Friendly Persuasion. Dawn Atkins

until she’d downed some caffeine and she didn’t see in color until ten o’clock.

      Kara waited while Tina took two fast swallows. “Better,” she announced. “Now, what is it you can’t do?”

      Kara made sure no one was heading into the kitchen, then she whispered, “Have sex with Ross.” In fact, she dreaded their noon spades game. The idea of gazing at him over her usually wretched hand made her break out in a sweat.

      “Why not?” Tina asked.

      “It’s complicated.” She’d lain awake half the night contemplating the idea, but every time she got around to reliving that kiss she freaked out. “Something happened…we kissed….”

      “No!” Tina’s grin filled her face. “Dish, girl. How was it?”

      “Intense.”

      “Perfect! Hot sex, good times, no hassles. Just what you need.”

      “No. It feels risky.”

      “Risky? You couldn’t fall in love with Ross. Talk about the odd couple. You two would make Oscar and Felix look like the Bobbsey Twins…no, wait, were the Bobbsey Twins both girls? You know what I mean. It’s too early for similes.” She opened the refrigerator and began looking around, searching out leftover pastries from a client meeting, no doubt.

      “I’m worried about our friendship,” Kara said. “We could end up acting strange around each other.”

      Tina pulled out a bear claw and took a bite. “Mmm, this one isn’t even stale.”

      “And what if I did fall for him, as insane as that is? It just feels too wrong.”

      “I’d say it feels too right. You’re such a puritan about pleasure. Why can’t you just relax and have a good time?”

      Why couldn’t she?

      “Ross would never let you get serious.”

      “True.”

      “Anyway, if you’re ready for lesson number two in how to have sex for sex’s sake, I’m taking another crack at Tom tonight. I figure he’s got some rule against dating customers, so I’m doing a damsel-in-car-trouble after hours. Watch and learn.”

      “Past my bedtime. You can give me the play-by-play tomorrow.” Kara paused, remembering what Tom had said about Tina being lonely. “Are you sure Tom’s the kind of guy you want? He seems like a pretty serious guy.”

      “Not when I get through with him,” she said, but she didn’t sound as certain as usual. Maybe Tina was lonely, like Tom said. Her manhunter attitude did seem forced at times. Kara had assumed she’d just been seeing Tina through her own filters, but if even Tom had noticed…

      “Just be careful, Tina. I don’t want you to get…” She started to say hurt, but Tina would hate that, so she said, “too involved with a guy who might get hooked on you.”

      “I’ll be fine. So will he, believe me,” she said with her characteristic confidence.

      Two hours later, Kara returned to the kitchen for her usual midmorning snack—fat-free yogurt, a hard-boiled egg and five carrot sticks—the only variation being the addition of celery, when she felt festive. She opened the refrigerator and bent to get her bag from its place, thinking that her life was as predictable as her snacks, when something utterly new happened—a warm hand stroked her butt.

      She yelped, bumped her head on the bottom of the ice compartment, then turned to see Ross standing too close, wearing that appraising look she’d seen him give potential female conquests. A shiver ran through her, but she masked it by rubbing the bump on her head. “Was I in your way?”

      “I thought you had a little something on your skirt—dust, maybe,” he said, his wicked expression contradicting his innocent words. He reached past her to close the refrigerator behind her. “I’ve been thinking about your proposal,” he said, standing too close.

      “Oh, that.” She felt herself go red. In the stark light of the office kitchen, the idea seemed ridiculous. “I think that second Fuzzy Navel gave me fuzzy brain.” She tried to laugh.

      “Tina had the Fuzzy Navel. You had a prickly-pear margarita.”

      “Oh, right. See what I mean?”

      “I think I can help you, Kara.”

      “You already have. You kept my drink straight. Not to mention my skirt dusted. I’ll be just fine.” In fact, she’d already made a plan. She was going to stop by the naughty lingerie store Tina had recommended for something electronic, then rent a sexy video—a tasteful one. She figured the combination of video and vibrator might be complex enough that she could pretend there was someone else arousing her besides her electricity-aided self. That should cancel her sex-equals-marriage equation, or at least reduce the itch for a while. Hopefully, that would be enough.

      If it wasn’t, she’d think about finding someone to experiment with. Someone not Ross.

      “You’re chickening out?” Ross said, his eyes teasing. “The kiss was too much for you?”

      “Not at all. We’re friends, remember? We don’t want to risk that.”

      “Yeah, but maybe being friends makes it better. I know what you’re trying to accomplish, so I can help you better than some strange guy would. We could be careful. We could, say, set some ground rules.”

      “Ground rules?” Her ears perked at that. He’d obviously spent some time thinking about this.

      “I knew you’d like the ground rules part.” He grinned. “So come to my apartment tonight and we’ll have some beer and figure out how to make this safe.”

      “I don’t think so,” she said. She was chicken. She wasn’t sure she could handle this, and losing Ross’s friendship would be terrible. Not to mention the tension at work. If the gadgets and videos didn’t work, she’d find someone else.

      “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

      Her stomach shimmied at the look in his eyes. He was probably right. It would be wonderful to put herself in Ross’s hands…so to speak. She liked him, and she knew he cared about her. There wouldn’t be any of that awkwardness of being strangers.

      “I’ll have to take your word for it,” she said. She was definitely chicken.

      AFTER WORK, Kara entered Naughty and Nice and marched purposefully to the devices shelves, head high. She was a sexually active woman who had every right to explore new sensations. She faltered a little, though, when the most tasteful vibrator she could find was in a lurid purple box that screamed self-pleasure toy.

      To cover her real purpose, she snatched up a few items on her walk to the register—some party napkins with suggestive jokes, a feather boa, some flavored body paints and a package of what turned out to be edible underwear. She kept her head down and prayed the bored girl behind the counter wouldn’t shout out, Price check on the Heavy Duty G-Spot Pleasure Wand.

      The clerk didn’t bat an eye, thank God, and Kara rushed out of the store with her purchases in a plain brown bag, feeling as if she’d dodged a bullet.

      Next stop, the video store. Pausing in the self-help section she picked out an instructional video featuring a positive-thinking guru, then slipped behind the purple curtain with the Adults Only sign over it. Ignoring the sideways glances of the men browsing—no, lurking—at the racks, she scanned titles that made her blush to her roots, and finally grabbed a tape with a soft-focused photo and no evident body parts.

      Making sure only the motivational tape showed, she clutched the tapes close to her chest, pushed through the purple curtain…and ran smack-dab into Ross. The shock made her drop her sex-shop sack, spilling her brightly colored purchases on the carpet.

      She stood there frozen for a second and Ross bent to pick up, then hand the items to her one at