Page 5 of Sexy as Sin
“Huh,” she said. “But then, I’m a redhead with bad habits, and my mind generallyisclouded by emotion. Emotion’s where the big ideas come from, if you can call food a big idea. For a chef, it is, and that’s me. What’s fun, what’s pretty, and what’s delicious. What will make people happier, and how much trouble they want to go to. Emotions all the way.”
“What trouble?” he asked. “Is eating trouble?”
“When you cater a funeral,” she explained, “you make eating easy, because people feel like they can’t handle one more hard thing. They can’t make a decision. They want things bite-sized, and not too different or spicy or scary. When you cater a wedding, you make the food fun, like a beautiful adventure. It’s all about feelings in my world.”
“Good thing everybody doesn’t have to be the same,” he said—yes, calmly. “Where to now?”
“Slightly shonky big white building on the corner,” she said. “Park around the back.” And told herself,Slow down.
Except that she didn’t want to slow down. And that he was glancing across at her, not looking at her body, but so aware of it. She could feel it, and she wanted it.
Yeah. It was all about emotion.
Brett followed the redhead through the door and into the living room of an apartment that was short on size and elegance, but long on visual stimulation. The square table against the wall, dining and work table both, was painted pale green, and the legs were painted with flowers, yellow and red and purple and orange. A silk scarf in green and burgundy was draped across the back of a scruffy-looking couch, and another one, purple and blue, covered an easy chair. Magazines and books were piled on a coffee table that had been painted black and then covered with an image of an enormous pink rose, with tiny rosebuds on long stems trailing down the four legs, before the whole thing had been lacquered to within an inch of its life. Books lay scattered on the table as if the reader had stepped away for a minute, and a magazine calledDeliciouslay open over the arm of a chair.
And then there were the photos on every wall. They were all birds, caught up close, blown up to different sizes and all presented the same: white mats, thin black frame. Three rainbow-colored parrots on a tree branch, looking like they were having a conference. A tiny brown and gray bird, its tail feathers fanned out in a wedge, its head cocked jauntily. A white heron, wings spread, standing still and proud. A little round bird with an iridescent head and breast patterned in navy and deep sky blue, looking puffy and perky, with its blue tail sticking up behind. How did he know it was little? He just did. That one was cute, like you could hold it in your hand, and making you want to. And so many more birds, it would have taken a while to study them all.
“Nice,” he said. “Somebody stood still for a while to get these shots.” The mat around the little round bird’s photo had a title and what might be a signature.Superb Fairy Wren,he read on the left side, and on the right,Willow.What, or who, was Willow?
“Is that your favorite?” the redhead asked. “You’d be unusual, then. He’s tiny, smaller than your palm. Men usually go for the powerful birds. Birds of prey. Killers. Size matters, you know. Or so they say.”
Spoken like a woman who’s never known the difference,he thought, and didnotsay.Or maybe like a woman who’s been with a man who thinks all he has to do is bring himself to the party, job done.If your only tool was a hammer, everything looked like a nail. He preferred using the whole toolbox.
He didn’t say any ofthat,either. “There’s room for more than one kind of bird in the world,” he said instead. “And I like this one. All round and cuddly and all.”
Another woman came into the room on the words. Short, dark, and, yes, round and cuddly. She looked startled, and Brett said, “The bird, I mean,” and had to smile.
“I like him, too,” the redhead said. “I know birds aren’t actually happy. That’s anthropomorphizing them, but that’s how that one looks to me anything.Saba?ul khayr,Azra. I brought a guest home for breakfast. We had an adventure.”
“Good morning,” the darker girl—woman—said. Her accent was cut-glass British English, which made Brett blink. Nothing about this morning had been what he’d expected. “I covered your dish and left it in the oven to keep warm when you hadn’t returned, Willow. I’m afraid I ate more than I should have first, though. What was the adventure?”
“Wait,” Brett said. “You’re Willow? The photographer? I thought you were a chef, but these look professional.”
“I am,” the redhead said. “A professional chef. And I need to take a shower. Fairly desperately.” She looked him over and added, “Come on back. We’ll find you something dry to put on. After that, you could fry up some turkey bacon for us, make yourself even more useful.”
“I’m off,” the other woman, Azra, said.
The redhead—Willow—turned around on her way out the door. “You can’t stay for second breakfast? I’m doing caramelized bananas. You love those.”
“I can’t stay and keep my job,” Azra said with a laugh. “We wouldn’t want my father to be right. Just as well. You don’t do my diet any good at all.Ma’a salama. Good luck on feeding the horribles.” She gave Brett a cheery wave. “Lovely to meet you.”
Brett ended up in Willow’s bedroom. Not in the way he’d have preferred. In the sense that he was following that black bikini into a back room, its single window opening onto nothing, and watching her rifle her way through dresser drawers until she came out with a T-shirt and pair of shorts, which she tossed to him. “Those should fit, more or less,” she said. “The owner isn’t quite your size, but not too far off. You can change in here while I’m in the bath.”
He looked at the shirt, a lime-green tee that saidChill the Fuck Out,and the shorts, which looked... well, short, and were splattered with a black-and-white pattern like jagged teeth. Board shorts, he guessed, but not the kind he was used to. Sized for a fourteen-year-old, maybe. “Uh...” he said.
More of that mischievous smile, cute all the way to the freckles on her straight nose despite the finely-cut features, and she said, “Come on, mate. This is our new beginning. I stared into the jaws of death today and came out alive, right? And you helped me do it. A message from the universe to take a chance and step into the unknown. Who knows? There could be unicorns and rainbows out there. Have you ever worn a shirt with the word ‘Fuck’ on it? Signs point to ‘no.’”
“No,” he said. “I can definitely say that I have not.” It was so hard not to smile back. She radiated warmth and light like she had a lightbulb inside her, and she was switched all the way on. Her voice was rainbows and unicorns itself, as if she were singing the words. “Although I’d like to know whose clothes these are.”
“No, you probably wouldn’t.” That wasn’t anything close to the answer he wanted. He’d been going for something along the lines of “brother.” She added, “And my new beginning already seems to have started, doesn’t it? I invited a stranger home to breakfast, some weird fella who wears a suit to the beach, and I’m not even worried about it. I’m off to take a shower. You could fry that bacon once you’ve changed. Sorry it’s not pork. Azra’s Muslim, and I never did get used to eating pork anyway. Not halal.” She pulled something purple from her closet, said, “If you don’t get your skates on and make up your mind, I could be back in here again while you’re still changing. Bloody nightmare.” And walked out.
Willow showered fast, but she still felt all the tingles. Too close a brush with Death, as she’d told—him? She’d never even asked his name, she realized with another of those shocks she’d been getting all morning. The kind that didn’t feel scary, or only half scary. They felt exciting instead. Forbidden.
Face it. It wasn’t just the brush with death.
She didn’t dry her hair. It took too long. She’d used body conditioner in the shower, a tub of goopy marvelousness that had been part of her Christmas present from her cousin Rafe and his new wife, Lily. Now, her skin felt luxuriously soft, and she smelled like all the good things. Almond, vanilla, and a hint of rose.
She had a feeling her new friend was a secret dessert lover, although he’d keep that sinful desire firmly tamped down in the interest of self-discipline. Disciplined people could still fall victim to temptation, though.
