You Sexy Thing!. Tori Carrington

chin. She opened her eyes to realize that it wasn’t the ocean she smelled, but an impending rainstorm. Ah, an unseasonably warm autumn day in New York City. In a matter of seconds, it would probably start pouring. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. She felt…electrified somehow. So vividly alive. Her skin tingled with excitement. She was gloriously aware of every sweet nuance that made her human. The feel of her breasts pressing against the thin tank top under her jacket, the skirt hugging her hips and bottom, made her feel every inch a woman.

      The downpour began.

      She hailed a taxi then climbed in, laughing when she found herself soaked straight through.

      She shrugged out of her jacket, told the driver which hotel, then settled back in the seat. “Take the scenic route through the park. I’ve always loved the park.”

      “Lady, do you know what kind of traffic we’re going to run into this time of day?”

      She smiled at him in the rearview mirror. “Yeah.”

      Right now she couldn’t care less if it took her two hours to get back to her hotel room. Rick was out running errands for her, the radio talk-show host had asked her for her phone number and she’d just experienced one of the more stimulating challenges of her life in the shape of one super-sexy Dr. Dylan Fairbanks.

      An image of Dr. Dylan crowded out all other thought and she smiled. Just thinking about him made her hungry for an unnamable something. She didn’t try to name the feeling. She didn’t want to. Not yet. She wanted to enjoy the curious warmth spreading through her belly and settling between her tingling thighs.

      She stuck her hand into her purse and fished out an extra-large packet of peanuts, compliments of the hotel. While the salty morsels couldn’t hope to satisfy her recently awakened hunger, they could at least satisfy her stomach.

      She absently crunched on the nuts. Professionally speaking, she couldn’t have asked for a better setup. Rick had agreed, telling her postinterview that her choice of attire had worked wonders on the host, distracting him even while she drove each of her points home with a solid rubber mallet. No, she hadn’t expected Dr. Fairbanks to be there. But given his expression when he first spotted her sitting next to him, she guessed that he hadn’t, either. And when she realized he’d been the one to accidentally walk in on her in the shower that morning…well, suddenly this tour wasn’t half as boring as it had been.

      Of course, a few of her racier comments later on in the show would have singed her mother’s eyebrows. Had her mother been listening. Which Gracie doubted. But Dylan’s choked reactions somehow had been more satisfying.

      She couldn’t have asked for a better way to prove her theories than going nose-to-nose with one of the country’s premier masters of sexual inhibition.

      A delicious shiver began just below her earlobes and traveled down to her toes. She stretched her feet out as far as they could go, then reached into her monster bag and fished out Dr. Dylan’s book. Nowhere to be found was a photo of him. Only a very brief bio outlining his professional experience. Which was impressive indeed. She had expected him to be a fiftyish, balding, overweight guy in glasses who got into spouting off about morality because he didn’t have a chance in hell of leading a more interesting life. But the real Dr. Dylan Fairbanks…well, he had turned out to be sexier than sin.

      She remembered the way he had looked at her. Both this morning at the hotel, then at the station when they had indulged in off-air conversation. Something about him seemed to sizzle. He had an almost visible red aura that tempted her closer, made her want to see if all his professional doctrines could be put to better use with sexual expertise.

      Her chewing slowed.

      Was he a hypocrite? She’d run into her share of alpha males who preached to her about values with their mouths, while seeking her leg under the table with their hands. Behavior that always earned the offending male a meeting with the sharp prongs of her fork. She stuffed the book back into her bag next to a copy of her own. She didn’t think Dr. Dylan was that type. To the contrary, he appeared to adamantly believe every last word he’d written in his sexually repressed book. She leaned her head against the seat and stared up at the skyscrapers through the back window. Looking at the rain coming down that way seemed somehow surreal, magical.

      Her cell phone chirped in her purse. She let it ring.

      “Hey, lady, you gonna get that or what?”

      “I was thinking or what.” Despite her response, she brushed the salt from her hands, then fished the noisy piece of plastic out. Rick, the display read. She punched the talk button. “I’m paying an arm and leg for a taxi drive through the park, Rick. This had better be good.”

      “You should have told me you wanted to see the city. I could have gotten you on one of those Grayline Tours, or whatever they’re called. Anyway, this is good. More than good. I just got a call from the radio station. You’re not going to believe this. The number of callers was through the roof. Among the highest they’ve ever received.”

      She slipped her shoes off, indulging in a wide smile. “Really?”

      He laughed. “All that education and that’s the best you can do? You disappoint me, Dr. Mattias.”

      “Hey, I’m enjoying the moment.”

      “As well you should. I, of course, took the liberty of passing on the news to your publisher. They’re very happy.”

      “Sure they are. More money for them.”

      “More money for you.”

      Grace’s smile slipped. The rain clouds soaking the city seemed to descend from the skies and settle around her shoulders.

      Money had dictated so much of her life. Which were the best schools for her to attend? What latest designer was the most fashionable? Whose children were the best to be seen with? Her parents had tried to drill into her from a young age that money and success were all that mattered in life. She had spent much of that same life determined to prove them wrong. She’d dyed her hair green when she was eleven. Hung around with the “out” crowd. Majored in courses designed to make her mother’s lips disappear with disapproval.

      She was well into her teens before she realized she was behaving like a spoiled little rich girl. Worse, she was committing a sin as bad as her parents’ by practicing reverse discrimination.

      Since then, she had striven to base her judgments solely on the individual or the situation, not the balance of his or her bank account.

      And she’d discovered that her major in human sexuality was something she enjoyed purely for the sake of enjoyment. Not because her parents choked whenever she discussed her studies at the dinner table.

      She cleared her throat. “This isn’t about money, Rick. It never was.”

      A heartbeat of a silence. “Then increase my salary. I won’t mind.”

      She laughed and ran her toes along the sensitive bottom of her other foot.

      “Enjoy your ride through the park, Gracie.”

      “I fully intend to.”

      She pressed the disconnect button and started to slip the phone back into her bag. Then she changed her mind and dialed her mother’s number. A glance at her watch told her it was past eleven. After brunch with the church ladies. Before lunch at whatever auxiliary meeting.

      “Mattias residence.”

      “Hõla, Consuela. It’s Grace. Is Mom around terrorizing the place?”

      A soft giggle, then, “Just this morning she sez to me, ‘Consuela, I found wrinkle in bedspread. Completely unacceptable behavior. From now on make beds twice.”’

      “Sounds like Mom all right.” All too much like Mom. A woman with a formidable education who had traded a career for her husband and daughter…and counting wrinkles in bedspreads. Gracie had never needed to look beyond her own mother for the reasons why she never wanted to marry. Her identity was