Nothing Like the Sun Read online

  “Oh.” Georgie leaned forward a bit to look at the girl. The movement brought her face very close to his when she turned to look at him. “Well, that’s just silly. Anyone who took the time to listen to it would know you lifted it from Shakespeare.”

  And that was it, there it was. She knew about “Her Eyes.” Julian was lost.

  8

  “Do you like Shakespeare then?” Julian leaned forward to talk to her, exhibiting a classic sign of male interest.

  Georgie, inspired in part by the song Julian had written, had done her Master’s thesis on Shakespeare’s sonnets and their influence on modern poets, of whom she considered Julian one. Now didn’t seem the time to mention it.

  “You could say that,” she answered.

  This close he looked even better than he had from eight feet away on stage. She could see the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, and the faint smudge of eyeliner. The way the purple tint in his hair faded to white blond so gradually, going from plum to violet to pale lavender…

  “Lots of people could say it,” Julian told her. “Not everyone means it.”

  “I think we’re told we ought to like Shakespeare,” Georgie told him. “But to tell you the truth, I prefer Oscar Wilde.”

  Julian blinked, and Georgie cursed herself for letting intellect overrule libido, however momentarily. Maybe this whole idea had been a mistake. Then, in the next moment, Julian leaned forward again.

  “Shakespeare gives me a bit of a headache sometimes,” he told her, as though imparting a great secret. “But he did know how to write a smashing good love poem.”

  God, he smelled good. A cologne she couldn’t name, underlaid by the scent of soap and water. She’d expected the tang of sweat, but though he definitely smelled male, he didn’t reek. Pheromones, she told herself, shifting slightly in the chair as her body reacted. He smells like sex.

  “Is it starting to hurt?” Julian looked concerned.

  Her ankle. She hadn’t really twisted it, just taken advantage of the fortuitous collision to feign a reason for him to help her.

  She stood as though to test it. Julian stood, too. She didn’t have to crane her neck to look into his face, something she appreciated. Being with Joe, who’d topped six feet, had always left her with a crick in her neck and shoulders. She liked being able to look Julian in the eye, or nearly so. He had gorgeous eyes. Gray-blue, and darker than she’d expected.

  A grin spread across his face like syrup on pancakes. “Do you want to get something to eat?”

  Georgie looked over at the buffet, which was groaning under the weight of platters and trays of goodies she’d been denying herself for months. “Hell, yeah.”

  If her enthusiasm seemed at odds with the sophisticated aura she was intent on projecting, Julian didn’t notice. He took her by the elbow, fingertips barely touching her but sending electric sparks of sensation through her just the same. She studied the buffet as though it were far more interesting to her than he was, even though her heart had begun to thump-thump so hard in her chest she was certain he could hear it. The last thing she wanted to do was ruin everything by turning into some sort of gibbering, drooling fan-girl, even if that’s what she felt like inside.

  He’d said something else, something that clearly required an answer, but so intent was she on memorizing every piece of glitter on his skin, she’d missed it.

  “I asked if you liked brie,” Julian repeated, as if he were used to dealing with gabbling fan-girls every day.

  And, Georgie realized, he probably was.

  She didn’t know why that thought moved her to straighten her back all at once, except for one thing. She hadn’t spent six months working to become a sexpot to throw it all away by being just another stuttering moron. She was a goddess, a sex kitten, a sophisticate. A self-confident and assured vixen with perfect hair and kick-ass shoes.

  “I do.” Her smooth tone came out just the right way.

  Before she could, Julian grabbed up a plate for her and layered it with a slice of gooey brie oozing from its baked crust and several cream puffs covered in chocolate. He took a plate for himself, added some food and gestured toward the door to the hallway.

  “Let’s go where it’s quieter, yeah?”

  She followed him into hallway, which was not only quieter, but cooler. Julian held out her plate, and she imagined she saw challenge in his eyes. Georgie took the plate and lifted a cream puff with her fingers.

  “Girl after my own heart,” he said. “No forks. Eating chocolate. I think I’m half in love with you already.”

  “That’s a nice line.” Georgie held up the cream puff and tucked it between her lips. Taste exploded on her tongue and she let out a breathy moan in reflex.

  Julian’s eyes gleamed again. “I might want to take your shoes out on a date, love…but tell me, what is it exactly that cream puff is doing to you?”

  Georgie laughed and licked the chocolate from her lips. It really was a dance, she thought. And for once, a dance to which she knew all the steps.

  “Want to try it out?” She offered the cream puff.

  Julian eyed it speculatively, looking at the small pastry, then into her eyes. “Sure.”

  This was it, another test of her ability to convince him and herself she was some sort of sex diva. As Julian leaned forward to take the cream puff from her fingers, Georgie drew in a long, slow breath. His lips closed over the dessert, and his tongue rasped on the pads of her fingers. Sweet fire shot straight between her thighs, and the breath she’d been holding let itself out with a small hiss of pleasure.

  Julian took her wrist to hold her hand steady, while he lipped the last of the cream from her fingertips. When it was gone, he pressed a brief, moist kiss to her palm, then closed her fingers around the heat it left behind, never looking away from her eyes. She saw an invitation there, and nearly laughed out loud at how easy it had been.

  “I have a suite at the hotel across the street,” he said.

  “Do you?” Her voice, thank God, wasn’t as shaky as her thighs.

  He nodded, not letting go of her wrist. “I do. It has a big bathtub.”

  “Are you implying I’m dirty?” Georgie murmured with a tilt of her head. The smile came naturally this time, so lost in the role in which she’d cast herself, she no longer had to struggle for it.

  Julian lifted a brow. “Why? Are you?”

  Georgie moved close enough to feel his breath upon her face. Her hand twisted in his grasp, and thus joined, she felt the beat of his heart in his wrist beneath her fingertips. It skipped erratically when she leaned in to brush her lips against his ear.

  “I guess that depends on your standards.”

  He turned his head the barest inch to murmur into her ear. “And if I said I wasn’t sure, but a man could hope?”

  She breathed in his scent again, soap and something spicy and fully male. The fringes of his plum-tinged hair tickled her face. Heat from his body swept over hers, and her nipples peaked, while her clit began to thump-thump with her pulse.

  “Something tells me you’re the sort of man who’s used to getting lucky.” Amusement and arousal blended her voice into a husky tone, something rich, like caramel. Almost as thick and dark as his.

  “I don’t kiss and tell.” He inched closer, the two of them to any outside eye merely sharing secrets.

  Georgie pulled slightly away to look into his eyes. She memorized the eyelashes, dark and thick beneath the mascara, the smudge of dark liner, the deep gray of his irises and the dark, black pools of his pupils.

  “Do you intend to kiss me?” She breathed the question, her mouth close enough for him to take if he wanted it.

  “I do. Anyplace you’ll let me.” The hand not holding hers slid around to her hip, pulling her the last inch against him.

  She gasped a bit at the full-body contact. Her clit throbbed, the lacy scrap of her panties rubbing without mercy. Julian’s hand slid down to cup her ass and bring her closer against the bulge i