Primal Instincts

He was up for anything about now. “Sounds good.” Ava turned on her heel, and once again he got a view of her great ass. “I’ll pick you up from here.”

She stopped and glanced at him over her shoulder. “Is this about the shower thing? Don’t worry, I don’t need an escort to keep me safe. Besides, you looked pretty trustworthy to me.”

Trustworthy. Trustworthy? No one had ever accused him of being trustworthy before. Like a teddy bear. Or a cute puppy. That was almost insulting. Ian straightened his shoulders. He was dangerous. A man of the world. Wanted by the law in three countries. At least. He was not a teddy bear.

He’d put an end to that. “Let me know if you need some help with the second part of the ritual,” he said.

“The second part?” she asked.

“The washing off.”

Her full bottom lip curled upward, and a naughty twinkle appeared in her eyes. “I’ll let you know,” she told him.

Now why did that come out sounding like a promise?

4

WHILE THE WATER for the shower heated, Ava quickly typed in the Web site for Cole Publishing. She punched his name in the search fields.

“Bingo.” Over thirty results popped up on her screen. She selected the one at the top, and her screen immediately filled with his image. Obviously the picture on his bio page must have been taken a few years ago. In the photo, he had a friendly smile and the look of someone ready to tackle the world.

Much how she’d felt five seconds before she opened the door to him.

Now Ian wore that world-weary air. The stress lines around his mouth were deeper now than the laugh lines around his eyes. She’d seen his type in the airport. They huddled around their gates, ready to hit the next political hot spot.

She headed anyplace but there.

A puff of steam enticed her into the bathroom. Tugging off her loincloth, Ava stepped beneath the spray.

The warm water glided around her body, smearing the paint further. The yellows and blues fused together, turning green and pooling at her feet before sliding down the drain. Long, hot showers. Steam and heat and the scent of honeysuckle. Now this was something she had missed.

Ava reached for the soap and bubbled up a rich lather. Although the paint was easy to smear, it wasn’t the easiest to remove from her skin.

Of course Ian had offered to help. She smiled again, thinking how his brown eyes had turned darker when he’d made the invitation. Ava had seen the desire in his direct gaze. He hadn’t tried to mask it. She liked that about him.

A direct man voiced exactly what he wanted. Sought to fulfill his woman’s desires. She would have hated to take suggestions on her book from a man who couldn’t handle the naturalness of sex. Afraid of his own desires.

And of hers.

There’d been sex in his eyes. Sex on his mind. Despite the warmth of the water, her nipples hardened as she remembered that brown-eyed gaze of his sliding down her body.

When had sex come into play? She wondered as she reached for a bright yellow sponge. When did sex not come into play between a man and a woman? Despite Ian’s obvious assumption that she was a bit on the naive side, she’d studied gender differences enough to know that one thing shared by both men and women was a charged curiosity whenever they were in each other’s presence. A curiosity about nakedness. Would he groan? Would she scream?

It all happened within the first five seconds of meeting someone new, the mind and body put that person into three categories. Yes, no and maybe.

And right now her body was thinking yes. What would sex with Ian be like? Sex had been in Ian’s eyes, which placed Ava in his hell-yes category.

If they were going to collaborate, attraction between them probably wasn’t the best situation. Far off the mark from professionalism. But then, who was she to shy away from sexual attraction?

Come to think of it, sexual tension and desire between the two of them might be a good thing. Heat might translate onto the pages, into their very writing. Craving the carnal would implicitly lace their words with an intense hunger for sex.

A shiver raced down her spine. Now this was something that would sell. She should go for it. Why not suffer for her art?

Anxious to get to work, she sudsed her arms and legs, the water and bubbles turning her already sensitive skin into taut nerves waiting to be touched. Caressed. Her skin tingled.

She reached for the soft washcloth, and twisted out the excess water. Ava stroked the cloth against her breasts, wiping away the more stubborn yellow paint. As she rubbed the cloth against her nipple, the skin along her neck and her breasts turned bumpy and sensitive. Tingles from her nipples shot downward.

She washed her other breast, then slowly trailed the cloth down along her ribcage, around her navel. The material felt rougher now against the heightened sensitivity of her flesh. She imagined Ian’s work-roughened hands on her. Imagined him caressing her the same way as the washcloth.

A bit of the cloth tickled the skin of her inner thigh and she sucked in a breath. Steam surrounded her, a light caress against her body. The humid air inside the shower filled her lungs and she leaned against the tile wall for support.

The water ran between her legs, and she followed the trail with the washcloth. She clamped her eyes shut when the cloth grazed her clitoris. Delicious sensations quivered along every nerve. She stroked herself and moaned.

Some ancients believed a couple learned to please their mate only after watching them pleasure themselves. She imagined Ian outside her shower door, watching her touch herself. Becoming aroused.

Then she imagined him joining her in the shower, imagined herself watching him take his cock in his hand. Seeing it grow harder and bigger as he stroked himself, showing her how he liked to be touched. How he wanted her to touch him.

She pressed against her clit, her body growing tense. She gasped and her muscles tightened.

No.

If she brought her own release now, some of the tension and heat that zinged between them wouldn’t be as strong. She wanted her pleasure to be on the edge, near the top. Not satiated.

An old woman she’d met in Australia once had told her the greatest aphrodisiac for a man was a woman’s arousal.

Maybe now she would put that woman’s theory to the test. Might make an interesting chapter for the book. Goose bumps rose on her skin as the spray massaged every muscle. She’d definitely suffer for that chapter.

With her body still humming, she quickly finished her shower.

IT DIDN’T TAKE IAN long to check in to the Bricktown Hotel; a chain hotel that catered to businesspeople, where the staff was usually friendly and efficient. Since his laptop battery was dead, he plugged the computer in first thing. This hotel promised to be the “most wired hotel in Oklahoma City.” Most hotel claims were wrong, but he needed this one to be right.

He was used to traveling light. He’d packed for a week, but figured that would be more than enough time to get this book on track.

If Ava Simms didn’t kill him. Some women shouldn’t be allowed out of the house. She definitely needed a warning label. Loss of blood to the brain.

Crossing to the sink, he turned on the taps. He splashed water onto his face, washing away the travel grime. Ava would be in the shower now. Naked and wet. No matter how good-looking a woman was, she always looked just a little bit better wet.

He imagined Ava wet and nude under the spray of the shower.

With a groan, he wiped his face with a towel. Glancing at his watch he saw he still had about fifteen minutes to kill. His cell phone rang, and he pulled it from his waist to check at the caller ID. His sister. Good. He was in a mood to harass her over this assignment.

“Did you meet the doc?” she asked.

“Two days. I’m giving this two days, then I’m out of hell.”

“I have every faith in you.”

OVER THE YEARS, HER brother had been shoved into filthy, rat-infested prisons, slopped around in some of the world’s most disease-ridden swamps and suffered weather hardships and clean-water deprivation of the likes she could only imagine. All to get the story.

And yet this assignment was the one he compared to hell. She almost laughed.

Miriam fingered the glass paperweight on her desk. She should feel guilty about sending her brother someplace she knew he’d hate. She should, but she was in full self-preservation mode.

Her brother’s vehemence had been surprising. She’d dwell on it if another pink message slip hadn’t appeared under the paperweight. Miriam wadded the paper up into a tight ball and aimed it toward her trash can. She missed by a good six inches.

Her aim was going the same way as her judgment. She was making a poor business decision and that wasn’t like her. Things would have been smoother if she’d gone to Oklahoma with Ian. That was her element. What she did. Some people could cook. Some could write. She could multitask.

Miriam was a whiz at juggling millions of details, all while keeping overblown egos and hurt feelings to a minimum. Nothing was ever personal and people left her office with a smile even if they came away with less than their asking price.

A few days with the doc and her brother and this book would be complete and ready to go into production and she’d be making more money for the company. So why not?

Jeremy.

If she went back to Oklahoma, she would surely contact him.

On the one hand, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Who couldn’t handle six or seven times a night?

Her nipples hardened and her skin tingled under her clothes. What was she mulling over a moment ago? The book she’d risked her reputation and quite a bit of money on. That book.

This was why six or seven times a night would be bad. She’d get nothing done. Her skin grew hot. She felt uncomfortable. No. Not uncomfortable…irritated. She’d think of it as irritated and chafed. In fact, that’s exactly what she should be doing. Word association when thoughts of Jeremy popped into her mind. All of them bad.

Those gorgeous blue eyes of his. Same color as the first car that ever side-swiped her.

Those long showers together. Dry skin.

Seven or eight times a night? Bladder infection.

Miriam slumped in her chair and scanned her office walls. Here was her family history, the legacy she was now in charge of safeguarding. Rows of framed magazine covers lined each wall. Some black and white, others in bold color. Through war, the baby boom, flower power, disco to iPod, Coles had guided the company sensibly and competently.

And not a single Cole had ever blown it over a romance. Although her dad had come close when he’d married her mom. Miriam had always thought herself more like her grandfather. Now it was clear she’d inherited her father’s self-destructive romantic habits. Obviously embraced them because she couldn’t get that man out of her mind.

Her glance hit upon one of the covers. Woman in a business suit, power bun with the buttons on her silk blouse undone to reveal a sexy red bra.

Is All Work and No Play Making Jane a Dull Girl?

She reread the caption once more. Her shoulders relaxed and a smile slowly started to spread across her lips. It was strange how often something on one of these covers would trigger an emotion or a decision.

Yes. She had become a very dull girl. Miriam had been nothing but work for a very long time. When was the last time she’d gone out? How many times had she turned down her friends’ invitations to hit the town? When was the last time she’d been inclined to wear a sexy red bra?

What was wrong with her? She lived in the town that never slept. And she’d been in most nights by nine. She needed to get out. Meet new and interesting men. Laugh, dance. Of course, seven or eight times seemed great when you hadn’t gotten any in seven or eight months.

This had nothing to do with Jeremy at all. She picked up her cell phone to call Jenna. That speed-dial setting hadn’t been used in ages.

Except Rich buzzed in over the intercom.

“Ms. Cole, there’s someone here to see you.”

She scanned the schedule Rich placed on her desk every morning. She didn’t have any appointments. Rich would know not to announce a drop-in. Something was odd.

“It’s a Mr. Kelso.”

Miriam could tell by Rich’s tone that this name was supposed to mean something to her. It didn’t.

“A Mr. Jeremy Kelso.”

Miriam clicked her phone closed.

5

IAN GRIMACED. He studied his hotel room. Already he had done all he needed to do. And still he felt restless.

So what else was new? Seems he’d battled restlessness for as long as he remembered. Why stay in the same place when something else beckoned around the corner? Hell on relationships.

But then, he wasn’t much of a relationship kind of guy.

So then why did the doc get to him?

She was just another woman. Same as any woman from any other part of the world. Granted her parts were naked and covered with paint…but still.

Ian paced toward his window. He needed outside. He needed the sun on his head and a breeze against his face. Sixth-story windows in hotels did not cut it. He pushed himself away from the glass. He’d walk back to Ava’s apartment, and skip all elevators. That should burn off some energy.

Like Ava’s place, the hotel faced the winding canal of downtown Oklahoma City, and so the walk to meet her wouldn’t take long.

He hiked down the stairs and emerged into the sunlight, giving in to the restlessness. The canal waters rippled bluish-green a few feet away from him. Trees and flowers flanked the stonework path beside the water. He weaved among the mothers pushing strollers who seemed to be the predominant occupants of the walk during the middle of the day.

Old warehouses being turned into stunning homes had renewed many an old downtown area suffering from urban blight. Oklahoma City obviously reaped the same benefits. Restaurants bracketed the walk, so he suspected couples would be replacing the moms and joggers once the dinner hour arrived.

A bright-yellow boat floated below him, passengers waving to the pedestrians. They waved back. His lips twisted. Flyover country. People didn’t wave to one another in the places he’d been.

He found Ava waiting for him outside the entrance to her building.

A blonde.

Ava was a blonde. He hadn’t been able to tell earlier. All the paint was gone, and her hair was still damp from her shower. Natural highlights from the sun streaked her hair. He’d never gone for blondes before, preferring the dark and exotic over the coolness of many fair-haired women. And those green eyes of hers were anything but cool.

He felt anything but cool around Ava. She smiled and came toward him, and his eyes were immediately drawn to her body. His normal life felt a world away from the utter temptation that was this woman. His days and nights were filled with the exciting challenges of chasing down people who did not want to be found, rough terrain and hanging out with guys who smelled like something rotten.

So on the blessed, and lately, more rare occasions when he was with a woman, he wanted soft curves, sweet scents and her dressed in pure glamour. When they weren’t naked, that is.

None of that remotely described Ava. Oh, he liked her curves, but there was nothing sweet about this woman. And nothing wrong with the casual jeans and animal-print top she wore.

She hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup, and he liked her natural like this. A light layer of freckles dusted her nose and cheeks. Like him, Ava was apparently a woman who’d spent some time in the sun.

She also smelled like cinnamon.

And he loved the smell of cinnamon.

“I found the Mexican place on my way over here. You ready?” he asked her. Ready to get back on the move. Bad things always happened when you stayed in one place.

Ava nodded. “At night they cook their tortilla chips, and I can smell it for hours in my apartment. Sometimes I wake up craving Mexican food, and I didn’t even do that when I lived there.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” He adjusted his larger steps to hers. Her head just reached his shoulders. The scent of cinnamon surrounded him once more.

“How’d you wind up in Oklahoma?” he asked, digging up a way to get his mind off the smell of her hair. He was a reporter. He asked questions.

“My grandparents live here. In fact, that was their building. I wouldn’t have been able to afford this many square feet. My parents were always moving us from one place to another, but we’d always spend our holidays in Oklahoma. It seemed natural to set up a home base here when I returned from overseas.”

“Was that often?” he asked. Talk. Talk was good. It took his mind off wondering what she wore under her shirt. Wondering whether she preferred animal print in all the clothes that touched her skin…

Hell, it’d been a while since he’d been with a woman, but usually he could go longer than ten seconds before imagining her naked.

“From my earliest memories. The longest I can remember staying anywhere was two years. It feels kind of weird to be opening boxes instead of packing them. Some of these things I haven’t seen in years.”

Her apartment had been filled with statues, masks and pictures. It didn’t feel like a home base to him. A home base was more like his apartment, a place to sleep and watch football until the next assignment put you in harm’s way. There was nothing permanent about a home base, and Ava’s apartment felt very permanent.

“Were your parents anthropologists like you?” He did not need to know this. Knowing her background wasn’t important for the writing of this book. He’d only meant to talk, to pass the time, to distract himself. But he found himself curious about her answers. He’d met a lot of different people during his travels. Why did he care?

A smile touched her lips, and she laughed softly. He liked the sound of her laugh. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that it isn’t very often people don’t know who my parents are, but then, I’m mainly hanging out with a bunch of academics. My parents, Carol and Alex Simms, uncovered a temple to Isis in ancient Greece and set the archeology world on its ear.”

“Oh, really? And how would one do that exactly?” During his flight to meet Ava, he couldn’t have imagined anything more boring than having a conversation about archeology. Now he was intrigued.

“One would do that by saying that that temple proved the ancient Greeks patterned their gods and goddesses on those of the Egyptians, in the same way that the Romans took over the Greek gods and goddesses. It’s not even too far a stretch to get from Horus to Zeus.”

He whistled. “Wow, pretty radical.”

“And pretty controversial.”

“So why anthropology?” There was the curiosity again. He didn’t need to know anything personal about her to make this book work.

“It wasn’t too far a stretch. Apparently, wanting to uncover something is in the genes I inherited from them. But on the digs, I was always more interested in the people who’d evolved from the particular culture my parents were studying. How many of the same practices they kept, and which they didn’t. That kind of thing.”

They rounded another corner and found themselves standing in front of the Mexican restaurant. A hostess quickly took them to a balcony table overlooking the canal water.

Ian cut a glance in her direction as she silently perused her menu. His reporter instincts reappeared. There was something interesting here about the doc. Ava had a degree most people only used for teaching. Also, she wasn’t out in the field—another possibility with her degree. And she hadn’t followed in the family tradition.

Forget about her. Write the book, then move on.

“What do your parents think of you writing this book?” he found himself asking. Subtle, you jerk.

She lifted an eyebrow. “The sex research? Well, as they, too, were researchers, sex was pretty much part of the dinnertime conversation with my parents.”

Sex never figured into his family’s dinnertime conversation.

“Just look around a Roman coliseum or inside a pyramid, and you’ll see sex everywhere. Both Mom and Dad were very matter-of-fact about it.”

That explained a lot. Ava could talk about sex the way some way people talked about their laundry. And yet, her voice took a husky dip when she said the word sex. Maybe prancing around nearly naked in front of him had affected her, as well. Now this was starting to go somewhere.

“You’re not answering the question. Do they like what you’re doing?”

Her eyes met his, and she pushed a strand of her drying blond hair behind her ear. “They hate it. They think I’ll never be taken seriously in the academic field.”

“You’re writing a book.”

“A pop-fiction book. That’s like intellectual prostitution in their opinion. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they’re not snobs, they’re just…”

“Academics?” he suggested.

Ava nodded, and that lock of hair fell forward again from behind her ear. He itched to touch the strands. To let them fall through his fingers. “They don’t think anyone will ever take my research seriously after this.”

“Will they?” he asked, and wondered why he’d be concerned about that. Cole Publishing was in the business of making money, and although he wasn’t sure about it on the plane, he knew they could make a lot with this book…with the proper execution.

“Probably not,” she said, her tone rueful. “But then, no one has really taken my work seriously. More like facts to parade out at Valentine’s Day. Colleges prefer professors who get published in professional journals, and bring in grant money. Groundbreaking—not titillation.”

If they didn’t take her seriously before, they certainly wouldn’t now. Maybe he should give her one last warning. He’d hate for her to regret writing the book. The enthusiasm had faded from her voice, and a line formed on her forehead.

Then her face brightened and she stunned him with a beautiful smile. His pulse quickened. “Screw ’em. That’s why I’m doing the book.”

“Beat them at their own game.” He liked that about her. He was beginning to like a lot of things about her.

“So why call the book Recipe for Sex? That title is all wrong, by the way. I’ll brainstorm a list tonight, and give you a heads-up in the morning.”

“Why don’t I brainstorm a list and give you the heads-up in the morning?”

His lips twisted for a moment, then he grinned. “Going to be like this, is it? Fight me every step of the way?”

“As the writer, I should make the final decisions.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I was brought in to fix some of those decisions.”

“And I’ll take your suggestions under advisement,” she told him.

Ian laughed. “Glad to hear it,” he said in the tone of a man confident he’d get his way. “The title still won’t work. It sounds like a cookbook.”

“Well, originally I thought I’d just include the foods that put couples, and particularly men, in the mood.”

“Why men?” he asked.

“It’s been my experience, and I can document this with culture after culture, that men don’t often use food in their seduction.”

Now wait a minute, he made a mean lasagna. He’d be happy to make it for her. And if they managed to get a little messy and needed to clean up together…so be it.

“I can see by your face you don’t agree. In cultures where couples routinely push back marriage and family, then yes, the male will cook. In fact, most men have one ‘signature’ dish they believe is the ultimate key to the hookup.”

Ian cleared his throat. Okay, he made other things besides lasagna. “That’s ridiculous.”

She smiled then nodded. “Research only gives us generalities. Individuals can always surprise you. One thing that is a fact is a man’s sense of smell. It’s very powerful. A potent scent can stimulate blood flow to the extremities, including the penis, and can evoke all sorts of feelings.”