Jill Shalvis - Bared

He adjusted his focus through the lens. “In what way?”

“It’s so…big. So…real life. It makes all my problems seem so small.”

“Yeah? Smile just a little, mostly with your eyes, there you go…” He focused a little closer…perfect, it was perfect. “What kind of problems do you have?”

She laughed. “Oh boy. If you only knew.” She looked around her again and sighed. “I just can’t get over how incredible it all is.”

“Because you’ve never seen it.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Aw, hell. He was going to tell her. “You’ve been here before.”

Her gaze flew to his.

“Or at least Amber has.”

And while she stood there speechless, looking gorgeous and just a little bit off kilter, he got his shot. He clicked his shutter until he was out of film then he slowly nodded. “Several times, in fact. She’s been here and she hated every moment of it-the drive, the heat, the dryness, every insect that had the bad misfortune of landing on her. She hated every cactus, every single Joshua tree. She hated all of it.”

Emma stared at him, eyes widening and then shutting for a moment.

He waited her out and when she opened her eyes again they were drowning in regret.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re Emma.”

“You knew.” She looked shocked to the bone. “When did you figure it out?”

“About two minutes after you walked onto the set in Kauai.”

“But how? How did I give it away?”

“It was what you didn’t do.” He ticked the reasons off on his fingers. “You weren’t demanding things and you weren’t trying to hit on every single man around…”

“Oh.”

“I looked into your eyes and saw Emma. Queen Emma.”

“Queen…” She sputtered, making him laugh. “Queen Emma?”

“Amber always refers to you as that. You didn’t know,” he said and laughed again. “Honestly, I think she actually means it as a compliment.”

“Right.” She blew a strand of hair away from her face, then let out a little disparaging sound. She stared at him some more. “You never said anything, you never gave it away that you suspected.”

“I was pissed.”

She bit her lower lip again. God, the way she tortured that lip…

“And now?” she asked, her voice shaking just enough to have him softening. “Now that you know the truth, are you still angry at what I did?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I got over it.”

Her eyes hadn’t left his. “When?”

“I don’t know. Soon as I realized you weren’t wasting my time, I guess. When I saw that I could still get the pictures I needed.”

Emma stared at him, looking shaken and…

Oh, damn.

Aroused.

She looked aroused and his body leaped to join the fray.

“SO YOU REALLY KNEW,” Emma said. “You knew the entire time…” She shouldn’t have felt so shocked. After all, she was a terrible actress, which explained why she did what she did for a living and wrote scripts instead of playing them out.

But she was shocked, to the core, and it reverberated through her body, leaving her staring at him like some dimwit.

And then there was everything else racing through her. She was cold, for one. The wind had seeped inside her. Her hair was driving her crazy because it kept sticking to her lipstick and stabbing her in the eyes, but as unbelievable as it was, her body hummed with an excitement she couldn’t deny.

Maybe it was because he’d known she wasn’t Amber and he’d still gone on with the shoots, which meant she’d done it. She’d given him as good as her sister would have. That was exciting in its own right.

But then there was the way he stared at her, looking frustrated and brooding, with that low, sexy voice that had said things like Turn this way. Arch your back. Yeah, oh yeah, like that…

God, she loved his voice. She’d tried not to think about it because she’d thought he was talking to Amber, but he hadn’t been. He’d been talking to her all along.

“What I don’t know is why,” he said. “Why are you here pretending to be Amber?”

“She’s away. But she said it was really important to her career-”

“It is. That’s why I don’t get it. What’s keeping her away-” He shook his head. “You know what? I don’t care.”

“She was with a guy on the islands. I’m sorry.”

“Are you kidding? I just hope he keeps her there.”

That startled a laugh out of her.

“I thought you were playing me,” he said.

“That’s why you were mad?” When he nodded, she shook her head. “I wasn’t trying to play you at all. It was for Amber. Do you have a sister?”

“Sure. Two of them. Carolyn and Tessa.”

“Are you close?”

“Yes,” he said. “Very. But much as I love them, I wouldn’t go modeling for one of them in a thong.”

She laughed. “Well, you know Amber. She gets herself into trouble.”

“Yes.”

“And I get her out of trouble. It’s our routine.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “You’re the oldest.”

“By three whole minutes.” She shook her head. “And every time she calls and needs something, I tell myself it’ll be the last time I do it, but…”

“But you can’t stop-”

“Rafe.”

Emma jumped at the sound of Stone’s voice calling out. She’d actually forgotten they weren’t the only two people on earth.

“Weather’s gone,” Stone said.

“We’re nearly done.” Rafe looked at the sky. “You guys go ahead and head back. We’ll be right behind you.”

“Hurry, or you’ll get a nice cold shower,” Stone said, and in less than two minutes, everyone and everything but Rafe, his camera and Emma had vanished.

He was changing film. “Are you too cold?”

“Define too cold.”

He shot her a quick grin and it nearly paralyzed her with its potency. “You look almost human when you do that,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Smile.”

He straightened away from the camera. “I smile a lot.”

“Not around me you don’t.”

“You mean not around you being Amber.”

“Ah.” She nodded, then jerked in surprise when an icy snowflake landed on her arm. “It’s…snowing.”

He tilted his head back, eyed the clouds, then smiled again. “Yeah. Amazing, isn’t it? We’re only a couple of hours from Los Angeles, and-”

“And it’s a different world.”

Again their eyes locked and this time it was her heart that jerked. What was it about him that did that to her? Another snowflake landed on her shoulder and nearly sizzled off her skin. “Rafe…What is it you’re looking for?”

“Peace. Quiet. Enough hours in the day to do whatever I want. Not to have to deal with Hollywood ever again.”

She smiled. “I meant right now. What is it you’re looking for right now, so that we can finish.”

“Oh.” He actually seemed a little embarrassed.

“It’s just that I thought you were in a hurry,” she said when he bent to his camera.

“I wanted to beat the weather. We’ve done that.” He peeked at her. “Are you tired?”

“All I’ve done is stand here.”

“Amber would be.”

“I’m sure.”

“Yeah? So why didn’t you act like Amber when you were imitating her?”

“I can do that now, if you’d like.”

He smiled again. “No, thanks. I’m almost done. I just wanted to try…Turn toward me so that you’re fully facing the camera. See what we get that way-Yeah. Now, hands to your side so you don’t cover the body or clothing. We’re getting a clothing allowance here-God forbid you cover it or they’ll cut my budget. Nice.”

She’d placed her back to the rock, laid her arms alongside her body and leaned her head back to see if she could catch any more snowflakes. His low, husky voice made her shiver.

“Perfect,” he said softly, and started taking more pictures, though he was quieter than he had been before.

Because he’d opened up without meaning to? Probably. And something deep within her wanted to put them on a level playing field. “Peace and quiet is my thing, too,” she said.

“Uh-huh. I imagine working for a soap opera that needs to put out an hour of production on a daily basis is real quiet.”

“Well…” She had to laugh. “I can pretend.”

“You love what you do?”

She watched the sky churn and burn. “I love what I do.”

“Press your shoulders to the rock. Bend a knee.”

As another flake hit her bared belly, she did as he asked. For the next few moments they were photographer and model, nothing more. Up until now, it had been like a fantasy. She had played at being Amber, played at being able to model, but now that cover was gone.

She wasn’t Amber, she was herself.

Just herself.

Just Emma.

Not sexy, not open and wild, not anything this man expected. But then, that was the thing about expectations…they could change.

She hoped.

At the touch of hands on her arms, she jumped.

“Just me.” Rafe had stopped taking pictures and had come close. “You’re cold,” he said, and when she shivered-not because she was cold, but because he spoke near her ear and it sent a wave of something hot and hungry down her spine-he glided his hands up and down her arms. “I have everything I need, let’s go.”

But he was still touching her. His hands were on her arms. His body had leaned in, so that she felt the hard rock at her back and his hard body at her side. He’d done it in a gesture meant to warm, but it was doing something else entirely.

“Rafe-”

“You’ve got goose bumps bigger than the snowflakes.” He pulled his sweater over his head, leaving him in a plain dark blue T-shirt, and offered the sweater to her. “Here.”

She stared at it. “This would make interesting pages. Hero offers sweater to the woman who’s not who she said she was.”

“Is work always on your mind?”

“Yes,” she said honestly, while he tugged his sweater over her head. The inside still held his body heat, his scent and she hugged her arms to herself to keep it close. The arms of the sweater went past the tips of her fingers and when he pulled the body of it down her torso, his fingers brushed her sides, her hips, her thighs where the bottom of the sweater hit.