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“Has there been a time I haven’t been there for you, Gracie?” Rick said, offering up a non-answer sort of answer that made her smile. “Look, how serious was this incident? Do you want me to contact security and report the guy? Have them change your key card code?”
Her fingers tightened around the receiver. “No, I really don’t want to go through all the hassle. My mind may be telling me I just survived a close call with death, but my gut says the poor jerk just got the wrong room. Anyway, reporting the incident will only distract me from the interview.”
“Speaking of which, I hope this call means you’re ready, because my phone message light is blinking. It’s probably the car the station sent to pick us up.”
Grace yelped and jumped up. She wasn’t anywhere near ready. She eyed the daring, bright pink number she and Rick had settled on for the outrageous radio talk-show host, then lifted a hand to her still wet hair. “See you downstairs in five.”
More like twenty, but he didn’t have to know that.
“YOU’RE LATE.” The junior producer of WDRT’s morning radio show descended on Dylan and Tanja like a swooping crow complete with curved nose and clipboard. Through speakers set up in every corner, a clip of seemingly unending commercials poured over the airwaves. Dylan felt hands on his shoulders. He tensed.
“Sheesh, Doc, I’m just trying to take your coat,” Tanja said.
“Oh.” He allowed her to tug the tan overcoat down the length of his arms, then grasped the new set of notes he’d put together in the cab on the way over.
Tanja leaned closer, one of the spiked, purple tips of her hair nearly taking out an eyeball. She lowered her voice. “Are you okay? You’re wound up tighter than a seventeen-year-old virgin on prom night.”
He grimaced. “Thanks for the comparison, Tanja.”
The instant he’d met the young PR rep his publisher had sent to accompany him on his tour, he was convinced his editor had gone out of his way to make sure he found someone the total opposite of Dylan’s character. Dylan could see Charlie Hasseldorf getting quite a chuckle out of the situation. Then Dylan had landed in New York and discovered that here, nearly every professional Tanja’s age…well, looked like Tanja.
The producer clapped his hands impatiently. “Look, I don’t have time for any prep so you’re just going to have to play it by ear, Doc. The other doc’s already in there.”
“Other doctor?” Dylan choked, looking at Tanja.
She shrugged and smiled, but it was hard for her to look innocent when she appeared to have just stepped out of a tattoo parlor. “I haven’t a clue.”
“Well, isn’t it your job to find out?”
“We don’t have time for this now.” The producer fairly shoved him toward the door. “After you, Dr. Fairbanks.”
Dylan righted himself. What other doctor? And why hadn’t he been told of this beforehand so he could adequately prepare? By now he was used to having his theories challenged by local whackos, but at least he’d been able to do a bit of research before he actually faced the smirking individuals he guessed were chosen more for their disbeliefs than their beliefs.
He was led down a long white hall with various doors leading off it. Dylan straightened his suit jacket and eyed the jeans the other guy was wearing. Perhaps he should have taken Tanja’s advice and dressed down for the occasion. It didn’t matter that it was radio and the listeners couldn’t see him, Tanja had told him. The shock jock could see him. And absolutely nobody wore suits to radio shows.
“Just seat yourself to the right,” the producer said, opening a glass door. “Headphones will be on the counter in front of you.”
The first thing Dylan spotted in the dimly lit room was a camera.
Damn.
Obviously Tanja had also forgotten to tell him they were being filmed.
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.
She smiled at him. “All right, then, marriage. As I was saying, Dr. Dylan believes only within the bonds of marriage should sexual, um, attraction be explored.”
The host’s gaze bore into Dylan. “Does that mean you’re still a virgin, Doc?”
He nearly choked. “No. No, of course not.”
The shock jock snapped his fingers in front of his microphone. “Then you’re one of those, oh, what’s the term they’re throwing around like yesterday’s paper? I got it. A born-again virgin. Are you a born-again virgin, then?”
Dylan hated the term, though by the host’s definition, he suspected his situation fit within the wide parameters. “No comment.”
“Come on, Doc, just look at her. Are you telling me that you don’t just totally want to bang her brains out? Whip out ol’ George and get down to introductions? For crying out loud, Gracie is a walking wet dream.”
Explicit pImages** flashed through Dylan’s mind. Visions of Grace standing under the shower stream, the water sluicing over her womanly curves, her nipples hard and begging for attention, her thighs warm and wet with an altogether different moisture.
Get it together, Dylan. Now was not the time or the place to explore his most untoward thoughts of the woman next to him.
He cleared his throat. “Don’t get me wrong. As I point out in Chapter Four of my latest book, Reaching New Heights—Advice on How to Obtain Ultimate Sexual Pleasure, attraction between a man and a woman plays an important role when they first meet. But it’s a mere pebble in the foundation of a solid, fulfilling relationship.”
The host made a face, obviously not getting the response he wanted. He opened Grace’s book and flipped through the pages. “Seems yours and the sex doctor’s beliefs are completely contrary then.” He grinned at Grace. “It says here that you suggest your patients go out on sexual safaris.”
“Some patients,” Grace said, straightening her headphones, then fluffing all that red hair back around them. “Those without a dark, painful sexual past who are merely in need of finding themselves…sexually. An awakening of sorts, if you will.”
Sexual safari? Dylan thought. It was only when the voices in his headphones went silent that he realized he’d made the remark aloud.
“You were saying?” the host asked.
Yeah, he was saying. Dylan sat up a little straighter, speaking into the mic at an angle as he looked at Grace. “Define sexual safari, Dr. Mattias.”
“I’m crushed you haven’t read my book,” she said, giving him a playfully sexy little pout that made that…feeling slide even lower. “A sexual safari is where I recommend the patient respond to basic, fundamental human need. No asset-probing, spouse-hunting, car-perusing behavior allowed. Rather, the patient is encouraged to act on urges society has taught us to ignore or suppress in the name of pseudomorality and human decency.” She smiled. “In essence, I tell these particular patients to act with their hearts rather than their heads.”
The host emitted a low whistle. “Baby, let me go get my camouflage underwear and oil my elephant gun.”
Dylan ignored him, instead locking gazes with the woman next to him. “So you counsel your patients to have one-night stands. Promote promiscuity. Is that what you’re saying, Dr. Mattias?”
“No. I encourage these particular patients to cut loose at least once in their lives so there are no relationship-ruining ‘what ifs’ and ‘what could have beens’ later on in life. I counsel them to connect with their sexual selves, learn what pleases them without the heavy complications serious relationships entail. You know, the whole, ‘will he think I’m too fat,’ ‘am I pleasing her’ scenario. If you set out to please yourself and yourself alone, then you’re in a much better position to know what pleases others, either in that relationship, or in the one that will stand the test of ‘until death do you part.’ And even you have to admit, Dr. Dylan, that sexual satisfaction is an important element in any healthy marriage.”
“Yes, but only within the bonds of matrimony. As for the other, growing sexually aware of yourself, there are better, more…principled ways to go about achieving that goal. And abstinence, or delaying acting on that purely physical, animal attraction makes for an even sweeter, more satisfying experience, wouldn’t you agree…Gracie?”
The host fanned himself with Grace’s book. “And tell me, Dr. Hottie, do you go…man-hunting often?”
For a long moment Grace held Dylan’s gaze as if she was unable to look away. He noticed the lick of pure, undiluted sensuality in the velvety brown depths of her eyes. The telling dilation of her pupils. Finally she smiled, then slowly looked toward their host. “I think I’ll follow my colleague’s lead and answer a demure ‘no comment.”’
“Oh, don’t go coy on me now, baby,” Baxter crowed. “We have a caller on line four. John, you’re on. Do you have a question you’d like to ask one of our guests?”
“Am I on the air?”
“Yes, sir, you are. Shoot away.”
“Okay, um…I’m having a problem and I was, you know, hoping one or both of your guests might be able to help me with it.”
The host sighed heavily into the mic. “John, if it takes you this long to get to the point, no wonder you’re having problems.”
Dylan leaned toward his own mic. “Go ahead, John.”
“Yes, well, um, my wife and I have been married for five years now and…”
A long silence ensued.
“And,” the host prompted.
“And, well, I’m lucky if we have sex once a month. There, I said it. What can I do about it?”
Dylan opened his mouth to ask for more details, but Gracie’s voice, sounding infinitely less like a porn star’s and more like a professional, filled his ears. “Were you two sexually active before you were married, John?”
Dylan grimaced. “With all due respect, Dr. Mattias, I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything. The fact is that they are married, and they’re currently experiencing…marital difficulties.”
The host laughed. “Yeah, I’d say not getting any is a marital difficulty.”
Grace looked at him, a flash of something he couldn’t identify lighting her eyes. “I wasn’t going to suggest that the couple regress back to the time before their marriage, Dr. Dylan. I was merely trying to ascertain whether or not they’d found themselves individually, sexually, before they took their business in front of a priest or a pastor or a rabbi.” She turned her head away from him. “John, do you and your wife have any kids?”
“Um, no.”
“So there’s no reason you can’t turn your entire house into a sexual playground then, is there?”
“Sexual playground?”
“Yes, John. This is what I suggest you do. First of all, you’ll want to talk to your wife. Find out what her secret fantasy is. If she hasn’t shared it with you in the five years you’ve been married, this may take some time. But once you do find out, act on it. Transform your house to reflect this fantasy. Cater to her every whim. Let her know that her emotional and sexual happiness mean as much to you as your own desire to, in our honorable host’s words, get some.”
Chuckles filled Dylan’s ears as he sat back, grudgingly impressed with the advice, though her immediate rejection of his own opinion stung like a son of a bitch. While he wouldn’t have suggested the construction of a “playground,” sexual communication was always important, making her basic advice sound.
Baxter came back, “Sounds like good advice to me. Thanks for calling, John. And good luck with the old lady.” There was a tiny click. “We’re going to break for a minute or two to let the sex doctor’s advice sink in. We’ll be right back to ask our guests where they stand on masturbation. You won’t want to miss that. I sure don’t.”
The sound of commercials filtered through the headphones and Dylan followed everyone’s lead in taking his off. The host, so tuned in to him and Grace only moments before, was conversing with the producer, leading him to believe his entire interplay with Grace was for entertainment purposes only.
“So where do you stand on the topic of masturbation, Dr. Dylan?”
He shifted to find Grace Mattias crossing her long, long legs and smiling at him suggestively.
Despite his best intentions, Dylan couldn’t help grinning at her. He pushed the microphone away to make sure this little encounter wasn’t used for ammunition when the commercials were over. “Oh, beyond a doubt, it leads to blindness.”
Her instant laughter was spontaneous, warm and contagious. He laughed along with her, his muscles relaxing at the release of some of the tension between them. But he recognized that a whole different kind of tension had just shot up a notch.
“You probably already know where I stand, anyway, seeing as you read my book.”
She nodded. “So long as it’s not used instead of sex, your marital partner doesn’t know about your extracurricular activities and it doesn’t involve sex toys, you’re all for it.”
“In moderation,” he added.
“And with the ultimate amount of discretion.”
“Very important.”
“So you don’t think the act of, um, watching…your significant other bring herself to climax can be…sexual stimulating?”
Dylan stared at her. An image of one amazingly sexy and gloriously naked Gracie Mattias stretched across a king-size bed, her thighs open, her engorged womanhood clearly in view, flashed across his mind. Her pink-tipped fingers first cupped her breasts, plucking at her erect nipples, then slid down the toned length of her stomach, toward—
He shook his head, banishing the erotic thought from his mind. “I think masturbation is an intimate matter best kept between one’s hands…and oneself.”
“Okay, guys, we’re back in ten seconds,” the producer said, indicating their headphones.
Dylan carefully readied himself and repositioned the mic in front of his mouth, wondering if he’d be able to even think of the word masturbation again without connecting it to one wildly sexy Gracie Mattias.
GRACIE STEPPED OUTSIDE and took a deep, satisfying breath of the polluted New York City air. The smell of car exhaust mingled with the scents emanating from a nearby diner and the crisp scent of fallen leaves. If she tried hard enough, she imagined she could make out the slight tang of the ocean not far away.
A drop of water landed on her upturned forehead. Another on her chin. She opened her eyes to realize that it wasn’t the ocean she smelled, but an impending rainstorm. Ah, an unseasonably warm autumn day in New York City. In a matter of seconds, it would probably start pouring. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. She felt…electrified somehow. So vividly alive. Her skin tingled with excitement. She was gloriously aware of every sweet nuance that made her human. The feel of her breasts pressing against the thin tank top under her jacket, the skirt hugging her hips and bottom, made her feel every inch a woman.
The downpour began.
She hailed a taxi then climbed in, laughing when she found herself soaked straight through.
She shrugged out of her jacket, told the driver which hotel, then settled back in the seat. “Take the scenic route through the park. I’ve always loved the park.”