Dante - Daryl Banner Page 0,23

sense, since it’s the basement. Was it always this big?”

“Well, it used to be a number of rooms, but … since it’s mine now, I knocked down all the walls I could and made like an … underground parking garage with flooring, furniture, and a sectional.”

He laughs at that last part. His laugh is quickly choked when his hands find a particular bit of gear, which he then stops at, his eyes drinking it in.

It’s the wrestling singlet.

“Yep, that’s the one,” I confirm, answering the question only his eyes are asking.

“Wow.” He lets out a sigh of delight, feeling the material, likely imagining the sexy, beautiful anguish of the hot model who once wore it in his favorite photo.

I sense something. “Wanna try it on?”

“Hmm … nah. It wouldn’t feel right.” His eyes turn wistful. “You could do something like that again, you know.”

“Like what?”

“That photo. You could shoot something that makes the viewer … really feel the energy, just from a glimpse, just from a suggestion.” He lets go of the singlet, letting it slip out of sight, then faces me. “I didn’t mean to say your other work hasn’t been good. It’s just something about that one shot …”

I lift an eyebrow. “There’s no need to defend your opinion to me, Tye. Art is subjective. Some of it hits us. Some of it doesn’t.”

“Well, when you’re you,” Tye says, gesturing at me as he continues strolling slowly by the racks, “everything is … pretty masterful. A model would be lucky to work with you.”

“Sure, sometimes the photographer can ‘make’ the model.” I eye him. “And sometimes it’s just the right model who can make a photographer.”

Tye stops browsing and turns to me.

My face tightens up as he throws those eyes of his my way, oblivious to what they do to me. Or maybe he knows exactly the effect his powerful, striking gaze has.

He pulls himself from the moment, continues down the aisle, then stops as he pulls out a leather tank top—black, shiny, and tight. “This one.”

“That one?”

“I’ll wear this. With …” He finds the skintight leather pants on the rack just next to it, ready to be paired. “These. Do you approve, photographer?”

I snort at that. He’s going to look exquisite in them. “Oh yeah. I approve.”

“Good.” He smiles my way. “Let’s do magic.”

I leave him to change as I go to set up a scene by the wall again using a prop wicker chair and a few items that will complement the all-black leather attire he’s picked out. I keep stepping back to figure out placements and angles, squinting critically as I keep adjusting the lighting over and over, giving in to my pesky perfectionism.

“I’m ready,” comes a voice from behind.

I turn.

Tye’s smooth, milky skin glows in contrast to the black, shiny leather of his skintight tank top and his pants, which show every gorgeous contour of his toned, shapely legs, punctuated by his pair of military boots, which fit the look perfectly. His high cheekbones flush with pink undertones that make his crystalline blue eyes shine dangerously.

He’s a vision. An inspiration. A living muse.

Why can’t my eyes take photographs the way my camera does?

“I want to try something,” he says.

I snap out of it. “Try what?”

“I want to …” He swallows suddenly, chuckles with an endearing nervousness, then finishes: “I … I want to try a fetish shoot.”

13

I guess his specific and leathery choice in attire should’ve tipped me off.

“Your forte. The thing you do.” He puffs up his chest. “I wanna do it now.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Yep.” He peers over at my studio, curious.

I ditch the nice scene I just spent time preparing in an instant. “Think you can handle it? You were so scared the first day you came here and—”

“I wasn’t scared.”

“—laid your eyes on my special room.” I chuckle as I pick up my camera, shut off some lights, and relocate some things over to the studio. “So tell me. You got a vision for what you’re looking for? Or—”

“I want what I came for that first time, except maybe it was … poorly worded.” He grimaces. “Sorry about that. I … I really want to become that wrestler on the bed. I want to feel his anguish. I want you to make me look that way. I want—”

“You want me to rip off my own work?”

Tye frowns. “I didn’t say I—” He rethinks it. “Oh, I guess it does kinda sound like that. I didn’t mean we have to do the