You Sexy Thing!

Miss Berry had likely already given the kid a generous tip for scouting him out. He wasn’t about to pay him any more. He brushed away the pang of guilt and told himself he was being savvy. But the simple truth was that he had grown up with very little money of his own, and now that he had money, he was hesitant to part ways with it. You never knew what the future held. And over the course of the promotional tour he was coming to think he was in the wrong business. He was convinced hotel employees made more per annum than he did. He headed for the glass-encased elevators. This was one less entry he’d have to make on his expense sheet. And that was always a plus.

Dylan punched the up button next to the elevators and stood back to wait. And wait. And wait. He ran his hand over his face. Only five days into his three-week promotional book tour and he wanted to change his name and move to someplace where nobody knew his name. Where no one called him “the world’s greatest sex expert.” Where people didn’t know he’d written a book, much less two—the latest one bearing the misleading title Reaching New Heights—Advice on How to Obtain Ultimate Sexual Pleasure. Having men sidle up to him at book signings to ask what tips he could give them to drive the opposite sex wild—wink-wink—had lost its patina long ago. And so had the women of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds who slipped him hotel room keys that he immediately threw into the wastebasket he always kept under the signing table.

If his “fans” had bothered to look beyond the racy cover copy, they would have already had the answers to their bawdy questions. No, he couldn’t give anyone tips on how to drive women wild. However, if they were looking to satisfy their spouses, then maybe he could give them advice. As for the hotel keys…well, anyone who’d actually read his bio would know that he had been celibate by choice since his divorce four years ago. Any woman who openly propositioned him, no matter how lovely or innocent looking, immediately forfeited a spot on his very short list of prospects for “the next and last Mrs. Fairbanks.” In fact, the list was so short it held only one person.

Speaking of which…

He released the handle of his suitcase then fumbled in his inside jacket pocket for his cell phone. A glance at his watch told him it was not only too early to reach Diana at work on the West Coast, but that he was running seriously late. If this damn elevator—

Ding.

Sighing, he slipped his cell phone back into his pocket and stepped inside the empty, moving fishbowl that served as an elevator. Staring at the unmarked plastic key, he tried to remember the room number. Seventeen-fifteen. He punched the button for the seventeenth floor, only vaguely noticing that the button for the sixteenth was already lit though the elevator was empty. He stepped to the glass and watched as the lobby grew farther and farther away. People milled around the large open area as he grasped his cell phone again. He hit a preprogrammed number then glanced at the magazine he still held, listening to the line ring.

Sex Doctor Grace Mattias Leads the Way into a Brave New Sexual Frontier.

Dylan stared at the headline. “‘Brave new sexual frontier,’ my narrow behind.” It looked like she was recycling the same old line of BS carried over from the sixties. The left sidebar held a cartoon of a redhead in a tight, short dress holding condoms in one hand, a monstrous vibrator in her other. His gaze drifted to the other page. The caricature there—presumably of him—showed a dark-haired guy holding his hands in front of his crotch with a horrified expression on his face like some male virgin from the Regency period. What the caricature didn’t say, the headline did. Doctor Fairbanks Declares Monogamous Marriage Only Path to Sexual Fulfillment.

If he had known the features editor had planned to pit him against someone else, much less this apparently graceless Grace Mattias, he never would have agreed to the interview. Sure, his message was there. Couched between below-the-belt jabs at his conservatism and purposely provocative counterpoints provided by Mattias. Not exactly his most stellar appearance.

The line stopped ringing. “Hello—”

“Diana. I’m glad I caught you. I’ve—”

“You’ve reached the residence of Diana Evans…”

Dylan stared at the phone then grimaced. He’d gotten her answering machine enough times in the past two days, he should have been ready for the deceptive pause between Diana’s greeting and her regrets. But he’d been fooled every time. Which made him feel like an even bigger fool.

Pressing the disconnect key, he distantly wondered where she was so early in the morning. It was only five in the morning in San Francisco. Much too early to have left for her job as junior partner at Coulter, Connor and Caplain, Attorneys-at-Law. He’d been hoping to make contact with her to share the decision he’d made before leaving for his trip. Well, not share it share it. He wanted to arrange for her to meet him in Miami later next week. It was late enough in the year for the north to be chilly and he’d thought balmy Florida would be the perfect place for him to propose to her.

He frowned, looking down at his naked ring finger. Sometimes he swore he could still make out the tan line where his last wedding ring had been. His imagination, of course. It had to be, because he hadn’t worn the ring for four years. And then it had only been for a meager four months.

Well, okay, maybe he’d kept it on for a year. He’d been so shocked when Julie had filed divorce papers he hadn’t thought to take the blasted thing off for at least eight months. It had taken his mother’s threat to sandblast the sucker off in his sleep to make him twist the simple gold band down the length of his finger. Of course his mother, Sharon—who preferred to be called Moonbeam—had objected to the visual symbol of possession—even during the short time he and Julie had been married. She’d had her own wedding rings melted down to a charm in the shape of an eagle over thirty years ago, shortly after she and his father had married. She wore it on a clinking bracelet that bore other mutilated remnants of what she called her “formal, materialistic life.”

Dylan didn’t even want to think about what his father had done with his ring. Especially since his latest interest included body piercings.

Thirty-six years of marriage and his parents still acted like flower children left over from some long-forgotten era. Hell, he hadn’t even introduced Diana to them yet. A niggling part of him still thought his parents had played a role in Julie’s sudden defection. It was awfully coincidental that five days after he and Julie had gone for an overnight visit to El Rancho, his parents’ communelike spread in northern California, she’d packed her bags and left.

He absently rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn’t really blame his parents for what had clearly been his fault. No matter how tempting. Or how easy. He and he alone had been responsible for that fiasco. He’d let his libido dictate a lifetime decision, one that was better made over time. Like the amount of time he’d taken to develop his relationship with Diana.

Sure, he’d known the moment he met Diana sixteen months ago that she was the perfect matrimonial choice. For one thing, she was the complete opposite of Julie. In place of Julie’s wild brunette good looks Diana was sleekly blond. Where Julie had preferred tight-fitting primary colors, Diana chose loose-fitting earth tones. Where Julie had wanted to run off and get married in Vegas within hours of their first meeting, Diana seemed to prefer to allow him to take his time to make decisions, never breathing a word about matrimony unless he broached the subject.

Dylan straightened. This time when he uttered the words “till death do us part,” he intended to see them through to the utter end.

Of course it would help if he could actually get Diana on the line.

The elevator doors behind him finally slid open. Grasping the handle of his suitcase, he exited, then followed the arrows toward room 1715…no, 1615. There. He slid his card key in, waited for the red light to turn green, then turned the handle. Nothing.

Damn. What else could possibly go wrong on this trip?

He tried again more slowly. Then again, more rapidly. The door refused to give.

He stepped back in exasperation. The bellboy obviously had given him the wrong card.

He stared down the long hall that would take him back to the elevator, then down at his watch. He was really running late. The faint sound of Latino music caught his attention. He spotted a maid’s cart a couple of doors down. Without thinking twice, he started toward it, reaching for the cash in his pocket. He wondered how much it would take to get the maid to let him into his own room.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take much doing. The young woman opened the door for him, then actually held her hand up and said something in Spanish. She walked away without taking his money.

Dylan slowly tucked the cash back into his pocket. I’ll be damned. Maybe his day was starting to look up.

He stepped into the room to find steam billowing from the bathroom on his left. Probably as-immodest-as-they-came Tanja was catching a quick shower before the interview. He turned the corner, intent on knocking on the door and reminding her of the time, only to find the door wide-open. And a woman he’d never seen in his entire life taking a shower, the curtain thrown all the way open.

Dylan went completely, utterly, speechlessly still.

Mere feet away from him, a very…tall…very…well-developed woman stood under the oscillating spray. Water clung to perfectly rounded breasts then cascaded over dusky, erect nipples, to slide down a wonderfully toned stomach. He swallowed hard, powerless to stop his gaze from venturing even further. Crystalline droplets clung to the red-gold, curly thatch of hair between her slender thighs.

Dylan dug his fingers into his palms, vaguely aware of the way they suddenly itched. To his surprise, he found himself jealous of the water. He wanted to be the one to explore every inch of flawless skin the water touched.

His mind finally kicking back into gear, he brought his gaze up to her face.

She was watching him.

“Imagine that. My own personal Peeping Tom.” A smile flitted across her lips. “You don’t mind locking the door on your way back out, do you, Tom? I mean, after you’ve looked your fill.”

Dylan felt his skin grow hotter than the steam coating him. “I can’t believe… I have no idea… I am so very sorry. I must have the wrong room.”

He somehow backtracked his way to the hall, his feet moving though he didn’t recall sending them the order to do just that. He stood staring at the room that looked like any other as the automatic locking door slowly began closing. What in the hell had just happened? A scant second before the door could close completely, he stuck a hand out to stop it, then reached in to tug his suitcase out.

He collapsed against the door and closed his eyes, dragging in deep breaths to even out the hammering of his heartbeat.

He supposed this was the way kids felt after they walked in on their parents having sex for the first time.

He groaned at the comparison, then moved away from the door, as if just touching it was somehow…immoral.

He’d made an honest mistake. That’s all. He’d gotten into the elevator. Got distracted thinking about the lack of sex in his life. He swallowed again. No, no, the limbo status of his life. Then got out on the floor that had already been pressed before he even entered the damn thing.

He’d never been so embarrassed…so humiliated in his entire life.

Well, okay, there was that one incident when he was twelve when his mother had stripped him of his swim trunks in the pool, trying to teach him the finer points of nudism. But this ranked a very, very close second.

GRACIE MATTIAS TUCKED a thick white towel around her body then padded quickly toward the door. A cautious glance around and down the hall outside told her that her uninvited guest was long gone.

She closed the door then stared at the locks. There was the automatic one. The double bolt. The security chain. One by one she locked and checked all of them, not surprised that her fingers were trembling. It wasn’t every day that one got surprised in the shower like that. She realized the logic of her statement, and the unlikely chance that it would happen again in this lifetime, then sighed and undid all the locks again. She forced herself to turn and stalk into the living area of the sumptuous suite. She refused to live her life in fear of what might happen. Or spend every spare moment looking over her shoulder for lurking degenerates. Or check the back seat every time she got into her car. For heaven’s sake, she counseled people on how to overcome such emotional fears. She couldn’t begin to cater to them herself.

She swiveled on her heel, then secured every damn lock again.

There was fearless and there was stupid. And no matter how adorably dumbfounded the man was who had turned her normal shower experience into something to remember, the simple fact was she didn’t know him from Jack the Ripper.

She stepped back into the living area, picked up the phone and dialed a room number.