by Cari Quinn
Margo snorted. “Wait. Roman, as in the designer Roman?”
Ellie nodded. “Yeah. He’s my boss and the bane of my existence.”
“I know that feeling all too well.”
She flashed her a smile and dimples dug into her rounded cheeks. “Jase is just finishing up the chair and—oh, there they are. Simon agreed to do the shoot for us.”
Roman slogged through the water with his two cameras, belting out instructions.
“He did?” Margo peered around Ellie and saw Simon climb into a chair that could be in the great room of The Game of Thrones. He was in a pair of black leather pants that had been made for his long, strong legs. Sand and salt water marks were crawling up the bottoms of the pants and black motorcycle boots were completely ruined.
She had a feeling they were ruined on purpose. They looked like they’d been on a ten-year motorcycle trip and now were waterlogged and just as sandy as the leathers. He had one boot hooked on the bottom rung of the chair and the other leg flung over the arm.
All of it was hot as hell.
The part she wasn’t overly thrilled about was the elegantly slim woman that looked like she’d walked off the pages of a Barbados magazine. Tight curls were shorn up the back of her head and a few red spirals slid over the front of one eye. She was perched between Simon’s legs with her hands on his naked chest and her lips at his neck.
“Um,” Ellie held up a finger, “that’s staged.”
“I’m sure.”
Ellie winced and rushed over. Roman was crouched in front of Simon and the woman with his camera going a mile a minute. A pair of lanky guys in their early twenties were splashing through the water to change the angle of the white shields.
Simon lifted his chin and did this effortless smoldering thing and she had to cross her arms over her chest. Wow.
“Yeah, wow” a woman said from beside her.
She must have said that aloud. Margo looked at the woman. She was one of the girls who had been on the dock.
“I can’t believe he was just on the beach. I mean, Simon Kagan. Just wow.”
Used to the adulation that Simon got when they’d been on the road, she didn’t respond to the girl. She wasn’t going to lust over her boyfriend with some strange girl who may or may not be over eighteen.
“Did you hear about what happened? He’s so brave to be out here after his surgery.”
“Yeah, really brave.”
The girl turned huge made-up blue eyes on her. “You don’t think it’s amazing?” She blinked at her. “Oh, you’re…” She snapped her fingers. “I can’t remember your name. Violin something. I saw you guys in New York. You’re so fucking hot together.”
Margo’s eyebrow shot up. Someone actually recognized her? She cleared her throat. “Yeah, he likes to call me Violin Girl.” She held out her hand. “I’m Margo.”
The girl shook her hand. She looked eerily like Taylor Swift. “I’m Naomi. It’s my first shoot with Roman.”
Margo glanced at her outfit. It was a white leather bikini and she had turquoise and red watercolors painted across her mile-long torso and equally long legs in swirling flames. Roman’s signature flames to be exact.
“Do you like him?”
Naomi shrugged. “He’s bossy, and he only made one person cry.”
Margo’s eyes widened. “Cry?”
“Yeah, the little rockstar wannabe, Eddie. I’ve never seen a guy cry like that.”
Margo pressed her lips together to hold in a laugh. He’d be eaten alive if he cried in front of the rest of the band. “Yeah, there’s no crying in a band.”
“I know, right? He’s never going to make it as a model. Roman didn’t even say anything that bad. Just that he had to stand like a man, not a slouchy boy band reject.” Naomi moved closer and held up her hand to cover her mouth from everyone. “I think he used to be in a boy band, to be honest,” she said in what was supposed to be a whisper.
Margo wasn’t sure how to tell her that she needed to learn how to whisper. She just nodded back to the girl sagely.
Roman snapped his fingers. “Nancy, Na-something. Get over here!”
“Oh, that’s me. Nice to meet you!” she called over her shoulder and sprinted toward Simon.
The elegant Amazonian climbed off Simon and gave him a kiss on the cheek before sliding her fingers down his chest. Margo frowned and her shoulders tightened. Naomi climbed into the chair with a giggle and Simon smiled at the girl as she twisted into the pose that Roman wanted.
She was kneeling between Simon’s open legs and her fingers were in his hair.
Margo backed up a few steps. Yeah, she wasn’t sure she could watch this. Especially when Simon continued to use his fuck the camera face.
“Get Na-girl-whatever-her-name-is some sunscreen, she’s starting to go pink. Take twenty, everyone.”
Naomi slid off the chair and Simon sat up, pulling his leg down to sit in the chair right. He leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs as the girl spoke. Naomi looked over her shoulder and waved and Simon jumped off the chair.
He smiled and waved at her.
Margo tried really hard to smile back. Okay, maybe not that hard.
His smile faded as he got closer to her and his eyebrows lowered. “What’s wrong?” he mouthed.
“Nothing. I just didn’t know this was happening on my beach.”
He looked over his shoulder and then down at his outfit. He pulled out a long paintbrush from his back pocket and scribbled: I couldn’t turn him down in the sand.
She crossed her arms and fisted her hands under her arms. “No?”
He shook his head and scrawled: I need the work.
“And you just randomly got a job while walking down the beach?”
He nodded.
“How?”
He huffed out a frustrated breath and tried to clear off a patch of sand.
She sighed and pulled out her phone and opened the notebook app before handing it to him. “This would be easier if you carried your phone.”
His mouth thinned. His thumbs flashed over the bottom of the screen and then he shoved the phone at her.
What? For the nonexistent signal we have on the beach? Or when it gets wet? Really, VG, for what reason would I have had it?
She tipped her head back and smothered a sigh. She sounded like a bitch.
She handed him back the phone. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I come down on the beach and there’s girls—” She cut herself off.
No. No, she was not going to sound like a jealous girlfriend.
His forehead smoothed and he typed furiously. He turned the phone around and she read.
It doesn’t mean anything. They’re just doing their job. Same as me.
“I know it doesn’t mean anything, but…” Fuck. Nothing was going to sound good. She looked at his neck where three different shades of lipstick were smudged. She swiped her thumb over his scruff and showed him the bright coral smear.
He swung his arm around her neck and hauled her in against him. He pressed his face into her neck before tugging on her ear lightly.
She put her hands up to fend him off but his firm chest was there and his nipple rings buzzed across her thumbs. She sighed and relaxed against him. “I’m sorry,” she said against his hair. It was crunchy from salt water and sand and whatever product they’d put in it, but the underlying scent of ocean and mint was all Simon. “I’ve never been attacked by…what does Jazz call it? The green-eyed monster?”
He pulled back and cupped her face. “None of them are you,” he mouthed very slowly.
“No, I’m tall, but I’m not Amazonian tall.”
He grinned at her and stuck his hands into her back pockets and squeezed.
“Jerk.”
His grin slid into a wide smile.
“The leather pants are hot. I guess.”
One raven brow rose.
“Okay, yeah, they’re just plain hot.”
He looked over his shoulder a
nd then turned back to her, pushing her into the trees where the path was.
“Oh no, you don’t.”
He slid around the back of a tree and caught her lips in a scorching kiss. He pressed his lower body against her and she moaned into the kiss. His leather pants came with an anaconda evidently. He dragged her hand down to the front of his pants.
Did he want her? Or did he just want her because girls had been crawling all over him so he was horny?
Dammit, she hated that thought, but it wouldn’t go away.
Had he been hard when he came up the beach to see her? Or was it because she’d gotten all stupid jealous and he got off on it?
The questions hammered in her head. And they must have been damn loud, because he looked down at her, his chest heaving from their ardent kissing. He mouthed, “what?”
She shook her head and lifted onto her toes so their mouths connected. He took that as a go sign and slid under the poet’s blouse she wore. He hummed against her neck when he felt the chain she’d been wearing since she’d bought it. Simon seemed to like it just as much as she did.
It made her feel sexy.
Right now, she felt anything but sexy…even with his hard cock rubbing against her center. She sucked in a breath as he pushed her bikini top aside and plucked at her nipple. All right, maybe not all the way unsexy. She sucked back a moan as he tugged harder, just the way she liked it.
But all she could hear were people talking and then Roman shouting for Simon.
“Simon. He’s calling you.”
He pulled back from her neck far enough for her to see his lips. “Don’t care,” he mouthed. He untied the strings at the front of her shirt and tugged it down enough that he could get his lips on her nipple.
“Holy fuck,” she said on a choked whisper. “You gotta stop.”
He looked up at her, his bright blue eyes even more intense with the black eyeliner they’d smudged along his lashline. Stage Simon stared back at her and her body burned for him. How many nights had he come at her just like this? Fresh from a show, his body primed from the stage and the adrenaline that came with it.
But there were people everywhere. Not even twenty feet away from them and…her brain fritzed out as his fingers sneaked under her cutoffs. Her fingers dug into his shoulder as he shot her up and over with a twist of fingers. Her thighs shook and she had to hold onto the tree as the black dots dissipated. She pressed her face into his neck and his name came out on a guttural groan.
He hissed out a breath against her mouth and sealed in another groan with his kiss.
“We need you in five, Simon.”
She panted out another breath and shrugged her shirt up. He stole away under her shirt and palmed her breasts. “Simon.”
He squinted at her. “Helping,” he mouthed.
“Yeah. Helping.” She moaned as aftershocks from the quick and dirty orgasm quaked through her. “Unfair.”
He pulled her hand over the bulge in his pants. “Unfair,” he said silently.
She squeezed. “You started it. A little easier for me to hide, or in this instance, recover.”
He pushed himself into her hand. She looked over her shoulder. So many people everywhere. She dipped her fingers into his leathers and felt his smooth, hot shaft. “If there weren’t so many people everywhere, I could just kneel down and take you into my mouth. Swallow you down until you filled my throat.”
His breathing got heavier.
She circled her thumb around the head of his cock, paying extra attention to the sensitive tissue along the ridge. “But, you know…you have a job to do.” She drew her hand away and pushed him back a moment before Ellie stomped up the grass.
“We’re losing the light and the tide’s stealing half the beach.”
Simon took her phone out of her front pocket and typed quickly. He handed it to her and shifted his hips before following Ellie back down the beach. Margo looked down at her phone.
Payback will be endless.
She laughed and followed him back down into the crowd of people.
Eighteen
Simon grabbed the paintbrush out of the sand where he’d left it and scrawled: sorry on the beach before he waded his way to the chair. The surf had indeed come in, but the effect was pretty cool. It made the chair look even more like it had come from a wreckage.
They were slightly deeper in the water now so the rush of cooler water helped to diffuse the situation he was having in his leathers. Christ, the woman was going to drive him right back to the bottle. He shifted as far back into the chair as he could get and hoped one of the models wouldn’t be offended by the boner he was sporting. Even the cooler water wasn’t going to help it.
Roman was actually sitting in water up to his hips. The guy was fucking insane. He’d crawled all over the beach for shots, changing out four different cameras. For fuck’s sake, he even brought out an old camera that actually had film.
When he came up to the front of the chair, his wide angle went right up the middle of Simon. No hiding anything with that shot, but Roman seemed happy. Who the fuck cared if he had a real live trouser snake in this situation?
At least he could say it wasn’t a sock stuffed in his goddamn leathers.
The shoot went on another eternal hour. By then the sunset was well on its way with the added bonus of angry clouds. Roman decided he needed a few of those shots, so Simon and the female models ended up on the dock for a few atmospheric shots.
As the team dispersed, Simon stayed on the dock and looked out along the horizon line. He and Margo had plenty of sunsets under their belt, but the sense of accomplishment had been something he’d missed for a while now.
He’d actually earned a paycheck.
When Roman offered to double his usual model booking fee, Simon had swallowed a whole lot of reservations. Especially when he found out what caliber of model Roman was hiring. Maybe, just maybe…he’d be able to pay off all the debt for the Oblivion tab from his fuckups. One photoshoot wouldn’t do it, of course, but if his mug could sell shit…at least it would be useful.
Slim, cool fingers slipped around his waist and a familiar cheek pressed into his back. He smiled over his shoulder and drew her around to his front.
“We’re going to get a helluva storm tonight, but man it sure makes the sky look pretty.”
He nodded and pressed his lips to her forehead then to her mouth in a soft kiss.
“Roman wants to talk to you before he packs up. They have a redeye out tonight.”
He linked their fingers and returned to the end of the dock. He hopped down and lifted her down, past the water. He’d be happy to get out of the soggy leather. It was chafing in places he didn’t want to think about.
Roman met them halfway down the beach with an iPad in hand. “If I’d known you were so goddamn photogenic, I would have hit you up for pictures before today, fucker.”
Simon grinned.
“No, seriously.” He handed over the tablet. “And these aren’t even touched up in Photoshop. Fuck, I’ll barely need to touch them.”
Simon swiped through the pictures. They were definitely artsy and skewed to the modeling and fashion world, but they were pretty damn awesome.
“You have quite the eye, Roman. I thought you were just a designer.”
Roman shrugged. “I get bored and pick up skills. I spent the summer interning with a few fashion photographers after college. Shitty work, but I learned a lot.”
“Well, they’re gorgeous,” Margo said.
Simon pointed to Margo and did a thumbs up that he hoped translated to ditto.
“I’m not used to this whole silence thing. Usually you’ve said four rude things by now, man.”
Simon sighed.
“Believe us when I say, Simon not talking is weird all around.” Margo smiled. “Lots of texting and creative writing on all sorts of surfaces.”
Roman grinned. “I bet.”
Simon flipped the pictures out for the notes app. He typed: My ca
nvas, not yours.
Roman took the iPad back and laughed when he read it. “Well, you’ve got work if you want it. In fact, if I show some of these to my backers, I bet we could run a fairly extensive campaign. Would you be interested?”
Simon looked down at the sand. His future wasn’t supposed to include posing in front of a camera.
“Look, get yourself an agent and send me the details. If I can get the money scraped together, then we’ll talk.”
Simon met his gaze and nodded. He mouthed, “sounds good,” and held his hand out to Roman.
Roman’s grip was firm. “I’m serious. You’ve always had the look I was going for with my clothes. And seeing these pictures, I have a shit-ton of ideas for new stuff.”
Simon looked to Margo. She seemed to understand more than he could type.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff coming up with the vocal doctors, but definitely keep him in mind.”
Simon didn’t want to just be a pretty face. He wanted the music to go with it. He didn’t mind using his looks to get what he wanted and it definitely greased the wheel when it came to selling records.
People still wanted attractive people to match the sound.
But while he held his ass for the six months to get better, this was a viable option.
Simon held his hand out for the iPad and Roman passed it back. He typed: I have six months of healing time. If you can get the campaign set up, I’m in. He handed it back.
Roman read it and nodded. “I’ll make it happen.”
Simon made a gimme gesture for the iPad and held up a finger. He typed: I want that chair. And handed it back.
Roman laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Simon waggled his eyebrows.
Margo gave Roman a questioning look.
“He wants the throne.”
Margo snorted. “Of course he does.”
Simon shrugged and slid an arm around her neck. “I am the king,” he mouthed.
“Oh, now it’s getting deep in here.”
“Thanks for helping me today, Simon. You saved my shoot. I spent way too much getting us out here. That model was beyond useless.”
