And I saw how she looked at him. I’d definitely seen that look before.
Amber found Ash hot—in an aggravating, annoying way, the way a lot of girls did. Which, in my experience, meant that all the two of them really needed was a fuck. A good, long, hard fuck. An angry fuck, maybe. But whatever kind of fuck it turned out to be, one night with Amber, and my guess was he’d snap right out of his bullshit funk.
Melting that girl’s misgivings and turning her to a molten puddle of yes would make his fucking month. Hell, maybe it would make his year.
Couldn’t be any worse than his year was already going.
And I meant what I’d told him last night. I’d even let him have her, solo, if that’s what it took.
For a while.
But then, of course, there was the way Amber looked at me. There was tension there, too. My dick was tuning into it like a fucking divining rod.
And fuck me, but as I finished swimming and stood up… I was hard again. The mere thought of that look in Amber’s eyes when she gazed up at me? It had me stiff.
I climbed up out of the pool and stood in front of the living room windows as I picked up my towel from the chair where I’d left it. I didn’t look to see if she was inside. But I did stand here longer than necessary with my cock up, the water dripping off of me, as I caught my breath. After the hot pool, the cold air felt good.
The idea that she might be watching felt even better.
Then I dried myself off—slowly. My dick was throbbing at the mere possibility that she’d seen me out here, naked; that maybe she could see me right now. I wasn’t exactly some pervy flasher, but shit, this was my house. I’d warned her what I was doing out here. And maybe I was just too far gone with the raging boner and all my blood flowing south, but I’d never been shy about being naked. I’d never really been shy at all.
I liked attention. I liked being looked at. Craved it, even. I was at ease onstage, performing. In front of a camera. In front of a woman.
Not just at ease…
Turned on.
I did not mind one bit if Amber Malone wanted to look at me. All of me. If she did, she could go right ahead.
She could even take photos, if she wanted to.
I was hardly gonna be the one to stop her.
Chapter Eight
Amber
Holy… hell.
How could I not look?
I glimpsed Dylan through the windows on my way into the kitchen, in search of a glass of water. I was suddenly dying of thirst. It was plausible. A girl could get thirsty, right?
And there he was in the pool, swimming in place, just like he said he’d be, his muscular arms slicing through the current generated by the pool. At that point, I’d decided I was finished shooting the front hall. How many images of a staircase did a man really need?
Better to set up in the living room and capture that beautiful stone fireplace, with all the light flooding in through those big windows to the back deck…
So I did that.
But then Dylan got out of the pool. And Christ almighty.
Male beauty personified.
The water sluiced off his naked body, steamed off him, and my very first impulse was to swing my camera around and photograph him.
My next impulse was to drop to my knees in front of those washboard abs and suck on every inch of his glistening wet skin. And his…
Very large…
Hard…
Holy shit.
I looked away. Sort of.
Because I wasn’t gonna do any of those things.
Reason number one, I now worked for the man.
Reason number two, I wasn’t a pervert. It would be unprofessional to stare at him, much less photograph him, naked, without him knowing—not to mention wrong. Especially when he’d politely warned me to stay away from the back yard. I wasn’t about to go spying on him, camera in hand, like some creepy voyeur.
Well, other than that kiss this morning…
Which brought me to reason number three: he was gay.
Because, frankly, the universe always screwed me like that.
I should’ve known, from the first moment I laid eyes on him. It all made sense now. Because no man was that freakin’ perfect.
Well, he was perfect, I supposed, if you were his boyfriend. Like Ashley Player seemed to be.
If you were me, he was just another near-miss in a very long line of near-misses.
A sudden noise behind me startled me from my staring—and my skin. I actually screamed a little, almost swallowing my tongue trying to squelch it as a door swung open. When I whirled around, Ashley was standing in the doorway from the garage, grocery bags in hand, staring at me.
I got busy fumbling with my camera lens, trying like hell to pop the lens cap on and failing repeatedly. I was pretty good at appearing absorbed in my work, oblivious to my surroundings. But we both knew what he’d just caught me doing… which was nothing much at all except standing here and staring out the giant windows to the back deck—where the evidence of my perversion stood in full view: Dylan Cope, buck-naked.
He strolled leisurely toward the stairs that led down to the lower deck and the walk-out basement, his naked body gleaming, big dick swinging. Or rather, stabbing. He was still half-hard. He was casually drying himself off, and sort of half-heartedly covered himself with the towel as he went, like it was a total afterthought. Because this was his home, right? He should be able to walk around naked without being gawked at. But gawking was exactly what I’d been doing.
I flushed about a thousand guilty shades of red.
“I’m just packing up for the day,” I said, hastily doing just that, unscrewing my camera from the tripod and stuffing my things into my bag. “I should be able to finish up in the next two days, or maybe even one, and clear out of your house.”
Ashley had walked through the kitchen and set the groceries on the island as I babbled.
“Good,” was all he said. Then, just as I hustled my bag onto my shoulder and beelined for the front door, thinking I’d made a clean getaway, he added, “You can just leave the memory cards on the counter.”
I froze in my tracks.
“Excuse me?” I asked, like I totally hadn’t heard him.
Then I started to panic.
The first memory card I’d filled with images, this morning—the one with the photo of the kiss on it—was in my bag, not in the camera. No chance in hell I could quickly erase it without him seeing. Especially since, when I turned around, I found him leaning on the kitchen island, arms crossed, staring me down.
“We’ll review the images,” he said, “and as long as we approve of what we see, you’ll continue to be employed.”
Jesus. He really took Dylan’s privacy seriously.
Although to be fair, he did just find me ogling the man. Naked.
My thoughts pinwheeled, trying to think my way out of this, but I really had no choice. I had to hand the cards over, if I wanted to keep this job. If I wanted to get paid three thousand dollars for my work today, and I really, really did.
If I tried to hold that first card back, they’d know a bunch of images were missing from this morning. All the images I’d taken of the basement.
If I handed the card over, I might get fired for my voyeurism. But maybe not. Maybe they wouldn’t look that closely and would miss that one image.
And now I was just starting to look like a guilty freak, because Ashley was holding his hand out for the cards.
Seriously… why did this guy hate me so much?
I dug through my bag and gave him the three memory cards I’d filled with images today. I’d worked hard and taken hundreds of shots. My goal was to give Dylan about a half-dozen epic shots of each room of his house. But now, who knew if I’d even get that far.
Shit.
I handed over my backup camera, too, so they could use it to view the images. Then I got the hell out of there before Ashley could pop in the first card and discover the offending i
mage.
The one where he was kissing Dylan.
The one they didn’t even know I’d taken.
Oh, God.
Why the hell did I have to take that photo?
Because you’re a photographer, I told myself, stubbornly. It was a moment. It was beautiful. And you did what you do.
I shouldn’t have to apologize for that, right? They probably didn’t apologize after playing a rock concert. Hey guys, thanks for coming out, but I’m really sorry I rocked out like that. I’ll never do it again, I promise.
Right.
More likely, if anyone ever questioned what they did, they responded with a prompt—and in Dylan’s case, probably very polite and charming—Fuck you.
Yet all I could think, as I hurried into Ashley’s house stripped of my images from the day, was: Thank God I didn’t photograph him naked. Then maybe I’d be fired and sued. I was on Dylan’s property, after all, and he’d told me to stay away while he swam.
And as of this morning, I knew why. He wasn’t flirting with me.
He was gay.
And he had no interest in me whatsoever.
Which explained literally everything.
Like how nice he’d been to me. Flirtatious, but not overly cocky about it. Gracious and welcoming, but never making a move on me last night, even when I was all giggly on Prosecco. He’d never asked me, So what’s your story? Or, So, do you have a boyfriend? Or, Hey, wanna go check out the view from my bed? Or any of the other things horny straight guys said (sometimes it felt like I’d heard them all). He was far too polite for that. Respectful.
In other words: sexually disinterested in me.
I looked around Ashley’s house, feeling stupid and helpless. It was such a man cave. It didn’t feel like a gay man lived here—right down to the copies of Maxim and Playboy stashed in the bathroom—but that was probably an ignorant thing to think. Either way, my gaydar was definitely way off. I’d really thought Dylan was giving me sex eyes last night as we drank all that Prosecco.
But what straight dude drinks Prosecco, when beers are to be had?
One who’s looking to get laid with the girl he’s drinking it with—or so I’d thought.
Wrong.
I’d even wondered, as I lay in bed last night, drunk, thinking about the job he’d offered me and the ease with which he’d offered it—along with the generous day rate—if this gig was all a ruse just to keep me around because he thought I was cute. I was so unexpectedly thrilled with the idea, I definitely would’ve gotten off to it, if only I could stay awake long enough. But I’d been so boozy and tired, I hadn’t been that lucky.
Damn, was I ever an idiot.
I dropped my backpack on the guest bed and fucking sighed.
No matter how it felt—between my legs—when Dylan hit me with those knowing green eyes of his, he wasn’t actually into me. He knew I was hot for him; that was all. My ridiculous attempts to flirt with him, however cautiously, were probably just incredibly amusing to him.
Which meant this gig was not gonna be quite as fun as my Prosecco-muddled brain had started to think it might be—but fuck it. I still needed the money.
Had I blown it all with one simple photo?
Probably.
No matter how nice Dylan was, I could only assume that the photo of that kiss was going to go over very badly for me.
Though I had shot it through the cutout in his kitchen wall; maybe it could look like an accident? Like I didn’t mean to catch them in the photo? Of course, other than the hot rock star kissing the other hot rock star, there was nothing in the photo but an out-of-focus wall.
Shiiit.
I went to grab myself a beer from Ashley’s fridge and started drinking.
And pacing.
All I’d been thinking when I took that photo—other than the fact that they both looked so fucking gorgeous in the morning light streaming through the window behind them—was: Really? Him?? I still couldn’t believe Dylan was with that asshole, but clearly, he was.
I could only see them from the waist up, but Dylan was bare-chested. I didn’t know he was only wearing underwear until I walked into the kitchen afterward. And the look on Ashley’s face as he kissed him… I couldn’t see Dylan’s face as well, but Ashley’s eyes were laser-locked on Dylan’s mouth.
So yes, I’d definitely intruded on a private moment.
But the worse problem here was that I didn’t tell them I’d taken the photo right after I took it—and I knew better than that. At least, I really should’ve known better.
This was such amateur crap. I was a professional. These guys were famous, and I’d just abused their privacy.
How could I fuck up like this?
My career as a photographer—albeit a modest one—was the single most important thing in the world to me. And my professional integrity had now completely shit the bed—Dylan Cope’s bed, unfortunately—twice.
Fuck. Me.
And now I was starting to feel sorry for myself.
I was twenty-seven years old. Almost twenty-eight. I knew I’d passed that point, maybe around twenty-five, or twenty-four-and-three-quarters, where it was cute that I traveled the world staying in hostels and 2-star hotels, living out of a backpack. My sister would be first in line to remind me that it was time to get a real job—like her. Get a real life—like her.
Get a real relationship—like her.
But maybe I just wasn’t wired that way.
If I was meant for any of those things, why did I always have such a hard time with them?
Why couldn’t I stop fucking up?
And why was it bothering me so much that I’d fucked up?
Everyone was allowed to make mistakes.
Who cared about the gay rock stars next door anyway, right?
I didn’t care what they thought about me. I only cared that they paid me. I’d done my job and done it well today. Even if they never wanted me to step foot in Dylan’s house again or take another photo for them, they owed me my pay for today.
Except… we hadn’t even written up a contract. I’d just taken this job on trust.
Why? Because they knew Liv?
Stupid.
Especially when my sister still hadn’t even called or texted me back yet. For all I knew, she wasn’t speaking to me.
I sent her another carefully-worded text, asking her when I was going to get paid. With the money from her shoot and the money from today, I’d have about half of what I needed to disappear in southeast Asia for eighteen months. If Dylan wouldn’t keep me on, or if he screwed me out of today’s pay, there really wasn’t much I could do about it. I’d just have to make the money up somewhere else.
I might even have to swallow my pride and beg Liv for another shoot.
Christ.
My sister was right; I should’ve just kept my mouth shut.
I was much, much better at taking photos of people than bothering to even try to connect with them on any other level. At the end of the day, it was just easier that way. I connected with them just enough to get the photo I wanted, then I moved on.
Simple.
And my sex life was pretty much the same.
I could meet someone traveling and we’d hook up; maybe it was for a night or two while we were in the same hostel or hotel. Or maybe we’d travel together for a bit, through a certain city or a country, and then invariably we’d go our separate ways. And we always knew it was going to be like that.
Which meant there was no let-down at the end, no awkward breakup, no It’s not you, it’s me… I never even had to get to know them—or let them know me. For that slice of time, I could be anyone I wanted to be. Shy Amber. Sassy Amber. Serious Amber.
Kinky Amber.
Anything more than that, you started to get invested. Started to care about people. Started to care if they cared about you—or not.
Started to give something of yourself away.
Your freedom.
Your heart.
A
nd before you knew it, you were plummeting, free-falling down that slippery slope known as a relationship.
Which led to all kinds of bullshit and pain.
Love.
Passion.
Finding the man you thought you loved in a hot tub with a bunch of naked women.
A shattered heart.
Maybe I should’ve just counted myself lucky that I was definitely not headed down that slope with Dylan Cope.
But it was a cold comfort.
I knew I shouldn’t really care at all… but I totally cringed to imagine what he and Ashley might be thinking, what they might be saying about me, right now, if they found that photo of them kissing.
I tried to put it out of my mind.
I tried, all evening.
But the truth was, I really did care what they thought. Not about me, per se, but about me as a photographer. Because what I’d done was just plain shitty. Dylan had welcomed me and my camera into his home. He hadn’t specifically told me not to take any photos of him, but for fuck’s sake, the trust was implied.
I’d just shit all over his trust.
After wandering around Ashley’s empty house about a hundred times, mentally spiraling, unable to sit still or focus on much else, I found myself in the kitchen. His friendly aunt and uncle smiled at me from the photo on the fridge, and I felt awful. Because I’d shit on Ashley’s trust, too.
As much attitude as the guy had thrown at me, the fact was he was letting me stay here, in his house. For free. He’d even been feeding me.
And the other fact was, when he set his irritable, angsty blue eyes on me, it made me squirm with a feeling that was starting to drift south of irritation…
Okay. Who the fuck was I kidding?
The real truth was I was attracted to Ashley Player, in an annoyingly distracting sort of way.
I was attracted to them both.
Even before I’d found out they were together, I already knew getting the feels over either of these guys would only end in utter fucking chaos and tragedy. For me. But somehow, it didn’t make me feel any better now that I knew I had zero chance with either of them.
Dirty Like Dylan: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 4) Page 10