Picture Me Sexy (5 page)

Besides, after today, she'd never see Sam Martelli again. The thought struck an odd pang of regret, but she squelched it determinedly. She could have him mail the photos to her. There would be absolutely no harm or repercussions for anything she did or said. She'd sworn off men, so what possible problem could arise out of a little harmless flirtation? Beyond today, what difference would it make?

None.

She'd use this inconvenient attraction for him to her advantage. Shocking him made her feel sexy and looking at him turned her on. The man was art in motion. He moved with a predator's grace, with an economy of motion. Those heavy-lidded deep brown
eyes had a way of making a woman wonder about hidden talents, about tangled sheets and satisfying orgasms. Delaney bit her bottom lip as a chord of longing vibrated deep in her belly. She'd just bet he'd be chocolate-covered sex, the kind she'd regrettably never had.

Oh, hell. Now was not the time to be lamenting her lackluster sex life. With a mental shake, Delaney smoothed her hands over the silky gown and walked back down the hall to the studio.

“Where do you want me now?” she asked and noted that Sam's impossibly broad shoulders tensed at the question. He looked up, casually glanced at what she wore, and swallowed.

“In bed.”

Delaney frowned. What did— Did he just— She blinked. “I'm sor—”

“On the bed,” he hastily corrected. He squeezed his eyes shut and muttered a low curse. “Why don't you lean against the footboard post,” he suggested.

“Sure.” Bewildered, Delaney walked over, curled her arm around the post and assumed what she hoped was the desired position. He clicked a few shots, so she must have done it correctly.

“Okay. Now on the bed.”

Was it just her, or did he seem to be in a hurry? “Uh…okay. Just anywhere?” she asked.

He didn't bother to look up. “Against the pillows.”

Delaney propped a few pillows behind her, rested
her head in her palm and bent her legs toward her bottom. The bed was heavenly. He certainly hadn't spared any expense when it came to comfort. She blinked sleepily and smiled. Sam moved forward and clicked off another few rounds of film.

“That's gorgeous,” he said softly. “Simply gorgeous. Hold that pose….”

A thrill raced through her. He'd slipped up again and paid her another compliment. Remarkably, she didn't feel self-conscious—she felt…sexy. Delaney turned over onto her back and slowly rolled her head to the side and looked at him through lowered lashes.

Mercy, did he ever look good. Her gaze slowly traced the curve of his strong jaw, the slight cleft in his chin. Those big capable hands manipulated the camera with precision and it wasn't hard to imagine them sliding over her body, doing precisely wonderful things. She bit her bottom lip, her eyes fluttered shut and another warm quiver snaked through her muddled tummy.

“Fantastic… Just a few more.” He fired through several more shots, then the telltale whir of the auto-rewind sounded, bringing an end to her session.

Delaney reluctantly sat up and smothered a sigh of regret. She'd just begun to get into it.

“Okay,” he said as he did some final tweaking to his camera. “I'll have these ready for you to view in a couple of days, you can tell me which ones you like and we'll go from there.” He finally looked up at her and smiled. “How does that sound?”

Like more torture, Delaney decided. She'd done what she'd set out to do. She'd gotten through this shoot without too much anxiety. It was a good step, and for now, it would be enough. Besides, she really didn't want to look at the photos with him. The idea seemed too weird, too personal. “Can't you just mail them to me?”

He blinked, oddly taken aback. “I, uh…sure. If that's what you'd like.”

Delaney nodded. “Thanks, I would. You've been great.” She gestured toward the dressing room. “I'll just run and change, then I'll give you the address and sitting fee when I come out.”

He nodded again, seemingly disturbed about something. “Sure.”

Delaney swung her feet off the side of the bed and the whole place went black. “Uh-oh,” she chuckled. “Who turned off the lights?”

She heard Sam mutter a curse. “Stay there. The building is under renovation. Somebody must have accidentally cut the power. Let me go check things out. I'll see if I can shed a little light on things.”

She heard Sam's bare feet pad from the room, and might have remained there calmly if she hadn't noticed something out of the corner of her eye. A finger of unease tripped down her spine.

Not a single city light shone from the bank of windows that lined Sam's loft. Somewhere between her first and last change of clothes, dusk had fallen and brought night. From this vantage point, she should
have been able to see half of the Memphis night skyline. Not a single pinprick of light disturbed the inky blackness.

“Sam?” she called tentatively.

“Be there in a sec. I'm getting a flashlight.”

Moments later she watched the beam of the flashlight bob into the studio. “Bad news.” He winced apologetically. “Looks like the generator's on the fritz. We'll have to wait it out.”

“Wait it out?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “The elevator won't run without power, and the stairs and fire escape are under repair. It shouldn't be more than a few minutes before they get things up and running again.”

He sounded completely confident that momentarily all would be well, so confident in fact that Delaney didn't think he'd noticed that the entire city of Memphis seemed to be dark.

“Don't worry,” he said, evidently interpreting her silence for concern. “It's happened a couple of times since they started the renovation. The guys working here are top-notch. They'll have things fixed in no time.”

No stairs and no fire escape? She was trapped here with him for the duration? Oh, hell. She'd never been good at resisting temptation. That's why she stayed on a perpetual diet. And Sam Martelli definitely qualified as temptation. “Well, they'd have to be good if they are going to get the whole city up and running again.”

“What?”

“Look out the windows,” Delaney told him, panic making her voice shrill. She gestured wildly. “The whole city is black.”

She heard him turn, heard him murmur, “Well, I'll be damned.” Then in a more dire, almost desperate tone, “Oh, hell.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Delaney concurred, slightly annoyed.

“You're trapped here,” he said flatly. “In my apartment.”

“Yes, I'd figured that out.”

He walked over to the windows. “God only knows how long it'll take them to get it up and running again. A major transformer or substation must have gone out. You could be here all night.” From the flat, emotionless tone of his voice, a root canal held greater appeal.

“You seemed to have developed a real penchant for stating the obvious,” Delaney said, unreasonably perturbed. Honestly, he didn't have to sound so put out. It wasn't her fault that the damned power had gone out. Wasn't her fault that she'd been imprisoned up here with him.

Her sarcasm appeared to chastise him because he muttered another soft oath and abruptly turned and made his way back to the bed. “Sorry,” he muttered apologetically and had the grace to sound chagrined. “I'm just thinking out loud. Why don't we go back
to the other end of the loft? I'll light some candles and we'll, uh, wait it out.”

Well, it's not like she had a choice, Delaney thought. She slid off the bed and immediately came up against something hard, warm and decidedly male. He shivered—actually shivered—and she could have sworn she heard him grind his teeth. A tense beat passed before he stepped back.

Suddenly another reason dawned for his almost frantic behavior and a slow feminine grin worked its way across her lips.

On second thought, was there any better way to spend a few hours in the dark? Was there a better-looking man to spend them with?
Chocolate-covered sex,
indeed, Delaney thought as the night ahead and all its possibilities loomed tantalizingly before her. Dare she indulge?

A
DISCONCERTING MIX OF
furious despair and carnal hunger dogged Sam's every step as he led Delaney back down the hall toward his living room. She'd slipped a distracting finger through the belt loop at the back of his jeans and followed him wordlessly down the hall. He'd either hurt her feelings by his tactless response to their current predicament, or she'd figured out why he'd acted like such a thoughtless ass at the prospect of her being trapped here for God knows how long with him.

Though he knew she'd gotten more than her fair share of heartache recently—and he particularly hated himself for adding to it—he nonetheless hoped that she'd just lumped him into her men-sucked category and hadn't discerned the true reason behind his blind panic moments ago.

But the thought of being here with her all night, in the dark, with her in that outfit… Sam pulled in a shallow breath.

Damn.

For reasons he didn't care to explore, the idea was almost more than he could bear. More than he could conceivably handle.

Something about the disconcerting feelings this woman evoked scared the living hell out of him, had curiously led him into emotional territory best left uncharted. He didn't like either sensation at all and, though a niggle of doubt had surfaced in his befuddled brain, he absolutely refused to consider the “quickening” as a possible cause.

He'd simply been blindsided by desire in its purest, most veritable form—lust.

He'd taken one look at her and centuries of in-grained civilized male behavior had been stripped away and replaced with nothing but the blind, single-minded drive to procreate. To mate.

With her.

He'd been reduced to little more than a caveman and grimly suspected that if she didn't get out of his loft soon, he'd undoubtedly grunt a couple of uga-uga's, club her over the head and drag her back to his bedroom.

Which would be tantamount to professional ruin.

Which meant she was off-limits.

Sam smothered a frustrated growl. Of all the women in this city, why on earth did his hyper-libido have to zero in on her like a damned homing device? What exactly was it about this woman that had turned him into such a damned lust-ridden, dick-driven wreck?

When she'd gone to make that last costume change, Sam had breathed a tentative sigh of relief. Just the one outfit to go, he'd told himself, then she'd
change clothes and leave and he would return to normal. The damned gooseflesh would subside, his scalp would subsist with that infernal perpetual quivering, and the raging erection—which, to his horror, had grown clear out of the waistband of his jeans at one point—would quietly wilt with shame and give him a little peace.

But the sigh of relief had been premature.

When she'd walked back into the studio, Sam's lungs had momentarily forgotten how to properly function. He hadn't been able to draw a breath, much less expel it.

For one insane instant, he'd thought she was naked.

The pale-pink teddy had so closely resembled the color of her skin that from a distance she'd almost appeared nude. And upon closer inspection, she might as well have been.

Though there was absolutely nothing precisely sexy about the plain unadorned teddy, it looked sexy on her because it revealed more skin than anything else she'd worn throughout this shoot. She'd obviously had to work up to that outfit, had saved it for last. The fabric draped the mounds of her puckered breasts, whispered over her curvy hips and brushed the tops of her thighs, revealing legs that were flawlessly toned and surprisingly long for someone so petite.

Sam knew that he'd been abrupt with her, had watched that sweet brow furrow in confusion. But
due to the fact that he was rapidly losing both reason and resolve, Sam had known he had to speed things up and get her out of his studio before he did something unquestionably stupid.

Like seduce her.

Now all that frantic work had been for naught and Sam faced the unhappy conclusion that his torment wasn't over, because she'd undoubtedly end up spending the night with him. One could hope that power would be restored to his little section of town first, but he sincerely doubted it. He stifled a dark chuckle. Oh, no. He wouldn't be that lucky.

Instead of wasting his time hoping for a miracle, Sam decided to redirect his thinking and effort where it was needed the most—focusing on restraint. He'd need every ounce of willpower he possessed and then some to keep his hands off her.

Grimly determined to do just that, Sam led her back into the living room where cozy gas logs burned in the fireplace and emitted a little light as well as some much needed heat. He made a mental note to thank his father the next time he saw him for suggesting the gas heat, gas stove and gas hot water heater.

While the electric blower wouldn't kick on, the logs would still generate enough heat to keep them moderately warm. Given the fact his blood had been boiling with need since the moment he first saw her, Sam knew he wasn't in any immediate danger of freezing to death. Still, he'd have hot water for a
shower, and the stove would still work, so he'd be able to pull together a quick dinner for his unexpected guest. That was something, anyway.

Sam conjured a smile and gestured toward the couch. “Why don't you sit down and I'll see if I can scare up a few candles?”

Delaney nodded and did as he suggested. “Sure.”

Sam padded into the kitchen, riffled through his junk drawer and finally located a pack of emergency candles and a box of matches. He made a quick run through his bedroom and snagged his clock radio from his nightstand before returning to the living room. Thankfully he'd backed it up with batteries for occasions such as these.

He handed the radio to Delaney. “Would you mind scanning the radio for some news while I light these? See what we can find out about this power outage.”

“Good idea,” Delaney told him.

By the time he'd lit the last candle, she'd located a station and upped the volume.

“…a jackknifed eighteen-wheeler struck a substation at 5:37 this evening, knocking out power to almost the entire city and turning rush-hour traffic into an extremely dangerous affair. Emergency crews have been dispatched, but officials at Memphis Power are predicting the outage to last at least until the early morning hours, if not longer. Citizens are encouraged to stay at home, as traffic lights are out as well. Stay tuned to WCBX for future
updates. All news, all the time. Now let's take a look at the weather….”

At least the early morning hours… Resignation added more weight to the ball of dread rolling around Sam's belly. He glanced at Delaney and pushed his lips into a facsimile of a smile. Good news, he'd be sleeping with her. Bad news, he'd be sleeping with her. He stared at the top of her head and watched his career disintegrate. “Well, I guess we need to get comfortable. Can I get you anything to drink?”

Seemingly distracted by her thoughts, Delaney returned his grin. “No thanks, not at the moment, anyway.”

“What about a blanket?” He considered asking her if she wanted to go change, but for some wholly self-serving reason, he didn't. The idea hadn't occurred to her yet, and he perversely hoped that it didn't. If he were suddenly going to turn into a glutton for punishment, he might as well enjoy it.

She nodded. “That would be nice, thanks.”

Sam pulled a quilt from the back of the sofa and handed it to her. Having fulfilled his gracious host duties for the time being, he sank down onto the couch as well. He laced his fingers together, laid them on his belly and expelled a long silent breath. The firelight cast dancing shadows on the walls and floors, and the candles pierced the darkness around the spacious room, lending an even more intimate feel to the atmosphere. He cast a surreptitious glance
at the woman seated next to him and felt another vicious jab of lust land in his midsection.

Delaney's pale blond hair seemed to glow and move like some living thing as the flickering flames bobbed and climbed in the grate. In the golden glow, in that barely-there gown, she looked like a wood nymph or a fairy, and somehow more beautiful and fragile than ever. His heart tripped an unsteady beat in his chest, gooseflesh skittered along his skin and his scalp prickled annoyingly once more. The perpetual hard-on strained against his zipper, tried to point at her like some sort of damned sexual divining rod.

Sam swallowed a curse and decided to distract himself by tossing an old line into the conversational pond. The silence hadn't necessarily stretched beyond the comfortable—in fact, both of them seemed a little too shocked at the moment to be uncomfortable—but he desperately needed to try and divert his thoughts north of his groin.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “You, uh, mentioned during the shoot that you've done a lot of things lately that were out of character,” Sam reminded her. “Besides what you've done here, what other things have you done recently?”

Delaney cocked her head in his direction and a small smile curled her lips. “Well, for starters, I took off work for the rest of the week.”

“And that was out of character?”

A soft chuckle burst from her throat. “Most defi
nitely. I haven't had a sick day, much less a vacation, in the last three years.” Eyes twinkling, she cast him a confiding glance. “Much to the annoyance of my perfectly capable staff, I have to make sure that everything—
everything
—down to the last little detail is perfect with the catalogue before it goes out.” She blew out a breath and shoved her hair away from her face. “I'm manic about it. It has my name on it, it's got to be right.”

Another rumor that held true. He'd heard those things about her and couldn't help but be impressed. It was exactly that attention to detail that had made her business the industry competitor it was today.

“So you took a few days off?” Sam said casually. “Sounds like you needed it. Have you got any special plans?”

Her lips slid into a self-deprecating grin and she peeked at him through lowered lashes. “Other than shipping all the wedding gifts over to Roger for him to deal with when he gets back from
my
honeymoon, no.”

Sam winced. “Ouch.”

“I know.” She traced a line of stitches on the quilt with her fingertips. “Though my staff doesn't believe it, I'm fine. Really,” she added at his skeptical look. “Today was simply an off day.” She shot him a confiding glance. “I found out about Roger and Wendy and my stolen honeymoon today.” Her brow folded in consternation. “Frankly, I was more pissed about the honeymoon. I'd spent months planning that
sucker, had seen to every single detail, not to mention that I paid for it. So, in my defense, I really think that I had every right to be upset about that—” her lips formed a secret, almost evil smile “—and I handled it accordingly.”

Uh-oh. That was certainly an ominously mysterious statement. “What did you do?”

“Well, like I told you, I cleared my schedule for the rest of the week, and then I drove over to Roger's house and vandalized his yard.”

She said it so matter-of-factly, it took a minute for that last sentence to penetrate, and when it did Sam's jaw almost dropped. “Come again?”

She laughed at his admittedly dumbfounded expression. “I vandalized Roger's yard.”

“Er, how exactly?”

“Weed killer.”

He arched a skeptical brow. “In winter?”

She nodded. “Roger's lawn is green year round. His turf is one of those expensive designer blends. He's very proud of it,” she told him. A hard edge colored her tone.

Sam felt his lips tremble with a suppressed smile. “And you killed it?”

“No, not all of it. Just part.”

Just part? Sam thought, thoroughly intrigued. He turned to face her more fully. “Okay, I'll bite. What part?”

She sank her teeth into her bottom lip and cast
him a sly glance. “Not much really. Just the part where I wrote ‘asshole' in weed killer.”

An unexpected laugh exploded from his chest, then tittered out into an impressed chuckle. “Very devious, Ms. Walker. Remind me never to piss you off.”

She lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “I didn't notice you having a lawn.”

“There is that,” he conceded. “But I am fond of that peace lily over in the corner.”

A beat passed, then she said, “I know it was childish, but I just couldn't seem to help myself. And I felt considerably better when I was finished. Almost went back and stole some of his antique roses as well, but I changed my mind.”

“Ah…weren't ready to add theft to your rap sheet, eh?”

Smiling, she shook her head. “Nah, not yet, anyway.” She expelled a heavy breath. “So what do you think? Think they'll get the power back on sooner than what they're reporting?”

Sam winced regretfully. “I doubt it. If anything, their estimate seems more optimistic than realistic. Still, I suppose it just depends on the damage.”

“I imagine an eighteen-wheeler could do a lot of damage,” Delaney said grimly. “Wonder if the driver is okay.”

“I'd wondered about that as well. They didn't comment one way or the other, did they?”

“No,” she sighed. “They didn't.”

“Well, we'll just keep listening to the radio. They'll give regular updates. In the meantime, I suppose we should make the best of it. Are you hungry? I could scare up some dinner.”

“You can cook?” she asked, surprised. “How?”

Sam shifted and drew a self-important breath. “I use a nifty little gadget. It's called a stove. It's incredible, really,” he deadpanned. “It has these things called eyes—but they don't really look like eyes—and they get hot and—”

She chuckled softly and rolled her eyes. “I know what a stove is, thank you. I meant how are going to cook with no electricity.”

Chuckling as well, Sam absently scratched his chest and said, “I've got a gas stove.”