Free Skin by Dale Mayer Page A

grunts and gasps as he struggled to make his body do what he wanted it to do.
    His skin glowed in one particular picture. She considered it, wondering at the light that hit and bounced off his skin. A sheen of sweat had appeared just before she’d taken the shot and as she studied the next couple of pictures, she understood that the reflection had added something else to the picture. Like a mirror of what he was doing to himself.
    She loved this one. Setting it aside, she moved through several more, but they were more mundane, showing his actions but not the highs and lows, not the emotion or the effort. They were technically good, but flat. She set them into another folder she named “Kane”.
    She wouldn’t be keeping them but as they were good shots, just not great shots, she’d let him see them and decide for himself.
    There were still a few more. Another one had an interesting light as it hit Kane’s back and the muscles gleaming in the shadows. Very inspiring.
    She snorted. Who was she kidding? The man was damn sexy and maybe there was something wrong with her, but the sweaty, hardworking man apparently did it for her.
    Who knew?
    And wasn’t that something? She savored the warmth. Screw that, savored the heat coursing through her body as she stared at the pictures of Kane. Salivating was a bit much, but she had to admit, she wanted a taste of him.
    She’d never thought to have gotten this far. Now that she had, everyone was warning her away.
    Would having an affair with Kane be wrong? No.
    And as she stared down at him, reality once again crashed down on her. She could sit here and dream all she wanted; it was still a hell of a long ways from actually lying down with the man.
    She buried her face in her hands. She was a mess.
    Of course she was. She was here in a goddamned therapy session, wasn’t she?
    Wiping back the tears from the corner of her eyes, she finished sorting through the pictures. As she came back to the one that had set her off earlier, she copied it into a folder she named “Secret”. She almost felt dirty doing it, but if there was only one thing she could take away from this week, it was these pictures of Kane. Although he hadn’t said she could keep them after the project was done.
    Sighing, she went to turn off her laptop when there was a casual knock on her door.
    She stood up and walked to the door. “Who is it?” she asked. She hated peepholes and never used them to look outside. She’d seen too many movies showing horrors on the other side of the damn door.
    “Kane.”
    Oh shit.
    She straightened her shirt, brushed her hair back off her face, and opened the door. “Hey.”
    He smiled down at her. “Just came to see if you got through those photos. We’re both in the project, remember? You don’t have to do all the work.”
    She laughed. “No, I won’t. I’m still not sure what this damn project is supposed to be or how it’s going to help.”
    He started to step inside before he stopped and looked at her. “May I come in?”
    *
    Tania took a deep breath and stepped aside. She followed him into her room. Here was another first. She’d never had a man in her bedroom, and she’d never had a man this close in a very long time.
    “I’d like to see the pictures you took.”
    She nodded and disconnected her laptop. “Fine. Do you want to go to the coffee shop and look at them?”
    He tilted his head and motioned to the small table where the laptop rested. “I thought I could just look at them here. It won’t take long, will it?”
    Disconcerted, she plugged in her laptop in. She shook her head. “No, it shouldn’t. I deleted the bulk of them.” She bent down, found the folder, and opened it.
    He pulled the desk chair back far enough to be able to sit down. He leaned forward slightly and clicked through the images in her program. He studied each one carefully, stopping longer at one or two then moving past several as if they weren’t as visually impressive. She knew