Lush (2 page)

“Girl, you look
absolutely magnificent,” she said a little hysterically. Okay, very
hysterically, and it was more like whining than saying, but it was
true. Kirsten looked positively provocative in her red, camisole
style top and tight, black leather pants. Her diamanté studded
Louboutin heels offset her diamond earrings and necklace perfectly.
As for the rest? She had a face and body that could grace magazine
covers. Kirsten, with her flawless skin, sky blue eyes, and curly
mass of shoulder touching, dark blond hair, was nothing short of
All-American gorgeousness. She was the angel to Julia’s devil.

Aside from their
similar heights and builds they were total opposites. Julia had
straight, pitch-black hair that reached midway down her back and
green eyes that many said looked jade-hard when she got angry. The
hair she owed to her mother’s half Asian heritage. The eyes were
from her dad’s mixed bag of bloodlines. Her complexion was more
olive than peaches and cream and her facial features were more
angular than soft. Together they made a knockout team and neither
of them would ever deny it.

“Oh come on, Jules,”
Kirsten cajoled. “I need to check my lipstick. This red is divine
but it’s not long-lasting.”

“Trust me, it’s
lasting. Let’s just get to our tables and order something to dull
the pain of–”

No point in arguing or
negotiating. Kirsten was already frogmarching her in the direction
of the elevator that would carry them to the fourth floor that, if
rumour had it right, was occupied solely by Michael’s office. Word
was that it was some kind of sex den. Yeah, word got around
fast.

Michael had brought a
reputation as a player back with him when he decided to once again
make New York his home after conquering London and LA.

According to Kirsten he
wasn’t a player so much as a wounded man trying to get over a
serious knock to his self-esteem. It wasn’t completely implausible
considering that he’d been badly burned by his ex-wife after less
than one year of marriage. The unofficial story was that he had
caught the starlet screwing around and as a result had lost all
trust and respect for the fairer sex. As far as Julia was concerned
Michael had never had all that much faith or regard for women to
begin with.

She could still
remember how during the summer after her sophomore year at high
school he had convinced her that he was into her. With him being
three years her senior it had been a big deal. More so because
she’d had a crush on him since the first time she saw him when she
was only seven. Suddenly it seemed that he’d finally noticed her
after too many years of unrequited love on her part.

He’d somehow managed to
place a gorgeous display of flowers in her bedroom without getting
caught — her very first bouquet of red roses. A card instructing
her to meet him on the roof of their apartment building at midnight
had accompanied it.

His parents owned the
complex and the roof had been converted into their own private
garden. It sported a huge pool and an assortment of potted trees
and flowers. In short it was a wonderful escape right in the middle
of the Upper Eastside.

Had he chosen that
perfect place because he wanted to finally tell her that he loved
her, and mean it?

She was nine the first
time he’d told her that he loved her. It was the day she’d said it
to him after he uncomplainingly helped her learn the words for her
upcoming spelling bee. He’d been so encouraging and patient even
though it had taken her hours to memorise the twenty words. After
she managed to recite each word perfectly he’d twirled her around
her living room and, forgetting that it was her special secret, she
gushed that she loved him to the moon and back.

Hugging her tightly
he’d said, “Thanks kiddo, I love you too.”

After that day she’d
often found excuses to tell him that she loved him, but he’d always
reply in more or less the same way: Love you too, kiddo. Love you
right back, Julie-bean. Yep, me too. Would this be the night he
really saw her and said, “I love you, Julia”? Would this be the
night he finally said it first?

Excitement had bubbled
up as she prepared to meet him. She knew that there would be no
risk of discovery or interruption since Kirsten and her folks were
visiting friends in the Hamptons that week. As for her folks: They
were going to be out all night on one of their
special
dates
. That meant they had booked into a snazzy hotel to do
whatever it was that long-married couples with busy schedules did
to keep the spark alive.

In her naivety she
decided to meet Michael without telling anyone, not even daring to
call Kirsten and share the best news of her life, for fear that
sharing it might jinx it. She’d tried on twenty outfits and applied
proper adult makeup to her face for the first time ever, all the
while counting down the hours. Oh how she had counted them down.
They had been the longest, most tension filled hours of her
life.

When she finally got to
the roof, at the stroke of midnight, Michael was waiting. He was
seated on a recliner next to the pool, muted nightlights
illuminating the darkened deck and bathing his shirtless, athletic
body in the most glorious, golden tones. His dark blond hair, still
dripping wet from his swim, added an extra element of sensuality to
his perfect features.

“Oh wow, Julia,” he
said breathlessly, half rising to meet her before quickly resuming
his place. It had been clear, thanks to his loose-fitting and still
damp swimming shorts, that she’d given him an erection. “You look
so grown up I barely recognise you.”

She beamed with female
pride even as she blushed with girlish shyness and nerves in equal
measure. Her mother’s above the knee, black slip dress had seemed
like an audacious choice, but the knowledge that Michael would soon
be leaving for God only knew how long had emboldened her. She
wanted to be sure that he would remember her. Besides, a lifetime
of playing all sorts of sports had given her great legs and she’d
inherited her mother’s perky, size C breasts. She was physically
mature for her age, and even though she had always been a tomboy,
she was well aware of her sexuality. It had rubbed off from hanging
out with Kirsten who was almost eight months her senior and the
ultimate boy-crazy girl’s girl.

“Come sit by me,”
Michael had said with a huskiness that she could still remember
clearly when she closed her eyes in the dark and concentrated, even
all these years later.

“Michael,” God, how
she’d loved saying his name. “Why now?”

“Because I’ll be
leaving to for London in less than a month and I can’t go without
telling you something very important.”

She took her seat next
to him as if in a trance, staring into his glorious blue eyes. Eyes
that were darkened to amber tones in the dim light, but so full of
promise.

He didn’t say anything
for the longest time. He simply brushed his fingers over her arm in
circular motions that ran from her shoulder to her wrist. Igniting
fires in her blood and stirring riots of butterflies in her
belly.

“You’re a beautiful
girl, Julia.”

“Th– thank you.”

He inched closer.
Pressing her down onto the luxuriously cushioned deckchair.

She was still half
dazed by the wonder of it all when she realised that he was lying
partially over her, one of his long, strong legs pressing between
hers.

“Jules,” he murmured,
his smile pure temptation. “What would you do if I kissed you right
now?”

“I– I don’t know. I’ve
never been kissed before.” And it was the truth. She’d had
countless opportunities but something very precious always held her
back. She wanted her first kiss to mean something. She wanted her
first kiss, and every kiss after it, to come from Michael. It had
always seemed like and impossible dream, but in that moment, on
that soft deckchair...

“Really?” his eyebrows
rose in surprise. “What about Mark?”

Mark Green was a boy
one year ahead of her who’d been trying to get her to go out with
him before the summer break, but her parents’
No-Dating-Till-You’re-Sixteen rule had given her the perfect excuse
to decline his offers. Even though a small part of her wanted to
discover if all the rumours about his kissing skills were true she
liked having her parents’ regulations to hide behind. She was only
fifteen and she knew that Mark would definitely have moved on way
before she even got close to turning sixteen. That birthday was
still six months away. Besides, kissing Mark wouldn’t mean
anything. Only Michael’s kiss would mean something. It would mean
everything.

“Will you go out with
Mark if he asks you to?” Michael pressed.

“It’s not like I can,”
she confessed honestly. “My folks would ground me till I’m fifty if
I went anywhere with him. You know how insanely strict they
are.”

“And what if Mark did
something like this; snuck up here and asked you to meet him?”

She blushed so
profusely that she had no doubt she was turning beet-red. The only
thing preventing her from turning away in embarrassment was the
knowledge that the reduced light quality was on her side. How would
she work up the courage to tell Michael that he was the only guy
she had any interest in being with?

Suddenly he covered her
mouth with his own, seducing her tenderly, enticingly. Eliciting
needy moans of longing that she had not known herself capable of
till that moment. The kiss soon changed. She’d opened her mouth to
take a breath and he slipped his tongue past her lips.

That marked the end of
her conscious thought processes. Instinct as old as time took over
and she returned the kiss with a hunger that had been eight years
in the making. She arched her back, rubbed her body against the
evidence of his arousal, and she knew in that moment that if he
asked her, even if he didn’t, she would give him her virginity. She
would give him everything she had to give. She loved him that
much.

He made her feel more
alive in those glorious moments than she had ever felt in her life.
If heaven was a physical place she had discovered it. All she
needed was to hear him say those three simple words and mean
them.

A blinding flash went
off just as she barely opened her eyes to see if everything she was
experiencing was real. And then she truly startled, opening her
eyes fully against the intrusion just in time to be blinded by
another blaze of light.

As it turned out
Michael had staged the liaison so that his best friend, Roger
Campbell, could capture incriminating, photographic evidence to
blackmail her with. He’d learned of his sister’s foray into
womanhood with Rory last month and decided that Julia needed to be
deterred before it was too late.

“Michael,” she pleaded
on the verge of tears, feeling confused and hurt. “What’s going on?
What are you– Why are you doing this?”

His unexpectedly harsh
voice nearly deafened her as he commanded Roger to leave so that he
could speak with her in private.

Once they were all
alone he pulled away from her completely and said, “I’m doing this
because I had to buy my sister a Morning After pill this summer and
I sure as hell don’t intend to do the same for you. Now that you
know how easily you could lose your mind, how very easily you can
be manipulated, you’d better stay the hell away from any guy until
you are ready to face the consequences on your own. You’re lucky I
chose to teach you this lesson. I’d hate to see you wreck your life
the way Kirsten almost did. If you decide to start messing around
with guys you’d better get yourself on the pill and make sure the
fucker uses a condom. And most importantly, make sure I don’t find
out about it. You hear me, Julia?”

Utterly stunned by his
tirade she cowered into the cushions and blocked her ears, but he
quickly moved back into her personal space and pulled her hands
down, forcing her to look at him.

“Listen to me, Jules,”
he hissed angrily. “When you started high school your dad asked me
to look out for you and I promised him that I would. You’re my
friend and I care about you, but if you insist on playing grownup
games without taking precautions, and I find out about it, I will
send the photos Roger just took and this recording —” he leaned
over her and produced a tape-recorder that had been sitting on the
ground. “— to your folks so that they know I did all I could to
save you from yourself.”

“Jesus, Mike,” she
cried in hurt anger. The sense of betrayal almost too much to
endure. “What have I ever done to you? How can you treat me like
this? Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

“Why the hell do you
think? I don’t want to see you end up like my mother. Mark is a
jerk! He is a total pig! He’ll play you till he gets what he wants,
and trust me; he won’t care if he ruins your life while he does it.
He’ll drop you like my biological father dropped my mother the
second he found out she was pregnant. Only you might not be as
lucky as she was. You won’t meet a guy like my dad who’ll marry you
and love your bastard child as if it’s his own. You’re pretty, kid,
but you’re not that pretty.”

Then, leaving her to
cry her eyes out all alone on that darkened rooftop, he gathered
his things and walked out of her life.

***

Michael spun around as
his office door opened, ready to give hell to whoever was daring to
interrupt him just minutes before he was about to host his first
Rapid-Fire Date Night at Lush, and stopped in his tracks.

Who on earth was the
raven haired, green eyed goddess standing next to his kid sister in
a sexy, thigh-high, silver wisp of a dress and killer heels that
just might bring her close to his height of six-four? God, she was
gorgeous. She looked familiar. Vaguely.