Picture Perfect (14 page)

“I’m speaking of the numerous times you’ve tried seducing Professor Lekowski for better test grades or homework scores. He told me everything.”

“I - what - that - he’s lying! Every bit of
it is a lie! He came on to me!”

“Careful, Ms. Davis,” she said in a low voice. “Sexual harassment is a grave offense.”

I shook my head, eyes locked with her, pleading. “It’s true. He cornered me! I didn’t try to seduce him, I swear!”

“Did you report it?”

I blinked. “What?”

She leaned forward. “Did you report it to the police or to any teachers?”

I pressed my lips together. “No,” I whispered.

“Then it’s your word against his,” she said, relaxing back in her chair. “Still, I will have the matter investigated. The protection of our students is of the utmost importance to me.”

Then why do you hire creeps like Lekowski?
I wanted to ask. The question died in my throat. “Please believe me,” I said, my voice tiny.

Doctor Marshall pressed her lips together, blinked a few times, then cleared her throat. “There’s also the matter of your background. The committee is concerned awarding the scholarship to a stripper.”

My face cooled. “I needed the money and the tuition assistance I have there to put myself through school. I don’t have any other way.”

She looked at me with apathy. “You can find respectable work. Do you really want your future employers coming across your half naked figure on the Internet or on some porn website?”

Feeling stupid, I shook my head. “No. I hadn’t considered that. All I want to do is help kids. I want to help them be strong, to show them the world doesn’t have to be this dark place. Please, I’ll do anything. I need this scholarship.”

Her eyes softened and she sighed. “I was like you once, working my ass off to get through school. I grew up in the slums.
My father bailed on us when I was six. My mother had three jobs and worked herself to the bone to feed me and my four brothers.” Pause. “I also know about your mother, and what your father did to her. To you.”

That deathly chill washed through me as I blinked away the memory of my mother’s strangled scream. I couldn’t speak because my throat had closed up.

“But while I might understand better than others what you’re going through, the rest of the committee will not. They’re white collars, aristocrats, and I can tell you some are looking for any excuse not to give you this award.”

My shoulders slumped as a feeling of helplessness came over me, followed by anger. Who were they to judge me? They didn’t know a damn thing about me. “What should I do?”

Doctor Marshall gazed steadily back at me. “Prove them wrong. Show them you’re the only one worthy of this award.”

A knock at the door interrupted
us. “Doctor Marshall, your ten o’ clock appointment’s here,” the secretary said, poking her head in.

“Thank you, Grace. Please tell Mr. Longston I’ll be with him shortly.”

The door closed and she got up, at which so did I. My whole body felt drained, like I’d just endured a beating.

“Remember what I told you,” she said, getting the door. “And I’ll handle the rest.”

Nodding, I murmured thank you and hurried out the door, trying not to fall apart before I’d gotten out of the Academic Affairs office.

Out in the hall, I leaned my back against the cool wall, inhaling a deep breath. My phone vibrated inside my jeans pocket
. Devin’s name appeared on the caller ID. I flipped it open, reading the text.

Can you meet tomorrow for some more photos?

Seeing as I had the night off with no impending tests to study for, I quickly texted back
Yes. When and where?

A few seconds later, my phone vibrated with the answer.

Berkley Gardens. 4 p.m.

I cursed, remembering Tam would still be in class. Embarrassed, I texted,
Can u give me a ride plz?

He immediately responded with
Yes. B at ur place at 3:30
.

Stuffing the phone back in my pocket, I composed myself and trudged back to class, significantly wearier than I was before.

CHAPTER 16

Devin

ANGEL WAS SILENT ON
our way to the gardens. Though I could tell she’d tried to hide it with makeup, heavy bags hung under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept in days.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. It’s just been a long week.”

“And it’s getting longer,” I murmured, thinking of the upcoming birthday party I’d been “invited” to attend.

We rode in silence for a few minutes. The radio droned on, but I wasn’t really listening to it. I was thinking of how much I wanted to hear her voice.

She sighed, staring out the window. “Do you ever feel like you’re a stranger in your own body? Like you don’t recognize the life you’re living anymore because it’s so far from what you pictured as a kid?”

I swallowed hard, lost for words for a moment. The way the sun hit her hair made it light up like fire. When she looked at me, her eyes burned emerald green. I saw myself reflected in them, not just literally, but in the sense I knew the scars on her soul because they matched my own. She looked tired. So damn tired.

“Yeah,” I said. “I do, all the time.”

I sneaked another glance at her, catching an almost-smile. That one gesture made me feel not so alone anymore, like I had a kindred spirit on my side. My worries about the birthday party slipped away, replaced by a sense of peace I hadn’t known in years.

Another minute passed and we pulled up to the gardens. Getting out of the car, I hauled
my gear inside, buying us both admission and flashing my photographer’s pass. “This way,” I said, inclining my head toward a pathway made of pearly slabs that reflected the sunlight like white ink.

She looked around in awe at the explosion of color. Instead of being dead brown,
the grass was flush with green. Every inch was nearly covered in violets, their soft, furry petals glossed in a light layer of dew that glittered in the sun.

“You ever been here before?” I asked. I had a feeling I already knew the answer; I just wanted to hear her talk.

“No,” she admitted. “It’s beautiful.” Her breath caught as she spotted the glass enclosure that housed the orchid garden. “Oh, my God,” she said with a wistful smile, pressing her fingertips to the glass. “I never could get them to grow.”

“You garden?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

“My mom did,” she said. That same sadness I’d seen earlier fell over her face. “I used to spend hours in the sun and dirt helping her.”

Did. Used to.
“Is she…?”

“Dead?” Angel supplied. “No. But she might as well be.”

The last part was so soft, I wasn’t sure I’d heard it at all. I wanted to ask her more, to know what was making her so sad so I could try to help. But she pasted a smile on and said, “So, where are we shooting?”

I looked at the glass green
house. “Actually, I thought we’d start here.”

“Really?”

“Why not?” I opened up the door, smiling. “It’s as good a place as any, and the orchids make you smile.”

She flushed at that but didn’t turn away. Holding my gaze, she slowly returned my smile, sending fleeting thrills through me that made my heart pick up its pace.

The greenhouse was a little warmer and unoccupied by anyone except us. We shrugged out of our coats, then walked the dirt path meandering throughout the long, rectangular enclosure.

Angel seemed right at home with the flowers. She ran her fingers over the soft petals, her posture relaxed, staring at the flowers as if she couldn’t take in enough of them.

I watched her, noticing the elegant curve of her neck when she’d bend over to examine a flower and her hair would fall over her shoulders. “Pick a spot,” I said.

She looked around. “You don’t have one picked out that’s, I don’t know, ‘suited to your artistic needs’ or something?”

I laughed. God, it felt good. “Hardly. Anywhere in here would be fine. This place was arranged to be aesthetically pleasing, from the color choices to the placement of the flowers. There probably isn’t a bad shot in here.”

She nodded. “Okay then.”

I walked behind her as she searched for a place to shoot, smiling inwardly because she was putting so much thought into it. She had this way of walking that rocked her hips from side to side like a pendulum. I doubted she knew how sexy it looked. Or how it affected me.

“There.” She pointed to a little gazebo covered in forget-me-nots
, situated right over a crystalline stream that flowed throughout the gardens. Pink and purple orchids and dark-red wild roses bloomed around the white latticework, growing so thick you couldn’t tell where one plant ended and the other began in the flush greenery.

Angel took a seat inside the gazebo, rocking her feet beneath her and looking around while I set up my camera. After a few minutes, I joined her.

“Timer again?” she asked, inclining her head toward the camera.

“Yeah.” I offered her my hand and she tentatively took it, letting me pull her up. “Pick a pose,” I said.

“Um.” She chewed on her lip, and a rush of heat went straight to my groin. Clearing my throat, I promptly pushed the feeling back down while she leaned over the railing, staring out over the flowers.

Playing off her body language and seeing the shot in my head, I came up behind her. Instantly, she tensed and I backed away.

“Let me know if it’s too much,” I said softly. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Her shoulders rose and fell with a quicker rhythm as her breathing picked up. “It’s fine. I know models do this sort of thing all the time, right?”

“Sometimes without clothes.”

When she saw my face, she snorted, giving me a swift jab in the ribs with her elbow.

It worked. She relaxed after that.

Too bad I didn’t.

Taking care not to make her feel trapped, I came up behind her again, leaning toward her but not against her, and pressed my lips to her ear right as the camera went off.

“Good,” I murmured, running my fingers along her bare arm. “Turn your head toward me.”

She did as I said, her breath hitching as my fingertips glided along her arm, leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake.

Snap
.

With every shot
I drew a little closer, relishing the way she melted under my touch. I swore my heart was beating so loud she could hear it. We did a few more shots with her back to me before I asked her to turn around. Slowly, she turned to face me, tilting her chin up and staring at me with something akin to fear and longing. My eyes dropped to her parted lips.

Snap
.

My heart was vibrating so hard and fast I could feel it in my ears. It was all I could do not to crush my lips to hers right then. Swallowing to restore moisture in my parched throat, I reached up and pressed a strand of her hair between my fingertips. It was soft, like silk.

Snap
.

Slowly, I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, hearing her breath catch.

Snap
.

She brought her hands up, putting them on my chest, but she didn’t try to push me away. They lingered there, trembling, grabbing at my shirt and pulling me closer.

Snap
.

Every part of me became supercharged at her touch. The proximity of her body, a mere inch away from my own, made me flush with heat from my head to my toes. I wanted her. This was different from Darcy. Whereas Darcy had been all sugar and sweetness, this was something
more intense. Something that screamed of need rather than want, like I’d explode if I didn’t have her.

My body reacted of its own accord, ignoring the screams of my hea
rt that warned me to stay far away and not tread into dangerous waters. As I trailed a string of kisses down her cheek, the pain I’d felt from Darcy’s betrayal melted away, leaving only warmth and desire. Angel sighed, closing her eyes and tilting her head back as I nuzzled the hollow of her throat. I moved without thinking of the camera or how we’d look on film.

Her nails dug into my shirt as she arched her back, pressing her body against mine. Taking it as an invitation, I let one hand slip into her hair, cradling her head, while the other moved behind the small of her back. Before I knew what I was doing, I caressed her lips in a soft, questioning kiss.

Her eyes closed and a light blush stained her cheeks as I hesitated, seeing how she’d respond. My answer came when she kissed me back, deeper than before.

I held her to me as her arms snaked up my chest and around my neck, each kiss hotter and more desperate than the one before. She moaned when my tongue slipped into her mouth, dancing and teasing along hers.

As I felt my jeans tighten along the crotch, it was harder to control the urge to slip my hands under her top, to feel the supple breasts rubbing against my chest. A girl like Angel deserved more than that. She deserved a goddamn knight in shining armor who would treat her like a queen.