Picture This Page 10

  Oh, boy. Rayne swallowed. Was it the thought of playing love slave and master that suddenly had her mouth going dry? Or the sight of her would-be-love-slave standing mere feet from her in a pair of boots, well worn jeans, and a do-me smile? As her gaze traveled his every delicious curve, rigid muscle, and hard angle, she decided it was definitely both.

  "In that case," she dug in her shoulder bag, pulled out a bottle, and tossed it to him, "put this on."

  He caught it, glanced at it, then both brows winged up. "Baby oil?"

  "I want you to have the fresh from a call look," she started to explain as she dug farther into the bag, pulling her glasses out this time. They'd come to the hospital, or rather the destroyed remains of the office building behind the hospital, together in Cory's SUV. It had been Cory's idea, starting the calendar shoots with him just before lunch the day immediately following shift change at the station. With the hospital building's location directly across from the city park, he'd suggested they share a picnic lunch after she got her pictures.

  A calendar photo shoot of an immensely hot, half dressed man followed by a romantic picnic lunch. Yikes! Rayne had a feeling she could be in real trouble here.

  "I've got to be honest. I've never been on a call where baby oil was involved, whether it be medical or fire. As a healthy man in my prime, I might have enjoyed it."

  Rayne looked at him, and the glint of mischief in his candy green eyes had her belly doing one tasty flip after another. "It's supposed to make you wet." The glint intensified and his lips tilted. She shook her head. "Sweaty wet." The tilt morphed into a full-blown grin and she closed her eyes, laughing. "Damn it, what is it with me and you and sexual double entendres?"

  "Don't stop now. It sounds to me like you're just getting worked up. Warmed up."

  His correction was obviously intentional and she opened her eyes only to slap a hand over them. She took a deep breath and sighed. Stilling herself, she lowered her hand and tried again. "You're dirty and sweaty after a call. You would be especially on a scene like this." She gestured to the rubble behind him. "Unless we want to wait out a real call, which quite frankly we really don't have time for because who knows when that'll happen. We need to stage it. We need to make it look as if you've been battling this mess.” She indicated the ruins again. “The baby oil will make your skin look sweaty and then we'll rub some dirt over that, make it stick and streak. It will look more realistic."

  "If you're looking for a specific effect, maybe you should do this." He held out the bottle of oil for her. "You can see what you're doing and reach places I can't."

  "Oh, I can see what you're doing all right," she muttered and stepped to him. He was laughing, his eyes gleaming, his smile wicked. She could almost feel those lips on her most intimate areas. "I can reach places you can't, huh?"

  "Perhaps I should've said I want you to reach places I can't."

  "If you're going to be honest some more." She shoved her glasses on her face and then pushed them up to sit on top of her head as she flipped open the cap of the bottle, poured some in her cupped hand, and got ready to touch him. Okay, she tried to prepare herself, but the moment her fingers touched him, she knew there was no way to still herself for the intense sensations that moved through her.

  His skin felt warm and soft, his muscles hard and firm beneath her palm. She'd had her hands on him once already, that first night in the hallway of the apartment building, but he'd had a shirt on. Touching him then was nothing like feeling him now.

  Her hands glided over him, rubbing the oil onto his shoulders, his biceps, his pecs, his washboard abs and stomach. She absorbed the heat, wondered in the electric pulse that traveled from her hands to every erogenous point in her body. Her heart picked up pace, her breathing keeping an equal tempo, and her gaze transfixed on each place she touched, drinking it in even as she pictured doing so much more.

  He didn't move. She almost wished he would, wished he would stop her because, Christ, she found it hard to stop herself. This focus on lust to keep her heart out of the mix thing was getting way out of hand. That had been her plan. Let her hormones rule and her body enjoy because denying them both had resulted in a very frustrating, far too drawn out celibacy. Except here she was standing in the open grounds of the city hospital offices fondling a man she wanted to push back on the grass and ride to oblivion.

  Rayne let her hand drift to his stomach, stopping just above the waistband of his pants. She traced that line with her fingertips, smoothing in the oil and fighting the urge to let her fingers dip under the pants to the warmer flesh beneath. Her knuckles grazed his belly button and he sucked in a breath, making a sound remarkably close to a chuckle that abruptly turned to a moan. She pulled her gaze up to meet his and she felt herself fall.

  Onto a bed in her imagination.

  Yeah, that was the kind of fall she felt. No way could it be anything else. God save her.

  "Sorry. I'm a bit ticklish there." Cory grinned down at her, the amused tilt to his lips a distinct contrast to the swirl of heated desire melting his candy eyes.

  He was ticklish? Oh, but that was too sweet! A strong, tough, EMT like Cory Nox was ticklish. Okay, that was almost enough to have her considering another type of fall. Instead, she yanked her hand back and straightened, on the verge of being as mortified as she was turned on by the realization that she'd been so caught up in her own pleasure of touching him that she'd nearly sank to her knees in front of him. Thank God she hadn't!

  Cory grabbed her hand, held it tight, and brought it to his lips, brushing a kiss to her knuckles. "Thank you. I've missed that this week."

  Flummoxed, Rayne stared at him, unable to wrap her mind around the meaning of his words when all her attention insisted on focusing on the riot of desires sparking from one pulse point to another inside her. "You've missed what?"

  "You. Your hands on me. I missed talking with you, too," he added quickly, as if he wanted her to know he thought of her in more than simple sexual ways.

  She didn't want to know that, didn't need to know that his interest in her ran deeper than physical attraction. Lust. She had to keep it all about lust, physical attraction, and that's how he should see things with her, as well.

  "We should, uh, get started, don't you think?" The uncertainty in her tone had him smiling again. She could tell he was amused by her sudden unease, knew that he knew exactly what touching him that way had done to her.

  His grin widened. "I already have."

  Rayne laughed, shook her head, and let her hand flatten on his now oily chest. "There you go with those entendres again."

  "Yeah, well, I've got another one for you. Let's get me dirty, so we can eat. I'm starved."

  Chapter Five

  "Picnics never fail to remind me of ants," Cory commented as he lowered himself to sit beside Rayne on the blanket they'd spread beneath a shade tree in the city park. "The movie, I mean, not the insect." He reached in the picnic basket he'd tossed together this morning with stuff for this spur-of-the-moment lunch and pulled out paper plates, napkins, and plastic cups for both of them.

  "Princess Bala and Z." Rayne straightened her legs, keeping one knee enticingly bent as she put her hands behind her and leaned back. "Off on a grand adventure among sky high blades of grass, milk cartons the size of skyscrapers, and sandwiches large enough to feed the whole colony. Provided, of course, that the mean old grasshoppers don't drown them first. I love that movie!"

  Cory had to smile. Next to ESPN, Disney was his favorite television entertainment. He poured chilled sparkling water in the cups, handed her one, and let his gaze linger on that smooth, slightly bent knee. The entertainment he wanted right now was nothing remotely close to Disney.

  She was driving him nuts! No, that wasn't quite right. In his mind, to be driven nuts implied a certain level of annoyance, a mental instability. There was nothing unstable about his mind. His hormones, on the other hand, had packed up for a trip to the horny man funny farm. God, he wanted her! And not just
for sex, though after the way she'd covered him with baby oil and the dominatrix gleam in her eyes when she'd handed him the rope….

  They'd set up a ladder against one of the remaining standing walls of the hospital offices for him to partially climb. He'd stood with a foot on the ground, the other on a low rung. His arms had been poised as well, one stretched to grip the ladder a step higher than his head while the other curled around a coil of rescue rope. It was the rope, the way Rayne had looked at said rope, that had his imagination running wild. He wasn't normally submissive, but he could be flexible.

  He dragged his gaze from her perfect knee to her slim waist, his hands itching to hold her. He hadn't wanted a woman this badly since Paula. It felt good even as a blade of betrayal slicked through him. He couldn't let the guilt overtake him. He knew that. It had been far too long. He knew that, too, knew it was past time to move on. For quite possibly the first time in years, he wondered if he would ever find a better time than with a woman as smart and pretty and fun and sexy as Rayne Jasper.

  "When do I get to see the pictures?" She'd taken more than one, insisting she needed several to choose from. Despite her best efforts and skill, the lighting could be off or his eyes could be closed or a myriad of other things that often occurred in photography.

  Rayne reached for half of the tuna salad sandwich he'd put on her plate and took a bite, spoke around it. "I'll probably process them as soon as I get back to Max's. He has a digital darkroom computer setup in the second bedroom. I'm too impatient to wait. Hmm, this is great." She took another bite and moaned appreciatively as she chewed.

  Cory's cock danced to the sound of her moan and he nearly joined her. Instead, he forced his thoughts to remain on the conversation as he pulled a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips from the basket and opened them. "I didn't know Max was into photography, too. I thought he went for the whole crazy scientist shit instead."

  "He does." She crunched on a chip. "But even the crazy scientist needs good pictures sometimes. He's got an amazing setup. Much better than the one I had. I've been threatening to yank it for years. You know, for an EMT, you don't eat very healthy."

  "Sure I do. Tuna salad is healthy."

  She nodded. "Greasy potato chips." She nudged the bag with the toe of her shoe.

  Cory shrugged. "A little grease does a body good. You lost a lot of your equipment in the hurricane, too."

  "I thought that was milk." She laughed, but the smile faded all too quickly. "And yeah, I lost a lot of equipment. Hundreds of dollars worth. Computer, printer, scanner, even if the tornados and wind hadn't tossed it around like shredded cheese, that kind of stuff doesn't withstand water too well."

  "It was all insured, right?"

  "As much as the house was," Rayne answered dryly. "I've tried to look on the bright side. At least once the insurance finally pays off, maybe I can afford that sleek, new, top of the line photo printer I've been drooling over."

  "There's always something to be said for the bright side." Cory toasted her with a chip, popped it in his mouth, and her shoulder bag started to ring.

  Rayne pulled out her cell and glanced at the display screen. The expression that moved over her face was one he couldn't define. She didn't answer it, but simply shoved it back in her bag and returned to her sandwich.

  "That important?" He gestured to her bag with his chin.

  "It can wait."

  Cory nodded. "Why don't you bring the pictures to my place tonight? I'll cook you dinner. I’ll even promise to make it healthy."

  "You're offering to cook me dinner? Her brows winged up in surprise.

  "I'm a hell of a cook."

  "This, I've got to taste." Her phone beeped. She glanced at her bag and then looked back at him.

  "Are you sure you don't need to get that?"

  "No, I—" She broke off and sighed. "It's this guy I met. We had an impromptu date the other night." She looked at him expectantly, a hint of dread and apology in her eyes.

  "Are you serious about him?" Damn, it had been a long time since he'd felt that demon emotion of jealously, but it possessed him now.

  "Not exactly. I mean, okay, honesty time. I like him, I slept with him." Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and she looked completely mortified. "Oh, my God! That was a bit too much honesty. I don't know why I just told you that."

  Cory did. She was trying her damnedest to keep this thing happening between them completely on a sexual level. He'd realized that today. Watching her expressions, listening to her words, he’d known, for whatever reason, she didn't want to allow any emotions to become involved. He wanted different, he wanted more. He shrugged, hoping for nonchalance rather than letting her see the intense envy for this other guy that curdled in his stomach.

  "It's good that you told me. I'm glad you did. It's good when two people can be honest with each other, when they put all the cards on the table, so to speak." He picked up his cup and sipped. "Besides, if you're not serious about him, then that means I'm still in the game."

  She gaped at him for about a half a second before she recovered from her surprise. "Well, that was definitely not the response I expected. Not that I thought you would throw a fit or anything," she quickly added. "I just…."

  "Thought I would run away screaming and cancel our date for tonight because you slept with another guy a few nights ago?" Yes, her expression made it evident that's exactly what she'd expected. It was likely that somewhere down the line, someone had convinced her she was a slut for sleeping with a man shortly after meeting him. That really pissed Cory off.

  "I've never understood," he said casually as he rolled up the bag of chips and put them in the basket, "why it is that a man can go out with a different woman every Friday night and, hell, a different one from that on Saturday, sleep with them both and it be seen as perfectly expected if not acceptable behavior. But let a woman do that. A woman sleeps with a guy she's not exclusive with and she's a slut."

  "That's, wow, I mean, I agree but I've never heard that opinion from a man. Women talk that way, sure, about the injustice, but not men."

  Cory shrugged. "What you and I have is not exclusive. If it was, that would be different." He leaned in and cupped the side of her face in his palm. "Maybe I should say when we become exclusive because I want that with you, Rayne. I want more than just to have sex with you."

  Her eyes grew wide and he knew he'd scared her. If his medical training hadn't contradicted it, he would have sworn her heart had started to pound fast enough he could actually feel it in her cheek.

  "I'm not asking for exclusivity yet, Rayne," he told her softly. He gazed into her eyes, watched the twirl of fear, confusion, doubt, and so much more dance in their depths. "I'm just laying my cards on the table. Right now, I'm only asking you come to my place for dinner tonight. Will you do that?"

  She nodded, the movement so imperceptible, he more felt than saw it.

  "Good. We'll start there." And he would slowly take care of the rest.

  * * * *

  Ford smelled it before he opened the apartment door. Food. Of the home cooked variety. Yum!

  He tossed his keys in the bowl on the entertainment center shelf as he walked inside, following his grumbling tummy and his thirst for a cold beer to the kitchen. A cursory glance at the stove at the far end of the rectangular space revealed two covered pots of something that smelled deliciously like pasta and veggies. Man, he must be starving if the idea of pasta and veggies had his stomach growling like a bear.

  He wrenched open the refrigerator and had to damned near climb inside the thing to reach the bottle of beer at the back of the center shelf. Holding the door open with a hip, he straightened, twisting off the cap and taking a long pull as he stood. Movement out of the corner of his eye had him looking over and slowly lowering the bottle.

  "Honey, you baked," he said to his roommate in the best Christen imitation from Clueless.

  Cory's lips quirked and he moved behind Ford, his hand curling around Ford's waist
as he squeezed between him and the counter to get to the stove. "Yeah, and unlike Cher, I don't intend on burning it. Move." He gave Ford a booty bump and snatched the oven mitt off the thumb tack they'd stuck in the wall to hold it. "I thought you were pulling another double shift tonight."

  Ford moved aside, letting the refrigerator door close as he turned to Cory. He watched the other man pull open the oven, slide a pan of herbal baked chicken from the rack, and place it on the cooling blotter on the counter top. His stomach grumbled loudly.

  Cory shot him a look. "Back off."

  Ford chuckled. "Sorry, man. I skipped lunch. Hot date?"

  "Yeah." Cory inspected the chicken breasts, slicing one open to check it for doneness. "I didn't know you would be home or I would've taken her out."

  They didn't have a steadfast rule that one of them couldn’t bring a date home if the other was present. It was just something they rarely did. It fell back to the old saying of two being company. Ever since they lost Paula, having three around always turned to a crowd, the third ending up completely uncomfortable.

  "No big." Ford shrugged. "I can find something else to do for a few hours." He craned his neck to see inside the pots on the stove when Cory opened them to give their contents a stir. "Dude, herbal baked chicken, steamed veggies, and whole wheat pasta with herb sauce. When did you jump back on the health kick?"

  "I promised Rayne a healthy meal tonight." Cory forked a broccoli floret, gave it a cooling blow and then held it in front of Ford's lips. "This is the first night you've had off in weeks. I'm surprised you aren't going on your own hot date."

  "Not the first. I was off a few nights ago, but you were on shift." Ford bit, chewed, opening his mouth to suck in air because the floret was still bitching hot. "It's good. And it's not from lack of trying. She had another date tonight."

  "She told you that?" Cory lifted a brow and turned back to the stove. "At least she's honest."

  "She is that." Ford chuckled, a replay of her honesty in the front seat of her car making him grin like an idiot. The grin froze on his lips. "Rayne?"