His hips rock into my hand once more before he grabs my wrist and pins it above my head, then moves between my thighs and secures my other wrist. I spread my legs, surprised by how my pussy pulses in anticipation of fresh contact. He doesn’t disappoint, lowering himself and grazing his entire length up along my slit until I’m bucking against him in an effort to get him inside me. He’s right. I love his dick. Love how he teases me with it until I’m begging him to fuck me.
“Shh, ángel,” he murmurs against my ear. “We have all day away from the outside world. Let’s take our time and enjoy it.”
He keeps my wrists pinned above my head as he slides down, capturing one nipple in his teeth and biting until a spike of pain shoots through me, and I gasp. He releases it, then sucks it into his mouth, the pleasure of his teasing tongue easing the sharp soreness of his bite. Sliding one hand down my side, he grips the back of my thigh and pushes it up, tilts his hips, and slowly eases inside, taking his time as I shudder with need.
He proceeds to make love to me slowly, with more determination and deliberate focus than he ever has before. It isn’t until I’m midclimax that I catch Maddox with his camera in my periphery, engrossed in photographing us again. I have no idea when he returned or how long he’s been watching, but I can’t shake the feeling that Leo’s performance was for his benefit as much as mine. Then Leo turns his head midstroke, and he and Maddox lock eyes for the briefest stretch. A second later, his cock pulses and he comes hard, burying his face in my neck as he rides out the torrent, and I clutch him to me. I seek out Maddox too, and am destroyed by the desperate, hopeless look in his eyes, his camera tilting, forgotten in one hand.
There has to be a way for us to have more, for him to be more than just an observer. But is my love enough to hold us all together if we try? Or will it destroy me the way it destroyed my mother, and leave the two of them hating each other?
Maddox sends us home with the promise that he’ll have a flash drive of photos for us to look at soon. He insists it might be too overwhelming to look at all of them—there are hundreds—and that we need to trust his artist’s instincts to choose a selection of the best to keep.
I’m not sure I really want to see them. Knowing that Leo’s goal is for a tattoo of my face still makes me hesitant, but a few days later, he comes home with a flash drive of the cherry-picked photos, so eager to look that I’m infected by his enthusiasm.
We wait until late in the evening, shut ourselves in my room with my laptop on the bed, turn off the Wi-Fi, so we’re truly isolated, and open the drive.
Viewing the photos is surreal. I almost can’t believe it’s us—what I’m looking at looks like an artist’s rendering of some other, sexier couple in the middle of making love. But every image is beautiful, so I have no idea how in the world Leo will be able to decide. Then we come to the ones of my face, and I’m flabbergasted. I look . . . stunning. The uninhibited rawness of my expression doesn’t fit the image I have of myself. I’ve always been controlled, methodical, serious. I was an overachiever in school, my ambition stemming from my unwillingness to draw other people into my complicated life. I don’t see myself as someone who ever just lets go, but in those photos that’s exactly how I look.
The woman in the photos has nothing on her mind but the pleasure she’s immersed in, and somehow it makes her seem more beautiful than I’ve ever seen myself. Is this how Maddox sees me?
One of the photos has the word TAT appended to the filename. We open it and look at the most enthralling image yet. It’s me again, but my eyes are open, my lips parted and curled as if I’m speaking. A few strands of hair cling to my flushed, sweaty cheek. I instantly know when the photo was taken: it’s that moment when I whispered, “I love you” to him. And he caught it.
The next shot isn’t a photograph at all, but a detailed digital rendering that makes me look like a china doll. Every feature is perfection, starkly cast in high-contrast shadows with even shading. Black abstract hatching and precisely drawn geometric shapes and lines make a backdrop. It’s just my face looking back, and my eyes are the only color, but it’s all the more striking for that contrast.
Leo stares in rapt silence like he can’t look away. He reaches out and touches the screen, then finally utters, “Fuck me, he’s good. That’s definitely the one.”
I frown and look back at it. “Are you sure? I mean, all the photos are amazing. I’m sure if you chose a different one, he’d understand.” I don’t know why, but the thought of having Maddox choose that particular moment to capture in a tattoo must be some kind of message. Maybe he doesn’t remember though. Maybe they all run together for him, but I doubt it. There are dozens of amazing shots that are just as striking and would make a tattoo just as impressive. Is he asserting some kind of control over the otherwise hopeless situation by choosing the one moment where I reached out to him
