His Brand of Beautiful

by Lily Malone

  Two screens of those do-gooder headlines and he’d logged out in disgust.

  Tate shrugged his arms out of his jacket and kicked off his shoe— a little too vigorously. It tumbled under her bed.

  He swore and bent to retrieve it. Groping across the carpet, his hand hit a paperback instead and knocked the book out. The blonde on the cover had his interest in a heartbeat.

  White bed. White bra. White stockings. Tate opened at a dog-eared page.

  Jesus.

  Blood rushed to his groin. He had a sudden flash of Christina on the bed beside him, her body bare and beautiful, lips moving as she read aloud from the page.

  He shoved the book back like it burned his hand.

  “She’s not your type, schmuck.”

  Christina was soft, manicured, city. Put her under the Australian outback sun and she’d wilt like a glasshouse fern.

  He stared at the door, at the fluffy white robe hanging from a hook in the Baltic pine.

  Smart thing to do would be walk right out through that door. Problem was, he didn’t feel like being smart. Not right now.

  His eyes lit on an empty packet of fake fingernails on her bedside table.

  “Fake it, till you make it,” he told himself, loosening his tie.

  ****

  When Christina entered the kitchen, heads snapped up. One look at the expression on her face was enough to get every woman churning through her handbag in search of lipstick.

  “He’s that good, CC?” said Lacy Graham, twirling on a chrome-legged bar stool at the kitchen bench. A black velvet cap with Hens’ Night scripted in shining sequins squashed her dark curls and from the stem of her champagne flute a red and white tag fluttered, marked Bride-to‐be—Refill now.

  Christina gave Lacy’s shoulder a squeeze. “Thank me any time. You’ll be so glad I didn’t leave it at dinner and dancing. That would have been so tame.”

  Marlene Langton, a thick-bodied woman with hair the colour and texture of a fluffy tabby cat, put her fingers to her mouth and whistled.

  Lacy poked her tongue at her colleague. “Don’t get too excited, Marls. I am so not pulling his zip down with my teeth.”

  “Finish this and you might.” Annabell refilled her sister’s glass.

  “No one’s pulling zippers down with their teeth,” Christina said with finality, parking her own Hens’ Night cap on her head without needing a mirror to get the angle just right. If anyone attacked Tate’s zipper she was pretty sure she’d have to kiss her brand consultation goodbye.

  Christina retrieved her glass, tapped her fingernails on the flute just to hear the crystal peals and thought about the scratch of stubble she’d felt when she kissed Tate’s cheek.

  Lacy narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “What’s your story, CC? I haven’t seen that look on your face in years; not since—”

  “Leave it, Lace,” she said, anticipating Lacy’s next words. Not since Bram.

  “You know he’ll be at the wedding, don’t you? Michael couldn’t not invite him.”

  “I know. It’ll be fine, don’t worry. I promise not to throw my drink over him.” She took a sip of champagne. Flat. The rest hit the bottom of the kitchen sink and fizzed as it slid down the drain. She didn’t want to think about Bram. It was more fun thinking about Tate.

  And stubble. And zippers.

  Lacy’s smile broadened. “You sly dog. And with my stripper too. I should take a spotter’s fee.”

  “Stow it, Lace. Between the new brand and this charity run you’ve conned me into, who has the energy for a bloke?”

  Lily Malone

  Lacy laughed. “You Clays are obsessed. Michael makes me brainstorm brand names every night before bed. I’m sleep-talking wine brands.”

  “Did he tell you the latest?”

  “Where is this gorgeous stripper when I need him?” Lacy pleaded. Then she sighed and waved her hand: “Oh, go on then. You won’t give up until you get it off your chest.”

  “I thought we could tie the new brand to a program sponsoring Aboriginal kids—”

  Lacy nearly choked on her drink. “Are you sure, CC? That’s a pretty touchy subject.”

  “And this is why I need a brilliant strategist! Most people will think exactly how you just did, Lace. But my idea is to use the brand proceeds to sponsor a work experience program for Aboriginal kids. Let’s say kids from Alice Springs could come down to our vineyard and spend a month with us in a workplace program learning new skills. Something like that. What do you think?”

  A champagne cork exploded in the adjoining room. Lacy gulped the last of her drink.

  “I think: thank you God for saving my poor brain. That’s my cue.”

  Lacy ripped through sheets of butcher’s paper covering French doors and hurled them open. The girls poured around her shoulders into the lounge, squealed at the squadron of artist’s easels squatting like teepees on the carpet, squealed again when they spotted the man in their midst.

  “Well hello Handsome…” Marlene said, stopping in the centre of the room like she’d walked into a bus.

  Christina almost tramped Marlene’s heels. She peered around the bigger woman’s beefy elbow.

  “Ladies.” Tate stepped from her white leather couch, a champagne bottle in one sinewy hand.

  The beautiful blue silk shirt was unbuttoned and it billowed as he walked, flaring around a desert dune six-pack and the long lines of a sculpted chest. His tie hung loose over his shoulders. Liquid frothed as he poured champagne for each guest.

  There was an easel near the French doors where torn butchers’ paper curled to the floor and Tate gestured Christina to it with an open hand. As she turned, his thumb kissed her spine.

  “And here I was worrying you might not be up to the gig. You should give up your day job. Man, you can act!”

  “Don’t you know the number one secret of any public performance? You just imagine your audience is naked.”

  She had no witty retort.

  Christina reached for a tube of paint to give her hands something to do so they wouldn’t bury themselves in the smatter of crisp hair across his chest. The cap came away in her fingers and a toothpaste-curl of blood-red paint oozed from the tube like a scrawling red worm. The tube clattered from her fingers to the tray and the cap bounced and skidded to the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” His eyes probed.

  “Nothing,” she said, just a little too fast, fighting the bloody memories now trying to claw their way out of her head. The paint looked like—

  No. I’m not going there.

  She tapped her watch and pulled on her brightest smile. “I hate to be boring but we’d better get this party started.”

  “I don’t think you could ever be boring,” he said, and his eyes locked on hers as he shrugged out of his shirt and turned away, spearing his shirt and tie at her couch.

  Christina was certain hers wasn’t the only jaw to drop.

  “You!” He beckoned Lacy, straddling the nearest bar stool. “Come meet your canvas.”

  It took Christina a few seconds to match his words with his actions but Lacy had it figured in a heartbeat. She slipped between his legs. He placed a paintbrush in her hand, guided it into a thick whirl of paint then levered the loaded brush towards his abdomen. The movement held the latent power of a building-site crane.

  A custard-yellow ribbon inched across Tate’s stomach. Lacy finished with a flourish, reached for a clean brush and a new colour, and with those actions, every woman in the room started attacking her easel like a budding Picasso.

  In minutes, Lacy had painted a riot of colour on Tate’s chest. He almost sacrificed his suit pants—would have—if Marlene hadn’t rushed forward to tuck a towel behind his waist.

  Twenty minutes later he called a halt. “Okay ladies, down tools. Let’s see what you’ve done.”

  Christina clutched her paintbrush in her hand, stared at her easel and wished the brush was a magic wand she could wave to make it all go away.

 
“You’re strangling your brush. Hold it loose. It will lengthen your stroke.” Tate stepped around her easel. “I give up. What the heck is that?”

  “It’s supposed to be my perspective of Lacy’s back between your legs. Go on, you can say it. It looks like a jellyfish.”

  “Call it abstract, no one will know,” he stared at her masterpiece. “I thought you said your mother was an artist?”

  “Saffah is an artist.” Then she clarified: “She’s my stepmother, actually.”

  “So that explains how you failed kindergarten art class.”

  “Richard—that’s my father—hasn’t got an artistic bone in his body. Neither do I. I was crap at art in pre-school. I haven’t improved with age.”

  “Not like your wines then?”

  “My brother’s the winemaker. He got all the artistic talent. He can’t dance though.

  Two left feet. He’s been petrified about the bridal waltz for months.” She smiled. “I’m the business brain. Michael’s my half-brother, Richard and Saffah’s son. Lacy’s fiancè.”

  Tate rubbed his chin and moved his gaze from her face to her painting. “You’re mixing too many colours. Do that long enough and everything turns calf-crap brown.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Mr Newell. Or should I say, Mr Rubens?”

  His blue eyes seemed to pin her in place. “Of all the Masters you could choose… why Rubens? I mean, there’s Da Vinci. Van Gogh. Rembrandt?”

  She thought about lying, then raised her chin: “I like the way Rubens drew his nudes.”

  “Hmm.” Tate ran a finger along the top of her easel. “So do I. He drew his women real. And it’s Sir.”

  A little acid slipped into her tone. “You’re letting this acting gig go to your head, Sir Newell.”

  Laughter rumbled from his chest, the most genuine sound she’d heard from him all night. “Not me, wise-arse. It’s Sir Rubens.”

  Another giggle bubbled from her lips. His eyes dropped to her mouth and she felt her heart start impersonating a bouncing rubber ball.

  Lily Malone

  “I thought you looked hungry,” Marlene interrupted, snuggling as close as she could to Tate’s chest without getting covered in paint, a loaded plate in her hands. He picked up a baguette, tore a crust then dipped it into a bowl of olive oil and balsamic glaze. A drop of olive oil fell to the hand he cupped beneath the bread.

  Christina tried not to watch him chew—his mouth was way too distracting. But that meant she found herself ogling his chest—and that didn’t help her heart rate either.

  In the end, she chose to check out the other girls’ paintings. The good thing about this was it gave her new angles to surreptitiously study the tattoo on Tate’s bicep. What was that? Some type of lizard?

  “Christina?”

  She jumped. “Sorry?”

  “Can you write everyone’s name on a piece of paper and put them in here?” Tate emptied an ice bucket into her sink. While she scribbled, he tapped on a wine glass and announced to the room: “I’m going to pick two names out of this bucket. The first person I pick gets to name a dare that the second person I pick has to do. Okay?”

  The room hushed.

  Tate dipped his hand. His watch scratched the edge of the bucket. He pulled out a scrap of paper, flicked it with a finger, looked up and smiled. “Marlene.”

  Marlene Langton clapped her hands like a kid at Christmas. “The next person you draw out of that bucket has to lick the paint off your nipples.”

  “Marlene!” Christina blurted.

  Lacy’s mother’s plump hand shot skyward and she shouted: “Pick me, oh pick me!”

  Christina began: “I really don’t think Tate signed on to have his nipples—”

  “What CC?” Marlene challenged. “Is licking nipples too wild for you?”

  Obviously they’d all had too much champagne to listen to any voice of authority. “It’s not too wild for me, Marls. It might be too wild for him.” She threw Tate a hopeful look. “I’m sure it’s against your union rules or something.”

  “No rules in my union.” He gave her a grin that would have corrupted Snow White.

  She wanted to slap him.

  “Come on, CC,” Annabell pleaded, eyeing Tate’s chest like it was chocolate coated.

  She couldn’t blame the girls, they didn’t know Tate wasn’t Nate, or that she had to work with this guy. And God knew he’d played the gig like a pro. Unless she wanted to be the biggest party pooper on the planet, she had no choice.

  “Oh, go on then.” The chief executive inside her hoped like hell it wasn’t her name he picked. The woman? Well, she wasn’t so sure. Christina crossed her fingers for luck.

  Tate dipped his hand in the bucket. He picked a scrap of paper out. When he looked up and their eyes met, a giant fist twisted her insides into rope.

  “Chris tin a.” He made those three syllables sound elastic.

  “Yes! There is a God,” Lacy yelled.

  Christina’s palm whacked so hard against her sternum, it hurt. “I can’t lick paint. It’s toxic.”

  “Lacy used edible body paints,” Tate said, parking his backside on the bar stool. “I made sure.”

  She couldn’t seem to catch a breath and every time she tried it felt more like a shudder.

  “Come on, CC! You’ve kissed a frog for a good cause. You can lick a bloke’s nipple!”

  Lacy said.

  “That frog was endangered,” Christina groaned.

  Eileen Graham hollered: “Forget the damn frog. I’m the one in danger here. Of self-combusting!”

  “Let’s redraw with all our names in the hat,” Marlene suggested, whip in hand, tapping the fluffy pink pass-the‐parcel handcuffs still wrapped in their box and bow.

  “Over my dead body, Marlene,” Lacy said with a wink. “Christina’s not chicken. Not Miss I’ll-try‐anything-once.”

  “And I thought tonight wasn’t about me.” Christina’s legs felt like lead weights. She dared a glance at Tate’s face and caught a flash of the grin he tried to hide.

  He doesn’t think I’ll do it. It was enough. He didn’t know her. He had no idea what she was capable of. With that thought strong in her head, she straightened her spine.

  She stepped between his legs and grasped a bicep in each hand, not caring when he winced. Her right hand partly obscured his tattoo—the lizard’s tail swept below her thumb.

  Yellow paint—a lemon or maybe the sun—mocked her from his right nipple. Strands of chestnut hair escaped her cap and fell across his shoulder and she scooped them with one hand, trapped them against her cheek. His breath grazed her forehead.

  “Your fingers are freezing,” he said.

  “Bet her tongue isn’t,” someone mumbled, maybe Lacy’s mum.

  “Here goes nothing.” Christina moistened her lips with her tongue, closed her eyes and bent lower. The smell overwhelmed every other sense—banana, raspberry, citrus—it was like stuffing her nose in a child’s fifty-cent bag of lollies.

  She poked her tongue out and searched for his skin.

  ****

  It felt like she’d tasered him with her tongue.

  Her fingernails were embedded in his bicep like claws. The sting was a good thing, he needed the distraction.

  Christina lifted her head and licked her lips. “Mmm. Banana. You’re all just jealous.”

  He heard Marlene roar: “I said lick the paint off his nipples, CC. Clean them up!”

  There was a rustle of skirts and nylon as the girls jostled for a better view.

  Christina surveyed his chest, her head tilted to one side and when she ducked lower, a loose hair tickled his throat. She licked his right nipple, once. Did it again. Then he felt the same silky slide across his left and he wondered how the hell he was meant to stay still when all he wanted to do was taste her like she tasted him.

  He never thought she’d take up Marlene’s dare. Never thought she’d do it. Talk about a way to break the ice. Looked like the joke was on him.
<
br />   Her hip bumped his inner thigh. “Chocolate.”

  Someone muttered: “Get a room.”

  When the doorbell buzzed he didn’t know whether to thank God or curse him. One of Lacy’s sisters said: “The Limo’s here.”

  “Actually, that Limo is a fully restored 1955 S1 Bentley.” Christina stepped back. Her finger brushed a fleck of brown paint from her lips. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. She turned instead to find Lacy.

  “You hired me a ’55 Bentley?” Lacy threw her arms around Christina’s neck.

  Lily Malone

  “There’s another bottle of bubbles and fresh glasses in the car,” Christina murmured to her. “I’ll just settle the—” she swallowed —“bill.”

  “Don’t be long,” Lacy responded, loading a sideways glance at Tate. “I don’t want my mother pissed before we even get to the Club.”

  “Thank you.” The bride-to‐be said to him as she kissed his cheek. Then she raced for the door, caught Marlene—hovering with a wet towel and welcoming smile—around the neck and dragged her from the room. Eager hands found bags and coats. Heels slapped down the hall.

  Only Christina hadn’t moved.

  The front door clicked shut. For the first time since she’d touched his body with her tongue—and that thought stoked the flame in his belly—green eyes locked with his.

  “What the heck just happened?” Her words were slow and thick, like cooling caramel. Her eyes huge and—was that frightened?

  He closed the space between them.

  His fingers found the smooth ear lobe beneath the rim of her velvet cap; traced the outline of her cheek and like a cat responding to its owner’s pat she returned the pressure.

  Her eyes closed under a curl of the longest damn lashes he’d ever seen.

  “Lucky frog.” He traced her lower lip with his thumb.

  Her eyes opened, the iris ringed in a thin rim of charcoal. “What?”

  “Lucky frog. To get to kiss those lips.”

  She laughed, a little shaky. “That frog wasn’t lucky. It was stuffed. That’s why the cameraman—”

  He let his hand fall. “You kissed a fake endangered frog?”