- -
- 100%
- +
People probably canceled at the last minute all the time. But Kay was going to call her in the morning to see how things went. Having to tell her she’d pulled out was not on.
No, it was all systems go and there was no point in worrying about it anymore. In less than three hours, she’d be arriving at her class reunion on Beau Grainger’s arm, and that was that.
Feeling better for her self-lecture, Josie leaned forward through the vanilla-scented bubbles and reached for the magazine resting on the side of the tub. It was one of those glossy women’s magazines which featured sex on every second page, alongside pictures of skinny models in unflattering poses.
Lisa had given this one to her last Wednesday night. Both Josie’s roommates were addicted to the things, especially the advice columns, which had letters from girls with even more pathetic relationships than they had. They claimed reading about other females’ miseries and mistakes made them feel better. However, Josie could really identify with that this week and was flipping over the pages to find the advice column first when her eyes were caught by the sealed section in the middle—that had been torn open!
STARTLING RESULTS OF OUR RECENT SEX SURVEY, the banner headline screamed. Then underneath, SEE WHAT IT IS WOMEN REALLY WANT!
Josie recalled Lisa mentioning that particular article when she’d handed over the magazine. Of course, men and sex were Lisa and Deb’s staple subjects of conversation, especially over drinks.
“Talk about hot stuff!” Lisa had exclaimed after downing her third cocktail. “But it makes you think. I mean…there are women out there actually getting that kind of thing. Amazing! I wish I could find a guy who’d deliver half of what’s listed in that survey.”
“Half!” Deb had crowed. “I’d settle for a quarter!”
Josie’s curiosity had been aroused at the time and she’d meant to read the article when she got home that night. But she’d just been too tired. She and Kay had been working extra hard all week, preparing then painting the walls of the apartment. By the time she’d arrived home after spending a couple of hours in a bar with her friends, she’d just collapsed into bed. Not even reading about unbelievably hot sex would have kept her awake.
But what better subject to get her mind off worrying about tonight? Josie had always enjoyed reading about sex. As a teenager, she’d devoured every sexy book she could find, living in avid anticipation of experiencing the joy of sex for real. Since reality hadn’t delivered any actual joy so far, Josie figured she could at least have some vicarious pleasure via the pen, as opposed to the sword, so to speak!
Smiling wryly at her clever pun, Josie lifted her elbows onto the sides of the tub, leaned her head carefully back onto the folded towel she’d placed there earlier, and started to read.
The whole article, she quickly realized, was devoted to a series of top ten lists. They started off pretty tamely, the first list being the top ten sexiest guys in the world, followed by the top ten sexiest guys in Australia. All quite predictable, filled with well-known movie stars, singers and sportsmen.
None set Josie’s heart a-thudding. She had her own idea of what the sexiest guy in the world would be like for her and it had nothing to do with those high-profile men. Her dream man was far more accessible. Far more real. He didn’t have to be drop-dead handsome, just reasonably attractive, with a well-built body, a well-stoked libido and a fertile imagination.
Oh, and he had to be all hers. Had she mentioned that?
Like Deb and Lisa said, he probably didn’t exist.
But she could dream, couldn’t she?
Flicking the page over, Josie’s darkly winged brows shot up when she saw the topic of the next list. Now this was more like it.
THE TEN SEXUAL POSITIONS MOST POPULAR WITH WOMEN.
AND WHY…
Josie worked her way through the list, her eyes widening as she read the variations and comments attached to each position.
“Oh my,” she breathed huskily at one stage, “I didn’t know that.”
And how would you, girl? Your range of sexual positions in your life so far stands at one. Man-on-top, woman-on-bottom. End of story!
Of course, she’d long known about all these other positions. Well…all except number five, that is. She’d never read about that one before.
It did irritate her, however, that the good old missionary position still made the list, and was raved over by several women. Raving certainly hadn’t been the case in her experience. Still, maybe if she ever found some man who could do it well, she might change her mind. She’d sure like the opportunity to try one of the variations mentioned, the one with the woman’s feet hooked over the man’s shoulders.
Finds my G-spot every time, was the comment.
No man had ever found Josie’s G-spot. She wasn’t sure if she even had one. Still, not too many men had found her clitoris, either, and she was very sure she had one of those!
The next double-page spread held an even more eye-popping and envy-making list.
THE TEN THINGS WOMEN MOST LIKE MEN TO DO TO THEM IN BED!
Josie groaned. Talk about practicing masochism. If there were men out there who did such things to and for their women, then fate had been very unfair to her.
Josie’s sexual partners so far had consisted of two wham-bang-thank-you-ma’am college students, one seriously undersexed and sanctimonious husband, plus a handful of poorly-informed and poorly-equipped boyfriends who didn’t last enough dates to be called true boyfriends.
What she wouldn’t give for one night with one of the lovers discussed in this list, the kind of man who could blow a woman’s mind, whatever that felt like. It was one of the remarks next to the number one thing women liked men to do to them in bed.
Josie could only dream about that activity as well. She’d never had the experience at all. Not once. Which was downright criminal, considering its ranking.
At this point, Josie wasn’t sure if she wanted to read the rest of the article. She hated feeling jealous of other women.
On the positive side, at least she now knew that she wasn’t abnormal. What she’d always wanted in bed was what a lot of other women wanted. And what far too many of the lucky ones got!
But who knew? Maybe some day, somewhere, she’d have some luck of her own and meet a man who would finally fulfil her sexual wish list.
Oh-oh, she was playing the glad game again! Kay would be proud of her. With a self-mocking laugh, Josie turned the page and confronted the last and longest list.
THE TOP TEN FEMALE SEXUAL FANTASIES!
Josie closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. Might as well read the darned thing.
Actually, another small measure of relief came over Josie as she read the kind of sexual fantasies other women had. Not so very different from her own. Some were even wilder. Heck no, most of them were wilder. A couple were quite shockingly outrageous.
Of course, they were only fantasies. And fantasies weren’t meant to be enacted for real. They were just fun for the mind. Vicarious pleasure. Imaginative thrills.
Josie’s imagination immediately obliged and she was off in a highly erotic world when the phone rang.
Her first irritated thought carried regret that she hadn’t thought to bring the mobile phone with her into the bathroom. Josie’s second impulse was to ignore the ringing. But what was the point? The mood of the moment had been broken. Besides, it might be important. Her parents, maybe, calling her from wherever in the world they were at the moment.
Putting the magazine down, she climbed out of the bathtub, wrapped a towel around her bubble-covered body and hurried along to the master bedroom, and the nearest phone extension.
“Hi there,” she answered, sweeping up the handset.
“Josie, it’s Lisa. I know you’re probably busy getting ready for tonight, but Deb and I just wanted to find out what you ended up buying to wear. Did you go and look at those two dresses I told you about?”
Lisa had told her last Wednesday night about two party dresses she’d seen in a boutique window near where she worked in the city, insisting that both would look fabulous on Josie. One was red and one was black, and she’d been right. They had both looked great. They were also a lot sexier than the sort of dress Josie usually wore.
Still, the knowledge that Amber would no doubt show up tonight wearing some fabulously expensive designer gown had prompted Josie to throw caution to the winds.
“You’ll be pleased to know that I tried on both dresses,” Josie told her roommate, “and I bought one.”
Lisa squealed with delight. “Fantastic! Which one? The slinky red or the sexy black?”
“The slinky red.” And slinky it was, with its halter neckline and low, low back, making bra-wearing not an option. The black dress had been equally daring, being strapless and skin-tight, but it had been short. The invitation for the reunion had said black tie, which meant formal gowns—and formal generally meant long.
“Atta girl!” Lisa exclaimed. “I was worried you might buy something conservative. Wow, wait till Angus sees you in that tonight. He’s going to flip.”
Josie flinched. She’d lied by omission last Wednesday night, not telling Lisa and Deb a word about dumping Angus. And she certainly hadn’t told them about hiring an escort to take her tonight instead. They’d never let her hear the end of it. She’d let them think she was still going with Angus.
Silly her. Now she’d have to come up with a real lie tomorrow—the three of them were meeting for Sunday brunch in the city. Maybe she could say that Angus admitted to being bisexual when he brought her home after the reunion and that she wouldn’t be dating him anymore.
Yes, that would have to do.
Meanwhile, she didn’t want to discuss the man. Or the reunion tonight. She was getting nervous again, now that her mind had been dragged back out of her perfect fantasy world and into imperfect reality.
“Are you going to sleep with Angus this time, do you think?” Lisa rattled on.
Josie pulled a face. Deception had a way of escalating, despite one’s best efforts to contain it! “I…er…think I’ll just wait and see how I feel.”
“Gosh, I wish I had your control. But you don’t like sex much, do you?”
Josie shouldn’t have been surprised by this remark. If her roommates thought she was a bit of a cold fish where sex was concerned, then she had only herself to blame. But when she’d first met Deb and Lisa, she hadn’t been long divorced from Peter, and was still suffering all sorts of mental torment from his constant accusations about her desires. It seemed better to give her new friends the impression she was a tad on the stuffy side, rather than have them think she was a sex maniac. Still, Josie now knew she wasn’t a sex maniac at all, just a normal redblooded Aussie girl. Maybe it was time she redressed their misconception about her in that area.
“That depends,” she said.
“On what?”
“On who I’m having sex with. With the right man, I’m sure I’d like sex a lot. It’s just that I’ve been involved with some colossal duds when it comes to lovemaking so far.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean. Most men don’t measure up to our expectations. Still, maybe you’ll get lucky tonight,” Lisa went on eagerly. “You have one hot date there.”
Josie wondered what had happened to Lisa’s man-hating mood, but decided not to ask. Neither of her roommates ever really went off men for too long. They talked tough and bitter for a while after a breakup, but a good-looking guy only had to look their way and they fell in love all over again.
“I have to go, Lisa. I’ve just run a bath and it’s getting cold. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay. Have fun now.”
Fun! Fun was the last thing Josie anticipated having tonight. She’d be happy just getting through the evening without having everything blow up in her face.
4
CALLUM GAVE A LOW WHISTLE as he pulled his red car up outside the Castlecrag address his brother had given him. Ms. Josie Williams must have well-to-do parents to live here, he decided as he switched off the engine and glanced down the sloping front lawn to the large split-level home with its view of Middle Harbour.
Surely she couldn’t own this home herself. Not at the age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight.
Callum had deduced Ms. Williams’s age from the fact that tonight’s event was her ten-year class reunion. It was a case of basic math, given most graduates of Australian high schools were seventeen or eighteen. He knew no other details about her except she wanted a fake boyfriend on her arm to take with her to said reunion.
Callum tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and speculated once again over the reasons why a girl would want to hire a fake boyfriend.
The one and only logical reason hardly made him look forward to this evening. She was obviously desperate and dateless, a poor little rich bitch with more money than looks or personality. In other words, a plain Jane and a bore, who had difficulty getting a date, let alone a boyfriend, but who was determined not to go to her class reunion all alone.
Which was where he came in.
When he’d expressed concern to Clay earlier this afternoon over being able to pull this charade off, his brother’s advice was that he should simply treat the girl like a normal date.
“You do date occasionally, don’t you, bro?” Clay had almost taunted.
Callum had growled that of course he did.
“I was beginning to wonder. There you go, then. Just do what you do on one of your regular dates.”
Nice idea in theory, but Callum suspected Ms. Josie Williams would be nothing like any girl he’d ever dated. Callum only asked out confident career women who knew what they wanted, then went out and got it for themselves. Girls with balls, for want of a better word. Invariably beautiful, brainy and bold, they liked male company—and sex—but had no desire to marry at this stage in their lives. If ever.
Callum had had relationships with a series of such women over the past few years, and he’d remained friends with almost all of them after he’d moved on. Only once had he chosen poorly, a New York divorcée who had seemed an assertive independent spirit on the surface, but who was secretly a shattered and needy soul, ripe and ready to create havoc in Callum’s life when the relationship ended.
Having a firsthand experience with that kind of Fatal Attraction scenario had made Callum a once-bitten, twice shy kind of guy, partly because he never wanted to be subjected to that kind of personal harassment again. But mostly because he didn’t want to be responsible for hurting another woman like he’d obviously hurt Meg. He always made it his business these days to find out lots about a female before he asked her out, as well as keeping his eyes wide open during their first date. If there was any hint of emotional vulnerability or instability, then it was a peck on the cheek at the end of the night, and a swift adieu.
Callum suspected Ms. Josie Williams would disqualify herself from being a regular date of his on every level.
No, thinking of her as a regular date wasn’t going to work. He’d have to do what he really wasn’t all that good at.
Act.
Oh, well. He could only do his best. With a resigned sigh, Callum climbed out of his car, locked it and headed along the path which led past the garage and down some stone steps onto an L-shaped colonnaded porch.
The front door was in a recessed alcove, not visible from the street, with an elegant lamp light overhead, stained glass windows on either side and a doorbell in its middle. Callum pressed the button and waited. No one came, despite the rather loud chime echoing through the house.
Callum was about to press the bell again when the door was whisked open and he was confronted by a very different Josie Williams than the one he’d pictured. At least, he assumed the ravishing creature standing before him was Josie Williams, given she was around the right age and dressed to kill in a smashing red evening gown.
Wow! he thought, as his surprised eyes took in every inch of his date from the top of her shiny dark head to the tip of her open-toed high heels. This was one great-looking girl. She had it all. Long glossy black hair. Gorgeous olive skin. Sexy cat’s eyes. Cute little turned-up nose. And a mouth to drive a man wild!
And that was just her face and hair.
Her figure was equally sensational, and exactly the way Callum liked a woman’s body. Tall and slender, with narrow hips and breasts that were full without being top-heavy. His gaze returned to linger on those very nice and obviously braless breasts, which were cupped sexily by the cut of the dress, the halterneck style lifting them up and together into a very eye-catching cleavage.
Callum was certainly having trouble taking his eyes off her cleavage. Why such a hot-looking babe didn’t have a real boyfriend to take her wherever she might want to go on a Saturday night was more than a mystery. It was a crime!
Whatever the reason, Callum’s feelings toward the evening took a definite turn for the better. Of course, his date could be a total no-no in the brains department, but spending a few hours with her sure wouldn’t be hard on his eyes. Or his ego.
“Ms. Williams, I presume,” he said with a smile.
She smiled back—if a little nervously.
“Yes. That’s right. And you must be Beau Grainger? Come in for a minute.”
Callum nodded and followed her inside, privately thinking it was going to be difficult answering to such a stupid name all evening.
“You’re different from what I pictured,” she said, a slight frown gathering on her high forehead as she looked him up and down.
He could have said the same about her.
“In what way?” he asked, wondering all of a sudden if she was disappointed. Maybe the agency had described Clay to her and she’d been expecting a real pretty boy. Or maybe she’d just formed a mental picture in her head from talking to his sweet-talking brother the other night on the phone. It was as well that their voices were similar or she’d be saying he sounded different as well.
“You look older,” she told him.
“I’ve always looked old for my age,” he said by way of an excuse. Naturally, he did look older than Clay’s twenty-four. He was thirty, going on thirty-one.
“Does my looking older present a problem for you?” he added, the thought crossing Callum’s mind that maybe she’d wanted a younger boyfriend on her arm. Who knew what her secret agenda might be? She certainly hadn’t hired an escort because she couldn’t get a date herself the normal way.
“Oh, no, no, not at all,” she denied, but Callum thought he detected something in her expressive brown eyes. Guilt, perhaps? No, not guilt. Embarrassment. She was embarrassed by this situation.
Odd, since she was the one who’d orchestrated it.
“Better you do look older, I suppose,” she went on a bit brusquely. “I mean, given that I’m twenty-eight and you’re supposed to be my boyfriend.”
Callum frowned over the puzzle of this stunning twenty-eight-year-old. “Would you mind my asking why a girl like yourself doesn’t have a boyfriend for real?”
She laughed a small, dry laugh. “In actual fact, I did have a boyfriend. Till last weekend.”
“What happened?”
Her eyes flashed with remembered anger. “I found out he didn’t want what I wanted, and we came to an abrupt parting of the ways.”
“Aah…” Callum didn’t need to ask any more questions. Relationships were not easy, and many ended badly and prematurely, especially for the girls who wanted wedding bells and baby bootees. And, let’s face it, a lot of them did.
Most guys weren’t in any rush to get to the altar. Nowadays, the singles scene was a sexual smorgasbord and men tended to put off marriage till they themselves wanted to settle down and have a family. Most girls, however, were different.
At twenty-eight, Josie Williams was already at that age where she’d be seriously looking for a husband, whereas it was highly likely that all her boyfriend had had in mind was more fun and games.
“You didn’t have any other male friend you could ask to take you to your reunion?” Callum continued, wanting to put all the pieces of her puzzle together here.
“No,” she confessed. “No one appropriate. Certainly no one as impressive as you.”
When she looked him up and down again with admiring eyes, Callum wasn’t sure if he felt flattered or flustered. He’d never considered himself all that good-looking. He certainly wasn’t in Clay’s league.
Admittedly, his tall, broad-shouldered frame looked pretty good in the superbly tailored tux he’d bought when he was working in Milan last year. And as Clay had said, he did have a great tan at the moment.
Maybe his date had a yen for bronze and brawn.
Hell, he seriously hoped not. He was here to do a job, not be seduced by some female on the rebound, no matter how gorgeous she was. Damn, but he wished she’d stop looking at him like he was a cool beer and she’d just emerged from the Sahara Desert after a six-month trek.
As though reading his mind, she stopped the staring, but not before a quivery little shudder ran down her spine.
Who knew what she’d been thinking. It was probably best he didn’t know. Nothing turned Callum on more than his date being turned on.
“I suppose I should fill you in on the total picture,” she went on with a blessed return to the business at hand. “It’ll make your job easier if you know a bit of background stuff.”
True, he thought.
“The last time I went to a class reunion was five years ago. Unfortunately, it was just after I filed for divorce and I was a total wreck.”
Callum’s eyebrows lifted slightly. Divorced too, eh? She certainly didn’t have much luck with men.
“I should never have gone,” she muttered. “Certainly not alone. All I did was burst into tears all night. And I looked such a fright. I’d lost a lot of weight at the time. It was one of the worst nights of my life and the memory has haunted me ever since.”
Callum could well imagine. No one liked to look a fool, or a failure, in front of old school friends.
“I haven’t been to a reunion since, but when the invitation came for this year’s special ten-year reunion, I decided to go, just to show everyone that I’d really turned my life around. Unfortunately, I told the gossipy head of the organizing committee last week that I was bringing my new boyfriend. Fortunately, I didn’t tell them his name, but I stupidly bragged a bit about how good-looking and successful he was.”
“I see,” Callum murmured.
“Not entirely. There’s more. There’s this one girl, you see, who always hated me at school and got infinite pleasure out of witnessing the exhibition of myself I made at the last reunion. I guess she’s the one I want to show most of all. She’s hosting the party tonight at her multi-million dollar harborside mansion. She’s married to Ted Billingsworth. You know…the communications tycoon.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him.” From what he’d heard, Callum didn’t like the sound of Ted Billingsworth. A womanizer from way back. Callum didn’t think he’d be any kind of prize as a husband, unless all you wanted out of marriage was money.
“Actually, when Angus became my latest personal disaster, I almost wimped out and stayed away. But then I heard about Gentleman Partners and their lineup of handsome hunks for hire and I thought, what the hell? Go for it! So I did. And here you are,” she finished up, her chin lifting in an attitude of spirited rebellion. “My own handsome hunk for the night.”
What a girl, Callum thought. She had the kind of pick-yourself-up-off-the-floor courage he admired. If she hadn’t also been highly emotional, sensitive, divorced and recently dumped, he might have asked her out for real.
“A hunk, anyway,” he agreed with a modest smile. “I’m not sure about the handsome part.”