His Private Terms

Chapter 5: Electrifying touch.

Lila woke up before her alarm. The light coming through her window was pale and thin, but the smell of dark espresso drifting down the hall told her Damien was already up.

She threw on a fitted sweater and trousers, grabbed her camera, and walked into his office at seven sharp.

Damien was behind his desk, scrolling through a document on his tablet. He didn't look like a man who had just woken up; he looked sharp, alert, and entirely in control. His dark shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, revealing the hard line of his throat.

"Morning," Lila said, unclipping her lens cap.

"Miss Reed," he said, his eyes tracking her as she moved toward the center of the room. "Let's see what you've got."

Lila brought the viewfinder to her eye, falling back on years of instinct. She framed him against the morning skyline, adjusted her ISO, and brought his sharp jawline into focus.

Click.

"Wrong," Damien said instantly.

Lila lowered the camera, startled. "What?"

"Your shutter speed is too slow for this light, and your frame is loose." He didn't just tell her, he stood up and walked around the desk, stopping so close to her that she had to tilt her head up just to look at his chest. "You're treating me like a landscape. I’m not a landscape."

"I know how to set my exposure, Damien," she said, trying to hold her ground, but her voice lacked its usual bite.

"Then prove it."

He reached out and grabbed the barrel of her lens. His large, warm hands brushed against her knuckles, sending a sudden wave of heat straight up her arms. Lila’s mind stumbled.

Before she could recalibrate, Damien’s other hand settled flat against the side of her waist. His grip was heavy, firm, and possessive, pulling her an inch closer to him.

"You're relying on automatic focal points," he murmured, his thumb pressing directly into the curve above her hipbone. "Manual. Adjust it."

Lila reached for the focus ring, but her fingers were trembling so badly she could barely find the rubber ridge. Her heart was slamming against her ribs. Years of professional training;lighting ratios, composition rules, camera settings simply vanished from her head. Under his touch, she felt like someone who had picked up a camera for the very first time.

"I... I need to step back to adjust the depth," she stammered, her face burning.

"No," Damien commanded softly, his breath brushing the shell of her ear as he leaned down. His grip on her waist tightened, pinning her right where she was. "You stay right here. Turn the ring."

Her fingers clumsily twisted the dial, but she couldn't tell if the image was clear or blurry. All she could focus on was the press of his chest against her shoulder and the heat of his palm through her sweater. She couldn't function. He had taken her job completely out of her hands.

Damien reached over her wrist, his larger hand covering hers on the camera body, and adjusted the focal ring himself with precise, practiced ease.

"See?" he whispered, his chest rumbling against her back. "Now the focus is where it belongs. On me."

Lila swallowed hard, completely paralyzed by his proximity. "Yes."

"Press the button, Miss Reed."

She couldn't even remember which finger rested on the shutter. Damien had to slide his own index finger over hers, pressing her finger down onto the release.

*Click.*

He didn't pull away immediately. He let his hand linger on her waist, his thumb stroking a slow, deliberate line over her hip before he finally stepped back, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the room, breathless and entirely undone.

By nighttime, the humiliation and thrill of that morning were still humming in her veins.

All day long, Damien had treated her less like an independent photographer and more like an apprentice in his own house. Every time she tried to take a shot, he dictated the room, telling her where to stand, how to hold her elbows, when to shoot, and when to put the camera down. And every direction came with a touch: a hand on her lower back, fingers tapping her wrist, a heavy palm resting on her shoulder.

Lila lay awake in her dark bedroom, staring at the ceiling. Through the connecting door, she could hear the muffled, heavy sound of Damien moving around his room.

She covered her face with both hands, letting out a quiet, frustrated sigh. She was supposed to be the professional here. She was supposed to be the one capturing him. But lying in the dark, her skin still tingling where his hands had rested, Lila knew the truth: the moment he laid a finger on her, she stopped being the photographerand became entirely his subject.