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
