Shut Up and Model for Me (7 page)

“But you’re obviously not the same kind of creature as the majority of these protagonists,” he says amusedly, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. “And if we’re to visually recreate their deepest, darkest desires, then what do you suppose we do?” He looks down at his cup, tracing the coffee-stained lid with the tip of his fingers.

I cross my legs to keep the pressure from building and work to keep my breath as even as possible. “I guess you’re going to have to dominate me.”

His eyes shoot to mine again, wicked and playful and startling blue. Delicious pleasure shoots through my loins and I swear I’m closer to an orgasm now than I’ve ever been during sex. Just from Dallas
looking
at me.

“I guess I’m going to have to dominate you,” he responds.

Dallas

“
I’ve been emailing your photographer,” Tricia says.

We’re both lying in bed naked. It’s been over a week since I’ve had sex with Tricia, and I thought that’d mean that when we finally had the chance to sleep together, it would be like fireworks. Like it used to be.

I was wrong.

She seemed distracted the whole time, even when I went down on her. And after an hour of trying to get her off, I gave up.

I hate giving up on getting a girl off. And it’s not even a pride thing. Watching a girl come is one of the most beautiful things in the world—like an addiction—and I haven’t had my fix in a long time.

I wrap my arms around Tricia, and she relaxes into me. “What about?” I’m wondering if her suggestion of wanting me to act single was just a test, and now she’s trying to use Britain to spy on me.

Britain saw me cornering Evan the other day, my face in her hair. What if she told Tricia? My stomach twists.

“How much you’ll make from your audition shoot.”

I relax, but only a little. “You’re worried about money?” Not about my fidelity. But about money.

She rolls over so she’s facing me. “I just know how hard you’re working in school, and I didn’t want you to be under any more strain if you didn’t have to be.”

“I’m fine,” I tell her. “It’s not really work. E—Rylan really knows what she’s doing and I kind of just follow her lead.”

Tricia giggles. “That’s right. Britain told me you got paired with the faux innocent one. The virgin skank.”

I pull away from her. “Why would you call her that?”

“Because that’s what she is.”

“That’s what her character is,” I correct. “That’s not who she really is.”

She pushes against my chest. “Come on, she has to be a bit skanky to pose for that magazine.”

I can’t believe what she’s actually suggesting. “Trish,
I
pose for that magazine.”

“Yeah, but that’s different.”

“Because I’m a guy?”

“Because… Fuck, Dallas, I don’t know. Because it just is.”

It’s useless to get into an argument right now. I’m tired and irritated and have the worst case of blue balls. I can’t be in this condition if I’m going to be shooting with Evan today. I say nothing, kissing Tricia on the cheek and rolling out of bed.

If I don’t get myself off in the shower, I’m going to accidentally come during our shoot today—if it’s anything like our shoot last week.

^^^^

The studio is as busy as it was on Wednesday, except a different kind of busy. As I walk in, several women sitting on the couches go quiet, all looking up at me. Instead of lingerie, they’re all dressed in jeans and t-shirts. Britain is among them. Papers scatter the coffee table.
“Dallas,” Britain says. “Glad you’re here.” She gestures to a woman with dark skin and curly hair sitting next to her. “This is Andrea, one of our writers for this upcoming issue of EPE. She’s going to be crafting yours and Rylan’s story for the magazine.”

Andrea stands. I walk over to her and shake her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m sorry,” I turn to Britain. “Story?”

“Glad you asked. Rylan!” Britain yells.

“WHAT!” Evan screams from the dressing room. I bite back my grin.

“Get your ass in here. We’re talking marketing.”

Evan saunters out of the dressing room dressed
as
Evan—just as adorable as she when I saw her last in the coffee shop. No makeup, hipster glasses on, hair up.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I tell Evan honestly when she’s standing by me.

“You and I are going to craft our love story.” Evan says dryly. “Yippee.”

“Love story?” I ask.

“With this issue, we’re trying to attract a bigger audience,” Britain explains. “That’s why we hired you. We want to appeal to women. Research shows that the type of erotica women tend to go for is erotica with a storyline.” She points to Andrea, and Andrea waves. “So I’ve hired Andrea here to write your story. Every issue, we’ll have a shoot and an episode.”

“Titled, ‘The Seduction of Rylan Willow,’” Evan drawls.

I snort.

“It’s not a joke,” Britain says seriously, looking at me.

“Oh,” I mutter.

“Anyway,” Britain continues. “We were hoping to gain a little inspiration from your ideas. Who these characters should be, how the shoots should be themed, etcetera. We could just make it easy. Billionaire CEO and his adorable little secretary.” Britain nudges Evan with her shoulder.

Evan scowls. “That shit is
so
overdone.”

“Fine then,
Rylan
. What are your ideas?”

Evan shrugs dramatically. “Why don’t you go all-out if we’re doing that whole dom-sub thing? Base it in a fucking BDSM club or something.”

Andrea makes a face. “Too hard to write a story for.”

“Come on, Rylan, you know better,” Britain says. “We need to work with what we have, too. Building a set for a freaking BDSM club would be way too difficult. Plus, we’d have to buy a bunch of kinky toys and shit.”

“Work with what we have,” I mutter. Everyone’s eyes flicker to me. “That’s easy. We run out of a university, for crying out loud. Student-Professor.”

The women on the couches start to murmur excitedly. While Evan groans, Britain’s eyes widen. “Dallas, you are a genius.”

“Genius!” Evan cries. “This is the context of our
real lives
. He just taught me last week!”

I shake my head. “But I’m not your professor. I’m a grad student.”

“Aren’t you afraid of what this is going to do to your image? The next time you lecture, you’re going to have undergrads falling all over you.” If I’m not mistaken, there’s bitterness in her tone beneath all of that disgust.

“I told you,” I say. “I’m done guest lecturing for this semester. And I’m done with teaching. Next year they’re letting me dive fully into field research.”

This obviously isn’t what Evan wants to hear. She groans again and turns on her heel. “Well fucking
fine
. Give me a minute, let me go throw on some skanky catholic school-girl outfit and perfect my lip biting.”

Britain rolls her eyes as Evan stomps away and slams the door to the dressing room.

I sigh and push back my hair. “I should go talk to her.”

“Don’t bother,” Britain says, but I ignore her.

When I enter the dressing room, Evan is already standing in her bra and panties, sifting through racks of clothing. It’s hard for me to not stare at her delicious curves.

“Go away,” she mutters, not taking her eyes off of the clothes in front of her.

“Stop, Evan,” I tell her. “Look at me.”

Her shoulders slump, but her eyes still avoid me.

“You keep acting like this isn’t awkward for me too.”

“It’s different for you,” she says, pulling a white button up shirt off the rack and chucking it behind her.

“I have a girlfriend.”

“Exactly,” she says. “And I feel like the whore intruding on your relationship.”

“Evan. Evan, look at me,
now
.”

She blinks a few times and her eyes find mine.

“Don’t you ever call yourself that again, do you understand me? If anything, I’m the whore.”

She traces a microscopic school-girl skirt on the rack, and I’m positive her ass won’t fit into it. Maybe that’s the idea. “How does your girlfriend put up with this?”

“She loves it, actually,” I tell her honestly. She raises an eyebrow, and I continue. “She loves that it’s going to give us extra income. She even told me to act single on set.”

Evan narrows her eyes skeptically. “She did
what
?”

“To relax me. Because I felt bad about it, you know?”

“You seem confident enough,” she murmurs. “She must really trust you.”

“That’s what happens when you’ve been together forever.” And sometimes, you also forget that you’re supposed to be in love too, but I don’t tell Evan that. Instead, I step toward her, take the skirt from her hands, and throw it over the clothing racks.

“What the hell are you doing?” she cries.

“That’s not what women want to see you in. They want to see you in something they would wear.” I sift through the racks until I pull out a pair of low-rise jeans that look her size, and a pink rhinestone EPU hoodie. I hand them to her. “In this, you could be any female student on campus. That way, readers will be able to fantasize when they watch me undress you.”

Chapter Six

Evan

I clench my teeth to keep my jaw from falling to the floor.

Dallas has a way of making me hate him for turning me on so much. For normal guys, this wouldn’t be a problem. I’d just flirt back and go along for the ride. But Dallas—well, first of all, he’s extraordinarily beautiful. And second of all he just got done talking about his girlfriend. Of forever. Who trusts him.

What I need to do is just accept this, and take advantage of the fact that his ever-so-trusting girlfriend wants him to act single on set. I can’t have a boyfriend. Boys are too distracting and get all weird when they find out my source of income. This will be my only thrill for a while.

Dallas.

“It’s going to be hard for me to get into the moment with this silly scenario,” I tell him honestly. “I’m going to need a little bit of help.”

“I’ll make sure to do that,” he responds huskily before leaving me alone to change.

When he’s gone, I place my hand upon my frantically beating heart. “Don’t get too excited,” I whisper to myself. “It’s only instant gratification.”

^^^^

Britain is the bravest, most shameless girl I’ve ever met in my entire life. It’s why we’re friends. It’s also why she was able to convince a university committee to approve
East Park Exposed
as an official East Park University publication. Britain’s argument:
Hell, Harvard did it.

And it worked.

There’s a clause in the agreement stating that we can’t shoot in any East Park building except for one—an abandoned gym that hosts a set of classrooms, lockers, showers, and a drained swimming pool. We can’t do much with it, but we should be able to find an office for this shoot.

Fuck, this shoot.

The campus policeman gives Britain a wink when he drives up to unlock the building for us. We’ve used this building a couple times before, and he knows exactly what we’re up to. I guess he thinks we need that extra wink in order to feel sexy or something.

Luckily for me, the only ones attending this off-site shoot are me, Dallas, Britain, and Andrea. Andrea’s here in order to direct us toward the vision of the story she’s conjuring up in her head right now. Delilah really wanted to watch, and so did Adam, but I think Britain can sense how tense my nerves are right now, so she made the shoot private.

We walk down the deserted, grimy hall, and Britain leads us up the stairs. “I think the offices are on the second floor,” she says.

I swallow. Why am I so nervous? I’ve done a million and a half shoots before and I’ve rocked all of them. I’ve even done one with Dallas. But the thought of being around him, of having him touch me for the camera again, is making me light-headed.

And sweaty. Which is the last thing I need to be.

Britain finds an office that looks like it could still be in use. There are books on the shelves and files scattered across the desk. Britain starts moving the files, and I grudgingly find a soft piece of felt in one of the drawers to start wiping away dust.

Dallas smoothes the front of his slacks and sits, crossing his legs. A nice dress shirt is tucked into his pants. He even wears a tie, his hair combed back enough to make him seem older and professional without looking creepy. And he does look older. He looks like he could easily pull off early thirties—perfect young, hot professor age.

Heat flushes my body.

I’m dressed in incredibly low-rise jeans, a revealing, white cami, and a pink EPE zip-up sweatshirt. Exactly what Dallas told me to wear. As I stalk around the room trying to tidy the place up, he grabs my arm and pulls me to him. I gaze down into his light eyes that express concern.

“What can I do that will make this shoot as easy for you as possible?”

I want to reach out and touch his face—run my thumb along the smooth end of his jaw, but I have to be patient.

“Modeling with someone else is just going to take some time getting used to.”

The corner of his mouth turns up. “I’ll try my best to make you forget about the camera.”

Oh, God.

You should try your best to make me forget you’re not single
, I want to tell him, but instead, I just nod.

After Britain sets up her lighting, she claps her hands together. “Okay, I think we’re ready to shoot. Dallas, go ahead and take a seat behind the desk.

My heart begins to pound relentlessly. I clutch my binder—which I’ve brought as a prop—to my chest.

Britain starts adjusting her camera. “Okay, Andrea, so what’s the scenario?”

Andrea inhales excitedly, and clasps her hand in front of her. “Okay, Rylan. You come into the office looking for way to make extra credit in Dallas’s class, but he obviously has bigger plans for you.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, brother.”

“Rylan,” Dallas says sternly. Darkly. I turn to see him looking up at me from his desk, eyes fierce. His palms are pressed flat against the polished wood. “I’ve noticed that you’re failing my class.”