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That’s why she couldn’t see Zane again. He’d unlocked her Pandora’s box. He’d touched the most bruised and vulnerable spot of her entire being. He’d connected with her heart.
Kim gave Charlie another peck on the lips. “Now get out of here, Charlie Woods.” She playfully pushed him into the living room to his daughter and then turned to Rachel.
“Take my advice,” Kim urged. “If you want to stay in good with the chancellor, you better give Zane Farrell one more chance.”
“Kim, I can’t,” she said in a desperate tone. “Will you take over his interviews for me?”
“I wish I could,” Kim replied. “But my schedule’s horribly tight right now. Rachel, I don’t understand. Why are you so anxious to get rid of Farrell?”
“The man’s totally impossible,” she said, avoiding Kim’s eyes.
She could feel Kim studying her in that close-girlfriend way of hers. “Rachel, are you attracted’to him?”
“Definitely not!” she denied. Her friend’s knowing hazel eyes were still on her. “Okay, okay, the man is sort of sexy.”
“Sort of?”
“He’s a major turn-on.”
“And you want to give him up?”
“I don’t need a member of the male population in my life right now, Kim.”
“What are you afraid of, Rachel?” Kim asked with concern. “It’s still Kent, isn’t it?”
“No!” she insisted, unable to summon the courage to tell her friend the horror of shame she felt about her sexual self.
“Please, Kim, will you take the Zane Farrell case study from me?” she begged. “I still have the accountant and orthopedic surgeon to interview. No one will even notice.”
Kim was silent as she poured them both a cup of herbal tea. “As soon as my schedule frees up, I’ll take Farrell from you. Can you hold out until then?”
“You promise?” Rachel asked, praying she really would.
“Promise.”
Rachel hugged her. “I owe you, buddy.”
All day at his car-repair shop, that university sex study Mr. Farrell had volunteered for was busting Johnny’s brains. He dreaded telling Mr. Farrell that he’d totally messed up the interview. But he was going to admit it, nonetheless.
“Tito, did Mr. Farrell say when he’d call me back?” Johnny asked as he handed a customer her car key after completing her repairs.
“Mr. Farrell said he was going to Taiwan,” Tito responded.
“Did he leave a phone number where I can reach him?”
“No number, Johnny,” Tito replied. “He told me he is sure you are handling everything A-OK for him. He is not worried. He knows you will make all the correct decisions in his place.”
“Riiigght,” Johnny slurred under his breath. “Thanks, Tito.”
“One more thing, Johnny,” Tito added, rubbing his nose with an oily hand and smudging more lubricant on his face. “My lady asked if you will come over and eat with us. She will make your favorite chalupa.”
“Name the date and time and I’ll be there,” Johnny replied, a smile coming to his face at just the thought.
Tito’s wife and four kids had taken him in like one of their own. Johnny’s mother and father were killed in an auto accident when he was twelve years old. Their car brakes had faltered. He ran away from the abusive Michigan foster home he was put in, and hitchhiked to Los Angeles where Mr. Farrell found him and guided him back to constructive living. Maybe Johnny’s parents’ car tragedy was the reason that keeping automobiles in perfect order was so important to him.
It was closing time, but three cars in need of repair pulled into Johnny’s shop, anyway. He could never refuse a customer who needed service. His shop was suddenly spinning with malfunctioning Volvos and M.G.’s. He barely had time to think about Rachel Smith and her sex interview.
That is, until later that evening. Johnny spent one night a week in his own apartment while house-sitting for Mr. Farrell. As Johnny watered the miniature vegetable garden he’d planted on the small plot beside his rent-controlled Santa Monica apartment, his mind wandered to Professor Rachel Smith.
Maybe it was the silver moon in the black velvet sky. Maybe he was tired and his body was beginning to relax. But as he sprayed his tomato plants, Johnny fantasized that Rachel was standing in front of him right that moment. He wanted to bask in the warmth of her feminine presence and delight in her defiant, stubborn and exciting nature.
He pictured Rachel’s swelling ivory breasts spilling over her spaghetti-strapped rose-colored dress as he’d gripped her waist in Mr. Farrell’s gym.
When her taut nipples strained against the cotton fabric, he’d realized her ample breasts were bra-free. How close his hungry mouth had been to suckling one pert nipple.
The sprinkling garden hose suddenly veered off course into his landlord’s cactus plant. He quickly turned off the water faucet. In a few minutes, he hit the bed, still smelling the sweet gardenia scent of her skin.
He fisted his pillow several times to get comfortable, but he was plagued with Rachel Smith thoughts. He kept picturing her soft body cuddled up to his in a tender embrace.
Restless, he got up and peered out the window at the shining star-glazed night. A half smile formed on his lips. Rachel had practically stripped her car gears to get away from him.
Yes, he’d definitely ticked her off. He’d gotten to her academic insides and stirred her up a bit. She was highly emotional, he could tell. Women who got that stormy, that quickly, usually had a healthy passionate nature and a tender sensitivity. He couldn’t deny it. He was irresistibly drawn to Rachel, more than to any woman he’d ever known.
A cloud suddenly hid the moon, and a dark shadow brushed over Johnny’s heart. Forget your emotional pull to Rachel, he silently told himself. You’re invisible to her. She sees Zane Farrell, not you.
He’d permitted his own powerful attraction to her to seep through and go beyond the boundary he had to have with Professor Smith. He wouldn’t let that happen again. No sir. He wasn’t going to disappoint Mr. Farrell.
He had to make Mr. Farrell’s volunteer study a successful one. Not that Johnny could figure out why a man like Mr. Farrell would ever participate in a sex research project.
Johnny hopped back into bed and punched his pillow into a snug position. Professor Rachel Smith, get ready. Mr. Farrell’s sex study was definitely not over yet. Johnny would play his role with more of a Zane Farrell cultured flare and not allow the uncouth, uneducated Johnny Wells to interfere again.
The next morning, Rachel pressed the fifteenth-floor elevator button in the steel-and-glass building in downtown Los Angeles for her second case-study interview, Harvey Glitt, a certified public accountant to the wealthiest business people in Los Angeles.
In the accounting office, Rachel tried to concentrate on quiet, shy Harvey Glitt with his bow tie, tall bony frame and pale complexion. Harvey yearned for a relationship with a woman, almost begged for one. The poor man had negative sex appeal. Maybe he was the type of male she needed. No arousal threat. Only platonic friends.
Rachel knew if she ever let loose her sexuality again with Zane Farrell, she’d lose her sensibilities, her logic, and would end up in a disastrous situation like the one she’d been in with Kent. And she never wanted to hurt Zane that way.
She made an unending vow to herself. The next time she was with Zane, she would demolish every emotionally close and sensually tempting thought that rose to her consciousness. Zane would remain a purely academic study to her. That was all.
The moment she returned to her office at the university, she quickly recovered Zane Farrell’s home phone number from the trash can where she’d angrily hurled it after their last encounter.
She nervously fingered the wrinkled sheet of paper. Excuses for never seeing him again lightning-flashed through her mind. But she refused to retreat. She’d keep it friendly but emotionally distant.
Just as she picked up the phone, there was a knock at her closed office door. She barely uttered a “come in” when the door powerfully swung open Zane Farrell-style. A bouquet of gleaming white gardenias were in Zane’s hands.
“Rachel, before you throw a lamp at me,” he began in his deeply resonating voice, “can we make a truce?” He handed her the sweetly scented flowers and added, “The aroma is definitely you.”
Rachel was so surprised, she couldn’t utter a word. She hugged the precious gardenias to her and inhaled a long, deep intake of flower-scented air with her eyes never leaving his.
Zane leaned against the wall of her office watching her, as if he belonged, like he was part of her life. And for that second, she wished that he really was.
Stop it, Rachel Smith. Control yourself. You promised.
She set the flowers down on her desk. “I assume this is a confirmation that you’re still a candidate for the university study?” she managed to say in her best businesslike voice.
“Only if you’ll have dinner with me tonight at The Wave Restaurant.”
His enticing eyes twinkled at her, and she suspected that his invitation was filled with much more than thoughts of the case study.
Thump, thump, thump, went her heart. A romantic dinner. Tenderly holding hands at the table. Eyes entwined. An invitation back to his mansion. Then a peak at his bedroom. Then his bed.
Be the professor, not the woman, she cautioned herself.
“Will the restaurant be conducive for our interview?” she asked carefully.
“Absolutely. One hundred percent,” he said confidently. “Eight o’clock?”
“Seven,” she firmly countered.
He chuckled as though pleased she was still wearing her battle gear. “Seven it is, Professor Smith. Shall I pick you up here or at your apartment?”
“I’ll meet you at the restaurant.” Keep it impersonal. Distant. All business.
“I look forward to it.” Then he was gone.
She plopped down on her desk chair. Why did he have to touch her heart by bringing those beautiful flowers? And why did he have to be so sexy? Could he see her trembling in his presence?
She quickly phoned Kim for support. “Kim, I can’t go to dinner with him,” she said, nervously stretching the phone cord.
“Just concentrate on the study,” Kim advised.
“How soon will you be freed up to take over his interviews?”
“Maybe in a week or so.” Her friend hesitated. “Will you be okay?”
“As long as I can see an end to it,” she replied. Her mind felt partially at ease as she hung up the phone. Knowing her stint with Zane Farrell was short-lived, she’d be just fine.
The black-tied maitre d’ approached Rachel as she entered The Wave Restaurant in Beverly Hills. The round tables were covered with mauve tablecloths and butterflyfolded napkins. Elegant black candles flickered on the tables like diamonds.
She hoped she hadn’t underdressed. Women were in sparkling sequins. Men in suave Italian suits.
Rachel had deliberately worn a beige silk blouse with lacy collar and sleeves and a form-fitting maroon skirt. Her hair was softly up in a bun with a wisp of bangs over her forehead. She felt conservatively businesslike, which was exactly the impression she wanted to give Zane Farrell.
As she followed the maitre d’, her breath caught in her throat. Zane arose from his table at the sight of her. A pinstriped black suit covered his muscular frame. His luminous blue eyes were focused on her as though she were the only woman in the galaxy.
Keep cool, girl, keep cool.
“Rachel,” Zane whispered as he gently took her hand in his warm palm. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you,” she replied, quickly slipping free of his electrically charged touch. Keep him physically away, she warned herself. Stay in one emotional piece.
Johnny couldn’t take his eyes off her. How could her face radiate more beauty than any female he’d ever met? She was even more gorgeous than the last time he’d seen her.
His focus slipped to her silken top, which feathered across her ample curves as she moved. The fabric was so fine that a trace of lacy bra peeked through. He could see a hint of her bountiful breasts puffing over the top of her lingerie.
He swallowed as he pulled out her chair. When she sat down, her skirt rose to the tops of her luscious bare thighs. She wasn’t wearing any stockings. His breathing quickened. He rapidly took his own seat before she caught him staring like a teenage boy.
Johnny had found The Wave Restaurant listed as one of Beverly Hills’ finest eateries. Since Mr. Farrell ordered in all meals to his mansion and never appeared in restaurants, Johnny didn’t worry about using the man’s name.
“About the incident in your gym,” Rachel began. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
“Why not?” Johnny asked.
“It was improper,” she replied.
“Improper?” Johnny repeated with a chuckle. “Come on, Rachel. The gym thing happened because you and I are very attracted to each other. Why can’t you admit—”
Johnny stopped when he saw the shocked look on Rachel’s face. He wanted to punch himself in the gut. Mr. Farrell was never coarse. But Johnny Wells was street-rough through and through.
“My focus is strictly on this research project,” Rachel said, looking him straight in the eyes. “Not on you.”
Rachel thought she saw Zane flinch. But she couldn’t let herself care. She had to keep the concrete wall up to protect herself from this man who possessed the power to bring out the achingly vulnerable part of herself that she vowed to keep concealed forever.
“Hey, no problem,” Zane told her, his voice dropping. He leaned back in his cushioned seat. “I’ll answer any question you ask. With one stipulation.”
“What’s that?”
“For every sex question you ask me, you have to respond to one of mine.”
“No,” she quickly said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Why not?” he asked. “You’re bold enough to probe my male psyche. Why can’t I explore the sex fantasies floating around in yours?”
Rachel immediately gulped down a long sip of sparkling water from the crystal glass. She couldn’t possibly accept his proposal. She couldn’t tell him her sexual thoughts. She couldn’t tell anyone. Yet, she had to make sure that Zane Farrell didn’t back out of the study. The chancellor’s potential upset threateningly stared her in the face.
“If you insist on mutual questioning,” she began in a strained voice, “I’ll go along with it. But if I don’t feel like answering, you bet I won’t.”
“Same here,” he said with a pleased grin that made her even more nervous about the whole matter. “Kick off the text.”
Just then, to her utter relief, the waiter brought their dinners. Zane ate his shrimp scampi with a conspicuous appetite. She barely took a bite of hers. She didn’t know how to begin her sex questions. As the dinner neared its end and she anxiously fiddled with her chocolate mousse, she noticed Zane placing a final forkful of creamy mousse into his mouth.
She caught a glimpse of his tongue licking off some excess chocolate on the fork. The sensitive area between her legs woke up. The thought of his mouth on her throbbing breasts—
Stop it! she silently scolded herself.
She struggled to ignore the arousing sensations sizzling through her body and pulled out the questionnaire folder from her briefcase. She stared at the first question. Oh, no, I can’t ask that one! she silently screamed. Don’t think about it. Just blurt it out.
“How often do you self-pleasure?” she managed to say, glancing away from his uplifted eyebrow.
“Play with my—”
“Masturbate,” she choked out. He was enjoying this. She was sure of it.
“You’re assuming that I do.”
“Don’t you?” she asked, a slow burn rushing to her cheeks.
“Do you?” he curiously inquired.
Johnny watched the skin on Rachel’s stunning face turn ashen. He didn’t mean to embarrass her. Yet, wasn’t that what she was doing to him? Was the masturbation question acceptable only if she asked it?
He noticed her nervously biting her lower lip, and for a moment, he hated that he’d probed. He impulsively touched her soft hand with his rough callused one.
“Hey, forget it, Rachel,” Johnny said. “You want to go for a ride in Mr. Fa—my Porsche?”
“Sure,” she whispered.
Johnny noticed that Rachel’s hands were trembling as she stuck the questionnaire back in her briefcase. He got up from his chair feeling confused. Something just didn’t click for him. Why would an academic doing a sexuality study be afraid to talk about sex herself?
When she rose from her seat, her briefcase slipped to the floor and papers spewed out. Johnny bent down to help her. As she crouched, he noticed her maroon skirt skidding up her naked thighs. Her bare legs spread slightly.
He sucked in his breath at the glimpse of pink lace panties covering the feminine mound between her velvety thighs. He wanted to press his hand intimately against the pink expanse and—
What the hell was he thinking? He shoved the loose papers into her briefcase and got to his feet. He was supposed to be acting like well-mannered Zane Farrell, not some lewd male with a hanging tongue.
The summer evening wind in the racing red Porsche convertible was undoing a part of Rachel’s bun. She grabbed the flying strands.
“Want the top up?” Johnny called above the whir of the freeway. Her hair was wildly blowing around her face. He imagined that was the uninhibited way she looked while making love.
“I’m fine!” Rachel yelled back as she struggled to get her hair into place.
She hadn’t been able to look Zane in the eyes since leaving the restaurant.
How could she tell him that, yes, she loved the titillating sensations she could create in her own body. And, yes, she had caressed her private areas many, many times before drifting to sleep at night.
But she didn’t dare. Because when she’d revealed her private moments to her about-to-be husband, Kent, months before their wedding, he’d stared at her in utter shock. He’d accused her of being sexually selfish and disturbingly obsessed with her own physical pleasure. And every time they were together after that, Kent asked if she’d caressed herself the night before. She was so haunted with guilt and shame that she hadn’t intimately touched her own body since.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to send you into shock back at the restaurant,” Zane shouted over the wind, cutting into her tortured thoughts. “Can I make it up to you by finishing the tour of my house for your interview?”
“I really don’t—” Rachel knew she didn’t dare return to the intimacy of his house at night. But with the roaring car engine and the wind whisking by, Zane didn’t hear her resist.
The Porsche zoomed through his King Kong gate and shot right to the curb in front of the mansion.
As Johnny led Rachel into Mr. Farrell’s palace, a twinge of sadness dragged at his heart. He wished he could take her to his small comfortable apartment in Santa Monica. He wanted to show her his vegetable garden. Maybe listen to a jazz CD and sip white wine while lying on pillows together on the floor.
He mentally kicked himself. Face reality, Johnny boy, he reprimanded himself. Professor Rachel Smith wouldn’t associate with a mediocre-incomed, uneducated engine fixer, even if he did have his own shop.
“Which room did we leave out last time?” Johnny asked as he removed his suit jacket and threw it on the sofa. He had to remind himself that Rachel was here to interview Mr. Farrell, not him. He was going to portray the man in neon colors. Just as long as his own street-level personality didn’t push into the frame.
“I believe you neglected to show me the master bedroom,” Rachel said. The sex questionnaire required it. But it was the room she most dreaded entering. The suggestive chamber that would surely tempt her wildest fantasies.
She lifted her chin, determined to be strong and not emotionally vulnerable again.
That is, until she hit his luxurious master suite. Her gaze settled on the exotic circular bed. The raven-black satin comforter and creamy vanilla pillows winked at her in greeting.
Zane rubbed a large palm across the softness of the glossy bedspread.
“Cool, huh?” he offered. “What does the bedroom decor say about me?”
“That you’ve got an excellent interior decorator.”
“That’s all?” he asked, sounding disappointed.
No, it wasn’t all. She envisioned herself tumbling nude with Zane into all that milky, silky satin.
She fought her fantasies and fumbled in her briefcase for her pad and pencil.
“Why did you choose a round bed?” she managed to ask as she steadied her quivering fingers to write.
Zane sat on the bed and patted the spot beside him, beckoning her to him.
“Why don’t you find out for yourself?” he suggested in a velvet murmur.
“I’d rather hear your thoughts on it,” she stated in a professorial voice. “I may interpret your bedroom accoutrements quite differently from the actual reason you purchased them. After all, what is sexy is purely subjective, isn’t it?”
“You tell me. You’re the lovemaking expert.”
His intense gaze caught and held hers. She was super-aware of being alone with him in his bedroom. Super-aware of the closeness she felt toward him. Super-aware of his circular satiny bed and wanting to make love with him.
Zane arose from the bed and approached her. “Are you afraid of me, Rachel?”
“Why should I be?” She struggled to ignore the charged currents shooting from his body to hers. She strained to get his attention off her.
“Is that your master bathroom?” she began, struggling to hold on, fighting to forget the humiliating truth about herself that she never wanted Zane to find out.
She entered the bathroom, which was the size of her entire apartment bedroom. Lavender and gray tiles. Recessed lighting. Gray porcelain Jacuzzi tub.
Her gaze stopped at the spacious clear-glassed shower stall with double chrome shower heads on either side. For two people. Scrubbing down each other’s hot dripping bodies. She bit down on her bottom lip.
Johnny followed her into the bathroom and leaned against the glass shower door. She wouldn’t even look him in the eyes. What was she hiding from? Had he said or done anything to trouble her? If he had, he’d take it back instantly if he knew what it was.
He could see her breasts heaving under the silk top. He wanted to pull her into his arms and smother his face between the softness of those warm swelling globes.
She fumbled with her questionnaire. “Have you ever taken a shower with a woman?”
“Have you with a man?” Johnny inquired. He had no right to ask, but he couldn’t stop himself. He wanted to know every intimate detail about her.
“I asked you first,” she insisted.
“I think sharing a shower with a woman can be great foreplay.”
“Is that a yes for the study?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he replied. “Have you, Rachel?”
“Have I what?”
“Taken a shower with a man.”
She nervously flipped through the printed questionnaire without answering.
“You’re breaking our agreement,” Johnny said.
“No, I’m not.”
“I’m baring all to you. Why are you keeping secrets from me?”
“I’m as open as you are.”
“Then answer my shower question.”
“I have never shared a shower. Happy?”
“Not if I was the man in your life.”
“Well, you’re not!”
“Good!”
“Fine!”
Before she could protest further, Johnny pulled Rachel’s trembling body to his. His mouth covered her rosebud lips. He could feel her palms against his chest.
“Rachel,” Johnny whispered in a gravelly tone.
His lips nibbled, bit, devoured her mouth, savoring the gardenia flavor of her. He felt her defensive grip slowly loosen on his chest. Then she bit and suckled back. His fingers undid her tight bun. Her silken hair flowed through his palms like a gentle waterfall.