I scan over each photo carefully, surprised at how different they all are yet still somehow work together. One is a photo of a sky and a woman’s hands rising toward it, a delicate, bright orange butterfly resting on the tips of her fingers. A bouquet of colorful wildflowers is in one image; a stark green field with a single sunflower growing in the center, rising toward the sun, in another.
It’s the last photo that gets me. A couple wrapped around each other, staring at each other. The woman is heartbreakingly beautiful, her dark brown eyes sad, her bold pink lips parted. The man has his hands on her, one gripping her face, the other holding her backside, his gaze intense on her face, their foreheads pressed together. They’re completely focused on each other and I can feel the connection between them.
I stare at the image for so long, the silence between us grows heavy. Unspoken words and thoughts float in the air and as time ticks on, I’m afraid to look up and meet Ryder’s gaze.
The photo speaks to me and I can’t explain why. The man … it’s as though he owns that woman. That she’s everything to him and he doesn’t want to let her go. She looks as if she’s fighting a war within herself. Or maybe a war with the man and the passion that he feels for her. She wants it, needs what he can give her, but she’s also fearful of him, of what he represents. All while he looks like he just wants to possess her in any way he can.
“She reminded me of you,” Ryder says, his deep, rumbling voice startling me. I glance up to find him watching me, his eyes fiery, his expression somber.
“How?” I ask in a whisper.
“She looks like you. The dark hair, the dark eyes, and her sad expression. She looks frightened.”
“He looks like he wants to own her.”
“Doesn’t every man want to own a beautiful woman? Or at the very least, take care of her?” He doesn’t smile, doesn’t so much as blink, and I return his gaze, feeling ensnared.
Trapped.
“You make her sound like a possession.” And I sound like a breathless fool.
A wolfish smile appears and I know I should be frightened. His entire demeanor has changed. The polite business associate is gone. “Is there anything wrong with a man wanting to possess a woman?”
“Yes, if he’s controlling.”
“But what if she likes it? What if she wants to be possessed?”
He’s trying to push me and I’m not sure why. “I would never want any man to possess me.”
The smile fades and his eyes darken. “Then you haven’t met the right man yet.”
I have no answer for him. Instead I slap the folder closed and push it across the table toward him. “I like the photos.”
He lifts a brow. “Really?”
Why does he sound surprised? And why does that irritate me? “They’re very colorful and sophisticated and … sexy.”
“That’s the idea we were hoping to go with. Not just for packaging, but with advertising as well. I know that’s not our portion of the campaign,” he says quickly, cutting me off before I can correct him. “But it all comes together, you know? It needs to fit cohesively. And I keep thinking about what Rose said in our first meeting. Glossy perfection.”
I press my lips together, remembering that Rose had been referring to my lips. “I like those words.”
“I do, too.” His gaze drops to my mouth and lingers there. “Glossy, vivid, colorful perfection. Those are the words we tossed around a few days ago as we cultivated these particular images out of the hundreds we’d gathered.”
“Hundreds?”
“This project is important to you, right? And to Fleur. We’re taking it very seriously,” he says, his tone full of reassurance. “We want your new line to have the right message, to capture the right audience. Don’t you agree?”
“Of course I agree. And I like the direction you’re taking. I can see me taking these images to marketing.” I flip open the file again and thumb through each photo, my gaze snagging again on the final image. The way the man’s hand grips the woman’s backside so tightly, his fingers are making indents through the fabric of her skirt. And the fabric is gathered between his fingers, exposing her thigh.
My heartbeat slows and a throb starts low in my body, vibrating just beneath my skin. He’s exposing her. Possessing her but willing to put her on display, and there’s something so inherently sexy in the image, I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like. To have a man touch me like that.
To have the man I’m sitting across from touch me like that.
“I’m glad you like it.” At his low spoken words I jerk my gaze up to his. “Perhaps we should leave?”
“Oh.” I swallow hard, trying my best to ignore the disappointment that rings through me. This was a business dinner, you ninny. Of course he doesn’t want to continue this further. It doesn’t matter that he told you to use him. He was just testing you. And you fell for it. “All right.”
I say nothing else. Just grab my purse and follow Ryder out of the room, into the mostly empty restaurant. His long-legged stride takes him far ahead of me and I admire his walk, the broad expanse of his shoulders and back, the way he carries himself. I can’t help but compare him to Zachary, who was always moving briskly, ever eager to get to the next thing.
Ryder moves with such an easy grace, it’s almost … lazy. As if he has all the time in the world, yet he still moves just as fast, just like Zachary. There’s an urgency beneath Zachary that’s almost frantic at times. Ryder isn’t like that at all. There’s nothing frantic about the man.