held the cup of paint to the side and slid her free hand around to his back. He’d gripped her by the waist and was bending her under the force of his kiss. She arched—terribly, wonderfully conscious of the ache in her breasts as they rubbed against the rough denim of her overalls…the melting sensation between her thighs…
The prodding of a growing hard-on.
Whoa. The man was a quick draw. With a hefty six-shooter, by the feel of it.
“Umm,” Mia said.
Julian took the opportunity to slip his velvet tongue into her mouth. Grape and peppermint. Sugar and spice. Seduction and delusion.
“That’s enough.”
He lifted his head and said, “You’re wrong.” His lips were stained purple from hers. “It’s not enough.” With a wicked quirk of one black eyebrow, he reached for her again.
She plastered a hand to his chest and pushed. “Listen to me. I said no.”
He took his hands off her, straightening up. His eyes were dark and questioning, his hair ruffled, his tie a little askew. Impossibly attractive.
She quivered with frustration. Every inch of her skin was at war with her brain, the nerve endings screaming for appeasement. While she was attuned to her sexuality and usually listened to her body’s needs when a walking advertisement for sex appeal strolled into her life, this was one time where she intended to lead with her head to protect her heart. Given his reputation, Julian Silk was a pleasure she’d have to deny herself.
And she needed to do so in a way that his overblown ego really understood, so that there’d be no teasing, chasing or seducing in their future.
None? A pang of longing ran through Mia like a strummed guitar.
“You didn’t like the kiss?” Julian said, still cocky.
“The kiss was okay.”
“Just okay?”
She shrugged. “If I had to rate it…” That gave her an idea. Oh, she was mean. But it was a perfect pinprick of an idea, sure to let the air out of his balloon.
She thrust a couple of fingers into the cup of paint and swirled them through the purple goo. He smiled when she reached toward his face, as if he expected a reenactment of his smooth move and silken lines. He didn’t even seem to notice when purple drips splattered his tie.
She bypassed his mouth and started finger painting his forehead.
“Hey!” He pulled back. Her fingertips skidded.
“Hold still.”
He gripped her wrist. “What are you doing?”
She continued to stroke the paint over his skin, finishing quickly. “Settling your score.”
“What does that mean?” He let go of her and put a hand up to his brow.
“No, don’t smear it. Go and look in the mirror.”
Frowning quizzically, Julian brushed aside the backdrop screens and went to stand before a wall-hung mirror. He put his hands at his belt and stared at the numbers she’d painted on his brow. “Seventeen?” His eyes glinted. “That’s on a scale of one to ten, I take it?”
“Not exactly.” She pursed her lips, trying to keep from laughing. “You don’t recognize your own number?”
“I wore number twenty when I played soccer in school.”
“Your bachelor number,” she said.
He grew more quiet and less cocky. “Ah.”
She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped off her fingers, the stickiness shredding the fine paper. “See, it’s like this. Maybe if you were number one, or at least in the top five…but seventeen? A girl’s got to set her standards higher than Bachelor Seventeen. I’m sure you understand.”
When he didn’t respond, she wadded the tissue in a tight fist. Maybe she’d been a little hard on him.
Julian turned to look at her with a bemused expression. “What did you do, memorize CG’s entire list of bachelors?”
Mia hesitated. Great. Now he’d think she was a gold digger. “I told you, I hear things.”
That was true, sort of. One of the art models she often hired for body-painting experiments had come in a while back with the bachelor issue of Celebrity Gossip, joking that her accounts were overdrawn and she needed to snare a rich husband. While Mia had painted the model’s skin, they’d flipped through the pages and laughed at the poses of the self-consciously sexy bachelors. There had been several pro athletes displaying their rippling muscles, an indistinguishable clump of Wall Street millionaires, one blue-collar guy for show, a couple of artists and a slew of actors—one of whom the model swore was as fruity as his Hanes briefs.
And then there was Julian. Number Seventeen. CEO of Silk Publications Ltd. and the brilliant mind behind the swift rise of Hard Candy, the glossy lifestyle magazine with a guy-power attitude. Since its inception, Hard Candy had stormed both the newsstands and pop culture trends with its cheeky articles about sex, sports, careers and entertainment, and even cheekier layouts of barely dressed pretty young Miss Thangs.
Mia had lingered over Julian’s page for a minute or two, telling herself that she was only interested because she’d been booked for the Hard Candy cover shoot.
There had been a paparazzi shot of Julian doing the exiting-limo-with-hot-babe thing. One formal portrait of him wearing a serious expression and a suit and tie—probably lifted from his company’s annual report. But the photo that had captured her attention was a candid, taken at the seashore with dunes and a weather-beaten beach house in the distance. Julian was building a sand castle, looking all brown and sun-bleached, wearing nothing but deck shoes and cutoff jeans, one arm wrapped around a little girl with a sun hat pulled down to her jet-black button eyes. The display of his sand-sprinkled muscles had been impressive, but what was most attractive was the sweetness of his kinship with the child—a niece, according to the caption.
“Number Seventeen tries harder,” he said.
Mia laughed and shook her head. “Tempting, but no. I always go for the best.” Oh, her parents would choke if they could hear her! While both of them had always preached modesty, they’d also wanted her to make something of herself—or at least marry very well. She’d disappointed them on all counts.
“Hmm. I’ll keep that in mind for next year, when the new list is released.” Julian sighed and rubbed his chin. “It’s a tough task, but I’ll take it on. Wining, dining, kissing and seducing my way up the list…”
If he was trying to make her jealous, he was succeeding.
Nonsense. She tossed her head. “Whatever. As long as it’s not with me.”
“Certainly not. I may never make it to the Number One slot you require. But a man’s got to try.”
She picked up the heavy toolbox, lugged it toward the door, then thought better and set it down. “Here,” she said, digging into her pocket for another
