by Cari Quinn
Layla curled her fingers around the edge of her Day Planner and met Con’s gaze head-on. “I’m well aware of the parameters of my job and would never let anything infringe on my ability to do it. I’m also engaged to be married. I assure you, I’m not compromising this agency.”
“See that you don’t.”
“Is that why you called in Kiana? Are you taking her away from me?”
“No. I asked a question. You answered it.” The steadiness of his gaze never wavered. “You’re asking me for my trust, and I’m giving it to you. I simply called in Kiana because this was a rush thing, and I didn’t think you’d mind. Next time I’ll check with you first. All right?”
She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.
After a moment, Con rose and walked to the door. Then he paused and turned back. “If Sawyer signs with me—a big if at this point—he wouldn’t be your client. Frees you up a bit, if you’re looking for that freedom.”
He’d just given her the standard issue lecture about professional ethics; now he was offering her an olive branch? One with Sawyer’s name etched on it.
Maybe he didn’t really care what she did outside of work, as long as she was careful. This definitely wasn’t the usual agency and didn’t always operate in typical ways. But there were repercussions to every action. Unforeseen consequences. Maybe he’d just wanted to ensure she was aware of what she was doing. And what it might cost.
“Con?” She didn’t dare look at him. “I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t, Layla.” His gentle tone made her already shaky grip on her emotions loosen even more. Luckily he left before she started to cry.
Oh yeah, she was so fit for an open sexual lifestyle. Threesomes, foursomes, moresomes. Why stop there? She and Aidan could happily boink their way through New York, and their relationship would still be the perfect, secure one she’d fantasized about having since she was a little girl. They could truly have it all.
Right.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she dragged her cell out of her purse and called Aidan. He answered on the third ring, sounding harried. “What’s up, sweetheart?”
“Con asked me if I was sleeping with Sawyer.”
“What?”
The whole thing poured out of her, in whispers broken by dry sobs. She didn’t even know why she was so upset. She hadn’t gotten fired. Sawyer didn’t appear to hate her. And Aidan loved her.
God, all she wanted was for Aidan to still love her.
“You convinced Con, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But—”
“No buts. We’ll just be more careful next time.”
“Next time? What next time?” She couldn’t flick her emotions on and off like a streetlight. And she didn’t want to know if her libido was that fickle either.
She’d believed she could tack on extra nights to their arrangement, no harm, no foul. After all, they’d already broken the ground. This was just deepening the hole.
Great fucking analogy.
But every time she slept with Sawyer, every time they laughed and loved and she fell a little deeper under his spell, she risked her relationship with Aidan. It wasn’t just sex. Not for her. Couldn’t Aidan see that?
“You said Sawyer’s doing test shots there this afternoon.”
“Yes, so?”
“I want you to go watch him. When it’s over, I want you to invite him to our place tonight. I’m meeting with a student, so I’ll be home late.”
Her head spun. “I thought we were only going to do it once, Aidan.”
“Then you wanted more.”
“Yes.” No arguments there. “I did.”
“Have you sated your need for him?”
She wished she could say yes. But she hadn’t resorted to lying to Aidan. Yet. “No. But we’re going farther than we’d planned.” Way too far. And it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she and Sawyer had stuck to pretty vanilla sex. With him, she almost didn’t miss the extras. Sawyer cranked her motor all on his own.
Danger, she was learning, came in all kinds of packages. Sometimes it hid behind a teasing smile and brooding eyes.
“We’re altering the course a little, Layla. That’s all.”
“You were supposed to be there.” Was he trying to put even more space between them?
“I will be there eventually. I’m not staying away all night. Besides, did you forget my must-sees? You skipped a couple of them.”
She swallowed and shut her eyes. Dear God, Sawyer was right. The man she’d agreed to marry had booked a first-class seat on the kink boat. Who needed Scrabble or dancing lessons when there were a thousand positions in the Kama Sutra to work through?
And she was no damn better.
“I forgot we had an agenda,” she muttered.
“Can you honestly tell me your panties aren’t wet at the thought of fucking him again?”
Layla pressed her thighs together, for the first time hating that he knew her so well. Funny how what was usually a comfort had become a weapon he could wield against her if he chose.
“That’s irrelevant. We’re supposed to be a committed couple. To each other, Aidan, not to any random guy who wanders past and gets me hot. If we’re already bored in bed before we get married, what’s going to happen after the ceremony?”
“I didn’t realize you were bored.”
“Christ, not me. You. You’re the one pushing this so hard, as if your goddamn life depends on it. What’s in it for you? There has to be more going on than you wanting to watch some guy drill me. Or not watch, since tonight you won’t even be there for some of it.”
Silence pervaded the line. She bit her lip, wishing she could suck her words back. She was just overwrought, that’s all. Everything would be fine. A little experimentation with a willing third-party was no big deal. Especially when three little words—“I miss you”—taunted her every time she closed her eyes.
He’d given her an explanation for that text, and it should’ve been over. Tricia and Josh were his former colleagues. Whichever one had sent the message, they’d only been expressing the sentiment of a friend.
She had nothing to worry about. No reason to be jealous. She was the one diddling some other guy—someone else—not Aidan.
“If you’re against the threesome, we won’t do it again,” Aidan murmured, his voice full of contrition. “I was under the mistaken impression you enjoyed having sex with Sawyer. Especially when you were panting through an orgasm while he had his tongue buried inside that delicious cunt of yours.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Dear God, why did he have to dirty talk when she was already strung tight?
“I want you, Aidan. Only you.”
“And I want you. Sawyer is a diversion that gets both of us off, and him too. Why is that wrong, Lala?”
The final straw. He had to use her nickname. As if she were an instrument, he knew how to cue every one of her emotions. “It’s not wrong. As long as we’re honest. As long as he gets a choice about how far he wants to go with this.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to suggest you jump him and demand he do your bidding.” Aidan’s amusement almost made her smile. Almost. “But yes, honesty is key. As is consent from all parties. When you tire of the game, we’ll stop playing.”
The game. They might as well be human chess pieces, shuffling around a board.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she said, clicking off before they could argue anymore.
She rose and walked to the narrow window. Sunlight slatted through the blinds, and she rolled them up, needing to feel the warmth on her face.
Her eyes weren’t wet. Her hands weren’t shaking. The nerves were gone. Either she put a period on this thing with Sawyer, or she committed to it wholeheartedly. No more in-betweens.
And no doubt about it, she hadn’t gotten her fill of Sawyer. Not even close.
Right now, she needed more than Aidan could—or was willing to—give. If her fiancé was okay with
that, she had no reason to feel guilty. He’d opened this door, and she wasn’t going to back out of it unless Sawyer didn’t feel comfortable continuing.
Since Con was his going to be his agent anyway, there was no ethical reason for her to ignore her needs. Their needs. All three of them would benefit.
They’d have to be discreet, of course, but that was a given. She and Sawyer could play it cool around her bosses. When they parted, it would be as friends. She’d make sure of it. This was about sex, and only sex. Both men could separate emotions from the physical, and so would she. It wouldn’t be as easy for her, but dammit, she’d figure out how.
She reached up to reclip her hair and strode around her desk, determined to get the paperwork she’d set aside for the afternoon out of the way as fast as possible. Her morning had been a waste, but she had things to accomplish.
Then she had a photo session to attend.
* * * *
He was being watched.
As a model and occasional actor, he was familiar with the sensation. Normally he didn’t mind. Eventually the onlookers’ weighty gazes blended together, and he became part of the scene, not just a bystander in his own body.
This shoot was different. Though it was only for fun, he’d yet to relax into his role with Kiana. She didn’t hesitate to do anything they asked, including undoing the string on her bathing suit top and letting Sawyer’s hands serve as her de facto bikini à la Janet Jackson’s Janet CD.
Her nipples hardened the instant he touched them, but that wasn’t why his half hard-on became a full-blown erection. He registered the blur of red hair from the corner of his eye, and his body strained, already hard and needy.
She’d come to him.
Kiana, to her credit, didn’t comment on his reaction. She just followed his lead, amping up the heat until Con called an end to the shoot with a whistle and an appreciative “atta boy” that indicated Sawyer’s, uh, interest in the proceedings had not gone unnoticed.
Kiana turned and smiled wide, her dark eyes sparkling. “Great shoot.”
“You too.” He reached down and grabbed his discarded T-shirt, though she didn’t seem to be in any hurry to grab her top. Maybe in a few months he’d be the same. Standing around chatting happily naked among strangers.
No, I don’t need my pants. Pass the tea and scones.
“It finally hit me where I’ve seen you.”
“Yeah?” He tugged his shirt over his head and tried to catch a quick glimpse of Layla without being obvious about it.
Except now the doorway was empty.
Disappointment cleaved through him like a blade. Shit. He should’ve done something to acknowledge her presence. A smile. A wink. Some sort of cheeky hand signal, hopefully something more mature than the finger through a hole gesture she instantly brought to mind.
If he were the type to think such juvenile thoughts, anyway. Which he absolutely was not.
“That poster on the side of the Hix Building. On Twenty-third? Last year.” She scraped her fingers along the V of his hips, and he exhaled. He was way too torqued for casual touches. “I remember this.”
“My hips?”
“You’re fucking cut.” She glanced up at him, undisguised appreciation curving her mouth. “Your boxers were so low a girl could pull them down with her teeth. Maybe just her lips and tongue.”
Again his eyes sought the spot just over Kiana’s shoulder. This time, Layla was there, glasses on the end of her nose, clipboard wrapped securely in her arms as she watched another woman touch him. He started to step back before his brain engaged.
She has a frigging fiancé. Remember Dr. Dirty?
Who’d toned down a lot of his involvement on Sunday. But still.
Kiana placed her hand on his chest. “Sawyer?” Even as he zeroed in on the model’s pretty, upturned smile, she chuckled. “Ah. I see.”
“No. You don’t.” He wrapped his hand around her small wrist as if he could get her to listen to reason through brute force. Or more accurately, gentle force. He never roughed up a woman, during sex or otherwise.
His session with Layla on the leather chair in her living room—and on her bed, with his T-shirt—sprang into his mind. Both times had been intense. But so much more had been going on there than sex, he hadn’t had full control of his faculties.
Then or now.
“Yes, I do. You know she’s about to get hitched, right?”
“She’s my cousin,” he said, belatedly remembering his still healthy erection. Um, yeah, that might be a problem. Assuming Kiana didn’t chalk his hard-on up to her smokin’ body, as any other woman would. He’d had her bare breasts in his hands, for God’s sake. Breasts that were about to brush his chest if she leaned in any closer.
“Oh. Isn’t that sweet? Let me just do this, then.” She slid her hands up his upper arms. “I’ve been wanting to touch these shoulders all afternoon. So hard and tight and big—”
“Kiana. Sawyer. Great shoot.”
Kiana shot him an arch look as if to say cousin, my ass as she turned to Layla, who’d abandoned her post at the door. “Thanks. We had fun, right?”
Christ, he could smell her. That grapefruit scent wound around him like a velvet ribbon around his throat. “Sure did.”
“It looked like it.” Layla dropped her gaze to Kiana’s breasts and laughed. “Gonna dress those babies anytime soon?”
“Nah. I like keeping the boys at my mercy.” With a wiggle of her fingers, Kiana slipped away to talk to Leon, his cameraman, Joe, and Con.
“How’s it going, cuz?” Layla said under her breath, her eyes full of mirth.
“Ha-ha. What’d you expect me to say?”
She licked her lips and tilted her head. “Busy tonight?”
Apparently that was a more important question. His cock readily agreed, even if his head wondered what the fuck he was doing. “No.”
She turned and crossed the room, working her hips in a sway that could’ve raised the dead. Her cool, professional look added a whole other layer of inappropriate in a way only a horny man could truly appreciate.
Plus there was one more tidbit about Layla Palmer he couldn’t get out of his head.
No panties. No panties. No fucking panties.
Right then, his dick might as well have been a pointer dog intent on leading him straight into hell. He’d be damned if he could refuse its unerring demand.
He did the chitchat thing with the crew, avoiding Kiana’s meaningful glances. Most likely she figured he was ripe to get his heart broken.
She was probably right, but he’d be willing to bet it wouldn’t happen in quite the manner she assumed.
“So what do you think?” Con asked as they walked back down the corridor to his office. “Did that session bother you?”
“Bother me to have my hands wrapped around a pair of pretty breasts?” Sawyer laughed, a little uneasily.
As much as he wanted to relax, he couldn’t shake his nerves. This wasn’t a big deal. Other people could handle doing these sorts of jobs, so he should be able to as well. The two guys he’d met in the lobby seemed down-to-earth and not at all the type he imagined would sign with an erotic talent agency. Not that he’d heard of many such agencies, but he had to assume there were more.
He raked a hand over his hair. But this had just been the opening course. The next might involve a lot more than losing his shirt and rubbing against Kiana.
Con didn’t reply, just ushered him into his office. “You’ve done some pretty explicit shoots,” he said, walking around his desk while Sawyer grabbed his look book. “The Hix Building job, for one.”
“Twice in one day,” Sawyer said under his breath. Maybe he didn’t operate as far beneath the radar as he thought. “That was a one-time thing. A friend-of-a-friend situation. I’ve always taken my own jobs, set up my own schedule. Dealt with everything on my own.”
“Yet you applied here.”
He shrugged. “I was curious.”
“You’d stand to
make a lot of money with us. I’m not guaranteeing that, of course, as any agency worth its salt would never make promises they couldn’t keep. But I suspect you’d be popular, especially if you’re open to doing the full range of projects we provide talent for.”
“Are you talking porn? I can tell you right now, I’m not interested.” Sawyer stepped back, both in his mind and in reality. “I’ll take any kinds of pictures you want. Pose in any way imaginable. But as far as actually doing a porno, no. That’s off the table.”
“Duly noted. Believe me, we do a wide range of things that have no connection whatsoever with adult entertainment. That’s our preferred term for the movies.”
“Call them nude musicals, I’m still not doing them.”
A smile twitched around Con’s mouth. “Your call. Completely. You say what jobs we send you on. And if I suggest one that doesn’t work for you, you always retain your right to refuse.”
“Good. I don’t intend to change who I am, even if I sign with you.”
“Of course not. Though sometime I’d like to hear more about your aversion to adult movies.”
“I don’t fuck just anyone. If I took money for sex—actual sex, rather than simulated—I’d feel like a whore. Not saying it’s wrong. Just saying it’s not for me.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Con steepled his fingers across his stomach. “Obviously, we like what we see with you. You’ve got a wholesome look, but not so much that you lose the fantasy factor. You’re in excellent shape. From your references, you’ve got a great work ethic. And you seem to get along well with the rest of my staff, which bodes well for how you’d deal with our customers.”
Sawyer didn’t comment. If that was a hook, he wasn’t about to open wide.
“To that end, we’re happy to provide you with materials that show some of the work we’ve done, along with a list of my clients so you can get a feel for their take on the agency.” Con handed over a bulging folder attaché case. “Take the rest of the week to review the enclosed. Make some phone calls. Talk to friends and family.”
