time?”
The laughter fled from inside her as she recalled her last photo assignment in Africa. Recalled the heat, the smells, the poverty. The destitution and helplessness of the people being rousted out of their homes and livings by a despotic and avaricious leader. And how, even in that desolation, there was still hope. Hope for something better, for someone or some nation to help. That was Isobel’s mission. To show the world the people who needed help. To bring that desperation into more privileged peoples’ and their governments’ consciousness. To help, somehow, and give those struggling people some hope.
“I take photos of people. Families, mostly.”
She worked hard to keep her voice light. There was a time and a place for discussing what she did and that wasn’t here or right now. It was why she kept a very successful blog running on her visits to areas like the one she’d just been expelled from and why, when she was away from those areas, she lived her life to the fullest, with color, with joy.
“What, like mall photographers? Grumpy babies and toddlers?”
“Not quite,” Isobel amended, weighing up whether or not to go deeper into what she did with Ethan.
The decision was taken from her hands when he let her hair go and rose from the bed.
“I’ll get rid of this and then get going,” he said, referring to the used condom.
“You don’t want to stay?”
She wasn’t upset that he planned to leave her now that his passion for her had been sated. Or at least that’s what she told herself.
“I have an early start tomorrow. I don’t want to disturb you. Besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea if we make a habit of this.”
His emotional shutters were back down. She could see it as plain as day on his face, and for some stupid reason it hurt her deep inside. What had she been hoping for? A declaration of his feelings for her? A promise to make every night as spectacular as this one had been? She gave herself a mental shake. That wasn’t what she wanted.
Liar, a voice in the back of her mind whispered piercingly through her consciousness.
She shoved the thought back just as swiftly as it came. As he headed to the bathroom to clean up, she rolled out of bed and walked naked into the living room to pick up Ethan’s clothes, as well as drag her pajamas back over her body.
He came out of the bathroom and uttered his thanks as she silently handed him his things. He gave her a brief, chaste kiss once he was dressed, and then he was gone. Isobel turned off the lights behind her as she went back to bed and curled into a ball where he’d lain. Telling herself she was all sorts of pathetic for wishing him back here at her side even as she tried not to inhale the faint traces of his scent on the pillow where his head had lain only minutes before.
It seemed that from the moment she’d met Ethan Masters her life had been thrown into a state of heightened awareness and confusion. Despite his being the antithesis to the way she lived her life, she remained inexorably drawn to him. It’s just the sex, she told herself. And yes, it was great sex. Off-the-scale sex. Better than she’d ever had in her entire life sex. But they were two very different people.
She was transient, lived her life out of a backpack and traveled wherever whim took her. He was established, had generations of history behind him and backing him from sunup to sundown. He was grounded in the earth here as much as those vineyards she’d walked through several times this past week. Perhaps even more so.
He was a commitment kind of guy. A guy who looked great with a woman like Shanal Peat on his arm and in his life. Try as she might, Isobel couldn’t quell the fierce sense of possessiveness that swept through her. She didn’t want to think about Ethan with Shanal, or with any woman, for that matter. But, she reminded herself firmly, she was only here for, at most, three more weeks—whereas Ethan would be here for the rest of
The laughter fled from inside her as she recalled her last photo assignment in Africa. Recalled the heat, the smells, the poverty. The destitution and helplessness of the people being rousted out of their homes and livings by a despotic and avaricious leader. And how, even in that desolation, there was still hope. Hope for something better, for someone or some nation to help. That was Isobel’s mission. To show the world the people who needed help. To bring that desperation into more privileged peoples’ and their governments’ consciousness. To help, somehow, and give those struggling people some hope.
“I take photos of people. Families, mostly.”
She worked hard to keep her voice light. There was a time and a place for discussing what she did and that wasn’t here or right now. It was why she kept a very successful blog running on her visits to areas like the one she’d just been expelled from and why, when she was away from those areas, she lived her life to the fullest, with color, with joy.
“What, like mall photographers? Grumpy babies and toddlers?”
“Not quite,” Isobel amended, weighing up whether or not to go deeper into what she did with Ethan.
The decision was taken from her hands when he let her hair go and rose from the bed.
“I’ll get rid of this and then get going,” he said, referring to the used condom.
“You don’t want to stay?”
She wasn’t upset that he planned to leave her now that his passion for her had been sated. Or at least that’s what she told herself.
“I have an early start tomorrow. I don’t want to disturb you. Besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea if we make a habit of this.”
His emotional shutters were back down. She could see it as plain as day on his face, and for some stupid reason it hurt her deep inside. What had she been hoping for? A declaration of his feelings for her? A promise to make every night as spectacular as this one had been? She gave herself a mental shake. That wasn’t what she wanted.
Liar, a voice in the back of her mind whispered piercingly through her consciousness.
She shoved the thought back just as swiftly as it came. As he headed to the bathroom to clean up, she rolled out of bed and walked naked into the living room to pick up Ethan’s clothes, as well as drag her pajamas back over her body.
He came out of the bathroom and uttered his thanks as she silently handed him his things. He gave her a brief, chaste kiss once he was dressed, and then he was gone. Isobel turned off the lights behind her as she went back to bed and curled into a ball where he’d lain. Telling herself she was all sorts of pathetic for wishing him back here at her side even as she tried not to inhale the faint traces of his scent on the pillow where his head had lain only minutes before.
It seemed that from the moment she’d met Ethan Masters her life had been thrown into a state of heightened awareness and confusion. Despite his being the antithesis to the way she lived her life, she remained inexorably drawn to him. It’s just the sex, she told herself. And yes, it was great sex. Off-the-scale sex. Better than she’d ever had in her entire life sex. But they were two very different people.
She was transient, lived her life out of a backpack and traveled wherever whim took her. He was established, had generations of history behind him and backing him from sunup to sundown. He was grounded in the earth here as much as those vineyards she’d walked through several times this past week. Perhaps even more so.
He was a commitment kind of guy. A guy who looked great with a woman like Shanal Peat on his arm and in his life. Try as she might, Isobel couldn’t quell the fierce sense of possessiveness that swept through her. She didn’t want to think about Ethan with Shanal, or with any woman, for that matter. But, she reminded herself firmly, she was only here for, at most, three more weeks—whereas Ethan would be here for the rest of
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