However, the positive aura was spoiled when Linda proudly announced that she had received an MFA from Columbia and wrote “lit-ra-chur.” Mercedes slunk an inch lower in the leather-backed chair.

The second girl was Cecily, a Bohemian-vegan type with frizzy brown hair, and wire-rim spectacles, and absolutely no sense of fashion or style. Cecily wrote “abstract poetry” and lived in a warehouse in Brooklyn, no surprise there.

They were only twenty minutes into the discussion, and the bright lights were already starting to make Mercedes sweat, as was the moderator, a stuff-shirted academic. As someone who wrote about sex, and had just published a book of erotic fiction, Mercedes really didn’t have the time nor the inclination to deal with someone who desperately needed to get their rocks off, assuming he had any.

“Miss Brooks, can you tell us why you feel the urge to write fiction designed to titillate?” The man’s voice sliced down her spine like broken glass, but Mercedes was determined to stand up for the constitution, especially that pesky first amendment.

“Why does any writer need to write?” she asked, dodging the titillate word deftly. “It’s part of documenting the human condition.”

“But don’t you feel your—work,” he said, with a dismissive sniff, “reduces the human condition to a training manual on copulation?”

“No, I believe some other literary author won the award for bad sex writing. Not me. I believe my fans are more discerning than that.”

He stroked his goatee, quirking one brow. “And what about probing the deep, dark places where man is afraid to tread? Isn’t writing about sex selling out?”

“Now, this is only the opinion of one poor, lowly author, but the whole point of writing erotica is to write about those deep, dark places where man is afraid to tread.” She turned to Linda, who was the panelist next to her and smiled politely. “What is your book about?”

Linda sat up straight and cleared her throat. “My book is a soul-stirring exploration of a mother’s love for her children, who murders them in the end, as a tribute to the transcendental nature of life.”

The moderator sighed, a goofy fan-girl sigh that pushed Mercedes over the edge. When had a weight the size of the Titanic fallen on the scales of justice? It truly wasn’t fair. “And you sniff at my book?”

“I do not sniff at art,” the moderator snapped.

“I bet you never break wind, either,” Mercedes muttered under her breath.

“I beg your pardon?” asked Cecily.

Mercedes checked her watch. “This has been lovely, but I gotta go. Autographing at Rockefeller Center.”

“Rockefeller Center?” asked Linda, her voice embracing the words in a sad lover’s caress. Dream on, sister.

“Of course. It’s a rite of passage for every author, don’t you think?”

Linda nodded, her eyes dreaming of booksignings she would never have, and Mercedes gave her an encouraging pat on the back. “Someday,” she said, a hint of encouragement in her voice.

She tried not to strut as she walked off the dais, but okay, maybe there was a kick in her heels. What was success if not to be enjoyed? And after all, somebody needed to right those scales of justice. Mercedes thought she was just the one.

Sadly, her moment of fighting for truth, justice, and the American right to read about sex was fleeting. There wasn’t a booksigning in Rockefeller Center; Mercedes had made that one up, being nothing if not creative.

ACROSS TOWN ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE, Mercedes was back in her apartment, which wasn’t exactly an apartment, more like a closet with living accessories. The tiny studio had a couch that folded into a bed—when she took the trouble to pull it out. Other amenities included a sink, a one-burner stove, and a half-height refrigerator. At least the bathroom had a tub, her one necessity in life.

She punched the answering machine button and got a message from Andreas.

“Hey, Mercedes, listen, something’s come up tonight, so I won’t be by. We’ll talk later. You’re the best.”

She hit the erase button with a little more force than necessary, mainly because of the music playing in the background. Okay, he wasn’t the world’s best boyfriend. Actually she didn’t even call him her boyfriend because that would imply some level of emotional foreplay in their relationship, and there was none.

Andreas was like so many guys in the world, not really interested in anything but a good time. Mercedes didn’t let it bother her. She wrote erotic fiction, after all, and could chalk the whole relationship up to research and not lose a bit of sleep. Of course, that would imply she didn’t lose sleep, which she did. More than she would admit to anybody.

A single woman today was supposed to be hard and emotionless when it came to love and sex, and Mercedes wanted that. When you felt nothing, you didn’t hurt, you didn’t bleed. After almost ten years of rejections from publishers, it was helpful to grow a thick hide and let the slings and arrows of the world bounce off of you. But sometimes an arrow got through the castle walls, and that’s when it was time for a bath—with lavender-scented bubbles to ease the pain away.

Mercedes drew the hot water, pipes clanking as always, and poured in the magic liquid. Quickly she shed her clothes and slipped into the one place where she could hide from the rest of the world. She leaned her head back against the ancient cast-iron tub and closed her eyes. Her dreams weren’t easy ones. She wanted to hit the New York Times list, somehow, someway, somewhere.

She supposed her life would be less stressful if she wasn’t so ambitious but her mother had always encouraged big dreams. Mercedes had always wanted to be a writer, to explore the depths of humanity. The good, the evil, and the sexual. When she started the sex blog, the Red Choo Diaries, it’d been a lark. A way to make a name for herself without having the publishing credits that were required, and make a name she did. The blog had gotten her an agent and a two-book deal. And as a bonus, her brothers had found true love because of the blog. Everyone was happily involved except for her.

The water enveloped her, and she tucked a warm washcloth over her eyes, breathing in the gentle scent. Eventually her body was in another place, a place where her stories lived. That dark, mysterious world were lovers had no faces, and fantasy sex would always be better than reality sex.

Her fingers began to explore the map of her body she had memorized early on. Hiding beneath the bubbles, she could soothe the place between her thighs. While she pleasured herself, she didn’t think of Andreas, or Nick, or Alex or any of the lovers she’d had.

Her lover didn’t have a name, only the hard hands that she wrote about in her book, the long body she yearned to explore, and the intense eyes that made her want. They would be hazel eyes, green and brown swirled together like watercolors in the rain. Eyes that flashed gold when impassioned, and calmed to the color of summer leaves when they were at peace.

Her body rose in time with his, and the soothing lavender scent only sharpened the molten throbbing at her center. He moved faster within her, a quicksilver image that was not quite real, yet more than a dream. She wanted to touch him, wanted to kiss his mouth, test the heat of his skin, but he was always just beyond her reach.

Right then the phone rang, and Mercedes almost didn’t bother, but an unanswered phone was like an unscratched Super Match For Millions ticket.

“Hello,” she answered, trying not to be peeved. The person on the other end didn’t need to know they’d interrupted a climax in progress. Although if it was a telemarketing call, her peeve was going to be out in full force.

“Mercedes Brooks?” asked a voice. A resonant, confident, sexy voice.

“Yes?”

“Sam Porter.”

Sam! Mercedes fumbled to keep the towel and the phone in place. “Hello, Sam,” she purred, sounding completely poised. Mercedes could fake it like the rest of them.

“So, has your brother hit anybody else recently?”

Oh. “I was hoping you’d forgotten.” It’d been almost a year since her brother, Jeff, had punched Sam out on live TV when she’d been a guest on his show. A few mistaken impressions, a bunch of wrong words. Not a high moment in her life.

“No, the jaw still aches sometimes.”

“You’ll never let me forget that, will you?”

“Probably not.”

“You insulted the woman he loves. What would you have done?”

“The celebrated gossip of tawdry celebrities was the topic of the show. I don’t pull my punches.”

“Neither does he,” Mercedes said proudly. “So why did you call?”

“We’re shooting in San Francisco next week, and I was wondering if you’d want to come on the show.”

Ca-ching! Mercedes squeezed her fingers on the towel to keep from squealing. Never a smooth move. He wanted her on the show? Not the perfect audience for erotica, but hey, she wasn’t going to complain, with her book just hitting the shelves. Mercedes did a short happy dance before regaining her poise. “What day were you thinking?”

“We’d have you on Thursday night. Fly you out there on Thursday, fly back on Friday. The show would pick up the tab.”

Such mundane words, in such a lustrous voice. Soft, intimate, infinitely warm. Jeez, he was talking travel arrangements and she was getting seduced. “What do you want to talk about?” she asked, trying to keep all those seduce-me fixations out of her brain.

“It’s only a short segment. The meat of the program is going to a judicial scholar who just published a book on the Ninth Circuit’s influence on the Supreme Court, so we’d only have about ten minutes. The topic would be how the white noise of sexual messages is negatively affecting the libido.”

“I’m assuming that I’m the face of the sexual white noise?” she asked dryly, no longer full of seduce-me fixations.

“Uh, yeah. Not me.”

She sighed heavily into the phone, disappointed because, well, she didn’t want to analyze why she was disappointed that Sam Porter wasn’t murmuring erotic nothings over the phone.

“You’ll do it?” he asked.

Like she would say no. “You’ll send me the travel arrangements?”

“Charlie’s assistant will call you.”

“Thank you for thinking of me, Sam.”

“It wasn’t hard. You’re not easy to forget.”

Mercedes pumped a fist into the air. “Twelve months is a long time to sit idly by.”

“Yeah, congratulations, by the way,” he said, easily slipping back to his smooth, melodious television voice. No intimacy, all professional.

“For what?”

“The book.”

“You knew?”

“I do read.”

“You read it?” she asked, not bothering to hide the surprise. Sam’s political leanings didn’t lend themselves to erotica. Damn it.

“No, but I have been spotted in bookstores before, Mercedes.”

“You don’t approve, do you?”

“It’s not my place to approve or disapprove. Free country. Free speech. That’s what makes America great.”

She laughed softly, sensing the truth. “You hate it.”

“No. Honestly.”

He was a liar. But what was the point in calling him on it? “How are you doing? The show’s ratings are through the roof.”

“You noticed?”

“I do watch TV.”

“My show?”

“Sometimes,” she answered, not wanting to tell him that she taped his show and watched it before bed. She liked listening to him at night, and his opinions weren’t that kooky. At least most of the time. Sometimes, when she was really, really tired, she even agreed with him. But she would never tell him that.

“I need to go. Thanks for doing this.”

“Sure.” Mercedes hung up the phone, and returned to the bathroom. The water was cool to the touch, so she ran a brand-new tubfull, making it warm and soothing. She touched herself again, her fingers taking up where they had left off, and she returned to the dark, mysterious world where her lovers resided. But this time, her lover had a face and a voice.

Hazel green eyes, firm lips, a nose that looked like it’d been broken once, and silky, tawny brown hair that fell any way but straight.

As she slipped into the last wake of her climax, she thought of Sam and smiled.

BERGEN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY, was as close to nature as a man could be, yet still be less than thirty minutes from Manhattan. Sam owned three shaded acres of towering Douglas firs, and grass growing as it was meant to be, not trimmed into some geometrical hoodoo. His office was in the back of the house, where he could watch Max, his black lab happily chase squirrels. At the moment, instead of chasing squirrels, Max was happily snoozing, leaving Sam to his own thoughts.

A man with an MA, BA and BBA, shouldn’t be thinking of T & A when contemplating his livelihood. He was a professional, a man who’d been yelled at, threatened, and yes, hit once, on national television, and never, ever lost his cool. He could think of a million and one reasons why he shouldn’t be asking Mercedes to San Francisco. Number one. He was too old for her. He was thirty-nine, and she was a young twenty-something. That age when the world was full of opportunity and birthdays were still celebrated. Sam wasn’t old by any means, but he’d seen it, he’d done it, and he’d settled into a comfortable existence that didn’t involve nightlife and a tingling anticipation of tomorrow. For God’s sake, he had a recliner. Twenty-somethings didn’t date men with recliners.

And the reasons didn’t stop there. She wrote erotic fiction. Not children’s books, not historical fiction, not self-help books. Well, if you really wanted to split hairs, you could consider erotic fiction self-help, but Sam wasn’t a hair-splitter. He believed in facts. Honor, responsibility, not just s-e-x, the consummation of a man and woman, bodies entwined together, lost in the mindless passion of the moment, possibly in a recliner.

Why now? Was he approaching a midlife crisis before he hit forty? He’d always been mature for his age, maybe this was just early onset midlife crisis. And did he want to have sex with Mercedes merely to satisfy some arbitrary whim to have a young, hot babe on his arm. God, he didn’t even like the word “babe”—or the men who said it.

He swore and Max, his black Lab, lifted his head from the rug and stared.

“What are you staring at?” snapped Sam.

Max turned his head and whined.

“I know it’s not smart, Max. But let me work through this. I’ll have one night, maybe two. Just to get it out of my system. Then I’ll come back, trade in the Lexus on a bright red Ferrari. Like I’m supposed to.”

Max cocked his head.

“You can ride in the front seat, the wind blowing through your ears. It’ll be just like in the movies. A man and his dog. You got to back me up on this. Tell me I can be strong.”

Max barked at him, and Sam smiled. Of course, then he picked up Mercedes’s book and started to read again.

Thursday night couldn’t come soon enough.

THEY’D PUT HER IN FIRST CLASS. First class. If Sam Porter wanted to impress her, he’d certainly started out right. Not that she could be bought, but she could certainly be pampered. Okay, he was conservative. Okay, he was a few years older (and more experienced). Okay, he was unbendable. Nobody was perfect. And what he lacked in other areas, he made up for in physiology.

The flight attendant approached. She knew Mercedes by name, knew her meal preferences, and Mercedes suspected the flight attendant knew her zodiac sign, too. That was service. Not that she could be bought.

“Something for you to drink,” the attendant asked.

Mercedes thought for a minute. Unlimited alcohol. Work. Unlimited alcohol. Work. Eventually her puritan work ethic smacked her party girl self into submission.

“Water, please. I have to work,” she said, frowning to express her extreme displeasure with the situation.

The man in the seat next to her ordered a scotch and water. “I don’t have to work,” he told Mercedes with a grin best termed lecherous.

“That’s very nice of you. I don’t mean to be rude, but I do need to work,” she told him, keeping her face airplane-attendant polite.

“You don’t mind if I watch, do you? I bet you’re really fun to watch. Go ahead, unwind, relax. Make yourself comfortable. When the ladies are hot as you are, I love to watch. Everything,” he added, like she really needed that bit of personal info.

A four-hour flight to SFO, and she was stuck next to Mr. McCreepy instead of Dr. McDreamy. Or for instance, Sam?

Mercedes gave the man her cold, formal smile—a smile learned when her mother had tried out for the Broadway version of My Fair Lady. Her mother hadn’t got the part of Lady Ambassador, but Mercedes had learned how to chill out the world with one look.

McCreepy didn’t take the hint. “Are you going to San Francisco for business or pleasure?” he asked, his voice lingering on “pleasure.”

“Business,” she answered briskly, not quite the truth. There was a good shot of pleasure in the motivational equation for this trip, and she hoped that Sam was equally motivated. There had been sparks when they’d met a year ago. Huge, galaxy-bending sparks, and he’d felt them, too. But Sam was a master of self-control, or he must be to deny the pull of animal magnetism that drew them together. Actually, it wasn’t as much animal magnetism as it was his voice, his eyes, those long, capable fingers—okay, maybe it was animal magnetism. Maybe he had endured twelve, long torturous months of monk-like celibacy, because there was only one sultry siren that was woman enough to satisfy his manly urges. And maybe he had come to the realization that a night of passion was their destiny. Sam and Diane. Sam(pson) and Delilah. Sam and Mercedes. Fate. Kismet. Karma. As a card-carrying member of the creative arts, Mercedes believed strongly in the power of all three. Finally he had decided to sample her wares, swim in her unchartered waters, or pluck the nectar from her core. Either way, whether sampling, swimming, or plucking, she was wild about the possibility.

“…and then I was out drinking with this Hollywood movie star…”

Mercedes emerged from her Sam-induced haze and realized McCreepy was talking—strike that—lying to her.

“Were you speaking to me?” she asked, as if there was some possibility that he wasn’t.

McCreepy’s mouth tightened into a single, hard line. Yeah, well, he’d get over it.

Mercedes’s face cracked into a smile and then she pulled out her computer. She had written seventeen pages of her next manuscript, with only two months left to go. And three hundred and thirty-three pages. Softly she hummed “To Dream the Impossible Dream.” Not that it was impossible, but late nights and caffeine were definitely on her schedule. Definitely.

The flight attendant returned with her water and McCreepy’s drink. “We’re going to be stuck on the tarmac for another twenty minutes, are you sure you don’t want anything stronger?” the attendant asked.

Mercedes shook her head, noticed McCreepy’s wayward gaze, and took out her cell as a further instrument of deterrence. Quickly she dialed her brother.

“Jeff,” she said loudly, happily, and hopefully deterrently.

“What are you doing? What do you want?”

Jeff mistrusted his sister more than the normal level of sibling distrust, perhaps due to some past entries about him—anonymously—showing up in her sex blog. However, she had done it all to further the course of true love for Jeff and Sheldon—and perhaps further her own career. A win for all involved, though Jeff didn’t see it that way.

“I’m sitting at JFK, waiting for takeoff. A big yawner. Thought I’d kill some time, and you were first on the speed-dial list.”

“You’re going to be okay on the show?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, I thought about asking you, but then, what if you hit him again? Then where would I be?”

“It was only one shot, and I didn’t even hit him hard.”

“Yeah, you say that now that you’re safely married. I remember you telling Sheldon how you were ready to kill the guy. Remember that?”

“Maybe I exaggerated.”

“You’re in P.R. Exaggeration is your life choice. However, I don’t think you did that time. What’s your better half doing?”

“Sheldon?”

“Well, yes, she is the better half in your matrimonial partnership.”

“Love you, too, Mercy.”

“What’s she doing?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Of course you can tell, I’m your sister. We must share all. Especially secrets.” Sheldon always had the best secrets.

“So you can post it on the Internet? Sorry. Been there, hated that.”

“I don’t talk about hausfraus in the blog. They’re boring unless they’re on Wisteria Lane. Not good for getting the eyeballs into my space. What’s she doing?”

“Can’t say.”

“Can to.”

“All right. I could, but I won’t.”

“That’s so mean.”

“That’s me. Your mean, elder brother, Jeff.”

“No, that’s Andrew. You’re nicer, have a better sense of humor, and always gave me cooler birthday presents. Although, if you don’t tell me, then you’re usurping that title.”

“Not telling. I’m usurping.”

Mercedes slunk further in her seat. “Is it sexual in nature?” Jeff’s wife had a certain wild-child reputation before they were married. Sexual in nature would be right up her metaphorical alley.

“No. It’s philanthropical.”

“Really? Sheldon’s doing philanthropy? That’s very industrious of her.”

“I think so. Are you going to be back by Saturday? Jamie’s got some wedding things to do. Sheldon will be mad if you make her go by herself.”

Mercedes bit back a groan. “Wedding things? It’s the bridesmaid dresses, isn’t it? She decided against the silver ones, didn’t she?” Jamie was about to marry Mercedes’s older brother Andrew, and the whole family was preparing for The Event. Mercedes liked Jamie well enough, but Jamie was cut from a different cloth than Mercedes. Jamie’s cloth was more like a scratchy burlap, and Mercedes lived for silk. Still, Jamie made Andrew happy, and Andrew wasn’t by nature a happy person, so Mercedes let them be. Except for the dress fittings. Five fittings for five different dresses? That didn’t make anybody happy.

“I don’t know. I can’t follow the whole saga. Talk to Sheldon. Better yet, talk to Jamie.”

“She’ll make me try on dresses again.”

“You like trying on dresses, Mercedes. And shoes. And frou-frou blouses, and—”

“That’s enough. And this is not the same.”

“It’s the same.”

“It’s a root canal, dressed in virginal white.”

“That’s no way to talk about the happiest day in your brother’s life.”

“It’s going to be the happiest day in my life at this rate. No more bridesmaid dresses.”

“Andrew’s trying to talk Jamie into something big and expensive for the wedding.”

Now this was interesting. “Our brother. Andrew? Overly work-focused, and driven by the bottom line, Andrew?”

“The same. He’s changed.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“He’s talking to a wedding planner.”

“Does Jamie know?”

“Of course not. I believe her exact words to Mom were ‘a wedding planner is an unnecessary occupation designed to take advantage of women in a fragile psychological state.’”

“So what’s he thinking?”

“Doves.”

“Chocolate?”

“No, the kind with wings. White, flying creatures.”

“No way. Not ever. Not even in like ten million years.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Jamie will hate it.”

“I talked him out of it.”

“Sensible.”

“But not the orchestra.”

“Oh, no…”

“Yup. Can’t wait till she finds out. Fireworks, big time. Listen, I have to go—”