Shut Up and Model for Me (4 page)

“Dallas, I want you to unwrap her like a Christmas present. Rylan, I want to see every touch of his written on your face. Let’s see you two make magic.”

Your one chance to get some action in, Evan. Forget your biases. Roll with it.

I lean my head back and breathe, “You heard what she said. Touch me.”

I don’t know why, but I’m not expecting him to listen. Maybe because, what I’ve seen from Dallas, he seems more awkward than anything else. But he does listen. I feel his slow breath on my jaw as his hand slides across my stomach and he pulls me right up against him, my ass snug against his groin.

“Where do you want me to start?” he whispers.

Oh, God.
Oh, God
.

Slowly, the hand resting on my stomach trails up the center hem of my dress. He reaches the top and hooks his thumb beneath the fabric. The moment his lips brush against the cusp of my ear, he drags my dress down until my bandeau is fully exposed.

I hear Britain snapping away. I think she might be giving me direction, but I don’t want to focus on her. I don’t care about the outcome of this shoot at all. I just want to feel Dallas’s hands touching me in places I haven’t been touched in ages.

He drags his hand back up my bare skin and to my bandeau, cupping my breast. I let my head fall back, a small moan escaping my mouth.

“We’re not recording audio, are we?” I can hear the amusement in his voice. “Or was that noise you elicited not for the camera?”

“Shut up,” I breathe. I raise my arms up and behind my head, wrapping them around his neck. His free hand rests on my thigh, slowly inching upward and beneath the skirt of my dress. He’s going to feel how wet I am, and we’re not even
doing
anything.

In one quick motion I flip my body around so I’m facing him. I sit up and squeeze his hips with my knees, hands finding his shoulders and pressing him back against the lounge chair.

His eyes are surprised, but his mouth is twisted into a smile, like he knows something that I don’t.

I rock my hips into his, feeling how hard he is.

“This isn’t very virginal of you,” he mutters.

Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be keeping character. But facing him, I can study him more closely—his bold jaw that I want to run my tongue over, his full bottom lip that I want to bite…

Britain moves closer, changing her angle. “Dallas, get her out of that dress. Ry, be unsure of him.”

As he pulls down my dress, his fingers graze the curve of my ass. Be unsure of him? How can I be unsure of him when I want him so fucking bad?

He doesn’t give me a chance to ponder. Keeping one hand pressed to my back, he pushes me forward until I’m lying on the chair and he’s on top of me.

Britain’s voice floats through the air. “Lift your arms above your head, Ry.”

I listen to her. Dallas hovers over me, sliding the dress over my knees and off my ankles until I’m in nothing but my bandeau and panties. Our eyes connect, and suddenly, even with the bright light of the afternoon day, there is something dark and wicked lingering in them. Something far different than what I saw in him yesterday as he stumbled through the Power Point at the front of the lecture hall.

In an instant, being unsure of him comes naturally. I bite my lower lip as he dips his head to the flesh beneath my navel. His tongue glides above the ridge of my panties. I hiss and buck my hips. My skin vibrates with his laughter. He’s aware of how much this is killing me.

This session just turned from smoldering hot to pure torture.

“Lick her neck,” Britain instructs.

Okay,
now
it’s pure torture.

Dallas crawls forward until his body covers mine. “Don’t mind me,” he murmurs, still grinning. I want to counter with something clever but all that’s escaping my mouth are rapid spurts of breath.

He lowers himself until his chest is pressed against mine. He keeps himself steady with one hand and uses the other to cup my neck. His nose brushes against mine and I part my lips, wondering if he’s going to kiss me. Wondering if I’m okay with that.

“Close your eyes,” he orders. I let them flutter shut and wait.

I gasp when his tongue sweeps my throat, finding a sweet spot behind my ear and sucking.

“Don’t move,” says Britain. “You look perfectly shocked right now, Ry.”

I hold my breath, trying my hardest not to move or change my expression. As I do so, Dallas runs the pad of his thumb against my jaw and whispers into my ear, “You’re good at faking it.”

He’s teasing me. He’s teasing me because he knows my reaction was real.

“And that’s a wrap,” Britain says.

I exhale. I need to get this boy off me before I start panting like an animal. But he doesn’t release me. Instead, he pulls me to his chest, grabs my legs, and picks me up.

“What are you doing?” I yell.

He starts running toward the pool. I’m screaming obscenities and Britain’s laughing and suddenly I can’t hear her anymore, because cold water engulfs me.

I swim to the surface, spitting water from my mouth. Dallas is treading water next to me, looking too smug for my tastes.

I want to kill him.

I want to ravish him, and
then
I want to kill him.

“You’re hired!” Britain screams.

Dallas

I’ve taken three cold showers since I’ve been home.

Luckily, Tricia’s so wrapped up in her work that she doesn’t seem to notice. It helps that I try not to get my hair wet, aiming the freezing cold jet of water right toward my cock.

Every time I even think of Rylan, I get hard again. The way she writhed beneath me like she wasn’t rolling her eyes at me the moment before. She acted like she hated me until I touched her. And then something happened. It was like she wanted me—like she
really
wanted me.

I turn the shower off and stand there, cold and dripping. And then I think about the way she tasted—sweet, like frosting.

I groan and turn the shower back on. There isn’t anything I’d rather be doing than getting off to the thought of Rylan Willow for the rest of the night, but there’s a seminar tonight on mitochondria and metabolism, and they’re flying in the scientists from Philadelphia. All serious grad students will be there.

And, dammit, I’m giving up med school to go into field research, so I must be a serious grad student.

Finally, when I think I can manage to go five minutes without getting a hard-on, I leave the shower and change into a t-shirt and jeans. In the living room, Tricia still sits on the couch with her computer in her lap, completely invested in her work. Tricia works as a web designer, or, I should say, lives as a web designer. Dressed in yoga pants and a tank top, she doesn’t even look at me as I walk past her. Recently she cut her straight hair super short so she didn’t even have to style it between rolling out of bed and getting to work. The cut fits her face nicely, I just wish she’d actually look at me more so I could see it from the front.

I sit on the couch next to her, wrapping my arm around her shoulder as she continues to clack away at her keyboard. She’s emailing someone—must be a client.

“You going out?” she says.

“Yeah,” I scratch my head. “I am. You wouldn’t want to come to a seminar on mitochondria and metabolism, would you?”

“I’d love to,” she says with such a straight face that I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not paying attention. “But these clients are murdering me.”

I kiss right beneath her ear. “How about I pick up a bottle of pinot on the way home and we can forget about our clothes for the night?”

She turns to face me, pecking me quickly on the lips. “Maybe, babe. You know I’d love for nothing more. But this client is paying this month’s rent.”

I sigh, and slide my arm from her. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

She says nothing as a leave the apartment. Connecting with Tricia lately has been difficult. She loves her job and works hard at it, mainly because we’re both buried in student loans and rent in this area isn’t exactly cheap. It’s why she pushed for me to audition for EPE. Maybe, if the gig actually gives me a solid paycheck, she’ll be able to work less and things can go back to being like how they were when we started dating three years ago. Passionate. Somewhat interesting. More action with her than with my hand.

^^^^

The parking lot near the science building is packed when I get to school. This guy is a big deal, but I didn’t realize that every department in sciences and mathematics would be attending.

When I enter the building, I push through people near the auditorium and hurry up to the biology office to check my mailbox before the event. As I’m leaving, sifting through papers that one of my professors dropped off for me to grade, I don’t notice the person darting through the hallway.

I manage to hold onto my papers as her shoulder connects with mine, but she drops her books. They’re some of the published theory from the lecturer I—
we
—are about to attend.

“Shit,” she mutters, stooping to pick them up.

“Dammit, I’m so sorry.” I bend down to pick up a book that flew extra far. She grabs it at the same time, and I look up at her.

She wears these chunky hipster glasses with blue frames, her dark hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. Her t-shirt says,
Dear Algebra, Stop asking us to find your X. She’s not coming back.
And when our eyes meet, her expression morphs to terror. We simultaneously stand, staring at each other.

“Rylan?”

She slaps me hard across the face.

Chapter Four

Evan

I can lose him in this crowd.

There are enough people in the hall to dart around and get away from Dallas. Night class must just be starting. I rush away from him and around the corner, but he’s desperate to keep up with me.

“Rylan!” he shouts again. “What the hell was that for?”

I spin on my heel to face him. “Are you an idiot? Don’t you
ever
call me that name at school again!” I hiss.

And then it dawns on him. “Oh.”

I scoff and march away from him, but he doesn’t get the hint. Right on my tail, he asks, “So what am I supposed to call you, then?”

I give in, halting and leaning against the hallway wall. People rush out of classrooms and down to the auditorium. The symposium’s going to start at any moment. I’m going to get a terrible seat. “Nothing, Dallas. You’re supposed to call me nothing, because you aren’t supposed to run into me on campus. People shouldn’t see us together.”

He narrows those gorgeous blue eyes of his. “Why?”

I sigh. I’d rather not discuss this in the middle of an East Park hallway. “Because,” I whisper. He leans in close. “Britain’s going to use the photos from the shoot.”

His eyes widen. “Are you serious?”

I hate the fact that I have to nod. Before I left for class, Britain told me that the photos from the shoot were so good that there was no way she
couldn’t
use them. I yelled at her a lot. And then I left.

“Everyone will see the two of us mostly-naked in the magazine, and then if we’re seen around campus, people will put two and two together.”

“And that’s bad because…”

I can’t believe he isn’t getting it. “Because I’m not Rylan, Dallas.” I pull my phone from the pocket of my jeans and glance at it. “I’m going to be late.” I turn from him again and make my way down the stairs.

He continues to follow me.

“Okay, whoever you are, I get it. I’ll leave you alone. If I see you in the halls, I will ignore you like I’ve never seen you before in my life. Tomorrow. Let’s break the rules tonight.”

This boy is ridiculous. “And why would I want to do that?”

“Because I don’t want to sit alone at the symposium. Come on.”

I pick up my pace. “Well, I won’t publicly cause a scene if you sit next to me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Thanks,” he murmurs.

I bite back my smile and hurry into the auditorium, Dallas right on my heels. Like I guessed, there is hardly an empty chair in the sea full of hundreds of seats. There are several solo seats scattered here and there. I could just take one of those and Dallas would have to find a seat somewhere else, but then I spot two vacant chairs next to each other and head for them.

Why am I doing this to myself? Because he’s pathetic and doesn’t want to be alone?

That isn’t the real answer, but I really don’t feel like thinking on it further.

Dallas sits next to me. He’s about to open his mouth again, but the professor introducing the speaker walks on stage and everyone begins to clap. Thank God for being late.

I pull out my note book and flip to a blank page. As I breathe in, I smell him next to me. His cologne is like a spicy sea breeze, and instantly I’m back in that lounge chair, Dallas’s tongue running over my hip bone.

I cross my legs and clear my throat.

“You’re
taking notes
?” he says.

I glance over at him. He looks impressed. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do at these things?”

He shrugs. “I never.”

“Well, I always do.” The professor mentions one of the speaker’s books, and I pull it from my stack, opening up the first page.

Dallas leans closer to me. “Evan Cosette.”

Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck

Brilliant me, thinking it was a good idea to write my name and phone number on the front flap of all my books. Not the brightest move for a girl trying to hide her true identity half the time. Not at all.

I keep my composure. “That’s right.
Evan.
”

One corner of his mouth curves up in a crooked smile. “Huh. Yeah, I can see you being an Evan. One of those cute masculine girl names. Suits your personality.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You calling me masculine?”

“Bold is more like it.”

“No, I think you’re calling me masculine.” I turn back to the speaker, and he doesn’t say anything else. But every time I glance at him through the hour-long lecture, he’s still wearing that smug grin. I want to wipe it off his face.

The question is, how?

When the lecture is over, Dallas still won’t let me get away from him. In the parking lot, I’m almost to my car when he says, “Hold it, hold it. I barely got to learn anything about you, Evan.”