Exposure Page 9

  Evan sighs loudly and pushes back her chocolate hair with her fingers. I grasp her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “Hey. You okay?”

  She performs the adorable gesture of pushing up the middle of her glasses with her finger. She’s not wearing makeup, just like how she was last night. Arching beneath me. A guttural moan escaping her throat. I blink the image away before I have the chance to get hard.

  “Peachy,” she says with a weak grin.

  “If I ever do anything to make you uncomfortable, in front of the camera or not, you’d tell me, right?”

  She blinks slowly before saying, “You’re not the problem, Dallas.”

  I have no idea what she means, but I’m quickly distracted by the giggling coming from the corner of the room. A gaggle of models are looking toward us. A gorgeous blonde smiles at me and winks. She holds up the current issue of EPE.

  Evan rests her hand on my arm. She’s looking over at the girls with disdain. I bite back a grin—is she being protective of me?

  “You want to look at the issue?” I ask her.

  “Hell no,” she replies quickly. “Especially not the shoot with you.” And in the same breath, “I need to get my makeup done.”

  She stalks away.

  I walk up to the blonde model and her friends. All of them are dressed in bikinis or lingerie. “Can I borrow that?” I ask.

  She pops her hip. “Sure.” She hands me the magazine and bats her eyelashes. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I would pay money to shoot with you. Maybe we could do a private session later?”

  “Err… I can’t tell if you’re being literal, or if, by private session, you’re hitting on me. I’m a science dork. I’m not that great with reading women.”

  She and her posse giggle. “You silly boy.” She leans in and whispers, her hot breath tickling my ear. “I meant that, later tonight, I’d like to get your alone and fuck your brains out.” She takes a step back. “Offer’s on the table.”

  What the hell is wrong with me? Why do I not feel turned on in the slightest by this beautiful girl offering herself to me? “Sorry,” I tell her. “I have a girlfriend.”

  She sneers. “Rylan?”

  “Uhh… no, actually. But Rylan is a friend. Look, I gotta…”

  “Pretty boy!” Someone hollers across the room. On instinct I turn. A pissed, goth-looking girl is staring right at me. “You done flirting? You need to get your ass into makeup.”

  I don’t argue, using this as an excuse to dodge any more advances from blondie.

  When the makeup artist and I are alone in the dressing room, she orders me to sit. “Luckily, because you have balls, I don’t have to do a lot to you,” she says to me, getting a pasty makeup ready for me by mixing colors together. “You wouldn’t believe the shit these girls have to put on every day before they shoot.”

  I open the magazine right at the end of mine and Evan’s office shoot. I’m standing over her, cupping her ass. At least she looks like she’s having a good time. I quickly close it again. Now I know why Evan never looks at issues. I looked… well, I looked creepy. I have no idea how chicks find this professor-student role play shit attractive.

  Granted, it was fun as hell to shoot.

  I glance over at the artist’s makeup kit as she starts wiping stuff on my face. It reads NORA. “Nora, why do the models hate Rylan?”

  She chuckles. “Why do you ask?”

  I shrug.

  “Not all of them do. Delilah loves Rylan.”

  “So are the temp models just jealous of her?”

  Nora shakes her head. “I don’t think it’s that. If you haven’t noticed, Rylan has a fuck-it-all kind of attitude that makes her come off as nonchalant. Like she doesn’t care about modeling, she just does it to make money. And to be honest, that’s the truth. She’s gorgeous and knows how to work the camera and uses it to her advantage. The other girls—they see that she doesn’t really want it. They hate her for it.”

  I think about this as Britain drives me over to the abandoned gym, where we’re going to be shooting today.

  “Evan said that she wanted to go over with the scouts and get ready at the site,” she explains to me. “I guess she’s hoping to get in character before you arrive.”

  I study her. “Why do you look so smug?”

  She obviously tries to play it cool as we pull into the parking lot. “It’s just funny to me.”

  “Yeah, lots of things are funny to me too.”

  “How you guys are both totally into each other and to hide it you’re playing up the whole ‘co-worker’ thing.”

  What right does this chick think she has to say what I feel? “Dude, Britain. I have a girlfriend, how many times do I have to…”

  “Dude, Dallas.” She opens her door and slides out of the car. “Now is the time to acknowledge your feelings for Evan before you do something stupid. Yeah?” She slams the door.

  I get out of the car to follow her, to ask her what the fuck she means by before I do something stupid, but she’s walking way too fast, probably because she doesn’t want my confrontation. By the time I start jogging to her, we’re already inside, rounding the bend to the open women’s locker room, to the showers…

  Evan sits on top one of the low shower walls as the scouting team sets up the lighting around her, soaking wet and topless.

  Completely topless.

  Water drips over her chest. I can tell from here that her pink nipples couldn’t be harder.

  Waiting.

  She’s waiting for me.

  Last night I was the deviant. But today, I’m putty in her hands.

  Britain snorts. “Go on. Go join your ‘co-worker.’”

  Chapter Nine

  Evan

  Dallas isn’t leaving. This issue proves that he’s now a permanent member of EPE.

  And the only way I can deal with him is giving in completely. To treat him as a sex object on set. To get fully used to him.

  Plus, dumbfounded looks like the one he’s giving me now are priceless.

  “You heard the lady,” Britain says, shaking her head at me. She looks very entertained. Very. “Strip.”

  “Wait. All the way?” Dallas stutters. I love to see him caught off guard like this.

  “Unless you have a problem with that,” Britain says bluntly, squatting and unzipping her camera case.

  “No, I don’t. Have a problem. I’m fine.”

  Britain and I exchange looks, and I smirk, sliding down from the wall. The shower head is all sorts of fucked, so when I turn it on again, the stream goes berserk, shooting outward in a lighter spray instead of a solid jet. Luckily for shooting, it catches the lights that the scouting crew set up perfectly.

  I gasp as the cold splashes against me, quickly turning the gauge to a more moderate temperature. Dallas looks confused. Which I’m pretty sure has to do with my tits. My tits are befuddling him. Poor guy. At least he’s got his shirt off. Stacked abs on top of those jeans just waiting to get wet…

  “Actually, Brit,” I walk toward Dallas. “I think the jeans might work for this shoot. You said you want me more vulnerable than him anyway, right?” As I speak, I keep my eyes glued to Dallas’s. Slowly, the fierceness that existed within them last night returns, and he lowers his head. “What am I going to do with you?” he murmurs so only I can hear.

  “Faux fuck me up against the shower wall,” I return. “Just how we practiced.”

  “You two love birds ready?” Britain calls. “Let’s get this party started.”

  This shoot, she doesn’t have to direct us at all. Dallas has gained his ferocity. He pushes on my shoulders until I stumble back through the stream. I gasp as my back hits the cold tile of the shower wall. His hands are clenching the inner parts of my thighs before I’ve even regained my balance, lifting me up. I wrap my legs around his waist for balance. Britain is dancing around us in attempt to not get her camera wet, but this is the last time any of my focus rests on her.

  Dallas�
��s hair is getting soaked. Water drips from his nose, his lips. I want to taste him, but for some reason, a kiss seems more intimate than what we are doing now.

  A kiss on the lips seems real.

  He doesn’t let me debate for long, lowering his head to my shoulder and licking the water from it. One hand snakes between us and finds my breast. His forefinger circles around my nipple until it’s painfully hard, and then, when I don’t think that feeling any more pleasure in that area of my body is possible, he pinches the bud and tugs.

  My head rolls back and I murmur a curse in ecstasy. In real ecstasy.

  We repeat these moves for fifteen minutes or so when Britain finally calls it quits. Catching my breath, I wait for Dallas to let me down. But before he does, he dips his head, tongue darting out and swirling around my nipple.

  I release a surprised moan.

  As quick as it begun, it’s over. My feet hit the ground, my body pressed tightly against his. His doesn’t step backward when I tilt my head up, our quick breaths mingling, his deviant eyes hooded. He knows that he licked me when the camera was off.

  He did it because he wanted to, not for the shoot.

  “I want you so bad,” I whisper.

  It takes me about half a second before I realize what I actually uttered out loud.

  I push away from him and hurry around the corner, slipping into the bathroom part of the locker room. Shutting myself inside the nearest stall, I wrap my arms around me and shiver away this feeling.

  This feeling that Dallas Whitley isn’t just a sex object to me.

  That he can never be.

  Dallas

  I finally get why public disguises are so important to Evan. But unfortunately for me, I’m a guy, not super capable of dressing down in order to hide my slutty EPE image. Which makes being at school really. Fucking. Awkward.

  The worst was when the freshman girl wanted an autograph as I was on my way to the grad office, pulling the latest issue of EPE out and waving it around like it’s nothing more than an issue of Seventeen. She folded open open the pages to Evan sitting on a desk, her bare legs tangled around my waist.

  “Yeah, I can’t do this,” I said out loud, handing the magazine back to her.

  But the five seconds of fame aren’t over. The office is worse.

  “Nice power-play, Whitley,” Brad drawls. I look up from the research report I’m typing up, at his toothy-fucking-grin. He flashes his EPE copy. “Is that how you win all of your women?”

  I slam the lid of my laptop shut and slide it into the sleeve. I need to get out of here now before someone loses an eye.

  “Come on, bro. I’m fucking around.”

  I can’t even see straight through all of my rage, let alone respond. When I’m out of the office and hurrying to my car, I realize I don’t even know why I’m so pissed off. This is what the shoot was designed to do, wasn’t it? Show off my power-play over Rylan Willow. Derogatory thoughts from bastards like Brad are a natural reaction.

  The stares from people I pass are enough my make me go crazy. I really thought I had little shame. I thought that the effects of posing for EPE wouldn’t bother me so much.

  When I get into my car and shut the door, I exhale. Maybe it’s because, when people ask for my autograph, when they stare at me, when they make stupid remarks, I imagine Evan having to deal with the same thing. Evan, who’s trying desperately to hide the Rylan side of her every second she’s outside the studio.

  I haven’t spoken to her in four days—not since the shower. We’re supposed to shoot again tomorrow. Britain wants variety to choose from for the series, so she wants to shoot as much as possible over the next few weeks. I want to continue to become comfortable with Evan, but that’s kind of impossible with the way she’s avoiding me.

  When I handed back her test during bio lecture, she wouldn’t even look at me. I don’t know if she’s making sure that no one who sees us interact puts two and two together, or if this has something to do with what she said back at the showers.

  I want you so bad.

  Those were the last words she uttered to me, and now she refuses to look at me, even when I pass her in the halls.

  Maybe she feels guilty. Maybe it’s my fault, because of what I did to her. I have a girlfriend, but I could help it. Not with her wet and clinging to me. Not with her beautiful, perky tits right in my face.

  I needed to lick her. And it made her want me.

  But the way she acts toward me now is like she despises me. Along with the reactions from people on campus, I’m starting to hate being an EPE model. Even if Britain is promising me a huge paycheck.

  I’m not under contract. Technically I could quit.

  No, I can’t. I need this money. And something else inside me really doesn’t want to disappoint Britain.

  I get home, and Tricia has her bags packed. Two weeks in Seattle to work with one of her clients—a corporate office that she’s doing some web work for.

  “Don’t get too naughty while I’m gone,” she says with a wry smile, kissing me on the mouth. “Got my hands on that EPE issue, and damn, boy. Makes me want to jump you for a quickie right here.”

  Well, that’s a first.

  “So it doesn’t make you uncomfortable?”

  She shrugs. “Why would it? She’s just some meaningless model.”

  Right. Meaningless model.

  Glancing out the window, she says, “My cab’s here,” and kisses me again. “Love you. I’ll call when I get to Seattle.”

  And before I can say goodbye, she’s out the door.

  Two weeks without Tricia. I wish I could say that this is some kind of victory for me, but being by myself in this apartment gets kind of lonely. Even if she’s always working while she’s here, at least she’s a body—a presence.

  I text Evan before heading to the gym, asking if she’s okay. I guess it’s the least I can do considering I haven’t talked her in a week and she’s refusing to make eye contact with me at school. But after two hours of weights and cardio, she still hasn’t responded. At home, I order in Chinese food and study. I call her. No response.

  I decide not to heckle her. If, for some reason, I’ve pissed her off, she’s going to have to deal with me tomorrow.

  ///

  Britain wants to shoot outdoors today. Some ultra-sexy picnic shoot, she says. When I arrive at the studio, she is out by the pool with Adam and Delilah. Correction, she is in the pool with Adam and Delilah, who are naked and treading in the deep end. Dressed in a bikini and standing in the shallow end, Britain holds her camera, equipped with water-proof protection.

  “Sizzling underwater aerobics,” Britain tells me when I take a seat on one of the pool chairs and watch.

  Delilah is giggling, pushing down on Adam’s shoulders to dunk him beneath the surface. Flirting. Of course it would be normal for hot, naked models to flirt with each other.

  “Okay, okay, stop fucking around. On my count in three, two, one.”

  Britain, Delilah, and Adam sink below the surface at the same time. I can’t really tell what they’re doing underwater, only some rendition of what Britain said—sizzling underwater aerobics. No props other than their skin.

  I’m jealous that Adam and Delilah have advanced to this while Evan and I are fucking around with our clothes still on. Why? Because Britain wants to play up the image of Rylan being this slowly-tainted virginal character.

  Sort of twisted, if you ask me.

  When the three of them emerge again, Britain wipes the water from her eyes and turns to me. “You can get into makeup. Rylan should be in there.”

  Great.

  Will it be awkward seeing her? She’s acting like she’s pissed at me, and I don’t even know why.

  Making my way back to the studio, I stop in my footsteps. I remember in the showers, when I couldn’t contain myself anymore. When, after I knew Britain had stopped shooting, I leaned forward and tasted her.

  And she told me how bad she wanted me.

&nbs
p; So she has reason to be pissed—why didn’t I think of this before? She said it even more blatantly at the office shoot—You’re so lucky you aren’t single right now. I’d make you get me off.

  Like that makes me lucky. Now I don’t get to get a beautiful model off, instead receiving the wrath of her sexual frustration.

  Yay for me.

  Still, it’s not enough for her to ignore me, especially after texting her and calling her to see if she’s okay.

  I walk into the dressing room. She’s dressed in a white bathrobe and hunched over the counter, staring at herself in the mirror. I can’t tell if it’s the lighting, but she looks pale. She glares at me for a split second before her eyes revert to her own face.

  “Great to fucking see you too.” I say.

  Then she does something I’m totally not expecting. She looks up, and blinks, and blinks. And then her face scrunches up, and she starts to cry.

  “I’m sorry.” She covers her mouth with her hands to stifle a sob. “I can’t—I can’t do this today. I’m s-sorry.”

  She runs out of the room, the door slamming shut. And I’m left in the dressing room feeling like a dick. I sit on a stool, wondering if I should go after her or if that will make it worse, when Britain walks in, camera in her hand and a towel wrapped around her waist.

  I stand. “Did you see Ev—”

  She holds her hand out. “Take a seat, hot stuff.”

  I listen to her, confused.

  She sighs and walks toward the counter, setting her camera down. “Evan’s kind of having a rough time. So we’re gonna cancel the shoot today.”

  “Fuck,” I say. “What’d I do?”

  She furrows her eyebrows. “You? Well, nothing. I don’t think.”

  “Wait… what?”