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    “Okay, ready?” she said, turning toward him. She was wearing surgical gloves.
    “Ready for what?” he asked warily.
    She smiled reassuringly at him. She had pretty, pearly, little white teeth and plush, baby doll lips.
    Jake watched her mouth as she said, “I’m going to do a quick allergy test and I’ll leave you with a skin patch that I want you to wear for twenty-four hours. Before we start filming and applying the special effects materials to your skin, we need to know if you’re allergic to any of it. None of the materials I’ll be using cause a severe reaction with moderate exposure, but during filming you’ll be wearing them all day, every day. If you are allergic to any of it, it could limit what we can do with the effects.”
    “Okay?” She was waiting for him to respond.
    Looking from her mouth to her wide, hazel eyes, he said, “It doesn’t sound too bad.”
    “It’s not really.” She smiled that pearly, reassuring smile at him again. “Do you mind taking off your shirt?”
    He pulled the shirt over his head, tightening his abdominal muscles and liking the pleasant feeling it gave him to undress in front of her. Lilly stepped beside him to grasp his upper arm with one gloved hand. She scrubbed his skin with a sterile alcohol wipe, then used a medical marker to quickly draw a series of five horizontal and four vertical intersecting lines, numbering the axes.
    Picking up the color-coded plastic spiked toothpick from the number one spot on the tray, she said, “This part’s not very nice. It’ll sting but not as bad as a bee sting. There’s a tiny drop of the potential allergens on each of these. Don’t pull away or jerk your arm, otherwise I’ll miss my mark, okay?”
    “I think I can handle it,” he said, amused. She sounded like she was reassuring a child. When she made the first prick, he just couldn’t help himself from playing with her.
    “Ow!” he yelled loudly, causing Lilly to jump back, her startled expression amplified by her big, thickly-lashed eyes.
    When Jake chuckled at her, she wagged her finger at him.
    “That’s not funny! You really scared me!”
    Laughing harder at her flabbergasted finger pointing, he huffed out, “Yes it was,” completely unrepentant.
    She pursed her sweetheart lips at him. “Just keep it up, big guy. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You realize I have nineteen more of these, don’t you?” She waved the plastic toothpick threateningly.
    With one last snort, Jake stopped laughing and stared into her eyes. This close, he could see that her irises were forest green around the edges, then abruptly transitioned to golden brown close to her dark pupils. Warm and layered. Complex and beautiful. Captivating and otherworldly.
    “Do your worst, Pixie,” he said.
    When she’d completed the pricks, she applied the skin patch, instructing him again to leave it on for twenty-four hours. Removing the surgical gloves, she said, “It’s waterproof, so you can shower. I don’t think this will happen, but if you see any redness around the rim of the patch before twenty-four hours, go ahead and take it off.”
    Inspecting the grid on his arm, she said, “So far so good. I’m going to start the casting. I’ll do the most uncomfortable casting first, which is your head and face. I asked you if you were claustrophobic because it can feel quite unnatural to have so much of your head and face covered. Instinctively, you’ll want to remove it, although it can’t harm you.”
    Placing her bare hand on his shoulder she said, “You’ll have to help me by staying still and keeping your mouth closed. I’ll talk you through it.”
    Her tiny, bare hand on his skin created an altogether different and distracting sensation than her plastic gloved hand had. Experimenting, Jake shifted his shoulder under her hand, causing her palm to slide over the muscle. Her fingertips trailed his collarbone as she pulled her hand back. His nostrils flared and