Talking About Sex...

She took a calming breath and laid the candle on the coffee table.

Jess glanced at it before refocusing his gaze on her. “Now what?” he asked quietly.

“We make a date for tomorrow night.”

Disbelief flashed in his eyes. “You’re sending me home?”

“It’s been a lot of years, Jess. I think we need time to get reacquainted, don’t you?”

“Like this? With me watching you masturbate? What kind of ridiculous idea is—”

“You don’t have to come back tomorrow night if you’d rather not.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “Maybe I won’t.”

“Suit yourself. But if you decide to, make it about six. I’ll have some snacks for us. Maybe something…interesting.”

“I’d expect cucumbers and bananas, at this rate.” His gaze burned with frustration.

“I’m sure I can think of something more creative than that.”

“No doubt you can. But you’d better know now that I plan to take part in whatever you dream up. Sex isn’t a spectator sport, you know.”

“You don’t think so?” Her research for the talk show was really coming in handy. “Don’t you ever use mirrors?”

“I—no.”

“You should try it sometime. Mirrors give a whole new dimension to the action.” She didn’t know that from firsthand experience, but she had no trouble imagining it.

He studied her, his jaw tight. “I don’t know what to make of you, Katie. I thought we could just have sex.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“I can see that.”

Maybe now was the time to dangle a carrot in front of Jess’s nose. “In any case, if you decide to show up tomorrow night, I’ll make you a promise.”

“What’s that?” He looked wary.

She smiled. “You won’t be just a spectator.”

5

JESS DIDN’T GIVE KATIE a firm answer as to whether he’d show up at her apartment on Sunday night, but he was certainly firm in one specific area. He drove home with an erection that refused to wilt. The image of Katie masturbating with the candle followed him the whole way back to his town house, which explained his continuing problem.

Once he was in the privacy of his own shower, he took care of that immediate situation, but he still wanted Katie. He would go back tomorrow night. No matter how much he’d like to stay away and salvage his pride, he wouldn’t be able to do it. She had him hooked.

Besides, tomorrow night would be different. She’d said so, and even if her plans didn’t include full participation from him, he’d make that happen. He wasn’t going through another session where he only watched while she brought herself off.

But even as he ranted against her treatment, honesty made him admit that he’d never been so aroused in his life. She’d raised the bar on sexual excitement with that trick. And when he finally made it to the major attraction with her, the rewards would be greater because he’d been forced to wait and required to suffer extreme frustration.

So, yeah, maybe her technique wasn’t all bad. Once was enough, though. She’d proved her point and he’d gone along for the sake of future benefits. He expected those benefits tomorrow night. Either they’d indulge in the whole enchilada or he was outta there.

KATIE WOKE UP AT DAWN the next morning feeling wired even though she hadn’t slept all that well. Wearing her faded KRZE sleep shirt, she wandered into the living room to see if she’d dreamed Jess had been here. But the candelabra with the penis-size candles told her that he’d been there, all right, and she’d acted like a very bad girl.

Thank God she was scheduled to meet Cheryl at Sabino Canyon this morning for a run. She needed to work off some of her excess energy. After changing into shorts and a sports bra, she grabbed a water bottle, her cell phone and a visor before heading out of the apartment. Now that vehicular traffic had been banned from the canyon, the road into it made a perfect walking and jogging trail.

Cheryl was late, as usual, but Katie didn’t mind. Strolling the parking lot at the entrance to the canyon, she listened to the birds and watched the sunlight move down the granite cliffs. She loved Cheryl, but her constant chatter tended to drown out the beauty of any natural surroundings.

“Here I am!” Cheryl’s cheery greeting sailed across the parking lot like a kite in the breeze.

“Let’s go.” Katie set off at a jog. She still wasn’t sure how much she wanted to say about last night, so she let Cheryl talk.

That was never a problem for Cheryl. She’d built up her lung power over the years and could carry on a conversation even when running. “I set my alarm,” she said, “but it’s a new Zen kind with a chime instead of an annoying ring, and it turns out that the cute little chime doesn’t do squat to wake me up. I sleep like the dead, you know.”

“I know.” They’d roomed together in college. Some mornings Katie had resorted to a glass of water in the face to get Cheryl out of bed.

“I love to sleep. Do you know how important those REMs are to your overall health? People in this country are sleep-deprived, I tell you. Why, the SATs would probably go up amazingly if high school kids could only get enough sleep.”

“Probably.” Katie jogged up the trail and listened to Cheryl’s dissertation on sleep, which morphed into a diatribe about lack of productivity in general before moving on to the values of massage, which continued with a list of the best places in town to get one.

Then unexpectedly Cheryl threw in a question. “Any word from Jess?”

Katie had been lulled into complacency by Cheryl’s monologue and stumbled with her answer. “Uh, yes. He…when I got back last night, he…was in my apartment.”

“What?” Cheryl stopped in the middle of the road. “What do you mean, in your apartment? Did you leave a window open?”

“No, he sort of…picked the lock.”

Cheryl stared at her. “Jess? Our Jess?”

Katie explained about Jess’s father while Cheryl stood there, uncharacteristically speechless. Then Katie added the info about the candles and the wine. After that she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to tell, so she suggested they continue on up the trail.

Cheryl went along with that, but she kept glancing over at Katie and shaking her head. “I still can’t get my mind around Jess picking your lock. That’s bizarre.”

“I guess he figured if he knocked on the door like a normal person, I wouldn’t let him in.”

“Obviously! And he had seduction on the brain. So did he succeed?”

“Not exactly.” Katie felt flushed, and it wasn’t only because of the run. “I…teased him a little, pretended I would go along with him, but then…I didn’t.”

“Good for you! That’s excellent. He had some nerve coming over there, breaking in and then expecting you to fall into bed with him. I mean, after his past history, he can’t expect you to welcome him with open arms. I don’t care if he floats your boat or not, you have to be careful with a guy like that. So now what?”