An exposé…or just exposed?

Anything for the sake of the story. That explains why journalist Emma Gideon is participating in a large-scale nude photo shoot. Yeah, it’s a stretch for a girl with an old-fashioned side. Worse, sporting only green body paint, she’s on display for Kyle Hadley—the office flirt and her rival at the paper. These unique circumstances are creating a sizzling complication to their rivalry….

Despite her boss’s rule of “no hanky-panky,” Emma ends up in Kyle’s shower…with him! And that’s hotter than she ever imagined. When he suggests a continuation, how can she refuse? But has Emma risked her career for a sexy new development…or is this a severe case of overexposure?

“Emma, you’re killing me, you know that, right?”

“No. I had no idea.” Which was a lie. Emma was very much aware of the sexual tension running between her and Kyle. It was almost tangible, especially when they were mostly naked, standing only inches apart.

“You are. And I most definitely can keep a secret, so if anything else happens here today, you can be sure it will never be mentioned at the office. Or ever, for that matter, if that’s what you want.”

“What could happen?”

“This.” Kyle closed the gap between them.

Her eyes fluttered shut as his mouth covered hers in a deep, tantalizing kiss. Wowsa. Kyle’s lips teased over hers with just the right amount of pressure and finesse, his touch confident and smooth but not arrogant.

Kyle had most definitely surprised her. In the sexiest way possible.

Dear Reader,

Double Exposure is the launch of my series From All Angles and my very first Mills & Boon Blaze book! Before I sold my first book in 2002 it was always my dream to write for Mills & Boon Blaze, and so I am very excited that three years ago I reconnected with editor Wanda Ottewell on a conference cruise to Cozumel and the wheels starting turning for a new series. Sun, margaritas and good company make fabulous inspirations.

For years I had wanted to write about a photographer who specializes in mass nudes (I figured the humor and sexiness in that situation was a no-brainer!) and Double Exposure features a couple of reporters who are on the scene at the shoot. Sometimes a whole lot more than skin is revealed when the clothes come off.

I hope you enjoy my take on photography, and I’m thrilled to finally be part of the amazing stories and writers who make Mills & Boon Blaze so exciting!

Happy reading,

Erin McCarthy

Double

Exposure

New York Times Bestselling Author

Erin McCarthy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA TODAY and New York Times bestselling author Erin McCarthy sold her first book in 2002 and has since written almost fifty novels and novellas in teen fiction, new adult and adult romance. Erin has a special weakness for tattoos, karaoke, high-heeled boots and martinis. She lives on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio with her family, her cat and her stylish and well-dressed Chihuahua/terrier mix.

Contents

Dear Reader,

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Extract

1

“SO WHEN DO we get naked?”

Emma Gideon shot a look at her coworker Kyle Hadley and tried not to hurt him. He didn’t make it easy to refrain from violence, standing there looking all casual, ready to peel off his shirt at a single word. Nothing about this photo shoot intimidated him, whereas Emma wanted to crawl into a hole and bury herself under heavy fleece blankets at the thought of taking off her clothes in front of other people.

This was career dedication. But as she stood in the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse with two hundred other people prepared to strip down to their underwear, she wasn’t sure securing an interview with the famed photographer Ian Bainbridge was worth this level of discomfort.

“If you do it too soon, the organizers will kick you out, so keep your pants on, please.” Emma sidled a look at Kyle’s jeans, as if she could tell anything other than that he was muscular. She already knew that. She’d noticed it every single day since he’d joined the newspaper staff twenty-three months and one week ago, three months and fifteen days after she had been hired. Not that she was counting. “Are you wearing boxers? You’re supposed to wear underwear. If you’re not, they’ll kick you out.” Aware of how nervous and frantic she sounded, she clapped her mouth shut.

“You’re very concerned with me getting tossed out.” He adjusted the baseball cap on his head. “I appreciate how badly you want me to stick around.”

Emma rolled her eyes. The truth was she’d rather be sharing this story with a rabid dog than with Kyle. Though she wasn’t convinced there was much difference between the two. Kyle just smiled more than a disease-ridden mutt. But “dog” definitely described him.

As if to prove her point, he smirked at her and pulled the waistband of his jeans down, revealing taut abdominal muscles and the elastic of his tight black briefs. “But yes, I’m wearing underwear, which I don’t mind getting ruined with body paint, per the instructions. I can follow rules.”

Somehow Emma doubted that. She had worked with Kyle at the newspaper since that fateful day her boss had hired him, and Kyle seemed to think that charm usurped rules on a regular basis. If he just smiled, it didn’t matter if he turned his piece in three hours late. What burned her butt was that it seemed to work for him. She would have been fired five times over if she pulled the stunts he did.

Then again, she wasn’t a hot guy who had all the women in the office drooling over him. Their editor was a divorced woman, and Kyle was single and always up for a good time. There was no getting around it, as much as Emma would like to pretend otherwise. Her own personal reaction to him was frustrating in the extreme. She liked to pride herself on her self-control and focus. She was a career woman, driven and sensible. Yet she was like any other female when Kyle walked into the room—weak in the knees and warm between the thighs. It was infuriating. She sympathized with every teenage boy who was at the mercy of his hormones because her reaction to Kyle was just ridiculous.

Now she was going to be mostly nude in a group photo shoot with him. Fabulous.

“I don’t care if you stay or not,” she told him, “but Claire won’t be thrilled if you get tossed out on your ass.” His very fine ass, which Emma was afraid she wouldn’t be able to resist staring at once he removed his jeans. “I’d rather the focus of this story be my stellar reporting, not your antics.”

She might be only a features writer for the Life & Style section of the Daily Journal, but she took it seriously. Working on a Sunday like this was a matter of course for her, though usually it wasn’t under quite these unusual circumstances. But the only reason she was even joining the actual shoot was because otherwise reporters were restricted solely to the parking lot. Nor was anyone allowed access to the photographer, Ian Bainbridge, and Emma was determined to get at least a word or two with him.

Heralded as the next big thing in group nude photography, Ian was traveling from city to city shooting mass groups of volunteers who he arranged artistically to blend in to whatever environment he had chosen, in order to make a statement. For this particular shoot, he had landed in northeast Ohio and had chosen the crumbling warehouse. It figured. He couldn’t choose somewhere attractive, like the lakeshore or the botanical gardens. But Emma reasoned that those places didn’t resonate with angsty photographers quite the same way.

So far there hadn’t been any sight of Ian, just a slew of security guards patrolling the perimeter and preventing outsiders from snapping pictures with their cell phones. A tent had been set up as a further barrier, and inside participants were being sprayed with body paint and then funneled directly into the dilapidated warehouse. It was actually well-organized and efficient, which meant that any minute now Emma would in fact be forced to take off her jeans and T-shirt, which made her palms sweat. Naked alone, in the shower, was fine. Naked with a man was, well, necessary for the positive outcome that resulted from it. Naked with two hundred strangers? Not okay.

It wasn’t that she was a prude. She was just modest. There was nothing wrong with that and Kyle wasn’t going to make her feel bad about it.

“My antics? Gee, Mom, I’ll be good, I promise. We’ll have a swell time.” He gave her a broad cheesy smile and swung his arms back and forth.

His sarcasm was not appreciated. Okay, so maybe she was a teeny bit prudish. Or maybe it was just irritating that Kyle hit on every woman between the ages of twenty-four and fifty in the office yet had never once flirted with her. Wasn’t she flirtworthy? Not that she would ever consider dating him, not in a million, trillion years, but it would be nice if he tried.

Though why she was thinking about any of that was a mystery to her. She needed to focus on finding Ian. Not on Kyle.

“Besides, Claire won’t care. She didn’t want two of us on this story, anyway.”

That was news to her. “Then why are you here?”

Kyle touched her elbow and directed her into the line outside the tent, where everyone was queuing to be processed. “I think we’re supposed to be here. I’ve seen Ian Bainbridge’s work before. I thought it would be cool to be a part of it. I like that he makes a bold statement.” Kyle winked at her. “Besides, it’s a chance to get naked in public and not get arrested. How often does an opportunity like that come up?”

Emma tossed her blond hair over her shoulder. It was too long and she needed a trim, but she had kept it out of a ponytail this morning because she had thought it would make her feel less naked having hair around her shoulders. The logic seemed flawed in retrospect since her breasts would be totally bare, but she was desperate, quaking in her ballet flats from fear. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was afraid of, but she had been less uncomfortable getting a root canal. Maybe she needed anesthetic for this, too. Emma sighed.

“You’re a freak,” she told him. “People are not supposed to roll around naked together.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really? That’s news to everyone I know who’s having sex.”

Okay, so that wasn’t exactly what she had meant. Emma flushed, aware that the line they stood in was gradually moving closer and closer to the entrance of the tent. Where she would have to remove her clothes. Otherwise known as the Panic Room. There were only about eight people in front of her now. “You know what I meant! It’s not normal to put two hundred naked people together in a warehouse.”

“This isn’t a mass orgy. It’s art. Which is precisely why Bainbridge does it—Americans are both fascinated and made squeamish by nudity. That’s the angle I’m taking on my piece. Claire said I could write a column about the oversexualization of commercial products like movies and advertising, in contrast to the moral restrictions on art that still exist.”

Wonderful.

Somehow, Kyle had managed to find an angle that was more in-depth than what Emma was planning while making her sound like a total wet blanket. She had been hoping to score an interview with the photographer himself and question him about his recent run-ins with a stalker. The identity of the person who had been vandalizing his shoot locations and causing damages and loss of time seemed to be personally targeting Ian for his art, and Emma was hoping for an angle that would tie his recent run-ins to the new anti-stalker laws. But that was a big fat if. Most likely in the end she would be doing a write-up of the actual event. While Kyle wrote a well-researched opinion article.

At that moment, Emma wasn’t sure she could possibly dislike him more. “It sounds obvious,” she sniffed. What else was she supposed to say? That he was smarter than she was? She would choke on those words before they came out of her mouth.

She worked her tail off at the paper, and had sacrificed the majority of her social life to get ahead, while Kyle did the minimum. Yet who got more bylines every week?

It wasn’t fair.

She was more determined than ever to snag two minutes with Ian Bainbridge.

But first she had to get naked.

“Waiver,” an older woman barked at her as they approached the entrance of the tent.

Pulling the model release out of her pocket, Emma handed it to her with sweaty hands, chewing on her bottom lip. She wondered if she could lose Kyle when they were getting their bodies painted. This day might be a lot less humiliating and awful if she didn’t have to spend it with her confident, sexy coworker.

“Everything looks good,” the woman said briskly, putting a plastic band around her wrist. “You’re going to go in this line to the right. You’ll be green.”

“Green?” Emma looked suspiciously in the direction she’d been pointed to. There were five people in line, two peeling off their pants, two wearing nothing but underwear. The one woman’s enormous breasts were just out there for anyone to see. The first person, an older man, was having his sagging belly spray-painted an emerald green.

Yikes.

“Green paint. You’re going to be green. Get a move on. You’re holding up the line.” She gave Emma a look of impatience.

“What about me?” Kyle asked behind her. “Do I get green, too? I’m having an Incredible Hulk fantasy here. My childhood dreams come true.”

The woman, who had just been brisk and unimpressed with Emma, now smiled and tittered in delight. “We’re supposed to go every other person, but I suppose I could make an exception for you.”

Emma rolled her eyes.

Kyle winked at the dragon masquerading as a volunteer. “Thanks, doll. I owe you.”

Doll? Was he for real?

But then Emma’s irritation at Kyle’s powers of persuasion evaporated when the guy in front of her said, “Here’s your bag for your clothes and your number so you can reclaim them. When you’re ready, hand the bag to Jane here and get in the paint line.”

Emma took the bag and number he shoved at her, but then she just stood stock-still, gulping. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t take her clothes off with all these people milling around. Granted, no one was looking at her. No one cared. They were all treating their partially nude bodies like this was an everyday occurrence. Making her feel even more self-conscious that she was self-conscious. She stood, palms sweating, heart racing, breath coming in short, frantic bursts.

Suddenly Kyle touched her elbow. “Hey. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know. You can still write the story without actually participating.”

Given that bile was doing an army crawl up her throat, Emma couldn’t speak, but she nodded gratefully. Kyle’s face was remarkably sympathetic, all traces of teasing gone from his voice. He was right. She didn’t have to do this. If she wasn’t comfortable getting her bare breasts sprayed the color of a leprechaun by a total stranger, that didn’t make her a prude. It made her modest and meant she had chosen the correct career path. Stripper or Hooters waitress were not going to be successful ventures for her and she was okay with that. She would just do a nice feature on the photo shoot. Hell, maybe being clothed would actually give her better opportunities to spot the photographer. It wasn’t like she could really interview him from within a sea of nude bodies. She’d seen enough to do a respectable write-up.

That settled, Emma sighed in relief. Kyle gave her a reassuring smile, then stepped forward, peeling his shirt off. She caught a close-up glimpse of his rippling back muscles and the sexy little divot in the small of his back before she turned, feeling voyeuristic and suddenly outrageously turned on. Time to look away from that.

Only to come face-to-face with a woman behind her who had already stripped down to a pair of white cotton bikini panties. Before she could avert her gaze, Emma saw that the woman had the scars of a double mastectomy on her chest. “Oh! Sorry,” she said, mortified, feeling like she had been caught staring, when in reality it had been all of a three-second glance.

But the woman just gave her a warm smile. “You’re fine. They have us crammed in here like sardines, but I imagine it’s only about to get worse. Glad I remembered my deodorant this morning.”

Emma smiled back weakly. “True. But I don’t think I’m going to... I think maybe I need to...” She wasn’t sure how to express her discomfort, nor was she entirely sure why she was so uncomfortable.

“Not your thing, huh?” Twisting her dark hair into a makeshift bun, the woman said, “I don’t think this would have been something I would have done in my twenties, either. But now it’s like what the hell. I like this photographer’s message—that we’re people, not machines or corporations.” She gestured to her chest. “Or pharmaceutical or insurance companies. Human beings, in imperfect packages.”

Emma bit her lip. “You’re right. I was just raised by a mother who emphasized modesty because my grandfather lived with us. It feels unnatural to me.” She had often thought her mother was big on modesty, too, because she had been worried Emma would turn out the way she had—knocked up at eighteen, and a single parent by twenty. Whatever her reasons, the end result was they had kept it on in the Gideon household, and Emma was not comfortable with multiple people getting naked together.

Surely she wasn’t the only one who felt that way, but she supposed all her comrades in covering up would naturally have stayed far away from this event.

“I totally understand,” the woman said. “I was, too. But I think this illustrates that we’re really run by our biology, aren’t we? From hunger to sex to disease. We’re already controlled by our bodies, so let’s not let corporations control us, too. Let’s liberate ourselves.”

Emma had never really given much thought to her body and how it controlled her. She glanced over her shoulder to Kyle. Except when Kyle was around. Then it definitely controlled her. Her desire had a vicelike grip on her nipples while her lust lobbied between her legs for a free market.

“You’re right,” she told the woman, suddenly feeling energized and determined. “Thanks. I want to feel liberated.” She no longer wanted to be the boring office workaholic who couldn’t even get a second glance from Kyle, the serial flirt. She didn’t want to be Corporate Emma, cell phone and sensible pumps included, all the time. Sometimes she wanted to be Easy Breezy Emma, who had a social life and got laid.

So she took a deep breath. And peeled off her T-shirt.

Kyle turned, a grin on his face, slapping his baseball cap back on his head. “Hey, Em, look at me—”

She popped her bra and let the girls out before she changed her mind.

The grin fell off Kyle’s face. He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat.

Her fingers went for the button on her jeans.

No turning back now.

But given the look on his face, she didn’t have any interest in turning back. She wanted to take it all off for Kyle.

The question was, did he feel the same way?

2

KYLE FORGOT WHATEVER stupid crack he had been about to make about feeling green. He forgot that the paint covering him from head to toe was cold and itchy. He forgot everything.

Because Emma Gideon, his extremely businesslike and uptight coworker, had just taken off her bra, revealing a pair of perfect C-cup breasts, their tight rosy nipples winking at him. He hadn’t thought she would go through with it. It didn’t fit what he had seen of her personality, and he couldn’t say he really blamed her for not wanting to participate. There was more to show for a chick than for him. He was just in his underwear, no big deal. Hell, he took his garbage to the curb in his boxer briefs. But given the male obsession with breasts, he could fully understand why a woman might hesitate to expose hers in a tent with a few hundred people.

But he was oh so glad Emma had, because she had just given him fodder for a thousand fantasies. Not to mention it had answered the pressing question that had plagued him at work for the past several weeks: Was that perfect shape created by a push-up bra or was it all Emma?

It was Emma. No doubt about it.

The bra had just been a boulder holder, not the creator of the magnificent cleavage she tried to cover up with thin sweaters.

Aware that he was beyond the acceptable span of time for not speaking, he forced himself to tear his eyes off her breasts, concentrating on her hand, where the red bra she had discarded dangled perilously from her thumb. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look up into her eyes, knowing she would recognize the jackrabbit lust written all over his face.

“So you’re going for it,” he forced himself to say, hopefully cheerfully. “Cool. It will be fun.” God, he sounded like an idiot. But he was getting desperate because her fingers were now undoing the snap on her jeans, and he was standing only in his skivvies. Green paint may cover up a freckle, but it couldn’t do a damn thing to mask a giant boner.

He should look away. He really should look away. But that zipper was moving down now, inch by glorious inch, and he was drawn to it like a fly to honey. Really sexy honey. He couldn’t look away. Not when Emma was the only woman at the paper who had never shown an ounce of interest in him. Had never shown an ounce of interest in men or sex, period.

This could be his only chance to ever see what delights she was hiding, and while he wrestled with his conscience, at the same time he wanted desperately to catch a tiny glimpse of her forbidden fruit. A scrap of white lace was bared to him and he instantly changed his mind. Time to look away. There would be no hiding his reaction if he saw any more skin, or gave himself any more time to contemplate the soft folds hidden behind that semisheer lace, or thought about the various parts of him that could sink into that very soft, moist part of her.

He looked up, but got halted en route to her face at her chest when she started to peel down her jeans and her breasts bounced from the effort. Jesus. He was trying, damn it. But it was like laying a feast in front of a starving man. His mouth actually watered. As for the fears of tenting his briefs? They were most definitely realized. He had an erection the size of the Sears Tower.

Then Emma bent over, which put her face in close proximity to that erection, and she shoved her pants past her luscious hips. He was not going to think about what could be happening in this same position under different circumstances. Kyle went to shove his hands into his pockets to prevent himself from touching her, only to remember he had no pockets.

Emma made a small sound of distress as she lost her balance trying to withdraw her foot from her jeans, and Kyle reached out and grabbed her so she didn’t fall in a heap of denim and bouncing breasts. Though he would have enjoyed the view. But he wasn’t sick enough to want her injured so he could have middle school fantasies.

“Thanks,” she breathed, glancing up at him, her amber-colored eyes hooded. He couldn’t read her expression.

Emma stood and clutched her jeans to her chest, covering her breasts. The pants, shirt, bra and plastic bag covered the majority of her bare skin. The majority of the good parts, anyway. Kyle was simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

“Here, stand in front of me until you get sprayed. I’ll block you from view,” he told her, because it was clear she wasn’t comfortable with her nudity. Her cheeks were pink and she had inched closer to him, farther from the room at large.

If she was going to go through with this, he wanted to help her. He wanted her to trust him. And now that he thought about it, he didn’t particularly want just any guy in the room to have the same view he’d had of her breasts.

Her eyes narrowed. “What’s the catch?”

He held his hands up. “None, I promise. I’m just trying to be a nice guy. So sue me.” He was being a friggin’ Boy Scout here, with his eyes trained on her face, and she was sure he had an angle? He was insulted.

“I’m just making sure I’m not about to become a punch line.”

“What kind of a-hole do you take me for?” Kyle moved around behind her and glowered at a guy he suspected of checking out Emma’s butt in her—dear God—bikini panties. It wasn’t a G-string. It covered her cheeks, but not much else. And those were some perfectly curved, smooth ass cheeks. No wonder the guy was staring. Kyle swallowed hard and crossed his green arms over each other, knowing his shoulders and hips were broad enough to block a good portion of Emma. He’d played hockey in high school and he’d kept up with his weight training. There were no skinny jeans in his future and he wasn’t afraid to play the muscle if need be.

The guy immediately stopped his ogling. Kyle thought so, the sick bastard. Of course he wasn’t sure he was much better, as was confirmed by Emma.

“I don’t think you’re an a-hole. But I do think you’re the office flirt and quite the prankster,” Emma said, her voice dry. He couldn’t see her since he was behind her and facing away, but he could hear the plastic bag rattling as she stuffed her clothes into it.

Sometimes Emma sounded like she had fallen out of the forties. “Prankster?” Kyle snorted. “Flirt? Why, because I like to enjoy myself at work?”

“Oh, you definitely enjoy yourself when you’re sidling up to Gina in accounting and her cleavage. Usually when you’re an hour late on your deadline.”

Kyle was actually shocked. He now understood exactly why it seemed that Emma didn’t like him. It was because she didn’t like him.

Which was fine. Not great, but fine. She was entitled to not like him, even if he was harboring a serious case of lust for her. But she had no right to insult his professional integrity. “I’ve never been late on a deadline. And for your information, I have never noticed Gina’s cleavage. Her husband is a good friend of mine, so Gina and I are friends. That’s all there is to it.”

“Never late? Are you kidding me? And are you seriously trying to claim you don’t flirt with every woman in the office?”

“Never late. Not once,” he insisted. He and Claire had worked out a deal where he started at eight-thirty instead of eight Monday through Thursday and then on Fridays he came in an hour early and left an hour later. Maybe that had created a perception of tardiness, but he wasn’t sure why he had to explain that to her.

He added, “I’m friendly. I like people. Since when is that a crime?” It was actually the main reason he loved his job. He got to interact with both people in the office and out in the field. It was an industry of meetings, social gatherings, sporting events and fund-raisers. He covered them all, and enjoyed all of it. He may have lost his spot covering sports over a little press-pass snafu, but in the end he had given a longtime buddy who had cancer a once-in-a-lifetime shot at meeting the Cleveland Browns football players, and so he couldn’t regret his demotion.

If anything, writing his arts and entertainment column had opened up a whole new part of the city to him. And he was doing a damn good job, thank you very much. None of that seemed to matter to Emma, though.

It bugged the crap out of him that she made it sound like he was on the verge of violating sexual harassment laws. “And I don’t flirt with you,” he pointed out.

Her gasp of outrage indicated that wasn’t perhaps the best argument he could have used. The woman standing in front of him, who had originally been in line behind Emma, gave him a look confirming this. She shook her head slightly in what was clearly a friendly warning.

“Because I respect you,” he added. Usually that response could get a guy out of a veritable ton of trouble. It was akin to whitewashing graffiti in his experience.

“You’re a douche bag,” Emma said succinctly. “Respect that.”

So Emma definitely wasn’t like other women. While most ladies he knew thought he was charming, Emma read it as bullshit. That was something he wasn’t sure how to fix. Nor was he sure why he cared, but for some reason he did. For months it had been bothering him that Emma hadn’t warmed to him, and now it felt like a twofold mission—to force her to appreciate his good qualities and to determine why she thought work and fun had to be mutually exclusive.

“Maybe I don’t flirt with you because you’re mean to me,” he told her mildly, figuring arguing back was a tactic that wouldn’t work with Emma. It would just give her an excuse to stomp away from him indignantly. If he were calm, maybe it would calm her down.

She snorted. “I am not mean to you.” Weighted plastic hit him in the back. “Hold my bag,” she demanded.

Kyle figured that was an invitation to turn around.

So he did.

And was so glad he did.

Emma was fairly quivering with outrage from their conversation, goose bumps all over her skin, her eyes wide and snappish. The bag she was shoving at him no longer covered her breasts. They jiggled from her movements, free from their bra. Yes, he was looking. Yes, he felt zero guilt for looking. He just took the bag and waited with great interest as she stood, arms out, to receive her coating of green paint.

“You look ridiculous,” she told him, jumping with a shriek as the first spray of cool paint hit her.

“You don’t look so elegant yourself,” he told her. Only she didn’t look ridiculous. She looked delicious. Bouncy and juicy and flushed. Even her annoyance was hot. He liked to think that passion would translate to the bedroom, that when she let her cool mask of professionalism slip, she would tear a man up. She would be bossy and demanding, pushing him down while she drew his cock into her mouth...

“Why are you wearing your hat?” she asked him.

“Huh?” Kyle wished more than anything he could adjust his underwear. Things were really starting to become painful down there. All this up and down. It wasn’t good for a guy. “Because my keys are under it. I’m not sure I trust this whole numbering system.” He’d left his wallet and phone in the car, but he didn’t want his keys getting mixed up with someone else’s.

“You can’t wear that in the shoot.” The woman who was spraying Emma, a heavily tattooed girl in her twenties, gave him a look of disapproval. “Ian doesn’t allow any props.”

“I know. I’ll take it off before it’s time to shoot.”

“You’re wearing your keys on your head?” Emma asked him, stepping forward as the handler deemed her fully painted. “You look really silly.”

She was walking like Frankenstein, wet arms out in front of her, knees locked, her face shiny and very, very green. Some of the paint had strayed into her hair so that she looked like she’d been caught in an angry game of paintball and lost. Her nipples could have passed for a couple of undersize Brussels sprouts given their color, and she had scratched her nose, so the flesh peeked through the paint. Just for the record, he wasn’t the only one looking silly.

“If you call me a silly goose I’m going to make fun of you. Just a warning,” Kyle said.

She stuck her tongue out at him, a pink moist thrust through her green lips. It shouldn’t have been sexy, yet somehow it was. He couldn’t help but imagine that tongue on various parts of his body, sliding along, flickering over his flesh to torture him.

Kyle shifted uncomfortably. He needed to get away from her before the story here became him pushing her against the nearest wall and entwining his green body with hers in some sort of alien porno.

Fortunately, he was saved from potentially enormous embarrassment by a man speaking into a microphone. “All participants, you need to start moving into the warehouse where volunteers will show you to your spots.”

So they started shuffling forward, dozens of people in shades of green ranging from moss to emerald, and others in variations of brown. Emma hesitated. Kyle leaned forward and murmured to her, wanting to reassure and relax her. “Has anyone ever told you that you look good in green?”

Emma snorted. “No. It’s not on my color wheel.”

“Maybe they never saw you in head-to-toe green. Because it’s working on you right now.”

“Uh-huh.”

When she was directed to a spot against the wall of the warehouse with a cracked window above her head, Kyle said, “Work it, girl. Make love to the camera.”

Her lips twitched, like she was actually considering laughing. He took it as a good sign.

“Hat off!” A burly woman with a do-rag on her head and a clipboard in her hand snarled at him.

Kyle stripped off his hat, dumped his keys into it and thrust it behind his back as he moved into position beside Emma. He let the hat drop to the ground, his keys making a reassuring clinking sound. They had a way out of this place, that’s all he cared about. After the shoot he planned to interview some participants, but for the most part, he had all the necessary facts from the press release the artist’s team had released to the Journal. An opinion column was his favorite kind.

“How are you doing?” he asked Emma.

Her hip was bumping into his. “I don’t feel like art. I feel like a big naked emerald idiot. Do you even see the photographer?”

“No.” All he saw was a bunch of green butt cheeks as the people in front of them were instructed to lie on the floor on their stomachs. “I’m glad we get to stand. This building is probably radioactive. I don’t want my junk touching the ground even wearing briefs.” He shifted uncomfortably at the thought. “I would like kids one day.”

What had once been a thriving steel mill was now a crumbling warehouse with broken windows, the concrete beneath their feet reduced to a siltlike dust. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t crazy about being barefoot. There was no way in hell he would lie down on the floor and breathe that rubble in.

“I thought they made steel here before it closed. How dangerous could that be?”

Kyle pointed to the sign hanging at an awkward angle. “That dangerous.”

It said Days Without An Accident: 3.

“Oh. Well, all the machinery is gone. And they said the shoot wouldn’t run that long.”

Great. Now she was reassuring him. He was supposed to be the man here, easing her nervousness about her nudity. Instead she was snaking her hand over and slipping it into his and squeezing. Wait. Nothing wrong with that.

Kyle squeezed back.

“I’m sure your virility is intact,” she told him.

There was no doubt about that. Kyle let his thigh brush hers, and their shoulders bumped. He glanced over at her. “Promise?”

She gave a short laugh before snapping her lips shut. “Yes.”

“You didn’t even look.” He was playing in dangerous territory here, but he was a gambling man. He would bet she wasn’t going to slap him in the middle of the photo shoot.

Emma turned to him, her tongue moistening her lips nervously. “Kyle...what are you doing?”

“Flirting with you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re attractive. Which I’ve always known, but today has given me a whole new appreciation for that fact.”

“You are not attracted to me.”

“Um, my Jolly Green Giant says otherwise.” He didn’t mean to brag, but anyone looking below his waist would see his erection. There was no disguising it, boxer briefs or not.

“Your...” Her eyes dropped. And widened. “Oh. Oh.”

He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Emma speechless before. It was satisfying, to say the least.

She was still staring at his jock.

All the attention had it jumping a little. Which made her jerk away like she’d been stung by a bee.

Kyle smiled. He loved his job.

3

EMMA KNEW SHE was staring at the tent Kyle’s penis was making. Jolly Green Giant, indeed.

She was holding his hand. And she had the overwhelming urge to tangle her body up with his on a big bed. Neither of those things made sense.

She also knew she was naked except for a tiny pair of underwear, so she couldn’t explain her odd reaction to him other than the obvious—she was trained to equate nudity with sexy times. That was the only explanation for why her nipples were suddenly as hard as the steel that had once been shipped in and out of this warehouse. Why her insides were molten and her fingers itched to reach out and give his erection a hard squeeze to see his reaction.

It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Kyle himself.

Which she knew was a total lie. She’d been attracted to him since the day she’d met him two years ago, when he had been led around the office by Claire and introduced to the drooling staff. Even the men liked him—they saw Kyle as a man’s man, a golf buddy.

But none of them were standing here covered in body paint, bare leg squashed against his, staring at his erection.

“Emma.” His voice was tight, pained.

She dragged her eyes off his briefs and forced them upward. “Yes?” she asked breathlessly.

“Do you think—”

But whatever he’d been about to say was drowned out by the sound of the man with the megaphone, yelling for their attention.

“Okay, I need everyone to stand still in the positions you’ve been given. Ladies along the back wall, I need your arms up to form the letter “I” in front of your chest, got it?”

“That’s you,” Kyle murmured.

Emma moved her arms automatically, feeling a little stunned. Why did she have the feeling that Kyle had been about to ask her out? Why would he do that? He wouldn’t. He wasn’t attracted to her. Or at least that’s what she had always thought until today. But he clearly was attracted to her, as was evidenced by what she had seen hiding beneath the green.

That didn’t mean, however, that he would ask her out, so why had she jumped to that conclusion?

Because she wanted that conclusion.

Ugh.

It was a relief to cover her green breasts. Not that anyone would have been able to see much of anything, given that she was one of two hundred people and she was slathered in paint, but it still made her feel better. She would no longer be on display for Kyle or for future internet trawlers.

“Mr. Bainbridge wants to thank all of you for participating. He’ll only need to shoot for a few minutes, and when you all see the results, I think you’ll be pleased to see how he has captured the sense of people being reduced to the walls of a crumbling manufacturing economy.”

The words jolted her out of her musings about Kyle and back to the real business at hand. Was that an official statement? Emma repeated the words back in her head, wondering if she could quote that in her article. But unless this guy was the photographer’s spokesman, she had to tread lightly.

“There’s the man of the hour,” Kyle muttered. “It’s about freaking time. My paint is starting to crust and flake.”

“Where?” But the words were barely out of her mouth when she finally saw the photographer, Ian Bainbridge, as he climbed onto a platform set up on the other side of the warehouse. His camera and equipment were already there, ready to use immediately. Emma had of course researched the artist. She knew he was originally from New Zealand, and that he looked like a former soccer player who had gotten in touch with his emotions. He wore a lot of black rocker T-shirts with blazers and tweed bowler hats. He also had funky black glasses that appeared in some photos of him and not in others. Today no glasses and no blazer adorned him, but a hat jauntily perched on his head as he made adjustments to his camera.

There was also very clearly a bodyguard behind him, which was no surprise given that the attention of his stalker had escalated in recent months, as reported by the Pittsburgh paper where Ian had shot the month before. Emma wondered what sort of desperation drove someone to follow another human being around and pretend you were in an actual relationship with him. Fantasizing about Justin Timberlake at age twelve was normal, but creating chaos at his concert was not. And this had the makings of a celebrity-crush stalking.

The shoot itself lasted all of ten minutes, if even. It seemed like Ian pushed a few buttons, then he was climbing back down off the platform. Emma felt a little let down, frankly. You stripped to your undies and were dolled up as an alien—you expected the occasion to feel momentous. Instead, she just had a cramp in her calf from the position she had been standing in, and her nose itched. She was already lamenting the loss of the panties she was wearing, even if they were plain white from the discount store. They were comfy, with strings that didn’t dig into her hips. Now she had to toss them.

Plus there was clearly no way in hell she was going to be able to get anywhere near Ian. He disappeared behind a bevy of handlers. There was no one who looked like a stalker, either, whatever a lovesick crazy was supposed to look like.

“Someone thinks he’s a rock star,” Kyle said with an eye roll, pulling off the wall and moving his arms back and forth. “Man, I’m stiff. That took forever.”

“It was ten minutes.”

Kyle bent over and scooped up his hat and keys. “Ten minutes I’ll never get back. I don’t know. I mean, I dig photography, but this all seems a little...melodramatic. And I’m still not sure why we’re green.”

Emma kind of agreed, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “Who are we to say what is art and what isn’t? And ten minutes ago you were saying the exact same thing.” She joined the line that was forming to reenter the tent and collect their belongings. The other attendees were chattering all around them, an air of excitement buzzing about the cold warehouse. It was June, and yet despite the season and the dozens of warm bodies, there was a definite bite in the air. “I’m cold.”

“I noticed.” He eyed her chest.

“What?” Emma looked down at her taut nipples and flushed. “Seriously?”

“I can’t help it! You’re not wearing a bra. It’s bullshit if anyone thinks men and women can take off their clothes and not be tempted to look at what everyone has got. It’s human nature. I call bullcrap on these shoots. I think Bainbridge is just a perv who wants to see naked bodies.”

Emma wasn’t sure if Kyle was joking or not. “This seems like an extreme way to go about it. The internet is full of images of naked people.” But she did agree with him that it was hard not to be curious in the face of mass nudity. Which was why she was more than ready to put her shirt back on. She did not relish standing around in line with a crowd. At that very second, as she averted her eyes from an older gentleman’s droopy derriere, someone could be looking at her behind and coming to the same droopy conclusion. It wasn’t natural. Inevitably, it was bound to bring out the middle school in at least a few people. Like her. Kyle wasn’t really doing any better.

“You were the one who said you were looking forward to stripping in public,” she reminded him.

“I know. Which just proves my point—men and women should not be naked in groups together.”

“You’re contradicting yourself! You told me this wasn’t an orgy.” It didn’t feel like an orgy. It felt cold and itchy.

“It isn’t. But it seems like it should be. Like this is just a way to skirt the issue.”

Emma sighed. “I can’t think about it anymore. It’s stressful. I just want my bra back.”

“Hey! Seems like there’s some sort of commotion in the tent,” Kyle said, up on tiptoes to see over the heads of those in front of them.

Emma was a good six inches shorter than him and she couldn’t see anything at all. The voices had gotten louder, and word started making its way down the line in an audible buzz of shock until it finally reached them.

“Some people’s bags of clothing got stolen,” the woman in line ahead of them said with no small amount of excitement.

“What? Stolen?” Emma automatically crossed her arms over her breasts tighter. “What do you mean?”

“Some nut stole everyone’s clothes.”

Her clothes were gone?

Emma felt like she was going to faint.

* * *

KYLE GAVE A short laugh, amused because it seemed so obvious. Why wouldn’t someone steal clothes? It was the perfect prank. As a “prankster” himself, according to Emma, he should know. “Holy shit. That figures.”

But when he saw Emma’s face, he cut off his laughter. She looked like she’d had a piano dropped on her foot. “It’s okay. I have my keys, remember? We can at least get out of here.”

“Naked! We’ll have to leave naked!” She squeezed her arms tighter across her chest, like that was going to alter the facts. “This is awful! How does something like this happen? What good does security do if someone can just—” she waved her arms around madly “—steal your clothes!”

“Emma, it’s okay,” Kyle said, hoping he sounded reassuring. She was clearly starting to panic and people were looking at her, including one guy in his sixties who leered at her chest. “I’m sure I have something in the car you can cover up with, and hey, we don’t even know that our clothes are missing. What are the odds?”

But the odds were not in their favor. It figured. As organizers bustled around trying to sort out the situation and quickly process people whose possessions were intact, it became clear that they were two of about forty people whose bags had disappeared. Kyle felt more than a little annoyed now that he had confirmation it was their stuff, and now that he had time to think about it. Those were eighty-dollar jeans in that bag, plus his favorite blue T-shirt, which chicks said brought out the blue in his eyes.

It was kind of like when the airline lost your luggage or the dry cleaner stained your favorite dress shirt. But those were accidents that all fell under the umbrella of Shit Happens.

This was a nutter intentionally trying to ruin their day. Or rather, Ian Bainbridge’s day. So if Kyle wanted to look on the bright side, this would make his column that much more interesting. Not to mention, he begrudgingly supposed, this would be an entertaining story to tell for years to come. He might even find it funny, later, when he’d showered and his eyelids weren’t crusty with paint.

A couple of people were furious, shouting at the volunteer staff, but most just grumbled and wrote down their information for the organizers. The police were called, but Kyle had no intention of sticking around until they showed up. Emma had been ogled enough for one day. He had the sneaking suspicion that if he didn’t get her home soon, she was going to have a meltdown of epic proportions. For a woman wound tighter than a top, she was holding it together remarkably well, but he suspected she had just about reached her limit, given the way she was bouncing on the heels of her feet and tearing the flesh off her lower lip with her teeth.

“I can’t believe this!” she exclaimed for about the tenth time.

“I’m actually surprised it’s never happened before,” Kyle said truthfully as they exited the tent and headed to his car. “I mean, it doesn’t seem like it would be that hard, and it’s definitely disruptive, which was clearly the goal here.” He gestured back to the distraught crowd still in the tent.

“It’s ridiculous,” she snapped. “Who does something like that? It’s just...childish.”

“It’s actually criminal. I wonder if they have any chance at all of catching them. Presumably it’s the same woman who caused trouble at the other shoots, but it’s not like there are security cameras anywhere around here anymore. This steel plant is a ghost town.” Kyle picked his way carefully across the old parking lot, watching where he walked. “Careful, there are all kinds of glass and gravel lying around.” He looked at Emma’s bare feet. “Do you want me to carry you?”

“You’re barefoot, too,” she pointed out. “And you don’t need me crushing you deeper into the pavement.”

“My feet are callused. I won’t feel it. But yours look delicate.” They did. Emma had her toenails painted red, and her feet were smooth and unblemished. They were filthy from the warehouse, but he could tell she got frequent pedicures, and she was clearly no athlete. Emma screamed workaholic. Given the lushness of her curves, he liked to imagine her lounging around on a chaise pinup-girl style in her spare minutes, instead of attacking a ball in an adult soccer league. But what did he know? Maybe she made flag football her bitch on Saturdays.

“I don’t really think anything about me is particularly delicate,” she said. “But I do love a good pedicure.”

Kyle imagined her soft foot sliding down his leg. Bending down, he cleared his throat and presented his back to her.

“Hop on.” Now that the image of her lounging on a sofa in her garter belt had popped into his head, Kyle really wanted her to lounge on him.

“I’m only wearing underwear, Kyle. There is no way I’m hopping on your back. Come Monday, we do have to work together in an office setting.”

As far as he was concerned, Monday didn’t exist. There was only today, and a parking lot full of broken glass. “We’re not in the office right now, and you seriously should not be walking in this.” He sincerely did not want her to get hurt, but he had to admit, he also wouldn’t mind her legs wrapped around his waist.

“It’s fine.” She indignantly took a step forward and immediately winced. “Ow. Damn it, I just stepped on a rusty nail.” Using his arm for leverage, she leaned down and inspected her foot. “Good thing I’ve had a tetanus shot. Gross.”

Kyle fought the urge to roll his eyes. “I offered you a solution.” He couldn’t help but point that out again.

She made a face at him. “These are my choices? Step on a rusty nail or wrap my painted legs around you while I’m topless?”

Kyle grinned. “Doesn’t sound like a hard choice to me.”

Emma flushed. “You know what I mean. I’m no Skinny Minnie, by the way. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

He couldn’t prevent himself from glancing at her breasts again. She had all the right stuff in all the right places, as far as he was concerned. “I think you’re perfect. And don’t insult my manhood. I can carry a woman.”

“I think we’ve discussed your manhood enough already today.” Emma glanced around at the other people who were picking their way across the parking lot. No one was paying the slightest bit of attention to the two of them, despite their lack of street clothes. “Okay, fine. But we’re never going to mention this again. Ever. I don’t want to hear any cracks about it today or any day hereafter. Got it?”

“Got it.” Later, he would wonder why the thought of her hopping onto his back had him so excited. Right now he just wanted to enjoy it. “Well, if a piggyback ride makes you uncomfortable, I’ll just pick you up.”

He did just that, before Emma could change her mind. Leaning over, he scooped her up into his arms while she gave a squeal of shock.

“Kyle!”

“Yes?” Oh, man, he was in heaven. Or maybe he was in hell. Because the feeling of Emma in his arms was so amazing and yet, he wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it. Or was he? Emma seemed to be warming up to him. Maybe with a little more effort, and the right circumstances, he could find himself feeling more of the delicious curves he’d been treated to all day. He bounced her a little to adjust her in his arms, her skin against his, her breasts perilously close to his own chest, her hands reaching up automatically to entwine around his neck to stabilize herself.

“Nothing,” she said, eyes wide, green lips parted in an expression of shock.

Kyle gazed at her briefly, well aware of how enticing the curve of her backside was as it bumped against his waist. Her mouth was close enough to his that he could simply lean forward and kiss her. Would that fall under the same rules as him carrying her? If he kissed her, would she allow it as long as he didn’t mention it on Monday? Or would she yank away and end up crashing to the ground?

Better not chance it.

He made his way to the car without incident, though he couldn’t say he exactly enjoyed walking barefoot across ancient gravel. He was starting to feel like he was back in college. This whole scenario was remarkably similar to a frat party where he’d gone Jell-O diving with a date and had wound up handcuffed to a chain-link fence.

Hmm. He could hope for a better ending here.

Setting Emma down, he retrieved his keys and beeped open the passenger door.

“Thanks for driving me home,” she said as she climbed in.

“No problem. I probably have something you can, you know, cover up with.” Kyle looked in the backseat. Nothing but an old fast-food bag. The trunk revealed a tire iron and a length of rope. Uh, not quite what he had in mind. Finally, he came back around and bent over in front of her.

“What are you doing?” she squawked.

Not what he’d like to be doing, frankly.

“Maybe there is something in here.” After popping open the glove box, Kyle stood up triumphantly with a handful of paper napkins. “Aha!”

Her lips pursed and she looked like she was debating whether to laugh or cry. “Thanks.” Grabbing them from him, she unfurled one and stuck it over her left breast. The right got the same treatment.

Kyle suddenly wanted to laugh himself so he backed up and went around to the driver’s side.

“I’m sorry about your upholstery,” she said, trying to put the remaining napkins under her butt.

“Don’t worry about it. It couldn’t be helped.” Kyle was fascinated by the way she was lifting her backside up, her napkin-covered breasts jutting out.

“Wait a minute,” she said suddenly. “I can’t go back to my place! I don’t have my key!”

Oh, this day kept getting more and more interesting.

“No worries,” Kyle said. Really, it was like fate was handing him a Golden Ticket. With Emma forced into his company, surely she would see the merits of exploring the chemistry that had been sizzling between them all day. “You can come to my place.”

Where they would have a little green on green action if he had anything to say about it.

4

EMMA LOOKED OVER at Kyle, horrified. She had no house key. She didn’t keep a spare key outside her apartment because everyone knew that was the fastest way to get robbed. She had been on the police-blotter beat for six months and it had convinced her that a key under the welcome mat was a safety risk akin to jumping rope with a live power wire.

Her next-door neighbor, Mr. Stein, had her spare key, but he was eighty-six years old and there was no way in hell she could ring his doorbell like this, painted green, with fast-food napkins stuck to her boobs. The man would die of a heart attack and she could not have that on her conscience. The only choice she really had was to go with Kyle and borrow a T-shirt and some basketball shorts.

Lord help her.

Shifting on the seat, hoping she wasn’t smearing paint onto the upholstery, she bit her lip. “Can I take a shower at your place? This paint is actually starting to pull on my skin.” As it had dried, it had tightened, and she had to admit, she was about done with the whole thing.

Maybe once showered and clothed, she would be much less aware of Kyle and her own reaction to him. She crossed her legs tightly, wishing the deep ache between her thighs would ease up. Unfortunately, she suspected there was only one way to make it go away, and down that path lay disaster.

Or ecstasy.

Emma shook her head, irritated with herself. No. She could not. Would not. Ever. With Kyle. Not while they still worked together. She’d seen the results of fraternization between coworkers too often to be insane enough to fall into the same trap. There had been Jenny in Copy, who had slept with the head of Advertising after the holiday party and had been so embarrassed by her drunken enthusiasm that she’d quit. Bill and Stacey in their online department, who had been hot and heavy for two months, had broken up and wound up shooting staples at each other in their small shared office space. Dating, sex, love and relationships all made people emotional and irrational. It didn’t mix with work.

Though one could argue she and Kyle didn’t technically work together. They just overlapped in the same office space. Which was a lame rationalization and she knew it. It would be hard to sit in a meeting with ten people if one of them had seen you naked.

But Kyle had basically already seen her naked. She was almost naked right now.

Emma dug her fingernails into her emerald knees. Why did it seem like all her reasoning was evaporating into thin air and they hadn’t even gotten to Kyle’s yet?

She reminded herself that Claire would never be okay with an in-office affair between two staff writers. And if anyone would pay the price for it, it would most likely be her, since Claire was fond of Kyle. As in, Claire wanted to bang him herself, Emma was fairly certain.

“Sure, of course you can take a shower. And I’m sure I have something you can wear home.” Kyle pulled out of the parking lot. “Man, I’m starving. I want to go through the drive-thru, but that’s probably not a good idea.”

“No.” Emma shook her head vehemently. “Definitely not a good idea. They have cameras, you know.”

Kyle laughed. “That would really get people at McDonald’s talking, huh? Good thing we don’t have that far to go. I live downtown.”

It was a good thing, Emma realized, as they cruised to a stop at a red light. She glanced to her right and was met with the startled gaze of an older woman in the car next to them, her hands gripping the steering wheel. Before she opened her mouth to comment to Kyle that they were already getting people talking, the woman whipped out her cell phone and snapped a picture of Emma.

Horrified, Emma simultaneously slouched down in her seat and yelled at the woman. “Hey! You can’t do that! Delete that! Delete!”

Realizing the woman probably couldn’t hear her, she hit the button for the window to glide down and pointed, gesturing to the phone and making frantic throat-cutting motions in what she hoped was the universal language for “get rid of that shit.”

“What’s the matter?” Kyle asked.

“She took my picture!” Emma felt the heat of mortification flushing her green cheeks. The woman was resolutely looking in the other direction, clearly having no intention of deleting anything.

“No one will recognize you. And she couldn’t have gotten anything from the neck down.”

“Somebody could recognize me!” As the light turned green and Kyle started driving, Emma flipped the visor down and angled it so she could see herself in the mirror. What she saw had her gasping in horror. My God, it was worse than she’d thought. “I look...insane,” she said, feeling faint.

Her hair was shot out in all directions, the paint acting as a holding gel, her face the bright emerald green of the rest of her body, with the whites of her eyes and her teeth gleaming in stark contrast. The napkins tufted up from her chest. “I look like a frog eating barbecue!”

Kyle started laughing so hard he ended up coughing. After a second, Emma flipped the mirror shut and felt the corners of her mouth turning up. Maybe it was a little funny. Besides, his laughter was infectious. He laughed with zero restraint, deep from his gut. Emma couldn’t even remember the last time she had laughed like that.

“It’s not funny!” she protested, even as she started giggling. He was right. No one would ever recognize her. That was a definite positive.

“Oh, yes, it is,” he managed to say between chuckles. “I’ve never heard anyone describe themselves in quite that way, and the hilarious thing is, it’s true.”

“Oh, it is, is it?” Emma exclaimed, unable to deny the ridiculousness of the situation. “Thanks a lot!” She peeled one of the napkins off her breast, balled it up and threw it at him.

It bounced off his green chest. He just laughed harder, but he did give a token “ow.”

“Be quiet. There is no way that hurt.”

Kyle glanced at her and his eyes bugged out. With a finger he reached over and pointed, stopping a few inches short of touching her. “You left some napkin behind.”

Emma glanced down and couldn’t hold in a sharp burst of laughter. It just got better and better. Now she had a piece of napkin stuck to her nipple. “Are we there yet?” she asked, because really, what else was there to say?

Kyle grinned at her. “As a matter of fact, yes. We’re pulling into my building now.”

“Thank you, baby Jesus.” Before any other Sunday drivers decided to immortalize her on the internet.

Kyle lived in an old warehouse that had clearly been turned into chichi apartments. Normally Emma would have loved a leisurely stroll around the building to admire its brick-and-iron architecture, but today she just wanted to get behind a closed door without anyone else seeing her.

That was too much to ask for, though. Almost immediately when they stepped out of the car, they encountered a man who was potentially homeless, given his layers of crusty denim and flannel, despite the warm June day. He pushed a shopping cart. Emma figured her hair was on par with this guy’s, which was matted and uneven. Trying not to make eye contact, she crossed her arms over her chest and let Kyle usher her toward the door.

The shopping cart’s squeaky wheels quieted as the cart slowed down, the man probably gawking at the picture they made.

“Damn hippies,” they heard him grumble.

As the heavy fire door to the building closed behind them, Emma let out a laugh. “Oh, my God, he just called us hippies! What hippies do you know who look like this?”

“I don’t know any hippies.” Kyle shook his head. “I think they’re actually extinct. But you’re right, I can’t imagine they would look like alien extras from a B-budget film. Let’s take the stairs so we don’t run into anyone on the elevator. That could be awkward.”

“Very.” Emma shuddered at the thought, her breast napkin flapping as she walked.

Kyle’s apartment was on the second floor, so they were inside and free from any potential encounters in a matter of a few steps. Emma let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“What a day,” Kyle said, tossing his baseball hat onto the console table in the entry.

“No kidding.” Emma stood just inside the doorway, eyes sweeping quickly around the room, feeling hugely self-conscious again. For some reason, she had expected Kyle’s place to be a glorified dorm room. Messy, with mismatched furniture and beer cans lying around. It was nothing remotely resembling her vision.

Kyle’s place was neat as a pin, his granite kitchen counter bare of all clutter except for a coffeemaker. His couch was streamlined and modern, with one throw blanket on the arm, folded to perfection. The loft-style windows gave huge amounts of light to the space, and Emma glanced down, aware of her dirty feet on his pristine floors. There wasn’t a speck of dust or dirt anywhere, and she felt the need to walk with paper towels wrapped around her unfortunate feet.

“Nice place.”

“Thanks. I like it. I can walk to work.” He moved into the room. “Bathroom’s this way. Come on, I’ll get you a towel.”

“Thanks.” Emma followed behind Kyle, her eyes focused on his tight butt and his firm thighs. He was very muscular, but not in a bodybuilder way. Just athletic. Natural. Her fingers itched to reach out and squeeze all that muscle in front of her. Not paying attention to anything other than his ass, Emma didn’t realize he had stopped walking until she plowed into him, her hands brushing across the back of his thighs.

“Oh! Sorry.” Emma jumped back a foot as she realized he had stopped to open a linen closet, and was pulling out towels.

Kyle turned, his eyes dark and unreadable. “I’m really good at keeping secrets, you know.”

Her heart rate kicked up a notch and her nipples firmed, goose bumps rushing over her skin. “Oh, yeah? I imagine that’s helpful in journalism. The whole Deep Throat thing.”

God, did she really just say deep throat to him? Emma felt her cheeks burn, but hoped the paint camouflaged her embarrassment.

Kyle shook his head. “Emma, you’re killing me. You know that, right?”

“No. I had no idea.” Which was a lie. She was very much aware of the sexual tension running between them. They were mostly naked, standing inches apart. She had accidentally touched his thighs and his mouth was close enough that with one short lean she could be kissing him.

“You are. And I most definitely can keep a secret, so if anything else happens here today, you can be sure it will never be mentioned at the office. Or ever, for that matter, if that’s what you want.”

“What could happen?” Because she was a girl who liked things to be spelled out. She knew what he meant, but she needed to hear confirmation that the man she’d been attracted to for quite some time was equally attracted to her, and was offering her an afternoon delight.

“This.” Kyle closed the gap between them, the towels he was holding crushing against her chest, his hand coming up to cup the back of her head.

Emma didn’t hesitate, but let her eyes flutter shut as his mouth covered hers in a deep, tantalizing kiss. Yowza. It was as perfect as she could have imagined. Kyle’s lips teased hers with just the right amount of pressure and finesse, his touch confident and smooth but not arrogant. There was something very soft and worshipful about his kiss, and she sighed as he pulled back.

Kyle had surprised her.

* * *

EMMA HAD SURPRISED HIM. For some reason, Kyle had expected Emma to kiss with precision and efficiency, like her office persona, or with a bold passion. He hadn’t anticipated she would be so vulnerable, so feminine, so sweet. She had kissed him back, but she had let him lead, and he found that immensely appealing. She tasted like...willingness.

“So you’re going to keep that a secret?” she asked, the tip of her tongue running along the bottom lip he had just tasted.

The message was loud and clear—Emma was ready to play. Kyle wouldn’t have guessed it of her. But then again, he hadn’t pictured they would wind up in his apartment in the state they were in. If their clothes hadn’t been stolen, he imagined he would have just gone home and showered solo. Whereas now he had a shot at showering with her.

Kyle gave a silent thanks to the thief.

“That’s just the beginning of what I intend to keep secret.”

Her eyes widened and her nose twitched. He had noticed she did that when she was nervous, or considering a response. He found it adorable. Not normally a word he used to describe women he wanted to take to bed, but in Emma’s case, it was very much true. She was stinking cute.

“Maybe this is why you’ve never flirted with me,” she said. “I can’t think of a single appropriate comeback.”

“I never flirted with you because I thought you would rip my balls off.” And because he’d thought she would shut him down so hard it would hurt. Hey, he could admit it. “And just say whatever you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking that I want to see what you look like without the green. Naked.”

Yeah, baby. “Good, because I was thinking the same thing about you.” He gave her hand a squeeze, then took the towels to the bathroom. “You can shower first. Unless you want me to join you?” Hey, you never knew unless you asked.

“Uh, I don’t think so.” She snagged a towel from his hand and held it up in front of her before pulling the one remaining napkin off her chest and tossing it in his wastebasket.

Two steps forward, one step back. Kyle was willing to be patient. For the next ten minutes or so. Then he was going to get another kiss, plus a little more if he had anything to say about it. There was no real reason for him to go into the bathroom with her, but he did, under the guise of turning on the shower and showing her his extensive collection of body gels.

“Here’s a loofah thingie so you can scrub the paint off.”

Emma took it, but she was staring at his shower doubtfully. “This is going to make such a mess. God, I hope it doesn’t stain the marble. Who puts marble in a shower?”

“It won’t stain.” He hoped. But it wasn’t like they had much choice. They were green and that wasn’t going to change until they showered. He winked at her. “Have fun in there.”

There was something about the way she was looking at him, her lips parted, her breasts heaving behind the towel, her toes curling on his cork floor. If he wasn’t mistaken, she did not want him to leave, but she wasn’t going to say that. She was waiting. For him to do it. Be the one who crossed all those boundaries and said to hell with office relations.

Well, they weren’t in the office and he wanted to relate to her on a whole new level. If she wanted him to make the move, be the bad guy in a way, he was more than willing to do just that. Because at the moment all he cared about was getting inside a nice hot shower and then getting inside her.

So Kyle took back the loofah he had handed her. She gave it up easily, her breath a sharp intake of air as he moved in close to her, his hand going to the small of her back. This time when he kissed her, he deftly stroked his tongue in between her lips to mate with hers, a hot rush of lust flooding over him, encouraging him that this was definitely the right move to make. When he yanked the towel out of her hands and dropped it to the floor, she didn’t protest. She let him move his body in alongside hers, the first brush of her nipples against his bare chest causing him to groan.

“I want to feel your real skin,” he told her. “I want to taste you. Let me get in the shower with you.” He was dipping down into the back of her panties, getting a brief feel of her bare flesh where there was no paint, her smooth ass cheek a perfect fit for his hand. He tossed the loofah into the open shower door so he would have two hands to squeeze, to bump her body into his, to make her aware of his fully engorged erection.

Her soft moan indicated she was very much aware of it, as did the fact that she was kissing him deeper and with more urgency.

“Okay,” she murmured.

Kyle paused in kissing her, hands still on her back. “Really?” He hadn’t thought she would agree, but now that she had, he realized it was stupid to question it. Better to just hustle her into the shower.

Before she could respond or change her mind, Kyle stepped back a foot and stripped out of his briefs, tossing them toward the wastebasket.

Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God.”

At first he thought she was impressed with his stature, because hey, he was no gherkin. But then her lip started to twitch and he realized she was trying not to laugh.

“What the hell is so funny?”

“Your skin is just so white where there’s no paint...and then your erection...” She giggled, her hand indicating something jutting out.

It was a good thing he had a healthy ego or this very well could have damaged him for life. But Kyle had a sense of humor, and glancing down, there was no denying it was an interesting picture. “I imagine the back looks even more ridiculous. Turn around and pull down your panties and let me see your bare ass.”

“No!” She laughed and took a step backward. “There is no way. In fact, I’m getting in the shower like this.”

Which she did. Panties and all, the spray hitting her body, sending green rivulets immediately to the floor of the shower. She sighed in pleasure. “It feels amazing.”

“You’re going to ruin your panties showering in them,” he teased her. “You should really take them off.” But he was okay with her leaving them on for now. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be out of them, anyway. He could ease her into full nudity.

Not a problem.

“Ha-ha.” She put her face directly under the spray and scrubbed at it with her bare hands.

“I don’t think it’s going to come off that easily. You need a washcloth.” Kyle grabbed a pair of them and stepped into the shower, closing the glass door behind him. Despite the fact that water was running off her in a green deluge, the paint wasn’t really leaving her body. The first thing he did was to take one cloth and scrub his face hard, feeling grateful to get the paint off his lips and eyelashes. He wanted to taste her lips, her body, in a natural state.

She shifted a little forward when he moved in behind her, angling her body slightly away from his. Her nervousness was clear and Kyle wanted her to relax. So he squirted a blob of shower gel onto one of the cloths and moved it to Emma’s shoulder, rubbing gently.

His touch caused her to jump and give a little squawk. “What are you doing?”

“Getting this paint off you. You can’t reach your shoulders and back to scrub them.” If he were matter-of-fact, maybe she wouldn’t balk. Plus, he was basically massaging her shoulders at the same time, and he could feel some of the tension immediately leaving her body.

“I have to admit, that does feel good.” She sighed.

Turning slightly to the right so she wouldn’t get poked in the ass with his throbbing erection, Kyle continued to put pressure on her shoulders, working his way down her back. The water was bouncing off him, steam rising, tendrils of her hair starting to curl in the heat. The smell of the gel and her skin as it was reclaimed from the paint was intoxicating, and Kyle was feeling languid and aroused, in no particular hurry to reach his destination because he was definitely enjoying the sensual journey.

Though that feeling was tested a little when she reached forward and braced her hands on the marble wall in front of her. Kyle’s body tensed at the gorgeous vision she made, back arched, legs slightly apart. He wanted to kick her feet farther apart because it was the perfect position to enter her from behind. The idea took hold and he had a hard time shaking it. To distract himself, he kissed the shoulder that was now squeaky-clean and free of paint in front of him.

Then he went for the shampoo. “Here, let me wash your hair for you.”

“No!” she immediately protested. “That’s creepy.”

“Creepy?” Kyle laughed. “Emma, I think you have a funny way of looking at things.” Actually, he was starting to think she had intimacy issues, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud. She’d stomp off in a snit, and hell, who could blame her? He didn’t exactly want his character flaws pointed out to him, either. Especially not when he was naked.

“Well, it is,” she insisted. “It’s too parent-child.”

Way to make him feel gross. Talk about a mood killer. He let his erection nudge her, his hands snaking around her chest to brush over her nipples. “Honey, nothing we’re doing here is even in the same hemisphere as parent-child, so we’re just going to forget you ever even said that. I mean, think about it. When the stylist at the salon shampoos you, does it feel like your mother doing it?”

“No,” she admitted. “Not at all.”

He nibbled on the back of her ear, enjoying her sharp intake of breath. “Then let’s leave your mother out of this altogether. Because I’ve never met her, but I think it’s safe to say I wouldn’t want to do this to her.”

Kyle turned her around and gave her a searing kiss before going down on his knees and peeling off her panties despite her exclamation of shock.

Parent-child his ass. He was going to make her forget she even had parents.

5

KYLE WAS STRIPPING her panties off her. He was going down on his knees, and she strongly suspected he wasn’t down there to pick up the errant loofah. Emma reminded herself to breathe. Then she reminded herself to stop reminding herself of things and for once in her freaking life to just close her eyes and enjoy something.

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