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 popped her bra and let the girls out before she changed her mind.
The grin fell off Kyle’s face. He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat.
Her fingers went for the button on her jeans.
No turning back now.
But given the look on his face, she didn’t have any interest in turning back. She wanted to take it all off for Kyle.
The question was, did he feel the same way?
2
KYLE FORGOT WHATEVER stupid crack he had been about to make about feeling green. He forgot that the paint covering him from head to toe was cold and itchy. He forgot everything.
Because Emma Gideon, his extremely businesslike and uptight coworker, had just taken off her bra, revealing a pair of perfect C-cup breasts, their tight rosy nipples winking at him. He hadn’t thought she would go through with it. It didn’t fit what he had seen of her personality, and he couldn’t say he really blamed her for not wanting to participate. There was more to show for a chick than for him. He was just in his underwear, no big deal. Hell, he took his garbage to the curb in his boxer briefs. But given the male obsession with breasts, he could fully understand why a woman might hesitate to expose hers in a tent with a few hundred people.
But he was oh so glad Emma had, because she had just given him fodder for a thousand fantasies. Not to mention it had answered the pressing question that had plagued him at work for the past several weeks: Was that perfect shape created by a push-up bra or was it all Emma?
It was Emma. No doubt about it.
The bra had just been a boulder holder, not the creator of the magnificent cleavage she tried to cover up with thin sweaters.
Aware that he was beyond the acceptable span of time for not speaking, he forced himself to tear his eyes off her breasts, concentrating on her hand, where the red bra she had discarded dangled perilously from her thumb. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look up into her eyes, knowing she would recognize the jackrabbit lust written all over his face.
“So you’re going for it,” he forced himself to say, hopefully cheerfully. “Cool. It will be fun.” God, he sounded like an idiot. But he was getting desperate because her fingers were now undoing the snap on her jeans, and he was standing only in his skivvies. Green paint may cover up a freckle, but it couldn’t do a damn thing to mask a giant boner.
He should look away. He really should look away. But that zipper was moving down now, inch by glorious inch, and he was drawn to it like a fly to honey. Really sexy honey. He couldn’t look away. Not when Emma was the only woman at the paper who had never shown an ounce of interest in him. Had never shown an ounce of interest in men or sex, period.
This could be his only chance to ever see what delights she was hiding, and while he wrestled with his conscience, at the same time he wanted desperately to catch a tiny glimpse of her forbidden fruit. A scrap of white lace was bared to him and he instantly changed his mind. Time to look away. There would be no hiding his reaction if he saw any more skin, or gave himself any more time to contemplate the soft