Holy cow, I hope not! I think this, but I don’t say it. Like so much of what goes through my head, it stays firmly locked away. There, it’s safe. There, it won’t get me in trouble. There, it won’t let anyone know what I’m feeling. See the real me. Or get too close to her.

Rogan is watching me in the mirror when I turn my eyes back to him. “Ready?”

I hope he only means am I ready to get started with his makeup. If he means anything else, the answer is NO! In no way am I ready for a guy like him.

No. Way.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Rogan,” I say, just to be obtuse. I’m disgruntled and I have no idea why. Surely this man, this cocky, shallow man, can’t get under my skin.

Surely not.

“Just Rogan,” he repeats.

I nod and smile, but say nothing as I sling a drape around his shoulders.

SIX

Rogan

Katie is quiet as she evaluates me with narrowed eyes, her gaze roving my face, pausing on my eyes and my mouth, on my scars and my nose. She then looks through first one drawer, then another, followed by another and another, collecting things as she goes. She glances back at me repeatedly as she decides what colors to use to . . . I don’t know what. Camouflage? Highlight? Hide completely?

When she catches me watching her, she looks quickly away and tucks her chin a little. I have no idea why the hell a woman who looks like her might want to hide. But it looks like that’s exactly what she’s doing. Like she’d rather be invisible in front of me.

The more closely I watch, the more I discover. For instance, I think she has a couple of nervous ticks—the way she licks one corner of her mouth, the way she pulls that sweep of hair tighter around her neck, like it’s a security blanket. I’d say she’d much rather I not notice things like that, but for some reason they make her all the more fascinating.

And, damn it to hell, I’m already fascinated enough.

Since becoming whatever kind of freakish sensation that I’ve become, all the women I’ve come across have been nothing but media whores. They want the attention. All the attention. They crave it. Crave the eyes and the notice and the limelight. But not this girl. She craves obscurity.

She’s different. And I’m ready for different.

When she’s finally ready to get started, I watch her swirl a brush in a pod of makeup. The action is so competent and smooth it’s easy to see that she’s done it a million times. She feathers something all over my face¸ giving simple, succinct instructions as she comes to certain areas, like my eyes and my mouth, when she mutters a soft, “Close.”

When she’s done, she sets down that color and picks up another, lighter shade. Before she leans in to me again, she tugs at her hair. Nervous tick.

She swirls this brush, too—a smaller one this time—into the packed powder before bending closer to my face. I get a whiff of her perfume. Clean and floral with a little hint of musk or vanilla. The cocktail is sexy as hell, like innocence with a sin chaser.

Just enough sin to make a man beg.

Katie’s tongue sneaks out at the corner of her mouth, drawing my eye. Her lips are just about perfect. They’re shaped like a lush cupid’s bow, plump and moist. Ready to be kissed. I can easily picture what they’d look like afterward—red and swollen.

Just enough sin . . .

She concentrates on dabbing at the scar that runs through my left eyebrow. She makes no comments as she goes about her work, but for some reason I want her to. I want her to talk to me. Most of the women I’ve been with won’t shut up, but not this one. Again, she’s different.

“Bet you’ve never had to put makeup on this many scars before,” I wager, eager to hear her voice again. It’s got the same understated sex appeal that the woman herself does.

“You’d be surprised,” is all she says.

Is she really so shy, or does she seriously find me distasteful? Does she truly think I’m the selfish, arrogant asshole she described? Or was that just blustering? I shouldn’t care. But I do. I don’t want this girl to think I’m a dick. I want her to talk to me, smile at me, tell me what her favorite movie is, how she likes her coffee. Random shit. I don’t even care what she says. I just want her to say something.

Inwardly, I cringe. I sound like a damn woman. Talk to me! Open up! Why won’t you let me in? Whine, whine, whine.

Bloody hell! There must be estrogen in this damn makeup!

Yet, it doesn’t stop me from trying to draw her into conversation.

“I remember when I got that cut. It was during a fight for the middleweight championship two years ago. The guy pulled an illegal head butt that the referee didn’t catch. Split my eye wide open and just about put me on my ass. Luckily, I’ve been hit a lot harder, so it didn’t knock me out. I took a step back and planted an elbow strike to his face. Blew the guy’s cheekbone out. Won the fight forty-one seconds later.”

“And who says violence doesn’t pay?” she mutters sarcastically.

“You don’t approve?”

Finally, I get her full attention. Katie leans back and looks right at me. Her eyes are puzzled, but all I really notice is that there are pale gold flecks in the dark blue of the iris, like stars sparkling in a midnight sky.

She stares at me, her mouth opening for a second to issue one little noise before her lips snap shut. Whatever she was going to say, she thought better of it. Now I’m even more curious and determined to get her talking. Usually I don’t have this problem with women. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Her face straight and serious, Katie proceeds to ignore me, leaning in and continuing her work. She carefully covers all my various scars and scuffs, which are a helluva lot. She brushes something under my cheekbones and then gives my eyelashes a dusting of some kind of girly shit before rubbing something on my lips. For all I know, I could see a drag queen when I look in the mirror. I haven’t checked my reflection. I’ve been too wrapped up in watching the artist inflicting the damage, too busy wondering what that little pink tongue I keep seeing tastes like.

The longer I’m around her, the more I want to kiss her. Not that it’s such a surprise. I mean, I’m a guy. With an above-average sex drive. And I like kissing. And what comes after kissing. The thing is, I’m getting ready to go on set with some of the world’s most beautiful women, but something tells me not one of them will intrigue me as much as this one does.

I can tell she’s finishing up. She keeps leaning back to look at me and then coming back in to tweak stuff here and there. “You’re really not very impressed by me, are you?” I blurt, wanting to hear her answer before I leave her little bubble of cosmetics.

She goes perfectly still and her eyes dart over to mine. I smile when I see them widen guiltily, her reaction an answer in and of itself. She starts to straighten away from me, so I reach for one of the long, loose auburn curls that hang over her shoulder, tugging it to keep her close to me. “You should prepare yourself, then.”

“For what?” she asks in a whisper.

“For me to impress you.”

Her delicately arched brows draw together over her sapphire eyes. “I-I’m not like other women, Mr. Rogan,” she says, her voice more soft than stiff, like she regrets that she’s not.

“And that’s a bad thing?”

She licks the corner of her mouth again, drawing my eyes back to those lips. I wonder if they taste like pink cotton candy. I force my eyes up to hers and lean forward just a little bit, testing the waters. Her pupils swell and I hear her suck in her breath. She looks like she wants to run, but she doesn’t move. Not one inch.