“Okay,” she sniffs. “Okay.”
“So you’re going to go through with whatever he asks of you?”
“Hell no!” she cries. “I’m not going to give that douchebag what he wants. I’m… I’m going to get you your job back.”
Dallas and I simultaneously raise our eyebrows.
“If Dallas is okay with it, I mean.”
“Okay with what?” he asks slowly. Apparently he’s as confused as I am.
Evan sighs impatiently. “Do I have to spell it out?”
“Yes,” Dallas and I say together.
“Having sex for Britain before our scheduled shoot.”
Dallas looks like he’s been slapped in the face with a frying pan. “Uhh… can I talk to you for a sec?” he asks Evan before shooting me an apologetic look.
They walk a ways down the hall and begin to whisper heatedly to each other. I listen close, hoping to catch some of their conversation, but fail to. To my surprise, Dallas looks pissed, like the last thing that he wants to do is have sex with Evan.
Five minutes go by before they finally return to me. Dallas looks uncomfortable, and Evan unsure of herself, so I say, “Don’t do this for me.”
Dallas shakes his head. “No, Evan is right. This is your magazine, and it’s our job to help you take control again.”
“Even if it means giving up your dignity?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“Dignity is so over-rated,” Evan says dryly, and I know she’s trying desperately to lighten up the tone of our discussion. “Plus, I’d rather you watch me have sex than A.J.-fucking-Harrison.”
“Well, okay,” I say, not exactly sure how comfortable I am watching Evan have sex. Sure, I watched Delilah and Adam not that long ago, but with Evan, it’s different. I have a good feeling that sex between Evan and Dallas is a pretty damn intimate thing.
A hand falls on my shoulder and I start, only to realize it’s just Jaime.
“A.J. wants you downstairs. I guess he’s pissed you’re not on the heels of all the photographers and taking notes on their every movement.”
I throw on a fake grin. “You can tell him to kindly go fuck himself for me.”
“Do you actually want me to say that? Because I will.”
Evan’s eyes brighten. “It was totally Jaime, wasn’t it? Oh my God, after all that time you’ve known each other. That must have been some mind-blowing sex.”
I roll my eyes.
“You told her we banged?” asks Jaime.
“I didn’t tell her that we banged.”
Dallas points to his head. “Sixth Sense.”
“Oh,” says Jaime.
Evan gives an evil smirk. “You totally lived out your childhood fantasies, didn’t you?”
My face flushes hot as Jaime says, “You told her about that?”
“Just another damn good guess,” I hiss between my teeth. And then, to get back at Evan, I turn to Jaime and ask, “Do you want to watch Evan and Dallas have sex?”
Chapter Ten
Evan
I guess it’s better with Jaime the room. Not like I’m loving the fact of this being on display, but I think that Britain feels less cornered.
“I’m going to try to be as graceful as possible with this,” Britain says as she fiddles with her camera. “And hopefully I won’t catch any penetration.”
“Just do what you have to,” I respond, sitting on the edge of the bed in a robe. We chose the unused suite at the end of the third floor for this. The room is creepy enough to speak for itself, and I can tell why it wasn’t used to house any of us in.
There’s bondage shit everywhere.
Chains and ties hang low enough from the canopy frame to hold partners hostage, and the bed itself is covered in black satin sheets. Just the sight of it doesn’t help my nerves at all. I feel like I’m going to puke.
Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. In fact, I know this isn’t a good idea. Part of me wants to force myself to believe that I’m doing this for Britain, but I know that my motives are much more selfish than that.
Aren’t the gender roles reversed, here? Isn’t it the guy who is supposed to be throwing around trickery to get into the girl’s pants while the girl wants to wait for the right, meaningful moment? Especially considering that I broke up with Dallas because our relationship was too sexual. I should be harnessing the urge to fuck his brains out.
Dallas is still in makeup, so while Britain is fiddling with the lighting, I pace the floor in the hopes that the mild distraction will ease my twisting stomach. Jaime, who’s sitting in the armchair in the corner of the room, catches me on my third time around. He stands and rubs the back of his head. “Hey, can I talk to you?”
I shrug and follow him out of the room and into the hallway. He’s incredibly attractive, I realize, but totally not Britain’s type at all. She usually goes for slender, intellectual-looking men. Jaime is two-hundred pounds of muscle.
“You’re okay with me sitting in, right?”
“It’s not a problem,” I respond. “As long as you don’t go blabbing your big mouth about how you got to watch me and Dallas do it.”
His raises an eyebrow. “My big mouth?”
“You look the type to have a big mouth. Speaking of which, that also goes for talking to anyone about how you got to fuck the photographer.”
“I would never…”
“I mean it, dude.” I clench my fists. “I will end you.”
To my surprise, he chuckles. “You’re pretty protective of her, aren’t you?”
“It’s a best friend’s duty to be protective.”
“Well, since you’re her best friend, I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He looks around and steps closer. “The reason I want to stand in today isn’t because I want to watch you two.”
“You want to watch Britain,” I finish. “You get off on watching her get off while she photographs, essentially.”
“She only gets really excited when she’s photographing you. I’m surprised you two haven’t…”
I raise my eyebrows incredulously. “What? Fucked?”
“Well, yeah.”
I snort. “We have a mutual sexual relationship that doesn’t involve touching. It’s nice.”
“A voyeur and an exhibitionist,” he muses.
“We’re both still pretty closet about it, I suppose. And by the way, it isn’t only me.” I give his body an intense glance up and down. “I got it out of her that she couldn’t walk straight after the shoot with you and Adam.”
He grins. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
Our conversation is cut off when Dallas walks down the hall in nothing but lounge pants. The tips of my fingers and toes grow numb. His body has become even more beautiful in the months that we’ve been separated, every muscle immaculately defined. He catches me staring and I flush and look away. What the hell is wrong with me? I’ve straight-up licked his chest on multiple foreplay occasions, and now I can’t even look at him.
Maybe it’s because that, even after our little make out session last night, we’re technically still separated. Maybe it’s because he’s about to take me in front of an audience.
Or maybe, it’s because he doesn’t really want to do this.
It’s not like he doesn’t want to have sex with me. It’s that he wants to wait to have meaningful sex with me. He wants to prove himself.
What he doesn’t know is that he already proved himself when he told me that he begged A.J. to fly him out. And when we kissed on the bed last night, it was like nothing could be better than kissing.
But I’m not going to tell him that. The fact that he looks every bit nervous as I do helps me relax. In fact, for some reason, it’s kind of arousing.
“Err… I’ll let you two… talk,” mumbles Jaime before ducking back into the bedroom.