Carrie Alexander - Taste Me (Sex & Candy, No. 3 Harlequin Blaze, No. 147)

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T he wet paintbrush hovered above the woman's bare breast, then dabbed down, adding another coating of goop to her perky nipple so it looked like a shiny red cherry. A glistening globule broke free and rolled along the curve of the most perfectly shaped breast Julian Silk had ever seen. He could hardly believe his eyes.

"Damn!" The artist pressed her finger to the painted breast to stop the runaway drip, making the woman's flesh jiggle slightly. Stretched out on her side, the model didn't move, except to stifle a yawn.

One of the assistants darted in with a handful of Q-tips to repair the mistake.

"Cress!" the artist called. She removed her finger and stepped back, giving the model an evaluating stare. She held an open palm under the gooey paintbrush. "I need more cornstarch in the cherry paint, Cress. It's too thin. Angelika's thighs are streaking."

Julian looked. The model's thighs were also perfect. Not as perfect as the breasts, because Julian was a breast man, but perfect enough to make him want to wrap his hands around them and lick from stem to stern. That the thighs happened to be painted with candy-cane stripes had nothing to do with it.

He couldn't say the same about the words TASTE ME, which were written out in silver nonpareils that framed the perfect little belly button on her tight, flat tummy.

Julian shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers, giving himself a little more room down there. So this was why the X chromosomes on the Hard Candy staff had staged a Nerf ball tournament to decide who got to "supervise" the December cover shoot.

Victor Noone , the magazine's advertising sales director, looked up from a consultation with a contingent from Sugar High, the up-and-coming candy company that was buying heavily into the gala holiday issue. "Julian! Please join us."

At the sound of his name, a female head snapped to. Petra Lombardi, the Hard Candy art director, hurried over. "I didn't know you planned to be here, Julian." Her voice was like sliding silk, her heels staccato spikes. Silver-blond hair and milky skin looked an even whiter shade of pale against a black leather suit with dainty silver buckles. Petra was a woman of sharp contrasts and biting smiles. Attractive, but potentially poisonous. After a short-term exposure, Julian had developed a resistance.

"You must say hello to the Sugar High executives." She took his arm. "And our creative team, of course."

Julian cast another lingering look at the photo set before letting Petra tug him away. The reclining model was arranged on a satin-draped tabletop. Every inch of her skin had been coated in glorious coloredible paint, he'd been told. A team of black-clad assistants, wielding paper cones of frosting as glue, rapidly affixed assorted hard candies to her body, decorating her in stripes, scallops and swirls. Even the model's hair was transformed, pulled back into a knot, sprayed white and strung with strings of candy dots.

The woman with the paintbrush hovered over a long table set to one side, out of the heat of the lights. The surface was chockablock with painting implements and small buckets of the sugary concoctions in a rainbow of hues. A young black man with sunglasses perched atop his shaved head was shaking a box of cornstarch into a plastic bucket.

The artist stirred the red syrup, lifted a long-handled spoon high to test the thickness, then licked a dab off her pinkie. She nodded at her cohort. "Thanks, Cress. That's better."

He cocked an eyebrow. "We can't have streaky thighs."

"Julian?" purred Petra . She squeezed his arm, her sharp burgundy nails narrowly missing skin as they bit into his rolled-up cuff.

"Coming," he said, without moving.

The artist glanced at him. Not a startled look, nor an eager one. She merely glanced once and looked away without reaction, as if he were just another boring plebeian she had to put up with while creating her masterpiece.

Julian forgot about the nude model. "Who is that?" he asked Petra .

"The body painter. Mia Somebody."

Some body, indeed. Even though she was clad in a pair of shapeless overalls and high-top red sneakers, it was obvious that Mia the body painter was her own work of art. Her face was button-cute and topped by a mop of black ringlets. She was short, but her legs went all the way up to a pert bottom. The bib of her overalls bagged over a baby-doll undershirt that clung to breasts that might have been as bodacious as the model's if he could get a really good look at them.

While Mia may have been aware of Julian's interest, she wasn't standing still for a leisurely inspection. Now that the cherry paint had been adjusted to her taste, she flitted between the model and the paint table, making adjustments and adding color, perfecting every splotch and candy dot of her creation while the bald assistant followed, spraying the model's completed parts until she was as lacquered and shining as a French glycee tart.

And all the while, Mia Some Body continued to show no interest whatsoever in the presence of Julian Silk, CEO of Silk Publications and such a dashing, sought-after playboy that he'd recently been named one of Celebrity Gossip magazine's Hottest Bachelors of the Year.

Not that he cared for that tripe. The publicity was mildly annoying and even embarrassing, particularly when it led to dazzled young women stopping him on the street to take photos or to have him autograph their bras. He didn't want to be a sex symbol celebrity, even for fifteen minutes of fame. His conservative board of directors had let it be known they felt the same.

On the other hand, Mia's complete disregard was humbling. And rather inspiring.

For the first time in months, Julian was roused to prove to a woman just how irresistible he could be.

"The umbrella over that strobe should be adjusted." Mia Kerrigan gnawed her knuckle as she watched the photographer direct his assistants as they finished lighting the cover shot. "There's too much shine coming off the paint."

"Out of your hands, sweetheart," Cress said. Even though they were standing off the set and out of the glare, he slid his Gucci aviator sunglasses into place. He claimed the bright lights hurt his eyes. Mia thought he just wanted to look cool for Angelika, a top model they'd worked with before, but who was too pricey to be one of Mia's regulars.

"I want this to be perfect." Mia was used to photographing her own artwork when she staged body-painting sessions in her home studio. But the money she got for freelance jobs was so attractive that she'd resigned herself to giving up creative control of the end product.

With a sigh, she reminded herself that Phil Shavers, the photographer the magazine had chosen, was one of the hottest in the business. Angelika would look gorgeous on the cover of Hard Candy, the sexy new men's lifestyle magazine. A truly edible feast. If the glazed eyes and openmouthed expressions of the spectators were typical, the magazine's young, buff, upwardly mobile readers would want to ravish the model like a pack of hungry wolves.

"It's perfect," Cress said, being completely sincere, unlike the toadies who'd gathered around. Cress's taste was impeccable for a raging heterosexual.

Reminded of why she hired the photo stylist whenever it was financially viable, and relied on him as a friend the rest of the time, Mia stood on her toes to throw an arm around Cress's thin shoulders. She gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. "Thanks."

"Ugh. You're all sticky."

She licked his jaw. Sugar granules melted on her tongue. "So are you."

He gave her a squeeze. "Let's go shower off."

"Not until the shoot is over. We might need to do touch-ups if Angelika starts to melt. Her butt is already looking globby ."