They weren’t the best she could do, though. The thrill of discovery, of finding power in the lens, rushed through her, enlivening every nerve it touched.
“What else would you like me to do?”
She watched his lips form the words from behind the barrier of the camera, and the suggestiveness wasn’t lost on her.
She’d like him to make love to her, in every sense of the phrase, to make her feel beautiful and wanted. In turn, she wanted to put a mad rush through his veins that matched the one going on in her body. But what she wanted and what she was capable of actually getting from him were two entirely different things.
Somehow her photography skills had gotten tangled up inside her and tangled up with her fear of everything, and all at once she saw Thora’s point.
Lack of passion had translated into boring pictures. Because she was too afraid to seize it.
Helplessness crashed against the thrill of the moment. If only she could let go, like she had on the boat, falling into kissing him and unable to stop herself.
Her fingers froze around the camera, locking up tight so she couldn’t have pressed the shutter at gunpoint. How did she recapture that abandon?
All at once, he sat up and eased the camera away from her face. She blinked.
“Lilah.” Her name washed over her, featherlight, as his fingers tangled through her hair, tilting her head up until her gaze got caught in his. Fire reflected in his irises, mesmerizing her.
She might have made a noise in her throat.
“I was wrong,” he murmured. “Your problem isn’t that you’re afraid. It’s that you don’t know how to talk to me.”
“I’m pretty sure I already told you that.”
Except that wasn’t it at all. She couldn’t talk to people because she was afraid. Of everything. Of failing, of doing the wrong thing, of the idea that she was, at her core, boring due to it.
His smile said that he didn’t take offense. “Then that’s what we need to fix first.”
Eyes wide, she watched as he carefully put her camera back in the case, double-checking the latch, which might have been the sexiest thing he’d ever done given that the lens alone had cost almost two thousand dollars. Her heart got a little workout as her pulse stumbled. How many people would have taken such care with another person’s property?
Then his gaze swung back around to zero in on her again, and her insides erupted in a flurry of nerves and wants and so many things that she had no idea how to manage.
Without a word, he pulled her into his arms and laid his lips on hers in a long, sweet kiss. She sighed and closed her eyes. This she could do. There wasn’t any expectation, no pressure. It was just a kiss, and that emboldened her to explore his uncovered torso a bit.
Her fingers examined the ridges flaring from his spine and slid easily into the small of his back. His answering groan made her smile. There was nothing more surprising than the idea that she could make Fitz respond to her touch.
Before she could blink, her back hit the blanket and the press of his torso against hers took her breath. His fingers laced with hers, and he drew them over her head to pin her hands tight.
“Not so fast,” he said. “We’ve got some problems to work out before you’re allowed to get all handsy.”
What, she wasn’t allowed to touch him? “Sorry.”
He tsked. “No apologies, remember? The only thing you’re allowed to do from here on out is tell me what you want. You’re going to learn to talk to me, to tell me what you’re feeling. I’ll start you off easy. Say, ‘I want you to kiss me.’”
Since it was true, it was pretty easy to form the words. “I want you to kiss me.”
His mouth lowered to hers and nibbled on her lips. Teasing. Not the kind of kiss she’d expected. She waited for him to deepen it, sought it by craning her neck, but he kept the kiss light, moving just out of her reach.
“What do you want?” he murmured. “Tell me.”
Kiss me like you mean it. Hard. Insistent. As if he couldn’t get enough. That’s when it felt the best, as if she’d made him crazy.
But she couldn’t say that out loud. She scarcely had the vocabulary for this, for how to articulate the way his lips had burned against hers earlier on the boat, how easy it had been to show him what she’d wanted then.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
His gaze glittered in the firelight as he contemplated her. “I wasn’t going to ask. But I need to get some context here. Is this your first time?”
Oh, good gravy. She must really be screwing this up. Prickles swept across her cheeks, and thank God it was dark so he couldn’t see the embarrassment painted across her face like a big neon sign. “No, of course not. Assuming you mean sex. And not photography. It’s not my first time for that either. Which I’m guessing you already know—”