More Naughty Than Nice

He wasn’t sorry he’d danced on the edge of impropriety to get her to make that tiny whimper, either. He’d been replaying it on his tape for hours.

Yet there was definitely more to his interest in her than an impromptu moan. It was the potent combination of brains and body, and the curious mix of audacity and innocence. Innocence? He must be mistaken. There was nothing innocent about Stevie Bliss, the leather-clad siren who strode into a room like she owned it, who slept with anyone who took her fancy, who had professional athletes for breakfast and politicians for lunch.

But the expression in her eyes when he touched her, and that amazing little noise…

She was a mystery, that was for sure.

“So, Dasher?” T.J. asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Why did you give her a bye? If you’re not hot for her bod, I mean?”

Not hot for her bod? He was plenty hot. Maybe not admitting he was hot for her bod was more accurate. Or not sharing that fact with T.J., at any rate.

“Some of what she said made sense,” he grumbled. “And I liked how she handled herself on her feet.” He pushed back in his chair, eying the intern. “So you read the book? Did you buy into what she was saying, about playing the field and not getting tied down?”

“Sure. Well, not totally. I’m in no hurry to get married, that’s for sure.” T.J. plunked herself down in a nearby chair and gave herself a spin. “I think the one-month rule—you know, where your boyfriend automatically expires after a month, kind of like old milk?—that strikes me as cold. But it’s a sharp idea if a few high schoolers look at their prom dates and go, hey, maybe I should go to college instead of getting married to this dweeb. Or even more so, chicks hitting twenty-five and getting all weird about not having a ring. Like the ones on… What was that terrible show, with all the women trying to get that one lame dude to marry them?”

“So you don’t think it’s demeaning for women to sleep around without being in love?”

“Demeaning? Who are you trying to kid?” She shrugged. “Men do it all the time. C’mon. Sex should be for fun. That’s all she’s trying to say. It’s only when you try to pretend that love is involved that things get screwed up. So don’t pretend. Let it be what it is and nobody gets hurt. Right?”

“That’s the theory, anyway.”

A phone rang from over in Sports, and she took off to answer. Backpedaling, she called out, “You need anything, you let me know, okay, Dasher? I’d love to work for you.”

“Sure, sure.” As he watched her pick up her phone across the wide newsroom, typing quickly onto her computer, he mused on her reaction. It seemed reasonable, after all, when she framed it like that. Sex is for fun. It’s only when you try to pretend that love is involved that things get screwed up.

But could people—male or female—live that way? Could they really go around, taking whoever caught their fancy, without wanting something more?

It was a puzzle. And so was Stevie Bliss.

His mind replayed their encounter, including the little moan, without even bothering to listen to the tape. Amazing. And it wasn’t just the question of how someone that bold could seem surprised or caught unawares by her own physical response. No, it was more about how she’d gotten to be Stevie Bliss.

Who was she, under all the prepackaged wrappings? Where had this Blissfully Single idea come from? Beautiful women didn’t just wake up one day and decide they were never going to fall in love, never going to get married, without some kind of provocation. What happened to Stevie Bliss?

He certainly didn’t have any answers from their short interview. It rankled that he was really a very good reporter and interviewer, and yet this time, he had done such a lousy job. What, had he asked a total of three questions? And all three were annoyance questions more than anything useful. Never married, never left at the altar. If she was telling the truth, that was the sum total of what he’d found out that he didn’t already know from reading the book. Not a terribly complete personal profile.

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