Photo Slave (The Art of Domination #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t see the advantage to Iva to lie to me.
So it was possible my carelessness truly had resulted in not just a security
slip that was bad for business but a violation of the trust between Dominant
and submissive. No matter that Iva was not my submissive in any official sense,
with no agreement either verbal or written yet to set our rules and boundaries.
It was going to take me some time and hard thought to figure out how I was
going to make that up to her without actually saying I was sorry. I hadn’t apologized—flippant
and blatantly insincere exceptions notwithstanding—to anyone for anything in
about twenty years, not since I was ten and had figured out what the word
hypocrisy meant from a wealth of real life examples.
    The closest I could
come to contrition without a lot of preparation and even more Cruzan was a
plain, truthful admission. “I don’t get anything out of embarrassing you, Iva,
especially since I haven’t yet convinced you to sign a release and keep
modeling for me.”
    The last part came out
of my mouth as a surprise to both of us, Iva’s eyes flaring, me using all of my
powers of concentration to fight down the disturbingly sheepish grin of a
hormonal schoolboy with his first crush. Iva wasn’t my first crush or a crush
at all. Not my first play partner or the first woman I’d seen as a challenge to
thaw out and bed. She was just the first I wanted to see again, for more than
professional reasons. For the challenge. Yes, I wanted Iva to keep modeling for
me… and to keep spreading her legs for me. I wanted to hear her saying my
name—like a curse, like a plea—in her most defenseless and honest moment, when
she came.
    “Why?” she asked me.
    “Why?”
    “Why do you want me to
keep modeling for you? Why did you ask me to do it in the first place?”
    A breathy chuckle rushed
out through my nose. “You don’t know you’re a beautiful—”
    She cut me off with a
tsk and a fierce frown. “Enough bullshit, Beal. You can’t swing a half empty
bottle of whiskey in your studio without beaning a woman—or a man, for that
matter—so stunning that they’d make the average person hyperventilate. So why
me?”
    There was a plaintive
note to Iva’s voice that made it sound as though she was asking not why I’d
favored her but why I’d injured her. My curiosity flared again but softer this
time, less like I wanted the thrill of prying out her secret lust and more like
I wanted to coax out her private hurts.
    “Because of the way you
sound when you ask questions like that, Iva.”
    “What’s that supposed
to mean?” she asked, that plump bottom lip pushed out just a bit, tempting me
to suck and nip and lick the rosy flesh. Would she relent, relax enough to
return the attention? Would she let her tongue slide against mine as she had
that night on set?
    “It means that the
Moreau women are never who I expect them to be. I’m still figuring you out. You
and Cheri.”
    The mention of her
sister cast a shadow over Iva’s expression, visible even in the colored light
of the club. “Stan said Cheri was supposed to be here with you. Yet she didn’t
tell you about the release? She didn’t mention the photos of me at all? Didn’t
ask about them?”
    I nodded past Iva
toward the dance floor two levels below us, to the disturbingly attractive
couple Cheri and Finn made as they writhed against one another using the music
as an excuse. “She barely notices me when he’s around,” I explained to Iva as
she twisted to look over her shoulder.
    Yet another look I
couldn’t quite read flitted along Iva’s brow, smoothing out the furrows in
favor of…. Surprise, was it? I could have sworn she almost smiled.
    “Relieved you didn’t
find me corrupting your little sister?” I asked. Not that Finn couldn’t take
care of that himself.
    Whereas I was a
hedonist at heart, Finn was just plain debauched, and with years of dedicated
practice. Being on his own at sixteen in New York City making