TASTE ME

by Carrie Alexander

  She didn't let them, settling for a "Thanks."

  At the third-floor landing she stopped and went to knock at the door of Edmund Flax, a small elderly black man who lived in genteel poverty in a room furnished with secondhand books and a hot plate. He had no phone, but much dignity. He spent several evenings a week at Miss Delaney's, who insisted they were "just friends" when Mia teased her about being courted.

  Mia and Julian continued the climb to her studio. On the next flight of twisting steps, they ran into Lance Wheatley, a thirty-year-old doctoral candidate at Columbia who lived directly under Mia's attic apartment and was frequently disgruntled, mostly because he believed she was having orgies without him.

  "Hi, Lance."

  "Mia."

  They maneuvered around each other. Lance stared at Julian and seemed to be on the verge of recognizing him. Mia couldn't imagine Lance reading the gossip rags, but he said nothing more. Perhaps he was only jealous again.

  "Finally," Julian said, after the other man had disappeared around the twisting staircase.

  "One more flight," Mia said.

  "You misunderstand. I was saying that finally there's a person who's not in love with you."

  She scoffed. He probably lived in a building with a private elevator and anonymous neighbors. "No one's in love with me. But Lance did ask me out."

  "You didn't go?"

  "Nope. Other than a missing sense of humor, he's too perfect. By my mother's standards." Lance was very presentable in a subdued, clean-cut, well-educated way, which was everything that her mother wanted for Mia in a husband, and exactly what she found to be boring.

  "Too perfect…" Julian was oddly serious. "How do I stack up in that department?"

  "You're perfect, too, but in a different way. An over-the-top way. Much too well-known, for one thing. Too rich, too handsome … and you have ten times the sex appeal any normal man needs." An indecent amount, she thought, becoming sharply aware of the warmth of his body as he stood close behind her while she unlocked the door. It wasn't that he crowded her, exactly; he just had a way of being there, so big and male and shockingly handsome that it was easier on her nerves not to look at him.

  His voice dropped, becoming more intimate. He did that very well. Smooth as silk, one might say if one was smitten. "Is it possible to have too much sex appeal?"

  "In my mother's opinion, absolutely. She doesn't think that sex is very seemly."

  "It's not." Julian knocked his chin lightly against the back of her head. "Good thing I don't want to date your mother."

  "You don't want to date me, either," Mia reminded him as they entered her apartment. She dropped the bag of takeout on the floor and collapsed into the armchair to remove her shoes and socks. She got halfway and then was too tired to lift her other foot. Maybe later.

  She rested her head on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. "I guess you can make yourself at home, since we're going to be friends," she said. Friends. The platonic kind. Not tumble-buddies.

  "To start," he reiterated, even though their start already included hot, naked bodies and even hotter kisses.

  He knelt, picked up her foot and placed it on his thigh. He unlaced her shoe, slipped it off along with her sock and then held her heel in his hand. His thumb took a deep stroke across her instep.

  "What are you doing?" she asked in such a lazy voice it was clear she didn't want him to stop.

  "I can see that you're beat."

  "It was a hard day's work. Michelangelo must have been a hobbled crone by the time he finished the Sistine Chapel." Julian's big warm hands covered her foot. Both thumbs pressed into her sole. She let out a moan that was almost orgasmic.

  "Painting bodies?"

  "Mm. Ballroom."

  "Is that a body-painting euphemism for something I don't want to picture?"

  She chuckled. "No, really, I was painting a ballroom. Didn't Nikki report to you about that?"

  His fingers stilled. She twiddled her toes and he resumed the sensuous massage. Now and then his hand strayed upward to give her calf a squeeze. Cold tingles broke out on her warm skin.

  "What do you know about my sister?" he asked.

  "You mean your spy?"

  "I don't need a spy. I'm perfectly capable of getting anything I want out of you."

  She might have protested, but she didn't want the delicious kneading to stop. "That's probably true, now that I know you have magic fingers. I'm so weak. Do you know Shiatsu?"

  "I'll get a how-to book." He sat back on the carpet and pulled her other foot into his lap. "Nikki was doing preliminary work for the article I mentioned earlier. A painted-fashion layout in Hard Candy."

  Mia cracked an eye. His head was bowed. She couldn't see his expression, but she believed him. Nikki's mission hadn't been only a personal reconnaissance for his own benefit. "There's really going to be an article?" Mia relaxed another degree. "I suspected that you were playing me with promises of fame and fortune."

  "You're not the kind of girl to be lured by that … are you?"

  She jabbed him with her foot. "I don't know. I might be. No one's ever tried to buy me before." Except her parents, in a way, who'd withdrawn their support for her college education when she wouldn't give up her creative ambitions for an approved major at an approved school. She'd been what most people would call a starving artist ever since, but at least she was free.

  "I don't want to buy you, Mia."

  "Good."

  "Nikki came to me, looking for a job."

  "And you, being a loving big brother, threw her a bone with a fairly harmless assignment?"

  "That's about it, but I won't deny that I also had an interest in acquiring personal information about you. However, there would have been easier ways than sending Nikki."

  "She's … ah…"

  "Very young and very spoiled."

  "But she's trying, and she really wants to please you." And torment you, Mia silently added with a smile.

  "She turned in an excellent background brief on you. No drama at all. I was pleasantly surprised."

  Mia had been watching him from beneath her lashes. His face changed when he talked about Nikki, reminding her of the easy joy he'd showed in the beach photo from the bachelor article. One of his most attractive qualities. She could almost believe that the coolly urbane man, who'd flustered her at the cover shoot, and the gossip pages' smooth bachelor with his string of glossy girlfriends, were the facade.

  Part of her did believe that. But there was another part that knew how important facades were, whether they were genuine or faux. A man could be a serial lover and a loving brother at the same time. She probably wasn't the first woman to fool herself into believing that this time was special for Julian. Maybe he'd even tried the let's-be-friends ploy before, to get a woman's guard down.

  Mia reluctantly pulled her feet off his lap. "I want you to tell me all about your sisters," she said, "but first I need to take that shower."

  "I'll come, too." He gave her an innocent smile. "I have to wash my hands."

  "You can use the kitchen sink." She waved at the minimal kitchen that had been fitted into one of the attic nooks. "There's a microwave, if you want to warm up the food. I'll be out in ten minutes."

  "I'll be waiting."

  No doubt. He was the devil her father had always told her to look out for.

  "I knew I'd get you into bed," Julian said, more than ten minutes later. She'd lingered in the shower, thinking of him waiting for her, thinking of him getting impatient and joining her in the shower, touching herself as she considered how that would be, naked against the shower wall with his hands all over her, and his mouth on her breasts, his tongue licking her, tasting her—

  She'd heard of men whipping off a quick one to take off the edge. So far, that didn't seem to work the same way for a woman. She'd only heightened her responses.

  It didn't help that Julian was using his eyes like a paintbrush loaded with liquid chocolate, even while they talked about pr
osaic things like the vital stats of his three younger sisters and the Mets' chances of getting into the playoffs. Forget the Chinese food. She wanted to eat him up.

  "I really need to get a couch," she announced, when their hands had brushed for the umpteenth time over the carton of pot stickers. Her diet wasn't the only resolution that might end up broken this day.

  They'd taken a tray to her bed, which wasn't the first time she'd hosted a meal there. The studio apartment wasn't conventionally furnished. For sitting, she had the secondhand armchair and heaps of floor pillows. The only table of any size was used as a work surface, forever cluttered with paints, chalk, brushes and tins of cleaning solvents. The kitchen had a couple square feet of counter space and a stool, so that left her bed to serve as the communal lounging and dining area, which worked fine except for latte spills and guests who rubbed off on her pillows.

  But then she'd never had Julian in her bed. He was reclining across the foot of it, his long legs stretched toward her, casually crossed at the ankles, framing the fullness at his crotch, which she was not looking at—

  Yep. The floor pillows might have been a wiser option, but her body had refused, even though the hot shower and equally hot fantasy had loosened her up considerably.

  "A couch would be too normal for you," he said.

  "True." She stabbed her chopsticks into the carton of pea pods. "Want some?"

  "Sure." He leaned forward on his elbow with his mouth open.

  She fed him one. He chewed, his cheeks hollowing and his shadowed jaw moving up and down in a way that seemed erotic. Everything seemed erotic with Julian.

  "Like chewing on a leaf," he said.

  She smiled. "Did you go to work today?"

  "I did. Left early for a dental appointment."

  Then it wasn't visiting her that had had drawn him out of his usual patterns. Damn.

  "Whitening?" she guessed. Had to be. His teeth were perfect enough to be featured in a toothpaste ad.

  "Just a cleaning."

  "How come you didn't shave?"

  He rubbed a hand across the stubble. "Didn't feel like it. What's with this interest in my hygiene?"

  She shoveled in a mouthful of the slimy green pods.

  His gaze moved along her bare legs, crossed Indian style. She flipped shut the front of her robe. She'd put on loose men's boxers and a sleeveless tee, but that hadn't seemed like enough coverage. Not with Mr. Hot Black Brooding Eyes around. A radiation suit might do it.

  "Maybe you wanted me to join you in the shower for a hygiene check," he guessed.

  "Don't flatter yourself."

  "You didn't seem to mind last time."

  "I told you. Nudity is standard operating procedure to me."

  "Right. What's a little skin between friends?" He reached across and skated his palm along her leg beneath the robe. "So soft. Did you shave your legs in the shower? Is that what took you so long?"

  "No." She rearranged herself so that she could close her thighs. Her inner muscles squeezed tight, almost spasmodically, as if his hand had gone higher and he'd slipped a ticklish finger inside her.

  Ohmigod. Stop thinking that way.

  "You lotioned up," he guessed.

  "No." She thrust the pea pods back on the tray and tried the next carton without paying attention. Curry sauce. Yeow. The spices burned on her tongue, making her eyes water. "Beer," she croaked. "Water."

  Julian jumped up to go to the minifridge. She panted with her tongue out. Thank god. Anything to break up the tension. Turned out she was the dawg.

  In heat. She flapped a hand at her flushed face.

  "I brought both." He handed her a bottle of water and set a couple of beers on the tray.

  "Thanks." She drank, making glugging sounds.

  He settled back into place. "You don't like spicy foods?"

  "I love to try them, but I have supersensitive taste buds, so I usually regret it."

  "Supersensitive taste buds. I like the sound of that. What's your favorite taste?"

  "Sweets," she said quickly, before she could blurt out something embarrassing about their candy-flavored kisses lingering on her tongue long after the taste had passed. "I'm a chocoholic, but I like other candies, too."

  Julian's lips curved. "Ever lick chocolate off bare skin?"

  "For me, that would be mixing business with pleasure."

  "Only if you did it with a paid model." He tapped himself. "I'm free."

  Her mouth went dry; she drained the remaining water. "But we have a professional connection … sort of."

  "I'll call Nikki right now and tell her the article is canceled."

  "You can't do that to her! She's all excited about—" Mia stopped.

  "About what?" Julian frowned with suspicion. "What have you two been talking about? Sharing secrets?"

  "Not so much. But I know she's eager to be involved in Silk Publishing. Why don't you give her a staff job on one of your magazines?"

  "I'm considering it, as soon as I decide which publication can withstand a massive dose of Nikki's nonsense."

  "That's very controlling."

  He shrugged his head. "Yeah, I know. But that's my job."

  "To boss your sister? I don't think so."

  "Call it duty, then. I'm the man of the family."

  Mia thumped her chest. "I am man, hear me roar. Do you really think your sisters aren't capable of making their own decisions?"

  "You haven't met Very—Veronica. She's hell-bent on self-destruction. Hasn't made a wise decision since our dad died." Julian moved the tray to the floor, keeping only the beers. He twisted off the tops and handed one to Mia. "You're a girl. You wouldn't understand."

  "I understand what it's like to be on my own and making my own choices. It's hard. Especially without the Silk bank accounts to fall back on. But there's an empowerment in it, too. The struggle makes success so much sweeter." She tipped her beer at him. "You wouldn't understand that."

  His eyes darkened, but he took the blow without getting all huffy and having to bluster about his many successes to bolster his ego. "You have a point. But I still say that our situations differ."

  "Yes, maybe so. But I don't see why you can't encourage Nikki, since she wants to do something more with her life than shopping and manicures."

  "I am encouraging her. I'm also being cautious."

  "Oh…" Mia waved her hand, feeling frustrated and impotent, the way she used to when she was seventeen. She'd chosen to grab hold of the independence she craved, but the lingering wish to make her parents proud remained. It still ate at her, knowing that from their viewpoint, none of her triumphs had been the right sort.

  "Why don't you just set Nikki free and wish for the best?" Mia said. "That's what I'd do."

  Julian sat across from her, knees bent, denim-clad thighs spread and his feet tucked under his butt. He threw his head back and she watched his Adam's apple move in his throat as he took a large swallow of the beer.

  He lowered the bottle. "It's not that simple. I made a promise to look after her—all of them."

  "I get it. Still, that doesn't mean you pull their puppet strings. You'd hate for your father to do be doing that to you, I bet."

  "How'd you guess?" Julian's smile was nostalgic. "But, you know, he did it anyway, and I'd give anything to have him still doing it."

  "Of course you would." It was different, having your father gone for good versus having him tucked safely away in another world, giving stuffy church sermons and running a vast charity network on the Upper East Side. "I'm sorry—I'm just blowing my mouth off."

  "No, it's good to have a real conversation with a woman."

  She made a face as if she believed he was spouting a line to flatter her, when she tended to believe him. "What kind do you usually have? Superficial?"

  He angled toward her, studying her face very intently. "You don't think very much of me, do you?"

  She tilted back. "I'm starting to."

  "Starting to…?"

  Her
breath came short. "If we're going to be friends, I have to like you, at least. And, well, it's turning out that's not very hard to do. You're a nice man, Julian. Somewhat domineering and arrogant, but nice."

  "Thanks. And you're nice, too. Somewhat goofy and intentionally obtuse, but nice."

  "Obtuse? Gee, thanks."

  "Don't worry. I plan on opening your eyes."

  He'd gotten closer, leaning forward on his arms with his splayed hands bracketing her legs. The heat that was always there between them became thicker, almost humid. Her head sang with warnings, but her only recourse to stay out of range was to drop back onto her elbows, which proved inadvisable. The position put her breasts practically in his face and even though she squirmed, the only place for her legs was on either side of his body. She felt so … open.

  "Have I dominated you?" he asked with a wolfish grin.

  "You are right now, and you know it."

  "Mmm-hmm. And you like it."

  He brushed his face across her stomach, just barely touching. His teeth caught the loose tie of her belt and tugged it free. She clenched inside, wanting him but knowing she should say no, like a dieter being offered a cupcake. Fortunately, she'd already broken her diet.

  The bristles of his light beard scraped between her breasts as he nudged the lapels of her robe open with his nose. "You smell so good," he said with a low growl, rubbing his cheek against her breast.

  Her back arched. Her nipple peaked beneath the thin cotton T-shirt, begging for his attention. An involuntary offer, but one she was no longer capable of taking back. She knew they couldn't be friends—that had been a reach from the beginning, a last straw to grasp so she could justify having him here.

  But why? She'd never felt it necessary to justify sex. Not before Julian. Was it because he was so obviously bad for her? Or…

  Oh hell. The reasons didn't matter. She was already a lost cause.

  Mia reached for the scoop neck of her ribbed tee and pulled it down with one hard yank, baring her left breast. Her heart hammered wildly. This wasn't an offer; it was a blatant inducement.

  Julian's eyes went once to her face before the thick black lashes dropped. He made a reverent humming sound as his lips closed over her nipple. The initial contact was riveting, but then the vibrations went through her as if she were a cello being played by a master. Lovely. She started to melt. To swoon.