It didn’t surprise him entirely, however, when she spoke. “Much better when nobody bursts in and starts whaling on me.”
“I’d hope so. I mean, that’s setting the bar pretty low. I think I can pretty much always accomplish that.” They chuckled and cuddled closer still. Drew nuzzled Eva’s hair, wondering what it was that made it smell so good. Shampoo? Perfume? Or just her?
She sighed, a contented and sleepy sound. “I’ll have to work on raising my standards.”
Chapter Nine
Danny and Sheila had helped with the gift, Eva admitted as Drew was unwrapping it, but the idea had been hers.
Drew was too stunned to respond. The mounted canvas he’d revealed was beautiful, breathtaking. It took him a moment to register what Eva was saying.
“It’s the wrong one!” she insisted, apparently again, as he gave her a quizzical look. “Sheila did the wrong one. She was barely done with the mounting and so she offered to wrap it to save time, so I never got to see the finished product. But she must have—”
“I love it.”
“I mean, who gives a picture of themselves? Of course the one I wanted to give you was of me, too, but you couldn’t tell it was me, it was—”
“Honey, I love it.”
“I didn’t— You do?”
“I do. It’s amazing.”
“Oh. But it has my face. And I don’t think I photograph very well.”
Drew’s laugh echoed in the big, high-ceilinged space of the nearly empty gallery. “You’ve just spent weeks posing for photographs for a book. For an extremely finicky photographer, I might add. And you had hardly a bad frame in the entire shoot. But this one, I think, is my favorite of all.”
He turned his attention back to the large photograph, a three-quarters shot of Eva sitting on the ground in front of the dark backdrop, her lower body swathed in the silk robe, her bound wrists held in front of her and obscuring her nipples. It was a candid shot, and she was clearly laughing at something one of them had said. Drew thought he remembered the moment, Sheila cracking a joke and Eva breaking out of her elegant pose. Her face was full of joy and friendship, her hands gently curled under her chin. Sheila had done something to it, desaturated some parts and tweaked the color in other parts, to highlight the rosy tones of the robe, and Eva’s lips and cheeks. Despite the bondage, the whole thing looked like a fond memory from a bygone time, dreamy and fleeting.
“Well, in that case, I’m glad you like it. I’m going to have to kill Sheila, and for that I apologize in advance. But I’m glad you like it.”
“Sheila knew what she was doing. Look, they signed and numbered it. One of one, it’s a unique print.”
Eva smiled and skimmed her fingers over the inked signatures in the lower right corner of the picture. “I like the processing. I was planning for it to be black and white. The one I meant to give you, I mean. It’s one that’s also in the book.”
“This is better. I guess it’s intended for both of us.”
“They’re not being very subtle, are they?”
Drew grinned. “Nope.”
Eva crumpled the wrapping paper in her hands, forming it into a tightly compressed ball as she seemed to gather her thoughts. “I’m still not sure what I’m doing. What we’re doing. I don’t know if that’s who I want to be.”
Drew shrugged, sounding more nonchalant than he felt. “It doesn’t have to be. It’s not like it’s an either-or thing. You can still be you, you’re just you plus a little kinky stuff behind closed doors.”
Eva looked skeptical. “Maybe it’s because I know so many people in that lifestyle.”
“And that’s one way to do it, but it doesn’t have to be a lifestyle. It never has been for me.” Drew realized he was starting to panic at the idea Eva might be pulling away from him. He was on the verge of promising to give up ropes for good, as he’d once promised he wasn’t into the lifestyle at all. But he couldn’t this time. By now, she meant too much. By now, he knew the ropes weren’t the real issue. “I don’t go to clubs, except on very rare occasions to do exhibitions or classes. I don’t do scene parties. For all anybody knows, I’m only in it to help Danny out because I’ve known him since we were kids.”
“I know that. But you’re talking about whether or not to be open about doing it. I’m still working on whether I can imagine myself in a relationship that…well, let me show you something.”
She pulled him to the back room of the gallery, where Danny and Sheila had started delivering the canvases for their showing at the gallery’s New Year’s Eve party. Flipping through a leaning stack of photographs, Eva found the canvas she sought and gripped the top edge tightly for a moment before turning to Drew.