All 3 Uses

tantalize
in
Seventeenth Summer
(Auto-generated)

With his eyes still closed, the colored man leaned back on the bench, way back, one hand limp at his aide and the other like a dark spider on the high notes at the end of the keyboard, quick and supple, tingling the keys in a rippling, tantalizing way until it made my scalp prickle to hear him.†
Chpt July

tantalizing = making someone excited about getting something
Those last days seemed to slip through my fingers like egg white and I almost wished the end would come, for the waiting was so hopeless and so tantalizing.†
Chpt Augu *
The fragrance was tantalizing and Swede jammed his impatiently between a roll and ate it half-roasted.†
Chpt Augu

Definitions:

(1) (tantalize)
to make someone excited about getting something -- often something they cannot get

The word, tantalize, comes from a Greek mythological story about the eternal punishment of someone named Tantulus. He was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree. But when he reached up for the fruit, it withdrew just out of his reach. And when he bent down to drink, the water receded before his lips could reach it.
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)