Taste Me. Carrie Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ and the air brush. “Bring the vanilla paint and the gelatin glaze. We need to layer another coat on Angelika’s southern hemisphere.”

      “Have glaze, will travel to uncharted territories,” Cress muttered as he followed her to the set. “Just like Lewis and Clark.”

      Mia began to spray the model’s striped thighs. “Or Stanley and Livingstone.”

      “Livingstone got lost in the jungle. I’ve never met a thicket I couldn’t conquer.” Cress smiled at the model. “Isn’t that right, my angel?”

      Angelika giggled. Most models giggled around Cress, who first made them his friends and then got them to take him home. He claimed that once they were in bed together, the typical supermodel soon forgot that they had six inches of height on him. His prowess supposedly dazzled them. Mia believed that his girlfriends had a shortage of brain cells to start with.

      “Mmm-hmm.” Mia pointed the nozzle of her spray gun at the twenty-one-year-old’s plucked pubis and squeezed the trigger. Usually, the models wore tiny unobtrusive thongs no bigger than an eye patch, but going without produced a cleaner look.

      When a model was willing to pose sans thong, Mia was careful to shoot only tastefully arranged poses. While she had much appreciation for the sensual aspects of body painting, gratuitous salaciousness frosted her cookies. Her art came first, not Hard Candy’s horn-dog target audience.

      She shot a glare at the gaggle of onlookers. Huh. Several were edging closer, wanting a better look at the tempting display. Mia turned her backside to them while she worked, deliberately blocking their view of Angelika. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with the sniggers and bawdy comments that were typical of a nonprofessional audience.

      “Okay, looks like we’re good,” she said a few moments later, after Cress had made a final pass with the protective gelatin glazing medium.

      The photographer darted in and adjusted a peppermint-swirl candy by an infinitesimal degree. “Now we’re good. Clear set!”

      Mia rolled her eyes at Cress as she backed away. She bumped into one of the spectators, who put his hand on her butt and said, “Careful, sweet cheeks.”

      Gross. Pretending to be startled, Mia whirled around and let go with a spurt of the cherry-flavored paint. It sprayed across the starched shirtfront and loosened tie of a tall, dark-haired man, barely missing another of the onlookers when he lunged out of the way.

      “Hey!” the lunger said. He brushed at the sleeve of an expensive suit. “Watch what you’re doing. You might have stained my Hugo Boss.”

      Although she’d been on the verge of a smart retort, Mia snapped her mouth shut. She recognized the voice of the man she’d missed as the one who’d made the “sweet cheeks” comment and had assumed he was also the ass-patter. Wrong.

      She aimed an apologetic shrug at the man she’d sprayed and was startled to recognize him. He was the guy who’d arrived late and stared so intently that he’d broken her concentration. Quite an achievement. Typically, she lost herself in the artwork and had to be snapped out of her trance by Cress or an extremely fatigued model.

      “Uh,” she said. “Sorry about that.”

      “Me, too,” he replied. “I didn’t mean to grab your butt. I was just trying to stop you from backing into me.”

      She felt less sorry, but he was smiling at her, and his smile was pretty damn charming, so she wasn’t mad, either. His voice was nicer than the other guy’s, too. Deep, rich and smooth, like buttered rum. There was something familiar about his face. Maybe she’d run into him at another shoot?

      Even so, he was only a suit. Albeit a cherry-flavored suit.

      “I’ve wrecked your shirt.” Mia reached for his arm. “Come over here, we’ll get you cleaned up.”

      “Shouldn’t I lick myself clean, like a cat?” the man said, letting her lead him to her table. He lifted the end of his tie to his mouth and took an experimental taste. His mouth puckered. “Uh, maybe not. I thought the paint’s supposed to be edible.”

      “Technically it is,” Mia said. “But I wouldn’t want to eat it with a spoon.” She squeezed out one of the soapy sponges they kept on hand. “We’re more concerned with looks and application than the actual taste.”

      “So it’s not a good idea if I set the Sugar High execs loose on—” the man nodded toward Angelika “—our holiday treat?”

      Mia glanced sharply at him while she dabbed at his tie. “That would be in bad taste all the way around.”

      “I was kidding.”

      “Of course you were.” She tossed the tails of the tie over his shoulder, trying not to notice how wide and square it was. She normally wasn’t attracted to the men who huddled in conference at photo shoots, even when they were distractingly gorgeous. But this one had more than a thoroughbred body and a handsome face. He possessed black-licorice eyes struck with starbursts of good humor and the male version of a Mona Lisa smile. He was self-aware, not merely self-involved like the usual suit.

      Then he ruined it by saying, “I’m Julian Silk,” as if she should be impressed.

      Julian Silk? Uh-oh. She’d spray-attacked the man who’d be signing her current paycheck.

      Never mind, she told herself, remembering that she wasn’t impressed with either power or money. She’d decided that nine years ago when she’d chosen art school instead of the Ivy League, despite her parents’ protests. She’d been on her own ever since.

      “Hey, wow,” she said. “Congratulations.”

      Mr. Silk gave a surprised half laugh. “Congratulations for what?”

      “The stork must have loved you.” Mia tilted her head. “Being born into the Silk family is a little like winning the lottery, don’t you think? If I’m impressed, it’s only by your luck.”

      “That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.”

      She plucked at his shirtfront to hold it away from his body while she scrubbed at the stain. Mr. Silk stood quite still, but not tense, nor embarrassed. Perfectly casual and unconcerned, as if he were used to being attended to. Which, of course, he was. The man was so sharp and well put together that there had to be a team of tailors, barbers, workout gurus and maybe even plastic surgeons at his behest.

      He made a motion, lifting his hand to his lips and then flinging it away.

      She squinted an eye at him. “What are you doing?”

      “Taking the silver spoon out of my mouth so you’ll talk to me.”

      Behind her, Mia heard Cress smother a laugh. “It would be extremely idiotic of me to be rude to the man who can have me hired and fired,” she said.

      “Then you know who I am.”

      She sighed. “Now I do.”

      “After I told you.” He ruminated on that, lifting one corner of lips so handsomely carved they belonged in the Louvre. “Dumb move. I was enjoying the anonymity.”

      “Uh-huh.” СКАЧАТЬ