Free Admiring Anna by Kim Dare

 
     
     
     
    Chapter One
     
     
    Samantha Bevan stared at the man kneeling before her for several long seconds. No doubt he was very good looking, as men went. Samantha was sure lots of women would love to have him crawling at their feet and offering to do whatever they wanted. Lots of straight women, at least.
    Lifting her gaze, Samantha looked past the nearly naked figure. The club was poorly lit and full of shadows, but all the important points were immediately clear to an artist’s eye, and they added up to one thing. Samantha had screwed up—big time.
    She looked down once more. The guy was still there. Samantha retreated a step and promptly backed into a huge pillar. It might have looked like marble, but it felt suspiciously like a cheap imitation as Samantha scrabbled at it in an effort to stay upright.
    “I…I think we might have our wires crossed,” she mumbled.
    The man crawled closer.
    Samantha stepped to her right, straight into a huge potted fern set on a wobbly pseudo-classical stand. It was just the kind of prop Gerald was keen on.
    No doubt Anna would have looked like some sort of ancient Greek goddess standing next to it, especially if she was draped in nothing more than a clean white sheet that clung to every beautiful curve on her body.
    Samantha probably appeared more like a… Still clutching the potted fern, Samantha looked down at her jeans, T-shirt and trainers. She was far more like some scruffy little street urchin that scrambled for pennies outside the goddess’ temple.
    In hindsight, it would have been a really good idea to have found out a few pertinent details about the club before she’d stalked Anna into it. Such as how much leather a woman needed to wear if she didn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb.
    At any other time, Samantha wouldn’t have hesitated to reach for her sketch book and enjoy the view but, as she glanced down at the nearly naked man before her, any inclination to draw a single line faded away.
    “May I fetch you a drink, mistress?”
    “I…um…”
    “Samantha?”
    Thick treacle suddenly poured down upon her and filled her whole world. It took her several hours to turn her head, but she already knew who the voice belonged to. Each syllable damn near dripped with a wonderful mixture of sex and supreme self-confidence.
    Finally, Samantha’s gaze fell on Anna. It obviously wasn’t just the light in Gerald’s studio that made the other woman seem to be so stunning while she sat for portrait after portrait.
    After watching Anna work as a life model for the last six months, there wasn’t much of the other woman that Samantha hadn’t seen, but she’d never appeared in Gerald’s studio dressed as she was now. Samantha’s mouth went dry as she ran her eyes over Anna.
    Her hair hung in perfect black waves down her back. Cream-colored riding breeches clung to long, shapely legs until they disappeared into high, glossy boots. A crisp, white shirt molded itself to Anna’s breasts, the top button left undone to reveal just a tiny hint of cleavage and—
    “Samantha?”
    Samantha could only open her mouth and hope like hell that whatever words tumbled out didn’t prove to be too embarrassing.
    “Anna! It’s so good to see you here.”
    Tearing her gaze away from Anna for a moment, Samantha carefully placed the potted plant back on its stand and reviewed her response. All in all, it could have been a lot worse. It might have been better if said in a pitch audible to humans as well as certain species of bats and dogs, but still…
    “Is he with you?” Anna asked.
    Samantha looked down, remembered the kneeling guy, and promptly forgot about both the pillar and the planter as she tried to put some distance between them. She caught the fern just in time to stop it from braining the poor sod.
    “No,” Samantha managed to say, in a slightly more normal tone. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
    Reaching out to the kneeling man, Anna calmly rotated the