Playing It Close (21 page)

He meant that she was a woman who was obviously uncomfortable exposing herself. He’d figured that out quickly enough in Venezuela and been grateful when she’d decided to shed her clothes and share herself with him. But the photographer clearly misunderstood because his voice sounded resigned when he said, “I know, but she’s our only option. Besides, we’ll be rubbing her face out, so that doesn’t matter. We just need to get her to agree.”

Anger arced through Liam. “What do you mean, her face doesn’t matter?”

“N-nothing. Just that she doesn’t need to look like a professional model. We simply need a female body. The rest we can take care of in the editing suite.”

Liam bit the inside of his cheek, trying to give the man the benefit of the doubt. “And if she says no?”

The photographer grimaced. “We won’t have enough variety for customers to choose from, and you’ll risk raising a lot less money. It’s up to you.”

Liam exhaled. These calendars—and their special digital version—would be sold to fundraise for the charity Spencer’s wife Caitlyn worked for, one that helped women after disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. Over the last year, she’d convinced him to do ridiculous things to support their harder-to-fund projects. Two months ago, he’d spent an hour in a vat with snakes slithering around him while people pledged money to keep him in there longer. The least he could do was try to convince Tess to help out by stripping off. She was less scary than snakes...by a small margin.

“Fine. I’ll ask. But if anyone sees her lunging for me, do me a favor and step in. She may be little, but she’s fucking strong.”

Chapter Twelve

The boys took me out for my birthday last night. After a few rounds at the pub, we stumbled into a table-dancing club around the corner from the office. Not my idea. Never my idea, but I’ve been here before. It’s hard to say no when my strategy for keeping my job is to blend in as much as possible. I tried to pretend I was having a good time, mostly because if the boys see me squirm then they know they’ve got to me. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

But soon after we’d arrived, X. disappeared and returned with “Sugar.” (I don’t think I need to make her anonymous, as I doubt that’s the name on her birth certificate.) She leaned down and whispered (in what I guess was supposed to be a seductive voice but just made me think she’ll have lung cancer soon if she doesn’t cut back on the fags), “So you like a bit of minge, do you?”

She was bent over rubbing hers in my face before I could figure out what the fuck she was talking about. The boys just about pissed themselves.

One of them looked at me, pointed at Sugar and said, “Happy birthday, T. Now you can finally have a pair of tits.”

—Sexists in the City
blog

The half-naked woman was the first thing Tess saw when she left the changing room. Difficult to miss in a room full of rugby players, most of whom were about three times the woman’s width, even if some weren’t that much taller than her. A couple of the players were talking to her—or, more accurately, they were talking to the breasts practically falling out of her red bikini top.

Tess tugged the bottom hem of her jacket, straightening her shoulders. Thank God the men would be distracted. They’d probably already forgotten they’d seen her mostly naked now they had this bounty in front of them.

Most of the action seemed to be taking place around the waterfall. Catcalls and whistles rang out, so Tess crossed the room to see who was the center of attention. Stuck behind several of the taller players—and, really, even the shortest among them would block her vision—she raised up on her tiptoes but still couldn’t see anything. Shorty Dunston, one of the massive second-rows, did a double-take when he noticed her next to him and he stepped aside, tapping the shoulder of the player in front of him so he’d also make room for her. She was about to protest, but Shorty laid his hand on her back and gently guided her through the crowd. He had to lean down quite a way to give her a wink and murmur, “Turnabout is fair play, love.”

What did he mean by that?

She didn’t have to wonder long.

Ho-ly
...Liam stood in water up to his ankles in a paddle pool surrounded by large, real-looking rocks. He wore not a stitch of clothing. Bent at the hips, he hiked up a skimpy swimming costume, shaking his naked arse to entertain his teammates, who started to hum a stripping tune. Tess pressed her hand against her mouth to suppress her amusement.

Damn but Liam had a beautiful body. The way he was bent over hid his most sensitive parts but left the rest of him exposed to her gaze. Muscles rippled over his back and arms, bunching and narrowing down to his waist. His bum was tighter than tight before flaring into the most powerful part of his body: his legs. He led the league in points scored, and he’d racked up most of those points by kicking the ball through the posts from angles and distances that were impossible for most players to hit unless they had God and a stiff breeze on their side. She’d watched those legs work for years, could mimic the stance he adopted whether he was kicking a leisurely penalty or dropping a hasty goal with the opposition rushing toward him. Those legs were the secret of his success, and when he’d pulled the ridiculously short, tight shorts all the way up to his hip bones, she was glad to see they left even more of his legs bare than his rugby shorts did.

She didn’t notice she was standing next to Ash Trenton until he called out, “Anyone else getting an erection?”

Kind of.

Decently covered, Liam straightened and turned to face the team, his gaze immediately colliding with hers. One corner of his lips tipped up, as if he knew exactly how her body burned at the mere sight of him—possibly because the heat in her cheeks gave her away. Thank God she’d gone back to being a brunette or her face would probably match her pink hair right now. Her jacket felt suddenly too tight, and she wanted to flip open her buttons, undo her shirt and flap some air beneath it to cool her skin and help her breathe again.

“All right, we don’t have all day,” Andre said. “Mr. Callaghan, walk under the waterfall and dunk your head back, slowly. Just a bit at a time. Thaaat’s it.”

Tess’s breath caught in her throat. He leaned back, teasing himself with the water as his back arched and his chest tilted forward. She felt the pose as if she’d made it herself—which she had, when she’d first reached their Venezuelan waterfall. She recognized the natural sensuality of it and remembered the cool water streaming over her shoulders and between her breasts, down her belly and legs, just as the water sluiced along Liam’s muscles now.

Was this a show just for her? Was he cruelly teasing by adopting her pose? Or was it so instinctive when one met a waterfall that neither of them could help it?

“Excellent! Excellent! Now look this way and let the water fall over your shoulders.” Andre moved around just enough that he partially blocked Tess’s view. Liam did as he was told, looking toward Andre—

No. Looking toward her. He raised his hands to his hair, threading his fingers through it so his arms and chest flexed to form great mountains and valleys for the water to run through. He never broke eye contact, leaving her in no doubt whom he posed for. His motives for posing remained unclear to her though.

Torture. That had to be it. He was torturing her.

Her breath came more quickly as the photo shoot progressed. She tried to get control of herself, but she refused to concede the point. He might know how much he affected her, but that didn’t mean she would admit defeat by walking away. If he wanted to put himself on show for her, she would damn well enjoy it.

At some point, Ash nudged her and said something, but it might as well have been her own ears under water for all she heard. His voice was just noise. Liam caught the one-sided conversation, though, his eyelids narrowing as he shot a glare in Ash’s direction.

“Yes! That’s it! Let’s see that smoldering sensuality. You are a beast. A beast!”

Tess laughed with Ash as if they shared a wonderful joke. She was more than willing to mete out some torture of her own. Liam didn’t let her get away with it for long, though. He hooked his thumbs into the waist of his swimming costume and applied just enough downward pressure to reveal the indentations that swept over his hipbones to the line of golden hair that trailed from his belly button to his groin. Tess’s laughter dried in her throat. She’d kissed her way down that trail and discovered the wonders that hid at the end of it. God, she wanted to do that again.

The session lasted minutes, but it could’ve been hours. Every second stretched into oblivion. When Andre dropped the camera to dangle around his neck and shook out his neck and arms as if he were between rounds in a boxing match, the spell was broken.

“Right!” Andre faced the men. “That’s enough for the individual shots. I just need the three men and two women who’ll be taking part in the digital version to stick around. The rest of you are free to go.”

Most of the players made their way toward the changing room, slapping each other on the backs and laughing as they ripped the piss out of each other’s performances. Ash stayed by her side while Liam toweled off. The woman in the bikini left her two admirers and strode across the room with a confidence Tess would never feel in a bikini. Tess concentrated on Liam as he dried off. Why not? She would never get to see this much of him again, so she might as well take advantage of the opportunity.

A few seconds later, Liam stepped out of the paddle pool and stood next to Andre, considering her with a gleam she didn’t understand...until she glanced around and was hit by a startling realization. Liam, Ash and Matt Ogden, a reserve player, made one, two, three men. The bikini model made one woman...

She sucked in a breath and spun around to escape the group, but Liam caught up with her quickly, pulling her to a halt with a strong hand wrapped around her elbow. She shook him off with a ferocious glare. “Andre mentioned two women taking part in the digital version. I only see one.”

He grimaced. “Yeah, well, I see two.”

She swore so loudly the others gave her admiring looks. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she hissed. “Have you taken a hard knock to the head recently?”

“Afraid not. Look, Tess, we need you.”

“When hell freezes over.”

“Please.”

Adrenaline surged through her as her fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. “Need me to what? I see one man dressed as a porno Tarzan and two wearing bathing costumes that’re so tight I can count their pubic hairs. Then I see a woman with a bikini that might as well have been painted on for all the coverage it gives. Fucking hell, I can tell from five meters away that she’s cold. What exactly is this digital version and what do you need me for? Bear in mind, if you dare to suggest I do anything other than hold your towels while you preen for the camera, the answer will be a resounding
sod off.
”

He bit one side of his lower lip, and she couldn’t tell if it was to hold back his amusement or because he was considering a strategy to win. He always made this face as he lined up the ball for a penalty, glancing several times between the ball balancing on the ground and the uprights he aimed for before he finally took a couple of long, fast strides and booted the ball right on target.

She pitied that ball. When his hand gentled on her upper arm, she had a terrible feeling she would soon know what it was like to be airborne, thanks to the strength of Liam’s determination.

“Last year our charity calendar didn’t make as much as it had in the past,” he started, his voice husky as if he knew the seductive effect it had on her. He’d talked her out of her clothes once with that voice. Twice, actually—first at the waterfall and then in his hotel room. Apparently he thought he could do it again. “This year we decided to do something different. Along with our traditional calendar, we’re making something for our website. Three of us are supposed to pose with women in these exotic backdrops. The models’ faces will be rubbed out and women will be able to go online and pay a pound to upload their own photo, as if they’re posing with us.”

“Like those cutouts you see at funfairs?”

“Exactly. Great idea, huh?”

It was. She could see her sister uploading a photo of Tess’s face and printing it off as joke for her. Of course, her sister still thought she was infatuated with Ash Trenton, so she’d probably pick the wrong man.

“This year all the proceeds are going to IDEA, the women’s charity. Have you heard of them?”

“Of course.” They were all over the news whenever a disaster struck.

“Last year, Spencer Bailey married one of their aid workers. She came to give us a presentation a few weeks ago, showing us a video of some of the families they’ve helped. Kijani Adventures is underwriting all the costs of the production of the calendar and the digital version, which means that everything will be profit. It’ll all go to help women and girls get better healthcare when they’re living in—” he shook his head as if he couldn’t find the right words, “—absolute fucking squalor. I can’t describe it. I wish I could show you that video.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to get my kit off and be photographed for the good of womankind? I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of this before. It was called—” She snapped her fingers as though searching for the word. “Oh, yes. Bullshit.”

He gave her a hard look. “That’s rich coming from a woman who can afford clothes in the first place.”

“Low blow.” But his argument started to have an effect. She exhaled through her nose, feeling like a bull that smelled defeat at the hands of a tenacious bullfighter. “You want me to be one of these models?”

“I don’t just want you to be one. I
need
you to be one. The women need you to be one.”

She scoffed. “I’m not that altruistic.”

His brows rose in surprise.