Beauty of Sunset Read online

  “What?” She turned her head to see him staring at her. “Oh yes. Not fucking likely. Pure crap. Pretty colored crap but if I had to look at it every day I’d probably go insane.”

  She laughed knowing what he meant. She kept her apartment clean and filled with only the things she needed or she liked. Only a few people saw it these days so she kept it exactly as she wanted it.

  The taxi dropped them at her building and she let Sung—John—pay. Fighting over a few dollars didn’t seem worth it especially with her stomach tying itself in knots. The night she’d allowed her fantasy to win played through her again sending thrills through her. And he hadn’t even touched her. Probably wouldn’t.

  They stood either side of the elevator as if avoiding touch and he stood back and let her exit first when they reached her floor. She unlocked the door and passed through turning on the floor lights and touching the dimmer. Not too intimate just lower than full-on.

  “Nice.” He stood in the center of the large room and turned around. She’d left the mezzanine in shadow but its depths added richness to the effect. She’d kept colors muted and cool, comfortable and soothing rather than challenging. This was her home now.

  “Thanks. My last husband liked the French Empire style. Fussy, lots of gold, you know the type.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. I’ve visited places like that. This is more to my taste. Understated. Classy.”

  She smiled as she walked through to the kitchen area and found the coffeemaker. “Do you want something fancy, cappuccino or latte?” Her huge machine did it all.

  “No just coffee, black, no sugar.”

  Typical. Most men asked for it like that but she’d bet a few secretly went for double shot Americano when nobody was looking. Somehow this man seemed the black coffee type. “Make yourself at home.”

  She wasn’t. She took hers with cream. Plenty of it. She put the cups on a tray and carried them through.

  He’d settled on a wide sofa facing the window. Lights twinkled in a cityscape she’d dreamed about as a little girl in small-town England. Now she was here. Having that view reminded her every day how lucky she was. It helped. Sometimes.

  She put the tray down on the glass coffee table and sat next to him. They didn’t have to touch on this wide sofa but somehow she ended closer than she’d planned. He sat, his arms spread over the back and arm, more relaxed than she’d imagined him.

  “Do you want to know why I wouldn’t take you as a patient?”

  Yes. She swallowed and touched her throat. “Why?”

  His glasses glinted as he turned away from the view to look at her. Behind the lenses his eyes gleamed with truth. “Because I can’t take a scalpel to you. You’re too perfect to be touched. I can’t do it.”

  She frowned squinting at him. “Are you sure you were looking at the right woman? Maybe one time I might have agreed with you but you have to know that I’m forty-five years old. My years of perfection are behind me.”

  “I don’t think so. You carry your life with you and you’ll only grow better with age. Your bone structure is awesome.”

  “Is that a medical term?”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely.” He huffed a laugh but didn’t sound amused. “Operating on you would be like smoothing the statue of the Venus de Milo back to a blurry approximation of what it should be.”

  “You’re dissing plastic surgery? Don’t you make your living at it?”

  His lips twisted in a wry smile. “Sure. But we don’t just do vanity stuff. And even then, it isn’t always about vanity. Some women make their living from keeping their beauty. Actresses over forty have difficulty getting good leading roles or they did before the cosmetic surgeon got to work. Pop stars need to be honed and buffed weeks after giving birth or leaving rehab.” He shrugged. “You know how it goes.”

  “None better.” Although she’d never gone under the knife before she didn’t condemn people who made that choice. “But now it’s my turn. I take it the confidential doctor-patient relationship between us is no more?”

  “You take it right. It was there for about five minutes. I’d still like to know why you want it done but you’re not talking to a doctor here. Just me, John, a man.”

  She loved that voice the way it purred over her skin like a caress. Suppressing her shudder she concentrating on what he was saying. It wasn’t as if she were about to give him her deepest secrets after all. “I’ve written my autobiography and I have a promotional tour coming up. TV personal appearances. I got a new manager, Randy Norwood, and he put me in touch with a great ghostwriter who helped me turn my book into something else rather than just another exposé.”

  His eyes widened. Despite his sangfroid that name impressed him. “Doesn’t Norwood manage Pure Wildfire?”

  “‘The hottest rock band on the planet’. Yes. And Scott Evans, one of the most literate writers on the planet. Randy picks people he’s interested in.”

  He watched her, his stare almost unnerving. “And does Norwood say you have to have cosmetic surgery?”

  She hesitated not wanting to lie to this man. His tall leanness intrigued her and his cologne-free male scent reminded her of heat between the sheets. “Not exactly. He says I should do what I feel most comfortable doing.”

  “Wise man. So will you let me help you?”

  She arched a brow. “You think I need help?”

  He smiled. “You’re nervous about the surgery. I don’t have to be a doctor to spot that. So I want you to take a bet.” He leaned forward, picked up his coffee and sipped. Used to reading and using body language she sensed his tenseness, his need for something to do rather than look at her. This bet was important to him.

  “What kind of bet?”

  He stared into the midnight depths of his cup. “If I make you feel good about your body will you cancel the work?”

  She shook her head not understanding. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll pay attention to any part of your body you want to have altered. I’ll prove to you that it’s perfect as it is.”

  “How?”

  He came around to her front and faced her again. “You need to take the bet first.” His voice had lowered to a purr.

  “And what’s the bet?”

  “If I can’t persuade you I’ll pay for all the surgery.”

  “Is this an excuse to get into my panties?”

  “Totally.” He looked up meeting her gaze and his intensity took her breath away. She felt that stare as if he was touching her and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. This was more than a quick fuck. For both of them.

  “How old are you?” she said suddenly her senses jolted by his low words. She needed to think.

  “Thirty-five.”

  “Ten years younger than me. Are you kidding me, John Sung? Or is this some kind of sick wish fulfillment? When you were a kid, I was the star of the runways, rushing from show to show in July in Paris, in the pop videos, my picture on billboards all over the world in satin underwear. Is that it? Did you want me then?” She was used to that, men wanting her without knowing who she was. She wouldn’t take offence though she would be disappointed.

  He put down his cup half drunk. “When I was a child I hardly ever looked up. I never noticed billboards, I didn’t watch pop videos. I was a boring fat kid and I grew into a studious teenager. I didn’t lose the weight until I started running every day in my late teens. So no. I want you now as you are not as you were ten or twenty years ago.”

  The air between them stirred, tightened. The women on the blog had encouraged each other to get out of their ruts find someone younger less hidebound. So was this her younger man? Could she crow on the blog tonight?

  Oh yeah. What the fuck was she waiting for? John Sung would be her first younger male.

  “Yes.”

  He stared at her as if she’d grown a spare head before he laughed. “I didn’t think you would but, fuck, I hoped for it. Are you sure? You want to go on this trip with me?”

  “Maybe
you’ll take me further than I’ve ever been before. Maybe you’ll only take me to the end of the street. I have no idea but it’s worth a try.” And maybe he’d jolt her out of this uncharacteristic doubt and help her see where the next part of her life would lead her.

  “Go upstairs take off your clothes and find a robe. I’m betting you have a full length mirror somewhere. I’ll give you ten minutes. Five.”

  When she got to her feet, she was surprised to find how shaky she felt. As if this was her first time. Okay, first time in a while but she was far from a virgin. About twenty men away from one if she counted. Which considering her age and profession wasn’t bad at all.

  She crossed the room and climbed the stairs, feeling his avid stare all the way up the open-plan pale blue glass steps. She watched every one, careful with her steps. The almost untouched brushed steel handrail was a welcome aid now.

  Her feet sank into the soft carpet on the mezzanine and she walked through to her bedroom.

  He was as good as his word. Five minutes and she heard a soft knock on her bedroom door and called, “Come in!”

  He entered. He’d discarded his jacket and now stood in dark immaculately tailored pants and a charcoal-gray shirt unbuttoned at the neck. He crossed the room. She’d changed into a white fluffy bathrobe and stood in front of her mirror, a full-length one with wings either side that she could tilt. “I’m not that vain but it’s easier to check how I look that way. If I don’t do it, paparazzi will.” She glanced at her closets. Edie was cursed with a neatnik personality that abhorred mess. She kept her closets tightly closed, like her life.

  He circled her. She didn’t follow his movements but let him walk around her examining her like a designer studying his latest creation.

  Despite her utilitarian robe he made her feel as if she were queen of Dior again, pampered, feted. Wanted.

  Right now he was staring at her, his look as far from the professional as she could imagine.

  The silence tensed her. She broke it. “So what now?”

  He took off his glasses and tucked them in his pants pocket “This.” He leaned forward.

  She didn’t press back but she held steady for their first kiss. His mouth touched hers briefly and he withdrew. “You want to alter your lips?”

  “Botox is an option.”

  “Collagen actually. Or implants.” He touched her top lip, traced his finger over the contour. “You’d lose some sensation. Let me show you what you’d lose.” He removed his hand and instead traced the outline of her lips with his tongue touching only that part of her. She shivered deliciously in response but held steady under his examination. Then he flicked his tongue over the seam and she gasped.

  He took her gasp and moved closer, licking his way into her mouth, exploring the planes and textures and she responded. He tasted wonderful, of a spice she couldn’t identify, something she’d never come across before. She loved it. The taste was all him all John Sung.

  She lifted her arms to hold him but immediately he withdrew. A smile curved his lips. “Not until you say it.”

  “One kiss and you want me to give up lip implants?” Although he’d tempted her to say yes the moment their lips met. The instantaneous connection between them stunned her, made her wonder why she hadn’t felt this complete before with anyone else. Every man was different but this was out of her experience. She felt newborn. Maybe it was because she hadn’t had sex in a couple of years. No, it couldn’t be that. She hadn’t missed it at all until now.

  Excitement rocketed through her at the thought that she might be having sex with this man soon even if it was on a temporary basis. Temporary worked for her at this point in her life though she wanted enough time to explore and enjoy him. But at the expense of the surgery. She wouldn’t cheat, she wouldn’t go elsewhere but her unaccustomed uncertainty about her looks had haunted her since she’d turned forty. Since Peter had divorced her in favor of a younger clone of herself.

  “Don’t think,” he said now his voice more husky than before. He glanced at her shoulders.

  “Maybe I’d get rid of the bat wings,” she said. But she was lying. Her constant regime of weight training had kept the sagging at bay and she hadn’t had to wash any lines away when she’d showered.

  He lifted his hand touched her arm. Even through the robe, the contact tingled, all her senses centered where he cupped her shoulder. “So I have these to play with too. But you haven’t promised not to have lip implants yet.” He drew closer and kissed her again.

  The bare inch of space between their bodies heated and she scrabbled at her belt to strip the garment off her sensitized body. His hand covered hers, preventing her but he kept his lips on hers and explored her mouth at his leisure. He used his tongue to devastating effect rimming her lips before venturing inside to stroke her tongue and then the roof of her mouth. And all the time his lips played on hers urging her to go deeper faster harder.

  But every time she tried, when she twisted her tongue around his, pushed it into his mouth, he pulled back and slowed what they were doing. It tantalized her and eventually infuriated her.

  Because she wanted more. She wanted to fuck him, pin him down on her bed and ride. With his kisses he evoked sensations she’d never felt or had forgotten.

  John kissed her as if nothing else mattered nothing in the world. He curled his hands around her upper arms his fingers spread to encompass her biceps. She reached for him and this time he let her put her hands on his waist but he kept the rest of his body separate from her. When she tugged, he resisted with a strength in his lean body that surprised her. But there was no mistaking the tightening of honed muscles when he stopped her drawing him closer or when he held her off. And still he kissed her, alternating deep probing kisses with tiny gentle ones.

  When he eventually drew away, it was with such smoothness that she remained, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted. “Can you feel that?” he murmured, his voice smooth as silk. “That awareness the knowledge that you’ve connected with someone else. Your body full of tingling nerves each one attuned—to me. All centering down there in that exquisite pussy.”

  His hands on her shoulders renewed the feelings. Every part of her body turned toward his hands, became aware of them, waited for his next move. Taking her time, she opened her eyes and gazed into his face.

  This close she could see the difference between the dark iris and the darker pupil. A touch of warmth edged the iris a slightly lighter brown than the intense depths within. She could drown in those eyes and count herself lucky.

  He was saying something. Still drugged with kisses she had to concentrate. “Turn around.”

  She found herself facing the mirror again. When his hands left her shoulders, she felt bereft but he went to the mirror and tilted the wings so she could see herself reflected three times. He came back and stood behind her touching her shoulders once more. “Look at your lips.”

  She looked. The kisses had plumped them, filled them.

  “You don’t need artificial aids.”

  “You tell that to your patients?”

  A ghost of a smile drifted across his mouth and then was gone. “Only you. I could go bankrupt if they all thought they could look this good.”

  “You won’t be here all the time. I can’t pull you out of my purse like a lipstick whenever I want to look like this.”

  “Maybe remembering will do the trick.” She appreciated that he didn’t make any false promises. Thinking about it made her lips moist and her pussy flooded with liquid, eager for him and unashamed. But she refused to clench her thighs together or tighten her muscles. He’d see it through the fabric of the garment, feel her muscles tense and he’d know how much she wanted him right this minute.

  As if he didn’t. But he might not know just how much.

  “Look at your eyes.”

  Light glared down on them. Edie was so used to bright lights she hardly noticed but it made her hair gleam and her eyes glisten. She knew the tricks. Closing the
eyes tight for a minute to make them wider, tilting the chin down and looking up but this time her eyes glinted promise and desire honestly with no tricks.

  She’d never seen them quite like that before. She had blue eyes, bright true blue, one of her trademarks and every tear and sadly, every flaw showed. Photographers airbrushed the flaws out. A single drugs binge early in her career scared her enough to make her stop and although she loved wine and cocktails, she rarely drank more than a couple at a time. So her eyes remained clear for the most part, although fatigue did awful things to them.

  Like put shadows underneath and add light veins of blood. Just like today.

  “You’ve not been sleeping well have you? But they’re beautiful. Your eyes are famous. Change the shape one tiny bit and the public will notice. Surgery on the eye is particularly tricky. And of course if you have a facelift the eye area will be affected.”

  “I have lines.”

  He bent and kissed the fine lines at the corner of her left eye. “I love them. They give you character.”

  She snorted. “I’ve heard that before.”

  He kissed her temple. “In your case it’s true. You’re lovelier than you ever were.” He smiled at her reflection, meeting her mirrored gaze. “Tell me which part of you needs surgery in your opinion and I’ll persuade you that it’s better as it is. Have I won anything yet?”

  “The lips.” She couldn’t bear to give up that kind of sensation and in any case, she’d always had full lips. If they thinned a little with age that wouldn’t be a problem. “But my eyes need some help.”

  He touched the corner of one eye then pulled up the skin so the eye slanted and the laughter lines disappeared. “You want that?”

  She met his gaze with the one eye that could still see. “What do I say to that? Do I resort to cliché?”

  “Contrary to popular opinion the oriental eye doesn’t bear much relation to that.”

  She could see that for herself. His heavy-lidded oriental eyes gleamed back at her, gentle humor in them. But he wasn’t wearing his glasses. “Can you see that far?”