Stripped (2 page)

No, she did
not
want caffeine, thank you very much. Her mistakes this morning already had her wired. With another polite smile in Declan’s direction as she put away her phone, she leaned against the counter, glancing over the tools she’d laid out not even half an hour earlier. Foundation mixed to the wrong shade, a silicone scar that likely wouldn’t fit Declan’s proportions, brown liner and shadow intended for a man with tawny coloring. None of the work she’d put in with Lunsford was usable anymore.
 

Studying the new subject before her with a trained eye, she took in the beard, the hair, the spacing of his features. Without a word, she dropped to a crouch, opening the large aluminum box tucked under the counter. She could feel him watching her as she rummaged, pulling out pencils, pots, and palettes, applicators and tweezers and scissors. Standing, she placed her loot neatly in front of the mirror, removing any evidence that a different man was meant to be in the makeup trailer with her this morning, and turned. “So.”

One brow arched. “So.”

She forced a smile—forced because nothing was going as planned. Forced because she was alone with a large, strange man. Forced because…because…
Because he’s attractive, and you choose never to notice attractive men for a reason
. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
 

“Oh?” He didn’t sound pleased about that.
 

“Have you seen the original sketch for Count Vargas?”

“No, but if you’re thinkin’ to turn me into some gold-plated pretty boy like Lunsford, I’ll tell you right now that you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
 

“Hate to be the bearer of bad news but all of…of
that
”—she gestured at Declan’s beard—“has to go.”

Sighing, he scrubbed a hand over his face, the rasp of crisp hairs audible against his palm. “I’m gonna miss this beard.”

Fiona said nothing as she located a cloth drape in one of the cubbies, whipped it around his neck, and clipped it closed beneath a fall of soft black curls. She glanced toward the mirror.

Declan stared back. “I’ve been growin’ it since I wrapped a miniseries back in December. What do you think?”

“You don’t want to know what I think.”

“And why’s that?” His tone was almost…playful.

Playful might be a stretch for her, but banter she could do—one of the perks of having a lawyer mom and artist dad. “Because I think you look like Davy Crockett coming off a three-week bender.”

His hand moved under the drape, very obviously clapping over his chest in melodramatic pain. “Ouch.”

She rolled her eyes, because here was the familiar: Actors Being Actors. She relaxed a bit more. Her entire life had been spent around performers of one kind or another, and he’d just proved himself to be simply another in that herd.
 

But she couldn’t afford to relax too much. She couldn’t afford to be unprepared.
 

People who had something to prove never could. “So we’ve got a couple of options here, Mr. Murphy.”

“Is one of them keepin’ the beard?”

She tossed the towel onto the counter. “No.”

“What did my beard ever do to you?” He grabbed her hand, long fingers encircling her naked wrist, and lifted her hand to his jaw. Springy hair abraded her palm, the hint of warm skin humming just beneath. “See? It’s a nice beard.” He grinned up at her as he leaned into her touch. “I think it likes you.”

She’d frozen in place the moment he touched her, tension returning full force under the weight of his playing. He
was
playing—he had to be, and this was nothing more than Actors Being Actors. No man would flirt this outrageously at six in the morning with a woman he’d met less than half an hour ago. Ridiculous.

Swallowing with a throat gone dry, she tugged her hand free. “It’s a very nice beard.” It wasn’t a lie, even if lumberjacks weren’t her usual. “But you can’t keep it.”

He leaned back in the chair with a sigh. “You’re no fun.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” And she preferred it that way, having tapped out on fun a long time ago. “Now, your options.”

“Hit me, Miss O’Brien.” Her last name wasn’t quite a taunt on his lilting tongue. More like…a caress.

But that was her imagination, nothing more, regardless of the fact that he had manhandled her in order to make her pet his beard, the weirdo. “Either I shave you, or you shave yourself.” When he hesitated, she continued, tone brusque, “Barbering was part of my training. I know my way around a razor.”

“It’s less the razor and more the face that I’m worried about.” Another scrub of his hand over his bushy chin. “But why not live dangerously, right? Go for it.”

Not pausing to wonder why she felt secretly pleased at his choice, she plugged in the electric trimmer she’d pulled from a plastic container sitting in one of the cubbies. The trailer was filled with a quiet hum that turned quickly to an insistent buzz as she started working in earnest. Scruff fell away, floating silently to cascade along the protective cloth draped over his upper body.

When she’d removed as much as she could with the trimmer, she flicked it off and moved to the trailer sink to run a clean towel under warm water. Settling the towel over the lower half of his face, she massaged the bristles until they were damp, then squirted a dollop of Barbasol into her palm.
 

She applied the lather to his cheeks, jaw, top lip, throat…and lingered. She shouldn’t have lingered, but the skin underneath the short bristles darkening his face was warm and inviting, and it had been so long since she’d touched a man’s face, intimately.

It was that last word—
intimately
—that shook her from the illicit little stroll her mind had started taking and shocked her back into the present. The makeup chair wasn’t supposed to be intimate, it was supposed to be
work
. Where the hell was her professionalism today?

Not that Declan seemed to notice, oblivious to the turmoil messing up her insides. She knew better than to give in to weakness where a man was concerned.
 

She washed her hands, letting out a carefully controlled breath as she turned back to her workstation. All that yoga had to be worth something more than simply maintaining her flexibility.
Zen. Be freaking
Zen.
 

The razor caught the light when she lifted it from the counter. Dark eyes widened. “Wait. Wait a sec. We’re doing this the old-fashioned way?”

“Um. Yes?” She studied the razor, which she had to admit, could have doubled as a prop in
Sweeney Todd
. “I’ve done this before.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better, Fiona.”

Her stomach fluttered when he said her name. “I promise not to slit your throat.”

“Not helpin’.”
 

“Just hold still.”

“Famous last words,” he muttered mournfully, eyes squeezed shut. She had just lowered the blade to his neck when he shook his head. “Nope. Nope, can’t do it.”

Scowling, she pulled the razor away. “Are you kidding?”

“If you decapitate me, I’m gonna have a hard time doing this film. Can’t imagine them being happy with you if they had to recast
again
.”

“I’m not…I wasn’t going to decapitate you.” This was her job. He might think she was a flake for not knowing about the whole Lunsford-drug-arrest situation, but that didn’t mean she went around slicing necks willy-nilly like a
Dexter
wannabe.

He lifted his hands from under the drape and raised them pleadingly on either side of his head as he pinned her with an intense gaze. “O’ course not. But I’ve changed my mind on that whole ‘living dangerously’ thing. Can we, I dunno,
not
and use a safety razor, instead?”

He looked so ridiculous sitting there, tired-eyed and lathered in white foam, hands by his ears as though she were holding him at gunpoint and demanding his wallet.
Worst stickup ever
. “It won’t be as close a shave.”

“That’s kinda what I’m countin’ on, darlin’.”

The laugh escaped her before she even realized she wanted to laugh, not at him but with him. He grinned through the shaving cream before lowering his hands to the arms of the chair. Actors Being Actors? Maybe. Or maybe he was simply a funny guy. A funny, nice guy.
 

A funny, nice guy whom she needed to get cleaned up, more for her own peace of mind at this point than anything else. “You still want me to do it?” she asked, rummaging through the same plastic bin from which she’d pulled the electric trimmer until she found a fresh, old-school safety razor that would’ve done someone’s grandfather proud.
 

“Yes.” Just
yes
, nothing else, and somehow that single syllable soothed the feathers he’d ruffled by accusing her of trying to kill him. Even though he couldn’t have been serious about that.

It was the work of a minute to scrape the stiff bristles from his throat, cleaning the blade as she went. The underside of his jaw was quickly revealed with each quiet swipe of the razor. Her fingers under his chin urged him to present his right cheek, then, a few moments later, his left. Each gentle flick of her wrist removed a layer of camouflage, not only from him, but from herself.

Intimacy
. The word came to mind again, brilliant and dangerous, but everything in her rebelled against reacting. Three years ago, she’d made a choice about intimacy and decided that, rather like the whole concept of “fun,” her supply had run out. No bottomless well of it lived inside her.
 

Alone was easier, safer.

Using a fresh damp towel, she wiped the remaining lather from his face and neck. When she lifted the warm towel away, she wanted to smile, because there was so much about his face worth smiling over. “Aw, look at that. You’re kind of pretty, after all.” Cheeks pink, jaw sharp, eyes bright regardless of their dark circles of fatigue, Declan Murphy was…vibrant.

No wonder he preferred the beard—without it, he was prettier than Christopher Lunsford.

“Hush your mouth.” He adopted an affronted expression even as he poked a finger between her ribs, teasingly.
 

Except that it didn’t feel like teasing when her lips parted and his hand curled into the bottom of her shirt. Not aggressive, not pulling, just holding on, and it did the strangest thing to her insides. “You struggle with physical boundaries, don’t you?” As evidenced by his thumb over her knuckles, his hand on her wrist, his face in her palm, and now…now this. Not touching her, per se, but with the excess fabric of her shirt caught in his fist, she was coaxed closer.

Her pulse sped up when her knees bumped his.

He slowly shook his head. “Not usually.” His hold on the chambray loosened, fingertips barely skimming the hidden curve of her hip. “But I think I want to misbehave.”

Nibbling at her bottom lip, she allowed their knees to touch again. “Did I give you any indication I wanted you to make a pass?” Prickles of heat danced over the exposed skin of her wrists and forearms, made vulnerable by the rolled-back cuffs of her shirtsleeves.

“No.” His hand passed over her hip once more, firmer now but making no demands.

“Yet here you are, making a pass, anyway.”

He froze, eyes darting over her face, studying, assessing. “Should I stop?”

The prickles morphed into flames, flickering and low but flames nonetheless. The section of her brain that refused to bend to her need for control rolled around in the heat between them, like a puppy in a pile of leaves. “Would you, if I asked?”

“Yes.” There was that
yes
again, an almost exotic sound from his lips. This one word carried so much weight that she suddenly felt crushed beneath it. Nothing simple about that
yes
, not how he said it, and certainly not how he meant it.

Because he
did
mean it, she could tell. “Why?”

“Why would I stop?” Frowning, he dropped his hand.

She caught his wrist, her grip too tight, but she was helpless to relax her fingers. He didn’t seem to mind, his lips parting, an audible breath whooshing from between them. Of its own accord, her thumb found the underside of his wrist and decided to pay him back for that first touch, when he’d shaken her hand.
 

Shaken her hand, and shaken her foundation. “Why are you making a pass at me?” she clarified, needing his answer. Actors Being Actors she could forgive, and lay down the ground rules for working together over the next few weeks. If this was real, however, if this zing lighting up her bloodstream was an actual
thing
, then she had some thinking to do. Though how it could possibly be a thing, she didn’t know, since she’d only met the man this morning.
 

Stuff like this only happened in the movies.

A flush, all too obvious thanks to his fair skin, spread over his cheeks. “Because I like your laugh.” Slowly, so as not to dislodge her hold, he twisted his wrist until he could grip her forearm. Blunt fingertips swept over sensitized skin, and she shivered. “Because,” he murmured as he tugged her closer, “I want to make you laugh again.”

This was crazy.
She
was crazy. “I don’t feel like laughing now.”

“Good. Neither do I.” He perched on the edge of the chair. She leaned down, until the puff of his breath buffeted her lips.

Footsteps sounded behind her. “Fiona?”

TWO

Crap.
The cavalry had arrived.

She snatched a pair of tweezers from the counter, whipped back around, and plucked an errant hair from one of Declan’s eyebrows with a decisive yank. “There. That’s better.” As if his brows were her reason for standing so close.

“Jesus,” he hissed—but, to his credit, he didn’t question why she’d done what she had, and dropped his hand from her hip before the others could see.
 

Turning, she fixed the new arrivals to the hair-and-makeup trailer with a bright smile. “Look who finally decided to show up for work today.”
 

“Be nice. I brought coffee.” Wes Jackson—with two Starbucks cups in hand—strode over and handed her one before wrapping his arm around her shoulders for a tight hug. “How are you doing?”