"I saw you were with Julian, so I didn't want to interrupt earlier," the woman said.
Mia couldn't place her, but she held out her hand. "We've been having dinner." Idiot comment. "I'm Mia Kerrigan."
"Yes, I know." There was a long pause as the woman's thin brows crept upward. "Petra Lombardi, Hard Candy art director."
Of course. The champagne-cocktail blonde who had spent all her time with the suits while Mia had been treated like hired help. Which she was, but still. "Oh, yes. You'll have to excuse me for not placing your face with your name. I was busy with gumdrops that entire shoot. Didn't notice anyone."
Petra laughed. "Except Julian."
Meow. "He may have noticed me first."
"Yes, he would." Petra seemed amused by Mia's dubious expression. "It's all right. We've all been there." She lowered her voice, getting chummy, and Mia remembered how Petra had been clinging to Julian as the shoot was ending.
"He gave me the fifth-date kiss-off at a dinner just like this one," Petra continued. "It may even have been this very restaurant, now that I think about it. Isn't that funny?" She patted Mia's upper arm. "Eventually, you'll appreciate the irony. Maybe not now, but one day. Welcome to the sisterhood."
"But we're—he's not dumping me."
"Oh." For one instant, Petra's mouth and eyes went hard. Then she trilled a soprano "Sorry!" and laughed again. "There's always dessert. Did he order the Château d'Yquem yet? The man does have class, I'll give him that."
Mia stood rooted to the floor, watching as Petra, slinky in a column of black silk, rejoined her party. The airy soufflé now sat in the pit of her stomach like a lead ball. It wasn't that she believed Julian was planning to break up with her. The reminder that he had perpetrated other breakups here was enough. Which, of course, had been Petra's devious intention.
Julian was ready to go when Mia returned to the table. They exited the restaurant and he whisked her to the chauffeured car waiting at the curb.
A minute passed. Mia stared out the window at the glittering city that seemed made for Julian and his moneyed ilk. She wasn't of the ilk, but she did feel slightly ill.
"You seem upset," Julian insisted. "Is it that I'm not Bachelor Number One?"
"You know it's not that." She shrugged, still thinking of Petra and remembering Nikki's comments about her brother's standard operating procedure: the fancy dinner, the romantic seduction. She'd deliberately forced him out of that pattern, but was he reverting to type?
"I'm not sure," she answered. "I suppose I feel more comfortable in my own world."
"I thought you might like to see my apartment, but I can take you home instead…"
Deep breaths, she told herself. Don't be so easily swayed from what you know is true. Julian cares for you. He may exist in a different stratosphere, but it's a nice place to visit.
"Your place," she said. "I'd like that." Then, a minute later: "Is this our fifth date?"
"I don't think so, but it depends what counts as a date. Is the fifth significant for you?"
"I just wondered." She was reassured. He probably had nothing on his mind but getting her naked. Which was a funny thing to be reassured about, considering that she was supposed to be wary of his playboy tendencies.
Not so much, when her heart was at stake.
"Why did I think you were a conservative old-money kind of guy?" Mia said as she walked around his apartment, an eight-room bachelor pad in a luxury high-rise on the Upper West Side. "This is much hipper than I expected."
"Hip? I don't think so."
She ran a hand over the upholstery of the low Italian sofas. "Maybe hip isn't the word. But it's very stylish and contemporary. Not traditional at all."
The mood lighting was on low, making a soft glow from behind the moldings. Recessed spots spilled discreet pools of illumination over the modern but restful artwork, large canvases of subtle color. He'd put on a disk, drawn the drapes and turned on the gas fire, all by remote control.
"Have a seat. Can I get you anything?"
Mia circled the room. "I want to wander."
"Be my guest. Make yourself comfortable."
She stepped out of her shoes, kicking them aside to work her toes into the thickly padded gray carpet. Her gaze ht on him. "How about if I make you more comfortable?"
"That sounds promising."
"First, we get rid of this. Ties are a strange fashion, I've always thought. Almost as bad as high heels." She unknotted his tie and yanked it free of his collar with a quick downward whip of her arm.
"You wear high heels."
"Only on special occasions—when I want to feel sexy."
He looked at the shoes she'd abandoned. Pumps with medium heels. Rats. On the other hand, they were the same pair she'd worn to the museum.
Her toes wiggled as she undid a couple of his buttons. "But bare is even sexier, don't you think?"
"Oh, absolutely."
She planted a kiss inside the collar of his shirt, but then slipped away before he could wrap his arms around her. "I have to see the rest of the apartment. If it's all as neat and subdued as the living room, I may have to do what I can to mess it up." She looked at him from the doorway and dropped the hot pink sari wrap she had draped around her shoulders. "Know what I mean?"
He swallowed. Kicked off his shoes. "I know what I hope you mean."
Her light laughter drifted from the foyer as she crossed into the dining room, luring him to follow. He got there in time to see her do the panty hose shimmy as she worked her nylons down her thighs. She left them dangling over one of his dining chairs.
She pointed. "Kitchen, this way?" He managed a nod.
"Not even a banana peel," she called from the other side of the stainless-steel door as he dropped his jacket on his way to join her.
He pushed through and caught her sitting on the granite-topped center island, reaching inside her dress. She pulled out a white lace bra, idly twirling it on her fingertip as she looked around the state-of-the-art kitchen he rarely used.
"Much too sterile," she said, almost regretfully. She hopped down, padding across the tiles, checking out one of the unused stoves before popping the bra into a freezer stocked with pizzas, steaks and a bottle of Stoli. Shaking her head in disapproval, she shifted her pearls to one side and unbuttoned the front of her dress while studying the pristine surfaces and cocoa-colored walls. "This does not bode well for the master bedroom."
He was ready to vault the island in a single bound, but he held himself in check, watching as a wide strip of creamy cleavage appeared. His own fingers forgot how to operate. "I beg to differ."
"We'll see." She picked up her skirt, flashing bare legs as she dashed from the kitchen and into the long mirrored hallway. "No ego problems here," she laughed, sticking her tongue out at his reflection when he appeared behind her, his shirt unbuttoned and hanging loose.
Her dress gaped as she stopped at the door to his bedroom and bent to slip out of her bikini underpants. He didn't know where to look—at the curve of her buttock, the pink crest of the breast that had swung into view, the provocative garment puddled around her ankles … or her face, filled with a carefree joy so different from her mercurial moodiness in the car.
The dress was sliding off her shoulders as she stepped into the bedroom. He unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth and hurried after her, unbuckling his belt as he went.
In the center of the bedroom, she stood entirely nude with her white silk dress foaming at her feet. Venus on the half shell.
"Very dark, ver-r-ry sexy," she said, apparently admiring the decor of dark woods and smoky blue walls, though his brain couldn't wrap around the concept with her naked body in the room. "Very you."
He stalked her. His palms itched to be filled with her curves. "You're very me."
She put out a hand, holding him off. "Not so fast. I want the full effect. Firelight, please." She spotted the row of votives along a credenza. "Oh, and candles."
The fireplace lighted
with a soft whoosh of gas. The flames flickered tamely. The candles took longer; he fumbled with a matchbook, singeing his fingers and sending silent curses at the stubborn wicks. He was as awkward and randy as a schoolboy. One would think it was their first time.
First time since you realized this might be love, he told himself. The reminder was not the calming effect he needed, if Mia was expecting perfectly orchestrated lovemaking.
He was too far gone for that.
She had folded back the suede duvet on the contemporary four-poster. Her heart-shaped bottom posed too great a temptation and he came up behind her to grab it, seething with lust as he kneaded the pert cheeks, parting them at the joining of her thighs to find the swollen pink center of her, the one place he wanted to be more than any other. Dew had collected on the ripe lips. His gut clenched and his balls tightened up at the thought of how tight she would feel. But how accommodating.
He tickled her with a fingertip, then found the tight bud and teased it with a flick. Then another. He'd intended to withdraw, but her throaty moan made his hackles rise. So deep and soulful, filled with a desire beyond words. He rolled her clit beneath his finger, pressing firmly.
"Ahhhh." A tremor went through her. She arched and pressed herself back against him, staying bent over the bed with her arms braced on the mattress. "Please." She tossed her head. "Please, don't … don't stop…" The sheet wrinkled in her clenched fists.
He stopped, wanting to be inside her when she came.
"Don't move." He unzipped and thrust his trousers and shorts down in one motion, keeping a hand on her waving butt.
She made a sound of frustration. She twitched his hand away, like a mare swishing her tail at a stallion. "You stopped. You're a tease. Now you have to come and get me."
"With pleasure."
"Mmm, yeah. You want me?" she taunted lightly, tossing her head and stretching forward, sliding her hands along the sheets. He tried to grip her, but she pulled away as soon as she felt him prodding between her legs.
Crawling away on all fours, she glanced back over her shoulder. He stood there with his penis in his hand, like a baseball player who'd just struck out. She giggled. "Uh-uh, big boy. It's not going to be that easy."
"Aw, c'mon." He went down on his knees on the bed, reaching for her again, but she turned onto her backside and slithered farther away. He snagged her pearls. The long strands made a zipping sound as they tightened around her neck.
He tugged gently. "Gotcha."
"Okay, then." She let him reel her in. When she was snugged up against him, he loosened the pearls, freeing the strands so they hung across her breasts. He played with the necklace, crisscrossing it until the pearls outlined her breasts like a harness, lifting them higher, her nipples pointing up when he pulled the strands taut again.
She ran her hands over her spread thighs, rising up to her knees as he tugged and offering her breasts. Naked, silent and obedient. Too obedient. Her eyes were blue flames, luminescent with intense heat and emotion.
The same surged in him—blazing heat, a rush of strong emotion. She was his. Forever his woman, and they both knew it even without the words being said.
With the pearl necklace wound around his hand, he drew her closer. Her distended nipples teased his chest with pinpoints of fire. He thumbed one of them, feeling her breath catch short when he put his face near hers.
"Now," he said wetly in her ear, and without ceremony, flipped her over so she was on all fours again. He bent over her, using his weight to hold her down as he nibbled along her shoulder blades and reached for her dangling breasts. "Now we see…"
Yes, we'll see, Mia said silently. The man did not want to give up control. At least, not until he was inside her.
She wagged her backside. He answered by rocking against her, holding her by the hips; his hot erection was pressed between her legs, almost where she wanted it.
But not quite. She dropped forward onto her elbows, rolling her head to one side. The room was alive with shadows that danced on the opposite wall. "Look there. Shadow puppets." She cocked her head, awed by the eroticism of their shadow image.
Julian chuckled softly. He drew back from her, his shadow elongating in a skewed perspective as he ran his hands along her body, positioning her just so, making her ready for his first thrust.
The edgy playfulness stirred a deep excitement in Mia. She was tempted to succumb, but she wouldn't. While part of her wanted to go all the way and back again with Julian leading the way, this wasn't the position she'd intended to be in this evening. She had to show him that although he may have perfected the art of seduction, he'd never run up against the likes of her.
She was nor just another conquest.
Even so, her intentions were cut short when she looked again at their shadows and clearly saw the outline of his penis like the prow of a ship, seeming to cleave into her from behind. She was so riveted by the shadow pictures that she forgot to move away until the hot, moist head of his erection touched between her thighs like a shock and jolted her forward.
She rose up, twisting around to push at him. "Not so fast, Jules," she said with a shaky laugh, her palms pressed to his chest. Though she wanted to caress his smooth muscles, instead she batted at him, playfully fighting his embrace until they'd fallen to the bed in a breathless snarl.
He let out a groan. "Contrary woman."
"Stubborn man."
She pushed up to one elbow and slung an arm across his chest, resting her chin on her hand. Their mood quieted as they looked at each other in silence. The candlelight danced on his tawny skin, illuminating a face so handsome it hurt her heart to look at him.
I'm not wrong. I'm not deluding myself. This is something special.
The expression in his eyes became more serious as he ran his fingers along her arm. His thumb touched her chin and strummed her lower tip. "Mia, sweetheart, I want you to know that you've changed my life. I have a new perspective. But it's—that is, I've begun to realize that my future has to include you. I can't imagine one without you."
Oh yes. "Me, too."
They kissed, very tenderly. "I wonder, though…" Oh no.
"Now that you've told me about your upbringing…" He leaned back on the pillow, reaching out to tuck a curl of hair behind her ear. "It seems that in many ways I lead the kind of lifestyle that you rejected, so how can we—" He cleared his throat. "You know, be a couple?"
She'd wondered the same. The possibility that they wouldn't find a way, regardless of their bond, was too overwhelming to dwell on.
"That depends on how willing you are to give and bend." She batted her lashes, falling back on humor to ease the moment. "I've already demonstrated how skilled I am at bending."
He slapped her butt. "You bend like that for me and I'll do anything you want."
"Men," she said, shifting position. Her fingers curled around his erection. "So easily led."
She flung the ropes of pearls over her shoulder and climbed on top of him, settling her thighs over his. On the wall, her shadow wavered, stretching halfway to the ceiling when she reached her hands high overhead and slowly, slowly brought them down onto Julian's chest. Fingers spread, she massaged his muscles, gradually working lower until she'd reached the ridges on his stomach. She traced the line of hair that bisected the flat plane of his groin before spreading into the thatch that framed his jutting penis. A few strokes and he'd grown harder, larger, making his shadow even more impressive when she glanced at it, still entranced by the erotic picture they made.
He tried to sit up, and she dropped him with one pointed finger. "Down, boy. I'm in charge this time."
"All right, but where do you intend to lead me?"
"Into temptation, of course."
"We're way past temptation." He handed her a condom from a low shelf near the bed.
She rolled it onto him, wishing that she could feel the true heat of him, skin on skin. When they committed…
If they committed.
No one wou
ld ever expect it—Julian the rogue playboy with her, a nobody in the eyes of the world—not stylish or famous, just a kooky artist who loved him with all her heart.
She lifted up, pausing to slip out of the pearls. He caught one end of the necklace, and she wrapped the other twice around his erection. A question showed in his face, along with a stark need, duly restrained. Not for long, she suspected, so she said, "Be still. Don't move, don't talk," as she captured his penis in one hand and steered him where she needed him so badly. "Let me love you."
His eyes burned as she lowered herself. He was big, solid. Her thigh muscles quivered with tension. The most exquisite sensation rolled through her at the first contact of hot piercing flesh ridged by the circlets of hard pearls. She sizzled under the heat of Julian's stare and suddenly she wanted to see what she felt, what he saw, as her body stretched to receive him. She wanted to watch as they joined. As they became one.
She tilted forward, one hand flat on her belly, straining to watch as his shaft slid inch by inch into her, taking the pearls with him. It was dirty and exciting; it was raw and it was beautiful. Her heartbeat was banging; her lungs had drawn so tight she could hardly breathe. And when she looked up, Julian was there. Watching her face. Holding the pearl tether that connected them.
He didn't say a word, but she read everything she needed to know in his eyes.
Swallowing hard, she sank as far as she could go and sat astride him for a moment, her mind expanding to accept the newness. This was about making love with every inch of her body, her mind, her heart. When she rocked a little and squeezed her inner muscles, the sensations shot through her like a skyrocket. She lifted up and then down, impaling herself. Moisture flowed, helping his pearl-ridged cock glide in and out of her. And when she thought it couldn't get any better, he pulled on the tether and the double strand of pearls rolled against her pleasure point, jerking a harsh cry of ecstasy from her throat.
Her bones melted to pudding and she slithered against him, her belly pressed to his, her breasts pillowed on his chest, the pearls strung taut down the center. Their lips met and the kiss slipped through her like warm milk, adding a few more degrees of heat to the flame that burned between her thighs. "Help me," she whispered, and Julian put his hands on her hips, thrusting his hips off the bed. Together, entwined, they rode the pleasure higher, hotter, brighter … until they were consumed.
TASTE ME Page 17