Beyond Seduction. Kathleen O'Reilly

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