Those desires couldn’t,theycouldn’t, match up.
She touched his arm, lightly, but the caress carried the power of a sledgehammer. “Explain it to me then. I want to learn.”
Campbell’s insides tightened in an excited spasm. She wanted tolearn.
With a rough inhalation, there was the scent of honeysuckle again.
Running a finger beneath his T-shirt’s collar, he threw a quick glance to the side, calculating the distance to the door. “I can’t teach you. You need a boyfriend for that. Or better yet, a husband.”
She tilted her head back, eyes on the ceiling as if searching for patience. “I don’t need a boyfriend, and I sure as heck don’t want a husband. What I want is a good?—”
Campbell slipped his hand over her mouth, determined toignore the provoking butterfly-brush against his palm. “Have mercy on a lonely traveler, Quinn.”
Her long lashes lowered as her lips pursed beneath his hand. Fighting the fierce urge to pin her to the wall and kiss the ever-loving hell out of her, he slowly dropped his arm. “Please,” he said, practically begging.
She tapped her chin thoughtfully, her lids lifting to reveal a dangerously calculated gleam that unnerved him a little. Or a lot. Fontana Quinn was nothing if not pragmatic.
“Look,” she began, her voice steady, “I may not have much experience in this area, but if propriety is your concern, we can manage the perception. You teach a photography class at the center—we need that. I help with Kit—you need that. This way, we share common goals, and the rest doesn’t have to feel so…contrived. Or dishonest.”
Scrubbing his hands over his face, Campbell couldn’t shake the image of her warm and willing beneath him. He envisioned the lighting, the way shadows would chase over her trim body sprawled across snowy white sheets. The angles he would position her in to capture the best shot. A tilt of the hip there, a shift of the shoulder here. Moonlight streaming into the room, casting a violent wash of silver.
He’d never wanted to photograph a woman more.
And that scared the living shit out of him.
“Quinn, I...” He dragged a hand through his hair, a mystified sigh slipping past his lips. “I admit it—I’m thrown by your sudden turnabout. But I can’t shake the feeling that we’d be all wrong. You’re not the kind of woman I usually get involved with. I usually...try to avoid?—”
He stumbled to a halt, his breath catching.
She stood in a circle of hazy, near-perfect sunlight, watching him with those exquisite eyes. Bold. Brave. And if he looked closely enough, just a little bit lost. It stirred something in him, a host of emotions he’d long since buried.
Emotions he’d rather leave forgotten, thank you very much.
Yet, the thing that made him hasten for the door like fire lit his loafers was theitch. The compulsion to capture her image on film.
He didn’t take photographs of people. Not since his mother.
Not ever again.
“No, nowaythis is happening,” he said, as much to himself as to her. He grabbed his camera, slinging the strap over his shoulder, the familiar weight his lone comfort.
Undeterred, Fontana followed him down the hallway and out the door, the scent of honeysuckle trailing after them.
Damn. Once the woman got an idea in her head, it set like cement.
He avoided looking at her as he yelled for Kit, instead fixing his stare on the storm-streaked horizon, the wind gusting his hair into his face. A sky always photographed best when it looked bruised.
“Why not?” she demanded, grabbing his arm as he reached the bottom step. “You’d sleep with every woman in this town without thinking twice. Have scruples ever stopped you before?”
Turning on her, he whispered roughly, “It’s too complicated. You’re too”—he gestured to the leg she favored without realizing what he was doing—“complicated.”
Color drained from her cheeks. She swayed, and instinct had him reaching to steady her. “Hold on now, Hellcat. Calm down.”
Her breath hitched, a flicker of something raw crossing her face before she stiffened, shoulders squared. Back to the stubborn woman he was coming to like too much.
“Don’t you dare, Campbell True. Save your pity. Whatever you think, it’s not that.” Her chin lifted as she pressed ahand to her chest. “I was just, for the first time in my life, trying to grasp something for myself.”
A drop of rain slapped his cheek; another traced the curve of her jaw. He fought the urge to wipe it away, to draw her close and promise…everything. The forbidden desire: to explore her through his viewfinder.
