Книга - A Taste Of Fantasy

A Taste Of Fantasy
Isabel Sharpe


Samantha Tyler is still smarting from her divorce, so happily-ever-after is the last thing on her busy legal mind. But with her libido far from dead, finding a Man To Do - purely to take the edge off - seems like the perfect plan. And sexy Jack Hunter seems like the perfect wrong guy - anyone who photographs women as objects for a living must be practically a Neanderthal, right?Exactly the kind of man to give Samantha exciting, mind-blowing sex with none of the risks of a real romance of the heart. But when she agrees to work with Jack as one of his models, Samantha begins to realize his commitment to his career only hints at the tenderness and passion below the surface. Has she picked herself a Man To Do she'd like to do forever?









“Tell me about the best sex you ever had.”


Jack’s voice was low, intimate even in the large studio, soothing against the click of his camera’s shutter.

Samantha closed her eyes, trying to forget she was naked under the sheet. Click. “I met this guy at a bar, in college. And he took me to bed. It was the boldest thing I’ve ever done.” Click.

She heard Jack’s footsteps coming closer. “I’m going to move the sheet.”

He pulled the sheet down off her left shoulder, exposing her breast. The fabric bunched and teased between her legs, a cool, smooth bare weight like a feathery lover’s kiss, leaving a fierce ache. She had to remind herself to hold still. Click.

Jack was still standing close; she could feel the warmth of him against her skin. “Did he make you come?”

“Ohhh, yes.” She heard him curse softly. Jack slid the sheet off her other breast, this time allowing his hand to follow so his fingers trailed over her, brushing her nipple. She shivered and arched toward him.

“So it was perfect, emotionless sex.” Jack’s words came out husky. “And that’s what you want from me? All I can say is, you can’t protect yourself from the unexpected.”

Samantha opened her eyes to his smoldering gaze. “I’ll take that risk.”







Dear Reader,

One day I was talking to a friend who said, “Wouldn’t it be weird if you kept getting ‘wrong number’ messages on your answering machine and it turned out someone was leaving them for you on purpose?”

My writer’s brain snapped instantly to attention. Why any one comment taken out of thousands of statements can be such a trigger I haven’t a clue, but immediately I knew there was a book in there. So here it is! The third in the MEN TO DO series. Alison Kent, Jo Leigh and I have had so much fun coordinating our heroines, Erin, Tess and Samantha, and their stories. And if you want more, check out www.mentodo.com!

I love to hear from readers, so if you’d like to write me, please do at www.IsabelSharpe.com.

Cheers,

Isabel Sharpe




A Taste of Fantasy

Isabel Sharpe








To Johnny Orion




Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13




1


From: Samantha Tyler

Sent: Thursday

To: Erin Thatcher; Tess Norton

Subject: Love

What I can’t seem to get my brain to stop obsessing over is: How do you know when love is real? I was so sure it was real with Brendan. Zero doubts. Zero cold feet. I stood at the altar and did the Death Do Us Part thing with my heart so full I’m surprised it didn’t pop out of my grandma’s dress.

If something that good and that right and that perfect, that I believed in it with every ounce of my naive-assed twenty-something passion, could turn out to be nothing more than neurotic unfounded fantasy, how do you know when it’s real?

That’s why I’m thinking this Men To Do thing might be the way to go right now. I’m not ready for love. Not until I can get my head around this question and get some kind of answer that makes sense.

But I sure as hell could use some sex.

Samantha

SAMANTHA TYLER INCHED THE Chevy Trailblazer into her Lincoln Park bungalow’s garage. Roughly one millimeter to spare on either side or risk scratching the paint. Obviously the garage hadn’t been built to accommodate ludicrously oversized vehicles. But Brendan had insisted they buy the monster, insisted they’d need it when the kids they never had were born. Brendan knew it would be so convenient for all those lovely romantic excursions they never took.

Brendan had tripped over himself leaving it to her in the divorce settlement and had immediately gone out to buy a black Audi TT Roadster to salve his feelings of rejection and failure, not to mention to attract babes. As soon as she had time she’d sell this monster and buy herself a sunshiny yellow Volkswagen Beetle. A chick car, not a Sensible Family Vehicle. As soon as she had time.

She hit the brakes and yanked the gear into park, jerked out the keys and grabbed her briefcase. Opened the door carefully so as not to hit the garage wall, and eased and squeezed her body out the half opening and into the humid August-in-Illinois air. Definitely a Volkswagen.

The garage door let out the usual series of protesting groans on its way down, followed by a final resting thud, to accompany her walk through the overgrown garden bordering the postage-stamp-sized lawn. Weeding. Trimming. Fertilizing. Mowing. Everything she saw represented something to do. As if her supposedly safe home environment was nothing but a series of tasks she was failing at.

Life had always been a joyous battle to be fought and won, or at least wrestled into temporary submission. Today life was overwhelming. She had to stuff her emotions into a bank vault or risk collapse. And she was just plain sick of crying.

Samantha jammed her key into the house lock, twisted, turned the handle, twisted again and was in. Blanche and Fudge, her black and white cats immediately came to greet her, mouths open in accusing meows. Feed us now.

Not cats. Tasks. How had life gotten so mundane? So colorless? So lacking in spark and love? How had she become this cold robotic nightmare of a person? So afraid to feel. But then of course she’d been that way married, too. At least now she had hope of change ahead. She could focus on that.

“My day was fine, thanks, guys.”

Briefcase on the table, shoes kicked off into the corner, rummage for the can opener, dump the food in their bowls, fresh water, a frozen entrée for herself.

The microwave started its impersonal, indifferent hum. Not like the oven, which warmed the food, coddled and cared for it, released gentle smells that permeated the house like love. The microwave heated. Heated ingredients someone wearing a hair net had slopped into nonbiodegradable plastic.

She crossed to her briefcase to check her cell phone, frowning at the grimy traces on the kitchen floor. They should invent linoleum with brown spots and dried-on pieces of lettuce in the pattern. A cleaning lady would probably be worth the money, but Samantha hated the idea of strangers in her house, among her things.

The cell display announced that she had two messages. She stuck the phone to her ear, crossed back to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of Chicago-brewed Honker’s Ale out of her refrigerator.

“Hi, it’s Mom. Call us, we want to know how you are.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. Mom wanted to make sure Samantha was miserable so she could point out once again what a mistake Samantha had made. She’d stayed with Samantha’s father through some pretty rough times and what made Samantha think marriage was all roses and poetry and passion anyway?

A sip from the bottle, then a longer one. She didn’t think marriage was all roses and poetry and passion. But it should be some roses and some poetry and some passion at least some of the time. No roses and no poetry and no passion day after day, week after week, year after year, and you might as well be living with your brother.

Next message. “Hello.”

Samantha wrinkled her forehead at the throaty, unfamiliar female voice and touched the gold necklace Brendan had given her for their one-year anniversary.

“You were unbelievable last night, Johnny Orion.”

Samantha’s forehead unwrinkled; she rolled her eyes again. Not another one.

“Oh, Johnny, I didn’t think my body could do all those things. Especially that many times. I can’t stop thinking about you. I want to do it all again. I’m wearing black stockings and black high heels, the way I was dressed last night. I’m crazy all over again— I’m so hot for you. I’m touching myself. My hand is sliding down between my—”

Ew.

Samantha pressed the code to fast-forward the message to the end. She really should put a personal greeting on her voice mail instead of the robot announcement of her number, so these women would know she was not Johnny Orion, whoever he was. But for some reason she wanted to feel anonymous, so that even her closest friends couldn’t really be sure they’d reached Samantha Tyler. She was just a number. Protected. Impenetrable. Seven digits with a hyphen in her middle.

The microwave beeped obnoxiously, announcing that it was time to “stir contents.” She deleted the message, the second one left in as many days for this Johnny Orion person. Two women and one last week, all sounding intelligent and articulate, all extolling his apparently unbelievable virtues in bed, all getting his number wrong. He must sleep with a lot of dyslexic women. Samantha didn’t even want to think about how many others had managed to dial it right.

She dumped the steaming overcooked pasta, reformed chicken bits and pallid vegetables onto a plate, grated parmesan cheese over it, opened another beer and looked around for the paper. Something to read during meals to distract herself from how silent they were now. She’d have to go over work files later, a sexual harassment case, discrimination case, the usual mix of wronged people and greedy people. But not yet. A little unwind time first.

The food was edible, the business section of the Chicago Tribune interesting; her concentration shot. She’d have to do better than this if she wanted to get any work done tonight.

She put her elbows on the table, gripping the neck of the beer, and swung the bottle back and forth between her forearms. Johnny Orion. Probably a made-up name—wasn’t Orion the hunter constellation? The guy sounded more like a predator than a hunter. She imagined a professional wrestling announcer introducing him. And nooooow, Johnnyyyyyyy Predator! Samantha grinned and took a long swig of her beer. Whoever he was, he certainly made women happy. Probably some well-hung young stud who serviced older married types.

The Chicago Tribune business section swished off the table and drifted like a giant falling leaf onto the floor. Samantha took her beer into the TV room which jutted like the short side of an L off the graceful sweep of the kitchen and living room. She pushed magazines aside, sat on the couch, legs curled under and sent a look of loathing to the TV—Brendan’s Other Woman. They had a much more passionate relationship than she did with him.

She gave her work files a half-assed try, then when her usually ironclad willpower failed her, she picked up the book she’d been reading for the Eve’s Apple reading group. The online group had been her salvation over the past two years as her marriage had finally dissolved. Except for Lyssa, loyal friend and officemate, her local friends had been so involved with her and Brendan as a couple that the divorce had been impossible to avoid. Even when they weren’t talking about it, the topic buzzed all over them, like killer bees at a picnic.

The women in the online group knew only what she chose to reveal about herself. The discussions were lively and interesting, the books provocative and fun. And Erin and Tess were her lifeline to sanity sometimes. Her closest friends of the bunch had split off with her to form their own e-mail chat/reading sub-group. Last year the fun had been multiplied by Erin’s idea of Men To Do.

Samantha smiled her second smile of the evening. Men To Do Before Saying I Do, inspired by an article in Cosmo which outlined several male “types” perfect for casual affairs, but hardly the stuff of “as long as we both shall live.” The Vain Guy, The Rich Foreigner, the Dumb Jock and Samantha’s personal favorite—The Swaggering Butthead.

Though the experiment so far hadn’t turned out quite the way they’d planned. Erin got the surprise of her life when her Man To Do, Sebastian Gallo, who started out as The Scary Guy, turned out to be the love of her life. Then as if that weren’t freaky enough, Tess had fallen madly in love with her fling, too. Dash Black, supposed to be The Playboy, but turned out he was happy to stop playing with every woman but her. What were the odds?

So far Samantha hadn’t met anyone who fit the bill. She yawned, ignoring the deep-down honest part of her that said she hadn’t remotely been trying, and forced her eyes to focus on the book. When Amber Burns by Elizabeth Jader. About a woman in a happy though unexciting relationship faced with sexual temptation in the form of another man. Samantha read until her eyes and limbs were heavy and begging for sleep, her body too tired even to become aroused by the sensual words. No bed yet. Not until she was so exhausted she’d slip off immediately. Nighttime was the hardest, alone in that dark silent bedroom.

Finally she gave in, went upstairs, brushed her teeth, got into her nightgown, slid into the bed that felt like a vast empty prairie, turned out the lights and stiffened against the usual incoming creep of lonely pain.

Amazingly, tonight it didn’t come.

This was good. This was progress. Maybe divorce was survivable after all, as the self-help books claimed. Samantha punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape, took in a deep breath and sighed out her relief, let herself drift off, brain minus the anxious tumble of questions and confusions.

Moments later, her bed became a jungle of tangled vines and crawling bugs and suffocating walls of trees. Johnny Orion, well-hung young stud indeed, dark-haired, sweat-sheened, ludicrously civilized in tight jeans and spotless white shirt, hacked his way through to her, eyes glowing red like a demon wolf, burning and clearing a path which widened and melted back until the bed was again a bed, sheets smooth and welcoming. But then he changed, morphed into another stranger who came to her and lay over her. Instead of weight and sweat, this man brought cleansing lightness, relief from the sticky jungle heat and confusion of overgrown vegetation. He lifted his head from her shoulder, cupped her unresisting face and touched her mouth with his…

The instant burn of sexual passion shot her awake. She reached down feverishly, pulled her nightgown up and touched herself until she arched and moaned and came alone in the dark.

She lay back, heart decelerating, breath slowing, stunned at how quickly her body had responded to the fantasy, and burst into laughter.

Hot damn.

Samantha Tyler, twenty-nine-year-old divorced mess-of-a-person, was ready for a Man To Do.

RICK GRINDLE, aka Johnny Orion, clasped his hands behind his head, and lay back on the couch, staring at the smooth white paint on his lakeside condominium ceiling. He yawned, flexed his biceps and rubbed his head absently, liking the prickly stubble feel of his shorn hair. She was thinking about him. Right now. He could tell.

He hadn’t been this taken with a woman on sight in a long time. Hadn’t been this intrigued or felt he would be this challenged in a long, long time. She’d come to Eisemann, Inc.—the lawyer sent to interview the bitch accusing him of sexual harassment, Tanya Banyon. He’d been in the reception area when she walked in. Even that first glimpse had hit him like a sexual storm surge. He’d taken a seat in an empty office with a view of the glass-walled conference room where she sat, pretending to be engrossed in his work, observing and ingesting her expressions and reactions, watching her write, listen, consult papers from a file.

Samantha Tyler. God what a sexy name. Everything about her was sexy. Her figure, her thick blond hair, her feminine power, her assertive body language. And sexiest of all was the sadness and hint of pain lurking in her blue eyes. That sadness gave him hope. Where there was emotional vulnerability, there was always a chance to get in.

She’d felt him watching her once, turned her head and their eyes had met. The jolt of chemistry shot straight down into his pants. He hadn’t reacted, made himself glance casually down at the bare desk in front of him, the anonymous indifferent stranger.

Rick lifted his head and resettled it into his hands. But his image had been planted, at very least in her subconscious. The chemical link would remain dormant in her brain until they met again and he chose to bring it to life, to work it to his advantage on this case and in his quest for Samantha’s…favors.

He grinned at the ceiling, feeling the familiar stirring in his groin when he thought of the thoroughly enjoyable work involved in readying a conquest. Seducing women was an art form, one he’d mastered over his forty-two years. But in the past year or so, the chase had gotten almost too easy. Within about ten minutes he could tell if he’d be successful or not. He’d developed a nearly unerring instinct so that he minimized rejection by avoiding women who’d be impossible to conquer. Tanya Banyon had been a totally uncharacteristic misread. But women like Samantha…seemingly invulnerable but with the gift of that chink. Those women were always the best and the sweetest to overcome, though it took careful planning and patience.

“Feeling women” he called them. The most passionate, the most adventurous. Women like Samantha, who tried to hide her strong sexuality—who probably did hide it from most people. But not from him. He could sense it in the way she walked, the graceful turn of her neck, the fullness of her mouth and the glimpse of passion in her eyes.

A mourning dove announced the hour by cooing its ghostly tune from the birdsong clock on his wall. 11:00 p.m. The bars would be full. Thinking about Samantha had made him horny. Maybe he should try to find another woman tonight. Give her Samantha’s cell number again, pretending it was his own, and tell her to call whenever she wanted him.

He pictured Samantha listening to the messages, wondering who he was, shocked, half-repelled, but definitely fascinated—maybe even turned-on. A woman like her couldn’t help but be fascinated. Who was this Johnny Orion? Why were so many women calling for more? Wouldn’t he be the perfect Man To Do?

He chuckled, got up from the couch, crossed his spacious book-filled, rug-strewn living room into the kitchen and opened the door of his state-of-the-art built-in refrigerator. Cold beer. Or perhaps a nice Beaujolais. Pâté. A baguette from Mon Pain. Strips of bright red pepper. No other women tonight. Tonight he’d sit here, get slowly stewed, maybe hack into her computer and see what else she revealed to her friends, or just think about her and how good it would be between them when he finally landed her.

“HOLD THAT.” JACK HUNTER took a step back and eyed the models critically. The tall brunette—Yvette was it?—stood stiffly, body oiled and bronzed, hair slicked down, wearing a glittering, chest-flattening thong bikini. In front of her, on a clear plastic seat that would not show up in the shoot, back pressed firmly to the tall model’s stomach, arms raised like armrests, sat another model, similarly attired. The overall effect, once the picture was done, would be of a female human piece of furniture.

Jack moved forward and carefully rearranged a wayward strand of the seated model’s hair. Vanessa he thought she was called. “Good. Hold that. No emotion. Stare straight.”

He moved behind the tripod set up with his Hasselblad camera, loaded with two-and-a-quarter-inch film and gazed down into the lens until the models became in the viewfinder what he wanted in his mind. Stiff. Wooden. Unemotional. Perfect. He pressed the shutter. Then again, jaw tight, adrenaline high.

Something about the way female bodies could be molded and manipulated to resemble household objects fascinated him. The ability to represent the inanimate with the living, to merge object and life, to cross the boundaries of function and form. This project was his baby. He didn’t need to do it. Commercial shoots gave him all the work he wanted. But photography for the sake of art instead of in homage to capitalism fed his soul in a way his regular job, no matter how satisfying, never could. The ultimate rebellion from pictures that glorified the mundane in order to seduce the consumer. Cereal as the next Messiah, cars that would change your life and social status, jewelry that would save your marriage.

This shoot was about simplicity, about something as complicated as a human being arranged into something as stark and serviceable as a chair. The contrast was irresistible.

He shot a few more frames, then adjusted the main light brighter, to make the shadows more harsh.

“Yvette.” He raised his head and frowned at the standing model. “Can you take the light out of your eyes? Make them dead. Like you’re blind, like you’re seeing nothing. Can you do that?”

The model unfocused her eyes into dull blank circles.

“Excellent. Almost done.” He bent his head back over his camera and snapped a few more shots, finished the roll and nodded. “Thanks. Good work.”

The women slumped out of their positions with sighs of relief and rolled necks and arms stiff from posing for so long.

Jack clapped his hands in brief applause. “You ladies did great. You can get dressed now. I’ll send you prints for your portfolios in a week or two.”

The women made their way to the changing area at the back of his studio to shower and dress.

Jack shut off lights, labeled his rolls of film and took them to the darkroom. Good day today. He’d nailed several shots exactly as he wanted them. The women had been even better than he hoped. He could afford professional models, but he liked finding women on his own, usually aspiring models or performers who were comfortable in front of a lens already. He gave them the pictures for their portfolios or for their amusement or egos, or whatever they wanted them for, and saved himself contracts and legal hassles.

Best of all, he could go about the project leisurely, wait until he found the right faces, the right bodies for the poses he wanted.

This shoot wrapped up his chair series. His next was even more complicated—women as dining tables. Intimate feasts for two served on a woman’s horizontal spine. Fabulous. Someday he’d do a whole dining set.

He put his Hasselblad away in the cabinet Dad had made for the studio. He was looking for a very special person for the table shoot. Someone who could project the kind of simple sincerity the picture required, to avoid a comic effect. Someone who could fill the frame without trying to—or even while trying not to. He wasn’t even sure what she would look like, only that he’d know when he found her. Something about her would spark certainty that she would photograph well and transform his internal vision into reality.

The women emerged from the bathroom, hair still damp, giggling over some joke.

He threw off the focus and tension that always accompanied his work and grinned. “You ladies interested in having a drink?”

They shot each other sidelong glances that made him feel like a dirty old man. Okay, so he was probably ten years older than they were. Not like he wanted anything more than company for a drink. His big scoring days were over. But having two visions of loveliness on his arm for the evening wasn’t exactly an ego buster. So shoot him, he was human.

“Come on. Do I look like a cradle robber?” He held his hands out in surrender which made the girls giggle. “I’ll buy you a drink to thank you for the good work you did here.”

More sidelong glances. The fluent silent communication that only the female of the species understood.

Hmm. Women didn’t usually respond to his charm as if he were a walking virus. Fine. Forget it. Not like he had anything invested in their company.

“We were thinking.” Yvette sidled up to him on one side and took his arm.

“Oh?” He looked down at her lovely face turned up impishly toward him and couldn’t help grinning. A promising sign.

“Yes.” Vanessa slid around to his other side and took his other arm. “We were thinking.”

“Thinking, huh?” Jack turned to the lovely impish face on his other side and couldn’t help grinning wider. “Is this unusual activity for you?”

Two sweet giggles, high and breathy, one in one ear, one in the other. Okay, so he’d been in worse situations.

“We were thinking maybe…” Vanessa tipped her head to one side and looked at him through half-closed eyes.

“Yes…?” He couldn’t help feeling cocky. They were going to accept. Instead of going to his empty apartment, or going out to eat on his own, he’d have some company, maybe get some flirt. It had been a while; he’d been so intent on his work. Just some harmless fun.

“That maybe…” Yvette took up the sentence. “You’d like to do both of us.”

A burst of incredulous air exited his mouth. What? The girls were barely out of diapers, and they were suggesting a threesome? “Do you?”

“Yeah.” Yvonne wiggled seductively closer. “Both of us.”

“Uh…” Jack swallowed. This was supposed to be every man’s dream. Ten years ago—maybe even five—he’d have instantly gotten so hard his cock would have ripped through his pants.

It wasn’t happening now. Instead of a hard-on, he was suffering from a sudden surge of panic. No question his attitudes about women had changed. His attitudes about a lot of things had changed.

“I’m not sure that would be such a good idea.”

“Awwww.” Yvette stood on tiptoes and trapped his left earlobe between her teeth.

“C’mon.” Vanessa wrapped one leg around his and pressed her pelvis to his right thigh, hands clamped onto his chest. “It’d be fun.”

“I’m sure it would be.” Jack extracted himself from trapping teeth, clamping hands and pressing pelvis, feeling like he was stripping off too-tight clothes. “But I can’t.”

“Why?” Yvette backed off and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Because I don’t need a reputation for hiring models and screwing them.”

“Ha!” Vanessa pouted and shot him the look of a snake to its mousy prey. “You already have one.”

Jack held himself still. Made long, icy eye contact first with one girl, then the other. “I think you should leave.”

They glanced at each other, then grimaced and filed sulkily past him through the reception area to the old freight elevator used when the building was a warehouse.

He waited until he heard the slide and groan of the doors shutting behind them.

Crap.

Youth was like a savage wonderful drug. You thought the world could be yours. You thought you could get away with anything. You thought you could indulge your passions and whims in this glorious free-for-all called adulthood and suffer nothing. No consequences. No guilt. Out of your parents’ house and into the candy store for dinner.

Jack took a quick glance around for anything out of place, turned off the studio lights and took the elevator up to his apartment. Miraculous that he hadn’t made a mistake sooner. Three years ago he’d spent the night with a type of woman he usually avoided. A particularly determined woman, who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Something about her aggressiveness, something about her confidence and primal no-nonsense, bad-girl sexuality had gotten to him, and he gave in to an explosive encounter.

He was still paying for it. The next morning he’d woken up, disoriented and edgy. Sleeping with models was dangerous; he knew that. Until that night he’d felt untouchable, chosen wisely, parted on good terms. But this woman had psycho written all over her and he’d gone ahead anyway, mind blunted by booze, ignoring the fact that someone like her could cause major problems for his blossoming career.

She had. For some screwed-up reason she’d decided that one night entitled her to complete ownership. When he’d rejected her next advance, politely but firmly, she’d turned on him so fast, with such violent and ugly determination, he barely had time to react.

Apparently no one rejected Krista Crotter and lived happily ever after. She made sure as many business associates of his she could get her hands on knew about what had happened. Or at least knew her version of what had happened.

He went into his living room, crossed the Oriental rug over plank flooring and put Annie Lennox’s Diva CD on the ridiculously overpriced sound system he’d splurged on a few years before on some testosterone-laden buying spree. He hit “skip” until he found his favorite tune, about how life felt like walking on broken glass.

It had taken months and months of damage control, of walking the fine line between keeping Krista down and pissing her off more, to extricate himself from the nightmare with his reputation intact.

Fairly intact.

Jack passed his hands over his face and blew out a long breath. No question now, but he needed a drink. He opened his refrigerator, which yawned spotless and practically empty except for the orange box of baking soda. No beer. And he should probably change the baking soda, not that there were any odors in there to absorb at the moment.

The total lack of beer decided him. Even without company, he’d go out, something he rarely did anymore, especially by himself. Booze and available women were easier to avoid if he stayed home.

But tonight he felt restless here in the perfectly organized apartment that usually soothed him. What harm could it do? One beer, maybe two. And if he met a woman, he could prove to himself that he could talk to her without getting his anatomy involved.

He went into his bedroom, frowned at a piece of paper that must have blown off his desk, replaced it and closed the window to the offending night air. Humming along to Annie Lennox, he changed into tan linen pants and a white cotton shirt with a beige stripe and descended to the underground parking area he had built for his staff, clients, and other tenants in the converted industrial building he’d bought five years previous with a loan from Dad. A loan he was well on his way to repaying, even after the damage Krista tried to inflict on his career.

He climbed into his Camry and headed east on Division toward State Street, enjoying the soft air through his rolled-down windows, sweet and summery in spite of the city noise and bustle. Weird sexual invitation aside, he was glad now that Tweedle-gorgeous and Tweedle-more-gorgeous hadn’t accepted his invitation to come out tonight.

It felt good to be alone.




2


From: Erin Thatcher

Sent: Thursday

To: Samantha Tyler; Tess Norton

Subject: re: Love

How do you know when love is real? Is that the question of our generation or what? A year ago I’m not sure I could’ve given you an answer, Sam. I’m still not sure I can tell you anything you don’t already know. As amazing as things are with Sebastian, I’m still no expert on love and relationships.

For what it’s worth, though, here goes.

The thing with Brendan wasn’t all right and perfect or you would still be with the bastard. I guess all I can say is that it takes two people to make it real and maybe, from this distance now of several months, you can look back over the last few years and see where Brendan may not have been on board for the long haul. Or where he may have taken a different fork in the road halfway through the journey. I never knew him. I only know what you’ve told us about him.

Just don’t let this one failure turn you off men or relationships. Because it was not your failure. It was his.

Love you! Erin

From: Tess Norton

Sent: Friday

To: Samantha Tyler; Erin Thatcher

Subject: re: Love

Sex is good. Sex is fun. In fact, I think instead of an apple a day, doctors should prescribe a lay a day. However, sex is not love. Now that I think about it, I think there should be two different words for sex…one when you’re in love, and one where you’re not. Both of which would be positive, affirming, with no derogatory elements.

Sex (the one without love) and perhaps Slovex (the one with). Hmm. I gotta work on that.

As for the whole question of how you know love is real…um, gosh. That’s tough. Because it’s totally experiential, and not at all objective. (Am I helpful or what?) I think I fell in love with Dash that first night out. Something shifted inside, and it had nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with sex. I was hit by Cupid’s arrow, I guess, which makes as much sense as any other theory. The thing is, there’s no way to know if it’s everlasting love unless you go through everlasting. Or read the Cosmo love horoscopes. I’m not sure which.

Trust your heart. Trust your instincts. Give yourself permission to love freely, and accept love in return. In the meantime, go get laid.

Love, Tess

SAMANTHA HUNG UP the phone and frowned, swiveling back and forth in her office chair, tapping a pen to the side of her cheek. Another sexual harassment case. On the one hand, the accuser, Tanya Banyon, admittedly a rather…obvious sort of female. On the other hand, Rick Grindle, the accused. Samantha had only gotten a glimpse when she visited Eisemann, Inc. but by all accounts, including the one she’d just gotten from a female colleague of his, he was charming, intelligent and thoroughly professional.

Usually in these cases it was only a matter of a few interviews before Samantha could tell either of two things. One, that there had simply been misunderstood personal boundaries and communications, or two, one party was lying. Rick Grindle had been unavailable for a personal interview so far. She’d go that route next.

“What’s doing?” Her assistant, Lyssa, poked her head into Samantha’s office.

Samantha shrugged. “Just wrapping up before I go home.”

Lyssa pushed the door open with her shoulder and marched in, carrying an armful of files which she dumped onto Samantha’s desk. “I come bearing gifts.”

“Oh, joy.” Samantha gave her a wry grin. Lyssa was tall, blond and curvaceous. She exuded a fresh sweet sexual quality that had men hurling themselves after her as she walked down the street. The kind of woman who made any other woman near her feel old and stale, like recycled airplane air. If Lyssa wasn’t a genuinely grounded, warm person, Samantha would hate her.

“Anything exciting on the agenda tonight?”

Samantha lifted an eyebrow. “Is there ever?”

Lyssa smiled, showing, of course, perfect white teeth—a smile Samantha had seen reduce cold, cocky vice presidents to blushing beings from Planet Idiot. “You could change that, you know.”

“I know, I know. But I’m not—” The word “ready” got as far as the inside of her teeth before her brain stopped it. Hadn’t she just decided last night that she was ready?

“Bill and I are going out to Excalibur tonight. Want to come along?”

Samantha hid her wince. If she was going to play third wheel, at least she’d like to play it to someone other than Bill. Lyssa had this amazing, unerring ability to fall for unattractive, selfish, annoying boy-men. “Thanks, I’m pretty tired. Long week. I think I’ll finish here and go home. Maybe another time.”

“Suit yourself. But I think it’s high time you started bestowing that gorgeous bod on deserving men again.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

Lyssa laughed. “Okay, so I’m intruding. You need anything else before I go?”

“No, no.” Samantha waved her off. “Go have fun, eat chicken wings, drink, go deaf. Enjoy it.”

She watched Lyssa leave the room, ready to go out and have a ball on a Friday night, even if it was with a selfish, annoying boy—man. While Samantha would go home, dump her briefcase on the already cluttered dining room table, feed the cats, eat bad food and end the evening cuddled up with a book about someone else having sex.

A sudden restless rebellion swelled in her chest. She couldn’t face that tonight. Closed in with her loneliness and her confusion and her cats and her work and those damn frozen dinners.

Enough. Tonight she was going out.

She turned impulsively to her computer, logged into her home account and hit “Create Mail.”

From: Samantha Tyler

Sent: Friday

To: Erin Thatcher; Tess Norton

Subject: Readiness

Newsflash. I know I’ve been a wimp. I know I’ve been hanging back. I’m not even sure what changed my mind, except maybe that I had a totally hot dream last night.

But as of this date, Friday, August ninth, my Man To Do hunt has begun in earnest. Chances are I will go sit in a bar tonight and look available and pathetic, but there is always the hope that someone and something will happen that will involve nudity and sweaty writhing and many many orgasms. It’s been too damn long.

I have spoken.

Samantha

P.S. I’ll let you know details tomorrow.

She clicked the send button, shoved her chair back and stood, grabbing her briefcase. She wasn’t usually this spontaneous, but then her life hadn’t been usual in a while. It would be great to be out, surrounded by her fellow Chicagoans, noise, energy and life.

Chances she’d find someone and then actually go for it tonight were slim, but the fantasy of being with someone deliberately unsuitable was delicious. Men to Do Before Saying I Do. After a bad marriage, divorce, and all the angst that went with them, a fun-only fling was exactly what she needed. To indulge attractions for types of men she could no more get serious about than enjoy shopping for feminine protection.

And speaking of protection, she still had the condoms she’d bought on a particularly rebellious day last spring after the divorce, when she thought she was ready for a wild night.

Not.

She’d met a guy, a sweet, overly earnest type, well over six foot and solid. At the time she’d been so angry and grieving that she’d practically thrown herself at him. After two hours of beer and innuendo they’d gone outside together, ostensibly to drive to his apartment. She’d kissed him twice, burst into tears, sobbed violently for half an hour and completely freaked the poor guy out.

Okay, so divorce did not leave her at her most rational.

But that wouldn’t happen this time. She was ready now. She felt peaceful and stable, rather than manic and confused. She was acting out of genuine need this time, making a strong deliberate choice, not reacting to pain and fear.

She closed her office door and strode through the building to the underground garage, calling good night to a few fellow employees. The Blazer started up; she backed it out of her reserved space and headed into the still-blazing day. She was in the mood for a fun place with a bar, but also decent food, not the packed-to-the-gills meat-market type places. P.J. Clarke’s in the Gold Coast would do it.

She found a parking place in an adjacent lot and walked toward the restaurant entrance, wishing she’d gone home to change out of her business suit and into something more casual, maybe a little funky. Maybe even a little sexy. Except if nothing happened when she was in her suit, it was easier to look like she was out for a nice lone-woman dinner and to heck with everyone else. There was something sad about sitting at a bar decked out in hot-to-trot finery and striking out. A situation that would have her imagining all the other bar patrons whispering and shaking their heads.

Poor thing. Out to get some and no one biting.

She swung open the door, letting cool confidence take over her body, though she was shaky inside, half nerves, half excitement. No problem. Move forward and chant the mantra: Samantha Tyler does this kind of thing all the time. Take me or leave me. I’m here.

She squared her shoulders and walked with deliberate indifference toward the bar, avoiding eye contact. Her senses registered the buzz of conversation and the stink of cigarettes, the measuring eyes of guys turning to see who had walked in. The row of round-topped wooden stools mostly, but thank God not all occupied, beckoned. Her mind raced as she calculated which seat would be best. Not next to the creepy middle-aged guy. Not next to the ponytailed artsy-looking guy. Not next to the twenty-something sexpot girls. That comparison she could do without.

There. Three people leaving. She could sit in the middle seat and avoid choosing someone to be next to.

She ordered a draft ale and concentrated on gazing at the bottles behind the counter, keeping her expression neutral. Someone was watching her. She could feel it. A shiver of excitement went through her for no apparent reason. What was that? For some equally unapparent reason, a vision of tall, dark and hunky rose in her mind, when the eyes on her could just as easily belong to a transvestite admiring her outfit.

Who? She turned her head slightly; no one on that side. She scanned with peripheral vision behind her. Nope. But the feeling was increasing, a shivery dangerous sexual sensation. Someone was coming up to her, about to speak. She’d never sensed anyone’s presence as powerfully as she did this person’s.

Who?

She turned the other way.

Oh. My. God.

He was sitting two seats from her on her left; she hadn’t noticed him arriving. She certainly would have noticed if he’d been there when she walked in. Talk dark and hunky, uh huh. And with this sort of bad-boy Jimmy Dean quality about him, as if he’d been orphaned as a young boy and fought his way through to adulthood on grit, determination and muscle.

Okay, so maybe that was a bit much to deduce after one glance. But oh, my, he was someone she’d be happy to talk to. The only strange thing was that after meeting his eyes, that strong sense of being approached by something exciting and dangerous had faded. She felt safe again. Still excited and…very excited. But safe.

“Hi.” One side of his mouth twisted up in a crooked smile, while the other side stayed emotionally neutral and seriously sexy.

She studied him, her head tilted to look as if she was deciding whether he was worth responding to, while her heartbeat was telling her in rapid and certain terms that he was.

“Hi.”

He kept that sly smile on, leaned toward her and extended his hand. “I’m Jack.”

She looked down at his hand, then up into his eyes before she took it. “Samantha.”

His grin widened to include the other side of his mouth and he chuckled.

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s funny?”

He shook his head, still smiling.

She tightened her lips, not really annoyed. The same old joke had gone beyond annoying. “I know, I know, Samantha on Bewitched, and am I a witch, and if I wiggle my nose can I make you disappear?”

“Nope.”

“No?” She smiled, curious, and frankly unable to keep from smiling back at him. Something about the way he looked at her made her feel strangely happy. Maybe it was just that he seemed interested, but plenty of men had been interested, and she didn’t recall it necessarily involved this kind of…uplift, for lack of a better term.

His eyes were brown, lighter than dark deep endless brown, but full of life, full of male confidence and messages that he knew that she knew and that if they both wanted it to, something could happen.

This could be a really, really outstanding evening.

“I was thinking of another Samantha.”

“Okay, let me guess. The character on Sex and the City who falls into bed with every man she meets.”

He laughed and gestured forward to the seat next to her. “Is this taken?”

Samantha swung her legs back under the bar and shrugged. “Nope.”

He slid off the stool and moved closer. She hadn’t realized how tall he was—well over six feet—nor how imposing. And boy, did he smell good. Male and sophisticated—what was that scent? She hadn’t a clue but she wanted to roll in it like a dog and smell it on her own body later.

He settled himself onto the stool next to her and smiled. “That’s better.”

Close up he was even more magnificent. His hair was thick and slightly wavy, cut short so the muscles in his neck were visible when he bent his head forward. The back of men’s necks and their shoulders, that powerful broad expanse, was a turn-on to her.

“Samantha.”

He said her name as if he was contemplating the taste of it, sliding it around his tongue and mouth before he swallowed it and made it part of him. The sound did shivery schoolgirl things to her insides, so she kept her face rigid, since it was silly at her age to be feeling this light-headed over the sound of her name.

“Samantha was the name of a very, very special…female.” He took a sip of his beer and turned to look full into her eyes, his softening as if the memory was taking him over.

Samantha narrowed hers. Something lurked in the back of those eyes. Something extremely mischievous. A very, very special…female?

She shook her head and turned back to her beer. “Your dog.”

He burst out laughing and slapped his hand on the bar. “Damn, you’re good.”

She bit off the obvious line. A bit too soon to be agreeing, even playfully. She knew where that would lead. And even if she ended up wanting it to lead there, now was too soon to start in with the serious flirting.

He angled his body toward her and leaned one elbow on the bar. “So what do you do, Samantha?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Corporate.”

“How did you know?”

He tapped the side of his head. “I’m brilliant.”

She snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He took a sip of beer, straight out of the bottle— Leinenkugel’s Red, brewed up north in Wisconsin. Drinking out of the bottle was sexy on men. Samantha approved.

“What kind of law?”

“I’m corporate counsel for ManForce temporary agency. I handle discrimination cases mostly, racism, sexism and sexual harassment.”

“Uh-oh.” He held up his hands. “I better watch what I say.”

She lifted her brows acknowledging his statement, but not responding. Never hurt to get that information on the table. Men were usually pretty wary after they found out what she did. Nice little weapon, one she wasn’t afraid to use, not that she got herself in situations like this often. But by the way his eyes warmed at the sight of her, she was starting to be damn glad she’d gotten herself into this one.

“And what do you do for fun, Samantha?”

He spoke softly, suggestively. Samantha started to roll her eyes, but then it occurred to her that if he kept up this kind of macho pickup-line crap, he might qualify as the Swaggering Butthead and then she’d get to see him naked. “Define fun.”

“Nonwork activities.” He winked. “You don’t strike me as the type that sits in bars for excitement.”

“Oh?” For some reason that stung. As if she had Desperate Divorcée written all over her instead of Confident Woman On the Prowl. “What type do I strike you as?”

“Beautiful, classy, elegant.” He looked her over as if he was thinking about having her for dessert. “More at home at the opera, or the symphony or in a five-bedroom split level with hubby and lovely children.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to charm or insult me?”

“I’m trying to be honest. How you take it is up to you.”

Samantha gritted her teeth at the same time she was starting to get seriously excited. Mind games. Just what a true Swaggering Butthead was into. Keep his prey off-balance, subjugated. “I’m not into opera, I go to the symphony maybe twice a year, no kids and…” She gave a nonchalant shrug, though it was still hard to say. “I’m not married.”

“Divorced.”

She shot him a look. Yup. He had her pegged. One deep to-hell-with-you breath and Samantha regained her composure. “It happens.”

“You didn’t think it would?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Of course not.” He tipped the beer back into his mouth and put it down on the bar with an emphatic thud. “If you ask my opinion, which you didn’t, marriage is a fairy tale force-fed to us from birth.”

He paused for her reaction. She gave him none. “It’s unreasonable to expect two people to be able to stand each other’s neuroses for all eternity. But there you have it every day.” He gestured with his hand and let it slap onto the bar. “People standing at the altar, sure that mindless infatuation bound to deteriorate is something special and mystical and everlasting. Am I right?”

“You’re right.”

He looked surprised, as if he’d only been baiting her in his best Swaggering Butthead manner, and was anticipating a surefire reaction of hysterical female outrage. “You agree?”

“No. You’re right, I didn’t ask your opinion.”

He blinked once, then clutched his chest as if she’d shot him. “You got me.”

“Easy target.”

“I guess.” He signaled the bartender, pointed to their glasses and held up two fingers. “Can I buy you another beer?”

She rolled her eyes, secretly enjoying his high-handedness. Swagger on, baby; you’re doing just fine. “Apparently you can.”

A couple moved away from two stools behind him at the bar; a trio of thirty-something guys wedged themselves into the space. Jack Hunter slid off his stool, pulled it closer to her and slid back on, acknowledging the thanks of the men behind him.

“So.” He grinned, his knee nudging the side of her thigh.

“So.” She gave him an offhand look, hoping he’d think the flush on her face was from the warm bar and the beer. “What do you do?”

“Guess.”

“Hmm.” She pretended to look him over carefully, as if she hadn’t been doing that already from the second they met. Nicely dressed, linen pants and a loosely woven cotton shirt. No jewelry, early thirties she’d guess. But describing his clothes didn’t begin to capture his real look. The male confidence, the killer eyes that were so magnetic it looked as if they were lit from inside….

“You’re a male stripper.”

He burst out laughing. “Now how did you guess that?”

Samantha shrugged, trying to contain her own laughter. God this was fun. Beat the hell out of staying at home with Blanche and Fudge. “It’s written all over you. Jack the Stripper.”

He laughed again, this time letting his eyes linger on hers after the chuckles died. She held his gaze for a few seconds, then looked away. Holy heat wave. The chemistry was astounding.

“I’m a photographer. I shoot commercial stuff primarily, but I’m also working on a series for a gallery on Carpenter Street.”

“No kidding.”

He grinned, a slow charmer’s grin that made her grab her beer for a long sip. “No kidding.”

Samantha put her glass down and ran her finger around the rim, not at all mystified by her sudden need to touch. “One feeds your pocketbook, one feeds your soul?”

“Yes.” His eyes shifted from lazy sex to sudden alert focus, as if she’d surprised him by being in possession of a brain, lawyer or not. “Exactly.”

“Very nice.”

“I’m glad you approve.” He sat watching her, drumming his fingers on the bar as if he was considering something carefully.

Samantha shot him a look. “So, have you decided?”

He cocked his head in a question. “Decided?”

“Whether to say it or not.”

The same surprised awareness flickered through his eyes before he laughed and leaned his chin on his hand, looking at her like she was a piece of his very favorite chocolate cake. “Yes.”

“And?”

“It’s a go.” He grinned, still watching her intently. “Have you ever done any modeling?”

She let one eyebrow slide halfway up her forehead, while her insides started to jitterbug. Oh. Wow. This could be it. “No.”

“I think you might be right for a project I’m starting soon. Interested in doing a test?”

She let her lids lower suspiciously. “What makes me right where a professional model wouldn’t be?”

“Hard to say. Call it instinct, call it artistic selection. I could easily be wrong, but I think a camera would love you. I think you have exactly what I want.”

His voice was smooth and low, his eye contact direct and no-nonsense. Samantha shrugged and took another sip of her beer, which was pretty amazing considering she felt like gasping and slumping onto the bar. Wow. Unless she was totally wrong, this was the photographer’s equivalent of asking her to come see his etchings. What were the odds she’d find the perfect Man To Do the very night she was finally ready? If she wasn’t so cynical, she’d consider another attempt at believing in Fate.

“I see.” She tipped her head to the side and pushed her hair behind one ear in a consciously seductive gesture, pleased when his eyes followed the movement. “What kind of project?”

“I’m doing a series of photographs of women as pieces of furniture.”

Samantha nearly burst out laughing. Ha! What could be more Swaggering Butthead-y than that? Women as objects! He was getting better all the time. “Furniture?”

“Chairs, dining tables, that kind of thing.” He grinned an I-know-what-you’re-thinking grin.

“Charming. Do you seat men on them? Smoking cigars and flicking burning ashes on their skin?”

“Hmm. No.” He tilted his head and rubbed his chin. “But now that you mention it…”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “Oof.”

“It’s a concept. It has no bearing on how I feel about women. I could just as easily use men.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because women’s bodies are more interesting to me. A man’s body impersonating a wooden object is less of a draw. But take the soft strength of a woman, her beauty, her living grace, and transform that into something without life, something utilitarian. That’s such a clear contradiction, a clear paradox. And beautiful visually.”

“I see.” She swung her legs toward him and away on the bar stool. Something about that furniture thing bothered her. And something about hearing him talk about women’s bodies really bothered her. But in an entirely different way. One that had her wondering if his etchings might be something she’d really like to see.

“So…”

She turned toward him again. “So?”

“Are you interested?”

“In being your dining table?”

That slow grin spread itself across his face. “In coming to the studio for a test.”

She knew what that meant. Knew what it would mean if she said yes. And staring into his dynamite eyes, that were sending signals she didn’t need a translator to decipher, she thought maybe Jack Hunter, Swaggering Butthead extraordinaire, was exactly what she needed. “I think I might be.”

“You think?”

She looked back down at her beer and hooked a finger through her necklace, moving it back and forth. Men were lucky. Fatal Attraction type psycho-females aside, they could generally rely on their physical power to stay safe. Women were more vulnerable. “I just don’t know if you…I mean I don’t know you.”

He nodded. “Understood. Here’s my card. The studio is on West Walton street, not too far from here.”

She accepted the card and studied it. Nice address. If he was legit, he was probably doing well for himself.

“My clients include Henderson, Algram and Cairns, Stoering Medical Systems, the French designer Paul Justin and Watson Sports.”

Samantha tried not to look impressed in spite of the fact that she was. Henderson, et al. was one of the biggest if not the biggest advertising agency in the city; Paul Justin was sweeping the nation designing everything from watches to socks, and the other two companies were just shy of the Fortune 500 list.

Of course successful people could be creeps, too, but somehow in her book it made him less likely to be into tying her up, torturing her, and dumping her into Lake Michigan. Maybe it was false security, but she liked the feeling. And he was definitely the sexiest guy she’d encountered in a long time. Or ever.

She threw him a sidelong glance, designed to get him hot and bothered, which boomeranged unexpectedly off his mega-male presence and got her hot and bothered instead.

To hell with security and common sense. When was the last time she’d encountered chemistry like this? Not since she met Brendan. Maybe not even then.

She was going to do it.

She tucked the card into her purse and smiled at him, pushing back her hair again, as if she thought it had any hope of staying behind her shoulder. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll do it.”

He thumped his fist on the bar and laughed as if he’d been holding in tension waiting for her answer and was finally able to let it out. “Good. I think you’ll be perfect for the project. How does next week sound?”

Samantha determinedly kept the smile on her face while her stomach bottomed out. He really did want to photograph her? It wasn’t just an excuse to get her alone tonight?

“Uh…”

“You should know, though—” He rubbed his chin again. “I can’t do this on regular studio time or use my staff, so it would have to be kind of late. Say eight o’clock.”

Samantha’s determined smile started to feel more natural. “I see.”

“And I should warn you ahead of time…” He quirked an eyebrow and leaned closer as if to whisper. “That the women in these pictures aren’t suffering from an overabundance of clothing.”

Samantha’s stomach resumed its regularly scheduled functions and poured in an extra dose of adrenaline. Late evening shoot. No staff. Barely any clothes.

All was not lost.

He could still be her Man To Do. Just not tonight. Which was actually okay. Guys with true evil on their minds would be more likely to jump on her right now, not wait until a convenient time slot turned up. This way would feel a lot safer, even if it lost something in the passionate spontaneity department. And she could put in some serious fantasy time over the next week.

“I think I could handle that.”

“I think you could.” His grin spread extra slowly; his eyes held hers until she had to look away and fish clumsily in her purse for a business card. “Here’s my work number.”

“Good.” He accepted her card and turned it over in his strong-looking fingers. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Not even a fraction as much as she was.

“So am I.” She grinned back at him and lifted her second beer in a private toast. To Samantha: on her way to moving on from Divorce Hell. To Jack Hunter: Swaggering Butthead and possible Man To Do.

She smiled as an absurd thought struck her. And to whatever and whoever he was doing tonight—Johnny Orion.

RICK DROVE HIS Jeep Cherokee into a space opposite Samantha’s driveway and shifted into park. Good. She was home safely. The guy in the bar hadn’t followed her. And she looked much happier than when she left. He’d driven by her house earlier in the evening, wanting to see the space she lived in, to get more of a feel of the kind of person she was, then driven to her office and followed her impulsively when he saw her come out of the garage. Then he’d followed her home—to make sure she was safe and because she enchanted him and he didn’t want to break the connection until he had to.

He turned on his car radio. An obnoxious pop song came on; he frowned and changed the station to WFMT. The noble music of Bach and Beethoven was better suited to thoughts of Samantha than some prepubescent boy band.

Tonight had been good. He’d approached her at P.J.’s when she first came in and sat at the bar, not to speak to her, to let her sense him. She had. He could tell by the way her body tensed, by the way she turned her head to see behind her. She was looking for him. Wanting him without even knowing she did. Then that guy had intervened. Jack, he called himself. That was okay. Rick was nothing if not patient. He’d had competition before. It complicated things, yes, but also made them more interesting.

Lights went on in her house, indicating that she’d gotten safely inside. The overture to Wagner’s Tann häuser swelled on his car radio as if celebrating that fact. Rick smiled at the glowing windows, at the glimpses of Samantha moving from room to room, closing the curtains. He felt like a Peeping Tom, but if ever there was a woman worth peeping at…

I am not to speak of you—I am to think of you When I sit alone or wake at night alone

I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

“To a Stranger,” by Walt Whitman. Maybe he should write the poem down and send it to her. She’d like it. But not yet. Sending notes was tricky, risky. If he sent them too soon, she might panic and think he was creepy. He’d know when the moment was right. And he needed to extricate himself from this mess with Tanya, his accuser, first, so Samantha would know he wasn’t some sleazeball. He’d simply miscalculated. He knew how to treat women; he loved and respected them. Tanya was the first one he’d ever read so wrong.

Whatever. Samantha would see his side. Then they could be together. For now, he’d keep up her sexual interest with the calls for Johnny. Then segue into the deeper, more powerful aspects of their inevitable relationship.

When the last fabric wall shut her away from him, he gave a long sigh, shifted into drive and pulled away from the curb. After tonight, after interference by that Jack guy. Rick needed to pick up the pace, go into higher gear, find out that much sooner everything he could about her likes and dislikes, her passions and tastes and turnoffs. Difficult, yes, but he relished the challenge. Because he knew in the end he’d win.

He grinned and beeped his horn in an impulsive farewell salute as he sped down her block. Johnny Orion always got the girl.




3


From: Tess Norton

Sent: Friday

To: Samantha Tyler; Erin Thatcher

Subject: re: Readiness

YOU GO GIRL! You aren’t going to look pathetic, you’re going to look gorgeous and sexy and oh, so ripe. BE PICKY! You can have any man you want, and what you want is someone who can get it up and keep it up until you’re damn ready to call it a night. Check his feet, his hands, and if they’re short and stubby, move on. If they’re long and thick and his lips are perfect and his…oh, um, sorry. I was thinking about Dash. Here’s the bottom line, kiddo. This is a present to you. Don’t be stingy. Give it all you’ve got.

Love, Tess

P.S. I want DETAILS

From: Erin Thatcher

Sent: Friday

To: Samantha Tyler; Tess Norton

Subject: re: Readiness

Well, hell! It’s about time. And I gotta say it’s good to read a more upbeat you. And, no. You will not look pathetic. Available is one thing. Available is good. Available will have men flocking. And you’ll get to pick and choose your fantasy. If I hadn’t already found mine, I think I’d be totally envious! Don’t worry about right and perfect and all that relationship crap. Just go find a piece of body candy and spend the night smacking your lips. Oh, and make sure he smacks his!

Love you! Erin

Samantha finished reading the notes, grinned and launched into a new message. Details? She’d give them plenty.

From: Samantha Tyler

Sent: Saturday

To: Erin Thatcher; Tess Norton

Subject: Last Night!

I did it! I went! I met someone! (Is that like I came, I saw, I conquered?) He’s totally gorgeous and a Swaggering Butthead to boot. Thinks he’s brilliant and is obviously used to the chicks falling at his feet (okay, I was one of them, I couldn’t help it). He’s a photographer and he wants to photograph me one night next week. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more!

I feel so good! Like I’m coming out of a coma. I love this. I couldn’t fall for this guy in a million years. He’s perfect.

I’m so happy!

By the way, have you guys gotten into When Amber Burns, yet? Sheesh! No wonder I had sex on the brain. Which guy do you think Amber’s going to go for at the end, Adam or Mark—or both at once (ha!)?

Somewhat deliriously,

Samantha

Samantha hit the send button to blast the e-mail off to Erin and Tess, and spun her computer chair to face her home office, arms stretched blissfully wide, an entire Saturday at her disposal. In this mood, staying home doing work wasn’t going to cut it. She’d already begun investigating the latest sexual harassment case by interviewing Tanya Banyon, a temp employed by ManForce who brought charges against Rick Grindle. The woman had been convincing, certainly, but Samantha should spend the day preparing for her interview next week with the accused to get his side before she made any decisions.

Samantha rolled her eyes. Lighten up, woman. She’d done a million of these cases. Who needed to give up a Saturday afternoon preparing for the expected? She wanted to go out! She wanted to live! She wanted to…shop!

Frankly, her hot-night-out wardrobe was about five years old. She and Brendan had very sensibly dated for two years before they got married, and he’d made it clear she didn’t have to dress sexily to be sexy to him. At the time it had seemed so honest, so genuine, so beautiful. Until she recognized it as part of the pattern of suppressing her personality to please him.

God how insidious those little things became when you looked at them as part of the whole.

She liked getting dressed up. She liked wearing clothes that flattered her figure. Not like she was trampy. But if she felt good about her clothes and the way she looked, she felt good about herself. If that made her shallow and insecure, tough. She’d made friends with her flaws. At very least, they were loyal company.

Onward! She jumped up and grabbed her purse and keys.

Three hours later, she burst back in through her side door. Success! A black tiny-strapped skintight top with built-in bra, tight stretchy black jeans, and a clingy hot-pink sweater. She hadn’t felt this good in ages. Not only clothes, but she’d taken herself out to lunch and the cute guy in the next booth had flirted with her.

She danced into her kitchen, dumped the bags on a chair and grabbed her cell phone to check messages, so full of energy she very nearly got the urge to scrub the floor. This was serious. Maybe she should take some medication.

Her cell phone display showed one missed call; she crossed her fingers, imagining Jack’s deep voice, dialed up her voice mail and crossed to get her new clothes out of their bags, so she had something to do if it wasn’t him.

“Hello, Johnny Orion. It’s Kate. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Samantha froze. What was the deal with these women and their faulty dialing habits? And for Pete’s sake, how good could one man be?

“I worked all day to cook that dinner for you. But the look in your eye when you came in…God, I wasn’t hungry for food after that.”

Samantha walked to the window, new black camisole clutched in her hand, and stood watching her garden as if she could somehow see the caller in the overgrown bushes if she stared hard enough.

“I’ll probably never get the sauce out of the rug. My mom will never forgive me for Aunt Ruby’s broken china. And I still have no idea where my thong is. But ohhhh, Johnny. You were worth it.”

Samantha pursed her lips in a silent whistle. An instant picture came into her head. The door opening. Johnny Orion standing there—looks by Hugh Jackman, body by Russell Crowe, smoldering intensity by Colin Firth. Male perfection. Slamming the door behind him, head tipped slightly forward as he moved, so his eyes would shoot passion from under lowered brows, so he’d have the appearance of a dark, charging bull.

“I’m still sore, I’m still ragingly horny, I still want you, Johnny. Call me.”

He’d walk forward, and without speaking lift her in his arms, clear the dining table of its carefully laid meal with one sweep, clear her body of its carefully arranged outfit with another, and go to it with hands, mouth, tongue and—of course—the industrial-sized penis.

Mmm.

Passion. Sex. Wild passion. Wild sex. She and Brendan never quite got there. There was always something polite in the way they treated each other. Always something slightly apologetic about their lovemaking, as if they felt bad about those pesky animal instincts, and were making do as best they could, since escaping their own humanity was impossible, darn it.

Wild messy passion. Wild messy sex.

She leaned back against the counter, rubbed the shiny camisole top over her body, then downward so it bunched into a soft ball between her legs and she could push against it. Jack might do that for her. The way he’d looked at her in the bar, like he wanted to devour her…

She’d let him.

The top slid between her fingers to the floor; she undid her jeans and pushed her hand inside. Jack Hunter. Right now, in this crazy hormone-charged mood, she wanted him. Badly. She wanted to get naked for him, feel that glorious sense of female power, that explosive chemical reaction at the beginning of an affair, when just the sight of her body would send him into a state of mating-readiness. When the toss of her hips, or the slide of her hands on her own thighs could turn him into a stiff groaning mess of desire. When just the touch of her fingers on his bare skin was enough to get him ready.

She wanted Jack to be her Johnny Orion. To come to her and take his fill of her, giving as much as he took. She wanted that. She wanted it.

Her jeans crept down farther on her straining legs; she rubbed herself harder, breath accelerating, imagining that beautiful meal spread on her dining table, Jack sweeping it to crash on the floor and spreading her on the dining table, stripping her, taking her.

“Oh.” The orgasm hit, hot and hard and she rode the wave, keeping the image of Jack’s naked thrusting body firmly in her mind until she came down, legs cramped and stiff, zipper straining open.

Blanche and Fudge chose that moment to investigate the kitchen and demand dinner in loud no-nonsense yowls.

Samantha blinked and burst out laughing. God what a sight she must be. Masturbating in her own kitchen, fully clothed, in front of her cats. But it didn’t feel pathetic. It didn’t feel pathetic at all. She pictured Jack again and smiled, doing up her pants, pushing the hair back from her face, body still glowing.

It felt damn good.

“CAN WE GET THE wrinkle out of the left shoulder there?” Jack pointed to the digital image of a Watson Sports T-shirt his assistant Beth handed him. “And try getting the folds to run left to right instead. Maybe straighten that seam a little more. I like the look, but the client won’t want the logo distorted. That should do it. Let me know when it’s set and I’ll shoot it.”

“Done.” Beth pointed to another table where a prop stylist was lovingly adjusting Watson golf shoes on a small mat of Astroturf. “They’re ready for you to check the shoes.”

Jack wandered over, hands in his pockets, whistling carelessly through his teeth, eyed the shoes critically and nodded. “Looking good—I like the angle. Let me see a test when it’s ready.”

He strolled back past the T-shirt table, still whistling, a rambling melody completely at odds with the techno-pop assaulting the studio’s airspace, and stopped to check the next shot—a putter to be shot on outline, against a neutral color for the client to fit into its own background.

Unfortunately, with no one else at the table demanding he do his job, no matter how hard he focused his eyes, his brain refused to take in the concept of “golf club.” Thoughts of her invaded immediately, as they’d been invading all weekend no matter how hard he tried either to push them away or sort out the dilemma to a workable solution.

He should call her today. He probably should have called her over the weekend. Samantha was perfect for the human dining table series. Tall, slender, not overly curved. More than that, she had the perfect look. Class, innocence, sensuality, all built into the striking planes of her face, so that even immobile and deadpan, those qualities would come through in the shot.

So why hesitate? He absently adjusted the head of the putter, which a barely conscious part of him knew didn’t need adjusting.

Because he wanted her. Because in her classy innocent sensuality, she represented a danger to the control he held tight to. Since Krista he’d been careful to find models who fit the shots but held little or no appeal for him personally. He wasn’t going down that road again.

But something about this woman called strongly to him. Made him plenty aware that being alone with her in a studio—even on a closed set with a hair and makeup stylist on call—while Samantha had on next to nothing would bring temptation home.

More than temptation. Torture.

He should avoid her. Listen to the voice in his head shouting, “Run, you idiot, run.” He didn’t need to mess up his life again, now that he’d clawed his way back on track. If he slept with her, as he was pretty sure she wanted him to by the signals she was sending out, and if he got away with it this time, then what would stop him the next time someone offered, and the next? Until he hooked up with another Krista and had his career nuked again. He might not be able to start over a third time and get anywhere he or anyone else could respect.

Jack glared at the putter and unnecessarily adjusted the grip this time. What scared him was that in spite of the well-known, acknowledged, been-down-that-road-before risks, he wanted Samantha in his studio and in his series. He missed the game, the chase, the thrilling, orgasmic victory. He wanted to be tempted by her. Wanted to feel the intense rush of excitement as he had in the bar. A rush he’d denied himself for so long.

He felt like a recovering alcoholic face-to-foam with a big frosty mug of beer. Lifting it, inhaling the sour yeasty scent, bringing it to his lips so the bubbles tickled his—

“What the heck is with you?” His studio manager Maria lifted a dark pierced eyebrow. “You’ve been whackyed-out all day.”

“Whackyed-out?” He smiled at her tough hands-on-hips stance, so incongruous on her tiny frame. But he sure as hell wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of her temper. “How have I been whackyed-out?”

“All day you’ve been wandering and whistling. Usually you’re like a headless chicken running around.”

“Wow, Maria, thanks.” He sent her a look of fond exasperation. “It really pumps me up to be compared to barnyard animals.”

“No problem.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot. “So what’s this woman’s name?”

Jack tried very hard to recover from extreme shock without giving himself away. “What woman?”

Maria’s eyes narrowed. “The one who has you whackyed-out.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Ha! Cut the crap.” She leaned forward and impaled him with her nearly black eyes. “You can fool some people sometimes, but Maria never. I know you have a woman and she’s crazying up your head. My brother Paulo looks just like that about ten times a year. If my Miguel looks like that even for half an hour, bam!” She made a decisive chop on her open palm.

He grinned and shook his head. “And if I tell you it’s none of your business?”

“I’m making it my business.” She cocked her head so the studio light sparkled off the diamond piercing her nostril. “She better be worth you. Is she?”

He pictured Samantha’s blond hair draping her shoulders, her soft-looking, slightly rosy skin, clear eyes dancing with life. She was probably worth about ten of him. “I don’t know.”

“Then you better find out.” She made a circling motion with one finger next to her multi-earringed ear. “Or you’ll stay wacky forever.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Is that right.”

“I’m serious.” Her eyes widened in outrage. “This obsession won’t go away by itself. Like a splinter, she will dig in deeper if you ignore her. Take her out. Examine. You can’t get free any other way.”

He rolled his eyes, still grinning. Since the dawn of time, there had never been a more determined matchmaker. “I think you’re reading a little too much into it.”

She shrugged. “If you don’t give love a chance at the obvious time, it’ll come back and bite you in the ass.”

“Love?” He stared at her incredulously. Over the top, even for Maria. “This isn’t love we’re talking about.”

“Oh, right, matters of the dick.” She waved at him dismissively. “I’ve seen you lusting plenty of times. This is different. You watch. You’ll see. In one year, I’ll be dancing at your wedding, thumbing my nose at you.”

Jack laughed. As much as he sometimes wanted to use dynamite to budge her from her strongly adhered-to opinions, Maria lit up the studio like a 2K hot light, and he adored her. “My wedding, huh?”

“You betcha. You blow this you’ll end up alone in a cold apartment with a shriveled you-know-what, eating cold ravioli out of a can.”

“Well, if you put it that way, I better give it some serious thought.” Jack rubbed his thumb along the side of his jaw, pretending to be giving it some serious thought. All kidding aside, and he owed Maria thanks for bringing him face-to-face with the truth this morning, he’d spent the last few days fooling himself thinking he was trying to decide. He’d made his decision about ten seconds after he saw Samantha sitting in the bar, rigid with nerves over being out by herself. She was too perfect for the shoot not to call.

At the same time, he was smart to recognize the rush of fight or flight energy, like a swimmer seeing shadows in the water under him, not knowing if they were coral reefs or hungry sharks. No question he had a struggle ahead to keep the relationship professional.

“Well.” He sighed, long and loud. “If you’ve made up your mind, Maria, then it’s obvious what I have to do.”

Maria nodded firmly, her lips starting a smile that reflected his mischief. “Damn right.”

“I guess…” He shrugged in exaggerated helplessness and let his hands slap down on his thighs. “I guess I have no choice but to call her.”

“MS. TYLER? SORRY TO keep you waiting. I’m Rick Grindle.”

Samantha looked up from the file she’d been studying in the reception area of Eisemann, Inc.

Yikes.

Her nice-to-meet-you smile immediately threatened to slide off her lips and she had to use extra muscle to bolster it back up. Whatever she’d expected Rick Grindle to look like, this wasn’t it. The man was well over six feet and built like a linebacker. The way Tanya, his accuser, had talked about him, Samantha had expected something closer to Elmer Fudd.

His eyes were an intense pale gray set off by the pure white of his shirt and the deeper-gray charcoal of his perfectly tailored suit. The black-and-white impression was marred by a crimson tie that made a silk blood-swath down into his neatly buttoned jacket. His hair had started to go the way of bald things and he kept what was left buzzed military-short. Unlike some guys, the lack of hair reinforced his virility and completed the picture of the imposing giant.





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