Free Working It by Kendall Ryan Page B

disappointment?

7
    Emmy
    By Thursday, I was ready to dropkick Fiona. We’d spent the week prepping for Ben’s upcoming campaign. She had daily meetings to discuss budgeting, location scouting, styling, and storyboarding—all while weighing me down with heaps of Post-its.
    I sat at the desk in her suite and she leaned over my shoulder, as if supervising my typing skills was a necessity. I was creating a new portfolio page for Ben that included a couple of his most recent shots. Fiona would share this with the fragrance company that was considering making him their spokesmodel. I opened the photo from his Calvin Klein shoot. Ben was in just his skivvies, a lucky pair of heather-gray boxer briefs that hugged him in all the right places. I reached for the mouse to click to the next photo but Fiona’s talons caught my hand.
    “Hold on.” She leaned in closer to the screen.
    I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. Gosh, drool much?? It was Ben in his underpants, so I got it, but sheesh.
    “This is a nice one,” I commented, trying to keep my tone neutral.
    A slow smile curled Fiona’s mouth upward. “He’s a big boy.” Heat blossomed in my cheeks. Her words were confident, sure, and left me reeling. “Yes, let’s use this one, the one from his Gucci shoot and the GQ cover.”
    Still speechless, I assembled all the photos into the document. Then I added his height, measurements, and the Status Models logo before printing several color copies. Fiona slid them into her leather portfolio and began packing up her things for her meeting.
    I scrubbed a hand across my face. I hadn’t heard from Ben since our encounter in my hotel room and our subsequent texting when I told him that that was a one-time thing. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. Supermodels probably weren’t used to the word no .
    My last text to him ran through my head on repeat. He seemed to have taken it to heart, but what did I expect? Did I want him to argue with me? Hold me down and make love to me? The visual made me shiver.
    I checked my phone for messages. Nothing. It was time to get ready for tonight’s cocktail mixer, anyway. I excused myself from Fiona’s room and made my way downstairs to shower, fighting off the feelings of disappointment and hurt.

Ben
    I stood under the rough spray of water, letting it wash away the makeup from the shoot. It had been a tiring day. Henri, the photographer, was known for favoring a jumping style in his shoots. He liked to capture his subjects midjump to evoke a sense of movement, so I’d spent several hours leaping into the air, pushing my body into various positions and angles while keeping my face neutral and making sure the clothes and my hair remained in place. Fun times.
    The streaming hot water beat against my back, relaxing me, and my thoughts wandered to Emmy. She was proving to be quite the contradiction.
    Some girls were model-fuckers—willing to drop their panties as soon as they heard my profession. Others were intimidated and self-conscious, assuming they’d never be good enough to be with a model. Both types annoyed me.
    Emmy was neither. Her self-confidence wasn’t as robust as it probably should be; I sensed some of that was from Fiona’s hurled insults. But, mostly, I was attracted to her uncanny ability to keep me guessing.
    Since I was pretty sure that fucking me wasn’t number one on her agenda, her behavior confused me. She was flirty and sexy through text, polite and professional at work. Distant, even.
    If I had to put my finger on it, I’d say she was most interested in being friends. And while I might have thought having her as a friend was a good idea initially, I didn’t really have friends. Certainly not friends I wanted to fuck. Badly.
    I’d never had to work to get a girl in my bed. The thought was almost laughable. Almost. If my balls weren’t fucking aching at the thought of waiting, it would be funny. That wouldn’t do. I needed to have her.
    After several