The Sex Cure

“How long has this been an issue?”

The fact was, Lange’s mind and his body had been at odds for quite a long time, but it was only in the last year that it had become a crippling problem. He thought back to his last disastrous date with that swimsuit model... Now, he couldn’t remember her name, though she’d graced the covers of any number of magazines. How she’d patted his hand, a look of pity on her face, as she told him, “This happens to men all the time.”

Except that it didn’t happen to Wilder Lange. Not ever.

Except now it did.

“About a year ago, it started. It was on and off for a while, but now it’s...” Every single time he tried to take a gorgeous woman to his bed. “Constant.” He almost spat the word. He hated failure, wouldn’t tolerate it in any other aspect of his life, and yet the one part of his life that was supposed to be easy, fun and uncomplicated—his sex life—he couldn’t make happen.

“Have you tried medication?” she asked him, her voice clinical. So why did it affect him so much?

“I’ve tried them all.” This was the sad truth. He’d had all the prescriptions, and none worked. His last doctor had suggested it was a mental block. He’d seen half a dozen traditional therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists, but none of them had gotten at the root of his problem, either. “I’ve got a complete clean bill of health. No infections. No STIs. No high blood pressure. No weight gain. Nothing physical that would account for the issue.”

“Do you usually wear protection?”

“Always,” he said, not sure what that had to do with anything. “What does that have to do with this condition?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to figure out how reckless you are.” She quirked an eyebrow.

“So it has nothing to do with my problem?”

“Probably not.” A sly smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Despite her struggle to be professional, she was enjoying this. Just a little bit. Well, he supposed he deserved it.

“And you? Do you?”

She didn’t even raise an eyebrow. She wasn’t easily thrown. “Yes, I do. And get tested every year. It’s the responsible thing to do.”

“I’m glad we’re both responsible, then.” He’d much rather talk about her habits, even if they were clinical, than his. “Do you always keep yourself on such...a tight leash?”

She studied him. “I’m not the one who asked you for sex advice, Mr. Lange.”

He laughed at that. God, the woman was quick. Blunt. To the point. He loved it. Found it unbelievably refreshing. He was surrounded on most days by people who were eager to get so far up his ass they might as well have been giving him a colonoscopy. She wasn’t going to let him get away with anything. That’s exactly what he needed.

“Are you able to pleasure yourself?” she asked, which took him off guard.

He nodded, once. It was the last thing he wanted to talk about. It felt strikingly shameful. He’d been a man who up until a year ago was fighting women off, had his pick of any number of gorgeous, willing partners, except that now he couldn’t fully enjoy them. Hell, he didn’t even want to try. That was the worst part.

“How often?” She stared at him a beat too long and his cock responded. He was on his way to full-blown readiness. He glanced away, focusing on the sprawling cityscape outside, and the big rectangle of green that was Central Park. They were so high above the park it could have been the view from a plane. Yet, he could still see the vague outline of the walking paths, where his mother used to take him almost every Sunday before she died. He felt the intensity of want for Harley slip away in that moment, as his past, a ghost intent on haunting him, made its presence known.

“Not that often.” If he were honest with himself, he hadn’t just lost the ability to get and stay hard, he’d also largely lost interest in sex. Maybe he’d overloaded himself. Running Lange Communications and being the patriarch of the Lange family was no easy task. He’d managed to keep the brothers on task and Lucinda away from the family coffers, but the fact was that he was starting to feel worn out. He’d used sex as his way of relaxing, as his way of taking something for himself, but now that he wasn’t able to do it, he was starting to question everything.

Harley studied him, intently. He expected to see pity there, that horrible look he’d seen in the eyes of so many of the women he’d tried to seduce recently, the pity that slashed at him like a knife to the groin. He hated pity. Pity was for weak people, for pathetic people, and Wilder was many things, but he’d spent his life proving he wasn’t weak. Or pathetic.

But Harley wasn’t pitying him. And she wasn’t studying him like a bug in a petri dish, either, thankfully. She was still a bit angry with him; he could almost feel the heat pulsing in her veins. He knew that was there, brimming just below the surface, and that’s exactly what he needed. Someone who’d call him on his bullshit. And she was the woman to do it.

“Often, people can experience psychological blocks that impede....certain natural behaviors,” she said. “Stress can play a role, for sure, but so can past trauma. Is there anything that might have happened when you were younger that might be surfacing now?”

He looked away from Harley and back out to Central Park. He hadn’t had the easiest childhood, but he was determined to leave the past in the past. There was nothing in his past that could hurt him, and he damn well wasn’t going to rehash any of it here. If ever.

“No,” he said. He was almost convinced it wasn’t a lie.

Harley leaned forward, and he turned his attention to her in time to see the hint of the top of her left breast at the V of her shirt. He desperately wanted to lay his cheek there. “I think what can benefit you the most is simply talking about some of the challenges you are facing—and have faced—in your life, and I think you’ll find that we can get you back to where you’d like to be. But you don’t need me for that. You could get a therapist.”

Disappointment hit him, cold and hard. No, he needed her, not someone else. “I’ve tried therapists. They don’t work. They’re afraid to be blunt with me.”

“You just want abuse, then.”

“Maybe. Something like that. I need someone to shake some sense into me.” Now, he had something else up his sleeve. Some other bit of information he knew about Harley Vega. “And there’s one more thing I need from you.”

“What’s that?” Her brown eyes studied him, wary.

“For the duration of treatment, I’ll need you to live here. With me.”

CHAPTER FOUR

HAD HE JUST invited her to live with him? She’d live with the man who’d fired her? The man she hated?

“No. Absolutely not.” She shook her head. White-hot panic rushed down her spine. It was one thing to treat this intriguing man on a weekly basis. It was another thing to live with him and see him daily. Would she be able to stuff down her attraction for him under those circumstances? She wasn’t even sure she could treat him or if she’d just be playing at being therapist. Also, she hated him. Hated everything about the corporate shark who gutted companies and left hundreds of unemployed in his wake. Maybe he did have an endearing relationship with his brother, but that didn’t change who he was.

“There’s more than enough room,” he said. “You can live in the east wing.”

East wing? Since when did a penthouse have wings? Then again, she guessed, this was no ordinary penthouse. It was, after all, three levels at least. “No. That’s off the table.”

“It’s completely contained, with its own kitchen and other facilities. And my servant staff will be at your disposal, should you need them. If you’d rather have your privacy, that’s fine, as well. And, obviously, I wouldn’t burst in on you. We can set rules.” Wilder stood then, too, even as Harley moved away from him to the windows, her mind crowded with a million worries.

“What kind of rules?”

“Any you’d like.”

Would it work? Could she effectively treat someone in his own house? The idea seemed absurd. Since when did a life coach live with a client? And yet...why wasn’t she dismissing it outright? Why was she even considering it for a second? She knew why. It was the damn money. She hated that the money actually meant something. That she might just need it.

“Why live with you? I don’t need to live with you to treat you or coach you, or whatever it is you need from me.”

“I want you to treat me exclusively. I’ll need to have access to you when I need you. And I work long hours and need someone, well, someone at my beck and call.” Of course, he did. Since when were billionaires reasonable? Since when did they respect other people’s schedules and free time?

“You think I’ll drop everything at two in the morning if you need a chat.” She crossed her arms.

“Maybe.” Wilder moved closer to her. Even without looking, she could feel him behind her, less than a foot away.

“It sounds like you want a security blanket. Not a life coach.”

“Also, you living here would solve a second problem, which is that I can’t afford for anyone to know you’re treating me.”

“Having a sex advice columnist under your roof might raise suspicion.” Harley glanced over her shoulder at him, frowning.

“Believe me, women come and go in my penthouse. You won’t raise suspicion.”

“I’m not someone you’re dating,” she said, wondering if she needed to point out the obvious.

“Yet.” His face remained expressionless and she was wondering if he was kidding or not.

Harley coughed. Was this why he wanted her to move in with him? Was he under the impression that therapy from her involved hands-on work? “I can’t date you. Not if I’m coaching you. It violates every rule I’ve ever made for myself, and if you think I’ll treat you by actually having sex with you, then you’ve recruited the wrong sexologist.” She should’ve left already. She shouldn’t even have stayed this long.

“I’m not asking you to move in so we can have sex, Ms. Vega. I’m simply protective of my privacy. That’s all. Most of the time, paparazzi stalk me, and stake out the lobby of this very building. If you came regularly, eventually they’d know.” He took a deep breath. “If I came to you, then they’d know.”

“Getting help is nothing to be ashamed of.” Harley met his gaze.

“No, it isn’t. But I don’t want my company’s stock to plummet, either, on scandalous news that its owner is impotent.”

“Would they really?”

“Of course, they would. They’ve dipped on much less salacious news.”

She looked away from him, back out the window. She couldn’t seriously be considering moving in with the man. What on earth kind of business dealings could sexual therapy throw a wrench in?

“Also, there’s a third reason you should move in.”

“I can hardly wait to hear this.”

“You’re being evicted, Ms. Vega. In a week’s time, you won’t have anywhere to stay, anyway.”

She was struck speechless. “How did you know that?”

He gave her a sly look. “I trade in information, Ms. Vega. I made it my business to know.”

So he knew how desperate she was, then. Knew she was facing rough times. Facing having to move back in with her parents in Miami by the month’s end if she didn’t change her circumstances and fast. She could do that, though. It wasn’t as if she had no options. She just didn’t have any good ones.

“Since it’s my fault you are being evicted, I figured offering you a place to stay was the least I could do.”

Well, he had a point there. It was his fault she couldn’t pay her rent.

“How about we have a trial period?” Wilder sounded calm and confident. Of course, he did. He expected people to do as he instructed, no questions asked. “You can treat me for one week, living here, and then after one week’s time, if you would like to leave, I’ll pay you a full month’s salary, anyway.”

Harley’s mind spun with the possibilities.

“If I do this, you understand that I am not a sexual surrogate.”

“Sexual...surrogate?” Wilder looked confused.

“I don’t have sex to heal people or help them work out their...issues.” Not that she’d ever have sex with him, anyway. She hated him. Period. But she knew Wilder was a man used to getting what he wanted, and she needed to be sure he knew there was absolutely one thing he couldn’t have: her body. No matter how charming the man’s smile was, he had to understand she had rules that she didn’t intend to break.

“I’m asking you to treat me,” Wilder said. “Sex is optional.”

“No, it’s off the table.” Harley had to make this perfectly clear. She could only agree to this if she set up rules. She didn’t want a handsy billionaire who felt entitled to her body.

“That’s your decision completely.” Wilder shrugged, indicating with a slight head nod that he’d respect her decision.

She was not quite sure if she felt relieved or disappointed. “So you’ll respect my rules, then?”

He took a step closer to her and Harley craned her neck to meet his gaze, suddenly very aware of how broad he was, how very, very tall.

“I always respect women’s rules. It’s my motto that if you make the rule, you have to be the one to break it.”

“I won’t break my rules.” Harley had no intention of changing her mind. No matter how charismatic Wilder Lange might be. Plus, she despised him.

“Sounds like you’re challenging yourself now.” Wilder flashed a bright white smile, all charm, all ease, and yet, she sensed that reticence beneath it all. A distance that he put between himself and others. It might just be at the root of whatever issues he was having. She itched to dig into his mind, figure out what made him tick. Why? she wondered. So she could know her enemy better?

“I’m not the one who’s going to be challenged if I treat you,” she said. She might not be a therapist, but she’d done enough coaching to know that really dealing with his issues meant getting a closer look at the ugly truths that most people kept hidden away. For Wilder Lange, she suspected he used that charming smile to lure people in and then somehow keep them at arm’s length, all at the same time. “I’ll take this job but only on the condition that you respect my therapeutic methods.”

“Certainly.” Wilder cocked his head to one side, the light catching the hint of red highlights in his otherwise nearly black hair.

“And I’m free to leave at any time, even before the full week is up, should I decide that my methods are not being respected.”

“Of course. I don’t plan to keep you prisoner against your will.” Wilder looked at her as if she were crazy. And maybe she was. Why was she even considering doing this? Because she was losing her apartment. She didn’t want to admit defeat and go home to Miami. Especially not when they were already strapped. Last year, her sister had recently gotten divorced and moved back in with her parents with two small children in tow. She didn’t need to be another burden, not when her parents were dealing with their own. But even more than that, she had to admit to herself, she might be a little bit too fascinated with Wilder Lange.

“Okay.” Why was her heart beating so hard in her chest? Why had her blood pressure ticked up a notch? “Then, we have a deal.” She stuck out her hand. She was a professional and she could damn well act like one.

He grasped it in his, putting a little more pressure against her palm this time, and held it for a little bit too long. She sucked in a breath and realized she was holding it. Harley deliberately exhaled. She didn’t like the man, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t treat him. And she’d have a free place to stay while she saved cash and figured out her next move.

“I’m glad to hear it.” His voice rolled over her like melted caramel and as she watched his lips move, she realized that she was already looking forward to their first real session, when she could start unpacking the man’s secrets and dive into that fascinating brain of his. She knew the excitement meant trouble. But she could handle it. She was certain she could. What could possibly go wrong?

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