Polished Slick (Natural Beauty) (13 page)

The public outside of Chowan County would probably think Nikki had performed some sort of coup to get both Dom and Cole to appear in the N-by-N marketing materials, but the truth was none of the locals batted an eyelash at them anymore. They’d been around for a couple years, and had started to blend in with the rest of the nuts.

Gretchen took about fifteen minutes to shoot, then Dom—the admitted diva—took half an hour because he wanted to make sure he had the pout down pat. Cole nailed it on the first shot, holding a microphone and narrowing his eyes to make a sultry stare, but the photographer grabbed a few back-up shots as well. Both he and Dom hurried off to shower and change for a later shot Nikki was being coy about.

And then it was Trinity’s turn. Nikki yanked her robe off, minding Trinity’s wet nails, and gave her a shove toward the faux lab bench Charlie and Juan had apparently set up earlier in the morning.

“Here, don’t forget this.” Nikki held out a pristine white lab coat. Trinity grabbed it, glad to have some cover over the short, sparkly party dress she felt like such a fool in. The mirror indicated the dress wasn’t as short as it felt, but ending mid-thigh, it was certainly shorter than she was used to.

Nikki patted the center edge of the table. “Sit here. Cross your legs at the knees.” Trinity did as she was told, and allowed Nikki to pose her hands so her fingers dangled over the edge of the table.

Beth came over to pat down some errant hair and refresh Trinity’s already-heavy lipgloss, then both women backed away.

The photographer swooped in and started taking shots before they were all the way out of the frame.

“Um…should I smile or something?” Trinity asked through clenched teeth.

“Nope,” the photographer said, getting in close to capture the platinum-colored nails which matched the metallic sequins of the dress, then backing away to get a full portrait. Five minutes in, Nikki swooped in and handed Trinity an Erlenmeyer flask to hold.

Five more shots.

“All done.” The photographer popped out his battery pack and squatted over his bag.

She hopped down, relieved to be able to get back into her own comfortable clothes.

Nikki had other ideas. She hurried over, wrested the lab coat off Trinity, then pushed her to the stool Gretchen had last occupied.

“Not done with you,” she said. “Gretchen, is he ready?”

“Yeah. Last-minute shave. Didn’t want Ron to have to edit out the shadow. He’s coming up the stairs now.”

“Who is?” Trinity asked.

The door creaked open again and the answer was standing in it.

“…the
hell
?”

Jerry didn’t look amused. He looked
fabulous
. Gorgeous, even. Downright sexy, certainly, but not amused.

“Holy hell.”

Nikki giggled and tore open the plastic surrounding a bow tie with her teeth.

Jerry stared off into space while she draped it around his open collar, but didn’t tie it—choosing to let it hang loose as if he’d just gotten back from a black tie affair he’d snuck out of prematurely.

“A
tux
, Nikki?
Really
? When you said
suit
I thought you meant bathing suit or wetsuit.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sue me. You look great.”

“My former agent is going to kill me. She tried to get me in a suit for five years.”

“Cry me a river, heartthrob. At least you get to wear flip-flops.”

“Yeah. At
least
. No one’s looking at my fucking feet.”

“Let me see your nails. If you smudged them…”

He held up his hands and rolled his eyes. His nails were slicked with shiny black lacquer in the most opaque formulation possible.

“Good boy. How’s your scalp?”

“Fucking hurts. That was a lot of detangling.” He furrowed his brow and ran a hand through his silky shoulder-length hair. It was paler than it had been when it was in dreads, but Trinity supposed that if her hair had been forced to clump with god-knows-what, it’d probably look darker, too. It was so much shorter. She wondered if he’d cut it for ease or if the rest had just revolted and fallen out during the de-matting process.

He looked almost…well, not
normal
. Not with the tendrils of his raunchy tattoo visible on his upper chest and part of his neck, but with his hair covering the…
wait
, where were the expanders? His earlobes looked absolutely normal from her distance. Had those just been really weird earrings? Trinity had always assumed the spirals he wore were expanders because they appeared continuous from front to back. Obviously they had just been elaborate two-part puzzles.

Huh.

Jerry the model, back again. No wonder he’d balked about getting additional piercings. The ones he had weren’t all that difficult to hide. He wouldn’t be a sixty-year-old man with drooping earlobes after all.

“All right, let’s get this spread hopping.” Nikki rubbed her palms together gleefully, pretending she didn’t notice Trinity’s dazed expression. “Jerry, why don’t you stand right behind Trin and drape a hand over her shoulder. Yeah, just like that. We’ll start there and move you around as need be.”

Trinity tried to be still just like she had been when the photographer was shooting her earlier shots, but she just had to speak up. Jerry was obviously angry and didn’t seem to appreciate touching her very much judging by the tension he held in his wrist. “Nikki, I…”

“Turn your chin more toward me,” Ron said, pulling his face back from the camera. Trinity did as he asked.

“Nikki, I don’t get the point of this. I guess I don’t understand this shoot. This is just about the nail polish, right?”

Nikki dunked a wheat cracker into the artichoke dip on the snack table. “Nope. I never said that. Yeah, we’ve got our nail polish shots. That doesn’t mean I don’t need other images.”

“For what?”

“Turn your chin more toward
me
,” Ron demanded again.

This time, Jerry sighed and used his free hand to position her face himself. He was gentle about it, but efficient.

“Stuff, Trinity. It won’t make sense until you see it. Go with the flow like Jerry. He’s a pro.”

At that, Trinity tipped her head back to look up at the brooding ex-model.

He cast his eyes down and met her gaze, unsmiling.

“Hold that!” Ron said. And they sat there for a brief time, sharing an uncomfortable look while Ron got his shots.

Then Nikki rearranged them so Jerry was on the stool and Trinity in front of him, leaning against his parted thighs with his hands at her waist.

Trinity felt frigid, even with Jerry’s warm breath tickling the side of her face and shoulder. She became acutely aware of his closeness, the firmness of his thighs, the strength of his fingers, the scent of his aftershave...his absolute impatience.

“Shit!” Ron swatted a fist through the air. “Goddamned batteries. I told my kid to charge the damn things and I guess he didn’t. Don’t move a muscle. I got a spare in the truck.” Ron took off in a bolt toward the stairs, and the few onlookers in the room crowded around the snack table while Trinity and Jerry remained still as statues.

He attempted to move his hands.

“He said not to move!” She said, pressing them back as they were.

He huffed. “I’m pretty sure I can remember what we were doing if you’d care to take a step forward.”

She felt ice at the pit of her belly at his rebuff. She’d tried opening up a bit. Really, she had. She’d explained things pretty clearly, or at least she thought. It wouldn’t work between them. That was no reason for him to be
nasty
.

“He said not to move.” She wedged herself back even further so she was nearly sharing the stool with him.

A low chuckle escaped his chest. “Suit yourself, pixie. Mind staying there for a while?”

That one little nudge backward and there it was. Hard as a rock and straining against the fabric of his tuxedo pants.

She looked down and behind her, blushed hot enough to feel it in her eyes, and turned back around to face the ladies at the snack table.

He leaned forward a bit and whispered into her left ear. “It’s a nice dress, pixie.”

“I feel like a tramp.”

“They’ll crop out anything scandalizing.”

“I would hope so.”
How long is it going to take that thing to go down?
“I thought you were mad at me.”

“I am. That doesn’t make you less attractive.”

Things down low began to tinge and thrum, and she struggled to swallow. What would they be doing if the room were empty of everyone except the two of them? She’d probably be on her knees with her lips wrapped around his dick returning the favor he’d so generously done her at the beach house. She figured it was one of those things she should at least try once.

“You…look pretty good, too,” she managed, scraping a bit of stray nail polish off her cuticle.

His lips were still right there at her ear. “Oh yeah? You didn’t like the way I looked
before
?” There was a bit of hostility in his voice, a little dare, even. “Or did you not even notice me? Do you not notice anyone who’s not dressed in a polo shirt or who doesn’t have two degrees tacked up behind his desk?”

“I—I…well, I noticed. I…” What could she say? He’d more or less pegged her. She turned her head a bit to the side to catch his expression in her periphery. “I saw your portfolio. The night I stopped by to watch the stream. I’m sorry for snooping, but I was just too damned curious.”

He was quiet for a moment. “And what’d you think?”

“Watching the progression over the years was sort of weird. The body modifications…your hair, and all that. In the earlier pictures, what I noticed most was your face. Later on, it was your body.”

“That was intentional.”

“Why?”

“Believe it or not, I don’t like being called pretty.”

“And now that your dreads are gone…”

“Yeah. Might have to talk myself into a buzz cut.”

“Don’t you dare cut your hair!” She clamped her lips, ashamed. When did she become one of
those
women? Apparently, in utero, now that she thought about it. There was something so primal about a man having enough hair to yank.

He gave her waist a little squeeze. “We’ll see.”

Ron had returned without Trinity noticing, and had been taking photos of them as they leaned in close for their private conversation. “Yeah, yeah, that’s a good one,” he said, as they both turned their faces to him. “Looks like you actually know each other in that one. Give me some more of that.”

Minutes later, after Nikki previewed some of the shots, she called out from the cracker platter, “That’s it for you, Trin. You can go wash your face.”

Trinity turned around and asked Jerry’s permission with her expression.

“Yeah, you can scoot. I’m okay.”

“Are you not coming?”

The return of Dom and Cole answered her question. They were back, but in tuxedoes, guyliner, and bowties that matched their nail polish with two more stools, which they flanked beside Jerry.

He paused to pull his hair back into a ponytail while the new shot was set up.

Trinity paused in the doorway, her breath catching at the display of subtly erotic masculinity. All that hair. All that beauty. On
men
, for crying out loud.

Nikki really was being so bold as to blend the gender line in the cosmetics industry—using the same products and treating them like accessories for all rather than feminine icing—but what Trinity was thinking as she stood there had nothing to do with gender roles. What she thought as she watched Jerry hook his heels onto the rungs of the stool was, “
Mine
.”

Too bad she didn’t deserve him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I got to fly back to work, baby,” Preston said in halting starts and stops as he thrust into Becky from behind, pounding her so hard the front of his thighs slapped the backs of hers—just the way she liked.

Becky always said,
“If you’re going to go in, go all the way!”

“You said you’d help me!” she squeaked in front of him, panting and moaning.

His rhythm sagged. He hated talking during sex, but sometimes that was the only time Becky would let him get a word in edgewise. “I’m gonna lose my job if I don’t get back to the club, you know that. It’s different with the rest of us. Strippers can go on whenever they want…”

Becky flattened her body to the bed and expelled his turgid shaft from between her legs, making him whine at the sudden force downward. She slapped the side of his bigger head. “I’m not a stripper!”

“I know! I know!” he said, rubbing his sore head with his knuckles. “Dancer, you’re a
dancer
. I’m sorry. I get it mixed up. Forgive me. You’re a dancer, baby.”

She pouted, narrowed her eyes, and pushed her back up into a tabletop once more, wriggling her butt at him. “Damn right I’m a dancer.”

“Thank you.” He shoved his aching shaft back into her until she started to giggle—the sign she was getting close. “I mean, I set up the bomb for you. That helped you a lot, right?”

“Just screw me!”

“I am, baby! It’s just…” He grunted, moaned, trying to hold back the torrent waiting to be unleashed from his core.
Baseball. Clowns. Cat claws
. Yeah, that did it. That earned him a few more thrusts. “If I ain’t got no money, I can’t do you right. I gotta
work
.”

She came, digging her toenails into the bulky muscles of his calves and clawing at the cheap motel comforter. When she was done panting and writhing, she turned over and wrapped her legs around his bulky waist so they could finish in the same way they always did.

“Don’t you worry about that. Once we take care of this business with Nikki, I’ll be rolling in dough. You stick with me babe and we’ll be all right.”

“Okay,” he said, patting her belly. “All this just because she did a hit and run on your aunt’s car? I wouldn’t want to get on your bad side, baby.” He mashed his sweaty body against hers and went to work.

“Yep, that’s all it is. Auntie’s car.”