Bared Read online

  “Rafe pull his cool, distant routine on you again? Oh, honey, don’t take it personally. He doesn’t really have a thing for models, you know? If he had his way, he’d be out taking pictures of…I don’t know. Stuff. Not people, I don’t think. So if he’s all chilly and remote on you, just shrug it off.”

  Chilly and remote?

  Ha!

  That hadn’t exactly been the problem.

  No, the issue was her own.

  Basically, her life had been easy up until now, just a series of stories she put together to give other people pleasure and to keep herself so busy that she didn’t have time for anything else.

  Then she’d taken one look at Rafe Delacantro on a dark, stormy Hawaiian island and everything had changed. She’d wanted, she’d craved, and she hadn’t wavered from that want and craving until she’d gotten it.

  And oh, how she’d gotten it.

  She’d gotten hot and wild. She’d gotten the incentive she needed to spice up her storylines for the next ten years.

  Next time.

  Oh, dear God, he wanted a next time, and there’d be even more.

  Her heart started a rapid tattoo just at the thought. Because the truth was, she wanted a next time, too.

  12

  RAFE STOOD AT THE TOP of Donner Summit Pass, the wind tossing his face and clothes, the sun at this high altitude seeming so close he could almost touch it, and drew in a deep breath. Beyond him stood the majestic Sierras, tall and craggy, lined with a carpet of towering pines and sage, dotted with the snow that unbelievably hadn’t melted yet, even though it was June.

  Again, he was an entire world away from Los Angeles and again he was loving it.

  They’d flown up here, in an eight-seater Cessna—a “butt squeaker,” Stone had called it—and had hooked up with a local who’d shown them the quickest way to get to the snow. It had involved a short hike but they’d gotten the shot they needed, with their model in a stark white zip-up leather suit, straddling a snowmobile and looking outrageously sexy.

  On the flight up here, he’d ridden shotgun with the pilot, with his model in the far, far back, and because he’d been busy talking to the pilot when everyone had loaded, he hadn’t gotten a good look at her.

  Until they’d stepped off the plane he hadn’t known who he was shooting today.

  But one look into her fathomless light-brown eyes and he’d known. Emma. Emma, wanting desperately to be mistaken for Amber. The looks she shot him were filled with anxiety—that he’d reveal her, that he’d somehow refer to what they’d done in his pool—as well as a reluctant awareness.

  If she thought he was going to tell anyone what had happened between them, she was sorely mistaken. He didn’t want to share the details of an experience that had rocked his world.

  So for the shoot he’d given her the anonymity she seemed to crave. He’d done it because he’d needed it as well, because if he acknowledged that she wasn’t Amber, that she was indeed the woman he had slowly stripped and had begun to make love to, he didn’t know how to be just her photographer.

  But now the shoot was over and people were making their way back to the small, private Truckee/Tahoe airport where the Cessna waited to take them back to L.A.

  Standing on the tarmac while everyone loaded up, Rafe maneuvered his way close to Emma. She’d changed out of the leather cat-suit that had looked amazing on her, and now wore simple black jeans and a white sweater. She’d pulled her beautiful hair back in a clip and had washed off all the makeup. She looked about sixteen. She stood with her head tilted back, soaking in the wide-open blue sky that seemed so much larger up here in the Sierras than it ever did at home.

  When he touched her hand, she jumped a little and shot him a wary look.

  “Emma.”

  She let out a long breath. “The way you do that…You know you’re the only one who can tell us apart.”

  “It’s not hard for me.”

  She looked at him as if she wasn’t sure she liked that.

  “I love the way you look in your own clothes.”

  Her expression went from wary to startled in a heartbeat, and then she laughed. “Yeah.”

  “I do.”

  She shook her head and looked at the mountains surrounding them, at the lovely valley just beyond the airport where wild grass shifted in the wind, making the land look alive. “After all the exquisite clothing you’ve been exposed to on a daily basis,” she said, “you like my plain jeans and a sweater?”

  “No, I like you in the jeans and sweater.” He grinned. “Actually, I like you in nothing at all, but—”

  “Shh!” She covered his mouth with her hand and looked around, but relaxed when she realized no one was paying attention to them. She turned back to his still-smiling face, and had to shake her head and let out her own smile. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  He pulled her hand free and kept it in his own. “I’m glad it’s you here doing this.”

  “When did you know?”

  “When I saw your face.”

  “After we got off the plane?”

  “I tried to see you before, but you were good at keeping your face averted on the ride up here.”

  She looked out to the valley again, then sighed. “I don’t know why that sticks with me—that you see me when no one else does.”

  “You’re softer than Amber.”

  She stared at him; she slowly shook her head.

  “Sweeter.”

  “Stop it.”

  “And your breathing changes when you look at me.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Really?” He shifted subtly closer. Anyone looking at them would have sworn they were just having an easy conversation, heads together so that they could hear each other over the roar of the Cessna’s engines starting.

  But with his shoulders and body blocking Emma from view, he stroked his hand up her back, then slowly back down, applying just enough pressure that she had no choice but to take the last step between them. Her hand came up against his chest to brace herself and, in the guise of telling her something, he leaned in and nuzzled just beneath her ear.

  That she let out a shaky breath, that he felt her shiver, told him everything he needed to know.

  “How did the writing go last week?” he murmured. “Between the pool shoot and now?”

  “I—”

  When he nibbled her throat, she let out a helpless moan that reverberated through him and was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard.

  “—I can’t think with your mouth on me, Rafe.”

  He lifted his head and smiled at her, his hand still low on her back, fingers spread wide to touch as much of her as possible. “I like it when you say my name like that, just a little breathless.” He stroked her again. “Tell me about the writing.”

  “If you believe that I can think with your hands on me, think again.”

  “Hey, I can’t even think when you’re standing right here in front of me.”

  That seemed to surprise her, but why, he had no idea. Did she really think she didn’t affect him?

  “I called you,” he said.

  “I know.” She glanced over at the plane, where everyone had loaded but them. No one seemed to notice the two of them talking. “I wasn’t sure I’d be seeing you again.”

  “And yet, here you are.”

  “Yeah.” She looked into his eyes then. “Here I am.” She dropped her gaze to his mouth. The wind had loosened a couple of strands of her hair, one of which clung to his jaw. He left it there, a damn good sign of how far gone over this woman he was.

  “You asked me about the writing.” Her eyes lit with wry humor. “The executives at the studio didn’t know what to make of all the sex I put on the page. They told me to keep doing whatever it was I was doing to get inspired.”

  Rafe grinned, and the hand he had low on her back drifted a little lower, brushing over the very sweet curve of her butt, squeezing once before rising again. “Keeping you inspired