Exposure (7 page)

“
Even if they did, Britain
would never demote me.”

I stop right behind her. Her eyes
widen as I place my hands on either side of the counter surrounding
her. “That’s not what I asked you.”

She opens her mouth to respond, but
when no noise escapes, she bites her lip. Finally, after seconds of
silence, she changes the subject by asking, “Why do you want to
watch my shoot?”

I lean in close to her ear,
strawberry-scented locks brushing against my nose. “To study you. I
need to know how to move with you if you’re going to be writhing
under me for the next month or so.”

I watch her jaw drop in
the mirror. She spins around until she’s facing me, back pressed
against the counter, and says, “Are you for
real
?”

I hunch until my face is level with
hers. Her quick breath smells like spearmint. I cock an eyebrow and
say, “What do you think?”

The door opens behind me, and Britain
yells, “You’re up, Ry.”

Evan bites her bottom lip again, teeth
sinking into plump, glossy flesh. “Then watch,” she
says.

I push away from the counter and she
slides from me, hips swaying as she walks toward the door. She
doesn’t look back.

Damnit. Homework is so not getting
done today.

I hurry after her.

^^^^

Evan wasn’t lying. The pool deck is
packed with people. Britain’s barking for people to stay on one end
of the patio so they don’t block her shot. I don’t listen to her,
heading to the other end, to the lounge chair that Evan and I posed
on the other day. Britain doesn’t say anything, maybe because she
notices the herd of models with watering mouths eyeing me like
prey.

And I seriously need my privacy when
watching Evan.

She steps into the pool, slowly
dunking her whole body beneath the surface of the water. When she
climbs back onto the patio, her soaked lingerie clings to her, and
I can see everything.

Ev-ery-thing.

Actually, a whole shit ton of people
watching can see everything, and that doesn’t even faze her.
Britain flips her blonde braid to the side and instructs Evan to
lie on the ledge of the pool so her feet are facing me. As soon as
Evan does so, Britain kneels and starts adjusting her
lens.

Evan raises her hands above her head
until her perfect tits are the fullest they can be, her nipples
straining against the wet fabric of her bra. She arches the small
of her back and lets her head fall back.

Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Without being too conspicuous, I place
my fists in my lap and lean forward.

Evan spreads her legs just enough for
me to see the way her underwear clings to the inside of her thighs,
just enough so I can see the outline of her slit.

“
Perfect, Rylan. Now bring
more innocence to your eyes.”

I force myself to pry my eyes away
from her to look at the models on the other end of the pool. Most
of them stand in groups, whispering back and forth to each other,
all of them in their lingerie get-ups.

None of them coming anywhere near to
Evan’s sex appeal.

She flips on her stomach and raises
her ass in the air, craning her head to the side so she’s staring
right at the lens.

The models’ whispers flutter
frantically through the air, and I hope to God they won’t be
watching when I’m shooting with Evan.

I want her all to myself.

^^^^

I’m able to catch her before she heads
back to change. Luckily I remember to call her Rylan. The name
thing is going to be hard to get used to.

“
Follow me to the dressing
room,” Evan says.

“
Why? What’s
up?”

“
I don’t like the way
these models are looking at both of us. Like you’re the meat and
I’m the bitch that’s hoarding it.”

I laugh until I realize she isn’t
joking, letting my head drop and following her to the dressing
room. When I close the door behind me, she lets the towel fall. She
might as well not be wearing anything.

She crosses her arms. “Well? What do
you want?”

“
To study with you
tonight.”

No, I just want to spend
time with her when both of us aren’t being gawked at. Which isn’t
something I should want. I shouldn’t
want
to spend time with my gorgeous
coworker when I have a girlfriend, a girlfriend who told me I could
only act single inside the studio.

She scoffs and turns away from me. “I
told you. We can’t be seen together. I know a lot of models like
the attention that EPE gives them, but I don’t, okay?” She reaches
behind her and takes off her bra so I’m staring at her naked
back.

My mouth goes dry. I swallow. “There’s
this cool coffee shop an hour outside town in an old strip mall.
There’s no chance of anyone recognizing you there.”

She slips an oversized t-shirt over
her head and glances back at me. “And why the hell would I want to
do that?”

I smirk. “Because I know what
Professor Gates is planning to cover on the midterm.”

Chapter Five

Evan

How did I get suckered into this
again? Oh yeah—Dallas bribed me.

I watch him as he orders our drinks.
His shirt is buttoned all the way up and tucked into his slacks. He
smiles politely at the barista—even jokes with her. On the outside,
he’s like one of those adorable nerds that all the good, smart,
virginal girls go for and all the skankier ones want to
corrupt.

But I know what he’s really like. I
know so much more.

Actually, the only thing I really
don’t know is why the hell he wants to hang out with me so bad,
like we’re buddies or something. Like he has a crush on
me.

But he can’t have a crush on me,
because he has a girlfriend.

Unless he’s one of those assholes who
cheats on his girlfriends. But I don’t know. That just doesn’t seem
like what I know of him.

“
One soy latte,” he says
when he returns to our table, setting the drink in front of
me.

“
Thanks.” I take a sip of
it. Perfection.

He sits across from me, the only thing
separating us our binders and mountains of textbooks. “So, you a
vegan or something?”

“
Or something,” I say,
taking another sip. “Why do you ask?”

“
You ordered a soy
latte.”

“
I could be lactose
intolerant.”

“
I always see you drinking
those weird green shake things.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Yes, okay, I’m
vegan. Does that weird you out?”

His lips shift to a coy smile. “A
little.” He sips his drink. “As long as you don’t choke me out for
drinking dairy in front of you.”

I shake my head. “I’m not that kind of
vegan. You know, the crazy PETA kind. I’m vegan because I have to
be.”

“
You
have
to?”

I gesture toward my body. “You think
this comes from eating pizza and burgers every day?”

“
So, health
reasons.”

“
More like model reasons,”
I correct.

I’d love to say that I’m one of those
girls who doesn’t give two shits about society’s warped idea of
beauty. Unfortunately, my job is to be naked all of the time. I get
paid for giving into media’s trend. For looking “hot.”

“
You must cheat though,”
Dallas says, folding his hands in front of him like he’s going to
spend the next few hours hounding me about my eating
choices.

“
Of course I cheat.” I
open up my textbook. “What kind of human being would I be if I
didn’t cheat?”

He just nods and opens up his own
textbook, and we both start to read. About a minute later, he
speaks up again. “What is your favorite cheat food?”

I glance up from my book and meet his
striking eyes. He actually looks interested in my answer. I sigh
and put down my pencil. “You really want to know?”

“
Why else would I be
asking?”

“
Half-baked chocolate chip
cookie dough ice cream, a side of Flaming Hot Cheetos, and a nice
IPA to wash it all down, preferably on the nuttier
side.”

He blinks once and bursts into
laughter.

“
What
?”

“
You’ve obviously thought
about this for a
long
time.”

“
Well yeah, when you’re
eating rabbit food you fantasize about the stuff you could be
eating a lot. Now wipe that dumb grin off of your face and get to
work.”

The fact that he listens to me is kind
of thrilling. I like how I still have some kind of power over the
guy who corners me in the dressing room like he wants to own
me.

It’s kind of like a game. A way to
make shooting naked together a little more sexy and less awkward.
And I’m all for that, as long as my grades don’t drop.

And the way his eyes are on me now, I
can totally see my grades dropping.

I clear my throat and focus on my
biology. Surprisingly, Dallas stops asking me questions and directs
me toward what chapters I should be reading for the midterm. With
the lack of interruption and boost of caffeine, I’m able to get
quite a bit of studying done. A lot more than if I were to stay at
home.

Finally, when I’m starting to go
cross-eyed from terminology, I pack up my textbooks and pull from
my bag one of the romance novels that Britain wants me to read so
badly. It has a pretty promiscuous cover—a pair of handcuffs on
satin sheets. Subtle yet sexy. I start to read. The thing is like
crack and before I know it I’m on page fifty and the two main
characters have already fucked twice.

“
What is your deal?”
Dallas asks. “And why did you stop studying?”

“
I
am
studying,” I say. “Just for work
now.” When I sigh, I realize I’ve been sighing loudly for the past
few minutes. “It’s these books, man. I can’t believe these books
turn women on. Naïve virginal girls sucked into the schemes of rich
playboys. Not knowing that they like being spanked until they
really
are
spanked. It’s total bullshit.”

Dallas busts up laughing. I realize
now that he laughs a lot. The baritone, husky sound of it is
beautiful.

“
You think it’s funny?
These female authors act like they don’t even know what women
really want during sex. For fuck’s sake, the narrator in this book
gets off by having her nipples played with.”

Dallas’s face suddenly
gets very serious. “And you don’t get off when you have
your
nipples played
with?”

“
I can’t even get off
during sex.” The words escape my mouth before I even realize I’ve
said too much.
Way
too much. I bite down on my bottom lip as punishment and pray
that somehow he manages to not comprehend what I’ve just
said.

I’m not so lucky.

“
Wait,” he says slowly.
His eyes narrow and he leans in. “Are you telling me you’ve never
had an orgasm during sex?”

“
Shh!” I look around to
see if anyone’s looking at us.

“
Are you telling me you’ve
never had an orgasm during sex?” he whispers.

Heat flushes my face, and
I know I must be bright red.
Keep cool,
Evan. You can talk about orgasms. You aren’t twelve.
“I—no.”

“
Who the
hell
are you
fucking?”

“
Dallas!” I
hiss.

He actually looks angry, his eyes
harboring the hottest kind of fire. “Are you telling me that no guy
you’ve ever slept with has had the decency to get you off?”
Suddenly a thought occurs to him. “Wait—are you a
virgin?”

I sober up. “Dallas… I make porn for a
living. Of course I’m not a virgin.”

“
Then what the hell is
going on with your sex life?”

I open my mouth before I
have the words to answer. Actually, I hate to admit it, but EPE
has
kept
me from
having a sex life. I can never let guys get too close to me,
because the second that they know about my second life, I become an
object. I date sweet guys long enough to sleep with them—to have
awkward sex—and then grow afraid that they’ll learn who I truly am.
That they’ll be mortified by the kind of girl they’ve shared a bed
with.

When I first started modeling for EPE,
my old boyfriend found out. He thought it was hot, but he also
thought that I was into being humiliated in the bedroom—being
called a whore and having my head pushed down to his cock because
that’s what girls like me enjoyed. He’d seen porn. He thought he
knew.

I shake myself out of the memory.
Dallas is still staring at me, waiting for an answer. I finally
respond with a shrug.