Friends With Benefits

04. Posing with a Lion

04. Posing with a Lion:

ALYX STARED in horror at the text on her phone; Mikhaiel had just sent the course work of the year to her and she had a moment of blurry vision and dizzyness that absolutely side tracked her from her photo shoot. It was like the boy was trying to ruin her her day before it even began.

First the three hour grilling on mathematics the day before yesterday and then the bottle that he used to spray water at her for every mistake she made while reciting the formulae. And every time she got something wrong in the Chemistry valency chart he'd poke her side. She rubbed her waist softly at the memory and found a sore spot. She was probably bruising, she didn't mind the bruise much it was the embarrassment of jumping every single time he poked her she couldn't shake off. She couldn't understand how he expected her to remember anything while he distracted her with consequences.

Her cell phone buzzed with a new message just when she'd put it down. She has a short lived glaring battle with it as she fought to turn away and ignore it but ended up huffing in defeat as she checked the message. She read the message.

Great, she thought. Now he wants to meet this evening. The boy is going to be the death of me.

“Hey Yaxley!" the photographer called to her, she put her phone back in her duffle bag and returned to the set. She was posing with a fake lion head and it looked pretty darn regal hoisted up there. She adjusted the peach corset that was crushing her ribs and then her jacket. The photographer was a tall handsome fellow with a mess of long brown curls. His left arm was tattooed and his green eyes shone with excitement when he got a shot he liked. “Alright, babe. Make love to the camera but don't look too happy. You are fierce."

Alyx started posing. She'd do whatever came naturally to her. Holding onto or leaning against the lion head every few poses.

The photographer was one of those expressive ones who rallied her on with words and suggestions. His voice turned passionate when he reached the climax of the session and then you know it was time to bust out the best postures.

When she went for a straight up, standing pose with a slight tilt at the waist and her arm curling through the lion's mouth the hand stopping above it's right eye the photographer clicked furiously, then stopped short and took a step back, his breathing hitched.

“Perfect." He murmured as a slow satisfied smile slithered across his face.

Alyx sighed at the sight of his dimple. “You’re telling me.” She murmured.

He let out a soft cackle. “ Come have a look!”  he handed her the big professional camera but kept a hold on the lens, he was pretty tall and as he looked over her shoulder at the shots he’d captured the smell of his cologne gave her an intoxicated feeling. She went through the pictures all the way to the first one and beyond into his previous pictures.

“Oh, I do like this one,” she said, stopping at a picture of him in a suit, holding up an award. “What was the award for?”

“A session I’d done in Africa, on Safari. The lions were gorgeous, that’s what gave me this idea.” He gestured to the fake lion head on the set.

“Well aren’t you creative.” She turned to him smiling.

He grinned back, his eyes sparkled like a stone in a brook covered in moss. Green, sparkly and inticing. “With the right muse you can create the most wonderful things.”

Alyx let out a short breathy laugh, her cheeks turning pink.

“I believe you are blushing, Alyx Yaxley”

“You really know how to make someone blush, Austin Reid.”

“I don’t make anything happen, Alyx, I simply provide the right settings and circumstances for it, then coax it into existence.” His voice was dark and exciting and his tone deep. He had a slow drawl while talking, the kind that keeps you on your toes.