Jill Shalvis - Bared

“Meow.”

Ah, hell. He drifted over to the edge. “All right. Come on over here.”

The cat eyed the water and lifted her nose.

He waggled his fingers, and with a sigh that said she was clearly queen and simply humoring him, she came a little closer, just enough that he could reach up and scratch her beneath that raised chin.

Immediately her eyes closed and a rumble came from her chest. She purred all the time now, and slept on his feet at night so that he couldn’t even feel them when he woke up in the morning.

He’d always dreamed of a puppy, a big, sloppy one that would show him affection and blind devotion. “But somehow,” he murmured, “you work, too.”

As if tired of his pampering, she simply turned away, tail raised to the sky, paws practically pointed as she strutted off as if she could no longer be bothered.

What could he do but laugh?

“Great, you’ve gone to the loony bin already and you haven’t even officially stopped working yet.” Stone, who’d apparently let himself in, dove into the pool. Surfacing near Rafe, he sighed with pleasure. “Man, that felt good. I’m done in the darkroom with those last two shoots.”

Those last two were still a sore subject for Rafe. They hadn’t been with Emma, and when he’d realized he had Amber standing in front of him in a black negligee, he’d gone in one heartbeat from taut anticipation to a frustrated edginess.

Amber had been surprisingly helpful and relatively quiet as well, letting him do his thing in a timely fashion. She’d actually wanted to please them. “Them” being mostly Stone, but Rafe appreciated it, nonetheless.

He was afraid he was never going to see Emma again.

“Did they come out okay?” he asked Stone now.

“Just as good as the others. Impossible to tell we have used two entirely different models.”

He’d be able to tell. Why hadn’t Emma come? He could have seen her in that red negligee-somehow the red would have suited her better than the black Amber had picked.

“You could call her, you know,” Stone said, flopping over in the water to float on his back.

“Who?”

“Who?” He laughed. “Emma, who.”

“I don’t need to call her.”

“Why can’t you just admit you fell for her? So she isn’t Martha Stewart, big deal.”

“I’m not looking for Martha Stewart.” “Really? What are you looking for?” Stone rolled his eyes when Rafe didn’t-couldn’t-reply, and dove under the water to swim laps.

Leaving Rafe with only his own doubts for company.

THAT EVENING, Emma decided she’d had enough. She’d been working nonstop for days, running on caffeine and little sleep.

She sat in a meeting surrounded by suits, bleary-eyed, feeling as if she’d let her life pass her by.

She knew they’d be here all weekend, and for the first time in…well, ever, she had somewhere else she wanted to be.

A photo shoot in the Malibu hills. It wasn’t a sudden urge to be a model that drove her. In fact, after this fantasy calendar shoot was over, she intended to never be in front of camera again.

Nope, what drove her was the need to see this thing through with Rafe. She hadn’t expected her desire for him to increase with each passing day and she certainly hadn’t expected that desire to be more than physical.

But the physical want alone was going to kill her.

She needed him.

She wondered if he felt the same. She had to know. She put her hands on the table and rose.

Everyone looked at her in surprise.

“I’m out of here,” she said.

“What?” Several suits said this in unison, staring at her as if she’d grown wings.

Maybe she had.

“I think my eighty hours so far this week is sufficient.”

“But…” The executive producer blinked. “We’re not done.”

“I know, but I am.” Gently, because they all looked confused, and really, she would have felt the same way not too long ago, she stopped to explain. “I need a little break.”

“But we still have to get your pages for-”

“You’ll have them. I’ll e-mail them later tonight.”

“But you never need a break,” said a shocked producer.

“I know.” But she needed one now.

THE HILLS OF MALIBU were still warm and beautiful when Emma arrived for the shoot. She pulled into the driveway of the house that had been rented for its private beach, and thought maybe she should use this location for her show, too.

She wondered what Rafe would say when he saw her. Would his eyes light up, would he toss her that slow, sexy-as-hell grin that weakened her knees?

To her shock, this shoot was already under way. At the back of the house, wearing a sunshine-yellow one-piece swimsuit and lit by the stars, the moon and a few strategic spotlights, stood her sister, modeling on the deck. Emma couldn’t hear the words of the photographer, who kneeled with his back to her, but she didn’t have to. She remembered exactly how his low, raspy voice sounded, how arousing his softly uttered directions were, how the silky nuances made her want to give him whatever he asked for. She looked at the way his shirt stretched taut over broad, sleek muscles and wondered if he still bore the marks of her fingernails.

And then Amber tossed her head back at something he said, laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world.

“Tough to watch, isn’t it?”

In surprise, Emma turned and found Stone standing there, looking at her with a mixture of sympathy and mutual misery. “What?”

“I know what you’re going through. The unreasonable jealousy.”

Emma tried to laugh, but it stuck in her throat. “It’s so stupid.”

“I know.” Stone watched as Amber pulled and adjusted her costume until her breasts nearly popped out of the suit. Then she turned her back to the camera, revealing how high she’d pulled up the thong back, which allowed them to see…just about everything.

Stone’s jaw bunched and jumped. “Excuse me,” he said to Emma. “Hold it!” he called out to Rafe and Amber, both of whom turned in surprise. “The wind is getting too fierce. Let’s wrap.”

Rafe glanced around in bafflement. “What?”

“It’s windy, Rafe,” Stone said, and, striding forward, he grabbed a white fluffy robe from Jen’s hands and flung it around Amber’s shoulders. “Far too windy to work.”

He waved away Jen and another assistant, instead leading Amber himself. As he did, Emma heard Amber say, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What the hell is wrong with me?” Stone asked with a harsh laugh. “I’ll tell you what the hell is wrong with me. I just learned something about myself.”

“Yeah? What’s that-that you’re an ass?”

“No.” Stone’s jaw tensed further. “That I don’t like you showing off for everyone. I want you to only show it off for me.”

Amber stumbled and might have fallen if Stone hadn’t been holding her up. She stopped and stared at him. “What? What did you just say?”

Instead of answering, Stone hauled her up to her toes and kissed her-kissed her hard and deep, by the looks of it.

Emma winced for him, expecting Amber to step back and slap him, maybe even drop-kick him to the ground, but instead Amber clung to him for more.

When Stone pulled back, chest heaving, eyes dark, he said, “I hate what you do. I hate that you always take jobs that require so little clothing.”

Amber let out a surprised laugh and put her hand to her mouth. “My God. It’s more than sex. You really like me.”

Stone blew out a breath. “Yeah. Guess I do.”

“Well, guess what?”

Stone looked wary. “What?”

“I like you back. And guess what else?”

“I’m feeling a little weak, Amber. Maybe you could just tell me.”