TASTE ME

by Carrie Alexander

  "Oh, no. I'm so sorry."

  "Let's skip the maudlin sympathy and go straight to the booze." Cress rummaged around under her sink, in the cabinet they called the wine cellar. He stood and tilted a bottle of whiskey to the light, sloshing its contents. "The good news is that she felt so bad after telling me about the engagement that she agreed to pose for the Sweet campaign."

  "That's great, but…" Mia chewed off a subtle application of lipstick. "I don't want her if your heart is broken."

  "Broken? It's not even bent. Maybe a very small bruise." Cress poured a tumbler half full. "Does that look like two fingers to you?"

  "If you hold them upright."

  "Damn, you're right. Smart girl." He held up the glass. "Here's to Jim Beam and Crawdaddy Warbucks."

  Mia watched with concern as Cress took a big slug of the whiskey, then sputtered as the strong alcohol hit his stomach. For all his talk, Cress was really more mild than wild.

  "I can't stand this." She kicked off her classic black pumps. "I won't leave you feeling this way. I'll call Julian and tell him I'm not going."

  "The hell you will. I didn't spend my evening playing Fairy Godmother only to see you ditch the ball." Cress poured the remainder of his drink down the sink. "There. All better. Maybe I'll self-prescribe some stripper therapy and go stick dollar bills in the thongs at the Queen Nefertiti's."

  Mia wasn't convinced. "Booze and boobs are the only options?"

  "Girl, sometimes you forget that I'm a heterosexual male."

  "No, I don't."

  "Ha! You just let me glue jewels on your cootchie."

  "I did not," she said, feeling better now that he'd reverted to their usual sarcasm. "I was wearing paper panties and I did stop you when you tried to cootchie-coo me, so there's proof that I know you're a man." They were smiling at each other now, with traces of … not quite sadness. Perhaps a rueful acknowledgement of what might have been. Over the years, there'd been moments when they'd thought of being more than friends. Lonely, horny or bored moments, sometimes all three, but one or the other had always stopped. The only time they'd tried to kiss had been a fiasco. Like kissing a brothah, Mia had teased.

  Cress handed her a lipstick. "I'll be okay. Go knock them dead, sweet cheeks."

  The car pulled up outside of the Carson Peabody Museum, a classic limestone edifice with tall windows and a banner proclaiming the new exhibit they were previewing tonight. "We're here," Julian said softly as he took Mia's hand. He looked once more at her unexpectedly sedate appearance. He couldn't decide if he was impressed or disappointed by the change in her.

  Either way, something wasn't right.

  She was checking out the scene in front of the museum. A minor gathering of paparazzi stood around the wide steps, looking bored. Had to be a slow night on the celebrity scene if they were reduced to snapping pix of the museum crowd.

  The gathering wasn't so minor to Mia. She gaped. "There are photographers. I can't go out there."

  Julian made a sound of dismissal. "They're nothing. We can sail right by without stopping."

  She was fussing with the front of her dress where the V neckline showed the merest hint of cleavage. It wasn't like her to be worried about modesty. "I'm not used to this lifestyle."

  "We're a long way from street salvage."

  That drew a smile from her. He patted her hand. "Ready?"

  She swallowed. "I guess so," she said, adding, for no good reason that he could think of, "I hope it's not windy."

  They exited the car without incident and walked past the photographers, who roused themselves to snap a few shots of the new arrivals. A few of them called Julian's name, but he didn't hesitate or even glance their way. He locked his arm around Mia and kept her moving toward the entrance.

  "Hey, girl, gotta name?" one shouted.

  Sensing Mia's uncertainty, Julian gave her squeeze. "Don't answer. Trust me, you'd rather stay anonymous."

  "Will we make the gossip pages?" she asked somewhat breathlessly as they were ushered into an echoing museum foyer where the cold marble elegance could have passed for a mausoleum.

  "It's possible." He shrugged, handing off her cashmere wrap to an attendant. "Do you mind?"

  "Kind of weird, but I don't mind if you don't."

  He realized he didn't. Not with Mia, someone he really cared about for a change, although to the press and the avid readers she would be an anonymous nobody. Unnamed date. No one would be able to tell from looking at her in that proper little dress that she was the one woman who'd knocked him for a loop.

  The party was being held in a couple of exhibit rooms at the front of the museum. Waiters circulated with trays of hors d'oeuvres and champagne. A harpist played music that spilled over the murmuring guests like liquid gold. Julian, in a business suit dressed up with a fresh silk shirt and matching pocket square, and Mia, in the cocktail-length black frock, fit right in with the crowd.

  So he still wasn't sure why his instincts were on edge. Maybe Nikki or Very…? He scanned the crowd for signs of his sisters. They'd expressed no interest in attending the party until he'd mentioned that he was bringing Mia. But he saw no sign of them. Only the waxed silver pompadour of his most conservative board member, Barron Spear.

  "Champagne?" Julian suggested to Mia when a waiter approached them. In moderation, he added silently.

  She shook her head. Her eyes were wide and her mouth looked pinched. "I need to keep my wits about me, as they say."

  They were on the same wavelength, which probably should have worried him.

  "Don't be nervous," he whispered. "There's nothing here to scare you."

  "I might do or say the wrong thing."

  "That wouldn't be the end of the world."

  She blinked at him with some of her old spunk, her mouth pulling into a sassy pucker. "You have no idea of the embarrassing spectacles I'm capable of. Stuff that would curl your hair."

  "At least you'd put some life into this party." He looked up and saw that Spear was approaching, waddling over to them in a double-breasted jacket with waistcoat, his timid little wife scurrying in his wake.

  "Silk," he said. "How do? You know the wife."

  "Good evening, Spear," Julian replied. "Mrs. Spear."

  Spear's sharp eyes went to Mia. "And the little lady?"

  "Mia Kerrigan. Mia, this is Barron and Lorraine Spear. Mr. Spear is on my board of directors."

  She blinked. Straightened her shoulders. "Oh. Nice to meet you."

  They exchanged pleasantries before Spear zeroed in, looking for flaws, Julian imagined. Spear was that type. Pompous, hypocritical, but greedy. "And what do you do, Miss Kerrigan?"

  "I'm a—" She glanced at Julian. "A decorative painter."

  "And a body painter," he added. Barron Spear brought out his perverse instincts.

  Spear's eyes grew so narrow they disappeared. "What's that?" He huffed. "Portraiture?"

  "Not really," Mia said with a tight caution.

  Julian put his arm around her. "She doesn't paint bodies; she paints on them."

  "On them?"

  Mia nodded. "It's an obscure art form."

  "Nudes?" piped Mrs. Spear. Her husband scowled, dropping his chin into his collar. The lacquered silver waves of his pompadour caught the light.

  "I do a lot of advertising work," Mia said, evading the question. She smiled at Mrs. Spear. "Are you an art connoisseur?"

  "Oh yes," said the kind lady, and the two of them launched into a discussion of the current show. Spear listened for a moment with a skeptical expression, then turned his attention toward Julian and a discussion of the projected ad revenues for the next year. Dull, but safe.

  Julian wasn't as relieved as he'd expected to be.

  "That's Mia Kerrigan?" Veronica Silk said in disbelief. She and Nikki stood near the entrance, ready to make their escape. "That's the woman who's supposed to be—what did you call her? Outlandish? Have to say, I'm really not seeing it."

  Nikki sipped her champagne. "I don't
understand. Mia's not usually this subdued. She doesn't even look like the same person."

  "Yeah, well, she probably dressed to please Julian."

  "And she's talking to that horrid man from the board of directors. Look, she got him to smile."

  "Julian seems pleased with her performance." Very slid over a step and tucked her empty glass into the base of one of the potted palms that flanked the archway. "I'm going home. You promised me a good time, but this is no fun at all. There's no one here under the age of thirty except you and me."

  "And Mia."

  "Really? She couldn't be. That's a dress for grownups."

  "At least it's not a rag from someone's attic like yours," Nikki said, eyeing her sister's halter-top mini-dress, a vintage Pucci print in brown and a hot pink that matched the ruff of Very's cockatoo hairstyle. No fashion sense. Punk hair was so out it was almost in again. Almost, but not quite.

  Very set her hands on her hips and cocked the heel of one of her knee-high boots. She yawned hugely. "Either I leave now or I set fire to Barron Spear's hair. You make the call."

  Nikki giggled. "You'd have to launch a bottle rocket to make a dent in that helmet." She craned her neck. "I think … no, they're still talking. Mia must be a bit."

  "Just another standard-issue girlfriend," Very said.

  "No, she's really not. I told you about her body painting, and how she's encouraged me with this article."

  "What's happening with that?"

  "I finished and dropped it off at Hard Candy. They're supposed to let me know any day now." Nikki rubbed below her rib cage. "I get butterflies every time I think about it. What if it's really bad, but they won't tell me because I'm Jules's sister?"

  "Or what if it's really good and they won't buy it because you're Jules's sister?"

  "I can't win," Nikki said glumly.

  "Not without our brother's approval. I don't see why you even try."

  "I'm not going to drop out like you, Very."

  "Don't knock it till you've tried it." Very extended a bony arm and snagged another glass from the tray of a passing waiter. He gave her the eye. She shrugged. "Cute, but too clean-cut."

  "At last," Nikki said, paying more attention to Mia and Julian than her sister. The Spears had finally moved on. She grabbed Very's hand. "Come on. Let's go snag 'em before a docent swoops in asking for another donation."

  "Whatever," Very said, with a bored expression.

  "I'm taking you to Mia's studio," Nikki decided. "I went there for an interview, and she always has these wacky people around, and there's usually music and dancing. They have real conversations, and no one cares about money or fashion. Well, that part is too weird for me, but you'd fit right in…"

  Midway through a conversation with Nikki and her raccoon-eyed sister Veronica, Mia noticed that Julian was on the verge of discovering her secret. He'd been standing close beside her, smiling somewhat dotingly, until she'd leaned forward to speak to Very and the neckline of her dress had gapped.

  First, he'd blinked. Then he'd frowned. And then he'd widened his eyes and looked closely at her front, as if he was trying to see through her dress.

  "Gawd, Jules," Very said. "Could you be any more obvious?"

  He snapped back. "What?"

  Very hooted. "You were trying to look down the front of Mia's dress."

  "No, I wasn't," he insisted. A sheepish grin appeared. "I was trying to figure out what she's wearing underneath it."

  Mia felt her face grow warm as all three of the Silks looked at her, then down at her chest. She stood perfectly still so her breasts would give nothing away.

  Nikki waved a hand. "No bra. So what?"

  "Oh, the scandal," Very said with a dry sarcasm. But she'd perked up.

  "This is none of your business," Julian said firmly. He put his hand at the small of Mia's back. "If you'll excuse us?"

  Uh-oh. Mia went obediently, even though she suspected the jig was up, tossing a quick wave at the Silk sisters as Julian escorted her into the foyer.

  "Mia," he said, looking at her with a serious face. "I should have known that you were being too good to be true."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she said with a flirtatious blink.

  His voice lowered to a thrilling octave. "What's under your dress?"

  "You know," she purred. "You've seen me naked."

  He sighed. "Let me put it this way. If you were naked right now, would you rub off on me?"

  She cocked her head to look up at him. "I think I already have."

  He glanced down at his suit, misunderstanding, saw it was pristine and then caught her twitch of a grin. "Yes, you're right, you have. I find myself doing these outrageous things—body painting, street scavenging, escorting scandalous ladies to museum parties."

  "I've done nothing scandalous," she protested with a light laugh. Oh, this was fun!

  He surprised her by suddenly pulling her into his arms. One of his hands dropped to her behind, copping a judicious feel through the rustling layers of her skirt. "You're not wearing any underwear at all." His fingers searched. "Maybe a thong, at most."

  "Nope," she said blithely. "But no one else guessed. How is that scandalous?"

  "Mia," he said again, trying to sound all stern, but there was a twinkle in his eyes. A very small, very wicked twinkle. "Exactly what do you think you're up to?"

  She tossed her head. "Just teaching you a lesson. I want you to think, next time you see me dressed up in a prim little outfit I wanted to show you that you're not—"

  She drew back to look him in the eyes. "You're not always in control, Julian. Especially not of me. Even if I appear to be absolutely conventional on the outside. Can you live with that?"

  Instead of answering, he reached for her hand. "Come with me."

  She hesitated, but there was little choice, especially when he started walking away. In one direction were the photographers, waiting outside with their cameras, hoping for a newsworthy shot. Little did they know. She threw a glance over her shoulder at the party and saw the stuffy man from the board of directors watching, along with Nikki and Very, both of them nodding and grinning. Well. What could she do but trip-trap as quickly as she could after Julian, smiling to herself at his bossiness? Oh, yes, this was so much fun!

  With linked hands, they made their way deeper into the museum, every sound echoing in the stone-paved halls as they left the harpist and party buzz behind. "Are we allowed?" she whispered, glancing into gated exhibit rooms. "Do you know where you're going?"

  "Yes." They descended a flight of shallow stone steps. At the bottom, he opened double glass doors that matched the pair at the front of the museum. "This is the courtyard garden. Privacy to talk, and I believe there's a back exit bidden away. I can get you home without the photographers' interference, if we need to."

  "Why would we?" she asked, Little Miss Innocence.

  He looked at her breasts and sputtered a nonanswer, for once left without any glib words.

  She walked past him, out onto a courtyard paved in a checkerboard of alternating squares of grass and pebble. Tall trees in gargantuan clay pots ringed the perimeter, disguising the glass-and-brick building that enclosed three sides of the space. The foliage was still lush and green, with some color remaining from the summer's flower plantings. Benches and a few bistro tables with, metal folding chairs were set among the greenery. The focal point of the garden was a sculptural fountain made of twists and arches of copper and steel. Sheets of water cascaded over artfully arranged slabs of slate.

  The wet stone and metal gleamed in the low wattage of the security lights. Cold and hard, Mia thought, walking over to touch a fingertip to the sheet of rushing water. Like Spear's watchful eyes and silver hair. She shivered in the cool air.

  Not for the first time, she was reminded that she really didn't belong here. Even dressed to blend in, she'd always be different.

  "You didn't answer my question," she said.

  "Which was?"

  S
he didn't reply. Not yet. She lifted a hand to the bow at one shoulder, first unsnapping the strap beneath it, then tugging on the end of the satin ribbon. The bow came free, separating the strap. She pressed her knuckles to it, holding the front of her dress up.

  "If you're trying to prove that I'm not in control. A warm velvet chuckle tumbled out of Julian. "Oh, Mia. That hasn't been in doubt since the day I met you. I have no control with you."

  "This isn't only about sex."

  "But that's a big part of it." He walked toward her, silent as he stepped from grass square to square, the black knight on a chessboard, come to defend the queen. Defend … or besiege?

  "Not the heart of the matter. It's about acceptance." A pebble skittered under her heel as she took a step back. The water rushed in a constant stream. Leaves rustled in the night air. Her heart pounded like a drumbeat in her chest as she undid the other bow.

  "What do you think of me," she whispered, "when I look like this?"

  She let the bodice fall to her waist, baring her breasts to the cool night air, naked except for the lace pattern she'd painted over herself in the shape of a flirty little bra.

  * * *

  11

  For a few seconds, the soft shush of the fountain was the only sound.

  Julian was thunderstruck. He'd glimpsed the flash of a tiny diamond inside Mia's dress, and he'd thought there had been paint, as well. But to see her like this, absolutely bold and unashamed—her beautiful body exposed, lush curves, tight tips, naked but not, ivory skin glowing in the moonlight, the trick of the lace pattern making his head whirl … well…

  He couldn't seem to take it all in.

  His knees almost buckled as he walked toward her.

  With shaking hands, he took the front of her dress and raised it over her incredible nudity. "Cover up—"

  She inhaled, catching her tip with her teeth. "Then that's your answer." Crossing her arms over her breasts to hold the bodice in place, she turned away, the hurt evident in the downcast sorrow of her face.

  "No," he said. "That's not my answer. I just didn't want anyone to see—"