Bared

by Jill Shalvis

  “Which way?” he asked.

  Feeling suddenly dry-mouthed, she just pointed.

  While his long legs worked the clutch and the gas, his face was taut with concentration…and something else, something making his big, hard body tight with tension.

  He glanced over at her with so much hunger and heat in his eyes, it took her breath.

  Excitement flooded through her, making her nipples even harder, and between her legs she was already wet. He hadn’t even touched her yet, but oh, he was going to, and all because she’d asked him. She’d come on to him and he’d not only accepted, he couldn’t wait to get to it.

  The power of that was mind-blowing. “Here,” she said, pointing. “You turn here.”

  He did so fast and furiously, as if on a car chase. She couldn’t help it—a little laugh escaped her, though she wasn’t sure if it was from amusement or nerves.

  “What?” he asked in a low voice, glancing over at her. “What’s so funny?”

  “Your hurry.”

  He spared her another glance. “You didn’t think I’m dying here? That I’ve been dying for a very long time?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You can spend the next few hours making it all up to me.”

  How was it he made her want to laugh and melt at the same time? “So just to put it all out there…we’re tied in the wanting department. Right?” This was her last doubt, right here. Because she knew how much she wanted him, more than her next breath, actually, and she didn’t see how he could want her that much in return.

  Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached over and took her hand. He brought it up to his mouth, took a quick bite out of her palm, then kissed the spot.

  She felt the tug all the way to her belly.

  “We are tied,” he said softly, then slid her hand down his body to the juncture of his jeans, cupping his hand over hers so that she could feel the unmistakable outline of an erection so impressive it took her breath.

  She stared at him, her fingers molding to the shape of him through the denim.

  “I’m not going to be able to take much of that,” he said, eyes still on the road.

  She did it again.

  “Feeling playful?” He squeezed her bare thigh before running the tips of his fingers beneath the hem of her denim shorts.

  “T-turn right,” she said on a shaky laugh. “Second house on the left. It’s the last house on the street—”

  He parked in her driveway so fast that her head spun.

  “Inside,” he said. As if to make sure she was following, he pulled her out across his seat.

  At her front door, he waited with barely masked impatience while she fumbled with the lock. Fumbled, because there was something unsettling about having a six-foot-two-inch, gorgeously rumpled, frustrated man standing over her, breathing down her neck, needing her so badly he couldn’t even talk.

  She barely got the door unlocked before he took her arm and led her inside, pressing her back against the door as he shut it with their momentum. And then she was pinned there by his harder body.

  “Now,” he said.

  “Now,” she agreed.

  He pulled off her shirt in one economical movement, then lifted his arms for her when she tugged at his. Both hit the floor. He went to work on her bra next, swearing when he couldn’t find the hook. Laughing a little, gasping for breath, too, she showed him the hidden latch. Then it was gone and he bent, taking a breast in his mouth.

  “Wait,” she said.

  And with his mouth on her breast and his fingers on the fastener of her shorts, he went still.

  “I just thought a bed…”

  With a groan, he rested his forehead against hers. “Yeah, a bed, face to face, with my body buried so deeply inside yours that I don’t know where I end and you start.”

  Just his words made her quiver.

  “But if we go now, it’ll be over far too fast.” He dropped to his knees and slid off her shoes and shorts, leaving her in nothing but a pair of sunshine-yellow cotton bikini panties. He ran his finger over the elastic at her hip, slid both hands around the back of her and cupped her cheeks in his hand.

  “You have the best ass ever. Turn around, Emma.”

  Her stomach fluttered but she did as he asked—turned so that her front was now pressed up against the door. Still on his knees, he traced his fingers along the leg openings of her panties, until they met at the back juncture of her legs, lingering to explore. She pressed her palms flat to the door, and her cheek, too, looking for balance in a tilted world. Her nipples pressed against the wood, as well, and her thigh muscles were so tight they were shaking.

  “Rafe—” She broke off when he touched the inside of her thigh, urging her legs open for more discovery on his part, and she had to lock her knees to remain upright.

  “Mmm.” One finger slid beneath the material and lightly, so lightly, traced over her every curve. “So wet.”

  And then he slid her panties down. She gasped and, then when she felt his mouth low on one cheek, the gasp turned into a moan. He kissed a line down to the back of one thigh and then up the other, while his fingers delved between, leaving her panting, arching, writhing.

  “Please,” she heard herself whisper. “Oh, please.”

  “Anything.” Surging to his feet, he pressed his chest to her back, slipping his arms around her ribs so that he could cup her breasts, teasing her nipples into two tight, aching peaks with a rasping glide of his fingers and thumbs. “Anything, Emma.”

  “Inside me,” she managed to say, pushing her butt into his crotch, knowing she was making the front of his jeans wet but beyond caring.

  She heard the pop, pop, pop of his buttons. Felt him rub the length of his erection down her backside. Arching her back, thrusting herself upward to help, pressing her face to the wood, she whispered his name again—a whisper that turned into a cry of pleasure when he eased just his very tip inside her.

  Then he pulled back. Thinking he was going to thrust again, she widened her stance and waited with baited breath. He kissed her shoulder, her neck, whispering her name, and when she realized he was asking her a question, she lifted her head.

  “I still don’t have a condom.” He kissed the other side of her neck. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think when I ran out of the house after you like I did that I’d—”

  “I have one,” she admitted, and turned to face him. “I write city girls for a living, remember? I…thought I should know how to use one.” Embarrassed, she started to look the other way, but he tilted her chin up and kissed her long and deep.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and kicked off the rest of his clothes.

  She looked down at the clothes on the floor, feeling more than a little naked, but he took her hand and tugged her toward the hall, not giving her a chance to feel anything but him.

  It worked. His kiss always would. He just had a way of putting everything he had into it, and getting her to do the same. Before him, she’d have said kissing with her tongue was…well, something she tolerated.

  Now? She thrived on those kisses. At least for tonight. Just for tonight.

  She took him into her bathroom, opened the drawer and showed him the box missing one condom. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

  “What did you experiment on?”

  “A carrot,” she admitted, blushing when he laughed good and hard.

  “A carrot.” Shaking his head, he pulled a condom out of the box, ripped open the packet with his teeth and then handed it to her. “Show me.”

  “You’re bigger than a carrot,” she murmured as she rolled the condom down the length of him.

  “Yes, thankfully.”

  She led him to her bedroom. She hadn’t opened the shutters because the light interfered with the screen of her laptop. She hadn’t picked up her clothes, and her bed wasn’t made.

  One of the pitfalls of working twenty-four-seven—she never got to the “home” stuff and it was never
more evident than right this minute.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. She kicked a pile under her bed, then tossed a towel off her sheets to the floor.

  “No, it’s good,” he said, following her down, down, down to the mattress, covering her body with his, thrusting a leg between hers so that she was wide open to him. “Emma.” He took her mouth with his until she was once again clinging to him.

  Then, holding her hips in his hands, he lifted up enough to snag her gaze with his.

  And that just might have been her biggest mistake yet. Because as he thrust inside her with one delicious flex of his hips, as he let out a low moan that was a twin to hers, as he gathered her close, she knew the undeniable truth.

  This was about far more than tonight.

  This was about her heart.

  About her soul.

  But quite possibly, about falling in love.

  But since she couldn’t go there, not now, maybe not ever, she closed her eyes and let the wave of passion take them both.

  17

  RAFE WOKE UP at the crack of dawn to find he had one tiny corner of the bed, no covers and no pillow.

  And no woman in his arms.

  Emma had the rest of the bed, all of the covers and both pillows. She was facedown, sprawled out and dead to the world.

  Since he risked falling off the bed if he so much as moved, he didn’t. He just lay there and looked at her.

  Always, he left a woman’s bed before the sun came up. So he stared at Emma, waiting for the claustrophobia to overcome him.

  Nothing.

  Still, he waited, for it would happen. It always did. It was why he wanted out of his “Hollywood” lifestyle, wanted to meet the kind of woman he could wake up with and feel excited about instead of panicked.

  In anticipation of the need to run, he forced himself to slip out of bed. Leaning over her, he kissed her lightly before backing to the door.

  He always left, he reminded himself. And he was leaving now because they had no future. He was leaving now because she’d wanted only one night.

  He was leaving now for the biggest reason of all.

  Because he didn’t want to.

  He looked down at her, sleeping so deeply. If she moved, if she so much as twitched, he would stay.

  But she didn’t.

  THE NINTH PHOTO SHOOT was two days later. Emma had agonized over it for most of that time. She had agonized over everything since the moment she’d woken up alone in her bed the night after Rafe had—

  Well. Thinking about what Rafe had done to her that night brought both the memory of incredible pleasure—more than she’d ever known—and a good amount of pain.

  Because that was the night she’d realized she was in trouble when it came to her feelings about Rafe Delacantro. Maybe she’d realized it before then, but it hadn’t been until he’d made love to her, in her bed, in her shower, on the kitchen table at three in the morning while they were feeding each other cheese and crackers, that she’d been able to face it. She was in deep.

  So much for keeping a clear head about this.

  Now, hours before the shoot, Amber sat on Emma’s bed, munching on yogurt, her idea of junk food. Emma’s idea of junk food was a big old bag of chips. Thank God for good metabolism.

  “Are you sure?” Amber asked for the fifth time as Emma stared at herself in the mirror. “Because, quite honestly, I don’t get why you have to do this.”

  “I know.” Emma didn’t know how to put into words why she wanted to do this shoot instead of having Amber do it. She figured it was a sneaky way of seeing Rafe again, since she knew the way he’d left the other morning without waking her up meant that either she’d completely disappointed him or he was scared of his feelings for her in the same way she was scared of her feelings for him.

  But she couldn’t imagine Rafe scared of anything.

  Which meant she’d disappointed him.

  Hard on the ego, but she’d had two long nights to agonize over it now. She could have been more aggressive, hotter, more earthy somehow—she just knew it. Maybe she could convince him to come back out to her place tonight and they’d try again—

  “Because if I didn’t know better,” Amber said carefully, “I’d guess you were really into him. But since I do know better, it has to be something else, right?”

  Emma pulled on her ear. “Right.”

  “Ha!” Amber leaped off the bed and pointed at her. “You’re lying! You always pull on your ear when you’re lying. You’re into him, you really are. I knew it. Damn, Emma. Not Rafe. Anyone but Rafe.”

  “Well, I—”

  “I told you, he’s not the man to mess around with.”

  “Look who’s talking. You’re messing around with his best friend.”

  “But we’ve both been around the block and have no illusions. We know how to mess around with our bodies, not our hearts. You don’t.”

  “I’m learning.”

  “You, the prude, the Goodie Two-shoes, can sleep with him and get it out of your system?”

  “Yes. In fact, I’ve already washed him right out of my system, thank you very much.”

  “And that’s that.”

  “And that’s that,” Emma confirmed.

  Amber’s eyes narrowed. “So why are you doing this shoot?”

  Good question. “I told you, I have a secret Harley-Davidson fantasy. I want to wear leather and lie over a motorcycle and have every guy’s tongue hang out.”

  Amber didn’t look convinced. “Really?”

  Emma mentally crossed her fingers. “Really. Don’t take this experience away from me.”

  “You’re crazy, you know that?”

  Yep. She knew that.

  THEY DID THE HARLEY SHOOT at night, with the moon and stars as their backdrop on Mulholland Drive overlooking L.A. far below.

  Rafe mostly watched, letting Stone handle all the crucial decisions on the setup. He knew Stone loved this business with all his heart, and he also knew his friend would do as well or better than Rafe had. He had the patience and temperament for it.

  More power to him.

  They were waiting for Jen to bring their model to the top of the hill for the shoot. “It won’t be Emma,” Stone said with certainty, when they were all set up. “I talked to Amber, and she said—”

  “You talked to Amber?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You hate to talk to Amber.”

  “I don’t hate looking at her.”

  “Or sleeping with her?”

  Stone lifted a shoulder. “She’s not quite as certifiable as I thought she was.”

  “You have a thing for her.”

  “I wouldn’t talk if I were you. You have a thing for her twin.”

  Rafe stared at him, then sighed. “It’s a sad, sad day when the two of us are hooked.”

  “I’m not hooked,” Stone said. “Not even close.”

  “Yeah. Me, neither.”

  Much.

  When the car carrying the model arrived, they were ready for her. A long, leather-clad leg emerged, followed by a torso covered with a leather push-up bra.

  Rafe swallowed hard while he waited for the face to emerge and look at him. Stone had told him it would be Amber. She was ready to work and wanted to work—two separate things with Amber—so he truly expected Emma’s twin to be the one sprawling across the big bike for his camera.

  And that was for the best, anyway. He hadn’t talked to Emma since their night together. He’d figured each of them would be best served by a little distance. If what they’d each said was true and this was just a physical release, then it should be over.

  And maybe if that had been true, he would have been able to sleep for the past two nights, without waking up feeling as though he was missing something. The best something.

  The model turned and faced them and when he saw her eyes he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  She walked right up to him, keeping her gaze on his the entire time. “Hey.”

&
nbsp; “Hey, yourself.”

  “Ready to do this?”

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “Where do you want me?” she asked instead of answering.

  He pointed to the bike, and she moved that way, a vision in the hip-hugging, incredibly low-riding leather pants.

  “Straddle it.”

  Lifting a leg, Emma straddled the bike and tossed back her hair so it tumbled down her nearly bare back. She sent him a look over her shoulder, turning her body to best emphasize her full breasts and how the leather bra was barely containing them. If she moved another fraction, nipples were going to pop out. Sitting, her pants sank even lower on her hips, and he could see the line of her black lace thong coming out the top, the strings skimming her hips. He had no idea what it was about the top of a thong peeking out like that, but it got him and got him good.

  “How’s this?” she asked silkily.

  Just about perfect. Since no sound came out, he cleared his throat. “Good.”

  Stone handed him his camera with a long look in his eyes that said “I haven’t a clue why she’s here any more than you do,” and backed away to let Rafe get the shot.

  He directed her to a few different poses, many of which had her sitting on the bike sideways, facing the camera, with one leg up and bent, her heel close to her crotch as she smiled saucily. He took a shot, but his mind was convinced that he could clearly see the outline of her nipples—impossible through the leather. And in the V of her tight leather pants, he was sure he could see the outline of her most feminine, intimate place. A place he’d been and touched and kissed and sucked—

  He lowered the camera. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t take a picture of her like that and let unknown men drool over it.

  With a deep breath, he called, “Finished.”

  “That’s it?” Stone came up behind him. “You sure you shot enough film, because—”

  “I got enough.” And if he didn’t, he’d improvise. “We’re done here.”

  Stone slowly shook his head. “It’s a wrap,” he called out to the crew and then, for Rafe’s ears alone, he said, “You’ve lost it.”