Jill Shalvis - Bared

“I never would have imagined, but it is. The Joshua trees look like tall, skinny old men.”

“You should see them in winter. Once in a great while it snows. Then they look like tall, skinny old women.”

She laughed and the sound tugged at the corners of his mouth until he found himself smiling back at her.

Their gazes and the humor connected them, and then their smiles slowly faded but they didn’t stop looking at each other. He could see the pulse at the base of her neck kick into gear and he knew how she felt because his own had started cooking, too.

He’d been around beautiful women for years now, and somehow, at some part, he’d grown immune. Not that he’d stopped seeing them or acted like a monk, because he surely hadn’t. But it seemed that the more time went by, the less he felt moved by any particular woman.

It was all tied up with his need to stop doing this kind of photography, to settle down and find one woman, the one who could excite him for the rest of his life.

Which meant he had to finish this shoot. “Ready?”

“Here,” Stone said, pointing to her mark. Next to it was an ancient-looking rock formation-three large rocks, one on top of another so that they stood just slightly below the height of her shoulders. “Lean on them,” he instructed her. “Toss your head back, with your hair over one shoulder so we can see the line of your spine.”

And her ass. Rafe could see that thought flash through her mind and he contained his grin at her look of dismay. Maybe she’d tell him right now. His smile vanished because he couldn’t believe how much he wanted that, wanted her to confess to him.

Instead she stepped onto her mark, put her hands on the rocks and arched her back, just a little, and with the beautiful and eerie desert as her background, and with her long brunette hair flowing over one shoulder, she looked back at him.

Her skin looked positively luminous, the red halter only emphasizing her willowy yet curvy form. Her legs were so long that they exceeded the legal limit, and capping them off with hiking boots had been a stroke of genius. She looked like a wild, yet innocent, sex goddess and he knew every pair of eyes that took in this picture would want her.

He wanted her.

He looked at her through the lens. No doubt the shot would be another incredible one. “Cock one hip, just a little-”

Almost before the words were out, she did it and hit the right pose. Except, she wasn’t looking at him; she was looking down, as if she couldn’t look at him. He knew her big secret was killing her.

“Amber…you’ve got to look at me.”

“I know.” She closed her eyes, then opened them on him. “I’ll never forget today,” she said softly. “I know I was a pain getting up here, but my God-” she looked out to the view and slowly shook her head in awe “-it’s…life altering.”

He adjusted his focus through the lens. “In what way?”

“It’s so…big. So…real life. It makes all my problems seem so small.”

“Yeah? Smile just a little, mostly with your eyes, there you go…” He focused a little closer… perfect , it was perfect. “What kind of problems do you have?”

She laughed. “Oh boy. If you only knew.” She looked around her again and sighed. “I just can’t get over how incredible it all is.”

“Because you’ve never seen it.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Aw, hell. He was going to tell her. “You’ve been here before.”

Her gaze flew to his.

“Or at least Amber has.”

And while she stood there speechless, looking gorgeous and just a little bit off kilter, he got his shot. He clicked his shutter until he was out of film then he slowly nodded. “Several times, in fact. She’s been here and she hated every moment of it-the drive, the heat, the dryness, every insect that had the bad misfortune of landing on her. She hated every cactus, every single Joshua tree. She hated all of it.”

Emma stared at him, eyes widening and then shutting for a moment.

He waited her out and when she opened her eyes again they were drowning in regret.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re Emma.”

“You knew.” She looked shocked to the bone. “When did you figure it out?”

“About two minutes after you walked onto the set in Kauai.”

“But how? How did I give it away?”

“It was what you didn’t do.” He ticked the reasons off on his fingers. “You weren’t demanding things and you weren’t trying to hit on every single man around…”

“Oh.”

“I looked into your eyes and saw Emma. Queen Emma.”

“Queen…” She sputtered, making him laugh. “ Queen Emma?”

“Amber always refers to you as that. You didn’t know,” he said and laughed again. “Honestly, I think she actually means it as a compliment.”

“Right.” She blew a strand of hair away from her face, then let out a little disparaging sound. She stared at him some more. “You never said anything, you never gave it away that you suspected.”

“I was pissed.”

She bit her lower lip again. God, the way she tortured that lip…

“And now?” she asked, her voice shaking just enough to have him softening. “Now that you know the truth, are you still angry at what I did?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I got over it.”

Her eyes hadn’t left his. “When?”

“I don’t know. Soon as I realized you weren’t wasting my time, I guess. When I saw that I could still get the pictures I needed.”

Emma stared at him, looking shaken and…

Oh, damn.

Aroused.

She looked aroused and his body leaped to join the fray.

“SO YOU REALLY KNEW,” Emma said. “You knew the entire time…” She shouldn’t have felt so shocked. After all, she was a terrible actress, which explained why she did what she did for a living and wrote scripts instead of playing them out.

But she was shocked, to the core, and it reverberated through her body, leaving her staring at him like some dimwit.

And then there was everything else racing through her. She was cold, for one. The wind had seeped inside her. Her hair was driving her crazy because it kept sticking to her lipstick and stabbing her in the eyes, but as unbelievable as it was, her body hummed with an excitement she couldn’t deny.

Maybe it was because he’d known she wasn’t Amber and he’d still gone on with the shoots, which meant she’d done it. She’d given him as good as her sister would have. That was exciting in its own right.

But then there was the way he stared at her, looking frustrated and brooding, with that low, sexy voice that had said things like Turn this way. Arch your back. Yeah, oh yeah, like that …

God, she loved his voice. She’d tried not to think about it because she’d thought he was talking to Amber, but he hadn’t been. He’d been talking to her all along.

“What I don’t know is why,” he said. “Why are you here pretending to be Amber?”

“She’s away. But she said it was really important to her career-”

“It is. That’s why I don’t get it. What’s keeping her away-” He shook his head. “You know what? I don’t care.”

“She was with a guy on the islands. I’m sorry.”

“Are you kidding? I just hope he keeps her there.”

That startled a laugh out of her.

“I thought you were playing me,” he said.

“That’s why you were mad?” When he nodded, she shook her head. “I wasn’t trying to play you at all. It was for Amber. Do you have a sister?”

“Sure. Two of them. Carolyn and Tessa.”

“Are you close?”

“Yes,” he said. “Very. But much as I love them, I wouldn’t go modeling for one of them in a thong.”