Exposed to You

by BETH KERY

  Why had she felt so shaken by the sexual experience—so vulnerable?

  So what if it wasn’t a position she’d ever before explored? It was just sex, and Everett was just a man. That’s what she’d told herself repeatedly last night and this morning.

  She was still waiting to actually convince herself it was true.

  She suspected she knew what Cosmo would call the problem if a man were acting the way she was: intimacy issues. Joy would have called it healthy caution. Her life already existed on shifting sands. Falling for any guy at this point would be like adding an earthquake to her already shaky world. Falling for a man like Everett was like inviting a fiery, plunging meteor.

  She forced her sluggish brain to its task. Her class schedule was going to be completely screwed up. She was going to have to use tomorrow for the final project versus today. She’d planned a casual checkout day in the classroom tomorrow, and then she was going to take the kids to an exhibit at the Art Institute and out for pizza. They would be so disappointed.

  Frustration rose in her with every unanswered ring of her phone. Clearly, the young man she’d hired to model for the students’ final project was blowing her off.

  Chances were Everett would blow her off, too. Isn’t that what usually happened after an awkward sexual moment with a new partner? A sharp pain of disappointment stabbed through her.

  Surely it was all for the best.

  She hung up when she heard the man’s recorded greeting. Strike his name from the eligible list of male models, she thought as she hung up.

  “Joy!”

  For a split second, she thought it was the model she’d been trying to call. Relief swept through her. But that couldn’t be right, she thought as she peered down the dim, empty hallway. She was sure she’d never mentioned her first name to him.

  Once the man came closer, she immediately recognized his tall figure and confident gait. He passed beneath a window, and a ray of sunshine momentarily hit the blond hair beneath his hat.

  “Everett,” she said, thunderstruck when he approached her and stopped several feet away.

  “Hi. I’m glad I caught you. I saw Max Weisman over in the other wing. He sent me this way.”

  He carried a supple leather duffle bag on his shoulder. In addition to his plaid newsboy cap, he wore a pair of well-worn drainpipes, gray canvas tennis shoes and a slightly wrinkled ivory T-shirt featuring three ducks flying across it. It was an awful combination.

  Everett looked amazing in it.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, still stunned by his appearance in the familiar, mundane location of her workplace.

  “My agent booked me on The Shay Show tonight,” he said, referring to a popular late-night talk show. “The New York premiere of Maritime is tomorrow. I’m catching a plane in a few hours.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  He held her gaze for a second before he ducked his head. “I won’t take up your time. I know you’re busy. I couldn’t leave town without telling you that I’m sorry about last night,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t be,” she rushed to say. “I had a wonderful time with you.”

  He glanced up. “You did?”

  She nodded.

  He let out a little puff of air and smiled. Her heart hitched.

  “I thought maybe you thought I was a freak or something,” he said under his breath.

  “No. Not at all. I’m sorry if I didn’t handle things well . . . That is . . .” Awkwardness swamped her, but she forced herself to meet his stare. “I’m just sorry.”

  “I hope not. I thought it was amazing.”

  Her cheeks blazed hot. A loud female hoot of laughter emanated from her classroom. She glanced back anxiously.

  “I should probably go back in or they’ll be hanging from the rafters soon.”

  He nodded. “I understand. I’m glad I caught you, even if was just for a few seconds.”

  Her bewilderment mounted. Was he here to say good-bye to a particularly pleasant but irrelevant fling before he left the city like a brilliant sunset?

  “I’m glad you did, too,” she said, searching his face and finding no answers to the dozens of questions buzzing like furious bees in her brain.

  He nodded toward her classroom door. “What were you doing out here, anyway?”

  Joy blinked. What had she been doing in the hallway? She stared blankly at her cell phone and got her clue.

  “Oh. The male model I hired for the class’s final drawing project blew me off. I’m going to have to try to find someone else for tomorrow. The Art Institute and pizza field trip I planned for the last day will have to be canceled.”

  He glanced toward the door, straining to see through the small rectangular window.

  “You don’t use nude models, do you?”

  She smiled. “No. I’m afraid the school board won’t allow it. We’re just focusing on the torso and face.”

  “I’ll do it for you, then, if it doesn’t take much more than an hour. I left early for the airport.”

  Joy gave a soft bark of incredulous laughter. He’d sounded so matter-of-fact, like it was the simplest thing in the world for him to drop everything in his schedule and pose for a bunch of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old high school art students.

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  “I don’t have the build you’re looking for or something?”

  “No, of course not,” she said. His expression was impassive, but she sensed he was entirely serious. “I wanted someone who is lean and has good muscle definition. We’ve been focusing on accurate human anatomy. You’d be perfect, but surely—”

  “I’d be happy to do it, if you think it’d be okay with my time limit.”

  She laughed again. He really was priceless. “Everett, it’s a class full of teenage girls, save one. If you walked in that room, I’d probably have to reschedule their final project anyway, because they’d all faint from shock.”

  “They’d get over it. I get old pretty quick. Besides, artists are practical types.”

  She saw the tilt of his mouth and shook her head. “You clearly don’t know that many artists. Especially of the teenage variety,” she murmured, reaching for the door. “Are you really serious?”

  “Yeah.”

  She inhaled deeply, trying to ground herself. “Okay, but I can’t guarantee you’ll come out unscathed.”

  “I like an adventure,” she heard him say softly from behind her, his deep voice sounding just inches away from her right ear.

  This was lunacy. All of it.

  She led him into her classroom, her heartbeat starting to pound furiously in her ears. For a few seconds, the kids continued their typical self-involved teenage chatter. The first pair of eyes that moved, widened and stuck acted like a catalyst for the other nine.

  “Okay. Move over to your sketch pads. Our model is here.”

  She could have heard a toothpick drop at the back of the room in the silence that followed. Joy clapped.

  “Come on, you guys. If you don’t move, we’re going to have to cancel the field trip tomorrow and do your project then. Now,” she added loudly when Everett continued to be the object of stunned, pale-faced incredulity. A few of them started to stand hesitantly, then the rest of them seemed to come out of their trances.

  “Lacey, put that cell phone away, please. I’ve asked you to leave them in your backpack during class a dozen times,” Joy said in a beleaguered tone as she set a high chair with a cushioned back before the students’ drawing pads and easels.

  “But . . . but, Miss Hightower . . . that’s . . . isn’t that . . .” Lacey trailed off, at a loss.

  “It’s Everett Hughes, yes,” Joy said calmly. Everett gave the kids a friendly wave. “I don’t want a lot of silliness. We’re very lucky that he’s volunteered to do this for us, but he only has so much time. If you guys waste too much of it gawking and trying to text your friends, you’re going to flunk your final project. Not to mention miss the chance
to own a personal sketch of Mr. Hughes,” Joy added sharply when her previous threat had no effect whatsoever.

  All ten of them sprang up like she’d set their seats on fire. “But . . . what’s Everett Hughes . . . I mean”—Chad transferred his attention from Joy to Everett—“what are you doing here, dude?” Chad asked dubiously. The tension broke. The girls laughed nervously, and Everett smiled.

  “He was here for his premiere of Maritime yesterday,” Joy said innocuously as she moved the chair a little to get better light.

  “I’m a friend of Miss Hightower’s,” Everett said. “I stopped by to see her just now, and she said the model she’d hired didn’t show. I offered to fill in.”

  “Wow,” Meg Brown said succinctly, staring from Everett to Joy and back to Everett again.

  Everett approached Joy and the chair, his eyebrows raised in silent query. Joy silently mimed removing his cap and then pointed to his T-shirt.

  She couldn’t believe she was doing this.

  She turned toward the clock on the wall, pretending to check it, not wanting Everett or the students to see her blush. Even her young art students were used to seeing partial nudity in the classroom. Learning to draw the human form was a crucial skill. She couldn’t believe she was acting so ridiculous. She pretended to be searching for something on her desk, but glanced around when Chancy Orbus made a sound that sounded like grrrgh.

  Everett had removed his shirt and sat in the chair. Chancy—with all her piercings and tattoos and nothing-can-touch-me teenage armor—was looking completely flattened.

  “Can’t we at least get a picture, Miss Hightower?” Shelby Ryan begged.

  “Oh, please,” Lacey whined.

  Joy sighed. “This project is forty percent of your final grade. I suggest you try to focus. You have . . .” She glanced at Everett in query and wished she hadn’t. His lean, golden six-pack obliques and negligent, somehow graceful pose were really something to see. “One hour?” she asked him, keeping her voice neutral.

  “Works for me,” Everett said.

  “Can’t he at least wear his hat, Miss Hightower? He’s famous for his hats,” one student said.

  “And couldn’t we at least have one picture?” Chancy persisted, entreating Everett directly.

  He shrugged, smiling. “It’s up to the boss,” he said, glancing at Joy.

  The kids looked to her hopefully. “Hair is a big part of your final project, so the hat stays off. As for a picture, there isn’t going to be any time for one if you don’t get to work. If there should be a minute at the end, you’ll have to get Everett’s permission.”

  “Fine by me,” Everett replied pleasantly when ten pairs of eyes zoomed over to him. She normally would have arranged the model in the position she wanted in order to highlight certain muscle groups for her students to sharpen their skills, but she couldn’t bring herself to instruct, let alone touch, Everett in front of all the rapt teenagers. Besides, she rather liked his pose.

  “Begin now,” she said. “You have until twelve o’clock. Just get done what you can with the time you have.”

  She had to hand it to her students: They went to work with a concentration she’d never before witnessed in them. Joy picked up her grade book and the half-empty coffee she’d picked up at Harry’s that morning and walked to the back of the classroom, sitting in a desk where she could observe the students draw.

  She could also observe Everett, and that made focusing difficult. Every once in a while, she’d feel his gaze on her like a tickle on her cheek. She’d glance up and see just the hint of a smile on his lips. It was more than likely some combination of her overactive imagination and libido when it came to him, but even at this distance, his eyes appeared warm . . . seductive. His nipples looked very erect. He must be getting chilly due to the air-conditioning. Why, then, did she feel so hot all of a sudden?

  Joy shifted uncomfortably in the student desk and forced herself to concentrate on the task of entering the grades from a quiz last week in her book. After several minutes, she told the students to work on any corrections they might have while Everett took a break. Chad was the only one who worked during the next minute, however. Most of the girls were too busy gaping and drooling as they watched Everett stand up and flex and stretch his pectoral and arm muscles while he paced.

  He was back in his chair almost immediately. The models she’d worked with in the past could take lessons from him.

  Light seemed to love him, she thought as she distractedly moved her pen. It didn’t seem to bounce off him like it did other people’s skin. Instead, it seemed to mingle with his radiance. Fascinating. Could she ever catch that effect with her paints? Was it even conceivable to evoke that subtle, knowing expression in his eyes?

  She blinked and stared down at the napkin that had been beneath her coffee cup. She hadn’t been entirely conscious that she’d been sketching him. A flash of sad compassion went through her for her students. She’d given them an impossible task, trying to capture the essence of Everett.

  She glanced at the clock.

  “Please set down your pencils,” Joy said, gathering her things and standing.

  A few groans went up.

  “I know, I know,” she said, understanding completely the young artists’ discontent with not being able to finish their task. “I’ll be keeping the time constraint in mind when I grade your projects. I’m not expecting perfection,” she soothed, walking among the students and easels. “You’re free to get your things and go. I’ll gather your sketches.”

  “But what about the pictures of Everett?” Shelby asked, her voice vibrating with excitement. Several of the students seconded this as they stood.

  She gave Everett a pitying, amused glance. He’d just pulled his T-shirt over his head. His arms were raised, pulling his abdomen muscles especially taut. He grin seemed to say, Don’t worry—it’s no big deal. His easygoing grace amazed her.

  “I’ve got a minute or two,” he said, whipping his arms through his sleeves.

  “Get your phones, then,” Joy told the students reluctantly. They moved so rapidly to their desks and backpacks, it was like a teenage tidal wave.

  “Do you mind if we post the photos on Facebook?” Chancy asked Everett several minutes later. He’d patiently posed while they all had taken pictures with him. The students were standing in a ring around him now, their faces radiant at the idea of bantering so casually with Everett Hughes.

  “Okay by me. But thanks for asking, Chancy,” Everett replied, giving her a nod of respect. Chancy glowed with pride that she’d asked the responsible question and been given permission aboveboard to post Everett’s picture publicly.

  “Okay, time to go,” Joy shooed, knowing the students would hang around Everett for as long as they were allowed to. “Don’t forget to come a half hour early tomorrow for our field trip, and don’t bring any large backpacks or purses if you don’t want to check anything at the museum,” she called loudly to their retreating backs. The door shut behind the final student a few seconds later. Joy turned to Everett and smiled.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much. They’ll remember that for the rest of their lives.”

  “No problem. They’re nice kids. They respect you a lot,” he said, walking toward her desk to pick up his leather duffle.

  She shrugged. “That’s one of the nice things about teaching advanced students. They all plan to make art their careers. It’s easier for teachers and students when they have that commonality.”

  He slung his bag on his shoulder and faced her. “Maybe, but they respect you as a person, too. I could tell.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “I should be going.”

  Her heart seemed to stagger. With all the excitement and distraction of his staying to pose for her class, she’d completely forgotten he was leaving town . . . and that she might never see him again. She was at a loss as to what to say.

  “I was going to call you about this, but I was wondering if you’d consider taking a little trip
with me.”

  “What?” she asked stupidly.

  “You mentioned that summer school is almost over, and I assume you have some time before the new semester starts?”

  She nodded.

  “Good, because Rill has asked your uncle Seth to visit Katie and him in Vulture’s Canyon. Seth has definitely agreed to do makeup. He must have had a good night coming up with proof he’s the guy for the job.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad,” Joy said, pride for her uncle flooding her. “This is going to be a terrific experience for him, working with Rill.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, Rill wants to exchange some ideas for costume and makeup for Razor Pass. His costume designer is flying in on Sunday morning in order to meet with Seth. He wants me there, too, and Katie has invited you as well for a long weekend. It’s Labor Day. When do you start school again?”

  “Not until the week after Labor Day,” Joy said. “We go on a quarter system here, so the kids have a bit of a break before the fall quarter begins.”

  “So this would work out great. Katie and Rill have built a little guesthouse on their grounds. It’s nice—right in the middle of the Shawnee National Forest. Very relaxing. I thought it’d be a nice getaway for a couple days . . .” He faded off, and Joy realized he was studying her narrowly. “What do you think?” he asked.

  A puff of air flew past her lips. She laughed raggedly. “I thought maybe I was never going to see you again after today,” she said honestly.

  “Why would you think that?”

  She shook her head, avoiding his stare. “I don’t know. This feels like unfamiliar territory to me, Everett.” A strained silence ensued. She saw him shift on his feet.

  “Unfamiliar territory? In what way?” he asked.

  “I don’t really know what . . . a person like you expects. I don’t know what to expect,” she admitted quietly.

  “There is no ‘person like me.’ There’s only me. And you.”

  His words throbbed in her ears. He could have said nothing truer. There was no one like him. He defied stereotypes. He was the most unique person she’d ever met. She noticed his eyebrows quirk up in a silent query.