Читать онлайн книгу «Beyond Seduction» автора Kathleen OReilly

Beyond Seduction
Kathleen O'Reilly
Sex didn't scare her… Despite the success of her sultry Red Choo sex blog, it would take serious buzz to put Mercedes Brooks's first book of erotic fantasies on the bestseller list. And that meant agreeing to another showdown with her nemesis, the super-sexy TV pundit Sam Porter. This thing beyond seduction did.This time, though, the on-air innuendos were just a dress rehearsal. What happened later between the sheets was actually the main event. If the tabloids got wind of their night together, Sam's career would self-destruct. But the real shocker was that even with a prime-time scandal hanging over their heads, one night was not enough!



Beyond Seduction
Kathleen O’Reilly




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Dee, as always, thanks.

Contents
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue

1
“OKAY, SAM, THAT’S A WRAP.”
The hot television lights were powered off, and Sam Porter pulled back from the small desk on the sound stage. He took a last drink of his water, and wanted nothing more than to be home in bed, preferably alone, nursing a cold beer, and watching the tape of today’s show.
Four a.m. was too early for any human being of sound mind to be up, but he’d sacrificed in order to prep for this interview, which had been a slam-dunk. The Connecticut Senator was political roadkill, although now Sam felt like death warmed over and the night was still young.
The crew began arranging the studio for the next broadcast, cameras being rolled away to the side of the set as the mechanized take-down duties were performed.
He nodded in the general direction of his floor director. “Thanks, Kristin. See you tomorrow.”
Kristin winked at him, putting aside her clipboard and headset. “Maybe you’ll see me. I’ve got a hot date—think I’m going to elope.”
He rubbed at his face with his palms. “Just as long as you’re back in the morning. Don’t make me break in another one of you.”
“Sure, boss,” she answered.
The crew started to take off. Goodbyes were always the shortest when the weekend was lurking nearby. Today was only Wednesday, but his staff were forward thinkers and Friday couldn’t come soon enough.
“Sam, wait a minute, will ya?” The voice of his producer boomed over the studio speakers, and Sam scowled in the general direction of the production booth. He wanted to get home, and Charles Whistleborne Kravatz III could be excruciatingly long-winded when he put his mind to it.
Charlie ambled into the studio, squawking into his cell. Impatiently, Sam tapped his foot until Charlie noticed, gave Sam an apologetic smile, and then kept talking for another ten minutes. Sam was just turning to leave when Charlie finally hung up.
“We’ve got a problem. The city manager pulled out and we’ve got to find another guest for Thursday’s show.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Sorry, Sam. Your fan base isn’t huge out there.”
“Yeah, well, someday. So what are we going to do? Know any Northern California radicals to put on?”
Charlie scratched his neck, parting the Brooks Brothers shirt buttons around his ever-expanding stomach. “I think we should do something less political. To offset the judicial expert’s talk about the nominee for the Supreme court. Big yawner. Give it some balance.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Human interest. Fluff.”
“I don’t like fluff,” warned Sam.
“No lectures, Sam. Hear me out. You’re doing two solid days of hard, depressing crap. We need something more upbeat. Happier. Maybe not birdies and rainbows, but something to put people in a good mood.”
At the moment, Sam was several emotions removed from a good mood. “I don’t know, Charlie. Let me think. I’m tired and I need sleep.”
Charlie nodded. “Do that. And let me know.” He turned around to leave, and then turned back. “Hey, I got a call about you while the show was taping.”
“Not another death threat, I hope?”
“Hehe, no. One of your fans. Chairman of your favorite New Jersey political party. He tried to play coy, but I pegged him. They want you to be their drop-in candidate for the House Seat in the Fifteenth District, after Detweiler pulled out. Four months before the election? Who does that?”
Sam started to laugh. “Me? A candidate? You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
Eventually Sam realized that Charlie was serious, mainly because Charlie was always serious.
Politics. His smile faded. “Really?”
“Yeah. Since we’re right up against the election, it’s got to be a write-in candidate, and the party knows you’ve got the name recognition to pull it off. They know they can trust you, your platforms are right. It’s not that big of a leap, Sam.”
“You’re kidding,” repeated Sam, still slightly in shock. It was flattering, it was intriguing, and most of all, it was something that he’d never thought about before. “I’m in television. I talk about politics. I don’t do politics,” he said, weighing the arguments out loud.
“I take it that’s a ‘no’ then. I’ll send your regrets.”
Sam almost corrected that, but something held him back. “Yeah, just tell them no,” he said, finality in his voice.
“Glad to hear it ’cause we’d have to kill the show, and I for one would not be happy. Hell, I’d have to find a new show. And I don’t even wanna think about the network. You’re a cash cow, and cash cows are hard to come by these days.”
“I didn’t think about losing the show,” Sam murmured, wrapping his mind around the possibility of a new direction in his daily routine.
“You’re thinking about losing the show, Sam?” asked Charlie, his faded blue eyes still sharp as they’d always been.
“How long do I have?”
“You gotta decide fast. Ten days is all you’ve got.”
Politics. It was something he talked about, studied, read about on a daily basis, but he’d never considered himself a politician. He was a journalist. But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to work for the country instead of bashing do-nothing politicos on a nightly basis? His practical side laughed at the idea, his sentimental side was flush with new ideas.
“I should say no,” he answered, his practical side winning the argument. Sam had enough to think about right now. Like what to fill in on Thursday’s show.
“But that’s not a ‘no’?”
“It’s a not yet,” answered Sam. “I’ll take the ten days, Charlie. Let me think.”
After Charlie left, Sam headed for the dressing room. Finally a chance to lose the suit, and he pulled on his jeans with a contented sigh. He would never be a suit, and although he played a talking-head on TV, and did it well, blue jeans were his natural habitat.
The television studio was a cold, lifeless place with cameras, overhead banks of monitors, and the smell of sanitized air freshener, rather than the smell of hard work.
Sam’s dad had been a plumber, who came home smelling of plumber’s grease and somebody’s clogged drain pipe, and Sam had learned to appreciate the smells that came with an honest day’s labor. It was the primary reason his dressing room smelled like pen ink and microwaved chicken rather than the ‘clean fresh scent that follows a soft summer’s rain.’
His ratty, overstuffed couch was always waiting for him when he wanted to lay down and think, and the sounds of Bob Dylan, Toby Keith, and Springsteen were permanent playlists on his iPod. He needed it to drown out the city noise. At his heart, Sam was a Jersey boy, born and bred, and although Manhattan paid his salary, his home sat on the blue-collar side of the Hudson River.
Sam cast a longing look at the couch, but he had places to go and people to meet. The couch—and much-needed sleep would have to wait.
Two long East-West blocks covered the distance from the studio to the bar on 11th where he was headed. A few fans stopped, waved, but New York wasn’t the target market for the Sam Porter show. A conservative talk show host in Manhattan garnered more death threats than autograph requests. Since Sam was a firm believer in the right to bear arms, as well as carry them, he wasn’t fazed.
The cool September air blew around and through the concrete jungle, and it was a great night for a walk, the perfect way to wake him up. It might be Wednesday, but New York never knew it. Midtown was bustling, cabs lined up bumper to bumper, the night lights starting to illuminate the sky. Yeah, city life was okay.
He passed by a bookstore on the way, and the photograph in the window caught his attention. Sam stopped.
He knew that face; a face he’d had on his show—once.
Mercedes Brooks.
It’d been over a year ago, and he’d pushed her from his mind, or so he thought, but the photograph stirred up a visceral reaction that surprised him with both its appearance and its intensity.
He studied the picture. She hadn’t changed, her long, long dark hair was deeper than the shadows.
Her eyes were just as dark as her hair, and the photographer had caught a wicked gleam in them.
Those eyes had made him wonder.
Did they tease a man first thing in the morning, or were they cloudy with sleep? Did they ever grow blind with passion, reckless and unknowing?
It might only be a photograph, but the camera had captured a part of her, and the gleam stayed there. How far would she go? A teasing Lolita, a brazen Delilah?
He stood and looked for a minute, happy for the anonymity of a busy street where no one cared if a man stood a little too long, or stared a little too hard.
Then, spurred on by an impulse that he didn’t want to examine, Sam walked inside, picked up a book off this display, and started to read. He should’ve known it’d be a mistake, everything about her yelled “mistake” but he wanted to know, and his eyes followed the evocative words, blood-heating words:
He wasn’t a man she’d ever see outside the bedroom, because his world wasn’t hers, and she couldn’t adapt to his, so they met in private, in the dark, and for a few hours, they would pretend.
She loved lying next to him, his body so much stronger and bigger than hers. Sometimes she would trail her fingers over his arms, following the ridges and dips, the curling hairs tickling the pads of her fingers. He had lovely arms that sheltered her, and kept her warm when the world was cold, cherished her when she felt unloved.
His body was built to pleasure her with his big, hard, workman’s hands, among other parts. She loved when he rubbed his hands over her, slow at first, almost shy. He wore a ring on his right hand, cold silver that jarred when he drew it over the heated skin of her breasts. He would do that to her, and at first she thought it was an accident, but by the third time, she grew to love that ring, and the simple wanton pleasure of cold silver against a naked breast. Her breasts weren’t the only place he teased. He liked to delve between her thighs, the ring pressing against hot, swollen flesh. A single touch that would pull her out of her skin, but never fast. Always slow, excruciatingly slow…
“Sam Porter?”
The voice jerked him out of that dark, blissful place that he’d just visited with his vivid imagination. He glanced down. At his body.
Quickly he covered his fly with the book and turned.
An older woman stood there, her eyes as curious as a kid. She was bundled up in a wool cardigan and carried a stack of books in her hands. “You’re reading that?” she asked, the bright eyes dipping to the lurid cover.
Instantly Sam put on his fan-face. “Oh, no. Just keeping up with the state of the world.”
She clucked her tongue, the faded red hair shaking in disapproval. He saw that look a lot. “Sad what’s happening. Sometimes I think I’m getting too old, that I don’t understand the young. Sex, sex, sex. Seems like we get bombarded with it everywhere. Books, television, health insurance. Can you believe it, they’re using sex to sell health insurance? You should put that on your show.”
Carefully, unobtrusively, Sam replaced Mercedes’s sex book, then gave the woman an empathetic nod. “I think you’re right. I’ll talk to the producer.”
The woman stared at the dark, gauzy cover displaying a man and a woman locked in a shameful, wicked, indecent embrace that looked…
Sam looked harder.
…really inviting.
Time to cut to a commercial. “Listen, I need to run. There’s never enough time, is there?”
The woman held out her hand, and Sam took it in his two. He’d learned many years ago that women really liked that move, no matter the age.
“Watch us next week. We’ll be heading out to San Francisco on Thursday and Friday.”
The blue eyes grew wide with shock. “San Francisco? They’re very liberal out there, aren’t they?”
Sam smiled and gave her his confiding laugh. “New judge on the Ninth Circuit, and there’s a legal scholar who’s written about the court. I’ve got some questions. That’s the way it starts. I always have questions.”
Visibly she relaxed. “That’s what I like about you. You won’t let anybody get away with anything. I won’t miss it. Can I ask you a favor?”
“What can I do for you?”
She held up the stack of books in front of her. Law books. “I got a problem with the social security department. Foolish computer error, that’s what it is.”
“What what is?”
“They think I’m dead, and I don’t know how to prove I’m alive. The state of New York issued a death certificate as a mistake. I was in the hospital four months ago, stupid heart. I should exercise more, I suppose.”
“You need some help?”
“Could you?”
Sam thought for a minute. “I’ll need your ID. Just to make sure you’re not pulling one over on me.”
She laughed, and then handed over a well-worn card. “Here you go,” she answered.
Sam pulled out his cell, and punched in a few numbers. “I know just the guy.
“Dan. It’s Sam. Need a favor—”
“You’re not going to put us on the show, are you?”
“No, no, you’re in the clear—this time. I have a citizen in need.”
“It’s after five, Sam. Can it wait?”
“Come on, Dan, I’ll owe you one, and best of all, it’s easy.”
“Will we get a kudos on the air?”
“For you, I’ll do a special segment.”
“Okay, what’s up?”
“I have a lady here, living, breathing, and talking to me, that the social security department thinks is dead. Can we correct the state records, and mail one of your official letters to those nasty bureaucrats in Washington that wouldn’t know a heart if it was, well, a living heart?”
“Name of the un-dead?”
“Geraldine Brady,” answered Sam, and then reeled off the rest of Geraldine’s pertinent info while she beamed as any non-dead citizen would. “Got all that?”
“Yeah. Blockheads, all of ’em. I’ll fix it.”
“You’re a prince among men, Dan.”
“Save it for your fans, Sam.”
He just laughed and hung up. “I think it’s taken care of it, but here’s one of my cards, and let me know if you don’t get a letter in a couple of weeks.”
Geraldine put down her books and gave him a hug. Right in the middle of the bookstore. Sam smiled politely, because he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the touchy-feely aspects of his job, especially not under the wicked, gleaming eyes in the photograph of Mercedes. Sam ran a finger under the collar of his leather bomber jacket, feeling the sweat that had collected there. Somehow, some way, he was absolutely sure Mercedes Brooks was laughing at him. He swore under his breath, and shook his head, clearing the ghosts, clearing the image of her.
O’Kelley’s was a much-needed reprieve from the bookstore. The place was casual, dark, and ear-poppingly loud. He scanned the room for the guys, spotting them at a table against the black-paneled wall, underneath the Harp beer sign. Bobby was a journalist who he’d bonded with when he was a political reporter for WNBC. Across from him was the reason for the dinner—Tony Rapanelli. Seven years ago, after a particularly rowdy New Year’s Eve party, Tony had mistaken Bobby for a mugger and tackled him in the middle of 8th Avenue. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.
Things had been quiet for awhile, but now Tony was going through the last throes of a painful divorce, and it was sucking the life out of him slowly and surely. For the past few months, Sam and Bobby had been working with Tony, trying to cheer him up, trying to let him see life after a break-up. Tony—who had been married for seventeen years, with two kids, two dogs, and one house on Long Island—hadn’t even cracked a smile.
However, they were determined to keep trying.
Sam plastered a grin on his face. “Hey! Didn’t mean to keep you all waiting.”
Bobby stood and they knocked fists, an odd mix of formality and urban America. Although he always wore a jacket, Bobby was half Puerto Rican, half Italian and still carried around some of the ways of the street. “My man, how’s things?”
“Eh,” Sam answered, ordering a Diet Coke from the waitress.
He settled into a chair and grabbed the bowl of pretzels, the best he was going to manage for dinner.
Tony raised his glass. “To women.”
At that, Sam raised a brow. This was new. Maybe they were lucky and Tony had gotten laid. In Sam’s experience, sex always put a rosy spin on life.
“Today is Tony’s anniversary,” muttered Bobby, before Sam could get too carried away with excitement. “Listen, Tone, the wife has a friend. Now, she’s not a stunner, but she’s nice—”
The table broke out in groans. “And she got a boob job last year,” he finished.
“Age?” asked Tony.
“Thirty-two.”
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
“Now, wait a minute,” Sam interrupted. “Tony, you’re thirty-seven. Absolutely nothing is wrong with you, and there’s no reason to assume that there’s a problem.” Sam believed in fighting injustices wherever they occurred, even in his friends.
“Point taken,” admitted Tony, and then turned back to Bobby. “So what’s wrong with her?”
“Were you listening?” said Sam. “There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with her. Right, Bob?”
Bob got all shifty-eyed and Sam groaned. “Look, she’s got this voice. Kinda Brooklyn.”
“No, absolutely not,” said Tony, using two syllables at the end, just like any good Long Islander would do.
“Jeez, how do you plan on meeting any women if no one is good enough?”
Bobby laughed at Sam. “Spoken like the eternally single man that you are.”
“I was married. Once,” said Sam.
Bobby rolled his eyes. “Anything before twenty-six is too young to count.”
Bobby was right about that. The marriage had been too short, too casual to count, and Sam had stayed far away since then. Maturity and wisdom would do that to a man. But today, he found himself wishing there was someone to go home to. Not because he wanted a home-cooked meal, oh, no. His reasons were more basic. Sam was still carrying around an extra seven inches of pain and misery from a little too much “cold silver against a naked breast,” and it would be nice to have someone to take the edge off.
Like Mercedes Brooks, for example.
Sam closed his eyes and groaned, low and painful, and a mere two decibels louder than he intended.
Tony looked at him sideways. “What’s wrong?”
Both his friends were staring, because Sam didn’t have problems. He didn’t groan. He didn’t complain. And usually he didn’t suffer from slip of the tongue disease. Lack of sleep, lack of sex seemed to be taking its toll. Damn. Sam shook it off. “It’s the show. We got stuck without a second guest for Thursday night. A city manager broke his leg, and now I’m guestless, except for the judge.”
“What does Charlie say?”
“He wants to do something lighter.”
“What do you want?”
It was a loaded question because up until that moment, Sam would have answered differently, but his whole body was tense and taut, and the more he considered it, the more he thought that maybe Charlie was right. They did need something lighter. More provocative. “Sex.”
Bobby howled. “Hard up?”
“I meant for the show.”
“Then book a sex therapist.”
“No.” His mind was racing along various roadtracks, but he kept coming back to the same endpoint.
“A hooker? You know, they’re trying to unionize in Canada. That could be both sexual and political.”
You know, Bobby had a point, but not now. And not in San Francisco. Sam was busily pondering other plans for San Francisco. “No.”
“Sam, you’re boring.”
“I’m not boring,” he protested.
“So find somebody.”
He knew somebody. She’d be the perfect somebody. They could discuss the white-noise of sex in America. She could blissfully talk about sex—meaningless, passionate sex between two consenting adults, locked in a tangle of bare flesh, while he drove inside her, tasting the curve of a firm naked breast…
Damn.
Sam really needed to get laid. It’d been over three months since he’d broken up with Shelia. She’d been nice enough, but she wasn’t The One. She wasn’t even The Maybe One.
“Book somebody, Sam,” said Tony with an almost-smile.
“Great looking,” added Bobby. “It’s about time that your guests weren’t old, fat and bald.”
“Can you guys give me a break? Enough about my show, let’s talk about something else. Like Tony. The purpose of this dinner. Remember?”
Bobby nodded. “You got to get back on the horse, Tone. Sam’ll find some club, you’ll meet women, see them all nicely dressed, or undressed, and remind you of what you are.”
“What’s that?” asked Tony.
Bobby smiled, wide and slow. “You’re the rarest of the rare. A precious quantity to be savored and sipped, and tupped as often as you like. You’re a single, heterosexual man in New York.”
He might as well have thrown his friend in front of a bus, for all the good it did. Tony attempted a weak smile. “I don’t know that I can do this.”
Tony was going to need all the reassurance he could get. “Don’t worry about it,” Sam said. “I’ll call Franco. He knows the good places.” Sam made a note to himself to call Franco, and stuck around for another couple of rounds. But tonight, it wasn’t the taste of alcohol that put him on fire. It was one Mercedes Brooks.
On the way home, he stopped by the bookstore in Paramus and picked up a copy of her book, buying it quickly before anyone noticed.
When he got to his house in north Jersey, he settled down to read, and got halfway through the first chapter when he made up his mind. Mercedes Brooks was going on his show. Charlie was right. What would be so wrong with a little talk about sex?
He laughed at himself. Yeah. Since when did he agree with his producer? He looked down at the book, flipped to the cover, watching the faint images come to life in his mind. It wasn’t politics he was thinking of now, far from it. She’d stayed there in his head for nearly a year. Maybe it was time to see Mercedes Brooks again.
In the flesh.

2
THE LITERATURE PANEL AT the Algonquin Hotel had been the idea of Portia McLarin, Mercedes’s agent. At first, Mercedes had thought it’d be a blast. After all, the Algonquin was a New York landmark for the literati. When Mercedes had stepped through the dark oak entrance, she knew she had made it to the big leagues. At one time, the hotel’s Round Table hosted the likes of Dorothy Parker, Edna Ferber and Robert Benchley. And tonight—the one, the only—Mercedes Brooks.
Yeah, right.
There were two other authors besides Mercedes. Linda who wrote fiction, and Cecily the poet. Linda was snazzily attired in a nipped-waist blazer that was probably Marc Jacobs. She’d paired it with jeans and a tie, although the shoes were a little too penny-loafer for Mercedes’s taste. All things considered, the outfit was wonderfully chic.
However, the positive aura was spoiled when Linda proudly announced that she had received an MFA from Columbia and wrote “lit-ra-chur.” Mercedes slunk an inch lower in the leather-backed chair.
The second girl was Cecily, a Bohemian-vegan type with frizzy brown hair, and wire-rim spectacles, and absolutely no sense of fashion or style. Cecily wrote “abstract poetry” and lived in a warehouse in Brooklyn, no surprise there.
They were only twenty minutes into the discussion, and the bright lights were already starting to make Mercedes sweat, as was the moderator, a stuff-shirted academic. As someone who wrote about sex, and had just published a book of erotic fiction, Mercedes really didn’t have the time nor the inclination to deal with someone who desperately needed to get their rocks off, assuming he had any.
“Miss Brooks, can you tell us why you feel the urge to write fiction designed to titillate?” The man’s voice sliced down her spine like broken glass, but Mercedes was determined to stand up for the constitution, especially that pesky first amendment.
“Why does any writer need to write?” she asked, dodging the titillate word deftly. “It’s part of documenting the human condition.”
“But don’t you feel your—work,” he said, with a dismissive sniff, “reduces the human condition to a training manual on copulation?”
“No, I believe some other literary author won the award for bad sex writing. Not me. I believe my fans are more discerning than that.”
He stroked his goatee, quirking one brow. “And what about probing the deep, dark places where man is afraid to tread? Isn’t writing about sex selling out?”
“Now, this is only the opinion of one poor, lowly author, but the whole point of writing erotica is to write about those deep, dark places where man is afraid to tread.” She turned to Linda, who was the panelist next to her and smiled politely. “What is your book about?”
Linda sat up straight and cleared her throat. “My book is a soul-stirring exploration of a mother’s love for her children, who murders them in the end, as a tribute to the transcendental nature of life.”
The moderator sighed, a goofy fan-girl sigh that pushed Mercedes over the edge. When had a weight the size of the Titanic fallen on the scales of justice? It truly wasn’t fair. “And you sniff at my book?”
“I do not sniff at art,” the moderator snapped.
“I bet you never break wind, either,” Mercedes muttered under her breath.
“I beg your pardon?” asked Cecily.
Mercedes checked her watch. “This has been lovely, but I gotta go. Autographing at Rockefeller Center.”
“Rockefeller Center?” asked Linda, her voice embracing the words in a sad lover’s caress. Dream on, sister.
“Of course. It’s a rite of passage for every author, don’t you think?”
Linda nodded, her eyes dreaming of booksignings she would never have, and Mercedes gave her an encouraging pat on the back. “Someday,” she said, a hint of encouragement in her voice.
She tried not to strut as she walked off the dais, but okay, maybe there was a kick in her heels. What was success if not to be enjoyed? And after all, somebody needed to right those scales of justice. Mercedes thought she was just the one.
Sadly, her moment of fighting for truth, justice, and the American right to read about sex was fleeting. There wasn’t a booksigning in Rockefeller Center; Mercedes had made that one up, being nothing if not creative.

ACROSS TOWN ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE, Mercedes was back in her apartment, which wasn’t exactly an apartment, more like a closet with living accessories. The tiny studio had a couch that folded into a bed—when she took the trouble to pull it out. Other amenities included a sink, a one-burner stove, and a half-height refrigerator. At least the bathroom had a tub, her one necessity in life.
She punched the answering machine button and got a message from Andreas.
“Hey, Mercedes, listen, something’s come up tonight, so I won’t be by. We’ll talk later. You’re the best.”
She hit the erase button with a little more force than necessary, mainly because of the music playing in the background. Okay, he wasn’t the world’s best boyfriend. Actually she didn’t even call him her boyfriend because that would imply some level of emotional foreplay in their relationship, and there was none.
Andreas was like so many guys in the world, not really interested in anything but a good time. Mercedes didn’t let it bother her. She wrote erotic fiction, after all, and could chalk the whole relationship up to research and not lose a bit of sleep. Of course, that would imply she didn’t lose sleep, which she did. More than she would admit to anybody.
A single woman today was supposed to be hard and emotionless when it came to love and sex, and Mercedes wanted that. When you felt nothing, you didn’t hurt, you didn’t bleed. After almost ten years of rejections from publishers, it was helpful to grow a thick hide and let the slings and arrows of the world bounce off of you. But sometimes an arrow got through the castle walls, and that’s when it was time for a bath—with lavender-scented bubbles to ease the pain away.
Mercedes drew the hot water, pipes clanking as always, and poured in the magic liquid. Quickly she shed her clothes and slipped into the one place where she could hide from the rest of the world. She leaned her head back against the ancient cast-iron tub and closed her eyes. Her dreams weren’t easy ones. She wanted to hit the New York Times list, somehow, someway, somewhere.
She supposed her life would be less stressful if she wasn’t so ambitious but her mother had always encouraged big dreams. Mercedes had always wanted to be a writer, to explore the depths of humanity. The good, the evil, and the sexual. When she started the sex blog, the Red Choo Diaries, it’d been a lark. A way to make a name for herself without having the publishing credits that were required, and make a name she did. The blog had gotten her an agent and a two-book deal. And as a bonus, her brothers had found true love because of the blog. Everyone was happily involved except for her.
The water enveloped her, and she tucked a warm washcloth over her eyes, breathing in the gentle scent. Eventually her body was in another place, a place where her stories lived. That dark, mysterious world were lovers had no faces, and fantasy sex would always be better than reality sex.
Her fingers began to explore the map of her body she had memorized early on. Hiding beneath the bubbles, she could soothe the place between her thighs. While she pleasured herself, she didn’t think of Andreas, or Nick, or Alex or any of the lovers she’d had.
Her lover didn’t have a name, only the hard hands that she wrote about in her book, the long body she yearned to explore, and the intense eyes that made her want. They would be hazel eyes, green and brown swirled together like watercolors in the rain. Eyes that flashed gold when impassioned, and calmed to the color of summer leaves when they were at peace.
Her body rose in time with his, and the soothing lavender scent only sharpened the molten throbbing at her center. He moved faster within her, a quicksilver image that was not quite real, yet more than a dream. She wanted to touch him, wanted to kiss his mouth, test the heat of his skin, but he was always just beyond her reach.
Right then the phone rang, and Mercedes almost didn’t bother, but an unanswered phone was like an unscratched Super Match For Millions ticket.
“Hello,” she answered, trying not to be peeved. The person on the other end didn’t need to know they’d interrupted a climax in progress. Although if it was a telemarketing call, her peeve was going to be out in full force.
“Mercedes Brooks?” asked a voice. A resonant, confident, sexy voice.
“Yes?”
“Sam Porter.”
Sam! Mercedes fumbled to keep the towel and the phone in place. “Hello, Sam,” she purred, sounding completely poised. Mercedes could fake it like the rest of them.
“So, has your brother hit anybody else recently?”
Oh. “I was hoping you’d forgotten.” It’d been almost a year since her brother, Jeff, had punched Sam out on live TV when she’d been a guest on his show. A few mistaken impressions, a bunch of wrong words. Not a high moment in her life.
“No, the jaw still aches sometimes.”
“You’ll never let me forget that, will you?”
“Probably not.”
“You insulted the woman he loves. What would you have done?”
“The celebrated gossip of tawdry celebrities was the topic of the show. I don’t pull my punches.”
“Neither does he,” Mercedes said proudly. “So why did you call?”
“We’re shooting in San Francisco next week, and I was wondering if you’d want to come on the show.”
Ca-ching! Mercedes squeezed her fingers on the towel to keep from squealing. Never a smooth move. He wanted her on the show? Not the perfect audience for erotica, but hey, she wasn’t going to complain, with her book just hitting the shelves. Mercedes did a short happy dance before regaining her poise. “What day were you thinking?”
“We’d have you on Thursday night. Fly you out there on Thursday, fly back on Friday. The show would pick up the tab.”
Such mundane words, in such a lustrous voice. Soft, intimate, infinitely warm. Jeez, he was talking travel arrangements and she was getting seduced. “What do you want to talk about?” she asked, trying to keep all those seduce-me fixations out of her brain.
“It’s only a short segment. The meat of the program is going to a judicial scholar who just published a book on the Ninth Circuit’s influence on the Supreme Court, so we’d only have about ten minutes. The topic would be how the white noise of sexual messages is negatively affecting the libido.”
“I’m assuming that I’m the face of the sexual white noise?” she asked dryly, no longer full of seduce-me fixations.
“Uh, yeah. Not me.”
She sighed heavily into the phone, disappointed because, well, she didn’t want to analyze why she was disappointed that Sam Porter wasn’t murmuring erotic nothings over the phone.
“You’ll do it?” he asked.
Like she would say no. “You’ll send me the travel arrangements?”
“Charlie’s assistant will call you.”
“Thank you for thinking of me, Sam.”
“It wasn’t hard. You’re not easy to forget.”
Mercedes pumped a fist into the air. “Twelve months is a long time to sit idly by.”
“Yeah, congratulations, by the way,” he said, easily slipping back to his smooth, melodious television voice. No intimacy, all professional.
“For what?”
“The book.”
“You knew?”
“I do read.”
“You read it?” she asked, not bothering to hide the surprise. Sam’s political leanings didn’t lend themselves to erotica. Damn it.
“No, but I have been spotted in bookstores before, Mercedes.”
“You don’t approve, do you?”
“It’s not my place to approve or disapprove. Free country. Free speech. That’s what makes America great.”
She laughed softly, sensing the truth. “You hate it.”
“No. Honestly.”
He was a liar. But what was the point in calling him on it? “How are you doing? The show’s ratings are through the roof.”
“You noticed?”
“I do watch TV.”
“My show?”
“Sometimes,” she answered, not wanting to tell him that she taped his show and watched it before bed. She liked listening to him at night, and his opinions weren’t that kooky. At least most of the time. Sometimes, when she was really, really tired, she even agreed with him. But she would never tell him that.
“I need to go. Thanks for doing this.”
“Sure.” Mercedes hung up the phone, and returned to the bathroom. The water was cool to the touch, so she ran a brand-new tubfull, making it warm and soothing. She touched herself again, her fingers taking up where they had left off, and she returned to the dark, mysterious world where her lovers resided. But this time, her lover had a face and a voice.
Hazel green eyes, firm lips, a nose that looked like it’d been broken once, and silky, tawny brown hair that fell any way but straight.
As she slipped into the last wake of her climax, she thought of Sam and smiled.

BERGEN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY, was as close to nature as a man could be, yet still be less than thirty minutes from Manhattan. Sam owned three shaded acres of towering Douglas firs, and grass growing as it was meant to be, not trimmed into some geometrical hoodoo. His office was in the back of the house, where he could watch Max, his black lab happily chase squirrels. At the moment, instead of chasing squirrels, Max was happily snoozing, leaving Sam to his own thoughts.
A man with an MA, BA and BBA, shouldn’t be thinking of T & A when contemplating his livelihood. He was a professional, a man who’d been yelled at, threatened, and yes, hit once, on national television, and never, ever lost his cool. He could think of a million and one reasons why he shouldn’t be asking Mercedes to San Francisco. Number one. He was too old for her. He was thirty-nine, and she was a young twenty-something. That age when the world was full of opportunity and birthdays were still celebrated. Sam wasn’t old by any means, but he’d seen it, he’d done it, and he’d settled into a comfortable existence that didn’t involve nightlife and a tingling anticipation of tomorrow. For God’s sake, he had a recliner. Twenty-somethings didn’t date men with recliners.
And the reasons didn’t stop there. She wrote erotic fiction. Not children’s books, not historical fiction, not self-help books. Well, if you really wanted to split hairs, you could consider erotic fiction self-help, but Sam wasn’t a hair-splitter. He believed in facts. Honor, responsibility, not just s-e-x, the consummation of a man and woman, bodies entwined together, lost in the mindless passion of the moment, possibly in a recliner.
Why now? Was he approaching a midlife crisis before he hit forty? He’d always been mature for his age, maybe this was just early onset midlife crisis. And did he want to have sex with Mercedes merely to satisfy some arbitrary whim to have a young, hot babe on his arm. God, he didn’t even like the word “babe”—or the men who said it.
He swore and Max, his black Lab, lifted his head from the rug and stared.
“What are you staring at?” snapped Sam.
Max turned his head and whined.
“I know it’s not smart, Max. But let me work through this. I’ll have one night, maybe two. Just to get it out of my system. Then I’ll come back, trade in the Lexus on a bright red Ferrari. Like I’m supposed to.”
Max cocked his head.
“You can ride in the front seat, the wind blowing through your ears. It’ll be just like in the movies. A man and his dog. You got to back me up on this. Tell me I can be strong.”
Max barked at him, and Sam smiled. Of course, then he picked up Mercedes’s book and started to read again.
Thursday night couldn’t come soon enough.

THEY’D PUT HER IN FIRST CLASS. First class. If Sam Porter wanted to impress her, he’d certainly started out right. Not that she could be bought, but she could certainly be pampered. Okay, he was conservative. Okay, he was a few years older (and more experienced). Okay, he was unbendable. Nobody was perfect. And what he lacked in other areas, he made up for in physiology.
The flight attendant approached. She knew Mercedes by name, knew her meal preferences, and Mercedes suspected the flight attendant knew her zodiac sign, too. That was service. Not that she could be bought.
“Something for you to drink,” the attendant asked.
Mercedes thought for a minute. Unlimited alcohol. Work. Unlimited alcohol. Work. Eventually her puritan work ethic smacked her party girl self into submission.
“Water, please. I have to work,” she said, frowning to express her extreme displeasure with the situation.
The man in the seat next to her ordered a scotch and water. “I don’t have to work,” he told Mercedes with a grin best termed lecherous.
“That’s very nice of you. I don’t mean to be rude, but I do need to work,” she told him, keeping her face airplane-attendant polite.
“You don’t mind if I watch, do you? I bet you’re really fun to watch. Go ahead, unwind, relax. Make yourself comfortable. When the ladies are hot as you are, I love to watch. Everything,” he added, like she really needed that bit of personal info.
A four-hour flight to SFO, and she was stuck next to Mr. McCreepy instead of Dr. McDreamy. Or for instance, Sam?
Mercedes gave the man her cold, formal smile—a smile learned when her mother had tried out for the Broadway version of My Fair Lady. Her mother hadn’t got the part of Lady Ambassador, but Mercedes had learned how to chill out the world with one look.
McCreepy didn’t take the hint. “Are you going to San Francisco for business or pleasure?” he asked, his voice lingering on “pleasure.”
“Business,” she answered briskly, not quite the truth. There was a good shot of pleasure in the motivational equation for this trip, and she hoped that Sam was equally motivated. There had been sparks when they’d met a year ago. Huge, galaxy-bending sparks, and he’d felt them, too. But Sam was a master of self-control, or he must be to deny the pull of animal magnetism that drew them together. Actually, it wasn’t as much animal magnetism as it was his voice, his eyes, those long, capable fingers—okay, maybe it was animal magnetism. Maybe he had endured twelve, long torturous months of monk-like celibacy, because there was only one sultry siren that was woman enough to satisfy his manly urges. And maybe he had come to the realization that a night of passion was their destiny. Sam and Diane. Sam(pson) and Delilah. Sam and Mercedes. Fate. Kismet. Karma. As a card-carrying member of the creative arts, Mercedes believed strongly in the power of all three. Finally he had decided to sample her wares, swim in her unchartered waters, or pluck the nectar from her core. Either way, whether sampling, swimming, or plucking, she was wild about the possibility.
“…and then I was out drinking with this Hollywood movie star…”
Mercedes emerged from her Sam-induced haze and realized McCreepy was talking—strike that—lying to her.
“Were you speaking to me?” she asked, as if there was some possibility that he wasn’t.
McCreepy’s mouth tightened into a single, hard line. Yeah, well, he’d get over it.
Mercedes’s face cracked into a smile and then she pulled out her computer. She had written seventeen pages of her next manuscript, with only two months left to go. And three hundred and thirty-three pages. Softly she hummed “To Dream the Impossible Dream.” Not that it was impossible, but late nights and caffeine were definitely on her schedule. Definitely.
The flight attendant returned with her water and McCreepy’s drink. “We’re going to be stuck on the tarmac for another twenty minutes, are you sure you don’t want anything stronger?” the attendant asked.
Mercedes shook her head, noticed McCreepy’s wayward gaze, and took out her cell as a further instrument of deterrence. Quickly she dialed her brother.
“Jeff,” she said loudly, happily, and hopefully deterrently.
“What are you doing? What do you want?”
Jeff mistrusted his sister more than the normal level of sibling distrust, perhaps due to some past entries about him—anonymously—showing up in her sex blog. However, she had done it all to further the course of true love for Jeff and Sheldon—and perhaps further her own career. A win for all involved, though Jeff didn’t see it that way.
“I’m sitting at JFK, waiting for takeoff. A big yawner. Thought I’d kill some time, and you were first on the speed-dial list.”
“You’re going to be okay on the show?”
“Oh, yeah. I mean, I thought about asking you, but then, what if you hit him again? Then where would I be?”
“It was only one shot, and I didn’t even hit him hard.”
“Yeah, you say that now that you’re safely married. I remember you telling Sheldon how you were ready to kill the guy. Remember that?”
“Maybe I exaggerated.”
“You’re in P.R. Exaggeration is your life choice. However, I don’t think you did that time. What’s your better half doing?”
“Sheldon?”
“Well, yes, she is the better half in your matrimonial partnership.”
“Love you, too, Mercy.”
“What’s she doing?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Of course you can tell, I’m your sister. We must share all. Especially secrets.” Sheldon always had the best secrets.
“So you can post it on the Internet? Sorry. Been there, hated that.”
“I don’t talk about hausfraus in the blog. They’re boring unless they’re on Wisteria Lane. Not good for getting the eyeballs into my space. What’s she doing?”
“Can’t say.”
“Can to.”
“All right. I could, but I won’t.”
“That’s so mean.”
“That’s me. Your mean, elder brother, Jeff.”
“No, that’s Andrew. You’re nicer, have a better sense of humor, and always gave me cooler birthday presents. Although, if you don’t tell me, then you’re usurping that title.”
“Not telling. I’m usurping.”
Mercedes slunk further in her seat. “Is it sexual in nature?” Jeff’s wife had a certain wild-child reputation before they were married. Sexual in nature would be right up her metaphorical alley.
“No. It’s philanthropical.”
“Really? Sheldon’s doing philanthropy? That’s very industrious of her.”
“I think so. Are you going to be back by Saturday? Jamie’s got some wedding things to do. Sheldon will be mad if you make her go by herself.”
Mercedes bit back a groan. “Wedding things? It’s the bridesmaid dresses, isn’t it? She decided against the silver ones, didn’t she?” Jamie was about to marry Mercedes’s older brother Andrew, and the whole family was preparing for The Event. Mercedes liked Jamie well enough, but Jamie was cut from a different cloth than Mercedes. Jamie’s cloth was more like a scratchy burlap, and Mercedes lived for silk. Still, Jamie made Andrew happy, and Andrew wasn’t by nature a happy person, so Mercedes let them be. Except for the dress fittings. Five fittings for five different dresses? That didn’t make anybody happy.
“I don’t know. I can’t follow the whole saga. Talk to Sheldon. Better yet, talk to Jamie.”
“She’ll make me try on dresses again.”
“You like trying on dresses, Mercedes. And shoes. And frou-frou blouses, and—”
“That’s enough. And this is not the same.”
“It’s the same.”
“It’s a root canal, dressed in virginal white.”
“That’s no way to talk about the happiest day in your brother’s life.”
“It’s going to be the happiest day in my life at this rate. No more bridesmaid dresses.”
“Andrew’s trying to talk Jamie into something big and expensive for the wedding.”
Now this was interesting. “Our brother. Andrew? Overly work-focused, and driven by the bottom line, Andrew?”
“The same. He’s changed.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“He’s talking to a wedding planner.”
“Does Jamie know?”
“Of course not. I believe her exact words to Mom were ‘a wedding planner is an unnecessary occupation designed to take advantage of women in a fragile psychological state.’”
“So what’s he thinking?”
“Doves.”
“Chocolate?”
“No, the kind with wings. White, flying creatures.”
“No way. Not ever. Not even in like ten million years.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Jamie will hate it.”
“I talked him out of it.”
“Sensible.”
“But not the orchestra.”
“Oh, no…”
“Yup. Can’t wait till she finds out. Fireworks, big time. Listen, I have to go—”
“No!” Mercedes pitched her voice low, casting a furtive glance in McCreepy’s direction. “We’re not finished with our conversation.”
“Yes, we are.”
“No, we’re not. I never get to talk to you, Jeff. And you’re my favorite brother.”
“Mercedes, hang up now.”
“I have to stay on the line until they turn off all cell phones and electronic devices.”
“You’re not afraid of flying.”
“That’s not my issue.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, and she was pleased to note actual concern in his voice.
“Nothing,” she said.
“You’re going to have sex with him, aren’t you?”
“Who?”
“Don’t think I don’t know, Mercedes. I know you. I saw the way you were ogling him.”
“That was twelve months ago, we were live on camera, and if I ogled, it was only for two minutes. This time, I’m going to promote my career.”
“Is that what they call this?”
“Don’t be insulting.”
“You were the one who brought up your career.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Besides, I have a boyfriend.” She raised her voice so that the McCreepy could hear. “I’m very devoted to Andreas.”
“Mom said you two broke up. Sheldon thinks you’re flying out to San Fran to do Sam on the rebound from Andreas.”
“I’m not rebounding.”
“We’ll talk when you get back. I bet you rebound.”
“We will not talk.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Goodbye.”
Click.
Immediately Mercedes dialed her brother again. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Made me mad so that I’d hang up and you’d be free to do whatever you needed to do.”
“Yup. Saw right through me. Bye, sis.” Click.
Mercedes punched speed-dial.
“I’m not talking to you.”
“You will talk to me.”
“I have to go, Mercedes.”
“You can’t leave me alone with him!”
“Sam?”
“Not Sam. McCreepy.”
“Who?”
Mercedes glanced at her seatmate who was staring at her curiously. She tried the cold look again. He smiled back. Mercedes sighed into the phone. “Go do whatever you need to do, and if I die on this plane, a fireball exploding in the heavens, then you’ll live with the crushing guilt weighing down your shoulders for the rest of your life.”
“Put it in your next book, Mercy. I’m guilt-free.”
“Not if we crash.”
“You’re not going to crash.”
“You don’t know.”
“Flying is safer than driving.”
“I live in New York. I don’t drive. Flying is not safer than not driving.”
“Okay. Rephrase. Flying is safer than jaywalking on Broadway, and I know you jaywalk on Broadway.”
“I can’t believe you. I’m going to die, and you don’t care.”
“Can we not talk about airline crashes? I have to go work up a proposal for an airline, and this is really putting me in the wrong state of mind.”
“Go. Go off and do whatever you need to do. Forget about your family, the people who love you and have stood by you all these years. The people who worked hard to get you with the love of your life.”
“You trashed her in your blog.”
“Because it was the only way to get you two together.”
“You’re going to keep throwing that in my face until I’m old, aren’t you?”
“No. Maybe.”
“I have to go, Mercedes. Really this time. I’m sure you’re not going to crash, but in case you do, I want you to know that I love you, and you’re the best sister I’ve ever had.”
“We’re not going to crash,” she muttered tightly.
“Well, you might. And if you do, I don’t want to live with crushing guilt, so I love you.”
“You do not,” she said, and then quickly hung up. There. If she was going to die, he was going to have to live with crushing guilt.
She powered off her phone, opened her computer, and prepared to work, picking up at the spot where she’d last written…
There were times when she wanted to go into a bar, find a man, and screw his brains out. Not for the sex, not for the intimacy, but for the shock of adrenalin to her system. The danger, the mystery, the feeling of taking a step off a cliff into the air, not knowing if you’ll fly or fall. He was that cliff, that leap of faith, but deep in her heart, she knew she couldn’t fly. Was it worth it to begin a love-affair doomed from the start? She opened the curtains on her apartment, letting the warm rays of the sun touch her. She loved the morning, loved the feeling of a new beginning. She looked to the building across from her, and noticed the man. He was there everyday, sitting at his desk, talking on the phone, typing. A boring, nondescript existence.
She smiled to herself, smiled to him, and began the morning ritual. Her fingers worked the buttons on her pajama shirt slowly, parting each one, letting the fabric caress her skin as she peeled the shirt back. From beneath her lashes she peeked across the way, feeling his gaze on her. The sun touched her as a lover would, tracing a path across her belly, her breasts, her shoulders.
Carefully she folded the top, putting it on the back of her couch, before slipping her fingers under the edge of her bottoms and pushing them down to the floor. For a moment she stood, framed in the window, nude, enjoying the warm rays on her skin, enjoying the feel of a man’s eyes on her body.
She looked up, and met his gaze, and felt the urgency inside him. It echoed the urgency in her. The need to do more, to drink life in long, dragging gulps.
Normally, this was where she stopped. Her body was one thing, to share her secrets was another. But today she could taste the thrill of adventure on her tongue, in her nerves, pulsing through her blood. Across from her, the man wasn’t smiling, merely watching. Waiting.
When she hesitated, he picked up his phone and began to talk, his fingers dancing on the keyboard. Back to his meaningless, nondescript existence. Back to her meaningless, nondescript existence.
It was time, that moment of stepping to the edge of the cliff.
She sank into her chair, the comfortable old chair that kept her from being alone, and parted her thighs. His head turned, his fingers stilled, and even from here she would see how his conversation slowed. She leaned back, arching into the soft cushion. At first, her fingers stroked her breasts, gliding over her nipples, back and forth.
Gently, as if she were—
A nervous cough jerked her back to reality. She looked over to see McCreepy ogling the words on her computer. Gah! She slammed the lid shut and stared. “Do you mind?”
“What was that?”
“I’m an author,” she stated flatly, her tone missing the usual zest that she put in the words.
“That’s going to be in a book?” His eyes widened, in such a hopeful manner, she almost forgave him. Almost.
“Yes.”
“What’s the title?”
Mercedes debated, her sense of security vying with her sense of marketing and sales. Marketing and sales persevered. “The Return of the Red Choo Diaries. It’ll be out in the fall of next year.”
“I’ll buy it.”
“Thank you,” said Mercedes, putting on the complimentary headphones. She didn’t dare open her computer again all the way to San Francisco.

3
THE RITZ-CARLTON SAT HIGH on Nob Hill, the city laid out before it like a serf at the feet of his liege. Sam stood at the window, watching as tiny pinpoints of silver moved through the sky, planes approaching the airport. She was out there. Somewhere.
Sam frowned. He had work to do and he couldn’t stand here daydreaming. He, Kristin and Charlie were camped out in his hotel suite, planning for tonight’s show, but Sam was having a mighty hard time concentrating.
“What time is the judicial expert scheduled at the studio?” he asked, letting the curtain fall, covering the sky.
“Six,” Kristin answered.
“And Ms. Brooks?”
Kristin checked her watch. “Her plane just landed.”
“Where’d you book them?”
She looked at him, confused. “The supreme court expert? He lives here.”
“Ms. Brooks?”
“At the Lafayette, down by the wharf.”
The wharf. That was a long away. A good twenty minutes by cab to the Ritz-Carlton. It wasn’t a sterling reflection on his character that he was planning a seduction with all the precision of a military campaign. His viewers would be shocked, hell, even he was shocked. It shouldn’t be like this. A man shouldn’t feel this internal combustion inside him once he got out of puberty. He was too old and too settled. A thirty-nine-year-old man should be contemplating his sanity, his golf game, and his retirement package.
“The Lafayette?” he asked, forgetting about his retirement, and wondering why Mercedes wasn’t staying at the Ritz.
“Yeah. Why?” Kristin asked. “It’s four stars, Sam, and I love their desserts. You should try the crème brûlée. Fabulous. She’ll love it.”
Sam pulled a face, not wanting to hear about four stars and fabulous crème brûlée. “The last time I stayed there, I really hated the room I was in. Heater didn’t work, and there was some dark stain on the pillows that I didn’t want to know about. It’s a dump. We should move her. I don’t want to give that place any more business. Exercising my consumer rights, and being a good American.”
“The Lafayette? We’re talking about the same hotel?”
“It’s a dump,” he lied.
“Okay, Mr. Good American, her plane’s at the airport, driver waiting. Where do you suggest I move her to in the next five minutes?”
Sam pretended to think over this problem. Then he got a look in his eyes that he hoped looked like enlightenment rather than ball-busting lust. “Call downstairs. I bet this place has an extra room available.”
Kristin grinned. “I’m at the Lafayette. Can I move, too?”
“Sure,” he said, knowing the bean counters would have a fit, but he could handle them. Sam looked at Charlie. “You’re here, right?”
Charlie didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
“Good,” said Sam, nodding. “So, we’re all settled in the lodging department. You have the video of the judge’s confirmation hearings?”
“Yeah, we’ll cut to that after you finish with the discussion of the affirmative action ruling.”
“Charlie, did he weigh in publicly on the age discrimination case against the State of Massachusetts?”
Charlie shook his head once. “I don’t know, but I’d be surprised.”
“Find out, will you?”
“Sure thing.”
“Good, the bit with Mercedes should be easy. We’ve got what, ten minutes, with one break?”
Kristin nodded, so Sam continued on. “And then there’s seven minutes of commentary on alternative energy and nuclear power?”
“I thought that was six.”
Sam looked at Charlie. “Six or seven?”
“Seven. Definitely seven.”
“Okay, all, I think we’re set. Great job as always. Will see you in the studio at five.”
They left Sam alone, and he went back to the window, not thinking about judicial confirmations. What started as an ache had changed into something more, and all because of a book. That damned one-dimensional book was a peek inside her mind and her fantasies. She had opened that door, and Sam couldn’t bear to close it. It sounded like the first throes of a midlife crisis.
Or at least he hoped it was.

MERCEDES SAT IN THE television studio’s waiting room, listening to the quiet tick-tick-tick of the clock on the hospital-white wall. If she were a dedicated writer, she would have remembered to bring her computer with her so she could work while she waited, instead of listening to the constant beat of the chronographic version of Chinese water torture.
Tick-tick-tick.
She wiped her palms on her knees, wishing there was a mirror in the place to check her make-up. This wasn’t a room designed for comfort, the sterile interior was designed to maximize nervousness—and it was working. Any second now her make-up was going to smear from her sweating—and that was in spite of the forty degree ambient temperature in the room.
Man, she was a basket case. She should have brought Jeff with her. He could have sat next to her, argued with her, and in general, keep her relaxed. But Mercedes was alone in the panic room. Where was Sam?
And then there was the matter of her wardrobe.
She’d packed three outfits for the show, trying to decide between Donna Karan professional or Fighting Eel sultry. And then she’d thrown in an Ella Moss blouse and skirt because wardrobe choices shouldn’t be a life-altering decision, but it felt like one. What if her career tanked because she wore a buttoned-up blazer, rather than opting for a little cleavage?
Back at her apartment, she tried on all three, finally zeroing in on the cleavage. Nothing slutty, of course. She was a professional, but if she was the face of the sexual white noise of her generation, she needed to look the part. But she packed them all. And when she got to the hotel, she’d stuck with her original decision. Cleavage.
Tick-tick-tick.
Where the heck was Sam? The other time she’d been on the show, he’d seen her before the show started. What did it mean if he wasn’t going to see her this time? Was that a bad sign? It was probably a bad sign. It’d been twelve months, twelve months was a long time. He probably had a girlfriend now. Hell, what if he had a wife? He hadn’t had twelve months of monk-like celibacy, he’d been going at it like bunnies with his new bride!
No. He wasn’t married. She was getting spazzed up over nothing. Mercedes took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to assume the worst. And who said that if he was married now, it was the worst? She didn’t need him. There were lots of single men in the waters of Manhattan. Lots. She was single, attractive, and had a certain je ne sais quoi that men seemed to go for. Sam was nothing to her.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Oh, God. She was going to scream and she hadn’t even pondered the matter of the hotel yet.
Her hotel had been changed to the Ritz-Carlton, so what did that mean? It had to be a good sign, and she had to admit that her room was nice and cheery, and then there was the small fact that it was the Ritz. The Ritz.
Where was Sam?
“Ms. Brooks?”
She flew out of her seat, realized it wasn’t Sam, and took in more oxygen in her lungs.
“Mercedes Brooks?” he asked, his face creased into a tired smile.
“Yes,” she answered, casually sitting back down and crossing one leg over another.
“I’m Jacob. Sam won’t be here to talk to you directly, so I wanted to go over the instructions. Have you ever been on television before?”
A confident laugh emerged from her lips. “You didn’t see me on the show last year, did you?”
“Sorry, no. I’m local to the San Francisco area, so I don’t get to see it much,” he said. “Bet you were great.”
Mercedes made a circle with her hand. “Thanks.”
“So, you write erotic fiction, is that right?”
“Yes, I have a copy of the book if you’d like to read it?”
He looked around and then smiled in a secret manner. “I already have. Very. Very. Hot.”
“Really?” she asked. “Wow.”
“My girlfriend loved it and she gave it to me.”
“Wow,” Mercedes repeated, sounding just like a gauche, non-sophisticate, but okay, it was cool.
“Oh, yeah. You’re going to have to autograph one later.”
“Not a problem. So you have instructions for me?” she asked, because as much as she liked the little ego-bits, she needed to stay focused, sharp, and ready for action.
Jacob took the chair next to her and proceeded to go over the layout, and while he was talking, all she could think was, “Where was Sam?” She needed someone here. A familiar face. A familiar voice. The familiar brown sports jacket that he wore a lot of times on Thursday nights.
National TV. Jeez. What had she been thinking? No, no reason to panic, she’d done this before. With a blood relative sitting next to her.
Jacob droned on, and Mercedes hoped it sunk into her subconscious because her consciousness had left the building.
“Got all that?” Jacob asked.
“Oh, sure,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Walk in the park.”
After that, she sat alone in the room. Alone in the room with the damned clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“Mercedes?”
The voice. She knew the voice. Sam. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. He was silhouetted in the doorway, his hand holding the doorjamb, as if poised for flight. Her expression was probably goofier than she wanted, but she was so happy to see a familiar face. His face. Okay, there was nothing wrong with goofy.
“Hi, Sam.”
“Ready?”
“Sure,” she lied. Mainly she needed to find a bathroom, because in a few seconds she might possibly lose her lunch.
“Good. See you in about twenty-five minutes.”
“Sounds great,” answered Mercedes in a faux-cheerleader voice, even though she had never been a cheerleader, and had never wanted to be a cheerleader. She watched him leave.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Oh, God.

KRISTIN WAS COUNTING DOWN, Mercedes was seated across from Sam, a mere eighteen inches across from him, and all he could do was study the tiny silver ring on her finger. Why did she have to wear a silver ring?
He swallowed, got a last glimpse at his notes, and prepared for the camera.
“Back in three, two, one.”
“And we’re live.” Camera three picked him up, and Sam blinked before his innate skills kicked in to save him. “Tonight, we have as our guest, Mercedes Brooks, author of The Red Choo Diaries, a work of rather steamy fiction. Ms. Brooks, welcome to the show.”
“It’s good to be back.”
“So, I caught a glimpse of your book in the store, read some, and when I was reading, all thoughts worth anything flew out of my head. National debt? Not a problem. Trade deficit? No big whoop. Failure of the educational system? What’s that? Within two pages, my brain was pretty well smashed.”
Her full lips curved into a warm, welcoming smile. “I think that’s the point, Sam. We have so many serious problems in the world now, it’s nice to forget sometime. To get so carried away with a moment, that you don’t have to worry about the national debt, the trade deficit, failure of the educational system, or even carting clothes to the laundry.”
“It was nice to get carried away, certainly. But we’re getting messages like yours on a daily, heck, hourly basis. Advertisers are using sex to sell every product from soup to health insurance. Now how is that going to help anything? Sex shouldn’t be thought of strictly as entertainment. What happened to the emotion behind the act?”
“Done correctly, it’s still there.”
He wanted to change topics to something less heated, and something less Johnson-hardening, but sex was the point of this segment. It’d been his idea. Stupid idea. However, he had to stay on point. Sam swallowed and gathered his thoughts. Quickly he dove right into the mix. “But sex is one of those primitive drives. It’s not a corporate brand; it goes much deeper. If everything uses sex to sell, sex to entertain, sex to tease, then it becomes nothing more than a brand.” There, that one was safer.
“But you’re forgetting that we need sex. We need sex to procreate, to reduce stress, to live longer, to keep our heart healthy, to make us happier, more functional people.”
“But if we’re busily engrossed in all things sex, the function goes out the window.”
“Has your function gone out the window, Sam?” she asked, the wicked gleam flickering in her eyes, and Sam’s brain function went out the window. Every inch of him was focused on her, the gleam in her eyes. He had to see that gleam when they were making love.
He tried not to smile, but camera 2 might have caught it. “Do you ever feel bombarded by sexual messages, Mercedes?”
“Sometimes.”
“But after being filled with all that pressure, doesn’t it diminish the desire for sex? Maybe not for men, of course, we’re not that analytical when it comes to it, but what about for women?”
“There are ways to relieve that pressure,” she reminded him in a schoolteacher’s voice.
Sam shifted uncomfortably, because he didn’t need a hard-on right at that exact moment. Not now. He glanced up at the clock behind the cameras. Three more minutes. All he had to do was get through three more minutes. Quickly he charged into another question. An even safer question.
“Does it bother you that you write about sex? Does anyone tease you about it being cheap or degrading to women?”
Mercedes flicked back her hair, and he glimpsed anger in her eyes. Anger was much better than that sexy, come-hither gleam. “Sex is empowering to women,” she started. “It may take us longer to get where we want to go, but the end result is just as sweet. Why can’t women be aroused? Why should we be afraid to admit it?”
“Personally, I don’t think you should be afraid to admit it. Do many women feel that same way? Afraid?”
“I know I’m not the only one.”
“So, when you write about sexual freedom, from a woman’s point of view, you’re celebrating the woman’s desire and control of sex? Interesting. Do you believe in love, Mercedes?”
“Absolutely.”
“How do those two work together? From an empowered, sexually liberated woman’s point of view?”
He watched her small, white teeth nip into her lower lip. She was fascinating to watch, thoughts flying across her face, until the dark eyes widened, and the full lips split into a satisfied grin. “We all crave love as much as we crave sex. In some ways, even more. That’s deeper, more insidious than sex. People kill for love. Not so much for sex. Sex can be an expression of that love, or it can be a hit of pleasure, but just because you’re not in love with someone, doesn’t mean that sex is wrong.”
“And the dangers of sex?”
“You talk about responsibility all the time on your show. There’s nothing wrong with sexual responsibility.”
“But when you get carried away? When your brain gets smashed, how do you remember? What if you forget?”
“You can’t forget.”
“But sometimes you do.”
“That’s not good, and that’s not what I want to represent to my readers. Sex has consequences. Good and bad, and you have to prepare for those consequences. If you’re not prepared, you shouldn’t have sex.”
“But isn’t that the silver, uh, brass ring for erotica? Two people so carried away that they forget the stresses and the responsibilities and they act on very deep, primitive impulses, stimulated by the very media messages that you provide.”
She laughed. “I just write books.”
“So did George Orwell and Sinclair Lewis. They changed the world with their books.”
“That’s some pretty big company I’m expected to keep.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he got the signal from Kristin. Thank God. “We’re almost out of time, Mercedes. It’s been a pleasure, and I suppose we’ll agree to disagree.”
“I don’t think we disagree on everything,” she said smoothly. Her voice was polite, almost perfunctory, but he knew. There was no invitation in the words, not even an invitation in her eyes. But he knew.
She turned to camera 2, seducing America as effectively as she had seduced him.
He smiled, a little too confident, a little too male, a little too sexually charged, but he couldn’t help it.
Something had happened twelve months ago. A flash of lightning, a magnetic pull. And for twelve months it had stayed buried. But no more. Tonight they were going to finish it.

MERCEDES GOT UP ON WOBBLY legs, parts of her swelling that shouldn’t be swelling under the hot lights of the television cameras. She gave Sam a wobbly smile.
“You did good.”
“It was fun. I thought I was going to be nervous. I was nervous. Hell, I was terrified, but then it got fun.”
“I’m glad,” he answered softly. She loved his voice, the smoothness, the power, the comfort. She wanted to say something witty and seductive, but her synapses were as overloaded as she was. She needed to leave, run away, and turn back into the confident, successful person that she was supposed to be. She started to go.
“Mercedes?”
She turned, looked at him, and saw the heat in his eyes. “Yeah?” she squeaked.
“You free for dinner? It’s a tradition here on the show.”
Oh, that was a nice touch. Make it look like it was merely business. Nothing more than a polite gesture. “I’d love to. All that talking and I’m suddenly hungry.”
This time she did leave, walking unsteadily into the waiting room, her teeth chattering from the air conditioned cold. Her fingers tapped on her knees as she contemplated the depth of her over-the-headness. Sam Porter was no Andreas. Sam Porter was no plaything. He was all man, and tonight she was going to hear that seductive voice whispering heady, seduce-me words against her neck. Tonight she was going to feel that big body thrusting inside her. A moan escaped her lips, with only the clock as a witness.
Tick. Tick. Tick.

THEY HAD DINNER AT Fisherman’s Wharf, at a seafood restaurant perched on a dock that reached out far into the bay. It was dark, warm, and intimate, much nicer than the waiting room at the television studio. This was a place a man took a date for privacy and romance. Across the way, the moon lit up the island prison of Alcatraz, giving it a ghostly glow. This was a place that Mercedes would write about in her book.
Sam was a wonderful companion, telling her stories about his guests, making her laugh all the way through dinner. His eyes lit up as he talked, and she could see how much he loved what he did, how passionate he was about his work.
She liked that about him, his passion. So many people punched a clock, and didn’t care, but Sam cared. It was there in his words, his face, in the intensity that radiated from him.
It was that intensity that drew her like a magnet.
“So what’ve you been doing for the past twelve months—besides writing a book?”
“Not a lot. This. That.”
“Nothing else to keep you busy? No personal obligations, huh?”
“Are you asking if I’m involved?” she said, meeting his eyes squarely. Mercedes had never been one to tiptoe around something; she wanted people to know she was coming.
One side of his mouth curved up, a rueful look that shouldn’t have touched her like it did. Mercedes knew her way around men, she knew her way up, down, and four-way sideways. She didn’t trust them as a rule, but that small hitch in his mouth tempted her to bend her rules. Just a little.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m asking,” he said, surprising her with his honesty.
“Free as a bird,” she answered easily, her tone light.
He nodded once, only once, a supremely male nod of satisfaction, and her stomach knotted, excitement and nerves all pitching together into one tangle. She pushed the hair from her eyes with a shaking hand. It was sex.
Just sex. The one reason she had flown across the country was because she wanted him. Even after twelve months, that ache hadn’t eased, it ate at her, pouring into her fantasies, her dreams, her writing, turning into something living, breathing inside her. Something more.
Abruptly she pushed that thought away, needing to regain her footing. “Thank you for asking me to dinner.”
He leaned in closer, the candlelight touching off the tawny streaks in his hair. “Don’t thank me, Mercedes. I really don’t deserve it.”
“This bothers you, doesn’t it?”
He laughed, a rusty sound without humor. “You have no idea how much.”
She flashed him her best smile. “Yeah, I think I do.”
She watched as he deftly made patterns with the last of the silverware, and was pleased to see him uncomfortable, pleased to know she wasn’t the only one whose nerves were shot to hell. Finally he raised his head, his jaw tight. “I didn’t plan to have this conversation over dinner.”
“Is there a right time and a right place, Sam?”
His eyes glittered, more brown than green in the dim light, his desire apparent. Mercedes shifted in her seat, trapping the pulse between her thighs. “Yes,” he said harshly, his carefully modulated television voice now gone.
Mercedes smiled. “In bed.”
“Preferably before then.”
“Maybe I like to know what I’m getting into.”
“Mercedes,” he started, then stopped. “No. Would you like some dessert?”
“What’s on the menu?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. “Are you going to behave?”
“Dinner was your idea, not mine.”
He pulled some cash from his pocket and laid it on the table. “Can we go?”
“Now we’re in a hurry?” she asked.
He lifted their jackets from the coat hook at the table. “Dinner was a stupid idea. In a long line of stupid ideas. But I’ve waited twelve months, and right now, every minute counts.”
Mercedes felt a sharp pull of excitement in her stomach. He held out her jacket, and she backed against him. Closer than she should. Close enough to brush against him. Close enough to feel him jutting thickly against her bottom. Close enough to hear his indrawn breath.

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