be avoided.

“We were married,” he said. “But she’s gone now.”

Alicia let out a breath and her grip loosened on the napkin, letting it fall to the floor. Her relief overwhelmed her. She didn’t understand if came from her own refusal to sleep with married men or just from the fact that he wasn’t married. Or that he hadn’t tried to lie to her. He confused her emotions and she hated that as much as she loved being around him. Peter regarded her with an even greater intensity, but his eyes didn’t hold lust. He appeared more questioning, like he only wanted to know what she thought. She needed to know more, to be sure if he was available. Was he fully divorced or just separated? Unless he and his wife had completely split, the turmoil he put her heart in was so great that she couldn’t bring herself to go any further with him.

“When was the divorce final?” she asked.

“She isn’t that kind of gone. It was more unexpected…,” he said, his voice slightly cracking. “…and permanent.”

His eyes went soft for a moment, but he pulled himself back together. She took a second to understand what he had said. Then guilt flooded her and she reached out to take his hand across the table. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know. I just…,” she let the words trail off, not really knowing what she wanted to say. What could she say? That she expected him to admit to being a wannabe cheater? She didn’t want to say anything to hurt him. Seeing him nearly break crushed her heart. How he could affect her so deeply in such a short time made no sense, but she understood his reluctance to have sex more clearly. “I can get a cab back to the hotel if you’re not up to staying out,” she said. After trying to seduce him all afternoon, her chivalry surprised her, but it was the only right thing to do, and she knew it.

He gripped her hand tighter and smiled. Her own heart warmed. “Thank you,” he said. “But you weren’t driving the other car, and I’ve been dating for over a year now. I don’t want you to go.” Then he got up from his chair, moved around to her side, and pulled her up to him. Before she could react, his lips were on hers. Warm, yet soft, she wrapped her arms around his neck and felt herself sway slightly. His arms wrapped around her waist and held her steady.