Until It's You (4 page)

“This is the tone the camera on my tablet captured for your skin,” she said, pointing to a box at the top of the screen.

Landon watched over her shoulder easily. “That pale?”

She laughed. “Under very bright light, yes. It uses something like a camera flash to normalize the tone.”

“I see.”

“So these,” she said, pointing to a strip of different tones, “are celebrity skin tones that the tanner can match, given your base.”

He stared at her for a moment, then laughed and shook his head. "Good lord," he said.

Kristina smiled along with him and tapped the screen. "So if I want to look like Selena Torres, for instance, I can pop that in and my skin tone will look just like she had in her latest movie.”

Landon shook his head. “Do the celebrities get licensing rights for this?”

She shrugged. “They must, right?”

“They must.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, a smirk creeping up on his lips. “So what celebrity am I going to be matching, then?”

She smiled. “I was thinking you could pull off something like Sammy Garoppolo.”

“Who is that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said with a laugh. Truth be told, he had been more popular when she was in high school.
Very
popular with her. “But he’s an actor. The point is, he has a Mediterranean look. Greek, actually. So if we play that up, we can make you look different very quickly.”

He breathed in deeply, seeming to consider for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Plug it in,” he said. “You’re leading the charge on this.”

She did just that, and soon the little white box was vibrating slightly as its machinery got to work. They both watched it in silence as it hummed.

“Did you have any problems while you were out?” Landon asked finally, once it had become apparent the process would take a while.

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“Not really?” His dark eyes opened wide. “What does that mean?”

She shrugged. “I did see you on Yahoo at the store. That’s it."

He pressed his lips together and leaned back. The news seemed to trouble him for a moment—a brief tug for control—but then his face calmed and resumed a blank expression. She wondered how often he had to do that with bad news.

“Anything new here?” she asked. “While I was gone? Updated report or something?”

“No. I called Ms. Bruman while you were out, but that’s it.”

Her stomach turned as she pictured the woman’s prim face. “You did what? Why?”

He looked at her steadily. “You seem concerned.”

She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. Just because she didn't like Bruman didn't mean this was a problem. But still.

“I just worry about any unnecessary exposure,” she said, trying to be reasonable. "Who knows if she's being watched? Or I don't know, anything. It's another risk!"

“It will be fine. Bruman is my most trusted ally in this business.”

She ran her fingers up over her hair. “Every time we have to say that I worry more.”

“You talked to your brother.”

“That’s different! He’s my flesh and blood and couldn't possibly have anything to do with your situation. I don’t have to worry about him.”

He continued to watch her patiently. “We went over this already. I can vouch for Bruman and you can vouch for your brothers.”

“Ms. Bruman is your assistant. It’s different. She has much more opportunity than either of them.”

Still nothing. It was like he didn't even hear her.

A troubled feeling settled over her. This was a blind spot.

“Trust me," he said at last. "She’s safe.”

The machine on the counter beeped three times in succession. Kristina was glad for the interruption.

Landon looked the same. He looked over at her with exaggerated curiosity. “I take it that means it’s done?” he asked.

She nodded and hit a button on the cube. A small container of cream popped out of the side, leaving a hollow space that was previously almost invisible. She handed the container to him.

“It’s just a cream" she said. "Should be pretty self-explanatory. Try to make sure it’s even.”

He laughed—a short, abrupt laugh—then took the cream from her hand and walked into the bathroom. She browsed through some news streams while she waited for him to finish. Still nothing new.

Fifteen minutes later, he emerged in nothing but his navy blue boxer briefs.

Kristina swallowed hard and felt her cheeks warm. The faint lines of a six-pack led up to a broad chest and well-defined shoulders. They were a match for the cabled arms she’d seen earlier. The expanse of skin was like a siren’s call for her eyes, a rough terrain to explore. It was all just so
male
.

She’d thought he would be fit, even muscular. But not quite like this.

He cleared his throat as she stared and she realized time had passed and she had been staring.

“Do I need to put on a shirt?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Eventually,” she managed, her skin hot. “For now I’m just checking to make sure you put the tanner on evenly.”

He nodded and said nothing. Her face flushed with a mixture of arousal and anger. He was enjoying this, she knew, and yet she couldn't really say anything about it.

So she gave him a quick once over. He’d done a good job on the front side, at least. She spun her finger around for him to turn so she could inspect his back and caught herself licking her lips. She snapped her jaw shut and gazed at his back.

The smooth, bronzed skin bulged with muscle shaped in a strong V that ended just above the line of his underwear. Her eyes trailed down the length of him, from his neck down.

There was a spot he’d missed, about a foot up from his waist. Maybe slightly larger than the size of her fist. She opened her mouth to speak and her breath caught.

Shaking her head, she swallowed and forced herself to get a grip. This was ridiculous.

“You missed a spot,” she said. “Is there some tanner left?”

He turned his over his shoulder and held the cream up in his hand. “There’s plenty. Where did I miss?”

“It’s right on your spine, about a foot up from...the base.”

He took some of the cream in his hand and reached behind him, crooking his elbow and turning his wrist awkwardly as he tried to find the spot she’d described. Kristina watched him struggle, her mind scrambled as the hard muscles in his back rippled. How did he have the time to get this ripped?

Finally, he spun around so they were standing very close to each other, face to face. She looked up into his face and found his brows arched up. “Maybe you can get it for me,” he said. “I’m afraid my flexibility has limits.”

A warm bubble emerged in her stomach as she opened her mouth to respond. “Of course,” she said, holding her hand out for the tanner. "Let me see that.”

He handed her the tanner with an expression that looked like a mixture of bemusement and stifled...something.

She didn't want to think about it. Instead, she made the turn around motion with her finger again, then took a healthy dab of the tanning cream. Finally, with a deep breath, she reached out and touched the tanner to the spot on Landon’s back that he’d missed.

A charge shot up her arm as she felt his warm skin. The hard muscle fibers beneath her fingers twitched slightly, then relaxed as she blended the cream with the rest of the tanner. Her breath came in occasional, shallow bursts as she rubbed it in.

The whole thing took maybe thirty seconds. Probably. She'd lost track of time a little bit.

“All better?” Landon asked, stirring her from her thoughts.

He turned and his gaze met hers. They were face to face again, so close she could notice his minty breath. He must have brushed his teeth shortly before she got there, she thought. Must have.

She nodded, pretty sure she was answering a question but not positive. His dark eyes had hers glued tight.

“So what’s next?”

She blinked hard and took a deep breath before looking away. Her brain was utterly scrambled, but she tried to regroup. “Next is your hair,” she said, making a show of looking toward her supplies to avoid meeting his gaze. “We’re going to put a few hints of gray near your temples.”

He narrowed his eyes briefly, then shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

“Okay. First, you can go put on some pants. Then get your hair wet."

A minute later, they were in the bathroom. Landon sat on the toilet seat cover—his hair wet—so she wouldn’t have to reach up as she worked. It took her a ten minutes to brush the dye in. She worked quickly, doing her best to keep herself focused on the task at hand and away from Landon’s still shirtless body. There was a towel draped around his shoulders, but that only kind of helped.

Once she had the dye in, she took a razor and modified his hairline slightly, taking it up about an inch at the temples and smoothing from there. It was something they would need to touch up regularly, but it helped create another subtle difference.

Finally, it was time for her to do something about those sharp, distinctive brows. She walked over to the kitchen to get the tweezers she’d purchased for the job.

When she came back, Landon was still sitting patiently, but somehow he looked different than she'd left him.

A shiver went through her body, all the way up her spine to her brain. Her vision blurred and the world shifted under her, so hard she had to put a hand out against the wall to steady herself.

The pharm. Agent Smith. Something was happening to her mind and she didn’t know what it was but she knew it wasn’t natural. She closed her eyes and tried to steady herself, focusing on her breath.

Suddenly, like a ringing bell being touched to silence, everything stopped. She opened her eyes and looked up at Landon, who had shot up to his feet and reached out to steady her. Concern had etched itself into his face.

She saw him clearly. Everything looked remarkably clear, in hard lines, like the entire world had been blurry just a moment earlier and now she had put on glasses to see anew. Or like things that had been in motion were now perfectly, absolutely still.

One of his brows shot up. “You okay?”

She licked her lips. “Yeah.” Things seemed to be happening outside of her, like she was watching herself reflect on the world she saw through her eyes. “Something...weird just happened.”

“What do you mean?”

She blinked hard, trying to dig her nails into the world and hang on tighter, so she wouldn't shake quite so much. “I think it’s just the Agent Smith messing with me.”

He studied her carefully. “It should be starting to wear off pretty soon, depending on the initial dose. I doubt they flooded you.”

“I’m sure you’re right. It's just...a lot.”

"I imagine."

She took a few steadying breaths, trying to get herself under control. Gradually, the panic subsided, and she felt well enough to get back to the task at hand.

She held up the eyebrow tweezers. “Now for these.”

His face went from concern to horror. “Can you use a razor?” he asked, his lips pressed tight. “It worked fine for my hair.”

She shook her head, trying to hide her amusement at the loss of his usual cool demeanor. “Then it would look like you were disguised. Trust me, people can tell, especially women. Now hold still.”

He did as she asked, and she got to work.

Pluck.

Pluck.

Pluck.

Even though he’d been hesitant about the tweezers, Landon didn’t flinch. Twenty minutes later, she’d thinned out his brows enough that he looked different. Slightly less attractive maybe, but that wasn’t the worst thing she could do.

“Okay,” she said. “Now for the mole.”

“Mole?”

She nodded. “Give you a fake beauty mark. It will distract people from looking at your eyes and identifying you.”

“Doesn’t that make me easy to identify if people are looking for me?”

“If we run into heat then we take it off and suddenly the one identifier they have for you is gone. Trust me, this is perfect.”

He took a deep breath. “You’re in charge on this,” he said hesitantly. The words seemed to be choked out, as if he wasn’t used to ceding control like he was doing now.

She gave him a big smile. “I know. Now hold still.”

She took some of the eyelash adhesive she’d bought for the process and dabbed it on a stick, then used the stick to place a fairly large glob of adhesive on his cheek, a few inches under his left eye and an inch from his nose. That done, she waited for it to dry, then repeated the process a few more times. Landon held still through all of it, and she said nothing as she worked.

Once the mark had dried at the appropriate size, she colored it with some brown cake eyeliner and a shader brush. The entire process took about twenty minutes.

Finally, she was satisfied. She stepped back and motioned toward the mirror.

“Come over and check it out,” she said.