CHAPTER NINE

A half-dozen beautiful women lounged by the Venus pool at Caesars, closed for a few hours for the shoot. One rested elegantly on a lounge chair, small scraps of bathing-suit fabric covering her long, tanned legs. Another leaned provocatively against the Roman column in the center of the secluded pool, water lapping at her feet, her face tilted toward the sun. A leggy blonde was perched on the edge of the pool, absently splashing the crystal blue waters.

Around them fanned a sea of people. Women in black jeans and tanks stood by with makeup cases, ready to powder a shiny nose at a moment’s notice. Attendants carried towels and robes on their fingertips, poised to cover the models the second the camera stopped clicking. A man with a trim beard and skinny plaid pants seemed to preside over the shoot.

The pools at Caesars Palace were lush with palm trees, and rich with stately Roman architecture and statuary. The Venus pool was the most exclusive of all—it was topless, though today all boobs were covered.

Barely.

The whole scene was such a stark contrast to Michael’s morning. After his run, he’d met with Curtis, who operated a gentlemen’s club that Michael’s company handled security for. Curtis wanted to beef up the services, given the increased gang activity across town. That was something Michael had been hearing from many clients these days. Even his brother Colin had recently helped to strengthen security around the community center where he volunteered and his girlfriend worked. Caution was the new watchword, as the Royal Sinners and their crimes made businesses wary. After Michael’s meeting with Curtis, he’d finished a walk-through of a bank that had hired more protection in light of some recent robberies.

Funny how he’d gone from armed guards in aviator shades to perfect tens soaking in the rays.

He was liking the way the afternoon was shaping up to be much better.

He’d told the intern—at least, he guessed the young woman with purple hipster glasses, jet-black hair, and a clipboard, who’d done her best impression of a sentry at the pool area door, was an intern—that he was here to see Annalise. The gatekeeper checked the list, found his name, and waved him in. Michael picked a potted palm tree on the terrace, out of the way of the models and the photographic entourage. He could have stared at the blonde, let his eyes travel across the wispy brunette, or roamed his gaze over the chestnut-haired beauty floating on a gold raft.

Nope. His eyes were fixed on the redhead, watching her work. Such a familiar image—Annalise viewing the world through her lens, snap, snap, snapping. Strong arms raised her camera, hands working the shutter, her eye capturing the women in repose. She wore jeans and a black tank top. Her red hair was swept high on her head, some sort of chopstick stabbed through it.

After several minutes she stopped shooting, and the bearded guy in the odd pants clapped and told the models to take a short break. “Get a bottle of water. Have a salad. Be back in twenty minutes. You were all amazing. Perfect. Brilliant. Gorgeous,” he said, then blew kisses to the bikini-clad women who scattered from their posts. The man draped an arm around Annalise, and she nodded several times as he talked quietly to her.

The man then joined the models, who were flanked by attendants, while Annalise scanned the pool area. Soon, her eyes landed on Michael and lit up, beaming at him. His heart slammed against his chest at her reaction. She weaved through lounge chairs, around the edge of the pool, and soon stood face-to-face with him, then lips-to-cheek. She whispered, “You’re here.”

She sounded amazed that he’d made it.

“Did you think I wouldn’t show?” he asked, regarding her curiously.

She shrugged as a small smile of admission crept across her lips. “Maybe.”

“Hey,” he 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 his eyes. Her gaze went soft, almost vulnerable. “It’s just that…you never know.”

He nodded his understanding. Yeah, he got that. You never knew if someone would show 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. He followed her. “Thanks for inviting me,” he said, looking at her over the tops of his shades. “Was it a good shoot?”

She raised her face, and little wispy 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.”

He smiled at her comment. It would be simple for her to say something catty, to toss a quippy one-liner about a too-skinny model. Instead, she’d done the opposite—praised them, not for their beauty, but for their ability.

“I doubt your job is easy,” he said. “You’ve always been good at what you do. Yours is a natural talent as well. You have an eye.”

“All I do is point, shoot, click,” she said with a wink, then lifted her camera and snapped a candid of him without even looking in the lens.

“Hey now,” he teased, covering his face with crossed arms, pretending he was a star avoiding the shutter.

“Too late. I’ve got you here. For all posterity,” she said, tapping the camera. Her gaze drifted to the back of the Nikon. “You look good.”

He rolled his eyes.

“I mean it. Come see,” she said, gesturing for him to come closer.

He 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. His heart pounded faster, his skin heating up from her compliments. It grew tougher to keep her in a neat, organized corner when she said things like that.

“Thank you,” he said softly, as he moved in near to her, his arm bumping her shoulder. A slight hitch of breath escaped her lips as they looked at the image. He resisted touching her, even though all his instincts told him to. Instead, he studied himself on the screen of the camera, and he looked like the guy he’d always been. And yet, as he saw himself through her eyes, through her lens, he seemed…happier.

Maybe he looked more complete because he’d been caught staring at her.

“See,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. “Your eyes are so expressive. Your cheekbones are perfection. And your lips are…”

He picked up where she’d stopped. “My lips are what?”

She met his eyes. “Red,” she whispered, saying it in the same tone he’d uttered the word last night. Her cheeks flushed pink.

Ah, hell. He was going to have the hardest time not losing himself in her. She was going to have to stop this right now. It was past time for him to put an end to all these sweet nothings, or he’d be utterly ruined. But no fucking way could he tell her to stop. He liked her compliments too much.

“By the way, I liked watching you work,” he 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. 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?”

“Yeah. It does. Both watching you work and seeing what you saw. I always got a kick out of looking at your photos. Like when you took pictures at the Pearl Jam concert we went to. Eddie Vedder didn’t look the same way to my eye as he did to yours. Seeing the pictures afterward was like opening a whole new view of something I’d already experienced,” he said, taking off his shades and tucking them on the neck of his 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 makes 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. He stepped closer, swiped his thumb across her chin, and held her face. A tiny gasp came from her throat, and her lips parted.

“Yeah, like that,” he said, his voice rumbling as he 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, her accent thicker, the way it sounded when she was more turned on. She was more French when she was aroused. He brushed the barest of kisses on her lips, a small, gentle kiss that made his skin sizzle. “I want the after, too.”

Before. After. In between. He wanted it all with her. One simple kiss and he was on a slingshot into wild longing.

“I want it, too,” he said, his 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.”

He swept his 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 him. “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.”

“Will you look at them all later? Hunting for details?”

She nodded, meeting his eyes. “I will. Including that one of you.”

The temperature inside him rose. “What will you search for in that one?” he asked, and when she looked at him like that, her gaze intense and knowing, the breath fled from his lungs, and he felt…disarmed. She was so direct. And yeah, she’d been like that when he knew her before, but it was magnified now, amplified by age and worldliness, as if all her inherent confidence had been strengthened and sculpted over time.

“Maybe I’ll remember how it felt to have you in front of me.”

His head felt dizzy. His blood rushed hot. “How does it feel?”

“Like a favorite memory is real once more. And real is very, very good.”

* * *

She didn’t want another ghost. She wanted the solidness of Michael. The warm skin. The beating heart. He was flesh and here with her. That fueled her, made her want to answer this persistent hum in her bones asking for nourishment, asking for all she’d been deprived of.

Contact. Connection. A thread binding her to another human being.

But asking for all that was too much, too soon.

Instead, she gestured to the edge of the pool area as she hiked her bag on her shoulder. “Walk with me?”

“Where are we headed? Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” She patted her stomach, flat as could be as they walked. “You know I always have a good appetite.”

A smile spread slowly on his face, and he nodded. “Super metabolism,” he said, since that was what she’d called it.

“French metabolism,” she added.

She was slim and trim, but she didn’t deprive herself. She wasn’t a pig, but she wasn’t a “I’ll just have the salad” girl, either. Her secret was simple—she put one foot in front of the other and burned it off.

“Still walk everywhere?”

She nodded and then held up a finger as they reached the doorway leading into the hotel. “Wait. That’s not true. I took an Uber today,” she said, like it was a confession.

He arched an eyebrow. “Naughty girl.”

“I know. I’m the worst. But in my defense, I went several miles away. Breakfast with Becky.”

“Yeah? How was that?”

She scrunched her brow. “A little odd, to tell the truth. I’ll talk to you about it at lunch. If you want to get lunch?”

He nodded. “Sure. I know some great spots here at Caesars. But do you really only have twenty minutes? Because that would mean taking you to the vending machines on the third floor and springing for pretzels.”

A grin tugged at her lips, and she stage-whispered, “That’s what they tell the girls. To make sure they’re back in an hour. So I actually have about that long.” She set her hand on his arm, wrapping it around his bicep. Oh, that was nice. He was so toned, so strong. Julien had been ropy and lanky. Michael was broad, firm, and just…bigger. Stronger. She liked that he felt different from what she’d been used to. “I thought we’d be done by now. That I’d have you arrive at the end of the shoot and then…”

“And then what?”

She shrugged happily. “And then…” She let her voice trail off once more, leaving possibilities lingering in the air. The truth was she’d been hoping for more of last night. For a repeat performance, and then some. She wanted to touch him, to smash into him, to feel him grind against her, and to wrap her legs around him. Call her greedy, call her needy—she’d own up to all of that. But when the director had told her the shoot was lasting well into the afternoon, and maybe the evening, she wasn’t so sure she’d get what she wanted. She’d have to settle for lunch. She gestured right at the next corner, indicating the hallway that led to business suites in the hotel.

“Where are we headed, Annalise?”

“I left my purse in our suite—we all use it for the day. It’s kind of cool. Like a dressing room, because the models get ready there.”

“So it’s full of bikinis?”

“Yes. It is”

“Will you model some for me?”

“Would you like me to?” she volleyed back, as the sparks zipped between them. The flirting—the heady, decadent flirting—was fantastic. She wanted to inhale it, let it fill her body like oxygen after too long without air.

“I believe that was established twice—a few minutes ago, as well as on the terrace last night.”

“Last night was interesting,” she said softly as they reached the door.

He tilted his head. “Yeah? Interesting is kind of vague. What made it interesting for you?”

“Seeing you, of course.”

“Was that all?” he asked.

She knew he was fishing. But she wanted him to catch her at the end of his line. She needed him to reel her in.

She leaned in close, her head bending to his neck, her breath traveling across his skin. He smelled so damn good, clean and masculine, his aftershave hinting at the scent of the forest. “Touching you.”

His hands shot out, gripping her upper arms. Tightly. “You like touching me?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly.

Like? She fucking loved it. She wanted her hands all over him. Wanted to explore him.

“So much.”

He exhaled hard. “One hour, you say?”

Her lips pressed against his neck, then she whispered softly, “Sixty whole minutes. Minus ten now, from the time we spent on the pool deck.” She said it like an invitation.

“Let’s get out of the hallway then.”

She nodded, reached for a key, and opened the door.