My Sexiest Mistake

He was a sure thing

Ryan let out a nervous laugh. She couldn’t help herself.

Cade raised an eyebrow. “What’s the joke? All I said was that I take what I do seriously. I deal with people who have a certain set of needs and I come in and make sure they get satisfied. It seems pretty worthwhile to me.”

“So you leave satisfied customers behind you?” She lost a beat watching him.

“I do my best. So what do you do, when you’re not hanging around hotel lobbies?” he asked innocently.

“Oh, I spin yarns.”

“Oh, yeah? Tell me a good story.”

When Ryan was a child, her family vacationed near a lake in Maine every summer. In early June, the water was still icy cold and there were two ways to approach it: stepping in an inch at a time, or running and jumping in, taking the shock all at once. Ryan had always jumped.

“Let’s go upstairs and I will.”

“Whatever you say, darlin’.” Cade rose and tugged her to her feet. “I’m all yours.”

Dear Reader,

Being a romance writer has been a longtime dream for me. I’m thrilled that it’s come true with the publication of My Sexiest Mistake, my first book for Harlequin’s new Blaze line. I like my sex hot and my writing even hotter, so when I had gorgeous but stubborn Ryan meet her match in sexy hunk Cade, it was easy to steam up the pages. Let the two of them take you on a rollicking ride that starts with mistaken identity and turns into a red-hot love affair that’s true-blue beneath.

Blaze is a line designed to appeal to women who demand more from their relationships and their reading—more steam, more tension, more romance. I’d love to hear what you think of Blaze, and of Ryan and Cade’s tale. Write me at [e-mail], or visit www.kristinhardy.com for contests, e-mail chats between characters in My Sexiest Mistake and Blaze-ing excerpts from upcoming books.

Enjoy!

Kristin Hardy

P.S. Don’t forget to check out tryblaze.com!

My Sexiest Mistake

Kristin Hardy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my beloved Stephen

Te adoro, amor

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

1

“ARE THEY HAVING SEX YET?”

Ryan Donnelly jumped for the button that transferred the call from speakerphone to handset. In the stodgy offices of Beckman Markham Corporate Training, the last thing she needed was for her boss to hear a caller talking about sex. She blinked at the gravelly voice barking out of the phone. “Not even a hello today. You must be in a good mood, Helene.”

“Well are they?” her agent persisted.

“You know the plot line calls for a love scene in chapter five.” Ryan sounded evasive even to herself.

“Oh my god, you still haven’t done it.”

“I’m going to get to it.” Ryan strove to seem placating rather than panicked.

“Get to it? Your final manuscript is due in exactly fifteen days. You’d postpone my trip to the E.R. for hypertension and heart failure if you could be a little more specific.”

Ryan looked uneasily around her office. “Helene, I’ve got a class to teach in ten minutes. Can’t we talk about this later?”

“Do I need to remind you what’s at stake, here?” Ryan could picture the redhead sitting at her speakerphone, the cigarette in her hand sending a thin ribbon of smoke to the ceiling. “A legal contract. The other three books in the series. Your early retirement from corporate training. Your reputation. My reputation, and—not to be overlooked—my commission. You know I’ve had my eye on that hot tub.”

“Helene, I’m trying.”

“For heaven’s sake, Ryan, the hard part is done. You’ve got most of the book written. All you have to do is get them between the sheets for a little nooky.”

“A lot of nooky, Helene.” Ten to fifteen pages, last time she’d checked. Ryan tried to stem the rising tide of anxiety. “The scene doesn’t want to come out. I keep trying, but I just can’t write it. Oh, why didn’t you let me stay in sweets?” Her voice rose in a wail of frustration.

“Let you stay in sweets? I should be beaten for letting you stay in sweets as long as I did,” Helene rasped, as a crack in the background signaled she was opening one of her ever-present Diet Cokes. “Eight of them, two awards. You’re the best thing out there. You should be writing single-title books, but I can’t get you there because everybody wants to see how you’ll handle the sex. It was a miracle I managed to get them to consider a multibook deal,” she grumbled.

For the past four years Ryan had been happily writing sweets in her spare time, short, snappy romances with nothing more provocative than a lip lock or two. Each time she sold a book she thought that this time, finally, she might be able to quit the day job she loathed and write full-time, but it never quite happened that way. She felt a distinct pang of longing for each of her eight books, lovely little tales that required nothing explicit, just some impure thoughts and a few kisses. Kissing she could do. Kissing she had done, with her own lips. At least, oh, well, half a dozen times, anyway. Sex was largely a black hole to her, enlivened by one memorably unfortunate outing.

Write what you know, she’d learned in her courses at Brown. Unfortunately, sex was something she didn’t know. One fact was indisputable, though—the hook of the book she had sold was supposed to be hot sex between the hero and the heroine. All she had to do was finish the book, get the contract, and write full-time. If she screwed it up, though, there was no telling how long she’d be condemned to teach corporate management classes.

Helene heaved a long-suffering sigh down the phone. “Ryan, you have to do this. Now is not the time to get writer’s block. Do you at least have a draft?”

Ryan thought of the miserable paragraph that she’d wrung out the night before. Normally, her prose galloped onto the screen. Okay, well, there were times it trotted and times it downright dragged its feet, but it at least came.

If only her characters could.

Helene decoded her noncommittal humph for the negative that it was. “Come on, kid, just pour yourself a glass of wine and think about the last time you had really hot, sweaty sex. You do remember sex, right?”

Ryan made a vague noise and Helene’s voice sharpened. “How long has it been since you’ve slept with someone, anyway?”

“Oh, a while,” she answered evasively, nervously straightening a stack of files on her desk.

“How long?”

“Um, eight years. Or so.” Ryan’s voice sounded thin even to her own ears.

“Eight years?” Helene’s voice rose incredulously. “Since you were twenty-one? Eight years?”

“A little less,” Ryan said defensively. “I’ve been busy…” her voice trailed off.

“Ryan. Honey. You’re gorgeous. You’re in the prime of your life. What are you waiting for?”

“I just haven’t had too much luck in the dating department.”

“You’ve been hiding away teaching Quark classes. No wonder you can’t write about sex. You probably don’t even remember what it’s like. Sweetheart, we need to find you a man,” Helene said decisively.

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Helene, you are not going to set me up with a sex partner.”

“Ryan, you’re writing a Private Moments romance. You don’t just need some Joe to have sex with, you need a sex god.”

“Helene, give me a break. It will be fine, really. I’m a novelist. Stephen King didn’t need to have a demonically possessed car to write Christine. I don’t need a sex god. I can handle it.”

“You need inspiration.”

“Helene!” Ryan’s voice vibrated with frustration. She took a deep breath. “I have to go. I’m late for my class.”

“What are you teaching?”

“Conflict resolution for managers.”

“That won’t help you with hot, sweaty—”

“Helene.” The line went silent. “Thank you. Now, I have to go to class,” Ryan continued, enunciating carefully. “I’ll work on the scene this weekend and I’ll call you next week.”

“I’ve already picked out the hot tub,” Helene threw in. “Just in case you’re worried about me.”

“Goodbye, Helene.”

WRAPPING HER CHENILLE bathrobe around her, Ryan stared at the mercilessly blank screen of her computer in the fading light of evening. Candles winked around the room and Frank Sinatra crooned quietly in the background. Her silk camisole slid over her skin. A half finished glass of wine sat at her elbow, forgotten, and incense perfumed the air. “Set the mood,” she muttered, pushing her tumble of dark hair back over her shoulders. “Fat lot of good that does me.”

Six years before, the plan had been clear—get a master’s degree and teach English at some tony upstate prep school. Unfortunately, several hundred other Ivy Leaguers had had the same idea, she discovered on graduating. Her temporary—she thought—sojourn at Beckman Markham had rescued her from being an overqualified copy-shop clerk, but three years later it was clear that bigger and better things weren’t going to materialize for her in academia. By now, though, she hardly cared. Since she’d discovered romance writing via a Sunday supplement article one day in grad school, she’d been writing sweets. Now her only goal was to turn writing into a full-time job and leave the purgatory that was Beckman Markham.

Finishing the first novel of the new series would open that door for her.

Finishing the book currently seemed like the last thing that was ever going to happen.

Heaving a sigh, she got up from the computer chair and wandered over to her silent TV to watch Dennis Quaid trap Ellen Barkin in a kiss in The Big Easy. Helene was right. That was what she needed, she thought, stretching out on the couch to sink into the film. Passion. True romance. A man who would sweep her off her feet.

Unfortunately, her life to date had been notably absent of feet-sweepers. Except for Ross, who had mostly swept the floor with her. Ryan sighed as the characters on the screen kissed. Sometimes she could almost feel a movie kiss, almost remember what it was like.

She untied her robe to feel the silk beneath. It wasn’t her fault she never got involved with anyone. Guys just always seemed to look right through her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want someone to touch her the way Quaid was touching Barkin, she thought, absently stroking her fingers along her collarbone and sliding down the curve of her shoulder. She wanted to make love, she wanted to feel a man’s hands on her. It just never seemed to happen.

She ran her fingertips down over her silk camisole and tap pants to stroke her thighs, then back up, softly, rhythmically. The feel of silk rubbing against her nipples made her shift restlessly. Just a man who could see her for what she was, instead of walking right past like she was invisible. So maybe she wasn’t on the cover of Cosmo, but she’d inherited her mother’s high cheekbones and her father’s full mouth. Nobody quite knew where she got her green eyes, but they were her favorite feature. When she got dressed up, she thought she looked nice. Okay, to be honest she thought she looked hot, but somehow when she was around men she just seemed to disappear.

She could be sexy with the right guy, Ryan thought, slipping her fingers under the edge of her tap pants to tease the top of her thighs, stroking her breast with the other hand. It was just that somehow they never seemed to notice her.

She watched the characters on screen as her fingers slid up to feel the curls of hair between her legs. Maybe what she’d experienced sex-wise had been forgettable, but she knew just how good it could be from the way she could make herself feel. Her fingers slipped into wetness and she felt the surge of arousal as she stroked herself where she was most sensitive. On-screen, Barkin gasped in desire as Quaid slipped his hand up between her legs. Ryan closed her eyes and imagined the fingers of a lover driving her to the brink and beyond. What would it be like to have a man touching her there, to feel his naked flesh against hers? Would he know how to stroke, how to circle around in the way that made her hips jerk the way they were now?

She was on fire everywhere from her hips to her knees. She ached with tension. The rhythmic stroking took her higher and higher. She brought herself to the edge, caressing her breasts with her other hand, brushing and squeezing the nipples. She paused, letting the arousal ease off, knowing it would be even better at the end if she made herself wait.

She stroked her body, feeling her curves, then returned to the moist heat, finding herself again with a touch that made her catch her breath. She teased, circled, then she could feel it rushing in. Suddenly it was like a freight train, barreling along, no stopping now. Slick, hot, wet, her folds enveloped her stroking fingers. The flush of heat flowed over her like molten pleasure, then the orgasm slammed into her. Her body jolted as the glory of it surged from her center out to her fingers and toes in a flush of heat that flared, pulsed, and left a glow behind. Sighing, she lay back and closed her eyes.

She didn’t go back to the computer.

“MA, YOU RUINED MY CAREER.” Ryan clattered through her parents’ back door and into her mother’s kitchen.

Sonia Donnelly turned to smile at her dark-haired, leggy daughter, marveling as always at how she’d grown from the tiny, pink baby she remembered. “Morning, Glory. What brings you here?”

“I’m meeting Becka to go antiquing. She’s up the street at her parents’ house, helping make paper flowers or something for Nellie’s wedding.”

“Nellie’s getting married?” Sonia blinked in shock. “I just bought Girl Scout cookies from her last week. She can’t be more than fourteen.”

“Ma, she just turned twenty-two.” Ryan said gently. “I think you bought the cookies from Colleen’s oldest.”

“Colleen has a daughter old enough to be in Girl Scouts? Good god, where does the time go?” Sonia muttered, bending to pull a pan of cinnamon rolls out of the oven. “Anyway, what’s all this about ruined careers? Are you in trouble at work?”

“I’m repressed, is what I am. I have two sex scenes to finish before the end of the month and nothing’s coming out.”

The wall of newspaper over at the kitchen table rattled. “What are you two talking about over there?” a muffled voice said.

“Nothing, dear.” Sonia flipped the sweet rolls out onto a plate and pulled them apart with forks.

“Hi Dad,” Ryan called.

Her father’s head appeared from behind the Boston Globe sports page. “Oh, hi honey. How’s Cambridge?”

“Fine, but my life as a writer is over.”

“That’s because you do those girlie books. I keep telling you, detective novels are the way to go. You get a nice gory murder, a tough cop, a psycho villain. It’ll sell a million and you can retire.”

“Sure Dad, next book,” she promised, tucking her tongue in her cheek.

“So you’re having problems with your latest?” Sonia asked, setting the platter of cinnamon rolls on the table.

“It’s my name,” Ryan said morosely. “I have a boy’s name. No wonder I can’t feel enough like a woman to get a lover.” She crossed to the cupboard and pulled out coffee mugs. “If I could remember how it felt to have sex, I could write about it,” she said reflectively, carrying the mugs over to the table.

“You know why I had to name you Ryan,” Sonia returned. “Your grandfather was on his deathbed. It was little enough to ask and we were just so sure you were going to be a boy. Anyway, you could have gone by your middle name.”

“Gladys?”

“I couldn’t help it,” her mother said defensively. “I could hardly tell your father’s mother no after giving you a name from my family.”

“Don’t bring me into it, I was just an innocent bystander,” said her father, rattling the sports page.

“You could have gone by a nickname,” Sonia pointed out, carrying over the coffeepot.

Ryan sighed. “By the time I was aware enough to do that the damage had been already done.” She picked at the sweet roll in front of her.

Her mother poured coffee into the mugs and set the pot on a trivet. “Sweetheart, you’re a wonderful writer. Just watch a couple of Mel Gibson movies to get in the mood and imagine the rest.”

“I tried that. Didn’t work.” She sipped the coffee, deciding not to tell her mother what else she’d done to try to get into the mood. Which had put her right smack in the mood for about five minutes. And to sleep for the rest of the night.

“Why don’t you ask someone to set you up with a fellow? Mrs. Seberg across the street has a single grandson.”

“It’s a long way from a blind date to between the sheets, Ma. My deadline’s in two weeks. What I need is a mental vision of a monumental lover.”

“I guess stag movies wouldn’t do it,” Sonia said reflectively, slipping onto a chair.

“Mother!” Scandalized, Ryan stared at her mother, then burst into laughter. “I can’t believe you just encouraged your daughter to go rent a dirty movie.”

Her father peered around his paper with interest. “She never told me to go see one.”

“Oh hush, you. You never needed one.” Sonia stirred her coffee, unflappable. “I’m just trying to help salvage Ryan’s career. Given that I ruined it to begin with.”

“Well, it’s a romance novel, not soft-core porn. I don’t think those movies will do it.” Ryan gulped the last of her coffee and leaned across the table to snag another roll. “Anyway, I have to get going. I just stopped in to lay the blame for my impending ruin at your door.”

“Always happy to help, dear.” Her mother followed her to the kitchen door. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart, you’re such a wonderful writer, it will all be fine.” She pulled her close in a hug. “You’ll find the right fellow, too.”

“When’s that going to happen?” Ryan pulled back and looked at her soberly.

“When you stop running around looking so busy and overtaxed that any man who looks at you figures you have to be running to meet a date. When you make yourself available, you’ll find him.”

“But what if I don’t? I’m tired of looking. It’s easier to just forget about it.” Suddenly all the joking was gone, and in its place, an ache of loneliness so familiar that Ryan had almost stopped noticing it. Almost.

Sonia looked at her levelly. “You don’t really believe that or you wouldn’t be writing romance novels as a second career.”

“If I don’t meet this deadline, my second career is going to go up in a puff of dust and I’ll be forced to teach memo writing for the rest of my life,” Ryan said dolefully.

“You’ll do it, sweetheart, you’ll see. Everything will be fine.”

HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY be fine, Ryan wondered the next day as she sat in her office. She’d avoided thinking about her deadline for months, but now it was inescapable. For more than a decade, she’d dreamed of being a professional writer. Now, on the verge of making it a reality, she was going to blow it.

Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the display before picking up the receiver with resignation. “Hello, Helene.”

“Have they done the deed?”

“Not yet, but I’m getting there.”

“No worries, kid. I’ve got an answer for you.” Helene was absolutely chuckling with good humor. This boded nothing good, Ryan thought.

“No blind dates, Helene, I told you.”

“This isn’t a blind date, honeybunch, at least not exactly. It’s just what you need.”

A stir of misgiving whirled in her stomach. “What, exactly, do I need?” Ryan asked carefully.

“Some quality sheet time with a guy who knows what he’s doing and knows how to drive you crazy.”

Ryan’s brows drew together. “Helene, you are not going to set me up with a one-night stand.”

“You’re right, I’m going to do something better,” said Helene, sounding far too pleased with herself for Ryan’s comfort. “You need inspiration and I can deliver. A girlfriend of mine knows an agency that supplies guys she says will make you see God.” She paused a moment. “In return for a token of your appreciation.”

Ryan’s jaw dropped “You’re not suggesting…” Her voice trailed off. What was going on with people? First her mother suggesting she watch dirty movies, then Helene trying to line her up with a…a… “You’re talking about a gigolo!” Her voice rose to a squeak on the last word.

“Not a gigolo, an escort.” Helene corrected. “A class act. Come on, you loved it when the society lady went to one in those Tales of the City books.”

Ryan closed her eyes and massaged her temples where a headache was rapidly forming.

“Think about it,” Helene continued, her lighter snapping in the background. “A guy who’s gonna focus only on making you feel good. You sit there, quiver in ecstasy all night long.” Ryan could hear her drawing on her cigarette. “You make mental notes for when you go back to the computer, and you write it all down in the morning.”

“I am not going to pay someone for sex,” Ryan said in outrage.

“Well, right now, it doesn’t seem like you’re going to get it any other way, kid, and until you do, this book’s not going to get written,” Helene said tartly.

Was the whole world going nuts? Ryan groped for words, not even knowing where to start. “You do fine on your own, why isn’t it okay for me?”

Helene’s voice softened. “Ryan, I’m a dried-up old broad. I had my run, and it was a good one. H.L., God rest his soul, left me with a bundle of wonderful memories.” She sighed a little. “But you, you’re gorgeous, you’re young. Enjoy it while you’ve got it. Get out and live a little.”

“By sleeping with a gigolo?”

“An escort. Why not? Think of the great story it would make for your grandkids.” Helene stopped. “When they’re grown, anyway. Better yet, think about the manuscript deadline. This baby’s gotta be good, Ryan.” Her voice sharpened with intensity. “You’ve gotten the chance, but you’ve got to convince that editor Elaine that you’ve got the goods or you lose the other three books in the series. You’ll be stuck in sweets, and you can’t make a living doing those.” She paused. “What you’re doing isn’t working. Why not try this?”

Ryan opened her mouth and nothing came out. She closed it slowly, considering. From nowhere, a rush of daring hit her. Why not try it, she thought, brushing a finger over her lips, shivering a little as the nerve endings woke up. What would it feel like to have a man kiss her? What would it feel like to have his naked body on top of hers, to have him inside her, thrusting in and out, his back muscles slippery with sweat beneath her fingers? To know what it was really like…

“…don’t you think?” Helene’s voice sounded in her ear.

“What did you say?” Ryan asked, shaking her head to dislodge the image.

“I said, it’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

What did she think?

She thought it was scandalous.

She thought it was outrageous.

And as a sudden surge of recklessness came over her, she thought it could be just what she needed.

“Yes.” The word was out before she knew she was going to say it.

“Yes? Yes? You’re going to do it?” Helene’s voice rose in a whoop. “Yes! Now when? The sooner, the better to my mind.” Her voice fell into her staccato deal-making cadence. Details and plans were her passion. “Got plans for tomorrow? Mavis says she meets her guy in the lobby bar of the Copley Plaza Hotel. See? Class all the way.”