Page 25 of The Replay

The smile he had on his lips disappears. A bland gesture takes over his face. Now that he's talking my way, I get Dull Dom.

He raises an eyebrow. "At the end of the day, this is for a good cause. This calendar is a Strike Foundation project, too, right? That's why you're here."

I smirk. "That's why I'm here, yes."

With Evie's eyes on us, I should play the game and be just as insipid. But I recognize the challenge hiding in his dark brown eyes, and the barely-there tension in the line of his shoulders. It stings. If I look closely, he's implying he didn't need me around this much.

It makes me want to fight him, for the part he's played in where we are today. Back in the good old days, we bantered rather than bickered, and it led us to laughter and kisses and fun in bed more often than not. A piece of me misses that, but I refuse it.

I make my face take on a bored gesture.

Until Evie's phone rings.

"Oh! I need to take this." She looks at me. "Record for me please?"

"I'm not good with a camera…" I try.

She grins. A twinkle appears in her eyes when Dom clears his throat.

"Sorry." She doesn't sound apologetic. "You guys will survive it, right? You seem so well… adjusted. And this call is really important. Thank you both."

She puts her phone to her ear and leaves.

"All right, then." I lick my lip and tap a few times on my screen.

Pointing the camera at Dom, I take over the recording. It forces me to pay attention to the hard curl on his mouth, and the serious eyes tracking my movements.

One of the assistants has a bottle of shimmering liquid. They use it in strategic places to highlight the dips and swells of his body. I zoom in on the way she runs her fingertips on his clavicles. The swell of his pecs. The round of his shoulders. Slowed down, it could look like a sensual caress.

Evie can probably do wonders with videos like this. Me, I… I purse my lips as I come closer to pan over some tattoos. That's how I find the first one I don't remember— a geometric bee. He got two tattoos while we were together. The carnations on his back were special to us. To me. I can't see them from this angle, but I'm dying to know. Did he get them covered?

The assistants say they'll be right back, leaving us alone for a minute.

I don't think I'm reacting, but I must be, because Dom frowns at me.

"Careful," he mutters.

"What?"

Is he still hot to the touch? Not that I can check. Not that I can enjoy it again, like when he used to hold me for hours just because it made me happy. Not that I can run my fingertips over his body, testing the way each pass would go from hot to scolding, the more heat bloomed between us.

"Don't look at me like that," he growls.

I'm saved from having to respond by the assistants, who come back and study us. I have no idea what our faces tell them, but they don't comment. They guideDom to a side of the set. They point studio lamps at him, measure lighting, do technical things.

I'm recording everything, just in case. At this point, the phone in my hand is an anchor to reality, and the excuse I can cling to if I get called out for whatever my face is doing.

Someone comes to talk about the poses, involving the Swedish ladder behind Dom. I used to work out a lot but, even then, I wasn't familiar with this contraption. A metal railing screwed into the wall, with bars coming out at the top in ninety degrees, and crossbars at the end. From the sounds of it, Dom will have to show off his strength by moving with the kind of flow other people might use on a pole. The kind that requires a core of steel, and muscles hard as iron, working like he doesn't struggle at all.

Just trying to imagine it has me warming up. The power, the ease, the sexiness factor…

Damn. I need to stop. Filming for Evie isn't a good enough excuse, when it's making me feel this much. He and I had such powerful chemistry. It was a foundation in the love we shared. But these days, it can only give him too much power over me.

I keep the phone on him, but I make my face look as bored as possible again and gaze away. Evie is nowhere to be seen. I'm considering stopping the video and cutting my losses, when Dom and I are left alone once more.

I take a deep breath. I gaze at him.

He's watching me with a dare in his eyes.