"I know."
She laughed. "I love working with you. Okay, let's start simple. Walk into the water, stop when it hits your thighs, turn back toward me."
The Pacific was cold enough to shock, but I didn't let it show. I walked until the water dragged at my legs, then turned slowly, finding the angle that worked best. Chin down, eyes up.
I gave her cold first, the Ice Prince, the version of me that magazine editors called "smoldering." I'd perfected this face in mirrors since I was fifteen.
"Beautiful. Now give me something else. Like you've got a secret."
I thought about Red watching from the tent. About what I was going to do to him later, after the cameras stopped.
My lips curved.
"There," Diana said. "Hold that."
She kept me in the water for another fifteen minutes. The camera loved me. It always had. That wasn't ego; it was just a fact. Some people photographed flat. I photographed hungry.
Diana called for a reset. "Let's get Robert back out here. I want them together while the light's still good."
I waded out and Red emerged from the tent. He'd lost the robe, and he was walking toward the waterline like a man approaching his own execution.
My eyes dropped. He hadn't taped.
The way he moved told me everything. The careful placement of his hands, the slight hunch in his shoulders. He was trying to think about anything except me standing here in wet black fabric, and it wasn't working.
Amateur.
Diana positioned us knee-deep in the surf, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched.
"Okay, I want contrasts. Joel, you're a predator. Robert, you're prey. Give me tension."
Red made a sound that might have been a laugh.
"Closer. Joel, put your hand on his shoulder."
I put my hand on his shoulder. His skin was sun-warm under my palm, smooth except for the faint raised line of a scar near his collarbone. He went very still.
"Perfect. Robert, look at the camera. Joel, look at Robert."
I looked at Red.
His profile was sharp against the gold light, his jaw clenched, his throat working as he swallowed. Water droplets caught in the copper hair on his chest. His pulse jumped in his neck, and I thought about pressing my mouth there, feeling it against my tongue.
The shutter clicked.
Red's hands were trembling. The vibration traveled through my palm, where it rested on his shoulder. He was barely keeping himself under control, and we'd been touching for maybe thirty seconds.
From somewhere behind the camera, the brand rep's voice carried across the water. "The size difference is really working. Very David and Goliath."
Red's shoulder tensed under my hand.
The brand rep kept talking to his tablet, dictating notes, and Red's jaw locked tighter with every word. He was being reduced to measurements and proportions while standing half-naked in the surf. I knew that feeling. The difference was that I'd learned to make it work for me.
Diana moved us through a dozen setups. Standing face to face with the water swirling around our knees. Back to back, arms crossed. Sitting in the shallows while waves broke around us.
Red was struggling.
He hid it well enough that Diana probably didn't notice, but his jaw kept locking up, and he kept himself turned slightly away from the camera. The flush creeping down his chest had nothing to do with the sun.
