“Okay, Nathan. For the first couple of minutes, leave your robe on. Find a spot and a pose that feels natural, somewhere you feel most at ease.”
“Is there a nearby pub?” offered Nathan.
At least Jenny had the decency to grin at his feeble joke.
“The Duke’s Head is two doors down. But the local Ladies Who Lunch Club, a group of retired professional women, meet there on Wednesdays. And I’m not sure they’re quite ready for a naked baker in their midst.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Should I go and ask?” offered Jaymes, with the playful grin Nathan had begun to recognise.
“He would, too,” said Nathan, rolling his eyes at Jenny.
After five minutes of self-conscious posing, Jenny suggested he drop the robe. Jaymes obliged by coming over and collecting the garment from him. Even when he eventually got used to the blinding spotlights, Nathan’s body felt as stiff as a board—and not in a good way. Following Jenny’s choreography, he moved around the set, at points holding a wholemeal loaf in front of him or kneeling sidelong to place bread into a basket, his outside knee raised and hiding anything but a sprinkling of pubic hair. On a couple of occasions Jaymes told him to relax, but the coaxing seemed to have the reverse effect. Occasionally murmured encouragements from Jenny seemed far from successful, and fifteen minutes into the shoot, Nathan felt good enough was going to be as much as he had to offer.
“Relax, Nathan,” repeated Jaymes.
“I am trying to bloody relax. You constantly telling me is not helping.”
At that point Nathan noticed Jaymes—standing a good stride behind Jenny—lean forward and whisper something into her ear. Without turning, Jenny stopped shooting and nodded.
“Nathan,” she said, her eyes focused on him. “Let’s have you up on the butcher’s block, facing the camera, lying on your side. Use the football to cover your groin.”
“Seriously?” said Nathan, clambering up onto the surface and laying out flat. The coldness of the countertop raised gooseflesh at first, but the studio lights soon warmed his skin.
Comfortable at last, he looked over to see Jaymes standing behind Jenny’s right shoulder, watching and grinning while Jenny snapped away.
“Try to relax a little,” said Jenny, which made him tense up even more.
As he lay on his side, matching the pose Jaymes had adopted in the Mosswold lodge—no coincidence there, clearly what Jaymes had suggested to Jenny—Jaymes caught his eye. Grinning mischievously, Jaymes smoothed a hand down from his tight tee-clad chest, passing over his stomach and stopping at the fly to his jeans. Without hesitating, he popped the top button, unzipped himself then thrust a hand behind the waistband of his briefs. With Nathan watching mesmerised, Jaymes grabbed his package, slowly squeezing and readjusting. Nathan widened his eyes as a wave of lust filled him.
“Good.Good!” said Jenny. “Nice. Hold that expression.”
Not a hardship for Nathan. Except the good intentions began to have another effect on Nathan, and he felt blood pounding south. With one hand cradling his chin, the other draped on top of the football of black and white regular pentagonal patches, he felt his cock begin to rise to the occasion. Embarrassed, he rolled onto his stomach, but in doing so, his hip knocked the ball away from himself and off the bench. All the time he could hear the click, click, click of Jenny’s camera mingled with the rhythmic smack, smack, smack of the football bouncing across the floor. Totally exposed now, stretched out with his backside on full display, he crossed his long legs at the socked ankles, raised his upper torso on his elbows and glared over at Jaymes.
“Brilliant!” said Jenny, snapping her camera furiously. “Keep that look!”
Nathan focused his gaze on his lover’s sensually grinning lips, remembering how they had caressed much of his naked body.
“No idea what you’re doing behind me, Jaymes,” said Jenny, without stopping, the excitement evident in her voice, “but keep doing it. And as for you, Nathan— Amazing. You’re a natural.”
Five minutes later—fifteen minutes earlier than expected—Jenny called time.
“Already?” said Jaymes, clearly astonished. He held out the bathrobe to a relieved Nathan.
“Trust me. I’ve got everything I need. Unlessyou’dlike to get naked, Jaymes?”
“Don’t encourage him,” said Nathan, turning away from them to put on his robe.
“Another time, perhaps,” said Jaymes.
“Then I think we’re done here.”
“Can we take a look?” asked Jaymes.
Jenny beckoned them both over and used the small viewer on the back of her camera to show them a couple of the better shots she had taken. Although Nathan couldn’t see every detail on the miniature screen, he was impressed with the quality.
“I said you’d rock this,” murmured Jaymes, grinning at Nathan. “And, as usual, I’m right.”
“They’ll need cropping and editing,” said Jenny. “Not sure if they’d be better in full colour or monochrome. We’ll see. I promised I’d let Arlene see them all before we chose the final shot. My one small concession to her. Hope that’s okay with you.”
