Free SECRET Revealed by L. Marie Adeline

had lost the ability to just
play
.
    There was a gentle knock on the door.
    “Solange? Are you okay in there?”
    The champagne was warming my skin.
    “I’ll be right out.”
    I slid my feet into the heeled slippers, counted to five.
Look at you in that black negligee. Are you seriously going to go through with this?
At the last minute, I reached for the bathrobe and threw it on, covering myself up.
    Baby steps.
    Go! Just go
. Carefully in those heels, I walked to the door and opened it. I could see the light from the setting sun coming through the windows.
    “I’m over here, Solange.”
    I followed the sound of his voice, the heels making a hollow clacking sound on the wood floors. I peeked around behind the partition and found Erik bent over the top of an elaborate-looking camera mounted on a tripod, different from the small one he had used for the earlier shots. The backdrop was different too, this one dark blue, with large colorful pillows and throws strewn about a sectional that barely rose above the floor.
    “Hi,” he said, looking up, his face soft.
    “Hi,” I said, barely cracking a smile.
    “Make yourself comfortable.”
    Clutching the robe, I walked over to the pillows and cleared a space on the sectional, lowering myself like a big chicken settling into a nest. Definitely not sexy.
    I was still in my bathrobe when Erik began to take pictures.
    He looked over the top of the camera again. “What’s on your mind?”
    “Nothing,” I said, looking around at the dark shadows, feeling horribly self-conscious. The sky was the blue of deep dusk.
    “This is only my second fantasy.”
    “And what about this scenario had you fantasized about?”
    I cast back to the day I had filled out my folder on my kitchen table. What had I written about
Courage
? It wasn’t specifically about having sex with a handsome photographer, but I had written something about “watching myself, seeing myself” as a desirable woman.
    “It was about being … watched, seen, feeling beautiful,” I said.
    “Why’s that hard for you?”
    “I don’t know … in my business it can distract as much as it attracts. The more beautiful you are, the less, it seems, you’re taken seriously.”
    “I’m certainly taking you very seriously right now,” he said, peering over the camera intently at me.
Click, click
.
    “Can I ask you something? Why are
you
doing this?”
    “Why would you ask that?” he asked back, half laughing.
    “It’s not like you’d have any problem meeting girls.”
There I go. The journalist in me is about to kill the chemistry
.
    “No problem meeting girls. They’re everywhere.”
Click
. “On the other hand, I don’t really meet a lot of
women
,” he said, adding, “How about this. Instead of telling you why I’m doing this, let me show you.”
    My head swam with that proposition.
    “Starting with that bathrobe. Let’s lose it, Solange. And then I want you to just ignore me. And relax back onto the couch.”
    Maybe it was how commanding he was, or maybe because the light was dimming and flattering and the puffy sectional so comfortable, but I found myself tugging free of the terry-cloth robe and tossing it to the side. I rested on my side, on an elbow, in that black negligee, my hand on my still-churning stomach.
    At first, I didn’t know where to look, how to be. And then … I began to relax. I closed my eyes and lay back against the pillows. After I’d stretched and lounged for a few minutes, he stopped and flopped next to me on the sectional holding the camera. He smelled delicious, a deep citrusy musk. His warm arm brushed against mine as he positioned his viewfinder in front of me, cueing up images.
    “I want you to see yourself.”
    And there I was, or someone resembling me, now bathed in a gorgeous light; my skin seemed to glow, velvety shadows hugging my curves. Then I saw my dark nipples pressed against the sheer fabric. I covered the viewfinder with my hand, my pulse