You Sexy Thing!

He grasped the producer’s sleeve before he could vanish along with the PR rep. “Is this being televised?”

“Haven’t you seen the show before, Dr. Fairbanks?”

Dylan frowned. “Seen? I thought this was a radio show.”

“It is. But snippets of celebrity interviews are put together for a nightly half hour show on a cable access channel. Yours will probably air in a week or two, depending on our schedule.”

Dylan stiffened. He didn’t like the way he came across on the small screen. An image of that magazine caricature came to mind. He immediately unclasped his hands where they rested in front of his groin.

For Pete’s sake, it was an entertainment show. Certainly he could handle it. Anyway, it was too late to back out now.

He stepped into the room, bringing into view the radio host, his blond head bent over something an assistant held out to him. Then he spotted the table he was supposed to seat himself at. Eyes focused on the padded headphones, he seated himself then slid them over his head, his gaze constantly flitting back to the camera perched in the corner like an all-seeing, critical beast.

“Hi,” a female voice spoke into his ears. “I’ve heard a lot about you, but I don’t believe we’ve actually met.”

Dylan’s eyebrows popped up as he listened to the low, positively humming voice. He glanced toward a glass enclosure, but the brunette inside—the show’s co-host, he guessed—appeared engrossed in her notes and knocking back coffee.

“I’m Gracie Mattias.”

An odd, swirling sensation began in the pit of his stomach.

“Here. I’m right next to you. The other side.”

Dylan swiveled to his right. Indeed, she was right next to him. And the odd sensation in his stomach pulled into a complicated, inexplicable knot.

The cartoon rendition of her he’d seen in the magazine earlier did absolutely no justice to Dr. Grace Mattias, sex therapist, live and in the flesh. Flesh being the operative word. Generously endowed, alluring flesh. And hair. Fiery, coppery red hair that curled all over the place. He couldn’t fathom why, but he thought of her hair wet. Probably because he had showers on the brain since his unfortunate encounter earlier. Or maybe because when wet the red mass would likely skim down her back to tickle the dimples just above her bottom. And she would indeed have dimples. Decadent, deep indentations that would perfectly complement her perfect body and would beg to be explored by a man’s tongue.

Dylan swallowed…hard.

Then he silently berated himself for such a completely physical reaction to the woman sitting next to him. His adversary. His opposite in every way.

He didn’t know what was with him. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen an attractive woman before, much less an attractive female colleague. But attractive didn’t begin to cover Grace Mattias. In fact, nothing much seemed to be covering Grace Mattias. His gaze slid over the hot-pink clingy material of her deep-veed jacket, down, down, to where her skirt barely skimmed the tops of her delicious thighs. Legs that could rival a model’s went on and on until he found himself staring at the highest, strappiest sandals he’d ever seen in his life.

Catching himself, he snapped his gaze back to her face. Her pink, pink lips pursed as she gave him the same thorough once-over. “Actually, I think we have met, Dr. Fairbanks.”

Dylan managed to shake his head, not trusting himself to speak for fear it would come out sounding like a preadolescent squeak.

She tapped a pink-tipped fingernail against her full, luscious mouth. “Uh-huh. In fact, I’m sure of it.” She smiled, revealing nicely ridged teeth that hadn’t fallen prey to a dentist’s sander. “Though I believe I know you as Tom.”

Dylan chuckled, relaxing a bit. “Now I know we haven’t met before. I’d never have misrepresented myself as someone else….” Even as he said the words, a low alarm went off in a part of his brain that still worked.

Her smile widened as she folded her arms under her breasts, causing them to pop up even further. “Yes. As in Peeping Tom,” she finished.

Oh, shit.

It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t possible he’d blundered into another situation with the same woman twice in one day. The law of averages completely went against such an improbability.

Yet here he was. Staring at the water nymph from the shower earlier that morning.

2

DYLAN WATCHED as Grace Mattias pulled her hair back, revealing the lightly freckled, even planes of her face. “Picture me without makeup…and clothes.”

He closed his eyes tightly and uttered a pungent curse.

“Dr. Fairbanks?” A male voice said into his ear phones. “The FCC frowns on the use of such language.”

He grimaced and forced himself to face forward, well away from the provocative woman next to him and toward the radio host. How bad could it get? This was a morning show, right? Certainly there were guidelines the show had to follow. “Are we on the air?”

“Not yet.” This time it was the radio host who spoke. And Dylan didn’t like the width of his predatory grin. “But we will be in three, two, one…welcome back everybody. This is Baxter Berning on WDRT and you’re listening to America’s most popular syndicated talk show. Boy, are you ever in store for a tasty treat today. If you’ve just tuned in, don’t worry about what you’ve missed. If you’ve stuck around, then you’re about to hit pay dirt. I’d like to begin this segment by introducing two of the foremost experts in the area of sex.” He drew out the word with suggestive flair then picked up a book Dylan didn’t recognize because it wasn’t his own. Baxter introduced Grace. Then he homed in on Dylan, ignoring the copy of his book at his elbow as he leaned forward.

Bad news. Whenever they overlooked his book, it meant they were about to go off on a tangent, outside the list of acceptable interview questions Tanja had provided the producer. Worse news.

“Now let’s see if I can get this straight, Dr. Fairbanks. Am I to gather from your conversation with Gracie—can I call you Gracie?”

The redhead next to him nodded, causing all that red hair to shimmer under a warm spotlight. Then she leaned closer to her mic, almost as if about to kiss it, and said, “You can call me anything you’d like, Baxter. Just don’t call me late for bed.”

Dylan cringed. This was a doctor? He didn’t know any doctors who spoke like that. Okay, there were his parents, but for all intents and purposes, they weren’t real doctors anymore.

The host reacted. “Ooo. For my listeners, I’d like to point out that Gracie is every bit the sex kitten she sounds like. This is one interview you’ll want to check out when it airs on TV.” He leaned forward. “Anyway, back to you Dr. Fairbanks.”

“Call me Dylan, please,” he said, uncomfortably tugging on the lapels of his jacket.

“Right. Anyway, am I correct in assuming that you, um, played Peeping Tom to Gracie’s sexy victim this morning?”

Oh, God. It was one thing to have suffered through the unfortunate event in the first place. To be humiliated before a national audience was altogether different. “Not by design, I assure you,” he said, then cleared the high-pitched panic from his voice. “It was a simple misunderstanding. I mistook Dr. Mattias’s hotel room for my own, and by innocent accident let myself into her room.”

“I was in the shower,” Grace clarified.

Dylan jerked to gape at her. She didn’t have to share that. He cringed and prayed Diana wasn’t listening to the show in San Francisco.

“Uh-huh. I’ve heard of wanting to get a peek at the competition, Doc, but this is fantastic.” The host sat back, dragging his mic with him. “So tell us, does the female sex doc look as good out of her clothes as in?”

Dylan’s collar felt like a tightening noose as he slanted another gaze Grace’s way. Oh, boy, did she, his own body responded. But to Baxter he said, “I’m afraid I didn’t get a good look.”

“Didn’t get a good look,” the host repeated. “Now that’s the biggest load I’ve ever heard. Are you human, man? I mean, just look at her. That’s a piece even the Pope would look twice at. You can’t tell me you didn’t take advantage of the prime opportunity and devour that tight little body with your eyes.”

“If that was a compliment, thank you, Baxter.” Grace’s voice practically purred in Dylan’s ears.

He hit his chin on the mic. “I’ll be the first to admit that Dr. Mattias is…attractive.”

“Trust me, you’re not the first, and you won’t be the last, Doc.”

Grace laughed, a throaty sound that made the swirling in Dylan’s stomach slink lower. “I’m afraid you’re making Dylan uncomfortable, Bax. If you’d read his book, and believe me, I have, then you’d know that he doesn’t buy into the whole chemistry theory. He believes the human anatomy was designed solely for reproduction purposes and that only within the confines of a monogamous relationship—”

“Marriage,” Dylan corrected, regaining his bearings, and unendingly grateful his colleague had shifted the conversation back to solid ground. If they stuck to their books and medical terminology, he’d be fine.