Page 52 of Strut

Tim deflated like a balloon. “Don’t be. You’re right. But he isn’t so bad. I kind of like him, funnily enough. He, um, wants to see me again.”

Oh no.“What? Tim, you can’t—”

Tim shot me a sharp look. “I haven’t decided yet.”

I swallowed my protest and fell off my high horse. “Okay. Well, I’m here if you need to talk.”

“One minute, people,” Jacob called down the line and everyone took a deep breath.

Tim kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck.”

I grabbed his hand. “I’m here for you, okay?”

He gave a thin smile and then the model behind nudged me forward and Tim was gone.

Jacob appeared in front of me, fluffing my shirt, smoothing the silk of my trousers over my arse, and angling the triple line of belts hanging off my hips. “You look perfect.” His words catapulted me back to Darcy but with none of the ick factor, even though Jacob had run his hands over me in a similar fashion. I shook my head. I was losing my fucking mind.

“You’re up.” Jacob sent me forward to the older woman at the front. She held up a finger to wait, and I took a deep breath. Then she flicked her head for me to go, and I winked at her, got my mojo on, and strode onto the catwalk.

That instant when the lights hit and the music pounded in my skull and every eye in the place landed on me was the biggest goddamn rush. It took a moment to adjust to the sensory overload and get my timing and lay of the runway right, but that had to be done on the move, and in those few seconds, I walked on instinct and memory, semi-blind, relying on some kind of intuitive spatial awareness. The best models had that in spades, that sense of where their bodies were in space at any given time. But even the best could fall, and all you could do was hope today wasn’t your turn and that you kept your line.

I always loved it, but this was better than usual. Hunter was out there, somewhere, watching me walk, watching me strut my stuff, as he called it. I smiled to myself. He’d have his camera to his eye, and just knowing that made everything more potent. I flicked my hip a little more, kind of my signature, set my feet, cheated a smidge to the right to adjust my line, hit the turn, paused, and sent a look somewhere into the audience just for him. Two hundred pairs of eyes on me and only his mattered. Becausehismade me better.Hismade me happy.Hismade me burn.

CHAPTERTWELVE

Hunter

I flickedthrough my final pick of Alec’s digitals from the Blast Off event the previous weekend, in addition to some I’d taken since, and couldn’t keep the smile from my face. I’d been busy Monday through Thursday, working withHarper’sand getting ready for my next shoot withJojomagazine, and this was the first chance I’d had to play with the images. They were good. Really fucking good.

Alec had slipped from our bed at the arse crack of dawn to head to the gym. I figured it was as much to burn off his growing anxiety over when Berlini would call, as it was to stay in shape. And yep,ourbed. Not sure when that subtle ownership change had happened, but it definitely had. Alec had been a fixture in my apartment since that first night together, leaving only to work, and to retrieve clothes and essentials from his apartment. After the gym, he had a morning of castings and a promising go-see with Men-tion. The big-name label had called Cage after seeing Alec at Blast Off and wanted to meet with him.

No surprise there. He’d been hot as hell on the catwalk that night, and I might’ve been biased, but the chatter from the other photogs and the way their cameras snapped to attention said everything I needed to know. We were all in the business. We all knew who and what was hot. And we all knew who worked and who to keep an eye on.

And Alec simply worked. He was that rare combination of sultry bedmate and boy next door, sweet and saucy, boyfriend handsome, lean and fit, but not skinny, confident, and sassy as shit. He could draw on it all, and that was a heady combination for any label or photographer. Lots of models had what it took on the outside, but it was what you had on the inside that took you to the next level—discipline, personality, character, and an ability to read what the designer wanted you to bring to their clothes. That’s what made all the difference.

My camera couldn’t get enough of him, and I hadn’t only been shooting forHarper’sthat night. I wanted images for myself. I wanted to see what I could do with them. I wanted to give Alec something of himself—a more personal glimpse. And so, as well as the usual runway shots, I’d taken a more intimate selection of photos that were less about the clothes he wore and more about capturing thatspecial something differentthat he brought to the runway.

Alec at my side had fuelled the candid photographer in me in a way I hadn’t felt for years, and I was surely driving him crazy with my sneaky shooting. I’d captured images of him asleep at my side in bed, chilled out on the sofa, cross-legged on the floor with an open carton of Thai takeout and a chopstick up each nostril. And there were a few shots of him in the shower taken seconds before he threatened to drown my camera if I didn’t put it away and join him. He’d been singing tunelessly along with Van Halen with his head back and water cascading down his face. I was stripped down in seconds.

And finally, there were the couple I’d taken of him sprawled across our bed after we’d made love the night before, the first time I’d topped—his lids heavy, his hair messy, his skin slick and gleaming in the soft glow of the lamp, his lips kiss-swollen, one arm above his head, the other resting on his belly, a sheet carelessly pulled across his spent cock, his eyes laughing at the camera.

The images, taken in the heat of the moment in a few seconds with no staging and no lighting, still stole the breath from my lungs, and I’d worked the best of them in black and white until I could almost taste him on my tongue again. The sex was great, amazing. But I’d had great before, and great didn’t leave me hiding tears from the man I was fucking. Great didn’t leave me scrambling for an emotional foothold when the orgasm crashed through me. And great didn’t have me biting back words that were too fucking soon for either of us to hear.

I stared at the final image and swallowed hard, not sure if I’d even be able to show it to Alec. There was too much there. Too much... truth... about me... about what I was beginning to feel. About the dark places in my heart that he’d shone a soft light upon. About the hope I’d found there.

If I wasn’t already in love with Alec, I was damn close. My heart was on board, like tied-up-to-the-anchor on board, but my head was still skittish. I thought I’d loved Steven, but it had been nothing like this. And I didn’t know what to make of that.

By five, I was done messing on my laptop and had turned to twiddling my thumbs waiting for Alec to walk through the door. Ridiculous? Absolutely.

But I’d planned a surprise date and I was nervous as hell. Wehadactually left the bed and come up for air on occasion over the week, even visited a couple of local healthy food trucks and taken an evening walk through Soho before catching a movie. But this was the real deal.

I just hoped he liked it. I’d planned an early dinner in an actual brick-and-mortar Italian restaurant where we could talk and hold hands over candlelight. And then we’d make use of those Ghost Tour tickets. I’d booked two places for the evening tour. I couldn’t wait to tell him, and I hadn’t stopped smiling all day.

A key hit the lock and the door pushed open. “Honey, I’m home.”

I leapt to my feet and raced over to place a sound kiss on his lips. “How was your day, baby?”

He laughed and took my hand, spinning me around. “Not that I don’t appreciate the view, but you do realise you’re only wearing a towel, right?”

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