“It’s nothing.” His heart plummeted as he prepared for her laughter. He reached for the laptop and tried to shut it closed, but Tara pushed his hands aside and blocked the laptop with her shoulders.

“Hey, stop that,” she said, her eyes never leaving the screen.

As he sat beside her, the blood draining from his face, she scrolled through more of his photos from that day.

“Seth,” she said again, clutching at the front of her shirt. “These are … They’re alive.”

Something fierce burst into life inside of him. She didn’t laugh. Her surprise … her awe. It wasn’t because she thought his work was ridiculous. She liked it.

“It … I … sometimes … something comes over me,” he said in a low, halting voice. “It feels as though I’m transported to another place. Maybe a different dimension. Everything around me changes but is the same. It just becomes filled to the brim with life and beauty. My camera captures the other world, and that’s why those photos look … different.”

What the hell was he going on about? Even he could tell how odd that might sound to someone. His heart thundering, he slowly turned his gaze to Tara. She was staring at him with admiration and wonder in her eyes.

“I’ve seen your work. Your fashion magazine photos. They are so vibrant and full of life, and they always convey what you want to say through them. I’m no professional, but even I could tell that you have talent,” she said, not breaking eye contact. She was so close. Sometime during their struggle with the laptop, Tara had gotten closer to him, her leg and hip pressed against him. Her warmth and her scent assailed his senses, but he could only listen to her words. “But these … these are more than just pictures snapped by a talented photographer. They touch my soul and steal my breath. They’re works of art.”

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to taste those precious words, not just hear them. His veins pumped with an inexplicable emotion, too hot and sharp for his body to contain. Was it joy? Was it lust? Maybe a combination of both, but it intensified to the point where his nerves lit up. He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned pale, his bones pushing against his skin. He couldn’t kiss her now.

But it was too much. It was the first time since his one-and-only exhibit that he’d shared a part of his art with anyone. These photos were mere shadows of what he wanted to do with them. They were the barest outline. Still, he’d shown her a part of himself that he’d guarded with his very being.

“Come with me.” He hardly recognized his own voice. It was so low it rumbled in his chest.

“What? Where?” she said. He shifted to the edge of the booth and took ahold of Tara’s hand. “Wait. Our stuff—”

“Leave them. We won’t be long.”