Cover Model (9 page)

The screen raises and a spotlight trains on Connor, who is a mere six-foot-whatever, but the screen lights up with larger-than-life video of him. He saunters through smoke to the middle of the stage. He’s wearing the baseball cap, aviator glasses, T-shirt, jeans, and boots. He starts to writhe in time to the dance beat pumping from the PA.

The women go wild.

Austin crouches and duck-walks up to the foot of the low stage and starts shooting photos.

Connor is quite the dancer. After a few moves, he grabs the brim of his ball cap and frisbees it into the audience. A group of women suddenly jump up to catch it. They fight for it desperately. They all want a piece of
The
Connor Hughes.

Random women scream from the crowd:

“I want your baby!”

“No, let
me
be your baby mama, Connor!”

“Come home with me, Connor!”

“I’m getting a divorce!”

I can hardly blame them.

Based on how well he’s dancing, Connor either has training as a male stripper or he’s a natural dancer. I’m not sure which. He gyrates his hips hypnotically. He really can move.

As he waves his body up and down, he grabs the collar of his T-shirt and slowly tears it open, revealing his incredible chest and abs. The big projection screen shows a gigantic image of his writhing muscles.

A surge of desire spasms in my core. I was pressed up against that mythical body only a few minutes ago.

I squeeze my knees together and gasp audibly. If it wasn’t for the chaos of all the screaming women, I’d be embarrassed. But nobody can hear me in this noise. I’m cocooned in my own world of high definition arousal. What would it be like to have Connor’s hard writhing body between my legs? To have that thick cock of his filling me up, pounding me to orgasm? Oh god, I’m going to come in my panties right here just thinking about it. My entire body shivers as pleasure blooms in my stomach. At this rate, I’m going to soak right through my fitted skirt. I need to get a grip.

Connor wads his tattered T-shirt into a ball and throws it to the other side of the crowd. Another wave of women rise up to fight for it.

This is insanity.

Connor starts taking off his sunglasses. He does it with the same languorous slowness I imagine he’d use when removing my panties. The crowd gasps with electric anticipation. Oh gawd, I’m melting into my seat. I swear I’m about to come from all the excitement.

Nothing prepares me for what happens when Connor
finally
removes his sunglasses. The women go absolutely crazy. The sound of the desperate screams is deafening. It’s worse than Biebermania or Beatlemania or whatever kind of mania you can imagine. Some of the women surrounding me are literally hysterical. Others are merely in awe of Connor Hughes.

He throws his sunglasses into the crowd and continues to dance, making his way toward the front of center stage. He continues to twist and swivel his hips with seductive finesse.

All of the energy pouring off the women surrounding me combined with Connor’s dancing is having a strange effect on me. Not twenty minutes ago, this man who is melting the minds of all these women, wanted
me
.

Not
them
.

Me.

Little Electra Warmoth.

Does it make me shallow that I care what everyone else thinks of Connor, that
them
wanting
him
makes
me
want him that much more?

I don’t know.

But I do know that Connor is looking right at me.

Me.

He has that same stupid cocky grin I know so well and he’s pointing it straight at me while all these women
wish
he was looking at them. Some of them are literally begging for his attention.

“Connor! Over here!”

“Please, Connor!” another woman screams desperately, on the verge of sobbing.

“Connor!!!!”

But he’s only looking at me.

Connor is doing all of this for me…

<<<<<<<>>>>>>>

CONNOR

Between the PA and the women, it’s louder than a Metallica concert in here. But I don’t notice any of it. I’m 100% focused on Electra.

She’s all I’m thinking about.

I’m dancing for her.

Lord knows I’ve tried every other fuckin trick in the book to get her to lower her defenses. I’ve never tried so damn hard to get a woman to fuck me. Usually they’re the ones doing all the work to get on my cock. But when all else fails, do a striptease in front of a thousand other drooling women. If this doesn’t show her the light, nothing will.

Based on the way her luscious lips are opened in a pouty O, I think it might be working. Fuckin finally. My dick stirs in my pants. Those fuckin
lips
…

Something flies at me from the crowd.

I catch it easily.

A black thong. I have no idea who threw it. I wish it was Electra, but we all know it wasn’t hers. Remembering I’m here to do a job, I stretch the underwear over my head and wear it like a choker.

The women go wild.

I keep dancing.

There’s two more minutes left in the song. I’m already sweaty. All the stage lights are hot as fuck. A bunch of photographers at the foot of the stage are snapping away. I think it’s safe to say I’m going to get a lot of press out of this. My face is going to be all over the internet in less than an hour.

All these fuckin women are screaming their heads off. It’s fuckin ridic—

—screamscream—

A flash of pain spikes through my brain.

I gotta focus on dancing. I don’t want to lose my shit right in the middle of

—scream-scream-scream-scream—

I grit my teeth, trying to focus on my moves.

—why did you—

The stage tilts, nearly knocking me down.

The crowd gasps.

I recover by falling backward and rolling into a handstand. Then I do two slow handstand pushups like it’s nothing. It takes all my strength, but I do it smooth. On the bottom of the second one, I let my legs scissor out into splits. I hold the handstand for several seconds, my arms shaking slightly. I push up slowly, point my legs back up at the ceiling, then kick out of the hand stand, landing on my feet.

The crowd goes crazy.

Right then, the song ends on a crescendo.

I hadn’t planned on ending the song this way, but whatever works.

Confetti bombs go off and I take a bow. A rainbow rain of confetti flutters down all around me as the lights strobe like lightning. The smoke machines fog the stage and I exit stage left.

If that doesn’t get me into Electra’s pants, I don’t know what will.

<<<<<<<>>>>>>>

ELECTRA

The stage lights go dark.

“
The one and only Connor Hughes, ladies!!
” The announcer says over the PA. “
He will be signing autographs and anything else you want him to sign over in Autograph Alley in thirty minutes.
”

“I wasn’t expecting that,” I mutter to Austin

“Yeah,” he says absently, kneeling beside me and wheeling through the photos he just shot.

“How’d they turn out?”

He holds up the camera so I can see the screen.

“Nice action shots, Austin. You really have an eye. The angles are incredible.”

“Thanks,” he grins.

“Should we head over to Autograph Alley?”

“I need to get to a wifi hotspot and upload these photos to Vince ASAP. There’s wifi in the hotel. Wanna come with? You can finish up your article. I know Vince is waiting for it.”

Oh shit.

Is he kidding?

After the trouble I’ve had with Connor? I barely have anything. What am I gonna do? I’ll just have to fake my way through my article. I don’t have any other choice.

“Come on,” Austin says.

We worm our way through the glue of all the giddy fans. It’s going to take forever to get back to the hotel at this rate.

“This way,” I say. “It’s faster.”

Austin follows me out the back of the building and we stride toward the hotel, past the tennis courts, the pool, into the spa, and finally the lobby, which is no longer packed with people. There are Rom Com Con attendees milling about, but nothing like earlier. Everyone’s inside the convention hall.

Austin and I find two stools at the hotel bar. He pulls a MacBook Air out of his bag and starts transferring files from his camera to the laptop. I pull out my Microsoft Surface and unfold the keyboard. We both order sandwiches from the bartender and get to work.

Austin pages through his photos and starts editing his selects in Photoshop.

Me?

You know that feeling when you’re
starting
your term paper minutes before class on the day that it’s due, the one you put off for weeks and weeks? This is that times a thousand. But I’m not in danger of getting an F. I’m in danger of pissing off my best client and not getting paid. This is a disaster.

Am I surprised that anything involving Connor Hughes is anything less?

Nope.

The first thing I do is open a web browser to
TMZ
and check their latest headlines. Nothing on Connor yet. Why would there be? He’s not famous. Yet. But after what I saw on the convention hall stage? Forget it. If I’d known about the dance routine, I would’ve told Vince we needed a camera crew. No time to worry about it now.

I open writing software and bang out ideas, throwing down catchy headlines and anything else I can think of. This article is going to be nothing but bullshit.

Austin sits back from his computer and takes a bite from his sandwich.

“Are you finished?” I ask, distressed.

“Yup. Uploading now.”

“Crap.”

I hunch my shoulders and go to work. If I don’t email something to Vince in the next ten minutes, I’m going to hear from him.

Ten minutes later, Austin is finishing his sandwich. I haven’t touched mine. But I do have 500 catchy words and a punchy headline that I send off to Vince’s email.

MYSTERIOUS MODEL CONNOR HUGHES HAS GOT THE GROOVES

I may have rushed through it, but I think it’s pretty good considering how little time I had. I refresh the
TMZ
page one last time, scanning for anything Connor related. Nothing.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

Finally, I pick up my sandwich and take a bite.

My phone rings five minutes later while I’m chewing on a fresh bite of turkey and cheese.

It’s Vince Pitts.

I hold the phone up to my ear, prepared for the worst. “Yeah?”

“This is shit, Warmoth!” Vince shouts on the other end of the line “You call this a story? It’s useless fluff! I could shred it and fill my cat box with it and my cat still wouldn’t piss on it!”

I didn’t think it was
that
bad. Sounding sarcastic, I say, “You have a cat?” I can’t believe Vince Pitts has a cat.

“No! You’re missing the point! Where is my story? That’s the point! Your article is a few boring facts and too much filler. I need meat! Something readers can sink their teeth into! Nobody likes to take a bite out of shit, Warmoth.”

At that thought, I set my sandwich down and wipe my fingers on my napkin. Although Vince’s string of gross metaphors are vintage Vince, they’re also appropriate. I know the article was rushed. Sure, it’s not terrible, but it’s far from my best work, and it’s definitely not a revealing exposé. It’s just color.

Austin gives me a sympathetic smile. He knows how annoying Vince can be.

I take a deep breath. “Vince, I’ve been under a bit of a time crunch. I didn’t have much to work with.”

“Whose fault is that, Warmoth? Who decided to
walk out of the interview
before it started? You lost almost two hours because of that stunt!”

“I’ll fix it, Vince. Is that what you want to hear? I’ll get you something good.”

“You better, because as it stands, your story isn’t worth printing.
TMZ
already posted a piece on their website.”

“No they didn’t! I just checked.”

“Check again.”

I refresh the
TMZ
webpage. Shit. They did.

“And they have video, Warmoth! Where’s my video?!”

“Nobody told me it was going to be a Broadway show! I figured it would be a basic photo op! Not a dance routine!”

“Maybe if you hadn’t’ve run away from the interview, Connor might have told you himself.”

“I—”

“That video has been on
TMZ
for ten minutes. Can you guess how much traffic it’s getting?”

“More than
Trending Magazine
,” I sigh.

“I’ll tell you how much—” he stops himself, surprised. “That’s right. More than
Trending
. The only advantage we have right now is this exclusive exposé interview. I need something juicy, Warmoth. Something that will sell magazines. So go find this Connor schmuck—” To my surprise, I bristle when Vince calls Connor a schmuck. “—and get some dirt on him. I don’t care what it is. Draw him out. Use your feminine wiles—”

“Sexist, Vince,” I warn.

“Effective, Warmoth. Do what it takes. You don’t have to sleep with the guy. Just get inside his head. I need an angle.”

“Fine. I’ll make it happen.”

“That’s the Warmoth I remember.”

“But I’ll need a few extra hours.”

“At this rate, it won’t matter when we publish to the web. The only way people are gonna read
your
article is if you get me a feature that knocks everybody’s socks off.”

“All right, Vince. I’m on it.”

“You better be.”

“I am. So kick your shoes off now because your socks are going next.”

“Cute, Warmoth. Cute. Get to it. And don’t call me until you have something I can print.”

Chapter 6

CONNOR

“Please tell me you did the reveal,” Gloria says over my phone.

“Yeah. Went off without a hitch.” I’m taking a break from signing nonstop autographs by leaning my head under the autograph table and plugging my free ear so I can hear. It’s fuckin loud in the convention hall.

“Thank goodness,” she sighs. “I was worried I’d have another fire to put out.”

“Nope.”

“And the interview?”

“Did that too.”

“How did it go?”

“Great.” Do I tell her I was
this
close to fuckin Electra Warmoth on the meeting room table? Probably not.