Stalker Problems - Chapter 27 - CashCredit
My eyes got big. That was an insane amount to pay for clothes. Good thing this was fake. But what if it isn’t? What if the Society bills me for all this stuff?
"Cash or credit?" he asked.
Frankie smiled and handed him the credit card. "Courtesy of her husband."
My husband? It took me a second to work out what was happening. Then it hit me. They were just fulfilling my wish for free shoes and revenge on my husband. They gave me shoes, and now they were making it seem like my husband was footing the bill.
Ryder took the card and stuck it in the chip scanner. It beeped aggressively. He frowned and tried again. Same beep. Ryder narrowed his eyebrows. "I'm sorry, this card has been reported as stolen." He yanked it out of the reader and cut it in half.
Is this part of it? My mind started racing. What if the Society was a criminal organization and they’d really stolen Joe’s credit card? We had just been approved for an AmEx black card. Right before he divorced me and took all our money.
“Her husband cheated on her,” said Frankie. “Buying her a few new dresses is the least he can do.”
“We should go,” I said, glancing out the window. The flashing red and blue lights of a police car approached. Oh God. They're coming for us. I pictured them screeching up to the boutique and storming in to arrest me. But the squad car sped right past. I let out a huge sigh of relief.
"Did you bring any cash?” asked Ryder.
“Um, yeah.” I rummaged through my purse and pulled out some Monopoly money. I counted it as I put it on the counter. “$800.”
“Great, that’ll get you half a legging.” He held up the awesome pair of leather leggings that Frankie had picked out and got ready to cut them in half like they were some sort of stolen credit card.
“Actually…” said Ryder. “I don’t usually do this, but everything looked so good on you.
And we do need some new pictures for ads.
How would you like to model in exchange for the clothes? ”
“No thanks, perv,” said Frankie.
“Suit yourself.” Ryder grabbed all the bags of clothes off the counter. “But I’ll need you to take off that lingerie.”
I looked down at my amazing cleavage and super cool stockings.
They were so pretty. And the way they had made Ryder look at me…
“Wait. I’ll do the modeling.” I immediately wished I hadn’t said it.
I knew nothing about modeling. I could hardly make a decent duck face for a selfie, much less pose for a 5 th Avenue billboard.
Ryder smiled at me like he had known I would do it all along.
“Great. Follow me.” He led us through a different set of doors into a showroom lined from floor to ceiling with shelves of Odegaards.
Frankie plopped herself down on a white leather loveseat while Ryder put all my clothes next to a privacy screen in the corner.
“So what shoes do you want to model first?”
Shoe modeling? I suddenly wished I had waited to join the Society until after a few more months of spin classes.
Odegaards deserved to be on some six-foot-tall angel with thighs the size of toothpicks.
“Uh…” I looked at the shelves. Making a decision like this was my worst nightmare.
There were strappy sandals, plain pumps, thigh-high boots with wild prints, and everything in between.
The only thing they all had in common were the bright blue soles that matched the exact color of the carpet.
“How about these,” suggested Ryder. He grabbed a pair of white 6” heels with tips that curled back in a way that would have put a civil war general’s mustache to shame. Sexy elf shoes?
I must have given him a weird look, because he immediately put them back on the shelf. “Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “Old habits die hard.”
What? Did he used to have some sort of weird elf fetish?
“How about this instead?” He picked up a fairly normal pair of lacy black heels.
I shrugged. “It’s your ad campaign.”
“Oh! Those would look great with your new little black dress,” suggested Frankie.
“I agree,” said Ryder. He rummaged through my shopping bags and tossed the dress over the top of the privacy screen. That was my cue to change.
“Should I keep the lingerie on?” I called as I stripped off my lame, sub-$1000 clothes.
“For now,” replied Ryder.
As in…he’ll be tearing it off me later? Or did he just mean that I wouldn’t wear it in some later shots? I gulped.
When I came out from behind the screen, Ryder had transformed the showroom into a photo studio complete with super-bright LEDs and those weird foil umbrellas on tripods. I sat down on a bench to start putting on the shoes, but Ryder put his hand on mine to stop me.
“Allow me,” he said, taking the shoe out of my hand.
He knelt in front of me. I pressed my thighs together to prevent him from seeing right up my dress as he cradled my foot in one hand and slipped the shoe onto me with the other.
His gentle touch sent a jolt of desire up through my nylon-clad legs.
I pressed my thighs together harder. But then he stood up and the moment was gone.
He directed me to stand in front of one of the walls of shoes while he handed Frankie a box fan.
“Strike a pose,” commanded Ryder.
I put one hand on my hip and smiled as hard as I could while the fan gently blew through my hair, giving the illusion of a romantic breeze.
Or at least, that was how I pictured it in my mind.
Ryder snapped a few shots and then clicked through the images on the camera’s LCD display.
“How’d I do?” I asked.
“Uh…”
“Let me see.” I snatched the camera from him so Frankie and I could see the pictures.
Frankie immediately burst out laughing so hard that I thought she might pull a muscle.
And I couldn’t blame her. The picture was awful.
My pose looked so forced and unnatural. And my smile…
oh God . Every tendon in my neck was visible.
It reminded me of the horrible 2 nd -grade school portrait that my mom still had framed in her hallway.
The fan didn’t help, either. Rather than creating the illusion of a gentle breeze, it made for more of a reporter-in-a-category-4-hurricane sort of situation.
“Not a bad start,” said Ryder mercifully. “A few notes though… Frankie, let’s dial it back on the fan a bit. And Raven, try not to smile so hard.”
I took a deep breath. I wanted him to think I was sexy instead of adorable. This was my chance to prove that I could be. I’ve got this. I went back to the wall and struck another pose. Ryder told me it looked great and then…proceeded to change literally everything about it.
Damn it.
“Both hands on your hips,” he said. “Shoulders back. Neck out - no, not that far. Turn a bit. Good, good. Butt out. Suck in your stomach. Tits up. Shoulders back again. Pop that elbow a bit…”
“Am I modeling or trying out for Cirque du Soleil? What kind of contortionist do you think I am?” I was seconds away from falling over.
He ignored me and kept giving more instructions. Once every muscle in my body ached from pretzeling myself into the most unnatural position possible, Ryder finally snapped a few pictures.
“Damn,” he muttered.
Frankie ran over and looked too. “You look hot.” She turned the camera so I could see it.
Holy shit! I did look hot. “What kind of magic did you just use to make me look so skinny and my boobs look so big?”
He gave me a funny look as if I had just revealed his deepest secret. “None. No magic. I just put you into the right pose so that the camera would capture your true beauty. It’s hard to make a 2D image look as good as the real thing.”
Do I really look that good? Seeing that picture coupled with the way Ryder had looked at me earlier had given me a newfound confidence. I got back into position and got ready for more pictures.
“Okay, the last thing we need to work on is your face,” said Ryder.
Well, crap. “What’s wrong with my face?”
“It’s beautiful, but you need it to tell a story.”
“And what story should I tell?”
“Well…these shoes are supposed to be sexy. Fierce.”
“Got it.” I squinted to try to do sexy-eyes.
“Good, good,” said Ryder as he snapped photos. “But I want more. Here, try saying prune .”
“What?”
“Just do it. Prune.”
“Prune,” I said. I felt ridiculous. But when Ryder showed me the picture of it, I almost fell over. My lips were perfectly puckered and my cheekbones looked better than ever. “How’d you get so good at this?”
Ryder shrugged. “I’m a man of many talents.”
“And you’re modest too,” I said with a laugh as I struck another pose.
Click, click, click. More photos. “Prune,” I said again as I lifted the hem of my skirt slightly and put my leg out.
“Yes, perfect,” growled Ryder. The bulge in his pants caught my eye. Had that been there a minute ago? Was it growing? Because of me?
I leaned over and crossed my arms to give him the perfect cleavage shot as I bit my bottom lip.
Frankie cleared her throat. “I better go uh, take this call. You two have fun.” She hurried out of the room.
Ryder and I hardly even noticed she left. We were in the zone. I was hitting pose after pose while Ryder zipped around the room finding all my best angles.
Each flash of the camera made me feel sexier and sexier.
“Lose the dress,” he said.
I swallowed hard. “But…”
“I said lose the dress.” His tone left no room for argument. And I didn’t want to argue. Twenty minutes ago I would have been terrified to pose in lingerie, but Ryder made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. I had no doubt that his photos would be amazing.
I bit my lip and then reached back to unzip the dress.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I unzipped it and let it fall to the floor, leaving me exposed in the strappy black lingerie.
I was embracing every moment of this Society date.
And even though I was nervous, I was so freaking proud of myself.
I was standing in lingerie in front of the most handsome man I’d ever met. I snuck a glance at him.
Ryder’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. He snapped a few more pictures and then walked over to me. He grabbed one of the straps and untwisted it. His finger brushing against my exposed skin sent a chill down my spine. He kept his hand on my clavicle and my heart started beating double time.
“Are you supposed to touch your model?” I asked. My voice came out so airy. God, I wanted him to kiss me. I’d wanted him to kiss me since the first moment I saw him.
“I’ll do whatever I want to my model.”
The way he was looking at me made me feel alive. “Oh yeah?” I bit my lip again.
And then he was on me. His lips crashed against mine as his strong hand slid behind my neck and pulled me closer. I melted into him. His tongue flicked against my lips. Yes. I parted my lips and let him in.
He grabbed my ass and lifted me into the air.
I wrapped my legs around his waist as he deepened the kiss.
He pushed me against the wall and some small part of me was vaguely aware of the shoes crashing to the ground.
My ass slid perfectly onto the velvet-lined shelf while our tongues battled.
The scruff of his five o’clock shadow rubbed my face raw.
He was devouring me as if he had waited three hundred years for this kiss.
His hands wandered to my hips, caressing every inch of flesh exposed between the straps of my lingerie.
He squeezed my ass and pulled me against his erection.
“God yes,” I moaned. I tore at the buttons of his shirt. The hard muscles underneath were begging me to let them free, but he grabbed both my hands and pinned them against the wall. The full weight of his body pressed against me.
And then the entire shelf snapped in half.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of shoes went crashing to the floor.
We fell too. I didn’t have time to think about the destruction because he rolled on top of me.
He flicked his tongue against mine before trailing kisses down my neck and along my clavicle.
I sunk my fingers into his long hair. He was grinding against me now, rubbing my bare ass against the plush blue carpet.
“I need you,” I said breathlessly. I reached down and felt his erection through the fabric of his slacks. Yes.
His body tensed and he pulled back. He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” He shook his head and stood up so fast it was like my skin had burned him.
“Wait.” It came out as a moan and I instantly felt embarrassed when he took another step back from me. Like he finally realized that I wasn’t model-worthy. Like I disgusted him. “Ryder?” I hated that it sounded like I was begging him to stay. I felt as unworthy as he thought I was.
“I can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry, Raven. This was a mistake.” And then he was gone.