Bared. Jill Shalvis
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to see him to remember how potent he’d been upon first sight. He was everything Amber had said he was—tall, imposing, with a set of dark, dark eyes that she had a feeling saw just about everything. Though he’d looked unhappy to see Amber, Emma supposed she couldn’t hold that against him. She knew exactly how difficult Amber could be, and imagined he had braced himself for a nightmare shoot.
He wouldn’t take lightly to being fooled—if he found out. Telling him now was out of the question. Her sister had been clear on that. If Rafe knew Amber had bailed, he’d bail, too, and then the calendar would be cancelled and she’d be back to square one.
This job was a coup and she needed it.
Emma had agreed, so she stepped into the thong. She tried to adjust it, but there was no adjusting to be made. The thing was going to ride up her butt no matter what—and it did—and yet…not so bad.
Laughing at herself now, she held up the “top.” Looking at it, thinking about how it would look on her, made her feel—this was such an embarrassing admission, even to herself—sexy.
Bring on the fun, she thought. She was on an island far from home with no one she ever planned on seeing again. She might as well enjoy it.
“Come on, damn it,” Rafe growled from the other side of the curtain, apparently out of patience. The sheets ripped apart, leaving her staring one irritated, wet photographer in the face. All six feet two inches of him. His hair was slicked back from his forehead, his lean jaw tense as more than a few drops of water ran off his cheeks and down his throat. His plain dark blue T-shirt stuck to him like a second skin and was tucked into a pair of faded Levi’s, both of which exhibited a body in its prime.
The costume was definitely getting to her if she was thinking about him that way. She hurriedly wrapped the filmy material around her torso and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not ready.” Not sure if she ever would be, now that the moment was at hand.
“But I am.”
Clearly Amber had managed to annoy him in the not-too-distant past. Emma would have to deal with that, and the fact he was startlingly handsome, so much so that he could be in front of the camera.
Except, she couldn’t imagine him looking virginal.
“Not that you care, but I need the light that we’re losing with each passing second.” Without so much as a glance at her body—so much for the ego she hadn’t even realized she had—he took her wrist and tugged her out of the protective covering of the sheets.
He walked quickly and smoothly on the rough path, forcing her to jog to keep up with him. She ran alongside while simultaneously trying to keep the material around her and her thong in place. By the time he got her to the set, she was huffing and puffing.
She really had to find the time to exercise more thoroughly than the occasional yoga tape. But she knew she wouldn’t. If she wasn’t writing, she was sleeping and if she wasn’t sleeping, she was plotting.
Work ran her life.
Work was her life.
So how she’d ended up in paradise half-naked still boggled the mind, but here she was, determined to save Amber and have fun for once, with Rafe and his assistant staring at her, waiting for her to pull some model magic out of a hat she’d never worn before.
The rain still fell, big heavy drops sparse enough that they felt nice and cool landing on her hot, steaming skin. If she could have, she would have loved to take a long walk in it, alone, soaking it all in, getting drenched, cooling off—
The other man came forward as Rafe went to his camera. What had Amber told her the tall, gorgeous blonde’s name was? Stone. Stone didn’t like Amber, but her sister hadn’t cared and said Emma shouldn’t care, either. Now Emma wondered at that, sensing a long story behind the casually made statement, and wished she’d found out the reason for the animosity.
Stone’s light blue eyes were cool but kinder than Rafe’s as he pointed to the hammock. “There. Give us some good stuff quickly and we can all get out of here.”
Good stuff. Right. No problem. Her skin was damp, and her hair…God knows how bad it had gotten. A woman came close and introduced herself as Jen, the makeup and hair artist.
“I’ll just—” She started to play with Emma’s hair, but lowered her hands when Rafe called out to her.
“She’s perfect,” he said, holding three film canisters. “The skin’s got a fabulous glow and the hair is good. Leave it.”
Odd how just those words, spoken so impersonally and not even directly to her, caused a flutter in Emma’s belly.
He thought she was perfect.
Before today, it had never occurred to her to go into modeling. You’re too smart to waste your life that way, her mother had drilled into her at a young age.
And agreeing, Emma had always been the studious one. But there was something to be said for being told she was perfect by a stranger. She wondered what her mother would think of that, as she’d never imagined her daughters perfect at all.
Emma got onto the hammock—no easy feat in itself—and pulled the material tighter around her, keeping her arms crossed over her breasts.
Stone reached toward her and Emma tried not to wince. He was going to arrange her, touch her—and this would be the hardest part. Amber loved to be touched, craved it like everyone else craved air.
Emma, however, didn’t. She closed her eyes. Tried to breathe.
“Stone, where’s the white umbrella?” Rafe called out from behind the camera.
“The white…” Stone looked at the blue one they’d used earlier and swore. “In my room.” He looked over the setting, the rain misting down on their model, the lighting, and sighed in agreement. “Yeah. I need to go get it, it’s just what you need.” He started jogging up the path Emma had just been tugged down by Rafe.
Emma turned back to the camera, but suddenly Rafe was standing right in front of her—tall, big and wet. As a few errant drops hit him they practically steamed right off his body.
“Hold still,” he said.
She held still and looked into his dark eyes, watching to see if he watched her. Saw her.
“Relax.”
No, he didn’t really see her, at least not as a woman. She didn’t know if she was relieved or insulted.
Relieved, she decided a minute later, realizing she’d never felt so utterly naked. Living her life as she did, with work being all she ever thought about, she wasn’t used to this nude thing. She’d had the occasional relationship, but given her schedule, occasional was the key word. It had been a good long time since she’d had so much as a kiss and even then, since she remembered being on deadline at the time and completely distracted, it hadn’t been anything to write home about.
Casual nudity had never become a part of any of those occasional relationships. She always rushed through her day, preoccupied, rarely seeing herself naked, much less letting anyone else see her. Being so exposed right now was like one of those dreams where she found herself on the school bus, without clothes.
It was horrifying, terrifying, mortifying—
“Perfect,” Rafe said, looking through his camera at her.
Her tummy fluttered again. Her nipples tightened. And her thighs clenched. Yes, she was horrified, terrified, mortified…
And somehow excited at the same time.
“Hug your knees.” He came out from behind the camera, moved close.
Ohmigod. If she weren’t so bared to the cool raindrops, she might have broken out in a sweat—
Silent, brooding, he wrapped his fingers around her ankles, lifting until she bent her knees. Then he took her wrists, dragging her arms around her legs.