“You've never taken anything seriously in your life.”
He spun around, pure fury on his face. He stalked towards me, blue eyes blazing. “You don’t know shit about me or my life, Gabriella. You hear me? You don’t know
shit
. I’m damn good behind that camera. It’s the one thing I am good at and it’s something that’s mine. My family name didn’t do it and it’s got nothing to do with Bouvier or my mother. It’s all mine.”
The passion in his voice hit me hard because I recognized it. I felt the same way about my writing. I sucked in a breath, ready to apologize, but he jerked his head toward the door.
“Now unless you’re planning to take Amber’s spot in this photo shoot, you need to leave.” His tone was dismissive.
I continued to stare at him.
“Now,” he said, voice hardening. “Or I call security.”
The vehemence in his words caught me off guard. I glanced at all the framed images and prints, placed with care on his walls, positioned to maximum advantage. He was right, I thought. I didn’t know anything about his life. Not because of anything I’d done…I would have loved to have gotten to know him, but he’d shut down any chance of that the first afternoon I’d been here.
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing. “Yeah, okay.” I nodded and turned to leave.
I don't know what drove me to do it. I was almost to the door when I found myself turning back to him, heart racing. I jutted my chin up. “I keep my clothes on.”
I can't say who was more surprised, him...or me.
For a long moment all he did was stare at me. Then he shook his head. “Not a good idea, Tennessee. Your fiancé would have a heart attack.” A mocking smile twisted his lips and he looked almost cruel as he paced closer. “And then he'd probably kill me. This is an assignment. You get that? We’re not playing around anymore. You can’t strip off a few pieces of clothes, toss your hair around and call it done when you get uncomfortable. This is a serious shoot, with specific requirements set out by the client.”
“I understand. You’ve made it clear you’ve got an assignment,” I said, rolling my eyes. “This all means it pays, right?”
He laughed and the sound had a wild edge to it. “Oh, yeah, it pays. These are for book covers though, Tennessee. Very public.”
My skin burned, lust churning in my gut. Guilt followed on the heels of it and I told myself I needed to go, needed to leave. It had been a bad idea to even come here.
As if he could read my mind, he said, “You don’t have what it takes for this, baby. You would freak out if you saw your body all over the cover of some steamy erotica.
Edward
would freak out.”
“I would not freak out.” Indignation slammed through me, drawing my spine straight. I jabbed my finger into his chest. “I was able to strip naked in front of
you
, McCreary. I think I could handle being in some torrid clench on some paperback.”
“Uh-huh.” Flynn’s cocky look told me everything I needed to know and it was the final push I needed.
He didn’t think I’d do it.
Then a thought hit me and my anger died away. “Unless...I mean, your client isn't looking for someone like me.”
His eyes flickered. “Someone like you?”
“My hands are one thing.” I looked away as I remembered how gorgeous the woman who'd left had been. “Something like this.” I swallowed hard. “I don't exactly look like that other model.”
“Are you shitting me?”
My head snapped up.
“You're really going to use that as an excuse?”
“What?” A bit of anger started to burn away my insecurity.
“If you're going to chicken out, don't act like it's because I don't think you're not gorgeous. Just say you don't have the guts.”
I felt the same flash of fury that I'd felt when I'd first met him. I flicked him off and he laughed.
“Still doesn't mean you're not chicken.”
I let a slow smile spread across my face, the same smile that had gotten me into trouble at the bar. His reassurance, however rudely stated, that I looked good enough for it, had made my decision for me.
“Does my face have to show?”
His expression was almost comical. Finally he tilted his head back, as though he was praying for patience. Or strength. Shoulders rising and falling on a sigh, he rolled his neck so that he could see me from the corner of his eye. “I can figure out a hundred ways to keep your face from showing. But we both know you're not going to do it.”
I glared at him. “As long as I can keep my clothes on and my face doesn’t show, I'm in.”
He studied me for a moment, and something in my expression must've told him I was serious. “You can stay dressed, but those clothes…?” He shook his head. “They have to go. As to your face?” He snorted. “Don’t worry, Tennessee. It’s not your face I’m interested in.”
I wanted to slap him for the leer that had accompanied that last remark, but I settled on a cool smile. When I held out my hand to shake, however, he gave me his back, moving to dig around on his desk.
“What are you doing?” I snapped.
“Gotta sign a release. I need to find a new contract for you,” he said, his voice brisk and blunt. This was professional Flynn. “We’ll go over terms and payment, all of that.”
The factual, calm way he was approaching things made me relax. As my tension fell away, I put my purse down and shrugged out of my cardigan, hanging them on one of the hooks along the front end of the studio.
“You’re certain you can keep my face out of it?” I asked, nerves starting to fight past the excitement.
Flynn shot me a dark look. “Don't worry, Tennessee. Like I said, it's not your face I'm interested in.”
***
After I'd signed the release and the contract, I’d reiterated I wasn’t going to be naked and Flynn had responded by tossing some clothes at me.
Now, as I stood under the hot lights, I almost wished I
was
naked.
I’d be a little cooler at least. Maybe not more comfortable, but cooler. The pants were some sort of fake leather and they might as well have been painted on. The bra barely fit and he’d adjusted the back of it and done something else so that my cleavage looked like…well, not
mine
.
The first twenty minutes were grueling and I developed a whole new level of respect for Kendra. After another thirty minutes, I realized I should have demanded more money. He snapped at me for shifting positions—I think I moved a fraction of an inch—and I took one of the fake knives he’d given me to hold and threw it at him.
“Excuse me, but I'm sort of new at this, remember?”
To my surprise, he grinned. Regarding me with so much heat I felt scalded, Flynn came to me with a swagger. He stole all my personal space and every inch of bare skin cried out for his attention. There were a lot of inches.
He didn't stop moving until there was no room left between us and even then, he found a way to surround me, his arms coming to bracket me up against the faux wall he'd chosen for a backdrop. “You might be new at this, Tennessee. But you're a natural. Now...” He reached and grabbed my hip.
I smacked at his wrist. “Hands off!”
“Don't worry.” He twisted his hand around, trapping my wrist. Something akin to misery flashed in his eyes as he rubbed his thumb over the place where my engagement ring had been. I wasn't stupid enough to wear it in the shoot. “We had some heat, but I'm not into poaching. Like I said, Edward's my brother. Just relax and...”
I almost reminded him that he'd kissed me after he'd known that Edward and I were engaged, but I didn't want to bring that up. I didn't even want to think about it. Ever.
His eyes held mine while he brought my hips forward, cocking the left one out. He twisted me some, the position unnatural, but not quite as uncomfortable as how I’d been standing.
“Better?”
“Yeah.” I would have said something else, but he moved around me, using his hands to guide my back, arching it slightly so that my breasts were thrust higher. There were trails of sensation tingling up my spine from where he had touched and I was so glad the bra he had given me was padded, otherwise he would have visible proof of how much his touch affected me.
Don’t worry…I’m not into poaching
.
Guilt flooded me and some of the heat cooled. It was a good thing too, because if Flynn put his mind to it, I had a bad feeling he could have made me forget about the fact that I was promised to someone else. To his brother. I would have hated myself afterward, even more than I hated myself now, but I wasn't sure I would've been able to control it.
“Let’s get this done,” I said, my voice brusque. “How much longer?”
“We’ve got time for a few more solo shots before Cody shows up.”
“Solo…?” I frowned at him as he backed up.
“Keep that scowl up, Tennessee.”
“Who cares if I scowl; my face isn’t supposed to show, remember? And who is Cody?”
“Yeah, damn. Oh, well. We need a full spread, some of you solo and then some of you with a male model. Cody is...the model I usually work with. Okay, turn away and face the wall, face half turned toward me. Trail your left hand down your hip—drop the knife first. Keep the knife in your right hand and lift it. Act like I’m standing right in front of you and you’re going to shove it right into my gut. That’s it. Perfect.”
He kept talking me through the rest of it and after a while, I half sank into a daze, a mindless sort of state where little existed save for his voice and the heat of the lights. It was easy, for that stretch of time, to forget about everything, even my guilt.
***
The slamming of the door tugged me out of the fugue-like state and I blinked, looking around as though I’d just woken up. Flynn frowned and looked at the door as he lowered his camera.
“Cody’s here.”
I nodded, swallowing. “I need some water.”
He jerked his head toward the partitioned area that hid a small kitchenette and I went to grab a bottle. My throat was dry. The rest of me was covered in a fine sheen of sweat and I was suddenly exhausted. How did Kendra do this all day?
When I came out from behind the screen, I stopped dead.
Okay.
Wow.
Flynn expected me to pose with
that
guy?
He looked to be four or five years older than me and he was…well. Perfect. On a physical level, I don’t think I’d ever seen a more beautiful man in my entire life. He was better looking, if possible, than both Flynn and Edward together. His eyes were such a piercing blue it was almost painful just to look into them. His face was the kind of thing master sculptures would spend their entire lives trying to reproduce…and fail.
Flynn caught sight of me and rolled his eyes. I had the feeling my reaction was fairly common. The man smiled at me. Damn. Not only was he drop-dead gorgeous, he was approachable too.
“This is Cody. Cody, Gabriella.”
Cody's left brow arched. “Wow, popular name. My brother’s fiancé has the same name.” He grinned at me, displaying a charming dimple in his left cheek.
Flynn snorted and then shot me a sly smile before looking back at the other man. “Cody, this is going to be your new sister-in-law. Gabriella, meet your other future brother-in-law.”
Both of us looked at each other for a minute and then we gaped at Flynn together. I waited for the punchline. Cody, though, had no such reservations.
He came at me with a grin and a whoop, grabbing me around the waist and picking me up to spin me around in the air. “You've got to be kidding me. Edward didn't tell me you were a model.” He put me down and studied my face, clasping my chin to turn my face from side to side. I had the feeling he was trying to figure out if he’d seen my face around before.
I gently nudged his hand down while Flynn came up from behind him and smacked him in the back of the head. Cody glared at him and I could suddenly see the resemblance between the two of them. I remembered Claire saying she'd had two sons with her first husband. That would've made Cody the middle child, which meant I'd guessed his age about right.
“Edward doesn't know, Cody.” Flynn’s voice was curt. “She needed the money and I needed the model. Amber had a tantrum and stormed out. I’m shooting photos so that her face doesn’t show. Just don’t tell Edward, okay?”
My face heated as Cody’s gaze slid from his brother to me, suddenly serious. “Edward doesn’t know.”
I shrugged and looked down, unable to meet those clear blue eyes.
His face softened. “Well, I won’t tell him.” Then he grimaced. “But damn…you two are going to get me in trouble if he finds out.”
He turned away and strode toward the set. As he did, he stripped off his shirt and I stared at the hard, muscled perfection of his back. Wow. He was probably only about an inch taller than Edward, maybe two inches taller than Flynn, but he was definitely bigger than both. Edward's body was athletic, packed muscle. Flynn's was lean. Cody had the kind of rippling muscles that...well, that sold romance novels.
“So, what happened with Amber?” Cody asked. “She still trying to get you naked or what?”
I whipped my head around to stare at Flynn.