Page 102 of Claimed At First Sight

“You climbed out of a bathroom window and got on my motorcycle. We’re past sensible decision-making.”

After that, it gets easier.

Rory keeps talking while she shoots, never giving me enough silence to get self-conscious again. She tells me ridiculous stories about clients, gives increasingly dramatic instructions, and threatens to make me pose with a feather boa when I start taking myself too seriously.

At some point, I stop wondering where my hands should go.

I sit on the bed, tuck one leg beneath me, laugh when Rory backs into a lamp, and forget for several minutes that the camera is there at all.

Click.

Click.

Click.

“Lie back,” she says eventually.

I lower myself onto the bed. “Like this?”

“Perfect. Now close your eyes.”

I do.

There’s a pause.

Then Rory says, “Think about someone who makes you feel beautiful.”

My eyes almost open again, because the answer comes far too quickly. It’s an answer I don’t like.

But the way he looks at me… like there could be a hundred women in the room and he’d still only see me.

My stomach gives a traitorous flip.

I really should think about something else. Instead, I remember his hand at my waist in the greenhouse. His mouth almost touching mine, and the heat in his eyes.

Click.

Click.

Click.

“Whatever you’re remembering,” Rory murmurs, “keep doing it.”

My eyes snap open. She’s grinning behind the camera.

Absolutely not.

She laughs as if she knows exactly who filled my mind.

After that, the afternoon disappears quickly. We try a few different looks. Some I reject immediately. Others I never would have imagined myself wearing.

The lingerie makes me hesitate the longest. It’s not outrageous, but stepping out in it still sends heat rushing into my cheeks.

Rory barely reacts. She just lifts the camera and keeps talking to me exactly as she did before. Within minutes, I forget to be embarrassed.

By the time Rory lowers the camera, sunlight has shifted across the room and my cheeks hurt from smiling.

“That was two hours,” she announces.