Free Maximum Exposure by Alison Kent - Smithson Group SG-5 10 - Maximum Exposure

dress. No, she wouldn’t forgive herself, because reacting so strongly to a man was not in her nature. She refused to allow it to be. Refused to admit the chill settling at the base of her spine had anything at all to do with Finn McLain.
    “Actually, I wasn’t thinking anything of the sort.”
    “For the obvious reason,” he said from her shoulder.
    She waited, not looking at him yet, enjoying the tension between them, which was in no way one-sided, and enjoying that, too. “Which would be?”
    “Me man. You woman.”
    Well, that was a rather caveman attitude. “Because I’m a woman, I can’t enjoy looking at others, is that it? Do you think the artists who’ve painted the female form through the ages have done so only for men to appreciate?”
    “I think it was a lot of work to get those cats to sit still.”
    Able to evade with the best of them, was he? “Which one’s your favorite?” she asked, turning, her shoulder brushing his chest, her elbow grazing his ribs.
    She stayed there, touching him softly, their body contact absolutely innocent, she told herself, bringing her drink to her mouth, disappointed to find the bubbles gone when she sipped. Finn signaled a passing server, replacing her flute and taking one for himself as if sensing her dilemma.
    She kept her face averted from his, kept her focus on the artfully lighted photographs. Or at least gave the appearance of doing so. Her focus, no matter how successfully she’d convinced everyone otherwise, was on the man whose body had created a cradle for hers.
    She could stand here the rest of the night, happily unmoving, breathing in the light scents of his soap and shampoo. It was a strange sense of intimacy enveloping them, but then she had taken off her clothes at his command. And she had to admit surprise at finding herself so topsy-turvy, her stomach tumbling with a giddy joy she barely recognized.
    “I’m kinda fond of the big Maine coon,” he said finally, angling his chin to draw Livia’s gaze to the right. She’d almost forgotten asking him which cat, ahem, he liked.
    The portrait he indicated featured a woman straddling a piano bench, one hand on the instrument’s keyboard, one at the curve of her waist. A massive feline sprawled on the seat, between her legs, hiding not only her sex but half of her belly as well. She was a larger woman than the others Livia had seen, her breasts voluptuous, her hips full and shapely.
    It made Livia curious. “Why that one?”
    “I like her tits,” he said, and Livia nearly sputtered her drink.
    “Well, that’s being honest.”
    “I always am. You get the truth, or you get nothing at all.”
    She couldn’t let that go without a test. “Why her tits and not those of the woman with the tabby? Her nipples look like little strawberry gumdrops.”
    “I’m more a brown sugar, caramel, gold chain, and not-so-little kinda guy.”
    “I see,” was all Livia could say, her voice choked off by the tightness in her throat.
    They hadn’t talked much about his telling her to strip. Not at any length, or in any depth. The night they’d had drinks at Cigar Paolo, they’d touched only briefly on the events of the morning before, and even then their discussion had remained primarily impersonal.
    What he’d just said to her about caramel and brown sugar and gold chains? Definitely personal. Definitely inappropriate. And definitely making her glad she’d chosen to wear this dress—except to get him to properly appreciate it, she was going to have to move away.
    She gestured toward the next lighted recess and the photograph there on display. “What are you doing here, anyway? This showing was by invitation only.”
    “I have one.”
    She frowned thoughtfully. “You know Dustin?”
    He nodded—she saw the movement in her peripheral vision—but remained otherwise noncommittal.
    Then she had the strangest thought and finally turned to face him. “You aren’t the photographer, are you? Who did this