Picture me Sexy

Delaney’s soft green gaze searched his face. “Are you by any chance psychic?” she asked. “Because if you’re feeling what I’m feeling, then I want you to read my mind.”

Liquid heat slid through his veins. He didn’t need to possess any telepathic talent to know exactly what she was thinking. Yet he hesitated. Something inside him knew that once he took this step—once he was with her—he would never be the same. He would be irrevocably changed…and it scared the hell out of him.

“Why?” he asked, stalling for time.

Delaney stared hungrily at his mouth. “So that you’ll do what I want you to without having to be told.” She closed her eyes tightly. “Because telling you is too hard, makes me responsible and—And tonight I don’t want to be responsible.” She opened her eyes and her beseeching gaze met his. “Tonight I just…want.”

Sam’s thin thread of resolve snapped. “Reading your mind might be beyond my talents,” he said, reaching up and running the pad of his thumb over her mouth. His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “So why don’t I start by reading your lips?”

Dear Reader,

This story was born when I read an article about a woman who thoroughly enjoyed sex, was very uninhibited…so long as the lights were off and her partner never saw her naked. Being a tad modest myself (ahem, vast understatement), this really struck a chord and I started wondering What if…?

What if the heroine was an unbelievably modest lingerie designer who’d been jilted twice? (Bless her heart.) What if she planned to overcome that modesty by giving her fiancé boudoir photos? (Hmm. Gutsy.) And what if the cheating worm dumped her, taking another woman on the honeymoon and leaving our poor heroine with an appointment for boudoir photos she no longer needed? (What an idiot! Good riddance!) So then, what if she decided that men were scum, and she wanted those photos anyway? (Humph. More power to her.) And what if the photographer epitomized sin in the flesh…and then she found herself trapped overnight with him in his loft? (Ooo-la-la!) And what if the photographer was the faithful hero she’d been looking for and he was willing to do whatever it took to make her see he was the one for her? (Yes, yes…yes!)

Picture Me Sexy is the result of all that chaotic wondering. (Ah, the workings of an author’s mind. It’s almost scary, isn’t it?) I had a ball writing Sam and Delaney’s story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much.

Enjoy,

Rhonda Nelson

Picture Me Sexy

Rhonda Nelson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In this world, there are men and there are heroes.

And if a woman is lucky, she’ll wind up with the latter—a man who will love, protect, guard and defend her at all costs, who will be her best friend and more, a great partner, a great father. My brother-in-law, Tracy Vanderford, is one of these men—a true hero.

I’m so thankful that he’s there for my sister and niece.

You’re a special person, Tracy.

I’m so glad you’re part of my family.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

Prologue

MEMPHIS LINGERIE QUEEN Delaney Walker jilted—again!

Delaney muttered a soft oath as she stared grimly at the newspaper. Given the state of the economy, the scandal with the Catholic Church, and the recent war, one would think that the River City Herald could feature something besides her pitiful social life on their front page. It was ridiculous really. Journalism and the state of society was at an all time low if her busted love life was considered news. Hell, it wasn’t news, Delaney amended—it was entertainment. She grimaced.

She was entertainment.

The moment she’d gone from being a struggling designer to an overnight success, Delaney had become Memphis’s bad-girl icon. Never mind that the moniker didn’t fit, that the reputation was a complete figment of society’s imagination. She designed hot, racy lingerie, ergo she must be hot and racy. Her lips curled wryly.

Ha. Nothing could be further from the truth.

That mentality coupled with her penchant for dating the occasional baseball star and for her alarming tendency to get engaged and—just as quickly un- engaged—didn’t help matters in the least. Memphis journalists followed her every move with avid interest, got paid to print her humiliations as if her life were merely the next chapter of a running joke. Most of the time, Delaney didn’t care. Any publicity was good publicity as far as she was concerned. She’d always fumed about it in private, then laughed all the way to the bank.

But for reasons she didn’t understand, it was harder to summon the laughter this time, and even harder to laugh her way to the bank.

Delaney suspected that glum realization stemmed from the fact that Roger worked at the bank.

Her spineless ex hadn’t even had the common courtesy of calling off their engagement in person—he’d taken the hi-tech approach and e-mailed her. That had been a first. She’d been dumped over dinner and over the phone, but this was the first time she’d been given the old heave-ho via the information superhighway.

But it would be the last. She was absolutely, unequivocally finished with men.

Delaney read through the article, winced at the accompanying picture. Hogsville. She looked huge. She was no dainty miss by any stretch of the imagination—she’d been an overweight child and still suffered the effects of that mentality—but in all fairness, the photo wasn’t an accurate depiction of her true self. Her lips curled. If that were the case, then Roger would have scales and a long forked tongue, which more accurately matched his character.

“Delaney…I have bad news.”

Delaney looked up from her desk and met the worried gaze of her personal assistant. She blew out a breath and slouched back into her leather executive chair. “I’ve already seen the paper, Beth. You can lose the gloom-and-doom expression. Honestly, I’m surprised that they hadn’t gotten wind of it before now.” She and Roger had been officially un-engaged for almost a week now. Clearly someone at the Herald was losing their touch. The last time she’d been jilted, it only taken a couple of days for the story to break.

Beth shook her head, winced. “It’s not that.”

Delaney hummed under her breath. Interesting. “Am I going to need a Kiss or the Big Block?” she asked, using her own personal uh-oh scale. Amazing how many things could be gauged by chocolate. Some problems could be handled with a mere satisfying Kiss of chocolate. Others—like being dumped for the second time—required a larger dose. That’s where the Big Block came in. She’d consumed quite a bit of chocolate over the past week—the only food weakness she’d allowed herself to keep once she’d finally carved the pounds off she’d hauled around as a child—but she’d vowed to get her addiction under control. Amazing what a new attitude could do.

Beth bit her bottom lip. “Definitely a Big Block.”

Uh-oh, Delaney thought. That didn’t bode well for her peace of mind or her hips. Thank God for anti-depressants and Lycra, she thought with a droll smile.

With a silent sigh, Delaney tossed her pencil aside and donned a friendly expression despite the familiar sensation of dread swelling in her belly. She’d detected a flash of pity in Beth’s tense gaze and instinctively knew that this particular morsel of bad news wasn’t business related—it was personal.

The worst kind.

Nevertheless, Roger had already called off their engagement. Whatever Beth had to tell her couldn’t possibly be any more humiliating than that.

Delaney pulled in a bolstering breath, plucked a block of chocolate from her drawer and sat it on her desk. Still, it couldn’t hurt to be prepared. “Well?”

“You know that trip to the Greek Isles you wanted me to cancel?”

Delaney snorted and rolled her eyes at her assistant’s attempt at tact. “You mean my honeymoon?”

“Er…that would be the one, yes.”

The one that she’d spent months planning, that she’d insisted on paying for herself because her dream honeymoon had been so exorbitantly expensive she’d felt guilty asking Roger’s proud but poor parents to foot the bill. Roger, the tightfisted bastard, had never offered to share the cost with her. Thrifty, she’d rationalized. A good money manager. He’d routinely stuck her with bills that he should have paid all under the guise of not “infringing upon her independent nature.” What a jerk. Delaney mentally tsked and shook her head. How plainly she could see that now.

“What about it?” Delaney finally asked.

Beth shifted miserably. “I, uh, can’t cancel it.”

Delaney blinked, taken aback. “What? Why? I know that it’s last minute, but I still should be able to get a partial refund.” Roger’s cousin owned a local travel agency and had pulled the honeymoon together for them. Considering she’d been the injured party in the breakup, she never expected any problem in canceling the trip and recouping part of her funds. In order to avoid further humiliation, she’d given Beth the job of calling. She should have known she wouldn’t be so lucky. “Get them on the phone,” she sighed. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Believe me,” Beth sighed wearily. “If it was that simple I wouldn’t be in here.”

“But it is simple,” Delaney insisted as an insistent quiver of annoying alarm vibrated in her belly. “I’ve paid for a honeymoon package that I no longer need—being as I’m no longer going on a honeymoon,” she added pointedly.

Beth chewed her bottom lip. “You might not be going on a honeymoon…but Roger is.”

The room dimmed and brightened all in the same instant. The bravado inspired by her new I-hate-men-because-they’re-faithless-disloyal-oversexed-unprincipled-bastards attitude momentarily wavered. “I’m sorry?”

With a sympathetic sigh of regret, Beth made her way across the plush rose carpet and lowered herself into one of the red satin wingback chairs that fronted Delaney’s huge antique desk. She swallowed nervously. “Roger and his, uh, new bride are presently on their way to Greece.”

So she’d been wrong, Delaney thought numbly. Being dumped for the second time just short of the altar wasn’t the most humiliating thing that could happen to her—being dumped, summarily replaced, and having your dream honeymoon stolen from you was much worse.

Curiously, the idea of Roger having married another woman didn’t bother her nearly as much as the stolen honeymoon. A significant revelation lurked in that thought, but Delaney was too upset at present to ponder it. Honestly, would this nightmare ever end? The papers would undoubtedly have a field day with this latest twist in the Delaney Walker saga. Being a local celebrity of sorts was great for sales, but hell on her personal life.

“Well.” Delaney forced a bright smile and envisioned herself serenely denuding Roger’s prized antique roses. Revenge therapy played a significant role in her new attitude. “Just exactly when did the happy couple depart?”

“This morning,” Beth said gravely. “Roger called and asked the travel agent to bump everything up and issue new tickets for his new…for Wendy. Sorry. Yours were nonrefundable.”

Wendy the accounting wonder, Delaney realized with a spurt of undue surprise. Obviously during all of those late-night meetings, Roger had been checking out more than the bottom line of his personal finances—he’d been checking out Wendy’s as well. Delaney ignored the prick of mortification this newest disgrace brought and blew out a disgusted breath. Well, wasn’t that just par for the course? Clearly the temptation of a cost-effective honeymoon—after all, it was hard to beat free, Delaney thought darkly—was too much for them to pass up.

The familiar burn of anger and humiliation roiled through her stomach, flashed up her neck and scalded her cheeks. She instinctively tore into the Big Block, broke off a piece of chocolate and popped it into her mouth. Good grief, she’d thought she’d worked past this. After this last fiasco, she’d taken a good hard look at herself and had decided an attitude adjustment was in order.

With the previous jilting, Delaney had taken the brokenhearted, but proud and dignified approach. She’d laughed when she wanted to cry, she’d been calm when she wanted to scream and she’d never—never—acted anything less than respectable. She’d always tried to be the bigger person, and what had it gotten her?

Dumped again.

She’d been left with another mess to clean up. Had Roger considered canceling the caterers? No. Helped with returning gifts? Uh-uh. Delaney once again mourned the loss of her china, the beautiful Wedgwood Floral Tapestry she’d planned to display in the gorgeous antique china cabinet her grandmother had left her. No, Delaney thought as irritation knotted her insides, Roger hadn’t planned to see to anything. And really, in all fairness, why would he? She’d always been the perfect little fiancée. Too well-mannered and polite to do otherwise. He’d fully expected her to do it.

Because she’d always been a sweet Memphis belle, Delaney thought with no small amount of self-disgust.

Because she was a respected businesswoman with ties to the community.

Because, while she might design some of the most sensual, most erotic lingerie in the business, he’d known that she’d never had the gumption to wear it, much less do any of the wicked, depraved things in the bedroom her creations implied or inspired. Roger, the two-timing, self-serving spineless weasel had known her secret, had known that she was so miserably modest that she’d only do it at night, in the dark, and under the sheets.

Her phobic modesty had been a bone of contention between her and Roger, particularly in the bedroom. But Delaney simply couldn’t help the way she felt. No matter how much weight she lost, no matter what size she finally shrunk herself into, when she looked in the mirror, she still saw the fat, ridiculed child she’d been. No matter how unreasonable it seemed, how bizarre, she couldn’t seem to work past it.

Still, as a way of proving that she could learn to be adventurous, could learn to be the sexy siren he so desperately wanted, Delaney had decided to give Roger boudoir photos as a wedding gift. The shoot was scheduled for this afternoon. At first, she’d planned to cancel it, but upon further consideration, had decided that the first step in becoming a new woman meant getting past old issues. What better place to start than with her modesty?

While she could have had any one of her photographers here at Laney’s Chifferobe—her catalogue lingerie business—do the spread, Delaney had booked an outside business to handle her photos. There were some things that were simply too personal to share with people she saw on a day-to-day basis and required anonymity. Despite present circumstances, her lips curled into a droll grin.

Boudoir photos of the boss certainly qualified.

The photographers employed by Laney’s Chifferobe were accustomed to peering through their lenses and pulling lollipop perfection—stick-thin bodies with big heads—into focus. Delaney’s size ten pear-shaped body didn’t fit the bill. Not just no, but hell no. She’d clean up roadkill before she’d offer her less than perfect form up to that kind of critical scrutiny. She’d had enough of it as a child to make up for a lifetime.

Delaney knew that Roger planned to come back from his honeymoon and find the mess of their broken engagement cleaned up, expected to waltz back into River City Bank and continue to manage her company’s account, and he fully expected her to be the bigger person—translate doormat—she’d always been.

Well, he expected wrong, and would be in for a rude awakening when he and darling Wendy returned.

Once the initial hurt and humiliation had worn off, Delaney had taken a long critical look at herself and decided a change was in order. She’d spent too much of her time trying to be perfect, had wasted too much of her time on men. She was a two-time loser in the game of love. Clearly, her radar was faulty, otherwise she’d have been able to find a faithful one by now, one that hadn’t had an ulterior motive—like soliciting her business. Her last three serious relationships had shared that same common denominator—in one capacity or another, they’d all stood to benefit from her business.

No more.

She’d tried, she’d failed. The end. She’d decided a married happily-ever-after simply wasn’t in her cards. At least with a man. Women by nature were more faithful creatures. Though she knew it was doubtful—she’d always been fascinated with the opposite sex—Delaney had decided to broaden her scope. In an effort to spark some latent lesbian tendencies, she’d begun listening to Melissa Etheridge, had started watching re-runs of Ellen and Rosie. So far no luck, but who knew? She grinned. The right woman might come along and trip her trigger.

To be quite honest, everything that was feminine and maternal had rebelled at the idea of giving up on love—she desperately wanted a family of her own—but she’d reached a point where there was simply no other alternative. A change was in order. Since men seemed to be the problem, she’d simply take them out of the equation.

In the new world according to Delaney Walker, all men sucked.

Her eyes narrowed. And Roger, in particular, sucked. Irritation bubbled through her veins, triggering a finger twitch. It seemed that revenge therapy was in order again.

“Delaney, are you all right?” Beth asked tentatively. “Do you need me to do anything else for you?”

Delaney nodded succinctly. “As a matter of fact, I do. Clear my schedule for the rest of the week and get me a gallon of weed killer.”

Beth’s eyes widened in confusion. “Weed killer? In winter?”

“That’s right,” Delaney told her, warming to her plan. She really enjoyed this form of therapy. It was very cathartic. “And make sure that it has a spray nozzle.”

1

ARMED WITH A GALLON OF fast-acting Weed-Be-Gone and a pair of garden gloves, Delaney wheeled out of the parking lot of her downtown Memphis office and aimed her sporty sedan toward Germantown, the posh upscale neighborhood Roger—the ball-less worm—called home.

While her sorry ex could squeeze thirteen cents out of every dime, there were a couple of areas in which he simply didn’t spare any expense—his home and his lawn. Roger was a master gardener who spent every free minute and every spare penny landscaping his award-winning lawn. He was particularly proud of his turf, an expensive evergreen designer blend that stayed bright and lush even through the harsh winter months.

The word “asshole” written in dead grass would contrast nicely, Delaney thought with vengeful glee.

She pulled into the drive, made quick work with the weed-killer and just as quickly made her escape. The rush of adrenaline triggered a burst of giddy laughter, pushed past the irritation and made her feel absolutely wicked.

Delaney loved feeling wicked. She got the same thrilling rush from designing her lingerie. There was something so intensely satisfying about creating an outfit that inspired such an intimate, sensual act. One she’d spent an inordinate amount of time fantasizing about. Being an overweight child, then overweight teen, had definitely been to her advantage in one way—the lonely hours had inspired her creativity, had essentially led her into her career. She wanted the women who wore her lingerie to feel sexy in it, empowered. Wanted them to revel in their sexuality, their femininity.

Speaking of empowered, who would have ever thought that such an asinine prank would be so satisfying? So mentally beneficial? She chewed her bottom lip and vaguely toyed with the notion of snatching a few of his prized antique roses, but quickly dismissed the idea. She didn’t mind resorting to a little vandalism to smooth her ruffled feathers, but she wasn’t quite brave enough to become a thief…yet.

Besides, she had an appointment to keep. Granted, no one but she and the photographer would ever see her boudoir photos—but she wanted them anyway, knew she needed to take that first step toward progress. Delaney felt sexy while designing the clothes, but couldn’t feel sexy in them because she’d always been so pathetically modest. That had to change. She needed to get past it, needed to garner a little of that feminine energy for herself.

She pulled her car into a parking space designated for Martelli Photography, grabbed her garment bag from the back seat and mentally prepared herself to battle her modesty. Her stomach knotted. She’d find happiness in little victories, she decided as she made her way into the old building. Why? Because men sucked.

The scent of fresh paint hit her the moment she stepped into the old building. She nodded to a couple of workers and ducked under a scaffold in order to reach the antique cagelike elevator. The old Gloria Gaynor song “I Will Survive” played a continuous loop in her head, bringing a smile to her lips and a bounce to her step.

Delaney grinned, pleased with the rush of endorphins this whole new men-suck philosophy had given her. She began to chant it aloud softly—verbal reinforcement—and listened to the words echo as the ancient elevator slowly lifted her to the top floor.

“Men suck, men suck, men suck.” Damn, that felt good, she thought. So good that, since she was alone, she upped the volume and added a little more U.S. Marine oomph! to the suck part. “Men suck, men suck, men suck.”

A deep masculine chuckle reached Delaney’s ears about the same time that a pair of manly bare feet came into her line of vision. As the elevator slowly drew up into what was obviously a penthouse suite, a pair of long denim-clad legs gave way to an extremely impressive bulge centered between a set of impossibly narrow hips. Blue cotton clung to a washboard abdomen, perfectly sculpted pecs and widened into a pair of the most beautifully muscled shoulders she’d ever had the pleasure to pant over.

The man was built like a brick wall, which seemed appropriate, considering she felt like she’d just run into one.

Dark brown wavy hair, a tad too long to be fashionable, framed a sinfully handsome face that attested to pure dumb luck and good Italian genes. His lips were a fraction overfull for a man and presently curled into one of the laziest, sexiest grins she’d ever seen. Dark brown eyes, heavy-lidded beneath slanted brows, glinted with humor, old-soul intelligence, and the promise of unnamed pleasures. Everything about him exuded confidence and strength, and pure sexual heat rolled off him in waves. He was sex with a capital S and to her immeasurable astonishment, she wanted him instantly.

Really wanted him.

The breath stuttered out of her lungs in a whoosh of longing, her womb clenched, her nipples tightened and her very bones seemed to melt beneath the heat of no-holds-barred raw, primal desire.

Mr. Sex anchored one hand at his waist and held a camera loosely in the other. He had great hands, big and tanned with blunt-tipped fingers. You could tell a lot about a man by his hands, Delaney thought absently.

“Men suck, eh?” he asked in a voice that was smooth and deep and sang in her ears like a soulful jazz tune.

Delaney moistened her suddenly dry lips, managed a nod. Yes, they did…and mercy she’d just bet this one would be great at it.