Page 82 of Better Left Unsaid

“You get used to it.” He dropped his hand, and I knew what I was missing and it was a brain. I was a scarecrow, missing a brain, and so badly wished I could stop being so confused. Dating Paolo was doing nothing to help me like I’d hoped it would. “It’s not all bad,” he promised, smiling that panty-dropping smile. Although, it wasn’t necessary because I wasn’t wearing any panties as it turned out. Point one for nude photoshoots.

If my hair was in a ponytail, I would’ve tightened it, but since it was down and styled around my shoulders, I fought the urge to fuss and run a hand through it—the stylist would’ve been so very pissed with me. “True.” I tried to make light of the situation. “We could be actors who are directed to get frisky.”

He cringed, cocking a brow. “Frisky?”

“What?” I asked, shrugging a shoulder. “What’s wrong with the word ‘frisky?’”

“Oh, Maria.” He laughed. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Seriously, what was wrong with the word? I didn’t hear it a lot nowadays, but it was a word, and I said what I said, so there you go. “Well, whatever. Let’s just make sure I don’t get sand in my butt, all right?” Yeah, the proverbial yesterday was forgotten (for the sake of clarity, I meant the way I thought Dom had been avoiding me), and I was good. Better yet, it seemed Dom was good, too. In sum, we were all good.

He laughed as I got up, and we left my trailer when someone from the crew knocked to get us. We were already on the beach and had just a short distance to walk since it was all ours for the day—courtesy of the producers, directors, and everyone else it took to put this shebang together. Really, the team was large. There was even an intimacy coordinator here to make sure we were comfortable. Which just seemed odd to me because wasn’t that why they’d insisted on the modeling couple being a couple in the first place—because they were comfortable being intimate and they wanted that to translate to the photographs? And, hello, I was comfortable—ridiculously comfortable—with seeing Dom’s cock.

Oh, wait, was I also going tofeelhis cock today?

At the sheer possibility, I wanted to clap my hands in excitement, but instead I cleared my throat and worked my way up to asking the most awkward question that had ever been asked. “Um, don’t think I’m stupid, okay?”

He fixed his robe, which was starting to open in the front, even more than it was already open. Basically, I could see his entire chest. The only thing that was really covered was, well, you knew. “What’s up?” he asked.

I swayed my head back and forth. Yep, no other way to do it than just come right out and ask it. “What happens if you. . . get excited?” Not sure if he was getting what I was putting down, I let my eyes roam downward.

A roar of laughter escaped him. “Good question.”

“Why, thank you.” Then I nudged him. “No, but, really, what happens then?”

“We either take five or stop for the day.”

“Has that ever happened before?”

“You mean, have I ever gotten an erection while modeling?”

Way to come right out and say it. . . . “Yeah.”

“No,” he said before we made ourselves known on the makeshift set. “Even when I model with a woman it’s usually not emotional for me in any way. It’s a job, and that’s it. I don’t even think about the woman at all, so it makes it easier. With you, though, I don’t know, it might happen.”

My cheeks flushed, and I felt weird saying this, but—“That’s one of the sweetest things ever.” Okay, it was possible something was wrong with me.

* * *

Dominic

Maria wasn’t about to let her robe slip. She had such a tight grip on it, I wondered if she would back out. If she didn’t want to do this after all, then that was fine with me. I wanted her to be comfortable, but I knew Maria, and once she got out of her head and came over, sliding the robe off and being completely bare on top of me, she’d be okay.

She’d be just as she was every time we had sex—confident. She was a lioness who needed to be lured out of her cage. Okay, maybe that came out wrong, but the sentiment was definitely there.

Why couldn’t she see it? How incredibly sexy and bold and alluring she was? How she had the ability to take my breath away just by being herself. It was a wonder she’d never known my feelings for her. That she’d never figured me out.

Maybe she didn’t want to. Ignorance was bliss on some level, I supposed.

Not that it mattered anyway because she was with Paolo, and we were back to being just friends. Fuck, that sounded wrong. Just friends wasn’t a bad thing.

All right, I was going to silence those thoughts.

Instead, I tried to count backward from one hundred, looking up at the sky as the sun made its nightly descent, thinking about anything and everything possible that was either disgusting or boring to keep myself in check. My cock was all for giving a standing ovation, and that was fine in the bedroom, but not now.

Oh, right, you couldn’t see me, so I should probably tell you. I was already lying on the sand—naked. Yeah, I’d stripped off my robe almost immediately. In my defense, I hadn’t known Maria was going to want to talk to someone on the crew first. Not that I didn’t understand where she was coming from, because I did. Some people didn’t mind nudity shoots, and others were very comfortable with them. I fell somewhere in the middle around I-didn’t-care-and-was-numb-about-it land.

Oh, and about that sand. I didn’t think Maria had anything to worry about since she’d be on top of me with her ass in the air, but there would definitely be sand in my ass when I got up. Perks of being a model. Said no one ever.

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