Jill Shalvis - Bared

Those last two were still a sore subject for Rafe. They hadn’t been with Emma, and when he’d realized he had Amber standing in front of him in a black negligee, he’d gone in one heartbeat from taut anticipation to a frustrated edginess.

Amber had been surprisingly helpful and relatively quiet as well, letting him do his thing in a timely fashion. She’d actually wanted to please them. “Them” being mostly Stone, but Rafe appreciated it, nonetheless.

He was afraid he was never going to see Emma again.

“Did they come out okay?” he asked Stone now.

“Just as good as the others. Impossible to tell we have used two entirely different models.”

He’d be able to tell. Why hadn’t Emma come? He could have seen her in that red negligee-somehow the red would have suited her better than the black Amber had picked.

“You could call her, you know,” Stone said, flopping over in the water to float on his back.

“Who?”

“Who?” He laughed. “Emma, who.”

“I don’t need to call her.”

“Why can’t you just admit you fell for her? So she isn’t Martha Stewart, big deal.”

“I’m not looking for Martha Stewart.” “Really? What are you looking for?” Stone rolled his eyes when Rafe didn’t-couldn’t-reply, and dove under the water to swim laps.

Leaving Rafe with only his own doubts for company.

THAT EVENING, Emma decided she’d had enough. She’d been working nonstop for days, running on caffeine and little sleep.

She sat in a meeting surrounded by suits, bleary-eyed, feeling as if she’d let her life pass her by.

She knew they’d be here all weekend, and for the first time in…well, ever, she had somewhere else she wanted to be.

A photo shoot in the Malibu hills. It wasn’t a sudden urge to be a model that drove her. In fact, after this fantasy calendar shoot was over, she intended to never be in front of camera again.

Nope, what drove her was the need to see this thing through with Rafe. She hadn’t expected her desire for him to increase with each passing day and she certainly hadn’t expected that desire to be more than physical.

But the physical want alone was going to kill her.

She needed him.

She wondered if he felt the same. She had to know. She put her hands on the table and rose.

Everyone looked at her in surprise.

“I’m out of here,” she said.

“What?” Several suits said this in unison, staring at her as if she’d grown wings.

Maybe she had.

“I think my eighty hours so far this week is sufficient.”

“But…” The executive producer blinked. “We’re not done.”

“I know, but I am.” Gently, because they all looked confused, and really, she would have felt the same way not too long ago, she stopped to explain. “I need a little break.”

“But we still have to get your pages for-”

“You’ll have them. I’ll e-mail them later tonight.”

“But you never need a break,” said a shocked producer.

“I know.” But she needed one now.

THE HILLS OF MALIBU were still warm and beautiful when Emma arrived for the shoot. She pulled into the driveway of the house that had been rented for its private beach, and thought maybe she should use this location for her show, too.

She wondered what Rafe would say when he saw her. Would his eyes light up, would he toss her that slow, sexy-as-hell grin that weakened her knees?

To her shock, this shoot was already under way. At the back of the house, wearing a sunshine-yellow one-piece swimsuit and lit by the stars, the moon and a few strategic spotlights, stood her sister, modeling on the deck. Emma couldn’t hear the words of the photographer, who kneeled with his back to her, but she didn’t have to. She remembered exactly how his low, raspy voice sounded, how arousing his softly uttered directions were, how the silky nuances made her want to give him whatever he asked for. She looked at the way his shirt stretched taut over broad, sleek muscles and wondered if he still bore the marks of her fingernails.

And then Amber tossed her head back at something he said, laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world.

“Tough to watch, isn’t it?”

In surprise, Emma turned and found Stone standing there, looking at her with a mixture of sympathy and mutual misery. “What?”

“I know what you’re going through. The unreasonable jealousy.”

Emma tried to laugh, but it stuck in her throat. “It’s so stupid.”

“I know.” Stone watched as Amber pulled and adjusted her costume until her breasts nearly popped out of the suit. Then she turned her back to the camera, revealing how high she’d pulled up the thong back, which allowed them to see…just about everything.

Stone’s jaw bunched and jumped. “Excuse me,” he said to Emma. “Hold it!” he called out to Rafe and Amber, both of whom turned in surprise. “The wind is getting too fierce. Let’s wrap.”

Rafe glanced around in bafflement. “What?”

“It’s windy, Rafe,” Stone said, and, striding forward, he grabbed a white fluffy robe from Jen’s hands and flung it around Amber’s shoulders. “Far too windy to work.”

He waved away Jen and another assistant, instead leading Amber himself. As he did, Emma heard Amber say, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What the hell is wrong with me?” Stone asked with a harsh laugh. “I’ll tell you what the hell is wrong with me. I just learned something about myself.”

“Yeah? What’s that-that you’re an ass?”

“No.” Stone’s jaw tensed further. “That I don’t like you showing off for everyone. I want you to only show it off for me.”

Amber stumbled and might have fallen if Stone hadn’t been holding her up. She stopped and stared at him. “What? What did you just say?”

Instead of answering, Stone hauled her up to her toes and kissed her-kissed her hard and deep, by the looks of it.

Emma winced for him, expecting Amber to step back and slap him, maybe even drop-kick him to the ground, but instead Amber clung to him for more.

When Stone pulled back, chest heaving, eyes dark, he said, “I hate what you do. I hate that you always take jobs that require so little clothing.”

Amber let out a surprised laugh and put her hand to her mouth. “My God. It’s more than sex. You really like me.”

Stone blew out a breath. “Yeah. Guess I do.”

“Well, guess what?”

Stone looked wary. “What?”

“I like you back. And guess what else?”

“I’m feeling a little weak, Amber. Maybe you could just tell me.”

She beamed. “I just got a comedy pilot for TV.”

“A comedy?”

“Yep. Know what that means? No more stripping. I get to keep my clothes on from now on.”

Stone hauled her back into his arms. “Except with me,” he growled, and he kissed her again. Then he led her away.

In shock, Emma watched them go. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. A man had tamed her sister. A nice man. A normal man.

Emma was thrilled for Amber. She was also…sad. She wanted that. She wanted what Amber had managed to find for herself.

A man to want her, a man to want her for keeps.

She had let work take precedence, so much so that she’d pushed away all the men who might have been interested. She was consumed and too much of a perfectionist.

But even she knew those weren’t the only reasons she was alone.

The truth was, she’d never been interested enough to have a man hang around. Until now.

She was interested now, and in only one man.

Then she looked up and found that one man.

ALL RAFE HAD WANTED TO DO was get the shot finished and be done. Yes, he would rather have worked with Emma, but it had been Amber’s gig from the beginning and there was nothing he could do about that.

Emma wasn’t in his world-neither the world he was leaving nor the world he was heading toward.

And yet, there she stood, alone and quiet, watching him.

He felt a little unnerved to find her looking at him as though someone had shot her puppy, so he moved around the equipment that an assistant was putting away and walked toward her.

She didn’t run, but she looked as if she might be on the verge. She looked unsure and unhappy, and his heart cracked as he gazed at her.

Having no idea what he would say, he kept moving toward her.

Her eyes were huge, her fingers clasped together, and, as she did when she felt unsettled, she was nibbling on her lower lip. He wondered, Did she feel any of what he did? How could she not?

One thing he could see was the fear beneath the nerves, and he understood that all too well. With a hope that was startlingly intense, he increased his pace, and when he was about ten feet from her she did something not so surprising.

She whirled and ran. She bunched up her skirt a little in her fists, hitting the sand running, her peasant-style blouse fluttering around her torso, her long flowing skirt brushing her calves and knees.

“Emma, wait!”

When she didn’t, he whirled back to the assistant and Jen, both of whom were watching the second show in as many minutes, looking utterly captivated. “Jen-”

She lifted a hand toward the equipment. “I’ve got it.”

Knowing he could leave the expensive camera and equipment without worry, he started after Emma.

This part of Malibu was all private beach, but there were also jagged rocks and bluffs that made it impossible to see more than the immediate stretch of sand before him. Following Emma around one rock larger than his entire garage, he found himself in a small cove, completely buffeted from view by the bluffs.

Emma stood right at the water’s edge, her back to him, her shoulders heaving with exertion with each breath.

“Emma.”

Her shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t turn toward him.

“The crew is going to be talking about tonight for a while to come,” he said.