Model Release (The Art of Domination #1) (3 page)

Oh,
she
does
nip
, I caught myself thinking, and it
amused me as much as it galled me to realize what particular kind of woman she
was—the sort who wasn’t really dead and cold all the way to the bone but
pretended to be, wore the pallor and the sensible clothes, hid how hot she
could run underneath. The sort who played at being prim and proper, expected it
from everyone else,
insisted
on it
like a dry drunk expected people around them to go thirsty. Now I could guess
what she was doing in my studio.

And I would have liked
to say I didn’t see it as a challenge, didn’t interpret this opportunity as a
dare. But I did. That was just my nature, and I knew all too well that it was
futile to resist and damned entertaining to indulge. That rakish edge was,
after all, my trademark and as much a part of my profession as cameras and
lights. While being a broody sensualist bastard demanded steady effort, all
said, how many men were lucky enough to mix hedonism, art, and cult of
personality and come out with a sizeable salary and a bevy of groupies? Short
of rap stars and fashion designers, anyway. As rock stars of the photography
world went, I was vying for artist of the year. The five-year plan was to out-
Leibovitz
grand dame Annie herself with that seven-figure
Vanity Fair salary, and two years in I was already two-thirds of the way there.
Right now, it was good to be me—or an exaggerated, styled, airbrushed
approximation thereof.

“We should talk
upstairs,” I lied and tried to tame down the dark exhilaration I felt creeping
into my best gentlemanly smile as I held this woman’s gaze. There was no way
she
should
have followed me upstairs,
along the white brick steps lined with Mapplethorpe’s and Newton’s few people
would have recognized as originals. No way she
should
have felt safe being led by a stranger, a shirtless man
wielding a bottle of overpriced rum and two days’ worth of stubble growth at
half past ten in the morning. Two strange men, even, as Stan took it upon
himself to bring up the rear.

For her part, my
reluctant guest maintained her cool air of condemnation, in the stiffness of
her spine and the little downward curl of a pout on her lips. She glided
smoothly and aloofly as she walked, with practiced and conscious composure
obvious in the way she measured her pace.
 
Her gaze focused inward as much as outward. Her thick, curly ponytail
hardly swayed. What she didn’t seem to realize was how tantalizingly that
posture shifted her shoulders back and her perfect, round breasts forward. I
could have made her arch that gracefully curved spine much harder.

My brow perked without
my conscious cooperation as I glanced repeatedly at her over my shoulder, a
dozen images flashing through my head to suggest how she might have looked as
one of my models…. With a feminine, flowing wisp of a couture gown dressing
that fair golden skin as she knelt on cold bare marble, the neckline jerked
askew to reveal one full, flushed breast with a gleaming metal clamp pinching
her hardened nipple. With equal parts distress and desire on her face as I
posed her bent naked over a velvet chaise with clover clamps tormenting those
rosy nipples, a heavy teardrop weight pulling at the chain between the pincers
and increasing the pressure. With the angry pink glow of rushing blood below
the surface of her skin as the tab at the tip of a stiff riding crop warmed her
tits. How could a man resist the chance to capture—and forever preserve—that
exquisite moment when the irritation of that sharp, repeated nip and the hot
sting of pain-pleasure pushed her past her boundaries into a climax that bowed
her lips and throbbed in her clitoris?

No, no way she should
have been following a man who was getting hard at the thought of photographing
her as a high-fashion sex slave. A man like me.

She’d never have
enjoyed
that
, heavens no. She was not
that kind of woman, was she? Or wouldn’t have wanted anyone to think so. I’d
seen this make and model before, had far too much experience with it—the sort
of woman who would never deign admit to all those nasty lusts churning beneath
her proper exterior.

We paused on the
landing above the din of my studio, the lower floor a constant sea of movement
as staff and models and wannabes and groupies posed and preened and sashayed
and flirted. They swirled about one another in fluid eddies of excitement and
hunger and—after a long night of shooting—half-exhausted agitation. Music and
laughter crested, receded, crashed, roared. And my unexpected guest stood
stock-still with those deep brown eyes taking in every detail. Was it my
imagination that had her breathing a little harder? I didn’t think so.

And
that
was the kind of personal challenge
I never turned away: reaching past a pristine veil of propriety and dragging
the passionate, hungry little submissive out into the light. Only question was
whether I owed it to Cheri not to play with… whoever this was to her. A cousin
maybe. A sister?

The possibilities had
my cock pushing insistently at the fly of my normally loose jeans. Cheri had
the perfect body for an erotic art model. The woman standing next to me was a
little more petite, with rounder hips, a fuller ass, heavier breasts. This was
the perfect body for a submissive, always kept naked, kneeling, crawling,
admired from every angle, taken in every position.

I had a feeling I was
going to owe Cheri an apology by the time I was finished with this brown-eyed
girl.

Below us, on the studio
floor, Rilla caught my attention with the way she fidgeted and squirmed in the
relentless grip of the latex lingerie that was her costume for this shoot. The
half-Brazilian, half-German beauty waved away the makeup artist touching up her
eyeliner and scanned the crowd until she lifted her gaze and spotted me on the
landing. She held out her arms a moment in a questioning shrug before balling
her fists at her waist and cocking her narrow hips as a gesture of impatience.

Always in a hurry, that
one. A swimsuit issue or two had given her a taste of fame, and she was
counting on me to be her connection, to break her out in the modeling world.
Today it would be dark, artsy erotic photography, but tomorrow could have been
Elle or Vogue, and the catwalks in Paris and Milan after that.

Reason enough not to
use Rilla for this work—any work—as I hated being manipulated. Specifically, I
hated that she thought she was good enough at it and I was stupid enough that I
wouldn’t know the score. But, well, we all had ulterior motives, didn’t we?
Every damn dishonest one of us. With Rilla, I just couldn’t pass up the look,
the attitude she exuded on film. For setting up compositions that explored the
issues of sex and power exchange with little more than a corset, a suggestively
strained pose, and a mere hint in her sultry expression, no one exemplified a
brat submissive like Rilla Konig. What I absolutely could do without was the
brewing scene as the lanky model strode off set at a determined pace, which
utterly defied the six-inch stiletto heels laced to her ankles, and headed for
the stairs.

Quite without thinking,
I carefully but firmly gripped my guest by one arm, to get her attention and
hurry her along as I insisted, “In my apartment.” Out of harm’s way and Rilla’s
reach. Past towering, frosted glass walls set back several feet from the edge
of the landing. Where no one would see us….

I didn’t expect the
curvy brunette to lean into my grasp, to twist very slightly so that my
knuckles brushed against the side of her breast—so soft, yielding. Like she’d
been hypnotized by the scene and hadn’t quite woken yet. For a moment, I might
have been the one standing breathless and mesmerized, fascinated by the warmth
and suppleness of her flesh through thin cashmere, by her pliability, by the
scent of vanilla and peach discernable only when she stood pressed intimately
close.

“Nolan?” It was Stan’s
voice, droll and always oddly off-key but deeper than one would have expected
from looking at him. He spoke in a cautionary lilt. My assistant stood behind
us holding open the door to my private apartment and nodding toward Rilla as
she stalked toward us.

Once I’d directed my
guest past the heavy glass barrier, Stan posted himself outside as guard. “No,
Rilla,
no
,” I heard him say in a
voice that reminded me of a weary but patient father cutting off a teenager’s
tantrum. He pulled the door closed, muting the ensuing argument and the driving
beat of the music. Rilla did not like to be kept waiting, especially if the
delay involved another woman.

Safe behind panels of
heavy glass, the grille adorn with intentionally messy white paint to offset
the hard, neat angles of the apartment, I made straight for my massive black
wooden desk. Facing the door from the center of the floor space, it was antique
and substantial, and it dominated the single main room of the loft. I leaned
there like it was my throne and crossed my ankles, as I observed the shift of
small, well-heeled, well-hidden emotions playing over the face of this
brown-eyed girl as she took stock of our surroundings.

To one side of the
door, wooden workstations and metal shelves held proofs and bulging project
notebooks mixed with my favorite framed black and white prints. More Helmut
Newton’s interspersed with some architectural shots and a smattering of vintage
erotica. Black lacquered bookcases flanked the door from the opposite side,
overflowing with technical manuals, dog-eared magazines, and an assortment of
high art coffee table books I aspired to produce eventually.

Behind me was my bed,
and, yes, it was larger than necessary and positioned out from the wall like
its own little stage with its expensive white sheets draped and twisted in a
manner that suggested activities far more active than sleep. Suggested
erroneously, as I was under deadline and had precious little time for
recreation, a bit of skateboarding with the neighborhood street kids
notwithstanding. Behind the bed, metal wardrobe racks just like the ones that
frequently arrived holding high-fashion samples for studio shoots supported my
ample wardrobe of leather and denim—true to archetype.

The woman before me
studied the room with the sharp focus of, dare I say, an artist’s eye. Her
attention snagged noticeably on the framed prints on the far wall, beyond my
bed, between the wardrobe racks. These were my favorite shots of Rilla and
Cheri, though the models weren’t always recognizable with the way I staged them
or cropped the photos. What was easily recognizable was Iva’s breath catching
as her gaze scanned their every detail.

I had to wonder what
thoughts were going through my reluctant guest’s head at seeing the image of a
woman on hands and knees, naked but with limbs positioned strategically to
preserve modesty, her head pulled back and her neck stretched in a graceful
arch by a male hand gripping her hair. Or the juxtaposition of the one with
Cheri looking well-scrubbed and fresh-faced dangling from a sex swing with the
leather straps hiding the naughty bits. The theme was intentional, with the combination
of lurid and discreet, vulnerable and protected, bared and concealed. It was
all about the way we as humans in the West sold sex but touted modesty and
chastity, the way we desired one but praised the others, the way we denied
ourselves until there was no honesty left, only hunger and shame. It was all
about hypocrisy.

But the work was also
about the moment when we stopped lying about what we wanted and assumed those
hungers. When the gentleman stopped being a gentleman and pushed a soft, sexy woman
against a wall and held her arms pinned above her head and ravaged her mouth
with his. When a lady stopped being a lady and bent herself over and lifted her
dress and begged to be taken. Gender roles not necessarily withstanding, of
course.

Staring at those
photos, seeing those concepts in the flesh, this woman stood so still with her
elegantly sloped shoulders held rigid. She squeezed her arms up close to her
body in an almost defensive posture. At first only her gaze moved. Well, that
and her chest as she breathed in and out just a little raggedly, betraying a
reaction I could tell welled deep inside her, whatever it was. Brown eyes
dilated. Lush lips parted, then pursed, then flushed under worrying teeth. If
someone hadn’t known better, they might’ve thought she was here to be
impressed, awed, seduced. I knew enough
not
to know better.

Pleased with myself, I
was staring at her wide pink mouth, and wondering what it might have been like
to suck on the tender pad of her lower lip, when my guest finally leveled her
gaze at me. One deep breath later, she glowered.

“What do you want with
Cheri Moreau?”

The petite brunette
snapped me out of my spontaneous reverie with her well-aimed question. Her
voice was high in a way that tightened my gut and my groin with definite
interest. A decidedly feminine voice, yes. But strong as she flattened her tone
to let me know she meant to be taken seriously. Serious as a heart attack, as
my old mentor had been given to saying prior to the unfortunate cardiac arrest
that landed him in a retirement home.

“Cheri,” I repeated,
keeping my gaze trained on hers as I finally put down my rum bottle on the
shiny dust jacket of an Ellen von
Unwerth
book on my
desk. I couldn’t help goading, so I added, to stress my familiarity with my new
model, “Cherise?”