Page 13 of Dirty Like Dylan

The photo was fucking gorgeous.

Not to be an egotistical prick, since it was a photo of me, but it was totally fucking hot. I was all laid back in my chair, my muscles gleaming with oil and sweat. My sweat-dampened white underwear, almost transparent now, was clinging to my thighs—to the bulge of my cock and balls. My arm was tossed over my forehead, making me look totally at ease with my own sex appeal.

Which I was.

But when Ash leaned in to see the photo, he fucking scoffed, and Amber bristled.

She turned to glare at him. “You put that in a women’s magazine,” she said, “and what do you think the ladies are gonna buy for their man? The underwear they saw on that.” She indicated my body. “No offense, but no one cares about the drums.”

Ash raised his pierced eyebrow at her, sharply, and I kinda sighed.

Here we go.

I sat back and watched as he got his hackles all up at the perceived slight against me. Ash didn’t handle anyone criticizing me—in any way—all that well.

“And how do you figure that?” he said, his tone flat. His eyelids lowered dismissively as he glared at her, like she wasn’t worth the effort of his full attention.

“Because they’re selling sex out there, right?” Amber replied. “Male virility? Not drums. But they’re having him play to the camera. It’s all just so… sterile. It looks like an ad for drums in a music magazine.” She was getting worked up, and the more Ash stared her down like he didn’t give a fuck, the more it seemed to irk her.

I noticed, though, that he’d somehow ended up standing a lot closer to her than was necessary as they argued over my body—the one on her camera screen, and the one laid out in front of them.

“He’s a rock god, right?” she went on. “A wild animal? So take him, and his drums if you have to, outside. Shoot him, I don’t know… on a mountaintop, on the edge of a cliff, like a conquering hero. Better yet, shoot him walking into a bedroom with three of the hottest girls you’ve ever seen on his arms. And not plastic-boobs-hot. I mean beautiful, natural, wholesome-as-apple-pie girls. The kind you want to believe a man like that would really want.” Amber pointed at my body again for emphasis, and when her eyes met mine, her cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink.

She averted her eyes and dropped her hand.

Meanwhile, I just eyed them both, looking from him to her and back. Ash was still playing it cold; too cold.

But I knew him.

Usually when Ashley Player pulled this much attitude with a woman, he wanted in her pants.

I opened my mouth to speak, when a throat cleared behind me. I turned to look; Liv was standing in the doorway with one of the execs from Underlayer. The obnoxious one with the fugly golf shirts who was always asking me to “go for beers.”

Clearly, they’d both heard what Amber said.

Damn.

I shot Ash a look; he was the only one of the three of us who was facing the door. He had to know they were standing there. When I caught his eye, he just shoved his hands in his pockets with a semi-shrug and tried to look innocent.

Unlikely.

In the pregnant, awkward-as-fuck pause, Amber finally turned around. She put two-and-two together fast, speared Ash with a quick, murderous look, then gushed, “Um, what I meant to say was—”

“You’ll have to excuse my wayward sister,” Liv said, cutting Amber off before she could say anything else they’d both regret. “She’s been living in the jungle a little too long.”

I glanced from Liv to Amber, searching for the family resemblance. Liv was cute, in her way, but Amber took pretty to a whole other level.

The Underlayer exec just smiled his smarmy smile. “I have to take a call,” he said. Then he nodded at me, shot Liv a look that didn’t match the smile—a look that said Clean this up, fucking now—and vanished.

“Liv…” I started, as soon as he was gone, but Amber cut me off.

“Sorry,” she said, taking a step toward Liv. “I know this is your shoot—”

“Actually, it’s not,” Liv informed her, crossing her arms. “But there you go, as usual, opening your mouth and spouting off about things you know nothing about, in front of people you don’t know—”

“Not nothing,” Amber protested. “And I was just—”

“That man you just drove out of here?” Liv said. “He signs your paycheck for today. This shoot is his, and you just pissed all over it.”