Jill Shalvis - Bared

She laughed. “Well, you know Amber. She gets herself into trouble.”

“Yes.”

“And I get her out of trouble. It’s our routine.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “You’re the oldest.”

“By three whole minutes.” She shook her head. “And every time she calls and needs something, I tell myself it’ll be the last time I do it, but…”

“But you can’t stop-”

“Rafe.”

Emma jumped at the sound of Stone’s voice calling out. She’d actually forgotten they weren’t the only two people on earth.

“Weather’s gone,” Stone said.

“We’re nearly done.” Rafe looked at the sky. “You guys go ahead and head back. We’ll be right behind you.”

“Hurry, or you’ll get a nice cold shower,” Stone said, and in less than two minutes, everyone and everything but Rafe, his camera and Emma had vanished.

He was changing film. “Are you too cold?”

“Define too cold.”

He shot her a quick grin and it nearly paralyzed her with its potency. “You look almost human when you do that,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Smile.”

He straightened away from the camera. “I smile a lot.”

“Not around me you don’t.”

“You mean not around you being Amber.”

“Ah.” She nodded, then jerked in surprise when an icy snowflake landed on her arm. “It’s…snowing.”

He tilted his head back, eyed the clouds, then smiled again. “Yeah. Amazing, isn’t it? We’re only a couple of hours from Los Angeles, and-”

“And it’s a different world.”

Again their eyes locked and this time it was her heart that jerked. What was it about him that did that to her? Another snowflake landed on her shoulder and nearly sizzled off her skin. “Rafe…What is it you’re looking for?”

“Peace. Quiet. Enough hours in the day to do whatever I want. Not to have to deal with Hollywood ever again.”

She smiled. “I meant right now. What is it you’re looking for right now, so that we can finish.”

“Oh.” He actually seemed a little embarrassed.

“It’s just that I thought you were in a hurry,” she said when he bent to his camera.

“I wanted to beat the weather. We’ve done that.” He peeked at her. “Are you tired?”

“All I’ve done is stand here.”

“Amber would be.”

“I’m sure.”

“Yeah? So why didn’t you act like Amber when you were imitating her?”

“I can do that now, if you’d like.”

He smiled again. “No, thanks. I’m almost done. I just wanted to try…Turn toward me so that you’re fully facing the camera. See what we get that way-Yeah. Now, hands to your side so you don’t cover the body or clothing. We’re getting a clothing allowance here-God forbid you cover it or they’ll cut my budget. Nice.”

She’d placed her back to the rock, laid her arms alongside her body and leaned her head back to see if she could catch any more snowflakes. His low, husky voice made her shiver.

“Perfect,” he said softly, and started taking more pictures, though he was quieter than he had been before.

Because he’d opened up without meaning to? Probably. And something deep within her wanted to put them on a level playing field. “Peace and quiet is my thing, too,” she said.

“Uh-huh. I imagine working for a soap opera that needs to put out an hour of production on a daily basis is real quiet.”

“Well…” She had to laugh. “I can pretend.”

“You love what you do?”

She watched the sky churn and burn. “I love what I do.”

“Press your shoulders to the rock. Bend a knee.”

As another flake hit her bared belly, she did as he asked. For the next few moments they were photographer and model, nothing more. Up until now, it had been like a fantasy. She had played at being Amber, played at being able to model, but now that cover was gone.

She wasn’t Amber, she was herself.

Just herself.

Just Emma.

Not sexy, not open and wild, not anything this man expected. But then, that was the thing about expectations…they could change.

She hoped.

At the touch of hands on her arms, she jumped.

“Just me.” Rafe had stopped taking pictures and had come close. “You’re cold,” he said, and when she shivered-not because she was cold, but because he spoke near her ear and it sent a wave of something hot and hungry down her spine-he glided his hands up and down her arms. “I have everything I need, let’s go.”

But he was still touching her. His hands were on her arms. His body had leaned in, so that she felt the hard rock at her back and his hard body at her side. He’d done it in a gesture meant to warm, but it was doing something else entirely.

“Rafe-”

“You’ve got goose bumps bigger than the snowflakes.” He pulled his sweater over his head, leaving him in a plain dark blue T-shirt, and offered the sweater to her. “Here.”

She stared at it. “This would make interesting pages. Hero offers sweater to the woman who’s not who she said she was.”

“Is work always on your mind?”

“Yes,” she said honestly, while he tugged his sweater over her head. The inside still held his body heat, his scent and she hugged her arms to herself to keep it close. The arms of the sweater went past the tips of her fingers and when he pulled the body of it down her torso, his fingers brushed her sides, her hips, her thighs where the bottom of the sweater hit.

Yes, work always had been on her mind.

Up until now, that is.

But she didn’t say that, didn’t feel like exposing herself to him any further. By the time he stepped back just a little, his hands still on her waist, her body tingled from head to toe and it had nothing, nothing at all, to do with the weather.

“Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

His fingers squeezed just a little, making her realize something else. He was touching her for the first time, not as her photographer, but as a man.

And yet she was smart enough to know this wasn’t reality. Reality was home with her laptop frantically trying to get her pages done. Reality was being yelled at by a shortsighted studio executive who wanted bland, stupid characters.

She had to admit, though, that the scenery out here was damn inspiring. She should reassess that whole home-office thing-

“What are you thinking?” he asked quietly.

“That if I had my laptop right this minute I could do my pages in a third of the time I usually take.”

He blinked, then slowly shook his head. Finally, he let out a little laugh and scratched his head. “You’re still thinking about work.”

“Aren’t you?”

He just looked at her for a moment, and her heart took yet another leap.

She wasn’t even sure the poor organ could take it. “Rafe-” She let out a laugh that sounded nervous even to her ears. “If you’re waiting for the kiss you told me Amber gave you every time you worked together-”

“I made that up.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to shake you up.”

Now her laugh sounded just plain shaky. “Well, you did that, all right. You shook me up so much I couldn’t think of anything else.”

“I didn’t think I would be sorry for telling you that lie, but I am.”

“I’m…not holding a grudge.”

“I’m glad-”

Then, in a move that shocked her, he invaded her space-he had quite a habit of doing that and, she had to admit, she liked it. He spread both hands wide on her back, pulled her close, stared down into her eyes and covered her mouth with his.

Hot, wet and deliciously deep for one beat, he pulled away all too quickly, then stepped back so that his hands fell away from her. “There. Now we’re even.”

“Right.” With little to no encouragement, she would have asked him for another. Hell, she might even have begged.