by Jill Shalvis
EMMA WILLIS STOOD NAKED, surrounded by a few flimsy sheets and bamboo poles, somewhere on the northern tip of Kauai, all courtesy of her sister Amber.
It was unbelievable that she, a known anal-retentive workaholic, had landed herself in this position. But she had and she’d have to deal with it.
Just as she’d dealt with every other Amber emergency over the years. And there’d been far too many to count.
Emma looked at the little triangular patch of white silk in her fingers that made up the bottoms of the costume. Just put the thing on, she told herself. But how did it go on? There was no way this would come anywhere close to covering her. Hoping against hope, she shook it out and held it up, but nothing changed.
It wasn’t meant to cover her.
She could see now that the thin strap of silk was actually a thong.
A thong.
She was sure Amber Willis, actress, model and all-around hell-raiser, would love wearing such a contraption, but Emma Willis, lowly soap-opera scribe and all-around pansy, hated thongs.
Amber was going to owe her big.
She had to laugh at that. Amber always owed her big, and hadn’t paid up once. What did that say about her, Emma wondered wildly, that she just kept saving her sister, no matter what? Far too much to contemplate at the moment, she decided, and reached for the top.
Which turned out to be even worse than the bottom.
She’d had high hopes for the filmy material because there was a lot of it, but when she placed it against her skin, she might as well have been as naked as a newborn. She supposed that was the idea of the thing. Virginal sacrifice was the theme of this shoot and she was about to look the part.
She certainly felt it. The rain drummed the sheet around her, soaking through so that water ran down the sides of the changing area. Still, the air felt refreshingly cool, not cold, and in an odd contrast, the ground beneath her bare feet was warm.
Amber had called her two days ago from some island in the Caribbean, where she’d been lounging for a few days with her latest boy toy. “This guy can give me an orgasm from the next room,” she’d exhaled dreamily over the thousands of miles to Emma. “I think he’s The One.”
Right. The One.
There was no The One and after years of watching Amber make a fool out of herself over and over again, Emma just wished Amber would realize it as well and stop falling in love at the drop of a hat.
Or a nicely filled-out pair of Levi’s.
But before Emma could sing that old refrain and remind her sister how many times “love” had turned out to be sheer lust, the kind that always faded, Amber had begged Emma to take on this job, the one that Amber had already signed to do and had been paid for, because this calendar was going to “launch her as nothing else had.”
There had been many such declarations over the years from Amber, but Emma still had such high hopes for her sister, who despite all her wildness was still her sister.
Who couldn’t handle responsibility to save her life.
But Emma could, even if she couldn’t see how parading half nude in filmy white material would boost Amber’s acting career, when not even a bunch of real acting jobs had done that.
But love and stupidity kept Emma wishing. And hoping.
And helping.
Besides, maybe this job would be the one to launch Amber’s career, maybe this guy would finally be The One. Who was Emma to decide they weren’t?
And, anyway, how was this any skin off her nose? She was in Kauai, a place she’d seen only in pictures, getting drenched by the daily rain she’d wanted to see so badly. In Los Angeles, she could only dream about daily rain. And for once, she wasn’t holed up in her small office, fingers cramped from all the pages she’d produced for the soap opera she wrote for.
How many times had she promised herself she’d do something fun for herself? This could be that fun. Yes, she was worried about missing two days away from her script, but they were weekend days and, theoretically, her own.
“Theoretically” because the soap opera and the studio who owned it had taken complete advantage of her over the years, and she’d let them. She worked directly beneath the head writer—a coup for any twenty-six-year-old—but the head writer was a tyrant who worked her people to the bone.
And still Emma did it, week in and week out.
Well, it was time for a little break. Hard as it was to believe, she really was going to put this itty-bitty costume on, and use her beauty instead of her brain. Just because the design was everything she wasn’t, and just because being in front of a camera made her nervous, and just because she was shaking in her bare feet, didn’t mean a thing.
In the name of Amber, in the name of having some of her own “fun,” she’d do this.
“Let’s go,” came the forceful, impatient voice from the other side of the sheet.
At the sound of him, her heart leaped into her throat. She didn’t have to see him to remember how potent he’d been upon first sight. He was everything Amber had said he was—tall, imposing, with a set of dark, dark eyes that she had a feeling saw just about everything. Though he’d looked unhappy to see Amber, Emma supposed she couldn’t hold that against him. She knew exactly how difficult Amber could be, and imagined he had braced himself for a nightmare shoot.
He wouldn’t take lightly to being fooled—if he found out. Telling him now was out of the question. Her sister had been clear on that. If Rafe knew Amber had bailed, he’d bail, too, and then the calendar would be cancelled and she’d be back to square one.
This job was a coup and she needed it.
Emma had agreed, so she stepped into the thong. She tried to adjust it, but there was no adjusting to be made. The thing was going to ride up her butt no matter what—and it did—and yet…not so bad.
Laughing at herself now, she held up the “top.” Looking at it, thinking about how it would look on her, made her feel—this was such an embarrassing admission, even to herself—sexy.
Bring on the fun, she thought. She was on an island far from home with no one she ever planned on seeing again. She might as well enjoy it.
“Come on, damn it,” Rafe growled from the other side of the curtain, apparently out of patience. The sheets ripped apart, leaving her staring one irritated, wet photographer in the face. All six feet two inches of him. His hair was slicked back from his forehead, his lean jaw tense as more than a few drops of water ran off his cheeks and down his throat. His plain dark blue T-shirt stuck to him like a second skin and was tucked into a pair of faded Levi’s, both of which exhibited a body in its prime.
The costume was definitely getting to her if she was thinking about him that way. She hurriedly wrapped the filmy material around her torso and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not ready.” Not sure if she ever would be, now that the moment was at hand.
“But I am.”
Clearly Amber had managed to annoy him in the not-too-distant past. Emma would have to deal with that, and the fact he was startlingly handsome, so much so that he could be in front of the camera.
Except, she couldn’t imagine him looking virginal.
“Not that you care, but I need the light that we’re losing with each passing second.” Without so much as a glance at her body—so much for the ego she hadn’t even realized she had—he took her wrist and tugged her out of the protective covering of the sheets.
He walked quickly and smoothly on the rough path, forcing her to jog to keep up with him. She ran alongside while simultaneously trying to keep the material around her and her thong in place. By the time he got her to the set, she was huffing and puffing.
She really had to find the time to exercise more thoroughly than the occasional yoga tape. But she knew she wouldn’t. If she wasn’t writing, she was sleeping and if she wasn’t sleeping, she was plotting.
Work ran her life.
Work was her life.
So how she’d ended up in paradise half-naked still boggled the mind, but here she
was, determined to save Amber and have fun for once, with Rafe and his assistant staring at her, waiting for her to pull some model magic out of a hat she’d never worn before.
The rain still fell, big heavy drops sparse enough that they felt nice and cool landing on her hot, steaming skin. If she could have, she would have loved to take a long walk in it, alone, soaking it all in, getting drenched, cooling off—
The other man came forward as Rafe went to his camera. What had Amber told her the tall, gorgeous blonde’s name was? Stone. Stone didn’t like Amber, but her sister hadn’t cared and said Emma shouldn’t care, either. Now Emma wondered at that, sensing a long story behind the casually made statement, and wished she’d found out the reason for the animosity.
Stone’s light blue eyes were cool but kinder than Rafe’s as he pointed to the hammock. “There. Give us some good stuff quickly and we can all get out of here.”
Good stuff. Right. No problem. Her skin was damp, and her hair…God knows how bad it had gotten. A woman came close and introduced herself as Jen, the makeup and hair artist.
“I’ll just—” She started to play with Emma’s hair, but lowered her hands when Rafe called out to her.
“She’s perfect,” he said, holding three film canisters. “The skin’s got a fabulous glow and the hair is good. Leave it.”
Odd how just those words, spoken so impersonally and not even directly to her, caused a flutter in Emma’s belly.
He thought she was perfect.
Before today, it had never occurred to her to go into modeling. You’re too smart to waste your life that way, her mother had drilled into her at a young age.
And agreeing, Emma had always been the studious one. But there was something to be said for being told she was perfect by a stranger. She wondered what her mother would think of that, as she’d never imagined her daughters perfect at all.
Emma got onto the hammock—no easy feat in itself—and pulled the material tighter around her, keeping her arms crossed over her breasts.
Stone reached toward her and Emma tried not to wince. He was going to arrange her, touch her—and this would be the hardest part. Amber loved to be touched, craved it like everyone else craved air.
Emma, however, didn’t. She closed her eyes. Tried to breathe.
“Stone, where’s the white umbrella?” Rafe called out from behind the camera.
“The white…” Stone looked at the blue one they’d used earlier and swore. “In my room.” He looked over the setting, the rain misting down on their model, the lighting, and sighed in agreement. “Yeah. I need to go get it, it’s just what you need.” He started jogging up the path Emma had just been tugged down by Rafe.
Emma turned back to the camera, but suddenly Rafe was standing right in front of her—tall, big and wet. As a few errant drops hit him they practically steamed right off his body.
“Hold still,” he said.
She held still and looked into his dark eyes, watching to see if he watched her. Saw her.
“Relax.”
No, he didn’t really see her, at least not as a woman. She didn’t know if she was relieved or insulted.
Relieved, she decided a minute later, realizing she’d never felt so utterly naked. Living her life as she did, with work being all she ever thought about, she wasn’t used to this nude thing. She’d had the occasional relationship, but given her schedule, occasional was the key word. It had been a good long time since she’d had so much as a kiss and even then, since she remembered being on deadline at the time and completely distracted, it hadn’t been anything to write home about.
Casual nudity had never become a part of any of those occasional relationships. She always rushed through her day, preoccupied, rarely seeing herself naked, much less letting anyone else see her. Being so exposed right now was like one of those dreams where she found herself on the school bus, without clothes.
It was horrifying, terrifying, mortifying—
“Perfect,” Rafe said, looking through his camera at her.
Her tummy fluttered again. Her nipples tightened. And her thighs clenched. Yes, she was horrified, terrified, mortified…
And somehow excited at the same time.
“Hug your knees.” He came out from behind the camera, moved close.
Ohmigod. If she weren’t so bared to the cool raindrops, she might have broken out in a sweat—
Silent, brooding, he wrapped his fingers around her ankles, lifting until she bent her knees. Then he took her wrists, dragging her arms around her legs. “Bend your head down, just a little—” He sounded gruff, frustrated, so it confused her when he suddenly softened. “Oh yeah,” he breathed. “Just right.” He stroked her hair from her face, his fingers brushing her skin.
Her gaze jerked up to his as her nipples tightened even more, but he was completely lost in getting the pose he wanted.
She might have laughed at how impersonal it all was, except that she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t sound hysterical, so she kept it to herself.
“Set your chin on your knees,” he commanded, oblivious to her inner turmoil. “And look directly into the camera, as if you’re just a little nervous.”
A little nervous. Ha! If he only knew just how nervous she was. Her thighs were trembling now and she squeezed them tight.
“No, stay loose.”
She tried, but again he came out from behind the camera. This time he put a hand on her thigh.
Her body twitched.
“Loose,” he commanded.
Impossible. Despite the fear and embarrassment, that excitement was humming through her insides again. At the realization, she felt her face heat. How could this be? What kind of sick woman would be excited about being naked, in front of a stranger, having him touch her, toss demands at her? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t deny it. She was into this, and feeling so overwhelmingly sexy that she didn’t know how to handle herself.
Not paying any attention to her or her turmoil, Rafe pried the loose filmy material free of her hands and shook it out, leaving her completely bare except for the small triangle of her thong.
This was worse than the naked-in-the-bus nightmare, far worse, and at the same time somehow even more exciting, but she hunched over her knees, hugging them for all she was worth.
He handled the fabric like a pro, putting it back around her in a way that satisfied him, and left her feeling like she sat on a high wire without a net.
And still he just looked at her.
She squirmed, and as she always did when she was out of her element, she started talking—too much. “I know, I should have done sit-ups.” She crossed her arms tighter over her breasts, which were plain old B cups, but somehow in the forest, wet from the rain, they appeared closer to a C. “And a Thigh Master wouldn’t hurt, either, but—”
“You’re crazy.” He shook his head and stepped back, assessing her before pulling her arms free of her body to drape them over her knees again as he wanted, cocking his head to study her. “You know damn well you’ve got a body that brings grown men to their knees.”
Maybe Amber knew, but Emma rarely thought of herself that way. His praise made her nipples even happier, and her thighs were doing that funny clench and unclench thing again. She swallowed hard and stared at him, trying to get it together, but she couldn’t, she just couldn’t. Amber hadn’t told her how incredible-looking he was, how masterful, how utterly confident. She hadn’t said his touch would bring goose bumps to the surface of her flesh or that his voice would make her want to shiver.
Amber hadn’t said any of those things and, as a result, Emma decided she needed to get out more.
“Hold that position,” he said.
Holding. Her bent legs covered her in the front, but then he walked around the hammock, slowly, taking her in, and she could only imagine the picture she created from behind with her thong riding high—
“Hmm.”
“What’s the matter?” she asked shakily, resisting the urge to re
ach around and yank at the satin dividing her butt in a most intimate way.
“That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?” Did she have a zit? What?
“I’ve never noticed that freckle before.”
“F—freckle?”
“Yeah, this one right here—”
She nearly leaped right out of her skin when she felt the blunt tip of his finger stroke her right buttock and the freckle.
He’d never noticed it before because her sister didn’t have one. “Oh. Well…it’s usually covered.”
“Not when I’ve seen you.”
That deflated some of her exhilaration, oddly enough. So he’d seen her sister in far less than this outfit. She should have figured as much. And having his finger touch her so intimately shouldn’t matter, either, but her entire body felt so…aware. The lightweight material brushing and teasing her breasts seemed too rough suddenly, and her over-sensitized nipples quivered at her every breath as they rubbed against the material. “M—maybe it’s a new one.”
“Uh-huh. From all your nude sunbathing?”
Sounded good. “Yes.”
“Funny then, how creamy and pale your skin is.” He came around the front again, looking over every inch of her with his photographer’s eagle eye, lingering on her legs, which were up in front of her.
Could he see between them? She didn’t want to know, she really didn’t.
Being aroused like this was not only painful but embarrassing. As a writer she’d put her characters in situations that she’d thought sexy, but she knew now she’d been tame, and that was because she hadn’t had any idea of what sexy really meant.
Now she knew.
Rafe was still looking at her, which made her want to squirm again. Then there was the matter of the thong, tight in front, brushing against a sensitive part of her in a shocking, tantalizing manner with every passing second until she could hardly breathe.
“Shouldn’t you take the picture now?” she asked.
“Shh.” He took the material again, draping the transparent length of it over her head, bringing the ends down to the hands holding her knees and slowly tucking it in. “Nice. Hold.” He backed to his camera. “Holding on to the material, lift your hands and toss your head back to the sky.”
