by Holley Trent
“You’re so mean.” Nikki actually stuck her bottom lip out.
Gramma Stacy gave her a swat on the bottom and padded away.
“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Jerry asked, approaching the bench, but giving Trinity a wide berth.
She narrowed her eyes at him, but he didn’t care, or more likely, didn’t notice.
“Oh, ho, ho. If you think you’re going to back out on me, sucker, you’re wrong,” Nikki said with an evil grin. “Beth already said we could use her dance studio. Might actually work out better than shooting in the barn. We’ll have to make up the tinted lotion shots tomorrow, too, so it’s going to be a busy, busy day.” Nikki shook her fist. “Make sure you show up on time, Jerry, or I’ll—”
He put his hands up in mock defeat. “I’ll be there. Fuck. Give me a call if the power comes back on. I’m going to take the laptop and work from home.” And he was off without so much as a kiss my ass look directed at Trinity.
She rolled her eyes and latched the make-up case.
“Trinity, you can head on out, too. Take all the gear for tomorrow’s shoot to Beth’s in the morning, okay?”
“No problem. It’s all in my car still.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I should have called in sick,” Trinity said as Gretchen tamped a coat of eye shadow onto her lids so thick she could feel her bloodstream absorb the stuff and break it down for nutrients.
“I would have dragged your ass out of your deathbed,” Nikki said nonchalantly from the floor, where she sat on a thick cushion, filing Trinity’s raggedy nails.
“You could have given me some warning,” Trinity whined.
“Why?” Gretchen asked. “You should be flattered we’re recruiting you. It means you’re not ugly.”
“Uhh…” Trinity wasn’t sure if that statement from Nikki’s longtime friend was supposed to be a compliment.
“Look, Trin, truth is we’ve had this planned from jump—ever since Beth came up with the campaign concept. We thought it would be impactful to have people we know in the materials.”
“Remind me to thank Beth.”
“You’re welcome!” Beth sang from the little wooden stool she perched on. The photographer was doing a close-up, and mumbled for her to hold still.
“I feel really exposed.” Trinity tightened the robe around the skimpy outfit she didn’t even know had been stored in her trunk all that time. If she’d been curious enough to actually examine the items she’d so blindly picked up during her errand for Nikki, she might have questioned whom they were for. Gabby would have been the only other person employed by N-by-N who would have came close to fitting it, and no way would Nikki let that child wear something so short.
“Oh, quit your griping,” Gretchen sniped, now swatting black mascara onto Trinity’s lashes to complement the cake of black eye shadow she was already wearing. “You could be famous for this.”
“I don’t want to be famous!” It sounded petulant, even to Trinity’s ears, but it was true. “I’m a chemist. I don’t want people thinking I care about my looks.”
“Oh, people who know you know the opposite’s true,” Gretchen said. “Now, do this.” She sucked in her cheeks and hollowed them out.
Trinity sighed, and mimicked her as the grumbly auburn lady swept her cheeks with a dark blush. Trinity’s back was to the big mirror, but she figured by the time Gretchen was done she’d either look like Edenton’s highest paid whore, or a feral raccoon. Neither sounded sexy.
On the bright side, the only people who were going to see her in person in that ridiculous get-up would be the girls.
No sooner had she taken solace in that small thing did the studio door click open, and Dom and Cole entered in full-on female impersonator mode.
Crap. Trinity would have rolled her eyes if they weren’t so gummy.
Dom and Cole both worked for a traveling drag and female impersonation revue. Cole also acted as the troupe manager. He was married to Nikki’s accountant, Macy, and appeared on television a lot to judge competitions and provide coaching on talent shows.
Dom was Beth’s live-in sweetie…when he was in town, anyway. Dom liked to vary his acts, but on that day he was done up like Lea Michele as Glee’s Rachel Berry, complete with heavy bang, Scottie dog sweater, plaid schoolgirl shirt, high white knee socks, and flat brown loafers.
He held up his hands to show off his pale pink nail polish.
Gretchen guffawed.
“Haters gonna hate, Gretchen,” Beth said cheerfully, straightening up and walking over to give her lover an air kiss so as not to disturb his make-up.
She was all done and the stool was open. Gretchen’s turn.
While the make-up dust settled, Trinity took a moment to assess the other newcomer in the room. Cole, Dom’s boss and conscience, was in his usual Nicole Scherzinger get-up with fire engine red nails…which seemed to take on a special significance following the previous day’s disaster.
Cole did one act and did it well.
He was a pretty humble guy to be so damned handsome. More often than not, Trinity saw him out of make-up, which made sense because he didn’t want to confuse his toddler. She’d kept an eye on Courtney a few times at the barn when Macy brought her in to hang out while she handled accounting stuff with Nikki. Sweet baby.
The public outside of Chowan County would probably think Nikki had performed some sort of coup to get both Dom and Cole to appear in the N-by-N marketing materials, but the truth was none of the locals batted an eyelash at them anymore. They’d been around for a couple years, and had started to blend in with the rest of the nuts.
Gretchen took about fifteen minutes to shoot, then Dom—the admitted diva—took half an hour because he wanted to make sure he had the pout down pat. Cole nailed it on the first shot, holding a microphone and narrowing his eyes to make a sultry stare, but the photographer grabbed a few back-up shots as well. Both he and Dom hurried off to shower and change for a later shot Nikki was being coy about.
And then it was Trinity’s turn. Nikki yanked her robe off, minding Trinity’s wet nails, and gave her a shove toward the faux lab bench Charlie and Juan had apparently set up earlier in the morning.
“Here, don’t forget this.” Nikki held out a pristine white lab coat. Trinity grabbed it, glad to have some cover over the short, sparkly party dress she felt like such a fool in. The mirror indicated the dress wasn’t as short as it felt, but ending mid-thigh, it was certainly shorter than she was used to.
Nikki patted the center edge of the table. “Sit here. Cross your legs at the knees.” Trinity did as she was told, and allowed Nikki to pose her hands so her fingers dangled over the edge of the table.
Beth came over to pat down some errant hair and refresh Trinity’s already-heavy lipgloss, then both women backed away.
The photographer swooped in and started taking shots before they were all the way out of the frame.
“Um…should I smile or something?” Trinity asked through clenched teeth.
“Nope,” the photographer said, getting in close to capture the platinum-colored nails which matched the metallic sequins of the dress, then backing away to get a full portrait. Five minutes in, Nikki swooped in and handed Trinity an Erlenmeyer flask to hold.
Five more shots.
“All done.” The photographer popped out his battery pack and squatted over his bag.
She hopped down, relieved to be able to get back into her own comfortable clothes.
Nikki had other ideas. She hurried over, wrested the lab coat off Trinity, then pushed her to the stool Gretchen had last occupied.
“Not done with you,” she said. “Gretchen, is he ready?”
“Yeah. Last-minute shave. Didn’t want Ron to have to edit out the shadow. He’s coming up the stairs now.”
“Who is?” Trinity asked.
The door creaked open again and the answer was standing in it.
“…the hell?”
Jerry didn’t look amused. He look
ed fabulous. Gorgeous, even. Downright sexy, certainly, but not amused.
“Holy hell.”
Nikki giggled and tore open the plastic surrounding a bow tie with her teeth.
Jerry stared off into space while she draped it around his open collar, but didn’t tie it—choosing to let it hang loose as if he’d just gotten back from a black tie affair he’d snuck out of prematurely.
“A tux, Nikki? Really? When you said suit I thought you meant bathing suit or wetsuit.”
“Yeah, yeah. Sue me. You look great.”
“My former agent is going to kill me. She tried to get me in a suit for five years.”
“Cry me a river, heartthrob. At least you get to wear flip-flops.”
“Yeah. At least. No one’s looking at my fucking feet.”
“Let me see your nails. If you smudged them…”
He held up his hands and rolled his eyes. His nails were slicked with shiny black lacquer in the most opaque formulation possible.
“Good boy. How’s your scalp?”
“Fucking hurts. That was a lot of detangling.” He furrowed his brow and ran a hand through his silky shoulder-length hair. It was paler than it had been when it was in dreads, but Trinity supposed that if her hair had been forced to clump with god-knows-what, it’d probably look darker, too. It was so much shorter. She wondered if he’d cut it for ease or if the rest had just revolted and fallen out during the de-matting process.
He looked almost…well, not normal. Not with the tendrils of his raunchy tattoo visible on his upper chest and part of his neck, but with his hair covering the…wait, where were the expanders? His earlobes looked absolutely normal from her distance. Had those just been really weird earrings? Trinity had always assumed the spirals he wore were expanders because they appeared continuous from front to back. Obviously they had just been elaborate two-part puzzles.
Huh.
Jerry the model, back again. No wonder he’d balked about getting additional piercings. The ones he had weren’t all that difficult to hide. He wouldn’t be a sixty-year-old man with drooping earlobes after all.
“All right, let’s get this spread hopping.” Nikki rubbed her palms together gleefully, pretending she didn’t notice Trinity’s dazed expression. “Jerry, why don’t you stand right behind Trin and drape a hand over her shoulder. Yeah, just like that. We’ll start there and move you around as need be.”
Trinity tried to be still just like she had been when the photographer was shooting her earlier shots, but she just had to speak up. Jerry was obviously angry and didn’t seem to appreciate touching her very much judging by the tension he held in his wrist. “Nikki, I…”
“Turn your chin more toward me,” Ron said, pulling his face back from the camera. Trinity did as he asked.
“Nikki, I don’t get the point of this. I guess I don’t understand this shoot. This is just about the nail polish, right?”
Nikki dunked a wheat cracker into the artichoke dip on the snack table. “Nope. I never said that. Yeah, we’ve got our nail polish shots. That doesn’t mean I don’t need other images.”
“For what?”
“Turn your chin more toward me,” Ron demanded again.
This time, Jerry sighed and used his free hand to position her face himself. He was gentle about it, but efficient.
“Stuff, Trinity. It won’t make sense until you see it. Go with the flow like Jerry. He’s a pro.”
At that, Trinity tipped her head back to look up at the brooding ex-model.
He cast his eyes down and met her gaze, unsmiling.
“Hold that!” Ron said. And they sat there for a brief time, sharing an uncomfortable look while Ron got his shots.
Then Nikki rearranged them so Jerry was on the stool and Trinity in front of him, leaning against his parted thighs with his hands at her waist.
Trinity felt frigid, even with Jerry’s warm breath tickling the side of her face and shoulder. She became acutely aware of his closeness, the firmness of his thighs, the strength of his fingers, the scent of his aftershave...his absolute impatience.
“Shit!” Ron swatted a fist through the air. “Goddamned batteries. I told my kid to charge the damn things and I guess he didn’t. Don’t move a muscle. I got a spare in the truck.” Ron took off in a bolt toward the stairs, and the few onlookers in the room crowded around the snack table while Trinity and Jerry remained still as statues.
He attempted to move his hands.
“He said not to move!” She said, pressing them back as they were.
He huffed. “I’m pretty sure I can remember what we were doing if you’d care to take a step forward.”
She felt ice at the pit of her belly at his rebuff. She’d tried opening up a bit. Really, she had. She’d explained things pretty clearly, or at least she thought. It wouldn’t work between them. That was no reason for him to be nasty.
“He said not to move.” She wedged herself back even further so she was nearly sharing the stool with him.
A low chuckle escaped his chest. “Suit yourself, pixie. Mind staying there for a while?”
That one little nudge backward and there it was. Hard as a rock and straining against the fabric of his tuxedo pants.
She looked down and behind her, blushed hot enough to feel it in her eyes, and turned back around to face the ladies at the snack table.
He leaned forward a bit and whispered into her left ear. “It’s a nice dress, pixie.”
“I feel like a tramp.”
“They’ll crop out anything scandalizing.”
“I would hope so.” How long is it going to take that thing to go down? “I thought you were mad at me.”
“I am. That doesn’t make you less attractive.”
Things down low began to tinge and thrum, and she struggled to swallow. What would they be doing if the room were empty of everyone except the two of them? She’d probably be on her knees with her lips wrapped around his dick returning the favor he’d so generously done her at the beach house. She figured it was one of those things she should at least try once.
“You…look pretty good, too,” she managed, scraping a bit of stray nail polish off her cuticle.
His lips were still right there at her ear. “Oh yeah? You didn’t like the way I looked before?” There was a bit of hostility in his voice, a little dare, even. “Or did you not even notice me? Do you not notice anyone who’s not dressed in a polo shirt or who doesn’t have two degrees tacked up behind his desk?”
“I—I…well, I noticed. I…” What could she say? He’d more or less pegged her. She turned her head a bit to the side to catch his expression in her periphery. “I saw your portfolio. The night I stopped by to watch the stream. I’m sorry for snooping, but I was just too damned curious.”
He was quiet for a moment. “And what’d you think?”
“Watching the progression over the years was sort of weird. The body modifications…your hair, and all that. In the earlier pictures, what I noticed most was your face. Later on, it was your body.”
“That was intentional.”
“Why?”
“Believe it or not, I don’t like being called pretty.”
“And now that your dreads are gone…”
“Yeah. Might have to talk myself into a buzz cut.”
“Don’t you dare cut your hair!” She clamped her lips, ashamed. When did she become one of those women? Apparently, in utero, now that she thought about it. There was something so primal about a man having enough hair to yank.
He gave her waist a little squeeze. “We’ll see.”
Ron had returned without Trinity noticing, and had been taking photos of them as they leaned in close for their private conversation. “Yeah, yeah, that’s a good one,” he said, as they both turned their faces to him. “Looks like you actually know each other in that one. Give me some more of that.”
Minutes later, after Nikki previewed some of the shots, she called out from the cracker platter, “That’s it for you,
Trin. You can go wash your face.”
Trinity turned around and asked Jerry’s permission with her expression.
“Yeah, you can scoot. I’m okay.”
“Are you not coming?”
The return of Dom and Cole answered her question. They were back, but in tuxedoes, guyliner, and bowties that matched their nail polish with two more stools, which they flanked beside Jerry.
He paused to pull his hair back into a ponytail while the new shot was set up.
Trinity paused in the doorway, her breath catching at the display of subtly erotic masculinity. All that hair. All that beauty. On men, for crying out loud.
Nikki really was being so bold as to blend the gender line in the cosmetics industry—using the same products and treating them like accessories for all rather than feminine icing—but what Trinity was thinking as she stood there had nothing to do with gender roles. What she thought as she watched Jerry hook his heels onto the rungs of the stool was, “Mine.”
Too bad she didn’t deserve him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I got to fly back to work, baby,” Preston said in halting starts and stops as he thrust into Becky from behind, pounding her so hard the front of his thighs slapped the backs of hers—just the way she liked.
Becky always said, “If you’re going to go in, go all the way!”
“You said you’d help me!” she squeaked in front of him, panting and moaning.
His rhythm sagged. He hated talking during sex, but sometimes that was the only time Becky would let him get a word in edgewise. “I’m gonna lose my job if I don’t get back to the club, you know that. It’s different with the rest of us. Strippers can go on whenever they want…”
Becky flattened her body to the bed and expelled his turgid shaft from between her legs, making him whine at the sudden force downward. She slapped the side of his bigger head. “I’m not a stripper!”
“I know! I know!” he said, rubbing his sore head with his knuckles. “Dancer, you’re a dancer. I’m sorry. I get it mixed up. Forgive me. You’re a dancer, baby.”
She pouted, narrowed her eyes, and pushed her back up into a tabletop once more, wriggling her butt at him. “Damn right I’m a dancer.”
