A Little Night Music (30 page)

Sarabeth dipped her hands in the bowl of water and raised them again. She trailed her fingers along the ridges of muscle, outlining them, defining them. Nipples bloomed to life beneath her fingertips. She circled the hard nubs, fingernails tweaking ever so gently. Her breath hissed between her teeth.

Oh, yes.

A drop of water trailed down, hesitating at the crease of his thigh, and she longed to follow it with her tongue. She licked her lips again, and flicked the droplet away from the crisp hair with her thumb.

Teasingly, she tickled his belly button, smoothing her fingertip around the indentation. Beneath it, a treasure trail of hair pointed down. But she wasn’t ready to go there yet.

Not just yet…

Another douse in the water, and her hands slipped along his narrow waist, resting briefly on the sharp hipbones. He had a birthmark on his left hip. She touched the crescent moon shape like a blind woman reading Braille, sensitive skin sending distinct signals to her brain.

Erotic signals.

Was it getting hot in the room? She felt sweat trickle down her own back, but she was too intent on the body before her to stop and open a window.

She outlined the six-pack muscles of his abdomen, her own stomach fluttering at the touch. She longed to have him touch her in the same way, to feel his strong hands caress her flesh.

Evanescence’s lead singer wailed about her immortal.

He
was her immortal, Sarabeth thought. He consumed her senses. But right now, she was the one with the power.

Now.

Now was the time to touch him, really touch him. Touch him for the first time. She’d been waiting so long. Her hands trembled again, from anticipation and the barest frisson of fear. So long she’d waited. Another moment, and there would be no going back. Some women could, but she couldn’t. Once she started, she was committed, all the way to completion.

She pressed against the hard muscles in his thighs, closed her eyes, imagined. Then she dipped her hands in the water again and closed them around his manhood.

She coaxed, gently at first and then with more assurance, bringing him to life between her palms. Long, firm. Not too thick. She wrapped her fingers around him, analyzing the circumference. Stroking his length from end to tip, she marveled at how perfectly he fit in her grasp.

She pressed her thumbs along the smooth ridge of his proud head, shaping the smooth mushroom cap. The veins beneath caught her attention, and the ridge just below the head. She caught her tongue in her teeth as she worked her ministrations.

Leaning in so close that she could smell him, she cupped the twin sacs, massaging gently. But he distracted her, and she couldn’t stop herself from gently stroking him again.

Her breath came in shorter gasps as she neared completion.

God, he
was
perfect.

Sarabeth stepped back and beheld her creation, what she had brought to life with her own hands.

She glanced out the window at the billboard that stretched across the building opposite: an advertisement for Noir for Him cologne. The model regarded her with eyes filled with sensual promised. He was shirtless, his jeans unbuttoned just far enough and the bulge below outlined just enough to tantalize the imagination of any straight woman between sixteen and, well, dead.

Her eyes flicked between the billboard and the clay torso on the pedestal in the middle of her studio. She’d didn’t think she’d taken too much artistic license by making him nude—and hard.

*

Michael was early for his date with Jill. The mâitre d’ took him to a table in the brick courtyard, which was framed by palms that shaded the diners from the sun but still allowed some peeking by the rabble on the street.

It was just the type of place Jill would choose. Just the type of place Michael preferred to avoid like the proverbial plague.

He didn’t have to wait long in the dappled Los Angeles sunshine before Jill arrived. He rose as she approached the table. The statuesque redhead turned her head slightly, allowing him to kiss her cheek while at the same time showing her best profile to any fans on the street, any paparazzi with cameras she hoped would be trained on them.

He felt her coolness. He knew before his butt hit the chair again that they were over.

“You do understand, don’t you?” Jill laid a hand over his. Intimate, but not too intimate.

“I do,” he said. He waited for sadness to come, perhaps even anger to sting, but all he felt was a small hint of regret.

He’d met Jill when his face, if not his name, was already a household feature (it was the jeans ad spread in
Esquire
that had done it, paired with the beer commercial during the Superbowl that had more women watching football than ever before) and she had been a rising star.

Now he was still a household feature, but her first movie (in which she’d played the ingénue sidekick) had fired the public’s interest, and her second, which she’d just finished filming, had everyone abuzz.

Jill toyed with her salad fork. Most of the salad remained in her dish. He’d tucked into his grilled ahi without a problem—a guy still had to eat. The teriyaki-wasabi sauce had been exquisite.

“We had some good times, didn’t we,” she asked, her smile fond.

“We did,” he agreed. “Next you’re probably going to say that you hope we can be friends, and—” he held up a hand to forestall her “—the answer is, yes, we can.”

He’d known, all along and deep down, that at least part of what attracted her to him was that on his arm, she would be noticed. At his side, her career had the chance to bloom. Despite that, towards the beginning of their relationship he’d thought that they might have had a chance at something bigger.

The sex had been great. They’d had a fine rapport out of bed, sharing a taste in movies (even if she’d dragged him to every premiere in the hopes of camera time), imported beer, and antique glass.

But her latest movie shoot had been on location in Prague for nine months, and every time he’d offered to visit, the timing had never been right for her. He’d started to wonder…

Lunch over. Relationship over. Their goodbye kiss was on par with a handshake ending a business transaction.

No sadness. Just regret, and a level of weariness, like a heavy comforter threatening to smother him.

Was it too much to ask for a woman who wanted him for
him
, not what his celebrity status could do for her? Someone who could see beyond the hunky male model?

He walked Jill to her new, cherry red Jag, then left the parking garage alone.

Ah well. It left him with the afternoon free to go for a run on the beach before he getting ready to meet Brad for another art gallery opening that his friend was dragging him to.

*

“Well, how do I look?”

Sarabeth danced out from behind the carved teak screen that separated her bedroom area from the living area of her loft. She posed, preening, one hip thrust forward to accentuate her leg.

“Like you’re going to bring men to their knees tonight,” her best friend, Anya, said. “Damn, you’re hot enough to turn a straight woman.”

The corset top, purple satin covered with black lace, molded to Sarabeth’s figure, while the attached short, flippy, purple chiffon skirt showed off her legs to great advantage and hinted at the lace tops of her black thigh high stockings.

“Oh, as if you’re not wearing your prowling outfit,” Sarabeth retorted. Her friend had gone the Goth-punk-schoolgirl route, with a short, pleated plaid skirt, fishnets, and boots; perversely, she smelled of White Shoulders.

But Anya was already, as usual, distracted, disappearing into Sarabeth’s studio space.

“I want to see the latest—the one you said had you all hot and bothered,” Anya’s voice came through from behind the white sheets that hung to bisect the loft.

“I’m not quite ready to show it to anybo—”

Anya screamed in delighted horror.

“—show it to anybody, but I take it you’ve already found it.” Sarabeth pushed aside the drapes and found Anya in front of the sculpture.

“Oh my god oh my god! I can’t believe you
did
that!”

Sarabeth grinned. “Yeah, well, it was kind of an afterthought.”

“
That
could never be an afterthought.” Anya ran to the window and stared out at the billboard lit against the darkness, then came back to where Sarabeth and the lifelike sculpture stood. The statue was just the torso, but if Sarabeth had given it a head—the head atop the neck, that is—they would have been staring into each other’s eyes.

Lustfully.

“It’s your best yet,” Anya said. “Are you really going to show it? I mean, it really looks like him. The birthmark is a dead giveaway.”

Sarabeth blinked herself out of her reverie. At this rate, she was going to have to change her thong before they left for the gallery opening.

How many times had she made herself come while staring at his image, while imagining his touch? She treated her videotape of his beer commercial like a porn flick.

Fantasies could be dangerous, but she’d thought this one was safe enough. Until all of her work started looking like him.

Until this piece, where she’d taken it farther than ever before.

“I don’t know,” she said, finally answering Anya’s question. “I know I’m pushing it with the birthmark. I could cover it up, I suppose.”

She didn’t want to. She wanted to press her lips to the curved moon, and feel the tremble of hot flesh.

Anya’s hand hovered over the statue’s erection.

“No touching. It’s not dry,” Sarabeth warned.

“When it’s dry, could I touch it, oh pretty please? I could put this to good use.”

“What if it broke?” Sarabeth asked reasonably.

“Dildo!” Anya shouted, spinning around in a giddy circle.

Sarabeth’s brain clicked off as she imagined a dildo shaped like her fantasy man.

Yep. Definitely time to go change that thong.

*

“She really dumped you?” Brad looked appropriately sympathetic. “Sheez, if she’ll dump someone like you, I don’t stand a chance.”

“Nope,” Michael said. “You don’t have nearly enough Hollywood clout for her.”

The art gallery was Brad’s baby; he handled the displays and special shows while a semi-silent partner dealt with the money matters. Brad’s tastes tended towards classical art, but he still allowed for a variety of styles, just to be fair.

The gallery was in a former Hollywood hotel, retaining much of its Art Deco décor. The grand lobby—now the main exhibit space—had etched glass and terrazzo floors, and graceful arched metal women flanking the fireplace. Ferns hung in gilt baskets; light jazz filtered from hidden speakers.

To go with the theme, Brad favored a white waistcoat and black bowtie. It somehow worked with his close-cropped blond hair and grey eyes.

“It’s because you told her you want to quit, isn’t it?” Brad asked.

“I never told her that.”

Brad was, in fact, the only person that Michael had told. When you’d been friends from someone since childhood, you had that kind of rapport. He’d never really had the chance to tell Jill, anyway. Which said something right there about their relationship.

It wasn’t as if he wanted to completely quit modeling. It wasn’t awful, and the money was, in fact, incredible. He liked that a lot. But more and more, he wanted to be behind the camera.

He knew his photographs were good. Brad had been bugging him to do a display at the gallery, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. He didn’t want to feel that he’d gotten the showing because his friend co-owned the place. He’d do it when it felt right and he felt ready.

“You can do both, you know,” Brad said. “Look at Viggo Mortensen—you know, that Aragon guy.”

“Aragorn.”

“Whatever. Apparently he also paints, writes poetry, yadda yadda. A real medieval man.”

“Renaissance man.”

“Whatever.”

“I suppose.” Michael snagged a flute of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray and sipped it. Good stuff, he thought appreciatively. “People already took him seriously as an actor, though. It’s different with me. They tend to assume I don’t have a brain in my pretty little head.”

“Most guys don’t have brains in their
little
heads.” Brad snorted into his champagne. “Sorry. I know you’re being serious. So prove ‘em wrong—show them you’ve got an MBA
and
artistic talent to boot.”

“I’m thinking of doing it under my real name. At least that would be one good thing to come out of the pseudonym.” Michael hated that he’d naively caved in to his agent’s pressure and taken on a “stage name.” She swore it would ruin his career if he changed back to his own name. He wasn’t sure he believed her, but he knew the transition would be tricky.

“And then, when you’re famous for the photography, you can come out,” Brad continued. “Well, not like that, but you know what I mean. Use both names, like John Cougar Mellencamp did.”

“Brad,” Michael said carefully, “what’s my public name?”

“Michael Steele.”

“And what’s my real name?”

“Michael Barr.”

“And what happens if you put them together like John Cougar Mellencamp?”

“Michael Steele Ba… Oh.” Brad pressed his lips together, obviously trying not to laugh.

Michael shook his head and took another sip of champagne.

And nearly choked when he saw her.

He’d thought he’d been sexually attracted to Jill. Compared to his reaction to the woman across the room, his feelings for Jill had been as if he’d been a Puritan. And she’d been his Puritan sister.

His mystery woman—and, amazingly, he already thought of her as “his”—had a certain resemblance to Catherine Zeta-Jones in “Chicago”: similar black bobbed hair, just a little longer; ripe, dark, kissable lips; sultry eyes that, even though they hadn’t turned in his direction, were enough to pierce through him. But he would walk right by Ms. Zeta-Jones (whom he’d met once, at a party, and who had been positively delightful) for the woman across the room.

The top of her dress harkened back to the Victorian era, but there was nothing prudish about how the corset, with its satin-and-lace straps, hugged her waist and pressed her breasts upward like a creamy offering.