Wicked

“She was in and out already. Said she might be back after lunch.” Lucky looked at her. “Did you want something in particular? You could always call her cell.”

Renae made a face as she adjusted the top of her costume. What she had to discuss with Ginger couldn’t be done over the phone. And she didn’t want to make an appointment, either. Because to do so would indicate something was on her mind.

No, she wanted to catch Ginger when she had a free moment.

“No. I just wanted to ask her about some new stock, that’s all,” Renae fudged.

“Hmm.” Lucky didn’t appear to believe her. Which was odd, because there was no real reason why her friend should think her motives were other than what she professed. Were they that tuned in to each other?

She heard music from the other room and looked in that direction.

“The natives are getting restless. I’d better get in there.”

She moved toward the curtained-off area, then paused at the door. “By the way, what do you know about Colin’s friend Will?”

Lucky’s pen stopped moving where she’d returned to writing something on her clipboard. “That he’s a doctor.”

“Very funny. I meant what specifically?”

Lucky squinted at her and smiled. “Like what is his favorite color?”

Renae gave her an eye roll. “As in is he seeing anybody?”

Lucky’s eyes widened. “Oh.” She put the clipboard down on the counter as the sound of Middle Eastern music grew louder in the other room. “I think he’s dating a resident at the hospital.”

Damn.

Of course, it was just her luck that the instant the dynamic between her and the sexy doc changed, he’d already be involved with somebody.

Then again, she wasn’t looking for involvement with him. She was looking for sex.

But she also didn’t relish the idea of being the other woman, no matter how briefly.

Well, first things first, she had to decide if she really wanted more of those fireworks that had shot off between them that morning.

She blinked to find Lucky still staring at her. “What happened?” she asked.

Renae merely grinned. “Nothing. And everything. Remind me to tell you later.”

She stepped into the room and drew the curtain closed behind her, ignoring Lucky’s, “You can bet I will!”

THE BALCONY DOORS and heavy white vertical blinds were drawn tightly against the late-morning sun, casting the room in shadow, nothing but the ticktock of the clock his mother had sent him from England last Christmas and the central air-conditioning unit breaking the silence. At this time on a Saturday the complex was quiet, and now was no exception. Will knew from experience that the usual weekly hubbub of grocery shopping and errand running had yet to begin, and those seeking the community pool had yet to rouse from sleep.

Still half asleep, he dragged his wrist across his damp brow wondering if he should turn down the temperature of the thermostat. But he was all too aware that the summer heat wasn’t to blame for his sweaty condition. Rather Renae Truesdale and the naughty dream he’d just had about her was responsible.

He rolled over then groaned when he nearly permanently injured himself. Holding up the top sheet, he stared at his erection, a hard-on that could rival Big Ben.

“At ease,” he muttered, letting the sheet settle back down.

This wasn’t going to do at all. Five months of waking to pulsing hard-ons. Dreams filled with pImages** of women he shouldn’t be lusting after. Hell, he was plowing through his supply of sheets because no matter what chilly temperature he kept the room at, he woke up soaked with sweat. For a short time, vigorous tennis matches with his mate Colin worked out much of the frustration. But lately not even that was working.

Especially since Colin had called the brutal matches to an end a couple of weeks ago claiming Will’s unrelieved frustration was making the games too intense. Worse, Colin had tried to hand him money to buy a little female company. Five minutes, Colin had told him. That’s all it would take.

But just as Will hadn’t masturbated since he was twelve, he’d never paid for it. And he wasn’t going to start now.

He stared at the face of his alarm clock, surprised to find that he’d managed a few hours rest and that the buzzer was about to go off to wake him for his lunch date with Colin. He switched off the alarm, tossed off the top sheet then headed for the shower, turning on the water full blast and as cold as he could stand it. He climbed inside and gritted his teeth, waiting for the punishing spray to weaken his erection. After a few long moments, he cracked his eyelids open to find that the water was having absolutely zero effect on Ben.

Well, Christ. What was he supposed to do? Walk around all day trying to hide a hard-on the size of a baseball bat?

Unable to take the cold water anymore, he adjusted the knobs until the spray warmed, then leaned his hands against the ceramic tile and took a deep breath. Damn Renae Truesdale and her wicked belly-dancer costume. He put his face into the spray, remembering the soft globes of her breasts, the sleek smoothness of her skin, the defined muscles of her abdomen. Then there was her kiss…

His erection twitched and he groaned. It wasn’t fair, being offered up a temptation of Renae’s caliber while he lay in wait for the woman who was supposed to end up the love of his life. Then again, he’d learned pretty early on that life was anything but fair. After all, what was the difference between him and Prince Charles but for the legs they’d popped out from between? While his mother had been trying to rub the ever-present mud from his face, Charles had been photographed on the finest of thoroughbred horses in his chaps, mud everywhere but on his elite person.

But when all was said and done, he and Charles weren’t really all that different, now, were they? After all, Chuck had ditched a perfectly good princess in order to shag a woman he hadn’t been able to exorcise from his system.

And Will was obsessed with the idea of banging the hell out of Renae Truesdale when the only woman he should be wanting was presently on the other side of the country.

He grabbed the soap and lathered up his hands, thinking even as he did so that no amount of soap would be able to cleanse the mud from his mind.

“Face it, you’re not going to get her out of your head until you sleep with her.”

That was another thing that life had taught him. That no matter how much you wanted a woman sexually, the instant you had her, it was a whole new ball game. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d woken up to find himself staring at a woman whom he’d wanted within an inch of his life the night before but whom he wanted nothing more than to run from the next morning. That’s why he’d decided five months ago that in the future he would conduct his relationships with his head rather than with his Johnson.

Or in this case his Ben.

He stared down at the traitorous body part that was just begging to be touched. The problem was, it didn’t want his attention. Rather it was more interested in seeing if the oral talent Renae had demonstrated with her kissing extended to oral sex. He ran his soapy hands over his stomach and arms, then lathered up again. He reached for his rock-hard arousal at the same time he imagined Renae’s decadent mouth closing over the tip…and he came with the power of a twelve-year-old experiencing his first orgasm.

Oh…oh…oh.

When the spasms finally subsided, Will instantly released his erection and stared down at it with all the disgust of a man at war. This was not happening. He had not just masturbated. He’d merely been washing himself and…well, Ben had taken over from there.

“You and me,” Will said to the faithless organ that even now seemed to be grinning at him in sated bliss. “We have to have a chat. A nice long one.”

And not once, he decided, would the name of Renae Truesdale come up.

“YOU LOOK LIKE HELL.”

Just what Will needed to be told in that moment.

He stared at Colin McKenna across the table from him even as he took a deep slug of a cold draught of beer. Harry’s Bar was their usual hangout of late. It was where, if he remembered correctly, he’d met Colin’s friend Lucky Clayborn for the first time. Well, right before she was fired as a waitress from the bar, became a patient of one of Colin’s colleagues, then became the love of Colin’s life.

“Right-o,” he commented dryly. “Thanks for that astute observation, friend.”

Colin chuckled and pushed aside the menu neither of them needed. “Dare I ask what’s behind this morning’s scowl? Or is it the same battle that’s been raging for the past five months?”

“Same old battle,” Will confirmed, downing half the ale and stretching his neck.

“Still not getting any from the new girlfriend?”

Will waved him away as he made room for the waitress to put down his fish-and-chips. Harry’s was the only restaurant that came close to offering up something akin to what he’d grown up on at home. Fast food British-style. “No, it’s not that.”

Colin raised his brows. “So you are getting some?”

Will scowled. “No, no. Unfortunately.”

“Then what is it if it’s not that?”

Will tried to pick up a piece of fish, found it too hot, and shook his fingers to cool them. “It’s just that…well, since my sex life is not quite up to par as of late, my fantasy life has geared up to take up the slack.”

“Ah. The lesbians upstairs.” Colin nodded.

“Actually, it’s not both of them, but just one, as luck would have it.” He chewed thoughtfully on a chip. “I had the most delicious encounter with Miss Renae Truesdale in the hall next to the mailboxes this morning.”

Colin hesitated where he had just picked up his own chicken burger. “Define ‘encounter.”’

“Oh, nothing out of the ordinary, mind you. Just some harmless flirting.” The fish was finally cool enough to eat and he bit into it. “Oh, and the most phenomenal kiss,” he said around a full mouth.

“You kissed her? Who initiated it?”

Will thought about it a minute. “I don’t know. It was more of a mutual thing, I guess.”

Colin’s grin was altogether too self-satisfying for Will. “I thought lesbians were considered lesbians because they weren’t interested in men.”

Will made a face and dragged his napkin across his chin. “Yes, well, maybe she’s one of those new-fangled lesbians. You know, bisexual instead of homosexual.”

He supposed he found the fact that Renae had kissed him a bit odd himself. While she’d played a starring role in his fantasy life, given her sexual status, he’d had no idea that she might be interested in him, no matter her playful flirting up until now.

“So what do you think I should do?” he asked.

“About what?”

The waitress supplied them with fresh draughts and made off with their empty glasses. “What do you mean ‘about what’? What should I do about the intriguing Miss Truesdale, of course?”

“Oh, no.” Colin put his burger down. “There’s no way I’m getting involved in this. Lucky works with Renae, you know.”

Will nodded, then shrugged. “Anyway, it’s quite possibly a nonissue already. The instant she walked away this morning she probably realized her mistake.”

“Mmm. Because it’s easy to mistake you for a woman, you mean.”

Will remembered the way she’d gripped his manhood. “No, I mean maybe she just…slipped or something.” He shrugged as he downed another half a draught. “At any rate, it should be relatively easy to avoid her.”

“If that’s what you want to do.”

“Are you saying it isn’t what I should want to do?”

“I didn’t say anything of the kind.” Colin opened the ketchup bottle and created a red puddle next to his perfectly good chips. “But I am getting a little tired of hearing about your empty bed.”

Will squinted at him. “So you think I should force the issue with Janet then?”

Colin took a deep breath then chuckled. “I think you should do whatever it is you need to do, Will.”

“A whole lot of help you are.”

Yes, he thought. He’d avoid Renae. Shouldn’t be too difficult. When he returned home from work in the mornings at the same time she normally left for work, he’d simply park in the far corner of the lot and wait until she left before going inside.

Yes. That should work out just fine.

And it wouldn’t have to be for long. After all, Janet would be home in a little over a week’s time.

“Now, how about we start up those tennis matches again?” he asked Colin, who was already shaking his head.

3

OKAY, SO SHE WOULD avoid Will.

When Renae knocked off work, she was happy with her plan, and decided it should be easy to implement. After all, they kept very different schedules, and if it came down to it, she could always park in an adjacent lot on the other side of the apartment building to avoid running into him coming or going.

Truth was, she hadn’t expected to feel so…attracted to Dr. Will Sexton that morning. Hadn’t anticipated that the light, flirty tone that had always existed between them would dive into something more palpable and solid. When they’d kissed, no one had been more surprised than her. Pleasantly—no, blissfully—surprised, but surprised. After all, she wasn’t in the market for a man just now, even for sex, no matter what her body was telling her—and what her growing budget for batteries to use with her private toys was telling her. It wasn’t that she was antiman; it was that right now she needed to concentrate on her career. More specifically, she needed to convince Ginger Wasserman to let her buy into Women Only. Become a more solid part of the venture, and as a result take home a bigger piece of the pie.

Not that she wasn’t being paid well for her work. She was. She shifted on the cracked white leather seat of her 1971 pink Cadillac Eldorado convertible. It was just that she wanted to feel more…connected somehow.

She was perfectly aware that she might not feel that way had it not been for Leah Westwood opening a Women Only shop in the west end of the city, then Lucky doing the same downtown. Had neither woman come into her and Ginger’s lives, she would very likely still be operating the way she had for the past five years.

But they had and as a result she felt different. Wanted more. Her mind was functioning with more of an eye on the future, her future, and the bottom line.

Truth was, she wanted a place of her own to hang her hat at night. Sure, she might be able to afford a comfortable if small condo, or even a house, but she’d like something a little bigger, a little nicer, maybe. And while she was happy living with Tabitha, her roommate’s girlfriend, Nina, made it clear she was very unhappy with the arrangement. Nina wanted Renae to move on, even though Nina had moved in three months ago while Renae had been there six.

She pulled her T-shirt away from her damp back, questioning the wisdom of driving with the top down when the August temperatures easily soared into the nineties at this time of day. Of course, Tabitha had no clue about the animosity that existed between the two women. And Renae didn’t think it a good idea to point it out to her. Male-female, female-female, the gender of those involved didn’t matter; a threat from the outside, from a friend or neighbor, perceived or otherwise, did.

She took a corner, the disks on the belly-dancer costume, wrapped in plastic in the back seat, jingling as she did so. She glanced down at the jeans, T-shirt and flip-flops she’d changed into at work, then back at the costume, a slow, easy smile turning up her mouth.

Will…

For a few sweet moments the tensions that littered her life melted away, leaving nothing in its wake but the memory of his skillful mouth and his hard, welcoming body.

Blame it on the heat, but she couldn’t remember wanting a man as powerfully as she’d wanted Will that morning. Given the way she was raised, men and relationships had always been something to question rather than to surrender to. That’s what she’d liked about Ginger Wasserman on the spot. Ginger understood her in a way that a Suzie Homemaker type never could.

And it’s why she’d instantly understood that dark, lost look in Lucky Clayborn’s eyes when she’d walked into the shop months back.

Renae pushed up her large, dark sunglasses on her nose and turned up the volume on the radio, hoping to edge the heavy thoughts out of her mind with a little rock ’n’ roll. Heart’s “Crazy on You” filled the humid air and she nudged the volume level up even farther.

Of course, it was just her luck that the tune would make her think of Dr. Will Sexton again.

She sighed. That’s all right. She knew that a little time and effort and avoidance would put him right back where he belonged, which was solidly in flirt territory. Whenever her heart or her hormones threatened to lead her in the wrong direction—which, granted, wasn’t often—she knew that as quickly as the emotions surfaced, they could as easily die away. And if she ever questioned the philosophy, she needed only to remember the pillow-shock syndrome that nearly every red-blooded human being had gone through at one time or another. Namely that moment when you opened your eyes the following morning to find the person who had seemed perfectly suitable and lust-worthy a few hours earlier had turned into the person you wouldn’t be caught dead with on a deserted island overnight.

And experience had taught her that the sudden, unexpected change in her playful connection to Will bore all the earmarks of pillow-shock syndrome.

Great sex material one day.

The date from hell the next.

She smiled to herself as the radio station launched into another Heart tune, this one more befitting her mood: “Even It Up.” Forgetting she hadn’t meant to, she began turning into the regular parking lot at the building, then at the last minute swerved back into traffic, earning her irritated honks from the drivers behind her. She waved her apologies then swung around to the back lot and claimed the last open parking space. She glanced at the SUV to her right, thinking it looked an awful lot like Will’s….

Then he climbed out.

ALL RIGHT THEN, some sort of higher power had it in for him.

That was Will’s deduction as he stood next to his SUV and stared at Renae, her long, tangled sun-kissed hair, her clingy white T-shirt that did little to hide the lacy bra she wore underneath and her big, black glasses that made her look like the one-hundred-percent luscious, hot American woman that she was.

He flinched when the radio station she was tuned in to launched into the opening strains of the old The Guess Who song “American Woman” before she switched the ignition off and plunged them both into a shocked kind of silence.

“Come here often, do you?” he asked with a raised brow, accepting that avoiding her now was out of the question.

She gave him a leisurely once-over then pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head, her smile decidedly decadent. “Funny, I parked over here to avoid you.”

He chuckled at her refreshing honesty. “Ironically, I was doing the same thing.”

The way he saw it, the only thing to do now would be to walk with her to their building. To give her a brief wave then take off would be so appallingly rude as to make him shudder. So he waited as she pushed a button that put the top up on the hideous pink contraption she called a car, gathered what he could see was the costume she’d been almost wearing that morning from the back seat, then joined him next to his SUV.

“I know why I want to avoid you,” she said as they began walking together down the path that would take them to their building. “But why are you avoiding me?”

Will was amazed by the myriad emotions pulsing through his bloodstream caused by merely walking next to the woman. For one, he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze off her pretty tanned face, even though it was currently devoid of makeup. And the way he kept eyeing her T-shirt and jeans, one would think he hadn’t seen a woman dressed in that way before. But it was the fact that he was inordinately interested in her feet, wrapped in her hot-pink flip-flops, that was the cause for the most concern.

“Are your feet actually tanned?” he found himself asking.

Renae looked down, appearing as caught off guard by his inane question as he was. The problem was he’d never before really noticed a woman’s feet and whether or not they were tanned. And it was more than just the neon-pink toenail polish she wore. There was just something wickedly attractive about her feet that made him fantasize about seeing them sticking out of a tub full of frothy bubbles…while she sat gloriously naked on top of him.

“Why yes, I guess they are,” she finally responded, throwing him a sexy little smile. “And you’re avoiding my question.”

Will stiffened a bit. “Well, it’s not that I’m avoiding your question, actually. It’s just that…” He couldn’t help grinning. “It’s just that I can’t recall it.”

“Why are you avoiding me?”

“Ah, yes. That question.” Will eyed their building that seemed to loom outrageously far away. He felt the urge to pull at his collar, although he wasn’t wearing a tie but rather a white open-throat polo shirt. And a pair of stonewashed jeans and sports shoes he couldn’t wait to get out of.

What was the question again? Oh, yes. Why was he avoiding Renae?

“Well, you see,” he said carefully, “there’s this little issue of another woman that I’m seeing—”

“The resident.”

He squinted at her although the sun was behind him. “You know about her?”

“Lucky filled me in.”

“Ah, yes. Lucky. Colin’s Lucky, I presume?”

Renae seemed interested in his mouth as he spoke. “One in the same.”

“And she would have shared this information because…”

“I asked for it.”

“I see.”

Will shoved his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans despite the abominable heat. Partly because he was filled with the almost irresistible urge to tuck a windblown strand of her dark blond hair back behind her ear. But mostly because he was afraid where the itchy appendage might roam from there. More specifically down the line of her intriguing back to her nicely rounded bottom, which might make it necessary for him to usher her straight into his condo and the bed therein.

But while he couldn’t touch her, he could look at her. And what a feast for the eyes she provided, too.

He cleared his throat. “And your reason for wanting to avoid me?”

She smiled. “Oh, pretty much the same. The resident.”

He chuckled softly at that one. “You’re avoiding me because I’m dating someone else?”

“Mmm-hmm. Why do you sound so surprised?”

“Because that doesn’t strike me as something you’d do.”

The pathway wasn’t disappearing under his feet at the quick rate he’d like it to. But the building was finally coming up. Thank God. He honestly didn’t know how long he could withstand such a strong dose of temptation incarnate without succumbing to it.

“How so?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. You seem like the type that when she wants something, she takes it.”

“Funny,” she said for the second time in so many minutes. “You strike me as the same.”

He looked at her. Really looked at her. At the appealing shape of her mouth. The openness of her attractive face. The wanton invitation right there in her creamy-green eyes and said, “Your place or mine?”

Without batting an eye she said, “Yours, definitely.”

IF THE HUNGER RAGING through Renae’s body had been for food, she would have devoured an entire buffet.

No sooner had the door to Will’s condo closed behind them than they were going at it like a couple of sex-starved teenagers, all groping hands and wild hormones. Her plastic-protected costume dropped to the floor along with her purse even as Will yanked up the hem of her T-shirt and cupped her breasts.

“Ouch,” she said when he squeezed a little too tightly.