Exposure

by Iris Blaire

  Andrea stands. I walk over to her and shake her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m sorry,” I turn to Britain. “Story?”

  “Glad you asked. Rylan!” Britain yells.

  “WHAT!” Evan screams from the dressing room. I bite back my grin.

  “Get your ass in here. We’re talking marketing.”

  Evan saunters out of the dressing room dressed as Evan—just as adorable as she when I saw her last in the coffee shop. No makeup, hipster glasses on, hair up.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” I tell Evan honestly when she’s standing by me.

  “You and I are going to craft our love story.” Evan says dryly. “Yippee.”

  “Love story?” I ask.

  “With this issue, we’re trying to attract a bigger audience,” Britain explains. “That’s why we hired you. We want to appeal to women. Research shows that the type of erotica women tend to go for is erotica with a storyline.” She points to Andrea, and Andrea waves. “So I’ve hired Andrea here to write your story. Every issue, we’ll have a shoot and an episode.”

  “Titled, ‘The Seduction of Rylan Willow,’” Evan drawls.

  I snort.

  “It’s not a joke,” Britain says seriously, looking at me.

  “Oh,” I mutter.

  “Anyway,” Britain continues. “We were hoping to gain a little inspiration from your ideas. Who should these characters be, how should the shoots be themed, etcetera. We could just make it easy. Billionaire CEO and his adorable little secretary.” Britain nudges Evan with her shoulder.

  Evan scowls. “That shit is so overdone.”

  “Fine then, Rylan. What are your ideas?”

  Evan shrugs dramatically. “Why don’t you go all-out if we’re doing that whole dom-sub thing? Base it in a fucking BDSM club or something.”

  Andrea makes a face. “Too hard to write a story for.”

  “Come on, Rylan, you know better,” Britain says. “We need to work with what we have, too. Building a set for a freaking BDSM club would be way too difficult. Plus, we’d have to buy a bunch of kinky toys and shit.”

  “Work with what we have,” I mutter. Everyone’s eyes flicker to me. “That’s easy. We run out of a university, for crying out loud. Student-Professor.”

  The women on the couches start to murmur excitedly. While Evan groans, Britain’s eyes widen. “Dallas, you are a genius.”

  “Genius!” Evan cries. “This is the context of our real lives. He just taught me last week!”

  I shake my head. “But I’m not your professor. I’m a grad student.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of what this is going to do to your image? The next time you lecture, you’re going to have undergrads falling all over you. How will your girlfriend feel?” If I’m not mistaken, there’s bitterness in her tone beneath all of that disgust.

  “I told you,” I say. “I’m done guest lecturing for this semester. And I’m done with teaching. Next year they’re letting me dive fully into field research.”

  This obviously isn’t what Evan wants to hear. She groans again and turns on here heel. “Well fucking fine. Give me a minute, let me go throw on some skanky catholic school-girl outfit and perfect my lip biting.”

  Britain rolls her eyes as Evan stomps away and slams the door to the dressing room.

  I sigh and push back my hair. “I should go talk to her.”

  “Don’t bother,” Britain says, but I ignore her.

  When I enter the dressing room, Evan is already standing in her bra and panties, sifting through racks of clothing. It’s hard for me to not stare at her delicious curves.

  “Go away,” she mutters, not taking her eyes off of the clothes in front of her.

  “Stop, Evan,” I tell her. “Look at me.”

  Her shoulders slump, but her eyes still avoid me.

  “You keep acting like this isn’t awkward for me too.”

  “It’s different for you,” she says, pulling a white button up shirt off the rack and chucking it behind her.

  “I have a girlfriend.”

  “Exactly,” she says. “And I feel like the whore intruding on your relationship.”

  “Evan. Evan, look at me, now.”

  She blinks a few times and her eyes find mine.

  “Don’t you ever call yourself that again, do you understand me? If anything, I’m the whore.”

  She traces a microscopic school-girl skirt on the rack, and I’m positive her ass won’t fit into it. Maybe that’s the idea. “How does your girlfriend put up with this?”

  “She loves it, actually,” I tell her honestly. She raises an eyebrow, and I continue. “She loves that it’s going to give us extra income. She even told me to act single on set.”

  Evan narrows her eyes skeptically. “She did what?”

  “To relax me. Because I felt bad about it, you know?”

  “You seem confident enough,” she murmurs. “She must really trust you.”

  “That’s what happens when you’ve been together forever.” And sometimes, you also forget that you’re supposed to be in love too, but I don’t tell Evan that. Instead, I step toward her, take the skirt from her hands, and throw it over the clothing racks.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she cries.

  “That’s not what women want to see you in. They want to see you in something they would wear.” I sift through the racks until I pull out a pair of low-rise jeans that look her size, and a pink rhinestone EPU hoodie. I hand them to her. “In this, you could be any female student on campus. That way, readers will be able to fantasize when they watch me undress you.”

  Chapter Six

  Evan

  I clench my teeth to keep my jaw from falling to the floor.

  Dallas has a way of making me hate him for turning me on so much. For normal guys, this wouldn’t be a problem. I’d just flirt back and go along for the ride. But Dallas—well, first of all, he’s extraordinarily beautiful. And second of all he just got done talking about his girlfriend. Of forever. Who trusts him.

  What I need to do is just accept this, and take advantage of the fact that his ever-so-trusting girlfriend wants him to act single on set. I can’t have a boyfriend. Boys are too distracting and get all weird when they find out my source of income. This will be my only thrill for a while.

  Dallas.

  “It’s going to be hard for me to get into the moment with this silly scenario,” I tell him honestly. “I’m going to need a little bit of help.”

  “I’ll make sure to do that,” he responds huskily before leaving me alone to change.

  When he’s gone, I place my hand upon my frantically beating heart. “Don’t get too excited,” I whisper to myself. “It’s only instant gratification.”

  ^^^^

  Britain is the bravest, most shameless girl I’ve ever met in my entire life. It’s why we’re friends. It’s also why she was able to convince a university committee to approve East Park Exposed as an official East Park University publication. Britain’s argument: Hell, Harvard did it.

  And it worked.

  There’s a clause in the agreement stating that we can’t shoot in any East Park building except for one—an abandoned gym that hosts a set of classrooms, lockers, showers, and a drained swimming pool. We can’t do much with it, but we should be able to find an office for this shoot.

  Fuck, this shoot.

  The campus police gives Britain the wink when he drives up to unlock the building for us. We’ve used this building a couple times before, and he knows exactly what we’re up to. I guess he thinks we need that extra wink in order to feel sexy or something.

  Luckily for me, the only ones attending this off-site shoot are me, Dallas, Britain, and Andrea. Andrea’s here in order to direct us toward the vision of the story she’s conjuring up in her head right now. Delilah really wanted to watch, and so did Adam, but I think Britain can sense how tense my nerves are right now, so she made the shoot private.

  We walk down the deserted, grim
y hall, and Britain leads us up the stairs. “I think the offices are on the second floor,” she says.

  I swallow. Why am I so nervous? I’ve done a million and a half shoots before and I’ve rocked all of them. I’ve even done one with Dallas before. But the thought of being around him, of having him touch me for the camera again, is making me light-headed.

  And sweaty. Which is the last thing I need to be.

  Britain finds an office that looks like it could still be in use. There are books on the shelves and files scattered across the desk. Britain starts moving the files, and I grudgingly find a soft piece of felt in one of the drawers to start wiping away dust.

  Dallas smoothes the front of his slacks and sits, crossing his legs. A nice dress shirt is tucked into his pants. He even wears a tie, his hair slicked back enough to make him seem older and professional without looking creepy. And he does look older. He looks like he could easily pull off early thirties—perfect young, hot professor age.

  Heat flushes my body.

  I’m dressed in incredibly low-rise jeans, a revealing, white cami, and a pink EPE zip-up sweatshirt. Exactly what Dallas told me to wear. As I stalk around the room trying to tidy the place up when he grabs my arm and pulls me to him. I gaze down into his light eyes that express concern.

  “What can I do that will make this shoot as easy for you as possible?”

  I want to reach out and touch his face—run my thumb along the smooth end of his jaw, but I have to be patient.

  “Modeling with someone else is just going to take some time getting used to.”

  The corner of his mouth turns up. “I’ll try my best to make you forget about the camera.”

  Oh, God.

  You should try your best to make me forget you’re not single, I want to tell him, but instead, I just nod.

  After Britain sets up her lighting, she claps her hands together. “Okay, I think we’re ready to shoot. Dallas, go ahead and take a seat behind the desk.

  My heart begins to pound relentlessly. I clutch my binder—which I’ve brought as a prop—to my chest.

  Britain starts adjusting her camera. “Okay, Andrea, so what’s the scenario?”

  Andrea inhales excitedly, and clasps her hand in front of her. “Okay, Rylan. You come into the office looking for way to make extra credit in Dallas’s class, but he obviously has bigger plans for you.”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh, brother.”

  “Rylan,” Dallas says sternly. Darkly. I turn to see him looking up at me from his desk, eyes fierce. His palms are pressed flat against the polished wood. “I’ve noticed that you’re failing my class.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I murmur.

  “Fuck yes!” Britain squeals, raising the camera and taking a few test shots of Dallas. “Come on, Rylan. Don’t be a poor sport. Play into it.”

  I take a huge breath and slowly start walking toward Dallas, who is stone-still.

  “Rylan, you are meek and innocent,” Andrea instructs. “This professor is ruthless toward you. You’ve never done so horribly in a class before and all you want in the world is for your GPA to not drop from a sparkling 4.0.”

  Not too far from real life, I think.

  “Give me dialog,” Andrea instructs. “Inspire me.”

  Dallas grins wickedly. He’s having way too much fun with this. “I don’t think you can do it,” he says.

  Fire ignites inside me. A challenge.

  I look down, scuffing my feet timidly. “Professor, I’d like to ask if you’d make an exception and offer extra credit for me. It’s just, I’m a straight-A student and have never had such a difficult time in a class before.”

  “Yes,” Britain hisses.

  When I look up at Dallas, I can’t tell if he’s impressed or not by my acting. His expression lacks all amusement. He leans back in his chair. “The thing is, Rylan, I have girls coming into my office all of the time asking for extra credit. And their excuses are quite creative. So why should I give it to you and not to them?”

  “Please, Professor,” I whimper. “I’ll do anything.”

  Dallas can’t keep the smile from rising on his face. “Unzip your sweatshirt,” he orders me in a deep voice. “Slowly.”

  “Is this okay, Andrea?” I hear Britain asking.

  “Oh, I’m having the time of my life,” Andrea responds. “Keep going,” she instructs us.

  Trying my hardest to keep my breathing under control, I slowly unzip my sweatshirt. Dallas’s eyes don’t leave mine the entire time.

  “Take it off,” he says. I let the garment fall to the floor.

  He rolls his chair back and stands. With one foot purposefully in front of the other, he walks around to the edge of the desk and motions to it.

  “Take a seat,” he says, his serious expression unwavering.

  I have to hop onto the desk, my feet dangling before him. Andrea remains silent, letting Dallas have the reigns.

  “I don’t think that you should pass the class without some sort of punishment for failing in the first place.”

  Oh. God.

  My eyes widen. “What kind of punishment?”

  His eyes never leave me as he places his hand on his belt buckle and begins to unfasten it.

  Britain giggles.

  “I hate you, Britain,” I breathe.

  “Stay in character,” she barks, continuing to snap photos.

  When Dallas slides his belt off, he orders, “Raise your arms over your head.”

  “What are you going to do?” I whisper.

  He only responds with darkening eyes that send a shiver through my whole body. Biting my bottom lip, I raise my arms over my head.

  Gripping the bottom hem of my cami, he peels it upward and over my head, revealing my lace, pushup bra. For a second, his eyes flicker to my chest to drink in the sight of me.

  Warmth races to the inside of my thighs, and I squeeze them together.

  I make to lower my arms. His hand shoots out and grabs my wrist, gripping me tightly.

  “Did I say that you could put your hands down?”

  “No, sir.”

  Damnit, I wish this were real. I wish Britain and Andrea weren’t here and Dallas was role-playing this scenario with me solely for the sake of turning me on.

  Because I am oh so turned on.

  “Keep your wrists pressed together.”

  I comply as he takes his belt and wraps it around my wrists, looping and fastening it so I am all tied up.

  “Lie back,” he instructs.

  As soon as I do so, keeping my arms raised above my head, he places his index finger on the center of my lower lip, pushing forward slightly until I taste him. Then, he drags his finger down my chin, my neck, and between the valley of my breasts. When he reaches my navel I buck my hips up, and he flattens my palm against my belly and pushes me back down. “You don’t move until I say you can move. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” I try to speak clearly but end up more in character than I mean to be when my words escape me in a whimper.

  Dallas notices. I can tell by the way his lip twitches. Hooking his fingers beneath the hem of my jeans, he leans forward until his lips brush against my ear. “Are you as turned on as I am?”

  A small gasp escapes me, but I don’t have time to respond before Andrea instructs Dallas to take off my pants.

  Dallas

  I order Evan to lift her hips so I can tug her jeans off. They land on the floor. My hands find her upper thighs and I squeeze. “Don’t move unless I move you.”

  She squeezes her eyes shut and nods furiously. My dick is growing harder with every passing second, and it’s not going to be hard before it becomes painful to even move.

  Especially with what I’m planning to do.

  I ease her legs apart and bite back my groan. I can tell how wet she is from here. If we were alone—if I was single—I wouldn’t be able to contain myself. I’d rip those lace panties right off of her and lick right up her center.

  Fuc
k.

  Her perfect tits rise and fall as she breathes shallowly.

  I realize Britain’s trying to instruct me.

  “Jesus, Dallas. Yes, we all know Rylan’s hot, now shut your jaw and stay in control.”

  I yank my mouth shut and take a deep breath through my nose. Remain in control. Remain in control.

  “Tie up her feet,” says Andrea.

  Tie up her feet? “With what?”

  I look over at Andrea, and she nods toward my chest.

  Of course, idiot.

  I push Evan’s knees together and reach up, undoing the knot of my tie as quickly as possible. Evan whimpers again, a noise I wish she’s stop making because I’m starting to lose my mind. When the tie is free from my neck, I wrap the fabric into a knot around her ankles. Her toes curl, and I pinch the big one on her left foot. She gasps.

  “Don’t move,” I growl, more so out of my sexual frustration than anything else, “or this punishment will be much worse for you.”

  When I meet her eyes, she’s giving me a strange look, as though she’s thinking hard about something.

  And then she curls her toes again.

  I don’t take the time to second guess my actions, my hands scooping up her back and legs. I flip her over to her stomach and she cries out in surprise.

  Andrea wolf-whistles. Britain drops her camera. “You okay, Ry?”

  “Shut up, Brit,” Evan gasps. “Let the man work.”

  “Cup her ass,” says Andrea, and then bend forward, like your whispering into her ear.

  I drag my hand up her soft thigh, the perfect globe of her ass fitting right into my hand.

  Britain instructs Evan to arch her hips and look at the camera. I lower my head to the ear facing me. When her hair brushes against my lips, something inside me snaps. Dancing with her like this is a slow, torturous death, and I can’t take it anymore. I open my mouth and catch her earlobe, scraping my teeth against her tender flesh. She moans my name softly and I almost lose it right there.

  I hear Andrea say, “This would be good for a finale pose.”

  Britain’s snapping pictures like crazy. “Agreed,” she finally says, letting the camera drop. “I think that’s a wrap guys.”