Skin

by Karin Tabke

  Frankie straightened her shoulders. If anything, her parents’ abandonment made her stronger. She’d learned early on to look out for herself, understanding full well that in her family it was survival of the fittest. If you were born with a penis, the family smiled on you. If you were born with a vagina, you were a second-class citizen. It wasn’t until the women of her family matured and took on matriarch status that they gained power, and only a precious few managed to do that.

  With the back of her hand she wiped away a tear. The turmoil in her head mushroomed, spawning a headache. Something was very wrong, and she had no idea what it was.

  On an impulse she called her mother. Lucia Analise Fazzio. Once a beautiful tigress of a dancer, now a former shell of herself. Santini did his work well. Once he forced Lucy from the family she came to love, she never recovered.

  Her mother answered the phone on the first ring, her voice listless.

  “Hello, Mama.”

  A long silence followed Frankie’s greeting. “Mama, I need your help. Someone shot me last night.”

  “Bella, no!” Lucia’s voice resonated with shock — and life.

  “Si, last night at Unk’s. I took stitches in my arm.”

  Anger sizzled across the airwaves. “Who? And why? What has your father done, the putz? From the grave, no less.”

  What on earth had changed her mother from a reclusive divorcée into this spitfire? “Mama!”

  “I’m over the bastard, darling, may he rot in hell.”

  Had Frankie been standing, she would have fallen over.

  “Bella, I knew I should have called you earlier. I had a feeling something like this would come up. Get out of that town now. There’s no telling what rats will chew themselves out of the woodwork and come after you. Santini had more enemies than Mussolini, and I don’t want to see you caught up in it. Let them get hold of that rat-fink half brother of yours and his whore mother too! Come to Scottsdale with me.”

  Jaw agape, Frankie held the phone in front of her and blinked. Who was this woman?

  “I was quiet all of these years while that bastard nailed anything that wasn’t nailed down. Lord only knows how many little bastards he has, and no doubt they’ll be climbing out of the sewer for a piece of the action. Get away from them, cara, they’ll kill you like they did him.”

  Finding her voice, Frankie coughed, then said, “Actually, I think the hit last night was on Unk, and I just happened to be in the way.”

  “Another snake. Stay away from him.”

  Frankie shook her head. “No, Mama, Unk is my only hope to hang on to Skin. Connie produced a codicil leaving everything to Anthony.”

  “I doubt it’s authentic. That family has been known to pull the bait-and-switch routine. It’s how Santini ended up with my brother’s two houses in there in the city. You’d think the prick would have left them to you instead of that whore’s spawn.”

  Frankie coughed so hard that tears filled her eyes. Once again, she wondered who this woman was. “Um, Mama, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’ve kept my mouth shut all these years for your sake, to keep peace, to keep you in your father’s sights, but he always put that bastard son of his first, not his legitimate daughter.”

  “He did marry Connie.”

  “After she gave birth to a son and he proved it was his through blood tests. I know for a fact last year he had a DNA test done to be one hundred percent certain.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “I have eyes and ears everywhere, bella, and it pays for me to know these things. I can assure you if there was any doubt about Anthony, I would have made a big stink about it. Sadly, he is the bastard’s little bastard.”

  “Mama, where would Father have put his will? Or at the very least a notarized copy?”

  “Carmine doesn’t have it?”

  “No.”

  “What about Aldo? He did all of your father’s personal paperwork.”

  “Aldo turned up dead.”

  “Ah, yes, how convenient for all parties involved. I smell a fish.”

  “You mean?”

  “Unless Santini had a fallout with Aldo, someone made sure he didn’t produce the authentic will. Francesca?” Her tone darkened. “Listen to me. Get away. Come to me, bella, and we can for once live a normal life. It is what you want, no?”

  More than she realized. “I can’t. I have responsibilities to Skin. And I refuse to run away and let Anthony ruin what I’ve worked so hard for.”

  “You were always as stubborn as your father. Thank the Holy Mother that’s all you have of him.”

  Regret stabbed at Frankie’s heart. How much she would have loved to have this feisty woman as a part of her life when she needed her most. There had been no one to give her advice on boyfriends, no mother to fuss over her prom dress, no mother to wipe away tears of fear and frustration. Frankie’s transition from adolescence to womanhood had been awkward and terrifying without a mother to guide her. Yet, she had survived it. And she would survive this too.

  “I must find his will, Mama. Where would he have hidden it?”

  After a long, exasperated sigh, Lucy said, “Carmel, most likely.”

  The Carmel house. The last place she saw her father alive. The place where they quarreled. The place where he told her to never darken his doorstep again. Emotions welled in her belly and for the second time that day Frankie felt sick. She didn’t know if she could go back there and face the ghosts.

  “I’m sure my efficient stepmother has gone through the house.”

  “Maybe, but she never liked that house. She doesn’t know it like you do. Remember, you grew up there. You know all the nooks and crannies.”

  “Grazie,” Frankie softly said, and heard the hitch in her voice.

  “Go now, and watch your back.”

  “I will.”

  “And Francesca? Do not tell a soul where you’re going.”

  For a long minute after she hung up the phone, Frankie digested her mother’s words. Words she never would have believed could come from her mouth. Amazing. Just when she thought she knew someone, they turn out to be a different person. She shivered. Flashes of Sean’s smiling, handsome face flashed in front of her. She’d been so caught up in his laughter, his passion, his love for her. The way he announced it to the world. Hell, even Jimmy Peanuts liked him. How wrong she had been.

  “Frankie,” Tawny said, bursting into her office. “Anthony called. He wants to talk to you.”

  Frankie scowled. “I have test shots to do.”

  “C’mon, Frankie. He said he was calling me because he didn’t want you to hang up on him, and that he’d really like to talk to you. He sounded sincere.”

  Frankie’s scowl deepened. Using her mother’s words, she said, “I smell a fish.” She stood. “I think I’ll pass. I have too much to do right now. Besides, he’s just going to rub what he thinks he’s getting in my face.”

  Tawny’s color paled. “But Frankie, he sounded like he really meant it. Shouldn’t you at least hear what he has to say?”

  “Since when do you defend my brother?”

  “Since he could very well be my boss. I want peace here, Frankie, and it takes two.”

  “You are quite right, Tawny, but you fail to realize one minor detail. Until I have indisputable proof I don’t have a job here, I will not speak to my brother about working for him.”

  “But —”

  “No buts. Skin is mine, and until I’m pushing up daisies, that will not change.”

  Tawny was smart enough to retreat. Head down, she backed out of the office, once again neglecting to shut the door behind her. Frankie shook her head in exasperation. Despite Tawny’s occasional lapses in manners, she was grateful for her assistant. The girl did whatever Frankie asked, and did it well.

  Frankie glanced at her watch. Shit, she needed to get to the studio.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Everyone scram. This is now a closed set,” Frankie announced,
striding into the studio.

  Reese grinned. Frankie didn’t mess around, and he was glad she knew her staff. He’d met more of them than he cared to in the last twenty minutes. And most of them still hovered along the fringes of the studio, hoping, he was sure, to get a glimpse of his naked ass. Stripping for Frankie was one thing, but doing it for an audience was a whole different animal.

  Frankie looked around at the hangers-on. They stood like deer caught in the proverbial headlights. She clapped her hands loudly. “Scram. Now!”

  Like startled birds off a wire, they flocked out of the studio.

  Frankie’s eyes scanned the room. “Where is Stella? I need your palette.”

  Reese shrugged. “Tawny couldn’t find her.”

  “And you’da thunk she’d have told me?”

  Reese shook his head. Frankie was on a tear. He grinned. Her color was up, and although he’d enjoyed her in his black button-down, the emerald-colored shirt she’d changed into suited her. He liked the way the smooth, stretchy fabric hugged her tits. She had great tits. He’d dreamed about them last night. Full and warm, overflowing in his hands, the nipples several shades darker than her caramel-colored skin. Overly sensitive to his touch, especially his tongue.

  “Reese!”

  Frankie’s voice snapped him out of his erotic daydream. “What?”

  “I said, let’s get this show on the road.”

  She moved past him and pulled back a large, heavy black curtain. She stepped into the dark room and suddenly it was drenched in light.

  Reese nodded in approval. Though compact, the studio was versatile. Large backdrops hung off rolls tucked up high in the ceiling. Several props, chairs, sofas, tables, wineglasses, and even a motorcycle were neatly stowed in the corner. Tripods of different heights and widths hung from hooks in another corner. Various floor coverings were rolled neatly one on top of the other in another corner. Large decorated vignettes were neatly arranged behind the backdrops. A wide computer screen sat on a sleek black desk, with a keyboard nearby.

  “I use almost all digital now,” Frankie said, noticing his interest. “I can add color, take it out, change the lighting, your hair color.” She laughed. “Even your cock size.”

  “Then what was the point of hiring me?”

  “Because the one thing I can’t add is charisma, and you have that in spades.”

  Frankie strode to the backdrops and pulled down a white one, then she rolled out a white plush carpet, settling it over the cool linoleum floor. She turned to give Reese instructions but he beat her to it. Her body reacted of its own stead. Some things one just couldn’t control. And for Frankie it was the automatic warming her body reserved for Reese Barrett.

  He stood half clothed. The muscular planes of his chest gleamed under the harsh lights of the set. He smiled, catching her eyes as he had earlier that day and holding them while he unsnapped the top button of his jeans. “That’s enough for now,” she said, her voice suddenly husky. “Just come over here and lie down on your back. I’ll show you the pose.”

  Obediently, Reese walked past her to the white set and sat down on the carpet. His dark complexion stood out in stark contrast to the brilliant white of the backdrop and carpet. “Lie flat on your back and put your hands behind your head like you’re going to do a sit-up.”

  He obliged. “Like this?”

  She glanced down at him as she attached her camera to a tripod. His abdominal muscles bunched in hard symmetry. He flexed his biceps, and the full, round sinew jumped. She smiled, and he wagged his eyebrows at her. “I can flex more than that.”

  She laughed and adjusted the lights and scrim. Back at her camera, she focused. “I bet you can, now lie back.”

  He did, and she pushed the tripod over on its rollers until she was nearly on top of him. She adjusted the lens downward. “Close your eyes.” He did. “I love it. A man who listens.” She clicked a few frames. “Now slowly, as if you’re awakening from a very sexy dream, open your eyes.”

  “Why don’t you take off your shirt and skirt,” he murmured, “and it won’t be a sexy dream.”

  “Do it.”

  He did, and her heart stutter-stepped. His eyes speared her soul through the camera. Tamping down a surge of emotion, Frankie clicked away, moving closer. “Unbutton the top button of your jeans.” He did, his eyes never leaving her lens.

  “Now the next one.”

  His long, thick fingers nimbly opened the denim. Her lens caught the growing mound beneath, and her body responded accordingly. Heat pooled between her legs and her breasts tingled, her nipples tightening. As he slipped the next button open, she realized she wanted him. Right there on the soft white carpet, under the ever-watchful lens of her camera. He slipped open the fourth, then the fifth button. Her imagination ran wild, thinking of all the hot poses she could stage with herself as Reese’s prop.

  Her father’s scowling face swam in front of her. The impulse to stick her tongue out at him was overwhelming. There was no law that said a girl couldn’t fantasize.

  His fingers slipped between the denim and his skin. Her moan startled her. At first she wasn’t sure which one of them it came from. She licked her lips. “Reese.” She heard the rasp in her voice.

  “Frankie?” His voice mirrored hers. Deep. Husky. Wanting.

  If she set the timer on the camera, slid her skirt up and her shirt down…“Slide your jeans down just a few inches.”

  He slowly hooked his fingers on a belt loop at each hip, then pulled down. Dark curly hair against deeply tanned skin emerged. Her pulse quickened.

  “That’s far enough,” she softly said. She loosened the legs of the tripod to lower it, and in so doing straddled him.

  “What are you thinking right now, Reese?”

  “Me inside you.”

  Her body hitched. She was thinking the same thing. And she needed to stop it. “That’s good.” She focused on his lower extremity. “You have my permission to fixate on me, as long as it gives you a rise and that smoldering look in your eyes.”

  It was crucial she know up front how well her subject could take direction and how much energy was required to get the ultimate response from him. She was more than happy to discover he took direction exceptionally well and that getting him into the mood was a piece of cake.

  She knew from the minute he dropped his drawers in her office that he would be highly responsive. During her career, there had been only a handful of times when she and her subject had a synergy that came across in the photos, and she desperately wanted the spark of their chemistry to jump off the page and into her readers’ eyes.

  She wanted Reese hot and eager in the palm of her hands. She wanted to show the world what she could do. In that second, she decided playing his sexy little cat-and-mouse game could gain her far more than would drawing the professional-discretion line.

  And so the game progressed. Reese’s erection strained for release. She bit her bottom lip. “Touch yourself,” she whispered.

  “Look at me,” he commanded.

  “I am,” she whispered.

  “At my eyes.”

  Slowly, she dragged her gaze from his beautiful body to his equally beautiful eyes. “What?”

  His jaw tightened and his eyes flinched, and she knew his hand had slipped beneath his pants. He hissed in a breath and for a moment his eyes fluttered, and his jaw tensed. “Now what?” he asked, his eyes steady and piercing.

  “Squeeze.”

  His eyelids flickered, and she knew he’d obeyed. “Does that feel good, Reese?”

  “It would feel better if it were your hand. Touch me, Frankie, and take the picture.”

  Her breath hitched low in her throat and her vaginal walls constricted. Warm moisture seeped into her panties, and she could smell the sultry musk of her sex. His nostrils twitched, and she knew he caught her scent too. Excitement burned through her. With practiced self-control, she put her eye to the camera and clicked. “Do you trust me, Reese?”

  “No.�
�

  “If we’re going to work together, we need to trust each other.” His hips rose, brushing her leg. Frankie retracted. “Ah, ah, don’t do that. No inappropriate touching.”

  “Define inappropriate.”

  “Touching unnecessary to the shot.”

  Small beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. He ground his teeth. “You drive a hard bargain, lady.”

  Pulling slightly away from the camera, Frankie winked at Reese, enjoying his discomfort more than she should. She’d guessed from the very beginning, Reese Barrett wasn’t a man used to being rebuffed by women. “That I do, but the sacrifice is worth the prize.”

  “Touch me for the shot, Frankie,” Reese said.

  “You read my mind. I actually have something in mind.”

  Moving from her straddling position to his side, Frankie set the timer for five seconds. Kneeling on the plush carpet to his side, she set her open palm on Reese’s belly. His warm skin trembled beneath her touch. The heel of her hand brushed the full head of his penis hiding just beneath the denim. He hissed in a breath, and she splayed her fingers, turning her hand slightly to the left. The shutter snapped. She sat back on her heels.

  “That’s going to be the first picture of you my readers will see,” she said. “They’ll know what’s beneath my hand and they’ll wait with bated breath for the next issue to see more.”

  “How do you know that shot will work?”

  She caught the mischievous glint in his eyes, then stood and viewed the shot on the computer screen. Her feminine hand was a sharp contrast to the rigid planes of his belly. The mound beneath prominent. As good as it looked, her trained eye picked up the fact her fingers weren’t spaced just right and the lighting was a tad off. She adjusted the gobo. She grinned. “I think I’ll need a few more.”

  “Yeah, shoot till it’s right,” Reese said.

  Frankie nodded. “For a model, you have a good eye.”

  “I have more than a good eye.”

  “You’re arrogant.”

  “You’re a prick tease.”

  “It’s part of the job. I need you up for the shot.” She laughed and reset her camera. But before she pushed the timer, she got serious. “Look, Reese, just lie back and relax. I need to set this shot up and comments from the peanut gallery will only make it take longer.” Time was of the essence.