The Sex Test

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

Dedication

About the Author

A Letter from the Author

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Copyright

“I Knew This Would Happen,” She Blurted, Shoving His Résumé Back Into Her Briefcase.

“What?”

“Men don’t take the university sex study very seriously,” she went on, unable to control herself. “One anonymous male wrote on his volunteer form that he made love one hundred times per day, eight days per week. By any chance, was that you?”

Zane’s grin came slow and easy. “Sex can make a man say wild things,” he said. “Like when I have sex with a woman, she can make me forget where I am, what day it is or even who I am. Does sex with a man do that to you, Professor?”

“Me?” she asked, taken aback. “I—I—” How could she tell him that sensual pleasure was like a fever to her—hot and dangerous. And that it was sex that destroyed her engagement.

Dear Reader,

This month, we begin HOLIDAY HONEYMOONS, a wonderful new cross-line continuity series written by two of your favorites—Merline Lovelace and Carole Buck. The series begins in October with Merline’s Halloween Honeymoon. Then, once a month right through February, look for holiday love stories by Merline and Carole—in Desire for November, Intimate Moments for December, back to Desire in January and concluding in Intimate Moments for Valentine’s Day. Sound confusing? It’s not—we’ll keep you posted as the series continues…and I personally guarantee that these books are keepers!

And there are other goodies in store for you. Don’t miss the fun as Cathie Linz’s delightful series THREE WEDDINGS AND A GIFT continues with Seducing Hunter. And Lass Small’s MAN OF THE MONTH, The Texas Blue Norther, is simply scrumptious.

Those of you who want an ultrasensuous love story need look no further than The Sex Test by Patty Salier. She’s part of our WOMEN TO WATCH program highlighting brand-new writers. Warning: this book is HOT!

Readers who can’t get enough of cowboys shouldn’t miss Anne Marie Winston’s Rancher’s Baby. And if you’re partial to a classic amnesia story (as I certainly am!), be sure to read Barbara McCauley’s delectable Midnight Bride.

And, as always, I’m here to listen to you—so don’t be afraid to write and tell me your thoughts about Desire!

Until next month,

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Sex Test

Patty Salier

For my wonderful husband, lover and best fried,

Edward, and for my extraordinarily gifted children,

Diana and Jeff.

PATTY SALIER

Bom and raised in Gravesend, Brooklyn, in New York, Patty credits her mother for her keen logic and her father for her curious, creative mind. She has been a published writer for many years. To Patty, her wonderful husband and two great children are everything she could ever want in life. “I’ve got so much to be thankful for.”

Patty will enjoy hearing from her readers. Send a selfaddressed, stamped envelope to P.O. Box 66816, Los Angeles, CA 90066.

A Letter from the Author

Dear Reader,

I was thrilled when Lucia Macro telephoned me from Silhouette Books in New York to say, “Patty, we want to buy The Sex Test.” I calmly and professionally replied, “That’s wonderful,” got off the phone and then cheered, hooted and happily burst into tears. “I sold it! I sold it!”

Actually, I’ve been a published magazine writer for years. I’ve sold my short stories to confession-story magazines such as Intimate Story, Personal Romances, True Life Secrets and True Confessions. But I’ve always dreamed of writing a romance novel, especially since I’m a major romantic.

With two great kids, I’m still wildly in love with my husband, and I love to sensually fantasize. While writing The Sex Test, I had fun imagining myself as a professor doing a sex study on the nineties single male. I immensely enjoyed falling in love with my hero as I probed his male psyche for his innermost erotic secrets.

To me, the best part of writing The Sex Test was creating a heroine who realized that her fantasies and passionate desire for the man she loved were totally and completely natural.

I hope you enjoy reading The Sex Test, because I loved writing it!

All my best to you,

One

The telephone number Professor Rachel Smith had dialed rang and rang in her ear.

The textbook-filled office she shared at the university with her friend, Professor Kim Woods, suddenly seemed so stuffy and cramped that she could barely breathe.

“He’s not answering, Kim,” Rachel said tensely as she gripped the white telephone. “Maybe I should hang up.”

“You haven’t given the man a chance to get to the phone,” her friend said. “Will you relax?”

“I can’t,” she said, the dreaded ringing hauntingly echoing through her head.

She couldn’t even sit still. She abruptly stood up at her desk, fighting the urge to disconnect the phone before he answered.

“Kim, I can’t do this!” Rachel screeched as she heard the ringing stop and his phone being picked up.

“Zane Farrell’s residence,” an out-of-breath male voice resonated in Rachel’s ear. “How can I help you?”

The deep sensual tone of him momentarily made her heart leap.

“Ahhh, hello, can I speak to Zane Farrell?” she stammered, helplessly glancing at Kim for support.

“Are you bringing me good or bad news?”

Rachel looked at Kim questioningly. Kim immediately leaned her head against Rachel’s to listen in.

“Mr. Farrell, I’m Professor Rachel Smith at State University. I’m calling regarding the university sexuality research study.”

“A sex study?” His manly voice deepened with sudden interest. “You’re kidding, right?”

Rachel exchanged a confused glance with Kim.

“Mr. Farrell, I’d like to set up an appointment to come over to your house. Our first interview should take no more than an hour.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he said, sounding astounded. “You want to come over here and ask me questions about my sex life?”

“Don’t you recall, Mr. Farrell?” she continued. “You volunteered for the study by E-mailing your résumé to the university. We’re doing research on the sex lives of the nineties single male. I’d like to discuss with you—”

“Oh, I get it,” he interrupted. His voice lightened, as if he was smiling over the phone. “You’re trying to scam me, right?”

“What?” she bellowed, insulted that he was doubting her sincerity. “I certainly am not!”

“Come on, Professor,” Zane stressed with a chuckle. “Admit it. You’re a radio talk-show host. Am I close? And you’re trying to entice me into making sexual innuendos over the air to titillate your listeners.”

She angrily grabbed his résumé from Kim. “Is this Zane Farrell at 312 Crescent Road in Bel Air?”

“Right name, right address,” he replied. He lowered his voice like he was telling a secret. “But I refuse to tell you the shade or size of my cotton briefs.”

“How dare you!” Rachel blurted. Her heart was hammering. Her blood pressure was soaring. “I’m not scamming you, Mr. Farrell. If you’d stop being a pigheaded—”

“Rachel!” Kim called out, pulling the phone away from her. “You’re representing the university.”

“But he’s ridiculing me!”

“Just talk him into the interview,” Kim insisted.

Rachel angrily grabbed back the phone. “Mr. Farrell,” she began, trying to suppress her fury. “I have your résumé right in front of me. You graduated from high school at fourteen years old. You received your master’s degree and Ph.D. by age twenty-four. Now you’re an entrepreneur who owns PLT Corporation, Zantic Corporation, and Afloment Industries.”

“Did I really do all that?”

He was impossible! “Mr. Farrell, I’m not sure why you E-mailed your business background instead of the personally-slanted bio we requested, but that’s your business. However, if you are afraid to participate in our sex study—”

“Who’s afraid?”

“Are you still interested, Mr. Farrell?” She inwardly gloated that she’d finally gotten to him the same way he’d gotten to her.

“I’m one hundred percent intrigued.” Then, in a bass voice almost in an intimate whisper, he added, “Will you ever forgive me for doubting you, Professor Smith?”

The warmth in his voice. His lips seemed so close to the phone that Rachel could almost feel his breath on her face. A pleasurable tingle radiated through her veins. She quickly looked away from Kim, embarrassed by her sensual reaction to him.

“There’s no need to apologize…” she began, clearing her throat.

“How could I have let my memory lapse on such an important project?” he went on. “I’ll be glad to assist you in every way I can.”

Kim shot her a satisfied smile, but Rachel didn’t return it. She got the distinct feeling that Zane Farrell was still goofing on her.

“When can we set up a time to meet?” she asked, preparing herself for his next smart-alecky remark.

“How about right now?” he suggested with an enthusiasm that both irked and excited her.

“Now?” she repeated.

“Sure. I’m very eager to find out what your sex test is all about.”

She glanced uneasily at Kim who mouthed, “Take him up on it.”

“Well, I—” she stammered, plopping down in her chair.

“Great! I’ll be waiting for you.” Then he hung up.

“Kim, I’m not going!” Rachel said, slamming down the phone and turning Zane Farrell’s résumé facedown on her desk.

“You’ve got to,” her friend insisted. “You were given three case studies, and Zane Farrell is one of them.”

“He’s already making it difficult for me,” she said, exasperated. “This is my first research project for the university. I want to do good, Kim. Why, oh, why did the topic have to be sex?”

“I can’t believe you’re complaining.” Kim stared at her incredulously. “I know five female professors who begged on their knees for this assignment, but you were lucky enough to be chosen by the administration.”

“Lucky?”

“You can’t fool me, Rachel Smith,” Kim said. “I know exactly the reason you’re doing this sexuality study on the nineties single male.”

“Why?”

“Because you want to meet the sexiest, hottest men in Los Angeles, that’s why.”

“Oh, no, definitely not!” She blindly fiddled with the case-study folders on her desk, suddenly aching inside.

Kim studied her. “Rachel, you’ve got to forget what happened with you and Kent. That was two whole years ago.”

“I’m over Kent,” she insisted. “I really am.” And she was. Kent was out of her system for good.

“Then why aren’t you dying to meet a great guy?”

Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out.

Even though Kim was her best buddy, she’d never told Kim the real reason that Kent had called off their wedding only three days before the ceremony. She was too ashamed and humiliated by what she’d learned about herself.

“I’d better not keep Mr. Farrell waiting.” Rachel quickly grabbed her briefcase. “I don’t want him catching a cold in his cotton briefs.”

After the phone call with Professor Smith, he barreled up the lavender-carpeted steps of the Bel Air mansion three at a time into the master suite.

He yanked off his oil-stained coveralls and work shirt and hurled them through the open master-bathroom door onto the tile floor.

“Man, oh, man, what the hell did I get myself into?” he said out loud in frustration. The professor’s telephone call had totally blown him away.

He grabbed a neatly pressed white shirt and clean jeans and rushed into the bathroom.

As he turned on the shower spray, he replayed her conversation. He couldn’t believe it. A sex study? Jeez! He’d never talked about his sex life with anyone in his entire life.

Sure, he’d kidded around with Professor Smith over the phone about talking sex, but the reality of the idea bashed into his sense of privacy. It was outrageous of her to expect him to answer even one question about how his loins functioned.

Why didn’t he immediately turn down the sex interview with her? He knew why. It was that velvety voice of hers that got to him. She’d sounded slightly unsure and a bit nervous talking to him. And she’d had a fiery reaction to his sense of humor that had instantly appealed to him.

He adjusted the steamy hot water the way he liked and stepped naked under the sizzling spray. He thought his taut muscles would relax under the wet heat. But he was tenser than ever.

Why had he said yes to that sex interview? Had his brain completely collapsed? He couldn’t take part in that study.

How could he let Professor Rachel Smith ask him sex questions? She was expecting to hear the sexual ins and outs of Zane Farrell.

But he had one very monumental problem. He was not Zane Farrell!

Rachel chugged her mint-green Valiant up the winding road of wealthy Bel Air. The Los Angeles September air pushed into her open car window like a gush of ovenburning heat.

She lifted the spaghetti straps of her dress off her burning shoulders. She was hot not only from the dry Santa Ana wind coming from the desert.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the rich timbre of Zane Farrell’s voice over the phone, and the sexy tease of his words. Her sensual reaction to just a phone call with him made her feel even more uneasy about his interview. How could she feel comfortable asking him personal sex questions if she was turned on by him?

As she drove past vast estates of lush green pine trees and walled-in properties, she kept one careful eye on the curvy Bel Air road and glanced at Zane Farrell’s address on her dashboard.

Rachel stopped her Valiant in front of a wrought-iron gate that seemed to tower as high as the wall separating King Kong from the jungle villagers. Out of her driver’s window, she pressed the black buzzer pad, signaling her arrival.

She spotted the eye of a video camera zooming in on her. She impulsively touched her brown bun at the back of her head. She quickly smoothed her damp dress across both thighs to appear university-like. Moving her hands to the steering wheel, she wished she could stop them from trembling as she held on to it.

The iron gate grinded open to welcome her onto Zane Farrell’s estate. She wasn’t afraid of entering the unknown property of this stranger. Before their interviews, all sex-study volunteers were followed up with thorough behindthe-scenes investigations into their character. Zane Farrell had checked out as an honest, law-abiding, very, very rich citizen.

With brown leather briefcase in hand and suddenly dizzy with excitement about her first interview, Rachel eagerly pressed the square-lit doorbell of the double copper front doors.

Just then, the doors flew open like a hurricane wind.

“Well, hello,” said that familiar deep male voice.

“Zane Farrell?” she asked, wonder-struck. She had to blink five times at the six-foot solid frame of the thirtysomething man in front of her.

“You’ve got the right door,” Zane Farrell replied with a smile that sent laugh lines sprouting from the sides of both twinkling eyes. “Have I got the right professor?”

“Wh-why, yes,” she quickly said.

A pair of Pacific Ocean blues gazed down into hers so intensely that her insides melted like butter in the sun. His smile was warm and confident. He had curly black hair that yearned to be twirled around her fingers. And a muscular body under that white shirt and jeans that put her breath on major hold.

When Zane’s twinkling sea-blues glided from her breasts down to her bare legs, she felt her nipples harden against the cotton fabric of her dress at his visual caress. She momentarily fantasized his masculine fingers slipping down her spaghetti straps and crushing her bare breasts with his hands.

Her face flamed at her sensual thoughts. What was with her? She’d barely met the man.

“So you’re here to put my libido under the investigative light, are you?” Zane pondered out loud. He extended a massive hand to her. “I hope I don’t disappoint you.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” she replied, trying to appear totally in control.

But when she slipped her small hand into his large palm, his grip was firm, warm, and she felt a hot electric current slam straight through her body.

She quickly disengaged her hand from his. Why was Zane Farrell having such a powerful effect on her? No man had grabbed her insides that tight—not even Kent.

Zane leaned his strong hands on each side of the door frame only inches from her, only inches from caressing her. She felt compelled to leave that instant.

“I didn’t mean to rush you into this interview,” she told him in an unsteady voice. “We could hold it at a more convenient hour for you.”

“Absolutely not,” he said with welcoming warmth. “I’m looking forward to this.” He released one hand from the door frame and stepped aside for her entry. “Please, come in.”

As Rachel slipped by him, her shoulder brushed against his hard-muscled chest. He smelled of soap and musky after-shave. She wouldn’t stay for long. She definitely couldn’t stay for long.

“Make yourself at home,” he suggested. “The staff’s on vacation, so feel free to roam. I’ll get us something cool to drink.”

Once alone in the kitchen, he frantically searched Mr. Farrell’s refrigerator for a beverage to serve her. The compartment was empty except for a half carton of low-fat milk. Jeez! He was nervous enough trying to make the right Mr. Farrell impression, but milk?

He grabbed for the milk container. How the hell was he going to pull off this sex interview? He had no other choice, did he? He was obligated by a commitment he’d made to the real Zane Farrell—a commitment he couldn’t break.

As he frantically sifted through the unfamiliar kitchen cabinets for glasses, he flashed on Rachel Smith’s inviting brown eyes that had sucked him right in. And her voice rang of honey-sweetness that he found irresistible.

Man, oh, man, he’d better keep himself in check. It wasn’t going to be easy pretending to be someone else with a beautiful woman like the professor about to ask him probing intimate questions. He didn’t feel one iota comfortable about this sex-test business, especially since he had to act as if it was Mr. Farrell’s sexual preferences she was studying, when it would actually be his own!

Rachel set her briefcase down on the oval glass coffee table. She tried to breathe normally again. Zane Farrell was not supposed to be charming, friendly and a hunk! How was she going to ask him personal questions about his sex life when she was fantasizing about being an integral part of it?

She had to get a grip. She was at his mansion purely for academic research. She couldn’t allow her sudden over-whelming attraction to possess her and ruin her first research project for the university.

Rachel walked to the sliding glass door overlooking a sparkling green kidney-shaped swimming pool. Her attention landed on the inviting Jacuzzi beside it.

She had a fleeting image of Zane’s strong nude body pressed snugly against her nakedness as they soaked in the warm, foaming, swishing—

“So, Professor Smith, what do you want to know about my sex life?” Zane’s bass voice sizzled through her like a lit Fourth of July sparkler.

She whirled to find him staring at her with intensely interested eyes. His hands were holding two glasses of milk.

“Milk?” she asked, looking at him sideways, suppressing a grin.

“I need to revitalize my body for your sex test,” he said, almost as if he was slightly embarrassed.

That little-boy quality captured her. But she couldn’t help being very, very aware of him as a full-grown man. Without thinking, her eyes wandered down his very vitalized muscular frame. Her gaze stopped dead center on his tight jeans that accentuated his generously manly bulge. She quickly diverted her focus to the masterpiece paintings on the wall.

Why, oh, why, hadn’t she fought harder against participating in this sex research project? It wasn’t for her, oh no, not for her.

“We don’t have to jump right into the interview,” she quickly told him.

“From your phone call, I got the idea you want some major erotic details,” he began. “Like the way I—”

“Before we get into any specifics,” she conveniently cut in, “I’d like to get a solid sense of your male identity.” Her fingers were trembling as she searched through her briefcase for his résumé. “I believe you received your master’s degree from—”

“Harvard,” he filled in.

She finally found his résumé and frowned. “But your curriculum vitae lists Yale University.”

“Right, right,” he said. “I always get those two places mixed up.”

“Really?” she asked. “I thought a semi-genius like you would hold your university affiliations in high regard.”

“Nah,” he said. “I tend to file away my past and concentrate on current pertinent data. Like, for instance, your being here with me to examine my sexual need for the female species.”

“Ahh—why don’t you show me your house?” she suggested, avoiding his twinkling direct gaze. That’s it, she told herself. Keep the conversation safe, neutral, and on more wholesome topics.

But how long could she delay her sexy questions?

Zane studied her for a long moment. “Maybe I’m dead wrong,” he began, “but am I making you nervous, Professor Smith? Because if I am—”

“No, no, I’m fine,” she insisted. “I have no problem with—”

“Asking what turns me on in bed?” he boldly finished. His eyes were playing with her, teasing her, daring her.

Why, he was definitely getting pleasure from her uncomfortableness!

“I knew this would happen,” she blurted out, shoving his résumé back into her briefcase.

“What?”

“Men don’t take the university sex study very seriously,” she went on, unable to control herself the way Kim had advised. “One anonymous male wrote on his volunteer form that he made love one hundred times a day, eight days a week. By any chance, was that you?”

She was not going to let this man with the soaring IQ challenge her ability to competently complete her first interview.