Stripped

by Edie Harris

  Leaning away, she locked eyes with him, wishing she could mimic that superior, arched brow she’d seen him whip out time and again since filming started. “Then I think ‘pants’ is an even more appropriate word choice.” She stepped back, out of the warm bracket of his thighs, and turned to collect new tools to blend the prosthetic’s edges into his skin.

  “Yeah, but how would I know if those disappeared? Your pants, I mean. Because you’re wearing those…those….”

  “Jeggings.”

  In the mirror, she watched his head rear back in confusion. “Whatever it is you said just now, I’m fairly certain it wasn’t English.”

  “Jeans plus leggings equals jeggings.” She wanted to laugh—he almost always made her want to laugh, and damn, she hadn’t realized how little laughter there was in her life until him. Smothering her smirk, she turned, using the tip of a sponge doused in alcohol to blend the edges of the scar. The powder was next, followed by the sealer spray, during which she shielded his eyes with one hand. “And you wouldn’t.”

  His eyelashes fluttered against her palm, teasing her with feather-light kisses of lashes that had no right belonging to a man so ambivalent about his looks. “I wouldn’t what?”

  “Know if my pants disappeared.”

  “You’re makin’ my point for me, Fi.”

  The devil on her shoulder goaded her to torture him as his existence tortured her. It was the only explanation for why she waited a beat before murmuring, “In fact, you wouldn’t know if I were even wearing pants in the first place.” Her hips swished of their own accord as she returned to her counter, an echo of the strut she’d employed to walk offstage, once upon a time.

  She heard him swallow, before he asked, with a hint of her earlier uncertainty, “And are you? Wearing any?” His eyes on her ass were a palpable thing.

  This time, she didn’t quash her grin, enjoying his flirtatious attention more than was probably wise. “Of course I am.”

  “What type of—? No, no, don’t say anythin’. Just…just let me imagine what you’ve got on under those…uh….”

  She rolled her eyes at him, not caring if he saw her in the mirror. “Jeggings, Mr. Murphy. They’re called jeggings.”

  He made a frustrated noise and shifted in the chair. “Don’t know what lies the fashion industry’s told you, Miss O’Brien, but I promise you—‘jeggings’ is not a real word.” He enunciated it precisely, replete with the sort of derision only a European could produce. A European, or a man.

  She laughed softly as she spun on her heel, brush and paints in hand as she smiled at him. His face broke out in an answering smile, curiosity tingeing his amusement as his gaze flicked over her face, as if memorizing her features in this moment.

  Unnerved by his scrutiny, her smile faded. The lip of the counter bit into her butt as she tried to back away from him, from whatever it was he saw when he looked at her.

  He leaned forward in the chair, elbows to knees, and encircled one of her wrists with strong-but-careful fingers. Heat shot through her, hesitant sparks giving way to a full-on blaze as the pad of his thumb found her pulse, just as it had when he’d handed her the coffee. “I don’t want you to call me Mr. Murphy anymore, Fi. Not now. Not after last night.”

  Her shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t attempt to pull away. She didn’t want to pull away—if standing between his legs and not touching him felt this right, it was nothing compared to the perfect storm of sensation twining up her arm to wrap complicated tendrils around her heart.

  The organ in question skipped a beat as she stared down into his knowing eyes, drinking in the beautiful crinkles at the corners and blind to the scar lacerating him from temple to cheekbone, cutting high across the bridge of his nose. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and she swayed toward him, ever so slightly.

  Pulling her a step closer, he lifted a hand to the curve of her waist, the shirt’s extra fabric no longer concealing her shape as he held her.

  She fought to douse the instinctive panic that bubbled up in her chest now as it had last night when his seeking touch had slipped beneath her gauzy camisole, so close to her scars. He maneuvered her into the space between his knees once more, the weight of his hands—one at her wrist, the other now resting on her hip—heavy with an unspoken meaning she was beginning to recognize as something more than mere desire.

  This was about them, as individuals, coming together.

  This was terrifying.

  “I know you don’t like flirty men,” he said quietly. “I know you don’t like presumptuous men. But I’m hoping you like me, at least enough to call me by my name.”

  “I do.” She hadn’t shoved him away yet, had she? How much more liking did he expect her to show, here in her place of work?

  “Then say it. Say my name.”

  She shivered. “Declan.”

  His grip tightened momentarily, a quick squeeze, whether in praise or warning, she couldn’t tell. “That’s my girl,” she thought she heard him whisper as he leaned in to press a kiss to her sternum.

  It was too much, too close. Too dangerous for this space they were in. “Are you ready to stop talking so I can do my job?” When she stepped backward, he let her go, hands falling away as he settled into the chair, and she was supremely thankful that he released her without fuss. “I need silence for the next twenty minutes.” She needed silence, or she might start shaking where she stood.

  He reached past her to snag his neglected coffee cup for a bracing sip, a small smile flirting with lips she remembered parting hers with visceral clarity. “I can be quiet, Fi.”

  Sighing with relief, she let her head drop. After a moment spent recovering her aplomb, she cleared her throat, dipping the brush into the paint she would use to define his fake scar tissue. “Thank you.”

  Her relief was short-lived, however, as his tone turned silky, sly. “But I want you to know I plan on being loud, sometime soon. Not as loud as you’re gonna be, though.” And, flashing her a dangerous smile, he subsided into silence.

  It was the loudest silence she’d ever endured.

  EIGHT

  No one had said anything on set. No cards and no cake, and no mention of the fact that their leading man had turned another year older today.

  Even the leading man himself had kept mum on the subject, which was why Fiona wore a frown as she unlocked the door to her apartment around nine o’clock that evening. Shifting the In-N-Out takeout bag to her other hand, the strap of her overburdened purse digging into her shoulder, she kicked the door shut behind her and flipped the dead bolt. The keys went into a bowl on the kitchen counter, the fast food next to it, purse dropping to the linoleum with a heavy thump.

  Pulling her phone from the back pocket of her jeans, she eyed his latest texts, received within the last hour. First up:

  is dinner & a movie 2 traditional 4 a 1st date?

  Then, a minute later:

  what can i say? i like the classics.

  Followed by:

  …a 1st date for us, FYI. not just any old 1st date.

  And finally:

  no, ur right. our 1st date has 2b badass. lemme think abt it more.

  All without ever receiving a reply from her.

  She shook her head as she slid the phone into her pocket again and started gathering the utensils needed for dinner. Declan Murphy was incorrigible, and Fiona was an idiot to like him for that incorrigibility.

  He’d been texting her since that morning in the makeup trailer a week ago. The Coffee Incident, she called it. Every day since, Declan had not only brought her coffee—complete with a shot of caramel—but he had also bombarded her phone with messages.

  Not a creepy-stalker bombardment. More like a new-boyfriend bombardment. Except that he wasn’t her boyfriend, new or otherwise, and if she kept with her current trajectory and refused to respond to all non-work-related texts, he would eventually stop with the bombarding.

  She paused, hand halfway into the takeout bag. If he stoppe
d texting, she would be…sad? Yes, sad.

  Huh.

  After unwrapping her burger and dumping the fries onto a plate, she snagged a Diet Coke from the fridge and wandered deeper into her small apartment, breathing in the mouthwatering scent of bad-for-you food—the sort of food she would never have indulged in back when she danced topless six nights a week in Vegas. Her life was different now, her body no longer a temple but just a body, and that body really enjoyed fast food every once in a while.

  Fiona couldn’t keep denying herself everything she wanted.

  Therefore, French fries.

  Toeing off her sneakers, she settled into a battered-leather swivel chair and turned on the gleaming silver screen of her desktop computer that also served as a television, DVD player, and boom box—as all her at-home entertainment, really. The tension eased from her limbs as she propped her heels on the edge of the desk, wiggled her toes—this week painted neon green—and popped the top on her soda.

  Her butt buzzed just as the first fry crunched between her teeth.

  Shifting in the chair, she pulled the phone from her pocket and swiped open the screen. Another text, this one from her dad:

  Dec stopped by to ask if you like go-karts and mini-golf. I told him you were more of a bungee-jumping girl.

  Ha. Bungee jumping. Sure thing.

  At least someone was enjoying Declan’s current lack of subtlety. She snapped a quick photo of herself, tongue stuck out and eyes crossed, and sent it off to her father. Sometimes a picture was worth a thousand words.

  And yet, she couldn’t dive in to her burger, no matter how hungry she was. Before she could think better of it, she set her plate aside and dropped her feet, pulling up the computer keyboard.

  She Googled him.

  More accurately, she Googled his birth date. She needed to be one-hundred-percent certain when she texted him. Because she was going to text him.

  Today was his birthday, after all.

  Happy birthday, Declan!

  That exclamation point was…too much. Wasn’t it?

  Delete.

  Happy birthday, Declan.

  Ugh. Why was she including his name? He knew who he was. He didn’t need Fiona to remind him.

  Delete, delete.

  Happy birthday.

  There. As minimal as possible without sacrificing good grammar. Send.

  But even as she took her first delicious, greasy bite of burger, Google beckoned, much as it had every night since he’d fingered her to a fantastic orgasm in the alley behind the cantina. The encounter had messed with her head, left her itching to make the Internet spill his secrets. Which was why she’d known the fifth of May was his birthday, and that this was an important age milestone.

  Today, Declan Murphy turned thirty.

  In no time at all, the burger had disappeared, and Fiona was clicking through screen caps of Declan’s surprisingly varied—and highly acclaimed—television and film career. The best photos were where he was attending some sort of awards function. That lean body of his was made for fine suiting, and she couldn’t deny that he certainly looked fine. Fine, fine, fine, and then some.

  The phone buzzed where it lay, next to her half-eaten plate of fries. Him, of course, and she hesitated only a moment before accepting the call and putting him on speaker. “Hello?”

  “How’d you know it was my birthday, darlin’?” The phone did something to the quality of his voice, making the timbre lower, the words richer, and the accent sexier.

  Goddamn Steve Jobs and his contributions to modern technology. “I…know things.” She scowled as she closed the image-search page, not needing to see hundreds of Declans treating her to sly smiles made of pearly white teeth and man-dimples.

  “You know things about me, you mean.” The gleeful grin lurking in his voice drowned her in waves of his smug pleasure. “Glad you texted.”

  “You could’ve just texted back.”

  “You weren’t responding. I figured your phone was broken. Or lost. Or at the bottom of the ocean.”

  She ate a fry to counteract the guilty flush heating her cheeks. “So you decided to call.”

  “On the off-chance you preferred talking to texting.” She could almost hear his shrug. “Fifty-fifty, right?”

  When it came down to it, she didn’t have a preference. She just liked hearing from him, one way or another, and admitting that—even to herself—sucked.

  It sucked because it meant she was having feelings about Declan Murphy. Feelings, with a capital F. “Well. Happy birthday. Again.” Another fry shut her up before those Feelings loosened her tongue—loosened it, or made it all the more awkward.

  Fiona had never been any good at simply liking a guy. She’d barely dated in high school, devoting her nights and weekends to dance classes and competitions. For the three years she’d been a student at Arizona State, she’d danced during the day and partied only on occasion with other kids in her dorm. There’d been one boyfriend—if she could even call Alexei that much—a dancer to whom she’d lost her virginity…and then her collegiate bubble had burst in a blaze of stupidity and hurt feelings, and she’d driven off for Vegas. A couple of eye-opening, inhibition-shedding years in Vegas had stripped her of any lingering shyness about physical intimacy.

  She’d gone in the opposite direction after moving back to L.A. Not only had she stopped looking for casual flings, she’d stopped looking at men, period. Fiona hadn’t wanted to take her clothes off anymore.

  But with Declan, she had sort of…forgotten. He’d made her forget that she was in the midst of a dry spell—one of her own making—and that she didn’t want to strip down for any man.

  Except now she wondered. About Declan. She wondered, so she asked, “Are you doing anything special in celebration?”

  “I’m talkin’ to you.”

  Without her consent, wonder turned to hope.

  The screensaver of her computer started its ball-tripping glow-light extravaganza as he said, “So. What are you wearing?”

  She blinked, thrown by the topic change. “Seriously?”

  “I thought that was how all phone sex started.”

  “We are not having phone sex.” Even if it was his birthday.

  “You keep tellin’ me all these things we’re not gonna do. I’m starting to think you don’t like me, Fiona O’Brien.”

  Little did he know. She bit her bottom lip, before offering, “…I’m wearing a bra.” Flirting she could do, especially since he was only a voice over the phone.

  A deep, rumbling, seductive voice. “Only a bra?”

  “And underwear.”

  “Ooh. Nice. You know how I like talkin’ about your pants.”

  This was too easy. She ate the last French fry. “And a tank top.”

  “Wait. I think you’re doing this wrong.”

  “Jeans, too. And a ski sweater,” she lied, glancing down at her pink-and-white checked shirt.

  His saddened sigh echoed through her speakerphone. “You’re definitely doing this wrong.”

  “I was considering putting on wool socks. And a hat and mittens.”

  “Hilarious.”

  She grinned. “Frostbite is no laughing matter, Declan.”

  “Frostbite? We’re in California.”

  “Hm. Maybe I should turn down my AC, then.”

  “You missed your calling, y’know.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Comedy.”

  A laugh escaped, but who cared? He was funny, and she had a feeling he enjoyed making her laugh. I want to make you laugh again. Her head fell back against the chair. “Here I thought you were going to call me a tease and hang up.”

  “Hang up?” he scoffed. “After working for weeks to get you to talk to me like this?”

  “It hasn’t been weeks.”

  “We met three weeks ago. You don’t think I’ve been wantin’ you all that time?” The teasing note left his low, lilting voice. “I was done for the moment you almost kissed me.” />
  She blushed and squirmed, still able to feel the scalding brand of his hand against her hip from that morning. “I did not almost kiss you. You almost kissed me.”

  “That’s not how I remember it. One moment you’ve got your hands tangled in my beard, and then—”

  “That scraggly mess had to go.”

  She could hear the sadness in his sigh. “I knew you liked me better without my beard.”

  “Well, you like me better without my glasses,” she retorted, glaring at the computer’s screensaver, remembering when he’d asked why she didn’t dress the same as she had while dancing at the cantina. She liked her look—part L.A. native, part ironic hipster, zero stripper.

  “Not true. Your glasses are you. Seeing you without them threw me for a loop.”

  That was…unexpected. “Oh.”

  There was a beat of silence. “You immediately think the worst of me. Why is that?”

  He had a point. He’d been nothing but kind since the moment they met, and genuine, too. Sure, he flirted with an arrogantly happy confidence she rather envied, but it wasn’t indiscriminate flirting. In fact, his attentions seemed unswervingly focused on her. “I shouldn’t do that. I’m sorry.”

  His voice softened. “Darlin’, I said it the first morning and I’ll say it again: You only need to tell me no.” He paused. “Maybe I’m pushing you for something you don’t want.”

  “I want it.” Honesty for honesty, and her mouth went dry. “I want you.”

  The echo of his indrawn breath made heat curl low in her abdomen. “Good, ’cause I want you.”

  Sarcasm bubbled up, her standby defense against feelings both capitalized and not, and she smirked. “Nuh-uh.”